Fred Burton is an authority on security and terrorism, and Samuel M. Katz is an author and expert on Middle East security issues and international terrorism. In the first half, they discussed their new book Beirut Rules, which deals with the kidnapping and murder of CIA station chief William Buckley, who was taken by Hezbollah agents in Lebanon in 1984, after bombings of Marine barracks and the US embassy in Beirut. Though there was a full-fledged effort to rescue him, he ended up undergoing 15 months of torture before his death, and probably revealed secrets under beatings and duress. It's very unusual for a station chief to be attacked and captured, as espionage rules generally dictate that the bosses are left alone, said Katz.
The catastrophic events surrounding Buckley brought about changes in the way CIA handles these cases, Burton indicated. In the ensuing years, Katz said, Hezbollah has transformed from an underground force and emerged into one of the stronger, almost conventional armies, fighting the US in Iraq, helping to develop IED strategies against American soldiers, as well as profiting from narco-terrorism, and instigating rocket attacks against Israel. The two also commented on their research into the Benghazi incident, as well as the current controversy surrounding the Saudis and the death of Jamal Khashoggi.
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Writer Mack Maloney shared his research on cursed, odd, and haunted places around the planet. There are certain towns where UFOs are seen on an almost nightly basis such as the small community of Elk River, MN. Some of the craft there, he cited, have been described as looking like huge jellyfish, large V-shapes, and small basketballs. He spoke of a 1993 "ghost plane" incident in which a Formula One jet was witnessed doing aerobatic stunts near John Wayne airport, and people wrote down the tail number to register noise complaints. The plane was traced to a former astronaut who it turned out had died four hours before the flight.
There have also been cases of "ghost ships" such as a fishing boat seen drifting off the coast of Australia. The crew, it turned out, had vanished, but oddly a crew engineer's phone calls continued for ten days after the ship's discovery before stopping entirely. Maloney detailed strange reports associated with Russia's M-Triangle, an isolated forested area: People have seen strange creatures, the stars inexplicably changed shape over visitors' heads, some with terminally diseases came out of the area cured, and a man who stayed in the Triangle became enlightened with aerospace physics and subsequently became a cosmonaut.
News segment guests: Howard Bloom, Mish Shedlock