THE PARACAST NEWSLETTER
April 28, 2012
Unusual Claims of Psychic Phenomena Explored on The Paracast
Special Announcement: The Paracast is heard Sundays from 2:00 AM until 5:00 AM Central Time on the GCN Radio Network and affiliates around the USA, and online across the globe via download and on-demand streaming.
Please Consider a Donation to The Paracast: Although ads help cover a small part of our expenses, the income they produce is never enough. Also, we do not receive any revenue from the ads placed on the show by our network or local stations. So we hope you're able to help fill the gap if you can to help us cover increasing server costs and other expenses -- or perhaps provide a little extra cash for lunch. No contribution is too small (or too large
. We have a Donate link on our home page, below the logo and audio player. There's also a Donate link on our forums, at the bottom of the sidebar on the right. Or just send your PayPal donation direct to sales (at) theparacast (dot) com.
Attention U.S. Listeners: Help Us Bring The Paracast to Your City! In the summer of 2010, The Paracast joined the GCN radio network. This represented a huge step in bringing our show to a larger, mainstream audience. But we need your help to add additional affiliates to our growing network. Please ask one of your local talk stations if they are interested in carrying The Paracast. Feel free to contact us directly with the names of programming people we might be able to contact on your behalf. We can't do this alone, and if you succeed in convincing your local station to carry the show, we'll reward you with one of our special T-shirts, and other goodies. With your help, The Paracast can grow into one of the most popular paranormal shows on the planet!
Please Visit Our Brand New Online Store: You asked, and we answered. We are now taking orders for The Official Paracast T-Shirt and an expanded collection of other specially customized merchandise. To get your T-Shirt now featuring our brand new logo, just pay a visit to our online store at The Official Paracast Store to select your size and place your order. We also offer a complete lineup of other premium merchandise for your family, your friends and your business contacts.
Sunday, April 29, 2012: The Paracast covers a world beyond science, where UFOs, poltergeists and strange phenomena of all kinds have been reported by millions across the planet.
Set Up: The Paracast is a paranormal radio show that takes you on a journey to a world beyond science, where UFOs, poltergeists and strange phenomena of all kinds have been reported by millions. The Paracast seeks to shed light on the mysteries and complexities of our Universe and the secrets that surround us in our everyday lives.
Join long-time paranormal researcher Gene Steinberg, co-host Christopher O'Brien, and a panel of special guest experts and experiencers, as they explore the realms of the known and unknown. Listen each week to the great stories of the history of the paranormal field in the 20th and 21st centuries.
This Week's Episode: Gene and Chris present a return appearance by crop circle investigator Nancy Talbott of BLT Research - Crop Circle Science. During this episode, Nancy introduces to our listeners Dutch psychic Robbert van den Broeke, who claims to possess a number of extraordinary abilities, such as the ability to see dead people, predict the future and, on occasion, serve as a conduit for so-called psychic photography, where mysterious images appear on photos that weren't seen when those pictures were taken. We will also ask the skeptical questions listeners have posted about Robbert's experiences.
Christopher O'Brien's Site: Home - Our Strange Planet
Nancy Talbott's Site: BLT Research - Crop Circle Science
Robbert van den Broeke's Site: Robbert van den Broeke \ Home
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. We recently completed a major update that makes our community easier to navigate, and social network friendly.
Adding Fiction to the Truth
By Gene Steinberg
Some people who follow what goes on in the paranormal realm are pretty much ready to believe any extraordinary claim, so long as the percipient seems sincere. “Use your gut,” they proclaim. If you believe someone is honest, more than likely they are telling the truth, even if that truth may stretch your belief system to the breaking point.
Others will suggest that society has its share of crooks and liars, and that pretty much any claim about a paranormal encounter can be chalked up to some sort of deliberate fakery, or the product of an overeager imagination. When it comes to alleged evidence, well some of those so-called UFO and ghost photos are obvious fakes. Even if you can’t see the cable dangling from the top of the picture that’s holding a flying saucer in place, the object is conventional, or a digital creation. Maybe someone simply pasted in an image scanned or created in Adobe Photoshop in order to embellish a photo that was otherwise without any visible anomaly.
Attempts to dispute the evidence appear, on the surface, to make sense. There are numerous photos, say, from a supposed psychic that illustrate figures that appear to have originated in a magazine or a book. It comes across as a clumsy or amateurish cut and paste job, but defenders of those photos will say that the potential originals aren’t identical to the ones in those photos. Maybe some shapes are off, resized, or tilted differently. But some of these effects may just be the result of careless efforts at manipulating a scanned image before they were pasted into a photo of an empty field or room.
It really doesn’t require a professional to deliver passable results in Photoshop. Any image, down to the smallest element, a pixel, can be morphed, recolored, reshaped and otherwise altered as part of the process of fakery. If a close up examination reveals the artifacts of how the strange photo was manipulated, that pretty much ends the discussion.
Even if there’s no clear and present evidence of the photo being a hoax, you are still left with the witness or witnesses. Can you believe them when they say they are telling you the truth? Do you trust your gut, or look for possible inconsistencies in their testimony? If they make an extreme claim that challenges your belief system, and there’s no evidence to back up those claims, or the evidence is flawed, that should be sufficient cause for disbelief.
But there may be gray areas to all this, and that’s one of the unfortunate issues in the paranormal field that makes some claims difficult to evaluate. Take the reports from some of the popular UFO contactees or psychics. They make questionable statements, deliver obviously faked photographic evidence, and sometimes perform stunts that might be compared to the illusions created by stage magicians.
Some researchers, however, suggest that at least some of these experiencers may have had a genuine paranormal encounter at one or more times in their lives. When they tell of those experiences, they quickly attract a lot of attention, which is to be expected. Sometimes they even encourage followers who hang on their every word, looking for wisdom, perhaps salvation, and sometimes even ways to heal them from physical or emotional ailments.
Basking in the adulation of the public from TV shows and other public appearances, and perhaps income from books or personal psychic “readings,” the experiencer is placed under an incredible amount of pressure. If we’re talking of an event that happens once or twice, and there’s nothing new to tell, perhaps the attention will eventually fade. But it is also true that some claimants have been able to attract ongoing attention if the original event was sufficiently unusual, even if it’s never repeated.
So it may be that some of the questionable claims we’ve heard over the years came from people who may have had genuine paranormal encounters at one or more times in their lives. But when 15 minutes of fame proved insufficient, they continued to embellish on the original stories, or perhaps invented new ones with or without the help of their followers, in order to remain in the public eye.
Now I wouldn’t presume to guess the names of the guilty parties. But I have my suspicions. Some even suggest that the late George Adamski, one of the early flying saucer contactees, had an unusual spiritual awakening of some sort. He even wrote a book about it, but attracted few followers. So he decided, as he supposedly once told one of his supporters early on, to enter the back door to present what he regarded as the truth. He fabricated a saucer landing in the California desert, shot some silly still photos of alleged alien craft, and authored a best-selling book on the subject.
His message, of peace and brotherhood, meant little if it came out of the mouth of Adamski. But if those same “revelations” were conveyed to him by advanced humans from another planet, that supposedly gave them more credibility. Or maybe not, since we later learned that the planets from which these creatures allegedly came couldn’t possibly harbor life as we know it. On the other hand, Adamski still has his followers after all these years.
Does that mean that I believe Adamski? Not necessarily, but it may explain why some of these people remain in the public eye. Their original experiences or messages seem to contain elements of truth or honesty that appeal to many people, either because they were real, or because these people are just good storytellers.
I’ll let the reader decide what to believe.
The Paracast Copyright 1999-2012 Making The Impossible, Inc. 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 28, 2012
Unusual Claims of Psychic Phenomena Explored on The Paracast
Special Announcement: The Paracast is heard Sundays from 2:00 AM until 5:00 AM Central Time on the GCN Radio Network and affiliates around the USA, and online across the globe via download and on-demand streaming.
Please Consider a Donation to The Paracast: Although ads help cover a small part of our expenses, the income they produce is never enough. Also, we do not receive any revenue from the ads placed on the show by our network or local stations. So we hope you're able to help fill the gap if you can to help us cover increasing server costs and other expenses -- or perhaps provide a little extra cash for lunch. No contribution is too small (or too large
. We have a Donate link on our home page, below the logo and audio player. There's also a Donate link on our forums, at the bottom of the sidebar on the right. Or just send your PayPal donation direct to sales (at) theparacast (dot) com.Attention U.S. Listeners: Help Us Bring The Paracast to Your City! In the summer of 2010, The Paracast joined the GCN radio network. This represented a huge step in bringing our show to a larger, mainstream audience. But we need your help to add additional affiliates to our growing network. Please ask one of your local talk stations if they are interested in carrying The Paracast. Feel free to contact us directly with the names of programming people we might be able to contact on your behalf. We can't do this alone, and if you succeed in convincing your local station to carry the show, we'll reward you with one of our special T-shirts, and other goodies. With your help, The Paracast can grow into one of the most popular paranormal shows on the planet!
Please Visit Our Brand New Online Store: You asked, and we answered. We are now taking orders for The Official Paracast T-Shirt and an expanded collection of other specially customized merchandise. To get your T-Shirt now featuring our brand new logo, just pay a visit to our online store at The Official Paracast Store to select your size and place your order. We also offer a complete lineup of other premium merchandise for your family, your friends and your business contacts.
Sunday, April 29, 2012: The Paracast covers a world beyond science, where UFOs, poltergeists and strange phenomena of all kinds have been reported by millions across the planet.
Set Up: The Paracast is a paranormal radio show that takes you on a journey to a world beyond science, where UFOs, poltergeists and strange phenomena of all kinds have been reported by millions. The Paracast seeks to shed light on the mysteries and complexities of our Universe and the secrets that surround us in our everyday lives.
Join long-time paranormal researcher Gene Steinberg, co-host Christopher O'Brien, and a panel of special guest experts and experiencers, as they explore the realms of the known and unknown. Listen each week to the great stories of the history of the paranormal field in the 20th and 21st centuries.
This Week's Episode: Gene and Chris present a return appearance by crop circle investigator Nancy Talbott of BLT Research - Crop Circle Science. During this episode, Nancy introduces to our listeners Dutch psychic Robbert van den Broeke, who claims to possess a number of extraordinary abilities, such as the ability to see dead people, predict the future and, on occasion, serve as a conduit for so-called psychic photography, where mysterious images appear on photos that weren't seen when those pictures were taken. We will also ask the skeptical questions listeners have posted about Robbert's experiences.
Christopher O'Brien's Site: Home - Our Strange Planet
Nancy Talbott's Site: BLT Research - Crop Circle Science
Robbert van den Broeke's Site: Robbert van den Broeke \ Home
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. We recently completed a major update that makes our community easier to navigate, and social network friendly.
Adding Fiction to the Truth
By Gene Steinberg
Some people who follow what goes on in the paranormal realm are pretty much ready to believe any extraordinary claim, so long as the percipient seems sincere. “Use your gut,” they proclaim. If you believe someone is honest, more than likely they are telling the truth, even if that truth may stretch your belief system to the breaking point.
Others will suggest that society has its share of crooks and liars, and that pretty much any claim about a paranormal encounter can be chalked up to some sort of deliberate fakery, or the product of an overeager imagination. When it comes to alleged evidence, well some of those so-called UFO and ghost photos are obvious fakes. Even if you can’t see the cable dangling from the top of the picture that’s holding a flying saucer in place, the object is conventional, or a digital creation. Maybe someone simply pasted in an image scanned or created in Adobe Photoshop in order to embellish a photo that was otherwise without any visible anomaly.
Attempts to dispute the evidence appear, on the surface, to make sense. There are numerous photos, say, from a supposed psychic that illustrate figures that appear to have originated in a magazine or a book. It comes across as a clumsy or amateurish cut and paste job, but defenders of those photos will say that the potential originals aren’t identical to the ones in those photos. Maybe some shapes are off, resized, or tilted differently. But some of these effects may just be the result of careless efforts at manipulating a scanned image before they were pasted into a photo of an empty field or room.
It really doesn’t require a professional to deliver passable results in Photoshop. Any image, down to the smallest element, a pixel, can be morphed, recolored, reshaped and otherwise altered as part of the process of fakery. If a close up examination reveals the artifacts of how the strange photo was manipulated, that pretty much ends the discussion.
Even if there’s no clear and present evidence of the photo being a hoax, you are still left with the witness or witnesses. Can you believe them when they say they are telling you the truth? Do you trust your gut, or look for possible inconsistencies in their testimony? If they make an extreme claim that challenges your belief system, and there’s no evidence to back up those claims, or the evidence is flawed, that should be sufficient cause for disbelief.
But there may be gray areas to all this, and that’s one of the unfortunate issues in the paranormal field that makes some claims difficult to evaluate. Take the reports from some of the popular UFO contactees or psychics. They make questionable statements, deliver obviously faked photographic evidence, and sometimes perform stunts that might be compared to the illusions created by stage magicians.
Some researchers, however, suggest that at least some of these experiencers may have had a genuine paranormal encounter at one or more times in their lives. When they tell of those experiences, they quickly attract a lot of attention, which is to be expected. Sometimes they even encourage followers who hang on their every word, looking for wisdom, perhaps salvation, and sometimes even ways to heal them from physical or emotional ailments.
Basking in the adulation of the public from TV shows and other public appearances, and perhaps income from books or personal psychic “readings,” the experiencer is placed under an incredible amount of pressure. If we’re talking of an event that happens once or twice, and there’s nothing new to tell, perhaps the attention will eventually fade. But it is also true that some claimants have been able to attract ongoing attention if the original event was sufficiently unusual, even if it’s never repeated.
So it may be that some of the questionable claims we’ve heard over the years came from people who may have had genuine paranormal encounters at one or more times in their lives. But when 15 minutes of fame proved insufficient, they continued to embellish on the original stories, or perhaps invented new ones with or without the help of their followers, in order to remain in the public eye.
Now I wouldn’t presume to guess the names of the guilty parties. But I have my suspicions. Some even suggest that the late George Adamski, one of the early flying saucer contactees, had an unusual spiritual awakening of some sort. He even wrote a book about it, but attracted few followers. So he decided, as he supposedly once told one of his supporters early on, to enter the back door to present what he regarded as the truth. He fabricated a saucer landing in the California desert, shot some silly still photos of alleged alien craft, and authored a best-selling book on the subject.
His message, of peace and brotherhood, meant little if it came out of the mouth of Adamski. But if those same “revelations” were conveyed to him by advanced humans from another planet, that supposedly gave them more credibility. Or maybe not, since we later learned that the planets from which these creatures allegedly came couldn’t possibly harbor life as we know it. On the other hand, Adamski still has his followers after all these years.
Does that mean that I believe Adamski? Not necessarily, but it may explain why some of these people remain in the public eye. Their original experiences or messages seem to contain elements of truth or honesty that appeal to many people, either because they were real, or because these people are just good storytellers.
I’ll let the reader decide what to believe.
The Paracast Copyright 1999-2012 Making The Impossible, Inc. 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!
