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·Nov 11, 2024

In 2012, they are finally ready to start looking. We went down to Honduras and we brought down a plane with this million dollar gear in it and the crew. Every morning we get up, go to the airport, get in the airplane. I didn't go in the plane; there was only room for two people: the LIDAR engineer and a pilot.

They would plot out where they're going to go and they would fly, kind of like mowing the lawn. They would just go back and forth and back and forth, having no idea whether or not this was going to work. This is really a crapshoot.

The scan begins. Days go by with no results; time and money are ticking away. And then it happens. I'm having breakfast with Doug Preston, who was writing an article about it for the New Yorker.

All of a sudden, one of the LIDAR engineers comes bounding out of his room. The scientist who was analyzing these images came racing out of his bungalow in his flip-flops, waving his arms and screaming. He grabs me by the neck, going, "Steve, Steve, Steve! This is it! This is it! This is the old moment! There's something in the valley! You said it's here! It's here!"

His eyes are bulging out and bingo! Right where we thought it would be were these rectangular features that, you know, you had to be an idiot not to know these were man-made. I mean, I couldn't believe it. At that moment, I was all tingly; I was like a little kid. I said, "I can't believe this actually really worked! But how can you stop there? Now we have to go on the ground and actually prove 100%, like hold up a stone or something and say this is what we saw on LIDAR. This is it!"

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