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Your Paracast Newsletter — November 24, 2024

Free episodes:

Gene Steinberg

Forum Super Hero
Staff member
The Paracast Newsletter
November 24, 2024
www.theparacast.com


Explore the Amazing Legends of the Montauk Project and the Philadelphia Experiment with Brian E. Minnick on The Paracast!

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This Week's Episode: Gene and cohost Tim Swartz present Brian E. Minnick, a lifetime visitor of the controversial and mysterious Camp Hero on Long Island, NY. After 36 years of visiting, studying and photographing Camp Hero, he has amassed piles of documents, witness testimony, personal experiences, maps and more detailing Camp Hero from about every possible angle — he was even a major contributor to a History Channel investigation of the site and the possible realities of the Montauk Project. In his book, Montauk Is Strange: The Archives: 36 Years Exploring Camp Hero, Long Island & the Legend of the Montauk Project, Minnick skillfully pieces together clues and connects dots that have eluded outsiders for decades. He presents a compelling case that Camp Hero’s real mission went far beyond its public cover as an early warning radar station. What Minnick documents suggests a far deeper level of covert research and testing than has ever been officially acknowledged. Through first-hand investigations, he uncovers compelling new historical evidence that sheds light on Camp Hero’s amazing past and one of the most intriguing Cold War mysteries. Even the the legend of the Philadelphia Experiment is covered. Minnick examines the deliciously sinister stuff that inspired the Netflix series Stranger Things, military research into LSD and mind control with human test subjects, and claims that it was a place where children were taken and used for nefarious government projects. His YouTube channel: www.youtube.com/channel/UClEthJzpH04-LpJQY6HB-Ow/featured

After The Paracast — Available exclusively for Paracast+ subscribers on November 24: Montauk legend explorer Brian E. Minnick returns to expand on the research he has done that resulted in his book, Montauk Is Strange: The Archives: 36 Years Exploring Camp Hero, Long Island & the Legend of the Montauk Project. Seeking further answers to the various stories he’s investigated, he talks with Gene and cohost Tim Swartz about strange signals found embedded in reel-to-reel tape recordings, and even details on how the original script for the Netflix TV series, Stranger Things, was originally based on the Montauk Project. There’s also talk about a chair that may enable travel through time or dimensional portals. Minnick is a lifetime visitor of the controversial and mysterious Camp Hero on Long Island, NY. After 36 years of visiting, studying and photographing Camp Hero, he has amassed piles of documents, witness testimony, personal experiences, maps and more detailing Camp Hero from about every possible angle — he was even a major contributor to a History Channel investigation of the site and the possible realities of the Montauk Project. In his book, Minnick examines the less established, and often disputed stories surrounding the base. This includes everything from the buildings sitting atop a gigantic subterranean facility with a network of tunnels and underground laboratories, to it being a site for military research into LSD and mind control with human test subjects, and claims that it was a place where children were taken and used for nefarious government projects. Will there ever be an answer to the possible reality behind this legend?

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.


Ufology: The Dark Days After 1969
By Curt Collins

The flying saucer fever of 1947 created a big problem for the government, and the United States Air Force was stuck with the job of handling it. The fact that there was an official investigation was exploited by believers (and opportunists) who insisted that if the USAF was spending time and money investigating UFOs, that must prove that flying saucers are real — and that they were hiding the evidence. Two decades later, the Air Force finally got out of the saucer business, as briefly stated in their UFO Fact Sheet.

From 1947 to 1969, the Air Force investigated unidentified flying objects under Project Blue Book. The project, headquartered at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio, was terminated Dec. 17, 1969. The decision to discontinue UFO investigations was based on an evaluation of a report prepared by the University of Colorado entitled, "Scientific Study of Unidentified Flying Objects,” a review of the University of Colorado's report by the National Academy of Sciences; previous UFO studies and Air Force experience investigating UFO reports.

Following the closure of Project Blue Book, public interest in the UFO subject took a nosedive.

Empty Space

UFOs and outer space were out of fashion in the entertainment industry as well. Paranormal, ESP and psychic topics were what the public was buying. Shows like Night Gallery and The Sixth Sense had memorable runs on television and in 1973, The Exorcist was the top grossing film of the year. Entertainment was coming out of period barren not of just UFOs, but of science fiction, at least of the outer space variety. In the movies, about the closest thing to space aliens was The Planet of the Apes movie series. On television, NBC’s Star Trek series had been cancelled back in 1969, but was popular in syndication and alive as a Saturday morning cartoon. On prime time, The Six Million Dollar Man was about as "far out" as TV got.

The Literary Front

There were a few important UFO books published in those days, some in response to the Condon Report that enabled the Air Force to shut down Blue Book. Dr. J. Allen Hynek and his 1972 book were profiled by Ian Ridpath in New Scientist,May 17, 1973, “The man who spoke out on UFOs.”

He was highly critical of the report called “The Scientific Study of Unidentified Flying Objects,” produced in 1969 by a University of Colorado team led by Dr. Edward U. Condon and based on the US Air Force Project Blue Book files. He has since written his own book, called The UFO Experience, which has been called "Hynek's version of what the Condon report should have been."

In 1973, Major Donald E. Keyhoe, the man who had written the first non-fiction book on flying saucers, wrote his last, Aliens from Space. He also blasted the Condon Report, depicting it as part of the Government’s UFO cover-up policy. Keyhoe closed the book with a more optimistic note, proposing an ambitious plan to build a facility at a remote location that would attract extraterrestrial visitors, lure them into a landing where a peaceful close encounter would establish formal contact.

Flying saucers were out of fashion, though. About the closest related matter to the UFO topic that the public really cared about was the ancient astronauts theory as popularized in the Chariots of the Gods? book and its sequels. In 1974, Chariots was in it’s 27th printing and still on the bestseller lists. Publishers Weekly, describing the paperback of its second sequel.

The Gold of the Gods (Putnam), yet another best seller by Erich von Daniken, is getting a cover stamped with gold metallic letters for its paperback edition — the first time that Bantam has used that process, usually reserved for deluxe editions of hardcover books, reportedly had a first printing of 800,000 copies.

Putting UFOs Back in Business

In late 1973, UFOs made a big comeback in the press, jump-started by the media frenzy surrounding the alien abduction case on the Mississippi Gulf Coast, making 1974 a very good year for the UFO business. In Michael Rasmussen’s 1985 book, The UFO Literature: A Comprehensive Annotated Bibliography of Works in English, he describes the resurgence:

By 1973, a major new wave of sightings was developing in the U.S. and around the world, and public interest in UFOs again began to swell. By 1974, UFO-mania was again in full swing. Ralph and Judy Blum's Beyond Earth — Man's Contact with UFOs was a national bestseller, signaling the dawn of a new boom in commercial UFO literature. The Blums surveyed the recent history of UFOs, and summarized the sensational sightings of the year before, including the Pascagoula abduction claim of Calvin Parker and Charles Hickson.

At the end of 1974, NBC broadcast “UFOs: Do You Believe?” It was a one-hour special that featured UFO witnesses such as Hickson and Parker, experts such as Dr. J. Allen Hynek, Jim and Coral Lorenzen of APRO, Stanton Friedman, and Walt Andrus of MUFON. The ratings broke records. UFOs were a viable commercial property once again, and there was an explosion in sightings, hoaxes, news coverage, and also an uptick in UFO lectures and conferences. It was a UFO Revival of sorts.

Editor’s Note: Indeed, Gene Steinberg, host of The Paracast, found himself caught up in the revised UFO furor as publisher and co-editor of Caveat Emptor, a counterculture paranormal magazine. With the quiet approval of the general manager of the radio station where was news director, he also included UFO sightings in his on-air reports.

• • •​

This article was adapted from "After the UFO Crash of 1969," the introduction for a series of article examining the resurgence of Ufology in the 1970s.

After the UFO Crash of 1969

Columnist Curt Collins was fascinated with the UFO mystery as a child, but forsook it for work and family until after the Millennium. He began researching and writing about UFOs, with a special interest in re-investigating the paradoxical 1980 Texas Cash-Landrum case. In 2001, Curt launched Blue Blurry Lines, the website to publish his research, then in 2017, The Saucers That Time Forgot with Yvan Defoy, focused on unearthing “tales that UFO history has overlooked, or would rather forget.” Curt lives in the southern United States, near Jackson, Mississippi.

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