Recent content by Charles Swenson

On learning of the Heaven's Gate tragedy I experienced a real sense of relief. I first heard of then in their Bo and Peep days, and almost went to their recruiting spiel in Austin in the 70s. A friend and I had a real interest in the subject and were very impressionable at the time. They made...

...when you sight something on the web, you've generally sighted it on a site...or at least that's what the grammar nazi that lives inside of my head tells me at the tail end of this tale....

Don: You're doing a great service to the field of ufoology (thanks to the late Jim Moseley for such an appropriate term!) with work like the article at the top of this page. The interest intelligence agencies shows in the field seems to open windows into a dark corner of rooms in the puzzle...

What a shame that so much of this material has been held back so long; it would be interesting the back story behind this material taking over four decades to emerge. I was going to say that this was the best release of his material in decades, but the four disc velvet box release that came...

Oops...Yes, most definitely. It was, of course, supposed to read "although podcast listeners such as myself have been sucked in by your show, not hearing from us does NOT always mean we think it sucks". Especially regarding a Jacques Vallee show! Now as for the commercials... Cthonic...

Does ambidextrous count if you're equally clumsy with either hand? Cthonic Charlie, the Dextrously Sinister Curmudgeon

Pilkington's Mirage Men was about as good a look into a UFO convention from a documentary viewpoint as one could hope for, complete with interviews with Richard Doty himself. It too is to be released as movie by John Lundberg and Mark Pilkington at some point in the future, and that is one to...

Southeastern Utah is considerably beyond the naturally occuring range of peyote, but in Lower Pecos River rock art peyote is generally considered to have been a factor, with some saying it is represented in some motifs. Other entheogens, specifically Datura and the mescal bean, are also thought...

The nature of released files, as well as the released FBI files This does assume that there is a monolithic government agency with all those files, perhaps even reflecting a monolithic government opinion about what's going on. But as any one knows, the federal government and all it's various...

With regards to how large these figures are (though forgoing any snarky remarks about their origin) this should give you a fair idea. I kind of hated to find this picture, which is from a BLM website, but it does emphasize that this is a federally protected site, with all that entails...

Shaman Panel [2.7 mg file] Well, that old devil panel is interesting indeed, as is all of the art out there. I particularly liked this viewed, caught from the backside of a boulder. I like to call it The Devil and the Cowboy's Girlfriend. (She is, of course, on the boulder, a little hard to...

Underground tunnels and government secrets? Sounds like cornfed BS to me! Except... A couple of years ago a family member told me a story that changed my way of thinking about this often maligned line of thought. He told it to me and another family in the course of a long evening's...

Some Thoughts on the Etymology and Uses of ‘High Strangeness’ by Charles Swenson <O:p</O:p The term ‘high strangeness’ has found widespread acceptance and is currently widely used in ufology and related paranormal fields. But the etymological origins of this phrase are unclear, and not...

You are so very right about there being a stigma attached to this whole paranormal field, for there are indeed some truly strange fruit growing there. When writing the forerunner to "How I Almost Became a True Believer" my wife asked me what I was doing, and it was only with a great deal of...

I'll listen to Jim Moseley telling the same old stories any time. The strictures imposed by the time limitations of a commercial format are unfortunate, but the presence of another old-timer (that's you, Gene) do enhance the comfortable banter that can tease out more interesting stories, no...