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Your Paracast Newsletter — November 20, 2010


Gene Steinberg

Forum Super Hero
Staff member
Your Paracast Newsletter — November 20, 2010


THE PARACAST NEWSLETTER
November 20, 2010


Dr. Jacques Vallee Explores UFOs in Antiquity and Other Mysteries on The Paracast

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Sunday, November 21, 2010: 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 hosts interview long-time researchers in the field, to shed light on the mysteries and complexities of our Universe and the secrets that surround us in our everyday lives.

Join us as we explore the realms of the known and unknown, and hear great stories of the history of the paranormal field in the 20th and 21st centuries.

This Week's Episode: Coming November 21: Co-host Christopher O’Brien presents a special episode, featuring the return of Dr. Jacques Vallee to The Paracast. This wide-ranging discussion will include his newest book, coauthored with Chris Aubeck, entitled "Wonders in the Sky: Unexplained Aerial Objects from Antiquity to Modern Times.”

Christopher O'Brien's Site: Home - Our Strange Planet

Reminder: Don't forget to visit our always-active Discussion Forums for the latest news/views/debates on all things paranormal (and note our new Internet address): The Paracast Community Forums.

So What’s the Question?</br>By Gene Steinberg

When the late John Keel, famous (or notorious) for writing several provocative books about UFOs, suggested that maybe we’d get farther in sorting things out if we knew what questions to ask, I’m sure most of his readers didn’t pay attention. It was only one more of his word games, and thus there was no sense in taking it seriously.

Some years earlier, the late Ray Palmer, one also apt to stir arguments with his readers, said the proper question to ask about UFOs was “why.” Why indeed!

As I’ve said far too often for anyone to want to listen, I gave up believing that UFOs were spaceships early on. I remember that all-night talkfest I had with paranormal theorist Allen Greenfield in the 1960s. While others were busy celebrating the arrival of the New Year, we sat in a hotel room, minutes from New York’s Times Square, debating the possibilities presented by the existence of UFOs in our skies.

Oh well, I suppose you could say we were young and foolish and didn’t know any better. Yes, we were not of legal age, so celebrating with certain intoxicants wouldn’t be legal, as if we cared. There were far more important matters to discuss.

Ever the science fiction/fantasy fan, Allen had a tattered copy of “The Incomplete Enchanter,” by L. Sprague de Camp and Fletcher Pratt, on hand. The work contained two short stories that, in essence, told of someone being transported to another dimension, where the laws of magic, rather than our mundane physics, were dominant.

Yes, UFOs seemed almost magical in the way they could maneuver in our skies, so would it not be within the realm of possibility to consider them as potential visitors from another dimension? Was it even possible that their technology obeyed laws that we didn’t understand, simply because they came from a place, or a time, where such capabilities were totally normal?

Certainly the concept of interdimensional UFOs wasn’t unique to us. Others had speculated on such possibilites over the years, but such viewpoints were largely drowned out in the onslaught of hopes and dreams about the presence of ET.

Yes, I accept the likelihood that ET exists, simply because there are likely huge numbers of habitable worlds in our galaxy. Here I’m speaking of planets that are sufficiently Earth-like to support humans. If the concept of intelligent life expands, a much larger range of planets might be included. So it stands to reason that civilizations have arisen that may be far in advance of ours. Hence, some of them have explored space in search of new life, new civilizations, or as they said in “Star Trek,” to boldly go where no one has gone before.

All well and good. Indeed, it may be possible that ET has been among us for centuries, perhaps observing our slow advancement towards a technically advanced civilization. Well, I suppose we’re advanced to our way of thinking, but ET might regard us as hostile primitives.

The problem here is that we may not be seeing UFOs in their true form. It is also possible that our culture, our expectations, clouds our perception of what that form might be. In ancient times, our visitors may have appeared to be emissaries from God. More recently, creatures of folklore. Today, we have grays from Zeta Reticuli.

In the movie “Contact,” based on a sci-fi novel from the late Carl Sagan, the protagonist, portrayed by Jodie Foster, meets ET, but he (or it) appears in the form of her dead father in order for her to understand his presence and communicate with him.

Is it not outside the range of possibility that ET would also be forced, by dint of their nature, or perhaps because of our perceptual limitations, to appear in the way we expect, rather than as they truly are.

More to the point, how could we even know, unless that information was conveyed to us? Even more confusing, why should we even believe the message they allegedly offer even if they do communicate with us?

And, no, my friends I do not expect ET – or whatever they are – is willing to submit to a lie detector test. I don’t expect UFO researchers to carry them around either.

Worse, however, might be the possibility that, in witnessing a paranormal event, we become part of that event. That might be the strangest mystery of all.

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Ahead of the curve once again it seems, Gene.Thanks for a perceptive summary of the lay of the land, so to speak. Richard
 
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