THE PARACAST NEWSLETTER
November 19, 2017
www.theparacast.com
Veteran UFO Researcher Philip Mantle Discusses the State of Research 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: Introducing The Paracast+ | The Paracast — The Gold Standard of Paranormal Radio.
This Week's Episode: Gene and special guest cohost Curtis Collins present veteran UFO researcher, writer and publisher Philip Mantle with a UFO field update. Subjects include MUFON’s emphasis on entertainment over research, whether large UFO research organizations have any value, and Philip’s various UFO book projects. Mantle is a long standing UFO researcher and author from the UK. He was formerly the Director of Investigations for the British UFO Research Association and the MUFON Representative for England. He is the founder of FLYING DISK PRESS and can be contacted at: Flying Disk Press. Note: We encountered slight reception problems with our guest’s Skype connection.
Chris O’Brien’s Blog: Our Strange Planet
Curtis Collins' Blog: Blue Blurry Lines
Philip Mantle's Site: Flying Disk Press
After The Paracast -- Available exclusively to Paracast+ subscribers on November 19: Gene chats with guest cohost Curtis Collins on a variety of topics including the touchy topic of whether large UFO organizations, such as MUFON, have a future anymore beyond just becoming entertainment mediums. Gene and Curt discuss ways to monetize such organizations, perhaps by trying to line up sponsorships from corporations that sell consumer projects. The discussion moves on to casting news and the reported selection of an actor to portray Dr. J. Allen Hynek in the upcoming sci-fi series, “Blue Book,” based on his work with Project Blue Book. The show is also compared to a TV drama from the 1970s, “Project U.F.O.,” which was produced by the late Jack Webb of “Dragnet” fame. That show was also said to be based on Blue Book’s investigations.
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
About the Need for UFO Research Clubs
By Gene Steinberg
The last time Chris and I interviewed Stanton T. Friedman, it was about his 2016 book, “Fact, Fiction and Flying Saucers,” coauthored with Kathleen Marden. The episode was broadcast on September 26, 2017.
The long and short is that the book was mostly a rehash of well-worn flying saucer lore. But when it came to mentioning a place to get regular information on the subject, or to report a sighting, you’d get the impression that there was one and only one source, the Mutual UFO Network (MUFON).
Although that group has been active for 48 years — it was founded in 1969 as the Midwest UFO Network — it is obviously not the only active UFO organization on the planet. Even though MUFON’s membership, estimated at several thousand people, is larger than any other group in the U.S., you can’t assume they are alone.
That said, finding a roughly equivalent organization of its size is not easy. In the UK, the major UFO group over the decades, according to veteran researcher Philip Mantle, was the British UFO Research Association (BUFORA), which got its start in 1962, seven years before MUFON came on the scene.
While membership reportedly hit 1,000 at one time, Mantle says it’s mostly inactive nowadays, but at least its large store of publications is evidently available free online. Indeed, when I checked their site (http://www.bufora.org.uk), I found a collection of magazines dating from the 1960s through a final issue from 2005.
I strongly suspect that, if MUFON ever decided to close shop or at least give up on its monthly “Journal,” you’d still have to pay for a copy, even a digital one.
Now I have no doubt that many of the people who have worked with such organizations over the years were fully dedicated to the task. Many of these people want to get to the bottom of the UFO enigma, though I suspect a fair number are also interested in evangelizing the flying saucer legend, that they are visitors from other planets.
When I interviewed MUFON Executive Director Jan Harzan on The Paracast for our November 12, 2017 episode, I asked him pointblank what, if anything, the organization had accomplished in 48 years. He had an answer, or sorts, but as a practical matter, we are no closer to a solution. Harzan still roots for the ET answer, and evidently believes some of the governments of Earth have guilty knowledge of what’s really going on.
Thus he wants disclosure, but it’s not as if anything’s been accomplished in making that happen. But that also assumes any government knows more about UFOs than the most knowledgeable private researcher. During our interview with Mantle, he said he doesn’t think there’s much significant data to disclose. I have no doubt that there are military sightings involving various types of top secret hardware, such as weapons and test aircraft. But it’s not as if those reports, with security-related information redacted, would actually help lead us to a solution.
I strongly suspect that, if the UFO mystery were ever solved, it would not be through the efforts of any private UFO group, or, for that matter, the result of achieving disclosure. If UFOs are truly spaceships, they are functioning on their own agenda, whatever that is, and will only reveal their presence if it suited their needs. It wouldn’t happen because we are clamoring for it.
Indeed, it may well be that UFOs are destined to remain a mystery. Even if we developed technology for advanced space travel, maybe even something related to antigravity or warp drive, we’d still confront a UFO mystery. But maybe it would manifest itself in a different way, forever elusive.
That said, do UFO organizations ever advance the cause? Have they made any progress at all in solving anything?
From the earliest days of the modern UFO era, there were research groups that rose to the level of thousands of members. Two of the largest in the U.S. in the 1950s and 1960s, APRO and NICAP, had different motivations.
NICAP was intended to be a lobbying organization. When he was Director, Major Donald E. Keyhoe said it was their goal to put it out of business, after convincing the U.S. Congress to hold hearings on the subject. Those hearings happened all right, but they resulted in the Condon Committee, and its report was labeled in the UFO research community as a whitewash.
But it gave the Air Force the excuse it needed to get out of the UFO investigation business, at least publicly, by shuttering Project Blue Book. NICAP suffered from plummeting memberships and income. In 1969, its governing board fired Keyhoe over alleged financial irregularities involving the reported failure to send Social Security taxes, collected from employees, to the government.
What an ignominious ending for Keyhoe’s career at NICAP. While he continued to make public appearances as a UFO researcher, he was very much a relic of the past. NICAP stumbled along for a while, but its influence was severely diminished.
APRO was heavily involved in investigating UFO cases, including the 1964 Socorro, NM landing. But there was no game plan for the future. It lived and died under the leadership of Jim and Coral Lorenzen. The voluminous files assembled during their lifetimes are evidently still being stored in filing cabinets, but the people who took control of them continue to refuse to let anyone see them.
While the data would no doubt be useful to researchers, if they were granted access, it’s not as if APRO solved the UFO mystery. NICAP clearly wasn’t interested in solving anything.
MUFON claims to be a scientific research organization, but in recent years it has focused more on growing membership and income. That explains its tie-up with a semi-fictional TV reality show, “Hangar 1,” and the decision to focus its 2017 convention on unproven theories about an alleged secret space program. It was all about attracting new members and selling stuff.
So has any UFO group accomplished anything to advance the cause of research to any significant degree? Sure, many thousands of sightings have been collected, magazines have been published and conventions have been held.
But as to progress? Do we even need a large UFO research body catering to the mass market? Did we ever need one? Wouldn’t research better be served by small dedicated groups devoted to exploring specific aspects of the phenomenon? Funded or not, the results can easily be posted online for little or no cost.
Would such an approach lead us any closer to some sorely-needed answers? What about some other research methods? Maybe not, but the existing approach hasn’t worked either.
Copyright 1999-2017 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!
November 19, 2017
www.theparacast.com
Veteran UFO Researcher Philip Mantle Discusses the State of Research 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: Introducing The Paracast+ | The Paracast — The Gold Standard of Paranormal Radio.
This Week's Episode: Gene and special guest cohost Curtis Collins present veteran UFO researcher, writer and publisher Philip Mantle with a UFO field update. Subjects include MUFON’s emphasis on entertainment over research, whether large UFO research organizations have any value, and Philip’s various UFO book projects. Mantle is a long standing UFO researcher and author from the UK. He was formerly the Director of Investigations for the British UFO Research Association and the MUFON Representative for England. He is the founder of FLYING DISK PRESS and can be contacted at: Flying Disk Press. Note: We encountered slight reception problems with our guest’s Skype connection.
Chris O’Brien’s Blog: Our Strange Planet
Curtis Collins' Blog: Blue Blurry Lines
Philip Mantle's Site: Flying Disk Press
After The Paracast -- Available exclusively to Paracast+ subscribers on November 19: Gene chats with guest cohost Curtis Collins on a variety of topics including the touchy topic of whether large UFO organizations, such as MUFON, have a future anymore beyond just becoming entertainment mediums. Gene and Curt discuss ways to monetize such organizations, perhaps by trying to line up sponsorships from corporations that sell consumer projects. The discussion moves on to casting news and the reported selection of an actor to portray Dr. J. Allen Hynek in the upcoming sci-fi series, “Blue Book,” based on his work with Project Blue Book. The show is also compared to a TV drama from the 1970s, “Project U.F.O.,” which was produced by the late Jack Webb of “Dragnet” fame. That show was also said to be based on Blue Book’s investigations.
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
About the Need for UFO Research Clubs
By Gene Steinberg
The last time Chris and I interviewed Stanton T. Friedman, it was about his 2016 book, “Fact, Fiction and Flying Saucers,” coauthored with Kathleen Marden. The episode was broadcast on September 26, 2017.
The long and short is that the book was mostly a rehash of well-worn flying saucer lore. But when it came to mentioning a place to get regular information on the subject, or to report a sighting, you’d get the impression that there was one and only one source, the Mutual UFO Network (MUFON).
Although that group has been active for 48 years — it was founded in 1969 as the Midwest UFO Network — it is obviously not the only active UFO organization on the planet. Even though MUFON’s membership, estimated at several thousand people, is larger than any other group in the U.S., you can’t assume they are alone.
That said, finding a roughly equivalent organization of its size is not easy. In the UK, the major UFO group over the decades, according to veteran researcher Philip Mantle, was the British UFO Research Association (BUFORA), which got its start in 1962, seven years before MUFON came on the scene.
While membership reportedly hit 1,000 at one time, Mantle says it’s mostly inactive nowadays, but at least its large store of publications is evidently available free online. Indeed, when I checked their site (http://www.bufora.org.uk), I found a collection of magazines dating from the 1960s through a final issue from 2005.
I strongly suspect that, if MUFON ever decided to close shop or at least give up on its monthly “Journal,” you’d still have to pay for a copy, even a digital one.
Now I have no doubt that many of the people who have worked with such organizations over the years were fully dedicated to the task. Many of these people want to get to the bottom of the UFO enigma, though I suspect a fair number are also interested in evangelizing the flying saucer legend, that they are visitors from other planets.
When I interviewed MUFON Executive Director Jan Harzan on The Paracast for our November 12, 2017 episode, I asked him pointblank what, if anything, the organization had accomplished in 48 years. He had an answer, or sorts, but as a practical matter, we are no closer to a solution. Harzan still roots for the ET answer, and evidently believes some of the governments of Earth have guilty knowledge of what’s really going on.
Thus he wants disclosure, but it’s not as if anything’s been accomplished in making that happen. But that also assumes any government knows more about UFOs than the most knowledgeable private researcher. During our interview with Mantle, he said he doesn’t think there’s much significant data to disclose. I have no doubt that there are military sightings involving various types of top secret hardware, such as weapons and test aircraft. But it’s not as if those reports, with security-related information redacted, would actually help lead us to a solution.
I strongly suspect that, if the UFO mystery were ever solved, it would not be through the efforts of any private UFO group, or, for that matter, the result of achieving disclosure. If UFOs are truly spaceships, they are functioning on their own agenda, whatever that is, and will only reveal their presence if it suited their needs. It wouldn’t happen because we are clamoring for it.
Indeed, it may well be that UFOs are destined to remain a mystery. Even if we developed technology for advanced space travel, maybe even something related to antigravity or warp drive, we’d still confront a UFO mystery. But maybe it would manifest itself in a different way, forever elusive.
That said, do UFO organizations ever advance the cause? Have they made any progress at all in solving anything?
From the earliest days of the modern UFO era, there were research groups that rose to the level of thousands of members. Two of the largest in the U.S. in the 1950s and 1960s, APRO and NICAP, had different motivations.
NICAP was intended to be a lobbying organization. When he was Director, Major Donald E. Keyhoe said it was their goal to put it out of business, after convincing the U.S. Congress to hold hearings on the subject. Those hearings happened all right, but they resulted in the Condon Committee, and its report was labeled in the UFO research community as a whitewash.
But it gave the Air Force the excuse it needed to get out of the UFO investigation business, at least publicly, by shuttering Project Blue Book. NICAP suffered from plummeting memberships and income. In 1969, its governing board fired Keyhoe over alleged financial irregularities involving the reported failure to send Social Security taxes, collected from employees, to the government.
What an ignominious ending for Keyhoe’s career at NICAP. While he continued to make public appearances as a UFO researcher, he was very much a relic of the past. NICAP stumbled along for a while, but its influence was severely diminished.
APRO was heavily involved in investigating UFO cases, including the 1964 Socorro, NM landing. But there was no game plan for the future. It lived and died under the leadership of Jim and Coral Lorenzen. The voluminous files assembled during their lifetimes are evidently still being stored in filing cabinets, but the people who took control of them continue to refuse to let anyone see them.
While the data would no doubt be useful to researchers, if they were granted access, it’s not as if APRO solved the UFO mystery. NICAP clearly wasn’t interested in solving anything.
MUFON claims to be a scientific research organization, but in recent years it has focused more on growing membership and income. That explains its tie-up with a semi-fictional TV reality show, “Hangar 1,” and the decision to focus its 2017 convention on unproven theories about an alleged secret space program. It was all about attracting new members and selling stuff.
So has any UFO group accomplished anything to advance the cause of research to any significant degree? Sure, many thousands of sightings have been collected, magazines have been published and conventions have been held.
But as to progress? Do we even need a large UFO research body catering to the mass market? Did we ever need one? Wouldn’t research better be served by small dedicated groups devoted to exploring specific aspects of the phenomenon? Funded or not, the results can easily be posted online for little or no cost.
Would such an approach lead us any closer to some sorely-needed answers? What about some other research methods? Maybe not, but the existing approach hasn’t worked either.
Copyright 1999-2017 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!
