The Paracast Newsletter
March 17, 2024
www.theparacast.com
Discover a New Way to Look at Bigfoot, Poltergeists and Other Paranormal Phenomena with Fortean Researcher W.T. Watkins on the Paracast!
The Paracast is heard Sundays from 3:00 AM until 6:00 AM Central Time on the GCN Radio Network and affiliates around the USA, the Boost Radio Network, the IRN Internet Radio Network, and online across the globe via download and on-demand streaming.
WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOU HAVEN'T SIGNED UP FOR THE PARACAST+ YET? PLEASE SUBSCRIBE TO THE PARACAST+ SO YOU CAN SUPPORT THE SHOW AND ENJOY THE ULTIMATE PARACAST EXPERIENCE AT A SPECIAL LOW PRICE! We have another radio show and we’d love for you listen to it. So for a low subscription fee, you will receive access to an exclusive bonus podcast, After The Paracast, plus an enhanced version of The Paracast with the network ads removed, when you join The Paracast+. We also offer a special RSS feed for easy updates of the latest episodes on your device. Flash! Take advantage of our lowest rates ever! Act now! It's easier than ever to susbcribe! For the easiest signup ever, please visit: https://www.theparacast.plus
This Week's Episode: Gene and cohost Tim Swartz present best-selling author W.T. Watson, a coffee addict and writer of both fiction and non-fiction. He infuses his work with his expertise in cryptozoology, monster lore, magic, Forteana and the paranormal. W.T. brings a unique shamanic and magical perspective to all of his work after over 30 years of exploration in these topics. During this episode there's a special focus on Bigfoot, and other strange creatures and legends of strange creatures through the ages. Watson's books include: “Canadian Monsters & Mysteries,” “Sasquatch Canada: Beyond British Columbia,” “Mysteries in the Mist: Mist, Fog, and Clouds in the Paranormal,” and his most recent, which will be discussed during this episode: “The Forest Poltergeist: Class B Encounters and the Paranormal.” When he is not writing or reading about monsters, he can be found outdoors allowing his dogs to take him for a walk around his neighborhood in Kitchener, Ontario. Watson lives with his spouse, Stacey, in a townhome that would be jammed with books if it weren’t for e-readers.
After The Paracast — Available exclusively for Paracast+ subscribers on March 17: Busy Fortean researcher W.T. Watson returns to talk with Gene and cohost Tim Swartzabout a number of topics, including pop culture. So he agrees with Gene that radio dramas represent a “theater of the mind,” and mentions a possible curious fact about writer and magician Water B. Gibson, best known for his work on the pulp version of The Shadow. Movie set mishaps are also on the agenda, such as the fatal shooting when filming “Rust” in 2021, before the discussion turns to the future of paranormal research. Watson talks of possible Sasquatch sightings, and also responds to the question of whether paranormal events are meant to make people think. In all, he offers a unique shamanic and magical perspective to all of his work after over 30 years of exploration in these topics. Watson’s books include: “Canadian Monsters & Mysteries,” “Sasquatch Canada: Beyond British Columbia,” “Mysteries in the Mist: Mist, Fog, and Clouds in the Paranormal” and “The Forest Poltergeist: Class B Encounters and the Paranormal.”
Reminder: Please don't forget to visit our famous Paracast Community Forums for the latest news/views/debates on all things paranormal: The Paracast Community Forums. Visit our new online shop for great branded merchandise at: https://www.theparacast.shop.
About that Latest Pentagon UAP Stunt
By Gene Steinberg
Not long after the Pentagon announced one of several UFO (UAP) study programs in recent years, our old friend, UFO author and researcher Kevin D. Randle, had a pithy assessment of what would happen if and when it released some conclusions.
He described it as “Condon 2.0.”
That’s, of course, a reference to that infamous Air Force attempt in the late 1960s to deal with the UFO conundrum. The University of Colorado was tasked with investigating the phenomenon; it was lead by one Edward U. Condon, hence the name of the committee and its final report.
Alas, it was announced at the start — no doubt accidentally — that it was the intention of the report to essentially poo-pooh questions of UFO reality, and thus give the Air Force the excuse it needed to shutter Project Blue Book.
Yes, the Condon Report said there was nothing to UFOs, so Project Blue Book thus went away. But as the alleged public face of government UFO investigations, it had descended into largely a public relations arm to debunk the phenomenon. It did precious little research in its final years.
Without going into detail, it does appear that behind-the-scenes UFO probes continued, but not much has been confirmed about such efforts. Well except when the Air Force explained away the 1947 Roswell episode as not a disk from somewhere out there, but a crashed Project Mogul ballon.
Now Mogul was a supposedly secret project by the military to engage in long-distance probes of possible sound waves from Soviet atomic bomb tests. Yes, those were the days when school students had to endure frequent safety tests at school where they’d hide under their desks in the unlikely assumption that this would make a difference if a nuclear weapon really went off.
Anyway, the possibility of Roswell being a Mogul ballon was summarily disproven by Randle and his fellow travelers when they reported that there were no flights conducted during the period where the crash occurred. Just the facts!
In any case, the UFOs quite evidently never went away, even if the Pentagon hoped otherwise. There were plenty of rumors about top secret investigations, possible covert evidence of genuine extraterrestrial flying saucers, and perhaps their crews. But none of it was ever actually proven.
Some even suggest the rumors served to conceal real tests by the military of new aircraft designs. The possibility that UFOs were involved was just disinformation, meant as a diversion to take attention away from what was really going on.
Segue to 2024.
The latest Pentagon group to probe UAPs has the unwieldy title of All-domain Anomalous Resolution Office, thus AARO. As opposed to APRO, for Aerial Phenomena Research Organization, regarded as one of the best and most productive UFO groups from the last century.
In any case, on March 8, 2024, AARO released a 63-page report that supposedly provides an historical overview of their studies.
If you’re curious, you can get a PDF copy from: https://media.defense.gov/2024/Mar/...RED-508-COMPLIANT-HRRV1-08-MAR-2024-FINAL.PDF
When you read the report — if you decide to bother — you will come to agree that Randle had a point. Its conclusions are very much in the vein of Condon. Repeating that infamous mantra, they assert that there is no evidence that UAPs have an offworld origin. And, no, there is no physical evidence of the reality behind the phenomenon being concealed behind closed doors.
Or in a hangar somewhere.
In short: “To date, AARO has not discovered any empirical evidence that any sighting of a UAP represented off-world technology or the existence a classified program that had not been properly reported to Congress.”
The report also claims that: “Investigative efforts determined that most sightings were the result of misidentification of ordinary objects and phenomena. Although many UAP reports remain unsolved, AARO assesses that if additional, quality data were available, most of these cases also could be identified and resolved as ordinary objects or phenomena.”
That conclusion sort of echoes what the late Air Force Project Blue Book said years ago with a key difference. Then they separated such reports from the collection by placing them in a category labeled, “insufficient information.”
It didn’t take long for researchers who have long probed the UFO phenomenon to point to evidence of carelessness in drawing up the document. I wouldn’t presume to suggest that it was prepared by a group of newcomers or interns that did a rush job in providing case summaries. Or maybe I should.
But Randle and other researchers, along with an online publication covering military affairs, The Debrief, have pointed to a raft of mistakes. One careless error that comes to mind is misidentifying the classic Kenneth Arnold flying saucer sighting as occurring on June 23, 1947, rather than the following day.
All right, a minor error indeed. But this case forms a linchpin of the modern UFO era. It has been reported many thousands of times, so clearly an historical report at the very least would have benefited from a skilled proofreader. Something has to be done to justify spending millions of dollars on a government project.
Of course, there are those toilets selling for more than $800.
That said, perhaps there was pressure from members of the U.S. House and Senate to show evidence that real research was being done. One of the ongoing issues was the fact that AARO and its predecessors seemed to want to focus strictly on sightings beginning in 2004, such as the still-unexplained “TikTok” UAP video.
They seemed to have tunnel vision and were not focusing on decades of sometimes compelling sightings that have continued to mystify those who cared enough to do thorough investigations.
Now perhaps the AARO report was merely a rush job thrown together by, as I suggested, interns who merely read a few UFO books and submitted them to some cursory dismissive explanations.
Maybe.
But it has been clear from the early days that AARO would never stray beyond its claims of a lack of evidence of unknown craft from somewhere out there.
Besides, what does “empirical evidence” mean? Must it be physical evidence of ET’s presence, such as a captured spaceship or the body of a gray? Sure, I suppose the dismissal of Roswell is meant as the answer to that concern. But if that case didn’t exist, there would still be others that cry out for explanations.
What, for example, landed in Varginha, Brazil in 1996, where residents reported both UFOs and possible alien creatures?
All right, I suppose it’s easy for a U.S.-based government study group to ignore cases outside of the country’s boundaries.
Regardless, I didn’t expect AARO to deliver anything meaningful to help take us closer to a solution to the enigma. I didn’t want to be proven wrong, but that’s the way it is.
Copyright 1999-2024 The Paracast Company. All Rights Reserved.
Privacy Policy: Your personal information is safe with us. We will positively never give out your name and/or e-mail address to anybody else, and that's a promise!
March 17, 2024
www.theparacast.com
Discover a New Way to Look at Bigfoot, Poltergeists and Other Paranormal Phenomena with Fortean Researcher W.T. Watkins on the Paracast!
The Paracast is heard Sundays from 3:00 AM until 6:00 AM Central Time on the GCN Radio Network and affiliates around the USA, the Boost Radio Network, the IRN Internet Radio Network, and online across the globe via download and on-demand streaming.
WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOU HAVEN'T SIGNED UP FOR THE PARACAST+ YET? PLEASE SUBSCRIBE TO THE PARACAST+ SO YOU CAN SUPPORT THE SHOW AND ENJOY THE ULTIMATE PARACAST EXPERIENCE AT A SPECIAL LOW PRICE! We have another radio show and we’d love for you listen to it. So for a low subscription fee, you will receive access to an exclusive bonus podcast, After The Paracast, plus an enhanced version of The Paracast with the network ads removed, when you join The Paracast+. We also offer a special RSS feed for easy updates of the latest episodes on your device. Flash! Take advantage of our lowest rates ever! Act now! It's easier than ever to susbcribe! For the easiest signup ever, please visit: https://www.theparacast.plus
This Week's Episode: Gene and cohost Tim Swartz present best-selling author W.T. Watson, a coffee addict and writer of both fiction and non-fiction. He infuses his work with his expertise in cryptozoology, monster lore, magic, Forteana and the paranormal. W.T. brings a unique shamanic and magical perspective to all of his work after over 30 years of exploration in these topics. During this episode there's a special focus on Bigfoot, and other strange creatures and legends of strange creatures through the ages. Watson's books include: “Canadian Monsters & Mysteries,” “Sasquatch Canada: Beyond British Columbia,” “Mysteries in the Mist: Mist, Fog, and Clouds in the Paranormal,” and his most recent, which will be discussed during this episode: “The Forest Poltergeist: Class B Encounters and the Paranormal.” When he is not writing or reading about monsters, he can be found outdoors allowing his dogs to take him for a walk around his neighborhood in Kitchener, Ontario. Watson lives with his spouse, Stacey, in a townhome that would be jammed with books if it weren’t for e-readers.
After The Paracast — Available exclusively for Paracast+ subscribers on March 17: Busy Fortean researcher W.T. Watson returns to talk with Gene and cohost Tim Swartzabout a number of topics, including pop culture. So he agrees with Gene that radio dramas represent a “theater of the mind,” and mentions a possible curious fact about writer and magician Water B. Gibson, best known for his work on the pulp version of The Shadow. Movie set mishaps are also on the agenda, such as the fatal shooting when filming “Rust” in 2021, before the discussion turns to the future of paranormal research. Watson talks of possible Sasquatch sightings, and also responds to the question of whether paranormal events are meant to make people think. In all, he offers a unique shamanic and magical perspective to all of his work after over 30 years of exploration in these topics. Watson’s books include: “Canadian Monsters & Mysteries,” “Sasquatch Canada: Beyond British Columbia,” “Mysteries in the Mist: Mist, Fog, and Clouds in the Paranormal” and “The Forest Poltergeist: Class B Encounters and the Paranormal.”
Reminder: Please don't forget to visit our famous Paracast Community Forums for the latest news/views/debates on all things paranormal: The Paracast Community Forums. Visit our new online shop for great branded merchandise at: https://www.theparacast.shop.
About that Latest Pentagon UAP Stunt
By Gene Steinberg
Not long after the Pentagon announced one of several UFO (UAP) study programs in recent years, our old friend, UFO author and researcher Kevin D. Randle, had a pithy assessment of what would happen if and when it released some conclusions.
He described it as “Condon 2.0.”
That’s, of course, a reference to that infamous Air Force attempt in the late 1960s to deal with the UFO conundrum. The University of Colorado was tasked with investigating the phenomenon; it was lead by one Edward U. Condon, hence the name of the committee and its final report.
Alas, it was announced at the start — no doubt accidentally — that it was the intention of the report to essentially poo-pooh questions of UFO reality, and thus give the Air Force the excuse it needed to shutter Project Blue Book.
Yes, the Condon Report said there was nothing to UFOs, so Project Blue Book thus went away. But as the alleged public face of government UFO investigations, it had descended into largely a public relations arm to debunk the phenomenon. It did precious little research in its final years.
Without going into detail, it does appear that behind-the-scenes UFO probes continued, but not much has been confirmed about such efforts. Well except when the Air Force explained away the 1947 Roswell episode as not a disk from somewhere out there, but a crashed Project Mogul ballon.
Now Mogul was a supposedly secret project by the military to engage in long-distance probes of possible sound waves from Soviet atomic bomb tests. Yes, those were the days when school students had to endure frequent safety tests at school where they’d hide under their desks in the unlikely assumption that this would make a difference if a nuclear weapon really went off.
Anyway, the possibility of Roswell being a Mogul ballon was summarily disproven by Randle and his fellow travelers when they reported that there were no flights conducted during the period where the crash occurred. Just the facts!
In any case, the UFOs quite evidently never went away, even if the Pentagon hoped otherwise. There were plenty of rumors about top secret investigations, possible covert evidence of genuine extraterrestrial flying saucers, and perhaps their crews. But none of it was ever actually proven.
Some even suggest the rumors served to conceal real tests by the military of new aircraft designs. The possibility that UFOs were involved was just disinformation, meant as a diversion to take attention away from what was really going on.
Segue to 2024.
The latest Pentagon group to probe UAPs has the unwieldy title of All-domain Anomalous Resolution Office, thus AARO. As opposed to APRO, for Aerial Phenomena Research Organization, regarded as one of the best and most productive UFO groups from the last century.
In any case, on March 8, 2024, AARO released a 63-page report that supposedly provides an historical overview of their studies.
If you’re curious, you can get a PDF copy from: https://media.defense.gov/2024/Mar/...RED-508-COMPLIANT-HRRV1-08-MAR-2024-FINAL.PDF
When you read the report — if you decide to bother — you will come to agree that Randle had a point. Its conclusions are very much in the vein of Condon. Repeating that infamous mantra, they assert that there is no evidence that UAPs have an offworld origin. And, no, there is no physical evidence of the reality behind the phenomenon being concealed behind closed doors.
Or in a hangar somewhere.
In short: “To date, AARO has not discovered any empirical evidence that any sighting of a UAP represented off-world technology or the existence a classified program that had not been properly reported to Congress.”
The report also claims that: “Investigative efforts determined that most sightings were the result of misidentification of ordinary objects and phenomena. Although many UAP reports remain unsolved, AARO assesses that if additional, quality data were available, most of these cases also could be identified and resolved as ordinary objects or phenomena.”
That conclusion sort of echoes what the late Air Force Project Blue Book said years ago with a key difference. Then they separated such reports from the collection by placing them in a category labeled, “insufficient information.”
It didn’t take long for researchers who have long probed the UFO phenomenon to point to evidence of carelessness in drawing up the document. I wouldn’t presume to suggest that it was prepared by a group of newcomers or interns that did a rush job in providing case summaries. Or maybe I should.
But Randle and other researchers, along with an online publication covering military affairs, The Debrief, have pointed to a raft of mistakes. One careless error that comes to mind is misidentifying the classic Kenneth Arnold flying saucer sighting as occurring on June 23, 1947, rather than the following day.
All right, a minor error indeed. But this case forms a linchpin of the modern UFO era. It has been reported many thousands of times, so clearly an historical report at the very least would have benefited from a skilled proofreader. Something has to be done to justify spending millions of dollars on a government project.
Of course, there are those toilets selling for more than $800.
That said, perhaps there was pressure from members of the U.S. House and Senate to show evidence that real research was being done. One of the ongoing issues was the fact that AARO and its predecessors seemed to want to focus strictly on sightings beginning in 2004, such as the still-unexplained “TikTok” UAP video.
They seemed to have tunnel vision and were not focusing on decades of sometimes compelling sightings that have continued to mystify those who cared enough to do thorough investigations.
Now perhaps the AARO report was merely a rush job thrown together by, as I suggested, interns who merely read a few UFO books and submitted them to some cursory dismissive explanations.
Maybe.
But it has been clear from the early days that AARO would never stray beyond its claims of a lack of evidence of unknown craft from somewhere out there.
Besides, what does “empirical evidence” mean? Must it be physical evidence of ET’s presence, such as a captured spaceship or the body of a gray? Sure, I suppose the dismissal of Roswell is meant as the answer to that concern. But if that case didn’t exist, there would still be others that cry out for explanations.
What, for example, landed in Varginha, Brazil in 1996, where residents reported both UFOs and possible alien creatures?
All right, I suppose it’s easy for a U.S.-based government study group to ignore cases outside of the country’s boundaries.
Regardless, I didn’t expect AARO to deliver anything meaningful to help take us closer to a solution to the enigma. I didn’t want to be proven wrong, but that’s the way it is.
Copyright 1999-2024 The Paracast Company. All Rights Reserved.
Privacy Policy: Your personal information is safe with us. We will positively never give out your name and/or e-mail address to anybody else, and that's a promise!