The Paracast Newsletter
October 30, 2022
www.theparacast.com
Visiting the Sites of Famous UFO Cases and Contacts with Craig Campobasso 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.
THIS IS IMPORTANT! DON'T MISS OUT! YOU CAN SUPPORT THE PARACAST AND ENJOY THE ULTIMATE PARACAST EXPERIENCE AT A SPECIAL LOW PRICE! 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 an enhanced version of The Paracast with the network ads removed, when you join The Paracast+. We also offer a special RSS feed for easy updates of the latest episodes on your device. Flash! Use the coupon code ufo20 to receive a 20% discount on five-year or lifetime subscriptions. And PayPal now accepts cryptocurrencies, such as Bitcoin, in payment. And if you don't want to use PayPal, we now also offer a second payment option, from Stripe, which accepts major credit or debit cards, Apple Pay and Google Pay. For "qualified users," you can also take advantage of Pay Later options, so act now! For the easiest signup ever, please visit: Choose Your Membership Upgrade
This Week's Episode: Gene and cohost Tim Swartz present author Craig Campobasso, who is also an award-winning filmmaker and Emmy-nominated casting director with a career that spans three decades. He is the author of such bestselling books as: "The Extraterrestrial Species Almanac," "The Autobiography of an Extraterrestrial Saga: Waking Thyron," and "The Silence of the Hams: A Pictorial Memoir of the Making of a Cult Classic." His most recent book is: "The UFO Hotspot Compendium: All the Places to Visit Before You Die Or Are Abducted." This title is essentially an offbeat travelogue of locations where a number of UFO cases, real and not-so-real, occurred along with brief summaries of the various incidents. The book is published by MUFON.
After The Paracast — Available exclusively for Paracast+ subscribers on October 30: We are rejoined by author/filmmaker/casting director Craig Campobasso to present more UFO-related locations from his book, "The UFO Hotspot Compendium: All the Places to Visit Before You Die Or Are Abducted." In his visit with Gene and cohost Tim Swartz, he covers the basics of such cases as the Pascagoula, MS abduction, Travis Walton's abduction and the Phoenix Lights. The highlights you'll want to visit at each location are listed, and there's also a brief discussion on purported alien implants. Campobasso is also the author of such books as: "The Extraterrestrial Species Almanac," "The Autobiography of an Extraterrestrial Saga: Waking Thyron," and "The Silence of the Hams: A Pictorial Memoir of the Making of a Cult Classic."
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/. Visit our new online shop for great branded merchandise at: The Official Paracast Shop, and check out our new YouTube channel at: https://www.youtube.com/c/TheOfficialParacastChannel
The Hopeless Search for Truth in Ufology
By Gene Steinberg
I can’t begin to tell you how many examples of presumed fake claims I’ve encountered over the years in the world of UFOs. Well, I was about to call it “toxic world,” but I like to take a more positive approach.
Now some people claim that I dwell too much on the past on The Paracast, but it’s an old cliche that we need to learn the lessons of history to avoid repeating them.
So we have the various versions of the Pentagon UAP study where they mainly focus on recent military sightings, but ignore tens and tens of thousands of reports, including those from civilians, which date back decades. It’s as if they never happened.
I can be cynical and suggest that, with fewer sightings to debunk, it’ll be easier for the Pentagon to exit the UAP business in the near future. Indeed, there’s a suggestion that’s already beginning to happen based on a recent New York Times story, first posted on October 28, 2022, in which it’s suggested that, when objects appear to travel at very high speeds, it’s all an optical illusion.
I thought that such silly explanations were dropped in the days of Project Blue Book. You’d think that, with all its resources, the Pentagon would be able to detect possible illusions relatively quickly. Also, the military pilots who report those sightings would surely have been instructed on how to separate the real from the fanciful.
Now in the civilian world, you will no doubt recall recent episodes of The Paracast in which old, disproven claims are brought up as if they were true.
So as I mentioned in a recent commentary, some still believe that the MJ-12 documents asserting the existence of a top secret government group, focusing on Roswell and other incidents, was real. Or is real if it still exists with new members.
Over the years, though, MJ-12 has been widely debunked. A 2009 MUFON report, “An Estimate of the Situation: The Extraterrestrial Hypothesis,” from Brad Sparks and Barry Greenwood, explores the genesis of the hoax. Researcher/author Kevin D. Randle has described the flaws of the document. Even our own staff announcer and guest cohost, Bob Zanotti, wrote a skeptical commentary about it in the 1980s, as published in Jim Moseley’s Saucer Smear.
But when a recent guest brought it up again on the show, someone who actually represents MUFON — and I won’t embarrass them by mentioning the name — I wondered if all that work was worthwhile. What’s the point if the false claims persist?
Take the infamous 1950’s contactee George Adamski, who claimed to have met up with a tall, handsome extraterrestrial in the California desert. While he produced statements from alleged eyewitnesses to the encounter, it turns out that they soon recanted those statements. Maybe they didn’t see much of anything.
Indeed, the entire story otherwise fell apart pretty quickly. The alleged flying saucer photos he produced were quickly duplicated with traditional items such as a hub cap or a surgical lamp, along with GE lightbulbs for the landing gear. Adamski claimed to have flown around the moon, but wherever he went didn’t resemble the moon that astronomers and astronauts have seen.
It’s almost as if his image of ET was based on the children’s sci-fi TV shows from that era, such as Captain Video and Space Patrol. In those shows, you could visit nearby planets without space suits, and the inhabitants were all or mostly human. And let’s not forget the 1938 movie serial, “Flash Gordon’s Trip to Mars.”
Oh well, there were always the clay people Flash Gordon encountered, but they were still humanoid.
It’s one thing to continue to believe Adamski, and I won’t get into his message of peace and brotherhood which is commendable wherever it originated from. But other contactees of that era also have their supporters to this very day. Take George Van Tassel, who claimed contacts with an entity known as Solgonda, who allegedly came from Venus.
Van Tassel’s claim to fame was the Integratron, a circular structure with an oval dome, which could be employed to allegedly extend one’s life. There would also be support for anti-gravity and time travel. I’m serious.
It was purportedly based, at least in part, on technology derived from telepathic communications from his ET contact.
Regardless, work on the structure was halted upon Van Tassel’s death in 1978. It is presently maintained as a tourist attraction, owned by Joanne, Nancy and Patty Karl. While it doesn’t do what it was supposed to do, people who spend time in the Integratron claim that it makes them feel better, rejuvenated. It’s not something that can be proven, but if people do believe it has value, so be it. Still, nothing in the design indicates a possible extraterrestrial influence.
But clearly there are people who want to believe Van Tassel and his compatriots, that they were all in contact with space people, mostly from planets that do not appear to be able to support human life.
Alas, facts don’t always get in the way. So this week’s guest on The Paracast, Craig Campobasso, a movie producer and casting director by day, and a UFO researcher by night, insists that these inhospitable planets do support human life. But they live below the surface, where it’s hollow.
This is a clever expansion of the Hollow Earth myth that was once in vogue. Indeed, the concept reportedly dates back to the 17th century, apparently originating with Edmond Halley. It was used as the basis for some once-popular adventure fiction stories, including the Pellucidar series from Edgar Rice Burroughs, famous as the creator of Tarzan and John Carter of Mars.
In the 1960s, controversial editor and publisher Ray Palmer touted the legends of a Hollow Earth in his Flying Saucers magazine for several years. He wrote extensively about purported holes at the North and South Poles, in a sense echoing Burroughs’ fictional stories of decades earlier.
Later he claimed that the subterranean world wasn’t physical, but “astral,” which implies on another vibratory frequency or dimension.
Then there were the widely-disputed claims about expeditions in which polar openings to the interior of the Earth were located in 1947 and 1956 by explorer Richard Byrd, but no reliable evidence has been produced that this planet has such conditions.
Then again, suggesting that other planets in our solar system are hollow, and thus possess the conditions to support human life, is a convenient excuse for some otherwise unproven contact claims. That way, even if their alleged home planet has a hostile environment, there’s still room for such civilizations.
As to Palmer, he reportedly presented outrageous theories to generate letters from his readers, which he eagerly published in his various magazines, along with his provocative responses. But it’s not as if he believed much of it.
Copyright 1999-2022 The Paracast Company. 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!
October 30, 2022
www.theparacast.com
Visiting the Sites of Famous UFO Cases and Contacts with Craig Campobasso 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.
THIS IS IMPORTANT! DON'T MISS OUT! YOU CAN SUPPORT THE PARACAST AND ENJOY THE ULTIMATE PARACAST EXPERIENCE AT A SPECIAL LOW PRICE! 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 an enhanced version of The Paracast with the network ads removed, when you join The Paracast+. We also offer a special RSS feed for easy updates of the latest episodes on your device. Flash! Use the coupon code ufo20 to receive a 20% discount on five-year or lifetime subscriptions. And PayPal now accepts cryptocurrencies, such as Bitcoin, in payment. And if you don't want to use PayPal, we now also offer a second payment option, from Stripe, which accepts major credit or debit cards, Apple Pay and Google Pay. For "qualified users," you can also take advantage of Pay Later options, so act now! For the easiest signup ever, please visit: Choose Your Membership Upgrade
This Week's Episode: Gene and cohost Tim Swartz present author Craig Campobasso, who is also an award-winning filmmaker and Emmy-nominated casting director with a career that spans three decades. He is the author of such bestselling books as: "The Extraterrestrial Species Almanac," "The Autobiography of an Extraterrestrial Saga: Waking Thyron," and "The Silence of the Hams: A Pictorial Memoir of the Making of a Cult Classic." His most recent book is: "The UFO Hotspot Compendium: All the Places to Visit Before You Die Or Are Abducted." This title is essentially an offbeat travelogue of locations where a number of UFO cases, real and not-so-real, occurred along with brief summaries of the various incidents. The book is published by MUFON.
After The Paracast — Available exclusively for Paracast+ subscribers on October 30: We are rejoined by author/filmmaker/casting director Craig Campobasso to present more UFO-related locations from his book, "The UFO Hotspot Compendium: All the Places to Visit Before You Die Or Are Abducted." In his visit with Gene and cohost Tim Swartz, he covers the basics of such cases as the Pascagoula, MS abduction, Travis Walton's abduction and the Phoenix Lights. The highlights you'll want to visit at each location are listed, and there's also a brief discussion on purported alien implants. Campobasso is also the author of such books as: "The Extraterrestrial Species Almanac," "The Autobiography of an Extraterrestrial Saga: Waking Thyron," and "The Silence of the Hams: A Pictorial Memoir of the Making of a Cult Classic."
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/. Visit our new online shop for great branded merchandise at: The Official Paracast Shop, and check out our new YouTube channel at: https://www.youtube.com/c/TheOfficialParacastChannel
The Hopeless Search for Truth in Ufology
By Gene Steinberg
I can’t begin to tell you how many examples of presumed fake claims I’ve encountered over the years in the world of UFOs. Well, I was about to call it “toxic world,” but I like to take a more positive approach.
Now some people claim that I dwell too much on the past on The Paracast, but it’s an old cliche that we need to learn the lessons of history to avoid repeating them.
So we have the various versions of the Pentagon UAP study where they mainly focus on recent military sightings, but ignore tens and tens of thousands of reports, including those from civilians, which date back decades. It’s as if they never happened.
I can be cynical and suggest that, with fewer sightings to debunk, it’ll be easier for the Pentagon to exit the UAP business in the near future. Indeed, there’s a suggestion that’s already beginning to happen based on a recent New York Times story, first posted on October 28, 2022, in which it’s suggested that, when objects appear to travel at very high speeds, it’s all an optical illusion.
I thought that such silly explanations were dropped in the days of Project Blue Book. You’d think that, with all its resources, the Pentagon would be able to detect possible illusions relatively quickly. Also, the military pilots who report those sightings would surely have been instructed on how to separate the real from the fanciful.
Now in the civilian world, you will no doubt recall recent episodes of The Paracast in which old, disproven claims are brought up as if they were true.
So as I mentioned in a recent commentary, some still believe that the MJ-12 documents asserting the existence of a top secret government group, focusing on Roswell and other incidents, was real. Or is real if it still exists with new members.
Over the years, though, MJ-12 has been widely debunked. A 2009 MUFON report, “An Estimate of the Situation: The Extraterrestrial Hypothesis,” from Brad Sparks and Barry Greenwood, explores the genesis of the hoax. Researcher/author Kevin D. Randle has described the flaws of the document. Even our own staff announcer and guest cohost, Bob Zanotti, wrote a skeptical commentary about it in the 1980s, as published in Jim Moseley’s Saucer Smear.
But when a recent guest brought it up again on the show, someone who actually represents MUFON — and I won’t embarrass them by mentioning the name — I wondered if all that work was worthwhile. What’s the point if the false claims persist?
Take the infamous 1950’s contactee George Adamski, who claimed to have met up with a tall, handsome extraterrestrial in the California desert. While he produced statements from alleged eyewitnesses to the encounter, it turns out that they soon recanted those statements. Maybe they didn’t see much of anything.
Indeed, the entire story otherwise fell apart pretty quickly. The alleged flying saucer photos he produced were quickly duplicated with traditional items such as a hub cap or a surgical lamp, along with GE lightbulbs for the landing gear. Adamski claimed to have flown around the moon, but wherever he went didn’t resemble the moon that astronomers and astronauts have seen.
It’s almost as if his image of ET was based on the children’s sci-fi TV shows from that era, such as Captain Video and Space Patrol. In those shows, you could visit nearby planets without space suits, and the inhabitants were all or mostly human. And let’s not forget the 1938 movie serial, “Flash Gordon’s Trip to Mars.”
Oh well, there were always the clay people Flash Gordon encountered, but they were still humanoid.
It’s one thing to continue to believe Adamski, and I won’t get into his message of peace and brotherhood which is commendable wherever it originated from. But other contactees of that era also have their supporters to this very day. Take George Van Tassel, who claimed contacts with an entity known as Solgonda, who allegedly came from Venus.
Van Tassel’s claim to fame was the Integratron, a circular structure with an oval dome, which could be employed to allegedly extend one’s life. There would also be support for anti-gravity and time travel. I’m serious.
It was purportedly based, at least in part, on technology derived from telepathic communications from his ET contact.
Regardless, work on the structure was halted upon Van Tassel’s death in 1978. It is presently maintained as a tourist attraction, owned by Joanne, Nancy and Patty Karl. While it doesn’t do what it was supposed to do, people who spend time in the Integratron claim that it makes them feel better, rejuvenated. It’s not something that can be proven, but if people do believe it has value, so be it. Still, nothing in the design indicates a possible extraterrestrial influence.
But clearly there are people who want to believe Van Tassel and his compatriots, that they were all in contact with space people, mostly from planets that do not appear to be able to support human life.
Alas, facts don’t always get in the way. So this week’s guest on The Paracast, Craig Campobasso, a movie producer and casting director by day, and a UFO researcher by night, insists that these inhospitable planets do support human life. But they live below the surface, where it’s hollow.
This is a clever expansion of the Hollow Earth myth that was once in vogue. Indeed, the concept reportedly dates back to the 17th century, apparently originating with Edmond Halley. It was used as the basis for some once-popular adventure fiction stories, including the Pellucidar series from Edgar Rice Burroughs, famous as the creator of Tarzan and John Carter of Mars.
In the 1960s, controversial editor and publisher Ray Palmer touted the legends of a Hollow Earth in his Flying Saucers magazine for several years. He wrote extensively about purported holes at the North and South Poles, in a sense echoing Burroughs’ fictional stories of decades earlier.
Later he claimed that the subterranean world wasn’t physical, but “astral,” which implies on another vibratory frequency or dimension.
Then there were the widely-disputed claims about expeditions in which polar openings to the interior of the Earth were located in 1947 and 1956 by explorer Richard Byrd, but no reliable evidence has been produced that this planet has such conditions.
Then again, suggesting that other planets in our solar system are hollow, and thus possess the conditions to support human life, is a convenient excuse for some otherwise unproven contact claims. That way, even if their alleged home planet has a hostile environment, there’s still room for such civilizations.
As to Palmer, he reportedly presented outrageous theories to generate letters from his readers, which he eagerly published in his various magazines, along with his provocative responses. But it’s not as if he believed much of it.
Copyright 1999-2022 The Paracast Company. 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!