The Paracast Newsletter
April 12, 2026
www.theparacast.com
Paranormal Investigator Maxim W. Furek covers the Shaver Mystery and other explorations into the unknown on The Paracast.
The Paracast is released every Sunday and available from our site, https://www.theparacast.com, your favorite podcast app, and the IRN Internet Radio Network. All episodes from 2022 and later now feature better audio and fewer ads. We are also re-releasing some of our most popular classic episodes.
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 a special version of The Paracast with all the ads removed, when you join The Paracast+. We also offer a special RSS feed for easy updates of the latest episodes on your device. Episodes for subscribers to The Paracast+ are now released 24 hours earlier. Flash! Now includes over 100 classic episodes, so 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 (April 12, 2026: Gene and cohost Tim Swartz present paranormal investigator Maxim W. Furek. Among the topics: Furek, born the same town as Richard Shaver (Berwick, Pennsylvania), covers the outsized influence of Shaver and Ray Palmer in the early days of the UFO era. He has a rich background that includes aspects of psychology, addictions, music journalism, and the paranormal. And he has a master’s degree in communications from Bloomsburg University and a bachelor’s degree in psychology from Aquinas College. He has interviewed celebrity demonologists Ed and Lorraine Warren, white witch Dr. Frederick Lamonte Santee, and Annabelle handler Dan Rivera. He was featured on Coast to Coast with George Noory, Exploring the Bizarre with the legendary Timothy Green Beckley and Tim Swartz, and Art Bell’s Midnight in the Desert with Heather Wade. Furek is a respected contributor to Fate Magazine, Paranormal Underground, and Strange Knocks, showcasing his expertise and knowledge in the field . He was the invited guest speaker at the 2025 Butler (PA) Paranormal Conference and the ECBRO Virginia Bigfoot Expo. His web site: www.maximfurek.com.
Coming April 19: Gene and Geneva present the one-and-only Red Pill Junkie (accept no substitutes). Agnostic gnostic, walking conundrum and metaphysical oxymoron (with emphasis in the ‘moron’ part), the mysterious RPJ leaves a double life: By day he serves as Grand Master in the International Sacred Order of Lucha Libre, but at night he pursues his life-long study of everything considered mysterious and/or ‘paranormal’ –a term he personally detests. When he’s not exploring the web looking for his daily fix of Forteana, he can be found making artsy stuff, fooling around on social media, or offering his services as writer and news administrator at The Daily Grail ( dailygrail.com). He also regularly participates in other websites and podcasts like ‘Where Did the Road Go?’ He impatiently awaits for the return of the mothership, the zombie Apocalypse, the AI insurrection, or a MAGA-made Armageddon, in Mexico City; whichever comes first. His site: absurdbydesign.com
After The Paracast — Available exclusively to Paracast+ subscribers: Paranormal investigator Maxim W. Furek has his career as a music writer in mind as he talks with Gene and cohost Tim Swartz about artists who include UFO references in their music. These include John Lennon, Creedence Clearwater Revival and others. And this is just one of the paranormal subjects on the agenda. Furek has a rich background that includes aspects of psychology, addictions, music journalism, and the paranormal. And he has a master’s degree in communications from Bloomsburg University and a bachelor’s degree in psychology from Aquinas College. He has interviewed celebrity demonologists Ed and Lorraine Warren, white witch Dr. Frederick Lamonte Santee, and Annabelle handler Dan Rivera. He was featured on Coast to Coast with George Noory, Exploring the Bizarre with the legendary Timothy Green Beckley and Tim Swartz, and Art Bell’s Midnight in the Desert with Heather Wade. Furek is a respected contributor to Fate Magazine, Paranormal Underground, and Strange Knocks, showcasing his expertise and knowledge in the field. He was the invited guest speaker at the 2025 Butler (PA) Paranormal Conference and the ECBRO Virginia Bigfoot Expo. His web site: www.maximfurek.com.
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. And look for @theparacast on Bluesky Social, Facebook, Threads and X.
Flying Saucers Are Here to Do What?
By Gene Steinberg
Here on The Paracast, we have devoted a number of episodes to the history of the modern flying saucer era. It’s not that we’re living in the past. As many of you know, however, so much of UFO research nowadays is merely repeating past mistakes.
So there is the assumption that, real or implied, the phenomenon represents visits by extraterrestrials.While this assumption may, in fact, be true, it is not yet proven. Even those who claim to be in contact with otherworldly beings cannot provide any evidence, other than their own accounts, that any of it is true. Or if it do, it’s the usual round of clumsy fakes.
But there are people who suggest that there are other possible answers that should be carefully considered. Maybe they come from another dimension, or they are, perhaps, time travelers who are here to undo the damage they created.
And that is not a new approach. Years ago, a popular and highly controversial sci-fi and paranormal magazine editor said we shouldn’t close our minds.
So in his newsstand magazine, Flying Saucers, Ray Palmer, said we should look to our own planet, to the legends of a Hollow Earth. Getting there, he claimed, could be accomplished by entering polar entrances.
Now this is nothing original. in the early 20th century, there were a number of books that made such a claim, including “The Hollow Earth,” from “Dr.” Raymond W. Bernard. His real name, Walter Isidor Siegmeister, apparently received a real Ph.D degree in education from New York University. But that accomplishment didn’t make his theories any more credible.
And it wasn’t just a factual claim. Famed fantasy and adventure fiction writer Edgar Rice Burroughs, creator of Tarzan, wrote a number of books in the Pullucidar series about surface explorers discovering a primitive civilization below the Earth’s surface.
Palmer merely adapted such stories for his variation of an Earth theory. It went on for a few years, giving Ray the chance to debate with his readers in the pages of Flying Saucers.
But that wasn’t where he ended. Towards the end of his days, he went on to assert that he wasn’t really claiming that was a physical entrance at the polar regions. Such a subsurface civilization really existed in the astral plane. By astral, he meant an alternate existence occupying the same space but on a different dimensional plane. Sort of a multiverse theory, which is in vogue these days, especially in the comic book super hero space.
But he didn’t stop there. He also went on to claim that the flying saucers were, in fact, here to make us think. But think about what?
He was basically asserting that finding the origin point was not the issue, but understanding the meaning behind their presence.
But think about what? Just where has the presence of flying saucers in our skies, or entering our seas, taken us?
I suppose one possibility is space travel, but does that make any sense, Wouldn’t that mean that their arrival would convince humankind to explore the stars?
I suppose that is possible, but it’s not as if it has succeeded near as well as many hoped. Sure, the U.S made its first lunar landing in 1969, but it wasn’t because people were seeing flying saucers. No, it was a reaction to the Soviet Union’s first forays into sending satellites into orbit. It all began with the launch of Sputnik in 1957. In the 1960s, President John Kennedy promised that the U.S. would send a crew of astronauts on the lunar surface by the end of that decade.
Some six years after his 1963 assassination, his dream was realized.
Remember, this was done with what we now regard as extremely primitive computer technology, where an office full of the best computers on the planet wouldn’t come close to matching the performance of the Apple, Google or Samsung smartphone you put in your pocket or purse.
But they made it work. And such
movies as 2001: A Space Odyssey painted a picture of continuous developments in space travel over the decades. Other sci-fi movies and TV shows also envisioned scientific advances way beyond what we’ve actually achieved;
In our real world such as it is, we all know that was not to be. The Apollo 17, flown in 1972, was the final human moon landing. President Richard Nixon had other priorities, and it was not to follow the influence of a phenomenon here to make us think.
Indeed it wasn’t until April 1 of this year that the Artemis II launched. The 10-day mission didn’t involve a landing, though. Instead the crew of four astronauts orbited the moon with an emphasis on the dark side and then returned to Earth. Systems for future landings will be tested, which seems to ignore the fact that we had technology to do just that in 1969.
So politicians didn’t pay attention to what the presence of flying saucers was trying to tell us. If it’s about humankind’s destiny to explore the stars, I have little doubt it’ll happen eventually if we don’t destroy ourselves in the process.
Sure some might suggest that it’s about our penchant for wars, which seems all the more credible nowadays as a war with Iran is in progress, started, in fact, by a politician who promised not to get the US into endless foreign wars.
But maybe the message is not about politics and war. It’s about humankind’s ultimate destiny. Or at least to think about. Or it’s a message that we should not rest on our laurels, but always seek to do better, behave better, work towards a closer balance between our physical and spiritual selves. That’s something Palmer often wrote about.
Then there’s always the notorious “fact,” alleged evidence against which Palmer would compare UFO sightings to determine fact from fiction. His readers demanded that he reveal it to them, but he said that would make his “fact” useless.
Now it’s not unusual to claim to have such a “fact.” Controversial UFO abduction researchers Budd Hopkins and Dr. David Jacobs were among the few who claimed to have a bullet point about such episodes with which to compare new reports. If they matched up, then the abduction was likely genuine. But we don’t hear much about this troubling topic these days. Maybe ET is sick of us, or experiencers don’t choose to report them anymore.
As to Palmer, he was notorious for his efforts at self-promotion, at raising controversial issues to keep his readers interested and in fact entertained. The pages of his magazines, such as Flying Saucers, Search and Forum, were filled with various products, questionable and otherwise, that he had for sale.
Sure as a potion that allegedly cured baldness that Palmer praised to the skies, even though he was clearly losing his hair. But he is still someone who should be taken seriously despite the lapses.
I’ll go with that, certainly. But perhaps it would be better to say that Palmer made us think.
Copyright 1999-2026 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!
April 12, 2026
www.theparacast.com
Paranormal Investigator Maxim W. Furek covers the Shaver Mystery and other explorations into the unknown on The Paracast.
The Paracast is released every Sunday and available from our site, https://www.theparacast.com, your favorite podcast app, and the IRN Internet Radio Network. All episodes from 2022 and later now feature better audio and fewer ads. We are also re-releasing some of our most popular classic episodes.
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 a special version of The Paracast with all the ads removed, when you join The Paracast+. We also offer a special RSS feed for easy updates of the latest episodes on your device. Episodes for subscribers to The Paracast+ are now released 24 hours earlier. Flash! Now includes over 100 classic episodes, so 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 (April 12, 2026: Gene and cohost Tim Swartz present paranormal investigator Maxim W. Furek. Among the topics: Furek, born the same town as Richard Shaver (Berwick, Pennsylvania), covers the outsized influence of Shaver and Ray Palmer in the early days of the UFO era. He has a rich background that includes aspects of psychology, addictions, music journalism, and the paranormal. And he has a master’s degree in communications from Bloomsburg University and a bachelor’s degree in psychology from Aquinas College. He has interviewed celebrity demonologists Ed and Lorraine Warren, white witch Dr. Frederick Lamonte Santee, and Annabelle handler Dan Rivera. He was featured on Coast to Coast with George Noory, Exploring the Bizarre with the legendary Timothy Green Beckley and Tim Swartz, and Art Bell’s Midnight in the Desert with Heather Wade. Furek is a respected contributor to Fate Magazine, Paranormal Underground, and Strange Knocks, showcasing his expertise and knowledge in the field . He was the invited guest speaker at the 2025 Butler (PA) Paranormal Conference and the ECBRO Virginia Bigfoot Expo. His web site: www.maximfurek.com.
Coming April 19: Gene and Geneva present the one-and-only Red Pill Junkie (accept no substitutes). Agnostic gnostic, walking conundrum and metaphysical oxymoron (with emphasis in the ‘moron’ part), the mysterious RPJ leaves a double life: By day he serves as Grand Master in the International Sacred Order of Lucha Libre, but at night he pursues his life-long study of everything considered mysterious and/or ‘paranormal’ –a term he personally detests. When he’s not exploring the web looking for his daily fix of Forteana, he can be found making artsy stuff, fooling around on social media, or offering his services as writer and news administrator at The Daily Grail ( dailygrail.com). He also regularly participates in other websites and podcasts like ‘Where Did the Road Go?’ He impatiently awaits for the return of the mothership, the zombie Apocalypse, the AI insurrection, or a MAGA-made Armageddon, in Mexico City; whichever comes first. His site: absurdbydesign.com
After The Paracast — Available exclusively to Paracast+ subscribers: Paranormal investigator Maxim W. Furek has his career as a music writer in mind as he talks with Gene and cohost Tim Swartz about artists who include UFO references in their music. These include John Lennon, Creedence Clearwater Revival and others. And this is just one of the paranormal subjects on the agenda. Furek has a rich background that includes aspects of psychology, addictions, music journalism, and the paranormal. And he has a master’s degree in communications from Bloomsburg University and a bachelor’s degree in psychology from Aquinas College. He has interviewed celebrity demonologists Ed and Lorraine Warren, white witch Dr. Frederick Lamonte Santee, and Annabelle handler Dan Rivera. He was featured on Coast to Coast with George Noory, Exploring the Bizarre with the legendary Timothy Green Beckley and Tim Swartz, and Art Bell’s Midnight in the Desert with Heather Wade. Furek is a respected contributor to Fate Magazine, Paranormal Underground, and Strange Knocks, showcasing his expertise and knowledge in the field. He was the invited guest speaker at the 2025 Butler (PA) Paranormal Conference and the ECBRO Virginia Bigfoot Expo. His web site: www.maximfurek.com.
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. And look for @theparacast on Bluesky Social, Facebook, Threads and X.
Flying Saucers Are Here to Do What?
By Gene Steinberg
Here on The Paracast, we have devoted a number of episodes to the history of the modern flying saucer era. It’s not that we’re living in the past. As many of you know, however, so much of UFO research nowadays is merely repeating past mistakes.
So there is the assumption that, real or implied, the phenomenon represents visits by extraterrestrials.While this assumption may, in fact, be true, it is not yet proven. Even those who claim to be in contact with otherworldly beings cannot provide any evidence, other than their own accounts, that any of it is true. Or if it do, it’s the usual round of clumsy fakes.
But there are people who suggest that there are other possible answers that should be carefully considered. Maybe they come from another dimension, or they are, perhaps, time travelers who are here to undo the damage they created.
And that is not a new approach. Years ago, a popular and highly controversial sci-fi and paranormal magazine editor said we shouldn’t close our minds.
So in his newsstand magazine, Flying Saucers, Ray Palmer, said we should look to our own planet, to the legends of a Hollow Earth. Getting there, he claimed, could be accomplished by entering polar entrances.
Now this is nothing original. in the early 20th century, there were a number of books that made such a claim, including “The Hollow Earth,” from “Dr.” Raymond W. Bernard. His real name, Walter Isidor Siegmeister, apparently received a real Ph.D degree in education from New York University. But that accomplishment didn’t make his theories any more credible.
And it wasn’t just a factual claim. Famed fantasy and adventure fiction writer Edgar Rice Burroughs, creator of Tarzan, wrote a number of books in the Pullucidar series about surface explorers discovering a primitive civilization below the Earth’s surface.
Palmer merely adapted such stories for his variation of an Earth theory. It went on for a few years, giving Ray the chance to debate with his readers in the pages of Flying Saucers.
But that wasn’t where he ended. Towards the end of his days, he went on to assert that he wasn’t really claiming that was a physical entrance at the polar regions. Such a subsurface civilization really existed in the astral plane. By astral, he meant an alternate existence occupying the same space but on a different dimensional plane. Sort of a multiverse theory, which is in vogue these days, especially in the comic book super hero space.
But he didn’t stop there. He also went on to claim that the flying saucers were, in fact, here to make us think. But think about what?
He was basically asserting that finding the origin point was not the issue, but understanding the meaning behind their presence.
But think about what? Just where has the presence of flying saucers in our skies, or entering our seas, taken us?
I suppose one possibility is space travel, but does that make any sense, Wouldn’t that mean that their arrival would convince humankind to explore the stars?
I suppose that is possible, but it’s not as if it has succeeded near as well as many hoped. Sure, the U.S made its first lunar landing in 1969, but it wasn’t because people were seeing flying saucers. No, it was a reaction to the Soviet Union’s first forays into sending satellites into orbit. It all began with the launch of Sputnik in 1957. In the 1960s, President John Kennedy promised that the U.S. would send a crew of astronauts on the lunar surface by the end of that decade.
Some six years after his 1963 assassination, his dream was realized.
Remember, this was done with what we now regard as extremely primitive computer technology, where an office full of the best computers on the planet wouldn’t come close to matching the performance of the Apple, Google or Samsung smartphone you put in your pocket or purse.
But they made it work. And such
movies as 2001: A Space Odyssey painted a picture of continuous developments in space travel over the decades. Other sci-fi movies and TV shows also envisioned scientific advances way beyond what we’ve actually achieved;
In our real world such as it is, we all know that was not to be. The Apollo 17, flown in 1972, was the final human moon landing. President Richard Nixon had other priorities, and it was not to follow the influence of a phenomenon here to make us think.
Indeed it wasn’t until April 1 of this year that the Artemis II launched. The 10-day mission didn’t involve a landing, though. Instead the crew of four astronauts orbited the moon with an emphasis on the dark side and then returned to Earth. Systems for future landings will be tested, which seems to ignore the fact that we had technology to do just that in 1969.
So politicians didn’t pay attention to what the presence of flying saucers was trying to tell us. If it’s about humankind’s destiny to explore the stars, I have little doubt it’ll happen eventually if we don’t destroy ourselves in the process.
Sure some might suggest that it’s about our penchant for wars, which seems all the more credible nowadays as a war with Iran is in progress, started, in fact, by a politician who promised not to get the US into endless foreign wars.
But maybe the message is not about politics and war. It’s about humankind’s ultimate destiny. Or at least to think about. Or it’s a message that we should not rest on our laurels, but always seek to do better, behave better, work towards a closer balance between our physical and spiritual selves. That’s something Palmer often wrote about.
Then there’s always the notorious “fact,” alleged evidence against which Palmer would compare UFO sightings to determine fact from fiction. His readers demanded that he reveal it to them, but he said that would make his “fact” useless.
Now it’s not unusual to claim to have such a “fact.” Controversial UFO abduction researchers Budd Hopkins and Dr. David Jacobs were among the few who claimed to have a bullet point about such episodes with which to compare new reports. If they matched up, then the abduction was likely genuine. But we don’t hear much about this troubling topic these days. Maybe ET is sick of us, or experiencers don’t choose to report them anymore.
As to Palmer, he was notorious for his efforts at self-promotion, at raising controversial issues to keep his readers interested and in fact entertained. The pages of his magazines, such as Flying Saucers, Search and Forum, were filled with various products, questionable and otherwise, that he had for sale.
Sure as a potion that allegedly cured baldness that Palmer praised to the skies, even though he was clearly losing his hair. But he is still someone who should be taken seriously despite the lapses.
I’ll go with that, certainly. But perhaps it would be better to say that Palmer made us think.
Copyright 1999-2026 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!