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UFO Magazine's 20th Anniversary Observed on The Paracast


Gene Steinberg

Forum Super Hero
Staff member
Folks, it's a miracle these days that a magazine can last three or five years, let alone 20. But UFO Magazine has managed that achievement, and in honor of the occasion, we'll be talking with the key members of the publication's team. These include Bill and Nancy Birnes and Don and Vicki Ecker.

Just how has UFO research changed and/or progressed over the years. You'll hear all about it on this episode.
 
I'm a person that normally regards coincidences with suspicion. I've just stated earlier, in another thread, that the listener can not expect to have shows reflect their own wishes. Then you post that William Birnes (and others) are coming on to do a nostalgia thing about the magazine.

Gene, you must indulge my curiosity. If anyone can contribute an opinion on something that has intrigued me for a long time, and there is very little information about it, then it is William Birnes. Do ask him what he thinks about some bemused Canadian military people and diplomats, some mysterious types from Los Alamos and a Russian General (in uniform) standing around, ankle deep in mud, scratching their heads and wondering why God had decided to zap some chickens at Lance Cove, Bell Island, in April 1978. Did this event have any impact on the SALT II treaty? Was it a UFO?

I have a feeling in my water that William Birnes might have an opinion on this. I also think that it might be worth five minutes discussion. The topic is within the time frame for the life of the magazine, so it would be relevant.

Woody
 
Woody Sideman said:
I'm a person that normally regards coincidences with suspicion. I've just stated earlier, in another thread, that the listener can not expect to have shows reflect their own wishes. Then you post that William Birnes (and others) are coming on to do a nostalgia thing about the magazine.

Gene, you must indulge my curiosity. If anyone can contribute an opinion on something that has intrigued me for a long time, and there is very little information about it, then it is William Birnes. Do ask him what he thinks about some bemused Canadian military people and diplomats, some mysterious types from Los Alamos and a Russian General (in uniform) standing around, ankle deep in mud, scratching their heads and wondering why God had decided to zap some chickens at Lance Cove, Bell Island, in April 1978. Did this event have any impact on the SALT II treaty? Was it a UFO?

I have a feeling in my water that William Birnes might have an opinion on this. I also think that it might be worth five minutes discussion. The topic is within the time frame for the life of the magazine, so it would be relevant.

Woody
Well, the magazine was started 20 years ago, but Bill and Nancy Birnes didn't get involved until the 90s.
 
Gene Steinberg said:
Well, the magazine was started 20 years ago, but Bill and Nancy Birnes didn't get involved until the 90s.

Yes, quite. It's exactly as I said. It's within the appropriate time frame. I first became aware of this incident because of a few faint rumours in the UFO echo on Fido during the early 1990s. I know you media types might all have been using System 7 ducks at that time, but I'm sure that somebody from UFO Magazine would have been taking the echoes on Fido and Mercury. They would have been aware of it. ;)

Woody
 
I just finishing listening to the latest paracast and really enjoyed it.

I have a lot of sympathy with a lot of the views expressed - if you look at my recent posts you'll see I have reached similar conclusions about the UFO 'reality' and the limitations of science to explain the phenomena.

Someone (Don, I think) mentioned 70 year-old, Russian COBOL programmers making a fortune out of the Year-2000 problem.

Well, I'm English, I'm 35 years old and I've been a mainframe COBOL programmer for the last 10 years and I did a lot of work in an effort to prevent problems on the turn of the last century. In the end 'nothing' happened BECAUSE we spent 2 or 3 years correcting (not just) COBOL code and thus ensuring we didn't wake up on New Years day with a massive technical shutdown.

The fact is, that prior to the turn of the century, nobody really knew what would happen if all that code was left unaltered and no IT manager was going to re-assure a billion-dollar multi-national that their financial systems would still be running without a hitch come the turn of the century without checking a single line of code to ensure that it handled the century properly. I could elaborate, but I've learnt over the years that talking about this stuff in detail can send people to sleep...

And BTW, COBOL is old but there are still tens, if not hundreds of millions of lines of COBOL code still in use today. They're still writing new stuff in COBOL today - I know that because I've written it!

One of your guests was talking about running cars on vegetable oil or ethanol - did you know that since the oil crisis of the 1970's Brazil has run most of it's cars on ethanol distilled from fermented sugar cane?

Link to Wikipedia entry about Brazil's ethanol industry

I wonder why more countries aren't doing the same...
 
BTW, on the last show, you mentioned getting in touch with Above Top Secret?

I read a supposed 'hoaxed' memo on the Serpo site - it made very interesting reading. The memo was allegedly from ATS to the Serpo Site and basically said "we want to own the Serpo project. Stick with us and we'll cut you in on the profits. If you don't agree, we'll bury your project. We are the biggest thing on the net and you can't compete."

I don't know whether it proved to be a hoax or not, but something doesn't smell right with either ATS or the Serpo site.
 
Hey, now that you've signed your life away with this new radio deal, it will be interesting to see if they start vetting your guests... ;D
 
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