THE PARACAST NEWSLETTER
May 12, 2013
The Nuts and Bolts of the UFO Mystery 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.
Why It's Important for You to Donate to The Paracast: Although ads help cover a small part of our expenses, the income they produce is never enough to pay your humble hosts decent wages. 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 and utility bills. No contribution is too small (or too large
. It’s easy to send a donation. 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. And if you’ve had a problem getting to our Donate screen, please try again. We just fixed a serious PayPal access problem, and it should work properly now.
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 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.
About The Paracast: 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 and acclaimed field investigator 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 return to the nuts and bolts fundamentals of flying saucers by presenting Peter Davenport, director of the National UFO Reporting Center (NUFORC), who discusses the key UFO cases that he outlined during his presentation before the Citizen Hearing on Disclosure, and his opinions about what the government might really know about the UFO mystery.
Chris O'Brien's Site: Our Strange Planet
The National UFO Reporting Center National UFO Reporting Center
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.
Extraterrestrial UFOs: Is it All About Assumptions?
By Gene Steinberg
If you’re a regular listener to The Paracast, you know that we take the position that there is a real UFO mystery that cries out for a solution, but we cannot be certain that we’re actually dealing with visitors from other planets. But it’s also true that the vast majority of people who believe in UFOs assume that ET is the answer. No ifs, ands, or buts.
So how do we make the leap from unidentified to identified?
Well, to many who believe in the extraterrestrial hypothesis (ETH), it’s essentially a process of elimination. UFOs appear to be real, metallic and intelligently controlled. They are capable of incredible feats of maneuverability far beyond what known terrestrial aircraft can do. They are tracked on radar while simultaneously being visible by the human eye. They can be photographed and sometimes leave trace evidence. So if real, who is piloting those things, or is it run by a robotic or driverless system? Of course, the navigation system can be automated even though a live crew might be on board.
Now add to that reports of entities seen around UFOs, sometimes taking soil samples, which brings to mind the opening scenes in the Steven Spielberg’s blockbuster sci-fi flick, “ET: The Extraterrestrial.” What about all those people who claim to have come up close and personal with aliens? What about UFO abductions?
The next argument is simple: Since we don’t have craft that can maneuver like that, and they are real, they must be extraterrestrial. And what about those non-human occupants? End of story. What else could they be?
Of course, this conclusion doesn’t rely on actual evidence that demonstrates the origin of UFOs. It’s based on negative evidence. It can’t be this, it can’t be that, so what else could it be?
Now it’s fair to say that most UFOs can be identified as conventional objects and phenomena of one sort or another. Regular aircraft is very common, or maybe a planet seen under unusual circumstances. But one often-neglected possibility is test aircraft. It’s not as if governments will always tell their citizens what they are working on in test facilities.
How advanced are they? Good question. Some suggest that such test facilities as Area 51 in Nevada might be home to stuff years ahead of the aircraft with which we are familiar. Perhaps such craft is capable of feats of maneuverability that far exceed what so-called “conventional” aircraft can muster. So it’s possible some of the sightings that are flagged as possible spaceships are nothing of the kind. It’s not that our military will admit the truth. Since they deny UFOs exist, they can just as easily deny the existence of advanced test aircraft.
Regardless, there’s a residue of cases that cannot be explained. While it is certainly possible that we have recovered crashed saucers over the years, and perhaps their occupants, such stories ultimately lack the final proof. Where’s the corpus delicti?
Sure, there are so-called whistleblower claims of seeing the downed spaceships and perhaps alien bodies. The stories are sometimes compelling, but ultimately lack physical evidence. We can argue till the end of time whether we have the smoking gun on ice somewhere, but until it’s produced, the argument will never end.
But it is also comforting to believe that someone knows the answer about the origin and purpose of UFOs. That eases the burden on any individual to figure out a solution, and it also fuels the cries for disclosure. The government knows the truth, and the people have the right to know. But, aside from possibly having more sighting reports that we’ve heard about, can we be certain that any government knows the truth?
That’s almost bad as the wishful thinking that UFOs must be extraterrestrial because, well, what else could they be?
Remember, too, that we are looking at the UFO enigma through the eyes of humans in the early 21st century. Two thousand years ago, we would have believed that UFOs were visitors from heaven, emissaries of the Gods or whatever. Today, we regard such beliefs as primitive. We are highly advanced. We can send tiny exploratory craft to other planets, so we know what we are seeing. We evaluate UFOs in terms of our understanding of the universe. Since there is mounting evidence of life-bearing planets elsewhere in the galaxy, it doesn’t take much of a stretch to assume that some host advanced civilizations that have perfected travel among the stars.
So, therefore, some of them are probably coming here to see what’s going on.
But don’t forget that, two thousand years from now, if humans survive, the fruits of our civilization will be regarded as extremely primitive. If UFOs are still around, they will likely be viewed in terms of a much more substantial understanding about how things work. The UFO researchers of the day may have totally different theories about what’s going on.
Of course, that assumes there will still be a mystery that remains unsolved, or even that anyone will even care. It doesn’t address the possibility that UFOs are, themselves, visitors from a future time, or even a parallel universe. Or represent our personal interactions with a phenomenon that we cannot understand, a phenomenon that we perceive according to our own understanding of the universe.
Or even that what we see is what is what is actually there.
Such ideas, however, are far more difficult to relate to by most people. We all want simple answers, not complex questions. UFOs are spaceships because that makes sense in light of our understanding of the phenomenon and our universe. But that also excludes cases, or details of cases, that are sometimes ignored because they don’t fit the ETH.
But that opens up a new discussion that I’ll focus on in the weeks to come.
The Paracast Copyright 1999-2013 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!
May 12, 2013
The Nuts and Bolts of the UFO Mystery 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.
Why It's Important for You to Donate to The Paracast: Although ads help cover a small part of our expenses, the income they produce is never enough to pay your humble hosts decent wages. 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 and utility bills. No contribution is too small (or too large
. It’s easy to send a donation. 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. And if you’ve had a problem getting to our Donate screen, please try again. We just fixed a serious PayPal access problem, and it should work properly now.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 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.
About The Paracast: 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 and acclaimed field investigator 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 return to the nuts and bolts fundamentals of flying saucers by presenting Peter Davenport, director of the National UFO Reporting Center (NUFORC), who discusses the key UFO cases that he outlined during his presentation before the Citizen Hearing on Disclosure, and his opinions about what the government might really know about the UFO mystery.
Chris O'Brien's Site: Our Strange Planet
The National UFO Reporting Center National UFO Reporting Center
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.
Extraterrestrial UFOs: Is it All About Assumptions?
By Gene Steinberg
If you’re a regular listener to The Paracast, you know that we take the position that there is a real UFO mystery that cries out for a solution, but we cannot be certain that we’re actually dealing with visitors from other planets. But it’s also true that the vast majority of people who believe in UFOs assume that ET is the answer. No ifs, ands, or buts.
So how do we make the leap from unidentified to identified?
Well, to many who believe in the extraterrestrial hypothesis (ETH), it’s essentially a process of elimination. UFOs appear to be real, metallic and intelligently controlled. They are capable of incredible feats of maneuverability far beyond what known terrestrial aircraft can do. They are tracked on radar while simultaneously being visible by the human eye. They can be photographed and sometimes leave trace evidence. So if real, who is piloting those things, or is it run by a robotic or driverless system? Of course, the navigation system can be automated even though a live crew might be on board.
Now add to that reports of entities seen around UFOs, sometimes taking soil samples, which brings to mind the opening scenes in the Steven Spielberg’s blockbuster sci-fi flick, “ET: The Extraterrestrial.” What about all those people who claim to have come up close and personal with aliens? What about UFO abductions?
The next argument is simple: Since we don’t have craft that can maneuver like that, and they are real, they must be extraterrestrial. And what about those non-human occupants? End of story. What else could they be?
Of course, this conclusion doesn’t rely on actual evidence that demonstrates the origin of UFOs. It’s based on negative evidence. It can’t be this, it can’t be that, so what else could it be?
Now it’s fair to say that most UFOs can be identified as conventional objects and phenomena of one sort or another. Regular aircraft is very common, or maybe a planet seen under unusual circumstances. But one often-neglected possibility is test aircraft. It’s not as if governments will always tell their citizens what they are working on in test facilities.
How advanced are they? Good question. Some suggest that such test facilities as Area 51 in Nevada might be home to stuff years ahead of the aircraft with which we are familiar. Perhaps such craft is capable of feats of maneuverability that far exceed what so-called “conventional” aircraft can muster. So it’s possible some of the sightings that are flagged as possible spaceships are nothing of the kind. It’s not that our military will admit the truth. Since they deny UFOs exist, they can just as easily deny the existence of advanced test aircraft.
Regardless, there’s a residue of cases that cannot be explained. While it is certainly possible that we have recovered crashed saucers over the years, and perhaps their occupants, such stories ultimately lack the final proof. Where’s the corpus delicti?
Sure, there are so-called whistleblower claims of seeing the downed spaceships and perhaps alien bodies. The stories are sometimes compelling, but ultimately lack physical evidence. We can argue till the end of time whether we have the smoking gun on ice somewhere, but until it’s produced, the argument will never end.
But it is also comforting to believe that someone knows the answer about the origin and purpose of UFOs. That eases the burden on any individual to figure out a solution, and it also fuels the cries for disclosure. The government knows the truth, and the people have the right to know. But, aside from possibly having more sighting reports that we’ve heard about, can we be certain that any government knows the truth?
That’s almost bad as the wishful thinking that UFOs must be extraterrestrial because, well, what else could they be?
Remember, too, that we are looking at the UFO enigma through the eyes of humans in the early 21st century. Two thousand years ago, we would have believed that UFOs were visitors from heaven, emissaries of the Gods or whatever. Today, we regard such beliefs as primitive. We are highly advanced. We can send tiny exploratory craft to other planets, so we know what we are seeing. We evaluate UFOs in terms of our understanding of the universe. Since there is mounting evidence of life-bearing planets elsewhere in the galaxy, it doesn’t take much of a stretch to assume that some host advanced civilizations that have perfected travel among the stars.
So, therefore, some of them are probably coming here to see what’s going on.
But don’t forget that, two thousand years from now, if humans survive, the fruits of our civilization will be regarded as extremely primitive. If UFOs are still around, they will likely be viewed in terms of a much more substantial understanding about how things work. The UFO researchers of the day may have totally different theories about what’s going on.
Of course, that assumes there will still be a mystery that remains unsolved, or even that anyone will even care. It doesn’t address the possibility that UFOs are, themselves, visitors from a future time, or even a parallel universe. Or represent our personal interactions with a phenomenon that we cannot understand, a phenomenon that we perceive according to our own understanding of the universe.
Or even that what we see is what is what is actually there.
Such ideas, however, are far more difficult to relate to by most people. We all want simple answers, not complex questions. UFOs are spaceships because that makes sense in light of our understanding of the phenomenon and our universe. But that also excludes cases, or details of cases, that are sometimes ignored because they don’t fit the ETH.
But that opens up a new discussion that I’ll focus on in the weeks to come.
The Paracast Copyright 1999-2013 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!
