THE PARACAST NEWSLETTER
May 5, 2013
The Paracast Covers the Citizen Hearing for Disclosure
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: Direct from the Citizen Hearing on Disclosure, held at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C., Gene and Chris present an extensive back and forth discussion of the proceedings, which involved dozens of mostly top-flight UFO researchers and witnesses speaking to former members of the U.S. Congress. The key issue, above all, is whether the conference will actually expand government and scientific interest in the subject.
Chris O'Brien's Site: Our Strange Planet
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.
What if They Held Congressional Hearings and Nobody Came?
By Gene Steinberg
If you read the mainstream newspapers, or rely on a diet of cable TV news -- or what passes for news on those networks these days -- you may have not heard very much about an event playing out in Washington, D.C. this past week. No, it had nothing to do with the state of the economy, gun control, how to deal with nearly 12 million undocumented aliens, or the possibility of U.S. intervention in Syria’s civil war.
At the same time, that event, if it signifies something that’s actually happening, may effect everyone on this planet. I am, of course, referring to UFO activist Stephen Bassett’s Citizen Hearing for Disclosure, a set of faux Congressional hearings held at the National Press Club.
The sessions featured several dozen UFO experts from around the world, plus a very few people with questionable approaches to the subject, who presented their findings to a panel consisting of a former U.S. Senator and four ex-representatives of Congress.
Now the participants didn’t show up because they loved the D.C. weather in the late spring. The former Senator and Congresspeople reportedly received $20,000, each, for their efforts. In all, over $600,000 was raised for this venture, and you wonder if it was truly worth the effort.
Already, YouTube videos of the five-day affair have been posted, though I’m not sure if this was authorized or not. There was a $3.80 charge for the live stream, which, even if you’re skeptical about disclosure, is an absolute bargain.
On the positive side of the ledger, most of over 40 presenters were A-list figures in the UFO field. You’ve heard a fair portion of them on The Paracast over the years, and more will appear in the weeks to come. Some are regulars at UFO events these days, such as Peter Davenport, Richard Dolan, Stanton Friedman, Antonio Huneeus, Jesse Marcel, Jr., Nick Pope and Kevin D. Randle.
So far so good.
Now when Bassett appeared on The Paracast in 2007, 2008, and 2009, we gave him a hard time because he wasn’t so circumspect about vetting the guests who appeared at the various UFO conferences he sponsored. He said, at the time, that it didn’t matter, but clearly it did when he set the agenda for the faux hearings. Indeed, the key choices I’d question were the selection of Dr. Stephen Greer, who fancies himself almost a cult figure in the field these days, and investigator Linda Moulton Howe.
Greer’s current claim to fame is Sirius, a documentary that includes a report about the remains of an apparent six-inch humanoid, with at least mostly human DNA, which he is presenting as a possible alien entity. But my main quibble with Greer is his CSETI scheme, where he collects huge sums of money from people to go on saucer hunt outings with the promise that they stand a great chance of seeing a real space ship. Indeed, the co-host of The Paracast, Christopher O’Brien, tells of the time that Greer brought one of his CSETI groups to a city, only to have UFOs show up in areas other than the ones they explored.
Coincidence, or maybe the UFO entities, or whatever they are, just don’t like Greer?
Howe has genuine credentials as an investigative journalist, but sometimes falls off the wagon, such as believing in alleged pictures of UFO drones a few years ago that were clearly generated by CGI. One of our forum posters even made a blow-up of one of the photos that depicted lettering right out of “Star Wars.” But Howe maintained for a long time that they were genuine.
These days, she continues to push her cattle mutilation theories, in which she avers that it’s all done in the interests of genetic testing by ET. Now it so happens that Chris is working on his own comprehensive tome on the subject, “Stalking the Herd,” in which you’ll learn what’s really going on. The book will be published some time this fall.
But the larger question is whether the Citizens Hearing on Disclosure garnered any of the favorable press treatment for which Bassett hoped. The answer is -- well, a mixed bag! While the presentations, as reported by Chris, who was a member of the camera crew, were largely conducted in a serious fashion, the media tended to seize on the eccentrics, when they covered the sessions at all. During his on-the-scene description of the conference for this week’s episode, Chris laments over the lack of satellite trucks at the scene. These trucks are employed by TV networks to beam their onsite coverage, and that’s not a good sign.
Now I did catch two TV reports on the proceedings. Seems that MSNBC anchor Chris Hayes delivered a short and sarcastic story about the sessions during his May 3 broadcast, in which he gave one of the participants, former Senator Mike Gravel of Alaska, a drubbing for believing in UFO reality. To him, Senator Gravel is just another eccentric political figure of questionable stature. In an earlier segment, anchor Rachel Maddow was also appropriately dismissive of the event.
On the other hand, Las Vegas-based TV investigative reporter George Knapp, who has had a strong connection to the UFO mystery over the years, offered a well-centered report on the hearings during a KLAS-TV newscast. The New York Times also provided fair and balanced coverage, and went further in interviewing author Leslie Kean, and former Clinton staffer and Obama advisor John Podesta, both of whom emphasized the need to investigate the phenomenon rather than simply state, as Bassett does, that we know for sure the aliens are among us.
While I don’t hold out much hope for any positive response from the U.S. government, there’s always the hope that the proceedings of these faux hearings will live on as YouTube videos. Maybe people will pay attention to some of the sessions and the presenters. I suppose it’s also possible the members of the media who ignored this event will give it a second look, and not pay attention to the few participants who made questionable claims. I also hope I’ll win the lottery some day, and I give the latter two essentially equal weight.
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 5, 2013
The Paracast Covers the Citizen Hearing for Disclosure
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: Direct from the Citizen Hearing on Disclosure, held at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C., Gene and Chris present an extensive back and forth discussion of the proceedings, which involved dozens of mostly top-flight UFO researchers and witnesses speaking to former members of the U.S. Congress. The key issue, above all, is whether the conference will actually expand government and scientific interest in the subject.
Chris O'Brien's Site: Our Strange Planet
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.
What if They Held Congressional Hearings and Nobody Came?
By Gene Steinberg
If you read the mainstream newspapers, or rely on a diet of cable TV news -- or what passes for news on those networks these days -- you may have not heard very much about an event playing out in Washington, D.C. this past week. No, it had nothing to do with the state of the economy, gun control, how to deal with nearly 12 million undocumented aliens, or the possibility of U.S. intervention in Syria’s civil war.
At the same time, that event, if it signifies something that’s actually happening, may effect everyone on this planet. I am, of course, referring to UFO activist Stephen Bassett’s Citizen Hearing for Disclosure, a set of faux Congressional hearings held at the National Press Club.
The sessions featured several dozen UFO experts from around the world, plus a very few people with questionable approaches to the subject, who presented their findings to a panel consisting of a former U.S. Senator and four ex-representatives of Congress.
Now the participants didn’t show up because they loved the D.C. weather in the late spring. The former Senator and Congresspeople reportedly received $20,000, each, for their efforts. In all, over $600,000 was raised for this venture, and you wonder if it was truly worth the effort.
Already, YouTube videos of the five-day affair have been posted, though I’m not sure if this was authorized or not. There was a $3.80 charge for the live stream, which, even if you’re skeptical about disclosure, is an absolute bargain.
On the positive side of the ledger, most of over 40 presenters were A-list figures in the UFO field. You’ve heard a fair portion of them on The Paracast over the years, and more will appear in the weeks to come. Some are regulars at UFO events these days, such as Peter Davenport, Richard Dolan, Stanton Friedman, Antonio Huneeus, Jesse Marcel, Jr., Nick Pope and Kevin D. Randle.
So far so good.
Now when Bassett appeared on The Paracast in 2007, 2008, and 2009, we gave him a hard time because he wasn’t so circumspect about vetting the guests who appeared at the various UFO conferences he sponsored. He said, at the time, that it didn’t matter, but clearly it did when he set the agenda for the faux hearings. Indeed, the key choices I’d question were the selection of Dr. Stephen Greer, who fancies himself almost a cult figure in the field these days, and investigator Linda Moulton Howe.
Greer’s current claim to fame is Sirius, a documentary that includes a report about the remains of an apparent six-inch humanoid, with at least mostly human DNA, which he is presenting as a possible alien entity. But my main quibble with Greer is his CSETI scheme, where he collects huge sums of money from people to go on saucer hunt outings with the promise that they stand a great chance of seeing a real space ship. Indeed, the co-host of The Paracast, Christopher O’Brien, tells of the time that Greer brought one of his CSETI groups to a city, only to have UFOs show up in areas other than the ones they explored.
Coincidence, or maybe the UFO entities, or whatever they are, just don’t like Greer?
Howe has genuine credentials as an investigative journalist, but sometimes falls off the wagon, such as believing in alleged pictures of UFO drones a few years ago that were clearly generated by CGI. One of our forum posters even made a blow-up of one of the photos that depicted lettering right out of “Star Wars.” But Howe maintained for a long time that they were genuine.
These days, she continues to push her cattle mutilation theories, in which she avers that it’s all done in the interests of genetic testing by ET. Now it so happens that Chris is working on his own comprehensive tome on the subject, “Stalking the Herd,” in which you’ll learn what’s really going on. The book will be published some time this fall.
But the larger question is whether the Citizens Hearing on Disclosure garnered any of the favorable press treatment for which Bassett hoped. The answer is -- well, a mixed bag! While the presentations, as reported by Chris, who was a member of the camera crew, were largely conducted in a serious fashion, the media tended to seize on the eccentrics, when they covered the sessions at all. During his on-the-scene description of the conference for this week’s episode, Chris laments over the lack of satellite trucks at the scene. These trucks are employed by TV networks to beam their onsite coverage, and that’s not a good sign.
Now I did catch two TV reports on the proceedings. Seems that MSNBC anchor Chris Hayes delivered a short and sarcastic story about the sessions during his May 3 broadcast, in which he gave one of the participants, former Senator Mike Gravel of Alaska, a drubbing for believing in UFO reality. To him, Senator Gravel is just another eccentric political figure of questionable stature. In an earlier segment, anchor Rachel Maddow was also appropriately dismissive of the event.
On the other hand, Las Vegas-based TV investigative reporter George Knapp, who has had a strong connection to the UFO mystery over the years, offered a well-centered report on the hearings during a KLAS-TV newscast. The New York Times also provided fair and balanced coverage, and went further in interviewing author Leslie Kean, and former Clinton staffer and Obama advisor John Podesta, both of whom emphasized the need to investigate the phenomenon rather than simply state, as Bassett does, that we know for sure the aliens are among us.
While I don’t hold out much hope for any positive response from the U.S. government, there’s always the hope that the proceedings of these faux hearings will live on as YouTube videos. Maybe people will pay attention to some of the sessions and the presenters. I suppose it’s also possible the members of the media who ignored this event will give it a second look, and not pay attention to the few participants who made questionable claims. I also hope I’ll win the lottery some day, and I give the latter two essentially equal weight.
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!