THE PARACAST NEWSLETTER
February 28, 2016
www.theparacast.com
We Celebrate the 10th Anniversary of 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 for a low subscription fee, you will receive access to After The Paracast, plus a higher-quality version of The Paracast without the network ads, and chat rooms when you sign up for The Paracast+. NEW! We’ve added an RSS feed for fast updates of the latest episodes and we give free ebooks for long-term subscriptions. We’ve just launched The Paracast+ Video Channel. Check out our new “Lifetime” membership! For more information about our premium package, please visit: Introducing The Paracast+ | The Paracast — The Gold Standard of Paranormal Radio.
This Week's Episode: We observe ten years of The Paracast with a special roundtable featuring two of our guest co-hosts over the years, Greg Bishop, of "Radio Misterioso," film producer Paul Kimball, and long-time forum participant and moderator Goggs Mackay. We talk about the state of paranormal research, how our views have changed over the years when it comes to individual cases, such as Roswell, and the possible causes of the UFO phenomenon. The panel also discusses things that might be done to make research more productive; what about the evidence contained in those UFO databases, what about free and transparent evaluation of all the evidence? The discussion also includes the plight of the experiencer, how their lives have been impacted by their experience, and where UFO abductions may fit in. And what about "panic in the woods" and the "Oz Factor"? The discussion continues on this week's episode of After The Paracast.
Chris O’Brien’s Site: Our Strange Planet
Radio Misterioso: Radio Misterioso | In-depth conversations on the paranormal alternating with weird music. Live on Sundays 8-10 PM PST @ killradio.org
Paul Kimball’s Blog: Paul Andrew Kimball | Filmmaker, author, blue sky thinker, historian, progressive, fortean, Nova Scotian
After The Paracast -- Available exclusively to Paracast+ subscribers on February 28:SPECIAL DOUBLE-LENGTH EPISODE (PG-13): The 10th anniversary observance of The Paracast continues with Gene and Chris plus Greg Bishop, Paul Kimball and Goggs Mackay. They discuss the influence of podcasts, and why UFO-oriented conventions are playing to an increasingly older audience. Yes, we do mention the Comic-Con, which can attract well over 100,000 participants. Paul wonders why UFO conferences have, by and large, become an old boy network with an elitist attitude (conscious or otherwise) on the part of some of the researcher/lecturers. The discussion moves to some anecdotes about UFO conventions. The panel also focuses on some of the issues involving a certain UFO disclosure advocate that is regarded as tone-deaf, not to mention the rantings from former Canadian government official Paul Hellyer.
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.
UFOs: Browse, Collect, Investigate and Research
By Gene Steinberg
Back when I first got involved in the UFO game, as a teenager, I proudly considered myself a researcher — a UFO researcher. In the real world, perhaps I did some armchair research, trying to actually think about what was causing the phenomenon. But when it came to investigating anything, there answer was mostly no.
It’s not that I didn’t want to investigate. It was a matter of time, money and the inability to actually travel to visit the people who saw them. Well, maybe I made a few phone calls, but this was at a time when calling outside of your local area was expensive. It wasn’t the sort of thing a middle-class kid from Brooklyn, New York would do without attracting the wrath of one’s parents.
Well, I did run up the phone bill from time to time, but that’s another story.
In any case, most people who follow UFO lore these days are just browsing, not researching anything. They read material online, perhaps a printed book or two, and that’s pretty much it. Well, except for those TV reality shows. But nowadays, a number of the shows that you can watch on what some call the “idiot box” is a reality show, even if it pretends to be news.
For some, an interest in UFOs passes from browsing to collecting. You buy — or download — books and set up a library of such material. So you can go back and read the material, and if you do it intently, with an eye towards figuring out what’s really going on, you might indeed rightly call yourself a researcher.
For the most part, however, it’s more a matter of acceptance than investigating or researching. So most of the people who believe UFOs are real probably believe they’re are spaceships, and perhaps they are. If you actually examine the theories most books on the subject propound — or accept with little or no questioning — it’s all about spaceships. How could it be otherwise?
Besides, with our discovery of possible Earth-like planets out there, surely advanced spacefaring civilizations have evolved on some of them. There it makes total sense. Some are visiting our galactic neighborhood because they are only a few dozen light years away — child’s play to an advanced race — or they have mastered the techniques of traveling across the galaxy without it taking thousands or millions of years.
Where is Scotty when we need him?
There are a few prominent UFO organizations around the world that pretend to do more.
Here in the U.S., the most popular UFO group is MUFON. Its goals are all about doing scientific research to come up with a solution to the UFO mystery, but most of the members and its leadership are simply advancing the ET cause. How often do you see detailed speculation in a MUFON newsletter evaluating the worth of different theories and how they might be applied to the existing evidence?
MUFON has a team of field investigators — volunteers all — that will actually visit and interview witnesses to UFO events. For the most part, the reports, at least as published at MUFON’s site or in their monthly newsletter, focus on the details of something seen flying in the air. There’s little emphasis on the prior life experiences and expectations of a witness, nor on what may have happened after the sighting. So, for example, has the witness seen anything else that appears to be out of the ordinary?
So in the end, MUFON is mostly gathering evidence of presumed metallic aircraft to buttress a belief in extraterrestrial visitors. How can it be otherwise?
Did that witness ever see a ghost or another strange apparition? What about Bigfoot or some other mysterious creature? Were there events in their personal — or family — experience that also defy explanation? The exceptions may be when someone believes they have been abducted by aliens.
So can MUFON’s goal actually be achieved? Indeed, other than conducting simple investigations of a sighting, or receiving a completed report, what’s actually being done to search for patterns of some sort, maybe get a fuller picture of how many different kinds of lights and possible objects are being reported? Is it possible to create composite pictures of the various types of UFOs most frequently reported? What about close encounters, or do most sightings involve seeing strange things in the distance, rather than up close?
What does MUFON do to filter out or correct the usual inconsistencies in eyewitness testimony?
Does MUFON make an effort to cooperate with other UFO organizations, maybe to pool their research and get a fuller picture of what’s actually going on? Or does MUFON exist in a vacuum unto itself, only paying lip service to working with outsiders?
I think most of you know the answer.
At least the name of Peter Davenport’s UFO group, National UFO Reporting Center, makes it clear what he’s doing. He’s receiving UFO reports, and, with some encouragement, persuading some eyewitnesses to take the time to enter their information manually in his online database.
Does anyone actually go in there, review a report and follow up to obtain missing information, or reconcile inconsistent details? No, and the reports are limited by the fact that untrained witnesses are being asked to do the heavy lifting, by writing down their own experiences. As Davenport admits, it’s not an efficient process, since most people, after reporting something on the phone, will seldom take the time to do a follow-up. Since he has no staff to actually investigate anything, important evidence may be overlooked simply because nobody bothered to check.
Alas, this is very much the state of UFO research today. It’s a closed loop system that lives in a bubble where all or most credible UFO sightings must be spaceships, and it’s quite possible the government knows the truth but has to be coerced — or forced — to admit that presumed fact. In the UFO universe, you don’t need to find the answers, because the authorities already know. You just have to send them a big enough petition, or a properly-worded demand, and perhaps they’ll come to our rescue and let us in on the secret.
Yes, there are exceptions, we eccentrics who regard the UFO enigma as only a part of an all-encompassing mystery that may include a variety of strange and sometimes frightening events. Maybe we are a part of that mystery, self-generating, individually or collectively, paranormal events of one sort or another. Maybe the presence of UFOs answers an innate need, to impel humankind to finally leave planet Earth and explore the stars. Or maybe to expand our consciousness to take human evolution to the next level, whatever that is.
At the very least, it remains abundantly clear that there are no easy answers.
Copyright 1999-2016 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!
February 28, 2016
www.theparacast.com
We Celebrate the 10th Anniversary of 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 for a low subscription fee, you will receive access to After The Paracast, plus a higher-quality version of The Paracast without the network ads, and chat rooms when you sign up for The Paracast+. NEW! We’ve added an RSS feed for fast updates of the latest episodes and we give free ebooks for long-term subscriptions. We’ve just launched The Paracast+ Video Channel. Check out our new “Lifetime” membership! For more information about our premium package, please visit: Introducing The Paracast+ | The Paracast — The Gold Standard of Paranormal Radio.
This Week's Episode: We observe ten years of The Paracast with a special roundtable featuring two of our guest co-hosts over the years, Greg Bishop, of "Radio Misterioso," film producer Paul Kimball, and long-time forum participant and moderator Goggs Mackay. We talk about the state of paranormal research, how our views have changed over the years when it comes to individual cases, such as Roswell, and the possible causes of the UFO phenomenon. The panel also discusses things that might be done to make research more productive; what about the evidence contained in those UFO databases, what about free and transparent evaluation of all the evidence? The discussion also includes the plight of the experiencer, how their lives have been impacted by their experience, and where UFO abductions may fit in. And what about "panic in the woods" and the "Oz Factor"? The discussion continues on this week's episode of After The Paracast.
Chris O’Brien’s Site: Our Strange Planet
Radio Misterioso: Radio Misterioso | In-depth conversations on the paranormal alternating with weird music. Live on Sundays 8-10 PM PST @ killradio.org
Paul Kimball’s Blog: Paul Andrew Kimball | Filmmaker, author, blue sky thinker, historian, progressive, fortean, Nova Scotian
After The Paracast -- Available exclusively to Paracast+ subscribers on February 28:SPECIAL DOUBLE-LENGTH EPISODE (PG-13): The 10th anniversary observance of The Paracast continues with Gene and Chris plus Greg Bishop, Paul Kimball and Goggs Mackay. They discuss the influence of podcasts, and why UFO-oriented conventions are playing to an increasingly older audience. Yes, we do mention the Comic-Con, which can attract well over 100,000 participants. Paul wonders why UFO conferences have, by and large, become an old boy network with an elitist attitude (conscious or otherwise) on the part of some of the researcher/lecturers. The discussion moves to some anecdotes about UFO conventions. The panel also focuses on some of the issues involving a certain UFO disclosure advocate that is regarded as tone-deaf, not to mention the rantings from former Canadian government official Paul Hellyer.
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.
UFOs: Browse, Collect, Investigate and Research
By Gene Steinberg
Back when I first got involved in the UFO game, as a teenager, I proudly considered myself a researcher — a UFO researcher. In the real world, perhaps I did some armchair research, trying to actually think about what was causing the phenomenon. But when it came to investigating anything, there answer was mostly no.
It’s not that I didn’t want to investigate. It was a matter of time, money and the inability to actually travel to visit the people who saw them. Well, maybe I made a few phone calls, but this was at a time when calling outside of your local area was expensive. It wasn’t the sort of thing a middle-class kid from Brooklyn, New York would do without attracting the wrath of one’s parents.
Well, I did run up the phone bill from time to time, but that’s another story.
In any case, most people who follow UFO lore these days are just browsing, not researching anything. They read material online, perhaps a printed book or two, and that’s pretty much it. Well, except for those TV reality shows. But nowadays, a number of the shows that you can watch on what some call the “idiot box” is a reality show, even if it pretends to be news.
For some, an interest in UFOs passes from browsing to collecting. You buy — or download — books and set up a library of such material. So you can go back and read the material, and if you do it intently, with an eye towards figuring out what’s really going on, you might indeed rightly call yourself a researcher.
For the most part, however, it’s more a matter of acceptance than investigating or researching. So most of the people who believe UFOs are real probably believe they’re are spaceships, and perhaps they are. If you actually examine the theories most books on the subject propound — or accept with little or no questioning — it’s all about spaceships. How could it be otherwise?
Besides, with our discovery of possible Earth-like planets out there, surely advanced spacefaring civilizations have evolved on some of them. There it makes total sense. Some are visiting our galactic neighborhood because they are only a few dozen light years away — child’s play to an advanced race — or they have mastered the techniques of traveling across the galaxy without it taking thousands or millions of years.
Where is Scotty when we need him?
There are a few prominent UFO organizations around the world that pretend to do more.
Here in the U.S., the most popular UFO group is MUFON. Its goals are all about doing scientific research to come up with a solution to the UFO mystery, but most of the members and its leadership are simply advancing the ET cause. How often do you see detailed speculation in a MUFON newsletter evaluating the worth of different theories and how they might be applied to the existing evidence?
MUFON has a team of field investigators — volunteers all — that will actually visit and interview witnesses to UFO events. For the most part, the reports, at least as published at MUFON’s site or in their monthly newsletter, focus on the details of something seen flying in the air. There’s little emphasis on the prior life experiences and expectations of a witness, nor on what may have happened after the sighting. So, for example, has the witness seen anything else that appears to be out of the ordinary?
So in the end, MUFON is mostly gathering evidence of presumed metallic aircraft to buttress a belief in extraterrestrial visitors. How can it be otherwise?
Did that witness ever see a ghost or another strange apparition? What about Bigfoot or some other mysterious creature? Were there events in their personal — or family — experience that also defy explanation? The exceptions may be when someone believes they have been abducted by aliens.
So can MUFON’s goal actually be achieved? Indeed, other than conducting simple investigations of a sighting, or receiving a completed report, what’s actually being done to search for patterns of some sort, maybe get a fuller picture of how many different kinds of lights and possible objects are being reported? Is it possible to create composite pictures of the various types of UFOs most frequently reported? What about close encounters, or do most sightings involve seeing strange things in the distance, rather than up close?
What does MUFON do to filter out or correct the usual inconsistencies in eyewitness testimony?
Does MUFON make an effort to cooperate with other UFO organizations, maybe to pool their research and get a fuller picture of what’s actually going on? Or does MUFON exist in a vacuum unto itself, only paying lip service to working with outsiders?
I think most of you know the answer.
At least the name of Peter Davenport’s UFO group, National UFO Reporting Center, makes it clear what he’s doing. He’s receiving UFO reports, and, with some encouragement, persuading some eyewitnesses to take the time to enter their information manually in his online database.
Does anyone actually go in there, review a report and follow up to obtain missing information, or reconcile inconsistent details? No, and the reports are limited by the fact that untrained witnesses are being asked to do the heavy lifting, by writing down their own experiences. As Davenport admits, it’s not an efficient process, since most people, after reporting something on the phone, will seldom take the time to do a follow-up. Since he has no staff to actually investigate anything, important evidence may be overlooked simply because nobody bothered to check.
Alas, this is very much the state of UFO research today. It’s a closed loop system that lives in a bubble where all or most credible UFO sightings must be spaceships, and it’s quite possible the government knows the truth but has to be coerced — or forced — to admit that presumed fact. In the UFO universe, you don’t need to find the answers, because the authorities already know. You just have to send them a big enough petition, or a properly-worded demand, and perhaps they’ll come to our rescue and let us in on the secret.
Yes, there are exceptions, we eccentrics who regard the UFO enigma as only a part of an all-encompassing mystery that may include a variety of strange and sometimes frightening events. Maybe we are a part of that mystery, self-generating, individually or collectively, paranormal events of one sort or another. Maybe the presence of UFOs answers an innate need, to impel humankind to finally leave planet Earth and explore the stars. Or maybe to expand our consciousness to take human evolution to the next level, whatever that is.
At the very least, it remains abundantly clear that there are no easy answers.
Copyright 1999-2016 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!