August 9, 2015 — Micah Hanks

[dmanister]

Burnt State wrote:

"Did you hear the latest RM episode with Redfern, Dolan and Peter Robbins? The witness angle didn't get much traction there and this tells us something of the problem with the traditional paradigm with regards to witnesses.

...When you think about the differences between say traditional indigenous medicine vs. western medicine you can see how we need to rework the witness paradigm. Ufology traditionally treats the symptoms of the event like the western doctor, and does not engage the whole person. To know all that is going on following an anomalous event we must also look deeper into the context of said event, which should involve a more holistic approach to understanding who was doing the looking in the first place and what their life story is."

Yes Robert, I listened carefully to that RM show to see if the participants would recommend gathering emotional and physical details when investigating abduction and sighting claims, but you're right, it didn't get discussed much, though Greg Bishop has frequently called for it in a general way the past.

While imaginative speculation about other-dimensional, mind-reading and mind-controlling aliens is always engaging, it degenerates into mere web-spinning when it's not anchored in a modicum of concrete evidence. Too many discussions of anomalous experience fall into this category.

If I were cynical I might say creative speculation sells more books than plodding, meticulous data-gathering about witnesses.

As for wholistic medicine, my concern is that, because Western investigators aren't highly skilled in using it, it would result in vague, diffuse New Age musings rather than what is needed -- more actual facts. Though I agree with you that a wholistic view of the individual in their natural and interpersonal environment, when undertaken by a highly skilled practitioner, is far better than viewing them as a collection of parts.

 

[Vimana]

I find Micah to be one of the most enjoyable paranormal podcasters out there. My first awareness of him was from his book "The UFO Singularity", one of my favorites of this genre. Once I heard him (and his co hosts) talking, I was hooked. He is a step above the others, with his calm analytical voice and overall demeanor.

In the words of my wife "he's not nutty and emotional like the rest of them"

I want to get his 3M book (magic, mysticism and the molecule?) because that is the way my own efforts are leading when it comes to nonhuman entity contact. Like others have stated on the forum, I feel a deep connection exists between certain plants, the mind, and the nonhuman entity phenomenon.

I find the idea of nuts n bolts ufos entertaining but beyond that I am somewhat skeptical. As said before, if they are nut n bolts they probably live here. (hidden or breakaway civilization).
I tend to give more weight to certain entity encounters, along a more Vallee or McKenna line of thought. This is due to my personal experiences both seeing things in the sky (UFO) and meeting beings in the psychedelic realms.

Bring back Micah Hanks! He has more to say that I want to hear.

 

[Gene Steinberg]

If you're a member of Paracast+, you can hear another 40 minutes of unvarnished Micah Hanks on After The Paracast. End of plug!

 

[Vimana]

Gene, I have listened to every paracast made. Since day one. I still miss david! I read all of Chris O briens "valley" books before i ever heard of podcasting and consider him not only "one of the best" but also "someone to have a beer with".

When I heard there was a no-ads version of the show, with extra content, I was thrilled and still am. As soon as I can I'll join.

That said, like many folks I am struggling (starving artist) at the moment, but when I get back on my feet I will sign up. I hoped to get P+ by now, but ended up canceling other subscriptions without renewal, I just can't afford the extra cost at the moment, and it shames me a bit to admit that.

Love you guys, keep up the bold work and I'll listen for free till my situation is better.

 

[Mr. Fibuli]

Just caught up on all of the After the Paracast episodes, great stuff! Unvarnished Micah Hanks is SO much better then when he is all varnished up.

 

[Brians238]

I very much enjoyed Micah Hanks. One topic struck a chord with me: the airship sightings in the mid- to late- 19th Century. I remembered a document I had purchased many years ago (the 1970s) in the UK called something like "The Phantom Airship Scare of 1912-1913." It is a photocopied, hand-typed and stapled document. I was struck at the time by how thorough it was--charts, maps, graphs, articles, etc. I believe one of the authors was David Clarke. I know where I have it stored and this segment has inspired me to dig it out.

Great show!

Brian

 

[SheaOlmsford]

The Gralien Report is one of the podcasts I listen to regularly, along with the Paracast.

I did too until Micah said that he listened to Rush Limbaugh regularly. I nearly vomited. I never listened to another episode since his credibility had been seriously destroyed by that admission.

 

[LeBombette]

Perhaps he just listens to Limbaugh for giggles?

 

[Mr. Fibuli]

Rush Limbaugh is one serious sack of dog droppings. Thank goodness he is free to spew his hate and negativity.

 

[ALPHA ROMEO UNIFORM]

This article seems to be spot on whats out there and like to hear what Dr Brandenburg would think with Micah Hanks together about contact behind the scenes.
http://earthsky.org/space/what-is-a-dyson-sphere

Would they tell us ?

 

[The Darkroom]

Yes, Ray was in a period of discovery and youthful exploring, but I absolutely do not see him as some UFO expert or investigator that was uncovering all these UFO fraud artists he came to know.

DS quoted Chris O'Brien from this Paracast show with Micah Hanks about Adamski:

O'Brien said: "He would go out there and visit him because he was trying to figure out how he was hoaxing his photographs, and he finally got Adamski to fess-up and show him and his brother Rex how he was faking the [films and] photographs."

But according to Ray Stanford what Chris said above is not accurate or what actually happened. This can be verified by anyone independently by listening to a podcast done by Greg Bishop, when he interviewed Ray Stanford. That podcast is linked below.

This is what DS wrote from another post:

I got my information from Ray Stanford himself. Seriously, he told his story on Greg Bishop's show. This is what Ray said himself:

1953 Ray buys Adamski's book AND BELIEVES what he read from Adamski himself.

1954 Ray starts writing Adamski as a believer. At 16yo Ray is doing ESP experiments to attract UFO's based on Adamski's ideas, and Ray claims success on a beach near Corpus Christi with many witnesses present. Ray even claims he got an article published in Fate Magazine about this ESP UFO event. Of course, Fate was science fiction fantasy.

1956 After High School Ray and his brother go for the Summer to Adamski's and stayed there for some period of time with multiple visits over the next few years. Ray continued to believe Adamski AFTER staying there.

1957 Ray writes a book with his brother called Look Up, and Ray still fully believes in Adamski. This is A FACT. Stated in Ray's own words: "We were true believers."

1958 During one of Ray's visits with his brother, finally, Adamski tells Ray and his brother how he faked UFO photos sometime in 1958, but, Contrary to what Chris O'Brien suggested, Ray NEVER was investigating Adamski at 18-20 years old. It is Adamski himself that confessed and showed them what he did.

That is EXACLY why I told Chris O'Brien to "get real" about suggesting Ray was investigating Adamski on that Paracast show. Ray was CLEARLY NOT investigating but believing in Adamski at 16yo at 17yo at 18yo and 19 years old. It was not until sometime in 1958, when Ray was 20yo, that he found out from Adamski himself. Ray Stanford admits they were total believers until that "eggnog moment".

Here's the direct download to part 1 of Greg Bishop's show w/Stanford...


Go from the 3 minute mark to 14 minutes about Adamski to listen to Stanford himself.

If you're interested in why DS got banned over this, then here is a post that covers his thinking about it:

Ray Stanford has a photo of the Socorro craft & Martin Willis has seen it and is impressed but...

 

[Mr. Fibuli]

DS quoted Chris O'Brien from this Paracast show with Micah Hanks about Adamski:

O'Brien said: "He would go out there and visit him because he was trying to figure out how he was hoaxing his photographs, and he finally got Adamski to fess-up and show him and his brother Rex how he was faking the [films and] photographs."

But according to Ray Stanford what Chris said above is not accurate or what actually happened. This can be verified by anyone independently by listening to a podcast done by Greg Bishop, when he interviewed Ray Stanford. That podcast is linked below.

This is what DS wrote from another post:

I got my information from Ray Stanford himself. Seriously, he told his story on Greg Bishop's show. This is what Ray said himself:

1953 Ray buys Adamski's book AND BELIEVES what he read from Adamski himself.

1954 Ray starts writing Adamski as a believer. At 16yo Ray is doing ESP experiments to attract UFO's based on Adamski's ideas, and Ray claims success on a beach near Corpus Christi with many witnesses present. Ray even claims he got an article published in Fate Magazine about this ESP UFO event. Of course, Fate was science fiction fantasy.

1956 After High School Ray and his brother go for the Summer to Adamski's and stayed there for some period of time with multiple visits over the next few years. Ray continued to believe Adamski AFTER staying there.

1957 Ray writes a book with his brother called Look Up, and Ray still fully believes in Adamski. This is A FACT. Stated in Ray's own words: "We were true believers."

1958 During one of Ray's visits with his brother, finally, Adamski tells Ray and his brother how he faked UFO photos sometime in 1958, but, Contrary to what Chris O'Brien suggested, Ray NEVER was investigating Adamski at 18-20 years old. It is Adamski himself that confessed and showed them what he did.

That is EXACLY why I told Chris O'Brien to "get real" about suggesting Ray was investigating Adamski on that Paracast show. Ray was CLEARLY NOT investigating but believing in Adamski at 16yo at 17yo at 18yo and 19 years old. It was not until sometime in 1958, when Ray was 20yo, that he found out from Adamski himself. Ray Stanford admits they were total believers until that "eggnog moment".

Here's the direct download to part 1 of Greg Bishop's show w/Stanford...


Go from the 3 minute mark to 14 minutes about Adamski to listen to Stanford himself.

If you're interested in why DS got banned over this, then here is a post that covers his thinking about it:

Ray Stanford has a photo of the Socorro craft & Martin Willis has seen it and is impressed but...

There is something seriously wrong with you. You need the people in your life who you love to help you.

 

[Burnt State]

While imaginative speculation about other-dimensional, mind-reading and mind-controlling aliens is always engaging, it degenerates into mere web-spinning when it's not anchored in a modicum of concrete evidence. Too many discussions of anomalous experience fall into this category.

If I were cynical I might say creative speculation sells more books than plodding, meticulous data-gathering about witnesses.

It's almost always web-spinning when we are speculating about what the "aliens" might be up to which is why it makes much more sense to me to focus on the witnesses more thoroughly to see what legitimate patterns might arise. It is, though, so much easier to imagine non-existent possibilities and write books or blab about what those hybrid alien DNA projects are planning in terms if the demise of the human race.

As for wholistic medicine, my concern is that, because Western investigators aren't highly skilled in using it, it would result in vague, diffuse New Age musings rather than what is needed -- more actual facts. Though I agree with you that a wholistic view of the individual in their natural and interpersonal environment, when undertaken by a highly skilled practitioner, is far better than viewing them as a collection of parts.

Yet Ufology most often looks at the parts of the phenomenon, and the witness story is simply a part of a case, independent of any personal continuity that might be much more interwoven with the phenomenon than previously thought. This might be happening on multiple levels: psychologically, scocially, historically culturally, etc. The interesting researchers tend to look more carefully at the whole person while landmark cases tend to immediately bring someone's life under the magnifying glass. But too often there is simply the case report, the photo, the "data" but no real investigation of who did the looking and their profile. I wonder how many cases would reach an actual UFO threshold worth talking about following a more thorough winnowing examination of the witness.

 

[Burnt State]

There is something seriously wrong with you. You need the people in your life who you love to help you.

One thing to consider regarding a dog with its bone is why is it that ufology brings this human quality out with so much frequency? Ufology is in many ways a microcosm of human experience. The desire to believe, advocate for or rail against the impossible & the unknown is most easily seen at work in the ongoing battles of UFO believerdom and skepticism. Sadly, this is almost a bigger driver in the history of Ufology than any real progress on the thinking about the phenomenon. That's why more people recognize Klass over Truzzi.

Even sympathetic critics of the phenomenon will be dissected by believers as doubters or anti-ufology and will be mocked accordingly. Following the death of Jim Moseley it seems to me that we've almost forgotten the value of doubtful examination or why his jocular approach was so highly entertained for so long. Ufology is and has been stalled for a very long time.

So does DS help this process? If his needling wasn't so needling, or insulting would he be regarded purely as a skeptic that pushes others to provide better evidence and would he be insulted much less as well, thus reducing the overall antagonism found in responses to his questions? Chicken & Egg questions abound if you ask me.

 

[Vimana]

I did too until Micah said that he listened to Rush Limbaugh regularly. I nearly vomited. I never listened to another episode since his credibility had been seriously destroyed by that admission.

While I stand far away from the right wing extremists in my opinions, I do listen to their radio shows from time to time. Nobody who knows me closely understands this strange trait. It seems to be the opposite of what I'd want to do as an Artist, Nonconformist Hippie-type Freak.

Yet I have listened to Rush, (much more in the past) for two reasons:

1. sheer entertainment, like when i watch colbert/daily show. Getting this level of crazy straight from the source is pretty priceless. But one must have a thick skin to dive that deep. It can go from hilarious to upsetting very quickly.

2. Recon the Dark Tribe. I feel compelled to be aware of just what level of cray-cray those guys are up to now. My father, (a decorated marine fighter pilot, not your typical liberal) said it best back in '88 as we heard Rush for the first time: "Son, that man is dangerous."

 

[dmanister]

It's almost always web-spinning when we are speculating about what the "aliens" might be up to which is why it makes much more sense to me to focus on the witnesses more thoroughly to see what legitimate patterns might arise. It is, though, so much easier to imagine non-existent possibilities and write books or blab about what those hybrid alien DNA projects are planning in terms if the demise of the human race.

Yet Ufology most often looks at the parts of the phenomenon, and the witness story is simply a part of a case, independent of any personal continuity that might be much more interwoven with the phenomenon than previously thought. This might be happening on multiple levels: psychologically, scocially, historically culturally, etc. The interesting researchers tend to look more carefully at the whole person while landmark cases tend to immediately bring someone's life under the magnifying glass. But too often there is simply the case report, the photo, the "data" but no real investigation of who did the looking and their profile. I wonder how many cases would reach an actual UFO threshold worth talking about following a more thorough winnowing examination of the witness.

It would be extremely productive to focus on investigators themselves as a subject for scrutiny. Someone with very little knowledge of how neurological and psychological disorders as well as fasts and lack of sleep distort perceptions is not capable of asking the questions that reveal the condition of witnesses.

This is a tall order. It takes real clinical training and education to find out the medical condition of a witness. Given the fact that most interviewers lack expertise in how the brain produces distortions, projections, hallucinations and delusions, the chances of gathering a database of scientifically respectable information are slim.

However. It would be far better to thoroughly investigate a few witnesses in a manner that can withstand scientific scrutiny than to collect mountains of anecdotes that have not been subject to rigorous, respectable medical interrogation.

 

[Brians238]

It would be extremely productive to focus on investigators themselves as a subject for scrutiny. Someone with very little knowledge of how neurological and psychological disorders as well as fasts and lack of sleep distort perceptions is not capable of asking the questions that reveal the condition of witnesses.

This is a tall order. It takes real clinical training and education to find out the medical condition of a witness. Given the fact that most interviewers lack expertise in how the brain produces distortions, projections, hallucinations and delusions, the chances of gathering a database of scientifically respectable information are slim.

However. It would be far better to thoroughly investigate a few witnesses in a manner that can withstand scientific scrutiny than to collect mountains of anecdotes that have not been subject to rigorous, respectable medical interrogation.

Good points! The problem with investigating the UFO "phenomenon" is that it is so multifaceted. In the absence of a true "Niexialist" (One skilled in the science of joining together in an orderly fashion the knowledge of one field of learning with that of other fields--thanks AE Van Vogt!), a competent investigation team should be able to draw on many talents: trained meteorologists, astronomers, physicists, psychologists, detectives, etc. A passion to go out and conduct field investigations is not enough. If you lack scientific training, or access to it, your conclusions will always be suspect.

 

[Burnt State]

In some ways various groups and individuals are in fact already practicing a kind of self-designed Ufological Nexialism on their own. The degrees and expertise may not be there but the desire to blend and merge disciplines in a kind of general, or specific fashion, seems to be a necessity in the study of this phenomenon. Still, I've never heard anyone actually ever define themselves as a UFO Nexialist, but when that group forms I'm joining. Or at least I'll buy one of their t-shirts for sure.

 

[dmanister]

Good points! The problem with investigating the UFO "phenomenon" is that it is so multifaceted. In the absence of a true "Niexialist" (One skilled in the science of joining together in an orderly fashion the knowledge of one field of learning with that of other fields--thanks AE Van Vogt!), a competent investigation team should be able to draw on many talents: trained meteorologists, astronomers, physicists, psychologists, detectives, etc. A passion to go out and conduct field investigations is not enough. If you lack scientific training, or access to it, your conclusions will always be suspect.[/QUOTE

Since several decades of UFO case files have produced no hard evidence, it might be more productive for the few experts who would be willing to conduct examinations of witnesses (and not merely witness testimony) to cooperate on a handful of cases, with the goal of achieving quality rather than quantity.

 

[Brians238]

Since several decades of UFO case files have produced no hard evidence, it might be more productive for the few experts who would be willing to conduct examinations of witnesses (and not merely witness testimony) to cooperate on a handful of cases, with the goal of achieving quality rather than quantity.

Agreed--a thoroughgoing, interdisciplinary examination of a small number of cases is likely to yield much more information than a broad-based study. As to potential data, the only quantitative data collected by a true scientifically-designed study that I am aware of is for the Hessdalen Lights. While qualitative data is, by its nature, much less persuasive, it may be the only high-quality data available for many cases and hence is a limitation that researchers have to live with. I do commend Chris O'Brien's attempt to collect high quality data via his camera project and I wish him luck and success.

Best,

Brian