THE PARACAST NEWSLETTER
August 19, 2018
www.theparacast.com
Explore a Wide Range of Paranormal Phenomena with Nigel Watson on The Paracast
The Paracast is heard Sundays from 3:00 AM until 6:00 AM Central Time on the GCN Radio Network and affiliates around the USA, the Boost Radio Network, the IRN Internet Radio Network, and online across the globe via download and on-demand streaming.
SUPPORT THE SHOW AND ENJOY A PREMIUM PARACAST EXPERIENCE! 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 podcast, After The Paracast, plus a higher-quality version of The Paracast free of network ads, when you sign up for The Paracast+. We also offer a special RSS feed for easy updates of the latest episodes, the Paracast+ Video Channel, episode transcripts, Special Features, Classic Episodes and there’s more to come! We also feature selected podcasts and videos from Paul Kimball’s “Other Side of Truth,” and we are now offering special access to the first two episodes of the ghost haunting show he cohosts, "Haunted." Check out our new lower rates, starting at just $1.49 per week, plus our “Lifetime” membership and special free print and eBook book offers! For more information about our premium package, please visit: https://plus.theparacast.com/.
This Week's Episode: Gene and weekly cohost J. Randall Murphy present Nigel Watson, who has researched and investigated historical and contemporary reports of UFO sightings since the 1970s. He is the author of such books as “Portraits of Alien Encounters” (VALIS, 1990), “Phantom Aerial Flaps and Waves” (VALIS, 1990), “Supernatural Spielberg” (with Darren Slade, VALIS, 1992), editor/writer of “The Scareship Mystery: A Survey of Phantom Airship Scares, 1909-1918” (DOMRA, 2000) “The UFO Investigations Manual” (Haynes, 2013), and “UFOs of the First World War” (The History Press, 2015). He has also written for numerous books, publications and websites, including Magonia, Paranormal Magazine, Fortean Times, Wired, Flipside, How It Works, All About Space, Fate, Strange Magazine, Beyond, History Today, Aquila, Alien Worlds, UniLad, The Unexplained, Flying Saucer Review, UFO Magazine India and UFO Magazine (USA).
J. Randall Murphy's Ufology Society International: Ufology Society International (USI) - Explore the UFO Phenomenon
After The Paracast -- Available exclusively for Paracast+ subscribers on August 19: Gene is joined by weekly cohost J. Randall Murphy and special guest Tim Beckley as Tim remembers an indirect encounter with notorious conman Bill Knell, and how he tried to rip off a motel where the former was holding a UFO convention. The state of the book business is discussed as the crew talks abut the high price of the third edition of Jerome Clark’s “UFO Encyclopedia,” which is produced by an educational book publisher. The conversation soon moves into reports of hostile UFOs, which are described in Tim’s recent book, “UFO Hostilities and the Evil Alien Agenda,” where episodes of possible unfriendly acts by UFOs are described. There’s also a brief discussion of incidents involving possible spontaneous human combustion.
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. Check out our new YouTube channel at: The Official Paracast Channel
Specialization and the Paranormal
By Gene Steinberg
Before I get to how researchers specialize in paranormal research, let me talk to you about doctors, or at least those with which I’m familiar in the U.S. You probably know the routine. You develop some sort of medical condition, but when you visit your family doctor, if you can find one, you will be referred to one or more specialists to handle specific aspects of your condition.
Coordinating your care is, one hopes, the job of your regular doctor, and the rest are supposed to handle their own fields of expertise. Or maybe it’s all because you need a referral to see the specialist; at least that’s what some insurance companies require.
Maybe not for the common cold, but I can see where different symptoms may require additional doctor visits.
So how does any of this concern our corner of the world?
Well, think of the individual who sees a flying saucer, but also experiences one or more episodes of missing time, supplemented with nightmares about painful interactions with small spindly humanoids.
The traditional UFO researcher who is seeking evidence of spaceships will certainly want to look over the details of the sighting and evidence of a possible kidnapping by extraterrestrials. But if all or most of the details of an abduction are hidden, a mental health professional might be required, and surely not a researcher who took a brief course in hypnotic regression.
No, I’m not going to consider the value of regression in this column.
But what if further interviews deliver possible indications of ghost-like activity at the experiencer’s home? Would you then call out a team of ghost hunters armed with their various and sundry implements to seek out evidence of an afterlife?
What if, during this period, the witness sees a gigantic furry head of a humanoid monster in the window? Do we then call in the cryptozoologists to manage their areas of expertise?
This is starting to sound similar to what happens when what appears to be a routine illness expands to something that may involve different symptoms and treatments. thus requiring different practitioners.
Now when it comes to medical care, the physicians who are treating a single individual are supposedly working together to deal with a problem and find a cure or at least some level of relief.
But when it comes to the world of the paranormal, many researchers, when confronted with the UFO abductee who lives in a haunted house and sees Bigfoot, they will conclude there are at least three separate mysteries to be solved. If they believe that abductions present an experience divorced from the UFO sighting itself, that makes four.
As a result, there is seldom any coordination to assess what’s going on. It’s just the luck of the draw that all this phenomena is occurring at the same time. How could they possibly be related?
This explains why a UFO group such as MUFON is likely to treat the saucer sighting as a single phenomenon that is usually divorced from the eyewitness. Today they might see the UFO, tomorrow an airplane, but they are similar in that they involve separate flying objects that have nothing to do with the person who saw them. It was a strictly a matter of being in the right place at the right time.
Indeed, unless things have changed for the better in recent times, MUFON does not make it a habit of collecting data about events that they regard as unrelated. Another UFO? Sure, but not the Bigfoot or the ghost or episodes of furniture and dishes and cups bouncing across the kitchen. That’s someone else’s problem.
Now on a couple of occasions, I’ve asked MUFON representatives about whether they make it a habit of collecting information about other paranormal phenomena to flesh out the evidence. The answers are generally no, but they will record the data if it’s volunteered by the witness.
But not otherwise.
Now this column isn’t meant to denigrate the extraterrestrial hypothesis. As we find more and more evidence of extrasolar planets that have the potential to support life on other planets, it makes plenty of sense to expect that ET exists out there, and very likely in many forms.
So it stands to reason that we may indeed be undergoing visits from various and sundry forms of ET. It may, therefore, mean that the UFOs we see are from out there. It seems so logical, except for the fact that we cannot prove it. Sure, some people claim to have met up with extraterrestrials from time to time. Others claim to channel them, receiving messages from remote beings the claim to be aliens.
But even if you happen to encounter a strange being that identifies itself as coming from a specific location, perhaps a planet in a far-off star system, how can you know that it’s true. Because the being arrived in an aircraft that appears to represent an advanced technology? Because they said so? Does having superior abilities and/or flying machines somehow make a being more honest?
I suppose you’d like to think so considering that they are hundreds or thousands of years more advanced? But do humans behave any better in the 21st century because they have more sophisticated machines of war? Hardly! So why grant ET a higher level of moral achievement?
If such beings are real, why believe them?
And when it comes to the seemingly unrelated paranormal events that are reported, should it be an accepted fact that the UFO mystery is a totally separate phenomenon?
What about the intriguing similarities between near-death experiences and UFO abductions? If abductions do represent actual interactions with extraterrestrials, what about experiences reported by people who evidently died for a short time? Why should there be any resemblance, or are both illusions or encounters with another consciousness, or something within our selves that we only tap into under the right circumstances?
Must we assume that ghosts are truly spirits of the dead that hang out on this plane of existence until they fulfill some sort of undefined mission?
But what is Bigfoot’s mission?
Copyright 1999-2018 The Paracast LLC. 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!
August 19, 2018
www.theparacast.com
Explore a Wide Range of Paranormal Phenomena with Nigel Watson on The Paracast
The Paracast is heard Sundays from 3:00 AM until 6:00 AM Central Time on the GCN Radio Network and affiliates around the USA, the Boost Radio Network, the IRN Internet Radio Network, and online across the globe via download and on-demand streaming.
SUPPORT THE SHOW AND ENJOY A PREMIUM PARACAST EXPERIENCE! 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 podcast, After The Paracast, plus a higher-quality version of The Paracast free of network ads, when you sign up for The Paracast+. We also offer a special RSS feed for easy updates of the latest episodes, the Paracast+ Video Channel, episode transcripts, Special Features, Classic Episodes and there’s more to come! We also feature selected podcasts and videos from Paul Kimball’s “Other Side of Truth,” and we are now offering special access to the first two episodes of the ghost haunting show he cohosts, "Haunted." Check out our new lower rates, starting at just $1.49 per week, plus our “Lifetime” membership and special free print and eBook book offers! For more information about our premium package, please visit: https://plus.theparacast.com/.
This Week's Episode: Gene and weekly cohost J. Randall Murphy present Nigel Watson, who has researched and investigated historical and contemporary reports of UFO sightings since the 1970s. He is the author of such books as “Portraits of Alien Encounters” (VALIS, 1990), “Phantom Aerial Flaps and Waves” (VALIS, 1990), “Supernatural Spielberg” (with Darren Slade, VALIS, 1992), editor/writer of “The Scareship Mystery: A Survey of Phantom Airship Scares, 1909-1918” (DOMRA, 2000) “The UFO Investigations Manual” (Haynes, 2013), and “UFOs of the First World War” (The History Press, 2015). He has also written for numerous books, publications and websites, including Magonia, Paranormal Magazine, Fortean Times, Wired, Flipside, How It Works, All About Space, Fate, Strange Magazine, Beyond, History Today, Aquila, Alien Worlds, UniLad, The Unexplained, Flying Saucer Review, UFO Magazine India and UFO Magazine (USA).
J. Randall Murphy's Ufology Society International: Ufology Society International (USI) - Explore the UFO Phenomenon
After The Paracast -- Available exclusively for Paracast+ subscribers on August 19: Gene is joined by weekly cohost J. Randall Murphy and special guest Tim Beckley as Tim remembers an indirect encounter with notorious conman Bill Knell, and how he tried to rip off a motel where the former was holding a UFO convention. The state of the book business is discussed as the crew talks abut the high price of the third edition of Jerome Clark’s “UFO Encyclopedia,” which is produced by an educational book publisher. The conversation soon moves into reports of hostile UFOs, which are described in Tim’s recent book, “UFO Hostilities and the Evil Alien Agenda,” where episodes of possible unfriendly acts by UFOs are described. There’s also a brief discussion of incidents involving possible spontaneous human combustion.
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. Check out our new YouTube channel at: The Official Paracast Channel
Specialization and the Paranormal
By Gene Steinberg
Before I get to how researchers specialize in paranormal research, let me talk to you about doctors, or at least those with which I’m familiar in the U.S. You probably know the routine. You develop some sort of medical condition, but when you visit your family doctor, if you can find one, you will be referred to one or more specialists to handle specific aspects of your condition.
Coordinating your care is, one hopes, the job of your regular doctor, and the rest are supposed to handle their own fields of expertise. Or maybe it’s all because you need a referral to see the specialist; at least that’s what some insurance companies require.
Maybe not for the common cold, but I can see where different symptoms may require additional doctor visits.
So how does any of this concern our corner of the world?
Well, think of the individual who sees a flying saucer, but also experiences one or more episodes of missing time, supplemented with nightmares about painful interactions with small spindly humanoids.
The traditional UFO researcher who is seeking evidence of spaceships will certainly want to look over the details of the sighting and evidence of a possible kidnapping by extraterrestrials. But if all or most of the details of an abduction are hidden, a mental health professional might be required, and surely not a researcher who took a brief course in hypnotic regression.
No, I’m not going to consider the value of regression in this column.
But what if further interviews deliver possible indications of ghost-like activity at the experiencer’s home? Would you then call out a team of ghost hunters armed with their various and sundry implements to seek out evidence of an afterlife?
What if, during this period, the witness sees a gigantic furry head of a humanoid monster in the window? Do we then call in the cryptozoologists to manage their areas of expertise?
This is starting to sound similar to what happens when what appears to be a routine illness expands to something that may involve different symptoms and treatments. thus requiring different practitioners.
Now when it comes to medical care, the physicians who are treating a single individual are supposedly working together to deal with a problem and find a cure or at least some level of relief.
But when it comes to the world of the paranormal, many researchers, when confronted with the UFO abductee who lives in a haunted house and sees Bigfoot, they will conclude there are at least three separate mysteries to be solved. If they believe that abductions present an experience divorced from the UFO sighting itself, that makes four.
As a result, there is seldom any coordination to assess what’s going on. It’s just the luck of the draw that all this phenomena is occurring at the same time. How could they possibly be related?
This explains why a UFO group such as MUFON is likely to treat the saucer sighting as a single phenomenon that is usually divorced from the eyewitness. Today they might see the UFO, tomorrow an airplane, but they are similar in that they involve separate flying objects that have nothing to do with the person who saw them. It was a strictly a matter of being in the right place at the right time.
Indeed, unless things have changed for the better in recent times, MUFON does not make it a habit of collecting data about events that they regard as unrelated. Another UFO? Sure, but not the Bigfoot or the ghost or episodes of furniture and dishes and cups bouncing across the kitchen. That’s someone else’s problem.
Now on a couple of occasions, I’ve asked MUFON representatives about whether they make it a habit of collecting information about other paranormal phenomena to flesh out the evidence. The answers are generally no, but they will record the data if it’s volunteered by the witness.
But not otherwise.
Now this column isn’t meant to denigrate the extraterrestrial hypothesis. As we find more and more evidence of extrasolar planets that have the potential to support life on other planets, it makes plenty of sense to expect that ET exists out there, and very likely in many forms.
So it stands to reason that we may indeed be undergoing visits from various and sundry forms of ET. It may, therefore, mean that the UFOs we see are from out there. It seems so logical, except for the fact that we cannot prove it. Sure, some people claim to have met up with extraterrestrials from time to time. Others claim to channel them, receiving messages from remote beings the claim to be aliens.
But even if you happen to encounter a strange being that identifies itself as coming from a specific location, perhaps a planet in a far-off star system, how can you know that it’s true. Because the being arrived in an aircraft that appears to represent an advanced technology? Because they said so? Does having superior abilities and/or flying machines somehow make a being more honest?
I suppose you’d like to think so considering that they are hundreds or thousands of years more advanced? But do humans behave any better in the 21st century because they have more sophisticated machines of war? Hardly! So why grant ET a higher level of moral achievement?
If such beings are real, why believe them?
And when it comes to the seemingly unrelated paranormal events that are reported, should it be an accepted fact that the UFO mystery is a totally separate phenomenon?
What about the intriguing similarities between near-death experiences and UFO abductions? If abductions do represent actual interactions with extraterrestrials, what about experiences reported by people who evidently died for a short time? Why should there be any resemblance, or are both illusions or encounters with another consciousness, or something within our selves that we only tap into under the right circumstances?
Must we assume that ghosts are truly spirits of the dead that hang out on this plane of existence until they fulfill some sort of undefined mission?
But what is Bigfoot’s mission?
Copyright 1999-2018 The Paracast LLC. 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!