sorry, it’s a big picture, so you’ll have to click on it to read.

Tim Russert: Good morning, I’m Tim Russert. Today on Meet the Press, my guest is a high-ranking Pentagon official who has in the past few weeks gained notoriety as one of the most vociferous detractors of the recently-conceived Reality Institute™, the brainfetus of Michael Molitch-Hou, an uncertified nurse working in South America. Capt. Dane Muckler, it’s a pleasure to have you on the show.

Dane Muckler: Thank you, Tom. I mean, Tim.

Russert: [Laughter.] Happens all the time. First, let me ask you about some recent comments you made about ongoing Japanese whaling efforts that caused some controversy.

Muckler: Sure.

Russert: I have the quote here, from September 28. You said: “I am in full support of the persistent effort by our Eastern partners to rid the oceans of monsters.” Critics have been saying that this is a rather brutal and backwards attitude to have on this matter.

Muckler: I will say now what I have already said many times in the past week: I meant to say “whales,” not “monsters.” Of course I don’t think the oceans are full of monsters, I simply misspoke, and in the context of the discussion that was taking place at that time, it should have been clear that I meant to say “whales.”

Russert: So you don’t think there are monsters in the ocean?

Muckler: No, of course not. In fact, I’m not convinced monsters exist at all.

Russert: Now that statement deserves some discussion as well. I understand you have broke with some of your colleagues in the Pentagon and with much of the intelligence community on this point, that -

Muckler: That monsters probably don’t exist.

Russert: Yes, that monsters probably don’t exist.

Muckler: And I say “probably” because I can’t prove that monsters don’t exist – you can’t prove that anything doesn’t exist, really, but there is simply not enough evidence, no real empirical or logical basis behind the notion that monsters are real. Every so often you’ll have a friend come up to you and tell you that they met a monster at a party, and that the monster did this and that, and oh, “It said that it knew you,” and “It said that it knows other monsters” and, it said, you know, all sorts of frightening things. But then you talk to other people who were at the same party, and they never saw such a monster.

I’m of the persuasion that these monster encounters are simply psychological events brought on by alcohol and sleep deprivation. People who haven’t had these experiences don’t want to say monsters don’t exist because I think a lot of people like the idea of monsters, and also because they don’t want to offend their friends who actually did – or rather, who think they actually did meet a monster.

Russert: You’ve also entertained the possibility that there is just one monster who travels from party to party telling people that -

Muckler: “I’m a monster,” is what he says.

Russert: Right, telling people that he is a monster.

Muckler: There may be one monster. The investigations on monster encounters show that, at least in the United States, most people who claim to have met a monster all seem to describe basically the same… kind of monster. But really, the one monster idea – I mean, to me it still doesn’t have any substance to it beyond anecdotal evidence. I just don’t believe there are any monsters, maybe one, but probably not even that many.

Russert: Alright, we’ve got to take a short commercial break. When we come back, we’ll be discussing the Reality Institute™ with our guest, Capt. Dane Muckler. Stay tuned.