Meet the Investigators

Meet some of America Declassified's investigators.

Show: America Declassified

Episode: JFK 50th, Toxic Waste Scare, Quiet Zone

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There are places in America shrouded in mystery, secrecy, and conspiracy theories. Unmarked buildings, heavily guarded compounds and massive bunkers. Some are hidden in plain sight. Others are so covert and unusual, that their very existence is denied by powerful organizations, giant corporations and our own government. Our America Declassified team investigates these explosive stories, events and locations using scientific tests, forensic tools and state-of-the-art surveillance technology. Meet some of the investigators who push the boundaries to get the truth behind some of America's most guarded secrets.

1. Mike Baker

During a career spanning more than 15 years as a covert field operations officer for the Central Intelligence Agency, Mike specialized in counterterrorism, counternarcotics and counterinsurgency operations. He engaged in, organized and supervised operations around the globe, working in Asia, the Middle East, Africa, Europe, the former Soviet Union and elsewhere. He was recognized professionally for outstanding performance and for operational achievements in hostile environments.

After leaving government service, Mike co-founded Diligence LLC, an intelligence, investigations, risk management and security firm that has grown over the past several years into a global operation. As a principal partner he has led the company as it expanded around the world, opening offices in London, New York, Washington DC, Moscow, Sao Paulo, Brussels and Geneva. He also established the company’s security operations in Iraq in 2003, building a team of over 300 expat and local personnel involved in security and information collection.

Mike is a regular contributor in the national and international media on intelligence, security, counterterrorist issues and world events. He appears regularly on Fox News, as well as other major media outlets. Mike has guest hosted for Fox News’ weekday morning show as well as the late night talk show Redeye and occasionally fills in as host of the Fox Radio Network morning talk show. He is a regular guest on the Imus Show as well as SiriusXM’s Opie & Anthony.

In addition, Mike is a partner in Classified Trash, a television and film production company. Represented by William Morris Endeavor, he is involved in the creation and development of scripted and unscripted television shows, and serves as a technical consultant and script advisor for feature films and television. Mike has been associated with the UK’s popular show Spooks (titled MI-5 for US markets) since the drama’s creation. He also hosted the popular British reality show SPY for the BBC in the UK.

2. Ben McGee

Ben McGee is an interdisciplinary geoscientist and aspiring astronaut, an exploration-minded skeptic, and a staunch advocate for science outreach who feels that scientists have a social responsibility to help the public find answers to questions they have about the world around them. It is this impulse that led Ben to appear in various TV projects beginning in 2012, first as co-host of the National Geographic Channel television series, Chasing UFOs, followed by consulting for and appearing in the 2013 Weather Channel series, Forecasting the End.

In a bid to become the ideal field scientist, ready to investigate physical phenomena anywhere on this planet (and hopefully beyond), Ben has aimed mountaintop observatories at alien volcanoes, drilled through arctic glaciers, scoured radioactive craters, chased dust devils with Mars researchers, surveyed nuclear rocket facilities, and trained in pressure chambers and spaceflight centrifuges. A seasoned field researcher, Ben has collected data by land, sea, and air. He designed and installed scientific instrumentation networks covering more than 1,400 square miles of the desert southwest, and he traversed nearly 100,000 miles (by land) for geomorphological fieldwork in 2008-2009 alone.

Ben is an established author, having been published in numerous scientific and technical journals, including the journal Space Policy, and he has served several years as adjunct faculty in the Physical Science Department of the College of Southern Nevada. Currently, he is pursuing graduate work in the John D. Odegard School of Aerospace Studies at the University of North Dakota, and he holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Geology, emphasizing planetary science and glaciology, from the University of Wyoming. In 2011, Ben founded a commercial spaceflight support services firm, Astrowright Spaceflight Consulting LLC, and he was recently admitted as a National Fellow of the prestigious Explorers Club. His ultimate goal is to one day leave boot tracks on another world.

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Meet the Investigators

Related To:

1. Mike Baker

2. Ben McGee