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Your Paracast Newsletter — August 9, 2020


Gene Steinberg

Forum Super Hero
Staff member
The Paracast Newsletter
August 9, 2020
www.theparacast.com

Paranormal Research Gets a Reality Check from Bryan Bonner on The Paracast!


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This Week's Episode: Gene and Randall welcome a return visit from skeptical researcher Bryan Bonner, from Colorado's Rocky Mountain Paranormal Research Society, who talks about a variety of paranormal topics, such as the quality of UFO research and evidence and the ongoing MUFON "follies." Bryan has been examining a wide range of reported paranormal phenomena for over two decades. From ghosts, poltergeists, psychics, and urban legends, to UFOs, conspiracy theories and much more, Bryan steers clear of the sensationalism. From the field to the lab, he tests bizarre beliefs and practices, conducts experiments and on-site investigations, and recreates unusual events. He has confronted hauntings, Ouija board activity, levitation, psychic readings, alien abductions, and telephones that try to talk to the dead.

J. Randall Murphy's Ufology Society International: Ufology Society International (USI) - Explore the UFO Phenomenon

Rocky Mountain Paranormal Research Society: Rocky Mountain Paranormal Research Society,

After The Paracast -- Available exclusively for Paracast+ subscribers on August 9: Skeptical paranormal researcher Bryan Bonner, from the Colorado-based Rocky Mountain Paranormal Research Society, returns to discuss the actual causes of the so-called "exploding head syndrome" and also sleep paralysis phenomena. The latter is sometimes attributed to possible UFO abductions. He also talks to Gene and Randall about the organization's "Parastupid" investigations, where they find conventional explanations for what appears to be extraordinary phenomena. With extensive experience and training; using a collection of equipment and the most important tool, critical thinking, Bryan utilizes stage magic, mentalism and science to seek the evidence to solve the mysteries, and, where possible, close the cases.

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

So Maybe We Don’t Care About a Solution to the UFO Mystery?

By Gene Steinberg

In the late 1950s through the next decade or so, the world of flying saucer or UFO research was a brand new universe for many. It was a terrific time to get involved, as I did beginning in my early teens.

In those days, I encountered fellow travelers around the U.S. who shared my views, and sometimes we even formed small clubs to continue our studies — or at least get together. But since there was no Internet or smartphone to keep in touch, we used regular old snail mail.

And on the rare occasions where our parents would tolerate the long distance telephone bills, we even talked to our friends. But, for me at least, that didn’t happen very often, and when it did I had to explain away the high costs of these conversations.

Physical meetings were rare.

Today I talk to my son, who lives nearly 6,000 miles away in Madrid, with WhatsApp. Call quality is superb, and it’s always free. So in these days, you can easily be in touch with too many people.

In any case, I don’t think any of us who got involved with chasing the flying saucers in the early days had any long-range plans. It was a way to enjoy a hobby, stay out of trouble, or just not have to cope with the social complexities of teenage life.

By and large, we didn’t expect such pursuits to survive through middle age and old age. It just didn’t make sense that science would fail, in large part, to take the mystery seriously, and thus fail to find a solution.

And didn’t such saucer celebrities as Major Donald Keyhoe claim that the Silence Group within the U.S. Air Force would soon tell all about our space visitors?

Or maybe the saucer people would decide to take matters into their own hands and pay us visits. It’s not that we felt they could be hostile; that was fodder for Grade B sci-fi films, but we knew better.

As for the UFO groups run by adults, I wonder if they had much in the way of long-range plans that would survive the decades.

Take Keyhoe, the pioneer UFO writer and lecturer, who ran NICAP for a number of years. He likened it to a lobbying organization, hoping he would soon put it out of business when the U.S. Congress decided to take it seriously and expose the coverup.

When Congress gave us the Condon Report, considered a whitewash, it wasn’t long before Keyhoe was ejected from NICAP due to alleged irregularities in his management of the organization’s finances. Few at the time realized that Keyhoe largely consigned the day-to-day affairs of NICAP’s office to such people as Richard Hall.

Another major organization of the time, APRO, was run by Jim and Corel Lorenzen, and it didn’t survive for very long after their deaths. But APRO built up a credible set of case files about sightings around the world, which they labeled as UAO’s or Unidentified Aerial Objects. In eschewing the flying saucer or UFO labeling, they almost existed in an alternative universe.

Unfortunately, most or all of APRO’s files remain locked in file cabinets, in the hands of people that refuse to allow anyone to open them and check out the wealth of material.

Now MUFON began its life in 1969 as a splinter group that spun off from APRO. At first the “M” stood for Midwest, but in the 1970s they chose “Mutual” as the logical way to remove the regional designation. Strange that it took so long.

Now MUFON is still here, and maybe it’s kept its few thousand members interested in the topic, but it’s questionable that it has otherwise accomplished anything meaningful in finding any significant answers.

It doesn’t matter, I suppose, since most MUFON members believe UFOs are spaceships, and that the organization is mostly around to spread the word. There is no detailed long-range plan to take research off dead center, just vague goals that sound good on paper but little more.

Now when and if science finds an answer, or the governments of Earth reveal it — if they have such knowledge — what will happen to all those UFO clubs anyway? Will they take upon a public relations role to get the word out, or be forced to sit on the sidelines and let government spin-doctors, scientists and the mainstream news media do the heavy lifting.

Indeed, most of the UFO information these days doesn’t come from so-called research organizations. Instead, you read about it in The New York Times or other respected sources of real journalism.

Or from the To the Stars Academy of Arts and Sciences, founded by Tom DeLonge, a rock and roll singer.

Now that company has had a curious history. According to a Wikipedia entry on DeLonge: “In a 2018 financial statement filed with the SEC, the company reported that it ‘has incurred losses from operations and has an accumulated deficit at June 30, 2018 of $37,432,000. These factors raise doubt about the Company’s ability to continue as a going concern. ’ ”

The organization continues to exist, but the offer of shares in the company is no longer featured on its home page. It’s listed as “closed,” which perhaps means that its financial woes have been solved.

I wonder how. It would be nice to know who is paying the bills.

The UFO connection isn’t as clear as it could be. TTSA uses the phrase “anomalous data” on its home page, and it requires a click here and there to realize it’s about UAPs.

Perhaps TTSA hopes or expects to play a role in helping to manage the release of UFO information to the public when and if disclosure occurs. Or will it just disappear, buried in the revelations about the “secret” from other sources? It’s hard to know.

Now when it comes to paranormal radio shows, I’ve little doubt that The Paracast will continue to present episodes about the strange and unknown. Even if UFOs become generally accepted as one thing or another, we will all have a role to play even if it’s mostly about exploring the history of the subject, or maybe we’ll turn our attention more towards other “unsolved mysteries” such as ghosts or Bigfoot.

Or maybe none of this will happen, and I will pass on to my “reward” without seeing any final answers. If past is prologue, how could it be otherwise?

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Or from the To the Stars Academy of Arts and Sciences, founded by Tom DeLonge, a rock and roll singer ... that company has had a curious history ...
It would be nice to know who is paying the bills.
Indeed. Some excellent points in your editorial. There are a few who have thought through some of the ramifications of capital "D" Disclosure. But if this pandemic is any indication of how people will behave, it's that the masses won't really care so long as it doesn't impact their day-to-day routines. If some alien craft lands on the golf course while the president is playing a round, the aliens would likely be asked if they wouldn't mind landing someplace else and making an appointment.

The world has been ready for ET to land for decades now. It's been so ready that the excitement is largely gone and people have become bored with the idea. We talk to people on late night radio who happen to be awake and mostly want to listen just for a break the dead silence. Some days I really wonder why we bother. What keeps me going is that I know there are other genuine firsthand witnesses out there who know that seeing an alien craft leaves a very different impression than sci-fi or books.

That's not to say that those who have become believers by doing their homework don't matter ( they do ). However experiencers are the ones that will give them validation when the skeptics are tearing them down. We don't need the government to tell us alien visitation is a reality. We already know. We'd just like to know how much more they know than us ?
 
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