The Paracast

Gene and cohost Tim Swartz present documentary producer James Fox, who will discuss his latest film, “Moment of Contact,” an exploration of possible alien encounters centered on a series of events in 1996 when citizens of Varginha, Brazil, reported seeing a UFO crash and one or more strange creatures. As a filmmaker, writer, director, and producer for more than two decades, Fox has focused his career on what he’s come to call the “parallel history“ of UFOs. Again and again, he has discovered that there’s far more to these unexplained sightings and encounters than most people realize. He finished and sold his first UFO documentary to Discovery Communications by the time he was 28. He has since completed films for the likes of Sci-Fi, Learning and History Channel.

Gene and cohost Tim Swartz present Ron Meyer and Mark Reeder, movie producers whose works include films about the paranormal, such as “Chasing Bigfoot” and The Bigfoot Alien Connection Revealed.” They are also authors of The Bigfoot Alien Connection: Revisited.” The book’s description asks: are aliens present on our planet in the form of Bigfoot? People from all walks of life have reported contact experiences with aliens, Bigfoot, and other paranormal phenomena. These experiences are often life-changing and can provide a new perspective on the world around us and who we are as human beings. Drawing on extensive research during the filming of multiple series and feature films, the authors provide a new look at what has become known as the Skinwalker Ranch phenomenon.

Gene and cohost Tim Swartz present very prolific author Nick Redfern, who will discuss his recent book, “How Antigravity Built the Pyramids: The Mysterious Technology of Ancient Superstructures.” Throughout history, folklore, and mystery, tales have circulated of massive stones being moved through the air effortlessly by sound. Bizarre? Well, yes, it is. That doesn’t take away the fact that sound was, and still remains, the key to the construction of the pyramids of Egypt, Stonehenge, the stone figures of Easter Island, and the massive stones at Baalbek, Lebanon. Were they the work of ancient humans or of equally ancient extraterrestrials? Nick is a full-time author and journalist specializing in a wide range of unsolved mysteries.

Gene and cohost Tim Swartz present author Craig Campobasso, who is also an award-winning filmmaker and Emmy-nominated casting director with a career that spans three decades. He is the author of such bestselling books as: “The Extraterrestrial Species Almanac,” “The Autobiography of an Extraterrestrial Saga: Waking Thyron,” and “The Silence of the Hams: A Pictorial Memoir of the Making of a Cult Classic.” His most recent book is: “The UFO Hotspot Compendium: All the Places to Visit Before You Die Or Are Abducted.” This title is essentially an offbeat travelogue of locations where a number of UFO cases, real and not-so-real, occurred along with brief summaries of the various incidents. The book is published by MUFON.

Veteran UFO researcher/author Kevin D. Randle returns to talk with Gene and cohost Tim Swartz about his latest book, “Understanding Roswell,” and whether there’s anything more to learn about that 1947 incident, the status of the evidence that’s come forth through the years, and whether there’s anything left to discover. He’ll also bring us up to date and the current status of the UFO field. Within the UFO community, Randle is often regarded as one of the preeminent experts on the reported crash of a UFO near Roswell, New Mexico in July 1947. He is a professional best-selling author with over 100 books to his name. He has a Ph.D. in psychology and was in the United States Air Force and the National Guard, where he held the rank of Lieutenant Colonel before retiring in 2009.

A special shop talk episode featuring a historical perspective of the UFO field with Gene and cohosts Curt Collins and Tim Swartz. Among the topics that will be discussed is the possibility that some UFOs — certainly not all sightings — might have resulted from flights (or crashes?) of test aircraft. And what about possible government mind control experiments involving some flying saucer contactees and abductees? Among other cases, Curt has taken a particular interest in the 1980 Cash-Landrum Texas UFO Encounter. After a career in retail management Curt began writing about UFOs, with a special interest in re-investigating that paradoxical case, from which the eyewitnesses evidently suffered from an assortment of injuries and illnesses. Curt has written entries for such books as “American Myths, Legends, and Tall Tales: An Encyclopedia of American Folklore,” “UFOs: Reframing the Debate,” and “What’s Wrong with this Picture,” examining the “Roswell Slides” fiasco.

Gene and cohost Tim Swartz introduce Shane Cashman, host of the paranormal podcast Tales From the Inverted World, which investigates the mysteries that lie beneath the surface of everyday life. Shane searches for answers concerning UFO encounters, cryptids, ghosts, inter-dimensional beings, secret government experiments — just to name a few topics. This episode will focus on his 2021 book, “Tales From the Inverted World: Close Contact with Ghosts, UFOs Serial Killers and Simulation Theory Volume 1,” released in 2021. His stories have appeared in The Atlantic, BBC Travel, Atlas Obscura, Narratively, VICE, Salon, The Los Angeles Review of Books Blog, and elsewhere. In 2015, he received first place in the PEN Center USA 500-word short story contest. He is a Glimmer Train short fiction finalist, and his nonfiction has been featured as an Editor’s Pick at Longreads.com.

Gene and cohost Tim Swartz explore the frontiers of reality with Bernard Beitman,  MD, author of Meaningful Coincidences: How and Why Synchronicity and Serendipity Happen. He writes that each of us has more to do with creating coincidences than we think. In this comprehensive exploration of the potential of coincidences to expand our understanding of reality, he explores why and how coincidences, synchronicity, and serendipity happen and how to use these common occurrences to inspire psychological, interpersonal, and spiritual growth. Exploring the crucial role of personal agency—individual thought and action—in synchronicities and serendipities, Dr. Beitman shows that there’s much more behind these occurrences than “fate” or “randomness.” They can be clues to the functioning of the psychosphere, our mental atmosphere through which many of them happen.