Joe Rogan Experience #2545 - Jesse Michels · Aired Aug 25, 2026
Claim summary · not a verbatim quotation
Byron Wristvet claimed that the video footage of the object during the Starfish Prime test was lost.
The finding
What the evidence shows
Dr. Byron L. Ristvet is a real retired nuclear weapons expert who led the 1998 declassification review of the Cold War nuclear test films now linked to this UFO story. But that footage was reviewed, partly redacted, and eventually released rather than lost, and it comes from the Bluegill Triple Prime test in October 1962, not Starfish Prime in July 1962, two tests that get mixed up often in this story.
Read the supporting source · douglasjohnson.ghost.io ↗Quick answer & review status
Quick answer
Is it true that Byron Wristvet claimed that the video footage of the object during the Starfish Prime test was lost?
Partly. The claim stretches what the evidence shows. Dr. Byron L. Jesse Michels said it (matched by voice) on Joe Rogan Experience #2545 - Jesse Michels, aired Aug 25, 2026, at 1:40:28. The supporting source is douglasjohnson.ghost.io, linked below.
The context belongs here.
No separately verified on-air correction is recorded for this check. That is not a claim that nobody corrected it.
- Attribution
- Not independently confirmed in this record
- Editorial context review
- Not recorded; generated finding
- Coverage
- One selected claim from the episode
Revisions to this check
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