June 20th episode - Stan Friedman & Kathleen Marden

[ZombieOctopus]

I only tune in to C2C when there's a guest on that interests me in a big way, so obviously I'd been looking forward to the show with Stanton on the 8th for about a week prior.

My girl had gone to work a graveyard shift and I had the house all to myself. Myself, and Stanton, that is. I poured myself a rum + coke and snipped the tip off of a fresh Montecristo as I propped myself up on the couch, my laptop tuned in and sitting on the coffee table at my feet.

"Fucking right!" I thought, "a brand new Stanton Friedman book! How could this be anything but un-fucking-believable!" Well, as I soon found out, a lot of ways.

The first hour begins, consists of rehashing the Betty and Barney Hill case for the 974 thousandth time and to the absolute letter as Stanton tells it. I could nearly recite what he was going to say before he said it. Yawn.

Hour two we finally get into the "new" stuff. Unfortunately none of it is actually new, or even a new take on old topics, more like a summary of Stanton's past tangents and controversies in science that you literally learnt about in maybe 10th or 11th grade. Scepticality regarding germ theory, flight, space flight, etc. Yawwwwn.

Admittedly I missed the third hour open lines because I fell asleep, only to wake up hours later confused and disappointed.

Please guys, have something ready for Stanton to push him in a new direction, I really want this show to be badass, but I can't help but lose a little faith after that poor showing. I swear if he starts giving us "The Hills 101" one more time, I'm going to lose it. And who doesn't know that people doubted the Write brothers? Or that Germ theory was initially dismissed and space travel was thought impossible when it was first proposed? What's the next one going to be about? The heliocentric solar system controversy?

Alright, I'm done. Here's hoping it's a classic.

 

[dyingsun]

June 20th: A plea to Gene and Paul

No more Roswell and the 'Hills', I'm all for that.

 

[Gareth]

June 20th: A plea to Gene and Paul

Surprised at what you found surprising. Shits been that way for a while now.

 

[trainedobserver]

June 20th: A plea to Gene and Paul

If you listen to any of the conference speakers talk once you've heard just about all they have to say. Sometimes I feel like Stanton could just send in a tape and it'd be pretty much indistinguishable from a live interview. Granted, you never know who is listening and what they've heard before however it would behoove these fellows that make the rounds of talk shows and conferences to change things up a bit.

 

[Paul Kimball]

June 20th: A plea to Gene and Paul

As I recall, I don't think we really talked about Roswell all that much, although it may have come up. The Hill case definitely did come up, but mostly within the context of the usefulness of hypnosis as a memory-recovery tool. It definitely took a different tact than you might have heard on C2C.

Mostly, however, the conversation centered on the subject matter of the book, or at least those portions of it that I found most interesting - eugenics, space flight (that was Gene's), the hemophilia holocaust of the 1980s, and a very spirited discussion of climate change, where Stan and I definitely hold different views.

 

[trainedobserver]

June 20th: A plea to Gene and Paul

I ordered Interrupted Journey from the Science Fiction Book Club when I was 11 or something like that. It scared the living b-jesus out of me and started my life-long interest (some might say obsession) with UFO related phenomena. Over the past forty years I've seen very little of consequence to add that initial introduction.

 

[jimbo83478]

June 20th: A plea to Gene and Paul

As I recall, I don't think we really talked about Roswell all that much, although it may have come up. The Hill case definitely did come up, but mostly within the context of the usefulness of hypnosis as a memory-recovery tool. It definitely took a different tact than you might have heard on C2C.

Mostly, however, the conversation centered on the subject matter of the book, or at least those portions of it that I found most interesting - eugenics, space flight (that was Gene's), the hemophilia holocaust of the 1980s, and a very spirited discussion of climate change, where Stan and I definitely hold different views.

Yes this is all interesting stuff, but if Stanton wrote a cooking book would you all discuss food? Don't get me wrong - I'm not complaining, I'm simply wondering why you guys wandered off the paranormal path at Stanton's lead...

 

[Paul Kimball]

June 20th: A plea to Gene and Paul

Yes this is all interesting stuff, but if Stanton wrote a cooking book would you all discuss food? Don't get me wrong - I'm not complaining, I'm simply wondering why you guys wandered off the paranormal path at Stanton's lead...

Actually, it wasn't at Stan's lead, it was at mine. I would have avoided the UFO / paranormal subject altogether if it had been up to me. Stan and Kathy have written an interesting book that raises some profound questions, not about aliens from Zeta Reticuli or whatever, but about ourselves, and the world around us.

And the thing about Stan and cooking books is about as off base as you can get. That's one of the things Stan and I have in common - we refuse to be pigeon-holed. His background, even before UFOs, is as a scientist, and a good one. He's continued to work in science even as he pursued his UFO work (he just doesn't publicize this scientific work). More important, he and Kathy are well-read, knowledgeable, and more than qualified to discuss the subject matter of their book - which is a lot more important than cooking... or UFOs.

Paul

 

[CapnG]

June 20th: A plea to Gene and Paul

I'm about halfway through, interesting show so far, Stan's always a fun guest although I gotta say I hope the second hour brings us around to the topic du jour. I appreciate Stan's input on climate change and the discussion on eugenics outside of the Nazi realm was interesting (if somewhat random) but I'm still waiting for the startling truths "THEY" declared impossible to come up.

Also, on a technical note the one hour bumper still declares David Biedny as co-host. You should proabably fix that.

 

[Kieran]

June 20th: A plea to Gene and Paul

I'm not a great fan of Stan's. But i respect any man or women who gets out there in the trenches and researches the UFO topic. In saying that, i don't believe the ETH is the answer. While i do not rule it out. I tend to believe we are dealing with lost civilizations hiding among us? I also have some believe the Phenomenon is coming into or world through Portals of some kind and their World is right next Door "Ring the bell Folks!!! A parallel world...what is looks like, and how big it is. Nobody can answer that or that it is even possible to having another World existing side by side to us?. But legends and myths of the past do speak of such things.

But with Portals i am also remained of the Stargate series and how SG1 travelled to new star systems. Sometimes fantasy can be tomorrows reality. While i do not believe STARGATE is Factual. This devices are thought up by Humans and maybe they are futures Devices? That have not yet be created due to the limit of or known science and knowledge? But anyway the Stargate travelled to a number of Worlds out in space. So we have to be careful. They might be popping in from planets that are located in other star systems. Maybe?

 

[Gene Steinberg]

June 20th: A plea to Gene and Paul

Actually, it wasn't at Stan's lead, it was at mine. I would have avoided the UFO / paranormal subject altogether if it had been up to me. Stan and Kathy have written an interesting book that raises some profound questions, not about aliens from Zeta Reticuli or whatever, but about ourselves, and the world around us.

And the thing about Stan and cooking books is about as off base as you can get. That's one of the things Stan and I have in common - we refuse to be pigeon-holed. His background, even before UFOs, is as a scientist, and a good one. He's continued to work in science even as he pursued his UFO work (he just doesn't publicize this scientific work). More important, he and Kathy are well-read, knowledgeable, and more than qualified to discuss the subject matter of their book - which is a lot more important than cooking... or UFOs.

Paul

We regularly talk about such non-paranormal issues as global warming in these forums, so I also assumed listeners would be interested in going a little out of the box on this one.

 

[dyingsun]

June 20th: A plea to Gene and Paul

Really liked this episode , kudos to our hosts and guests.

 

[jimbo83478]

June 20th: A plea to Gene and Paul

We regularly talk about such non-paranormal issues as global warming in these forums, so I also assumed listeners would be interested in going a little out of the box on this one.

Fair enough. It's your show and I'm not complaining. Just had to ask.

 

[dyingsun]

June 20th: A plea to Gene and Paul

To chime in again, I was somewhat 'scared' this ep would be a Roswell-'fest', but I was pleasantly surprised

.Listened to the ep again and our hosts are top-notch.

 

[NTS]

I stopped listening when Friedman started spouting that crap about scientists getting big money for claiming that humans cause climate change. The big money is all on the other side of the argument. And I personally wouldn't mind if the scientists turned out to be wrong, because climate change could be catastrophic. But I don't think they are.

 

[Gene Steinberg]

Wouldn't it have easier to Fast Forward?

 

[Tom From Hong Kong]

One constructive recommendation for future shows: I view the Paracast as being a "graduate level" course in the paranormal, rather than an introductory exercise. In future shows, where appropriate, the hosts should move to discuss the topics at hand on a more advanced level rather than covering topics at a level that most of us have heard on multiple occasions before. For example, with Stan and Kathleen, the question regarding hypnosis was appreciated, but it would have been great to dig deeper into the topic. How would Stan explain the fact that the reports from Hopkins and Jacobs are largely the same as Simon and Mack, both qualified psychiatrists? Don't Hopkins and Jacobs have a multitude of photos of scoop marks as well as, occasionally, physical trace evidence? What is the larger picture, in their view? Does the guests agree with Jacobs, and if not, why specifically?

The academic study on the symbols, as reported by Kathleen, was insightful, and I suspect many of us haven't heard of it before.

 

[Gene Steinberg]

This is a dilemma we face. We are dealing with various levels of listener knowledge and have to cover lots of areas with a book of this sort.

 

[NTS]

"Wouldn't it have [been] easier to Fast Forward?"

Well, I downloaded the episode and maybe I will, but if the guest ticks me off in the first couple minutes I might have a stroke after an hour. We'll see.

 

[Tom From Hong Kong]

This is a dilemma we face. We are dealing with various levels of listener knowledge and have to cover lots of areas with a book of this sort.

I sympathize with the hosts' dilemma. Perhaps one approach may be to spend a minute providing a background explanation of the topic on hand (together with a reference to an earlier Paracast episode if the topic was previously discussed), then move to the more advanced, detailed questioning. This may mean you can cover fewer topics per episode, but it may make the program more engaging and true to the Paracast's founding mandate.

For example, I don't think the show would have lost much if the topic of eugenics was omitted, but I would have loved to have heard Stan and Kathleen try to fit the actual fact patterns surrounding abductions into an overarching theory (data driving theory). While Dr. Simon didn't believe that the Hills were literally describing an abduction (I wouldn't have either back in the mid-60s), the narrative sounds similar to what Hopkins, Jacobs, Carpenter, Mack et. al. have uncovered. Are all these apparently credible individuals just parroting the facts revealed in the Hill case? If so, how about the collection of semen from Barney, which wasn't revealed for years but turned up in the early work of Hopkins et. al.?

Again, just a constructive suggestion.