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Your Paracast Newsletter -- November 27, 2010


Gene Steinberg

Forum Super Hero
Staff member
Science Fiction, UFOs and Pop Culture Explored on The Paracast

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Sunday, November 28, 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: Co-host Christopher O’Brien presents producer/writer Tracy Torme, who will cover his work on science fiction television, along with Hollywood and the media’s role in shaping public perception of UFOs.

Christopher O'Brien's Site: http://www.ourstrangeplanet.com/

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 When Did UFOs First Arrive?
By Gene Steinberg

The prevailing opinion among many people when they first become interested in UFOs is that they were first seen, more or less, on June 24, 1947. That’s when a private pilot, Kenneth Arnold, observed nine crescent-shaped objects flying in formation over Mount Rainier in the state of Washington.

When their motion, resembling saucers skipping across water, was first described, enterprising reporters seized on that telltale word, and coined the term “flying saucers.” It soon became a label of derision, and it wasn’t until some years later that the saucers came to be called UFOs. Well, at least for the most part. Some of us still refer to the phenomenon as flying saucers from time to time.

The real question, though, is just when the UFO wave actually began, and that raises a whole bunch of questions and possibilities.

Consider this imaginary tale. Two races, survivors of a long-lost humanoid species, arrived on Earth thousands of years ago. Their immense starship, having suffered severe damage from war and the hazards of space travel, self-destructed, and they landed here with only small remnants of their highly advanced technology, presumably adequate to ensure their survival on a hostile planet peopled by warlike primitives.

Over the years, through mating and the gradual loss of the instruments of their technology, they become integrated into the human population.

Segue to more recent times, where the legends of these people from the stars infuses our legends, fills our religious texts, and, in some fashion directs our way of live. Indeed, it is possible scattered blocks of aliens, descended from the original survivors of that long-lost species, continue to visit us to this very day.

When our visitors choose to communicate with us, they do so with an innate understanding of the psychology of our civilizations at any particular point in time. As we advance, they stop representing themselves as emissaries from heaven and take on roles that are more attuned to ours hopes, expectations – and yes, fears. They might be regarded as magicians, wizards, witches, or whatever presentation works best.

As humankind discovers how to build rudimentary flying machines, the aliens introduce themselves as fellow travelers, perhaps visitors from another country. They do not, of course, explain that this “other country” is really on another planet, perhaps from a far-off star system.

It doesn’t take much of a leap to extrapolate the manifestation of the existence of these visitors as the pilots of spacecraft in the 20th and 21st centuries. It is only logical that they want us to perceive them in accordance with our own achievements. Some even suggest that the presence of UFOs is, itself, a harbinger of new scientific discoveries that are, some day, destined to take us to the stars.

Of course, some of this legend may be familiar to you. It forms the plot of the SyFy cable channel series, “Battlestar Galactica,” the Shaver Mystery and its legends of deros and teros, and, in general, just about any “Ancient Astronaut” theory you can find.

The real question, of course, is whether any of it is real, just some sort of fantasy, or wish fulfillment. We crave for advanced knowledge from superior beings to set us free from the drudgery of our mundane lives, and it arrives, at least sometimes, in a form that we can understand. Well, mostly.

In the sci-fi film “Contact,” based on the Carl Sagan novel, the lead character, as portrayed by Jodi Foster, is a scientist seeking evidence that ET is trying to communicate with us via radio. In one of the crucial scenes late in the movie, she finally meets ET, who cloaks itself in the form of her late father, to make it easier for her to accept its presence and communicate in some fashion.

The problem with the UFO mystery, however, is that we are often so dedicated to proving our pet theories that we often lose sight of the larger picture: The solution to the enigma may yet be far beyond our understanding, but maybe that’s how it’s all meant be.

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