The Paracast Newsletter
October 9, 2022
www.theparacast.com
Parnormal Author Shane Cashman Explores The Inverted World of Strange Events and Government Dirty Tricks 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.
HIS IS IMPORTANT SO 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, that accepts major credit or debit cards, Apple Pay and Google Pay. For "qualified users," you can now take advantage of Pay Later options, so act now! For the easiest signup ever, please visit: Choose Your Membership Upgrade
Note: In last week's issue, the URL for The Paracast+ was scrambled due to a glitch in our mailing list software. If you had a problem reaching the sign-up page, just use the link above, which should work (we hope!).
This Week's Episode: Gene and cohost Tim Swartz introduce Shane Cashman, host of the paranormal podcast Tales From the Inverted World, which investigates the mysteries that lie beneath the surface of everyday life. Shane searches for answers concerning UFO encounters, cryptids, ghosts, inter-dimensional beings, secret government experiments — just to name a few topics. This episode will focus on his 2021 book, "Tales From the Inverted World: Close Contact with Ghosts, UFOs Serial Killers and Simulation Theory Volume 1," released in 2021. His stories have appeared in The Atlantic, BBC Travel, Atlas Obscura, Narratively, VICE, Salon, The Los Angeles Review of Books Blog, and elsewhere. In 2015, he received first place in the PEN Center USA 500-word short story contest. He is a Glimmer Train short fiction finalist, and his nonfiction has been featured as an Editor’s Pick at Longreads.com.
After The Paracast — Available exclusively for Paracast+ subscribers on October 9: Gene and cohost Tim Swartz are rejoined by author Shane Cashman, whose book, “Tales From the Inverted World: Close Contact with Ghosts, UFOs Serial Killers and Simulation Theory Volume 1,” was released in 2021. This episode focuses on such topics as our fascination with serial killers in the media, and whether the children of these murderous might inherit some of their vicious and gruesome traits. Cashman also talks about what he learned about life from his maternal grandmother, and their discussions of whether we might all live in a simulation. He is host of the paranormal podcast Tales From the Inverted World, which investigates the mysteries that lie beneath the surface of everyday life, and searches for answers concerning UFO encounters, cryptids, ghosts, inter-dimensional beings, secret government experiments — just to name a few topics.
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
Random Thoughts on the Convention Circuit
By Gene Steinberg
I visited my first flying saucer or UFO convention back in 1964. Some friends of mine, mainly Allen Greenfield, Rick Hilberg, Allan Manak and Dale Rettig, decided to put together an event to counter those presumably crazy meetings featuring prominent contactees, such as the Giant Rock convention in California.
So instead of featuring people promoting their latest alleged meet-ups with ET, they wanted speakers to deliver serious, scientific information on the topic. They called it the Congress of Scientific Ufologists, and the first and many subsequent sessions were held in or around Cleveland, OH.
Pretentious? You bet, but there were plenty of reliable sighting reports to cover in a compelling fashion without succumbing to the fringe. It was meant as the alternative for serious people.
But most of the founders, other than Manak, were teenagers and hardly scientists. That didn’t stop my pals from working really hard to promote the annual event and deliver a right and proper presentation of the evidence that appeared to favor UFO reality.
Within a year or two, the crew let me join their governing board, the Permanent Organizing Committee. Eventually, Jim Moseley, another old friend and editor, then, of Saucer News, also came aboard and, a few years later became the permanent chairman.
It didn’t take long for our crew to come to the realization that the name was not just pretentious but awkward to announce, so they made the sensible move to change it to National UFO Conference (NUFOC).
During the early days, Moseley was on a quest to grow Saucer News and actually make money from it. He hired me as his part-time Managing Editor for $5 an hour; I was studying broadcasting in those days. That wage may seem paltry by 2022 standards, but if you raise it by the level of inflation over the decades, it would be $47 an hour, certainly a respectable sum.
In any case, Jim more or less burned out as the result of the 1967 NUFOC in New York City. The guest roster included many notables, including Long John Nebel, the original paranormal radio host and others. Rather than an attendance of hundreds, it soared to an estimated 8,000.
The exact figure is somewhat uncertain, because Moseley failed to provide a secure method to make sure freeloaders didn’t sneak in. As a result, and with the high expense of paying lecturers, including airline travel fees, he barely broke even.
Within the next few years, Moseley ended up selling Saucer News to his old buddy — and faux antagonist — Gray Barker. The magazine took a turn for the worst for as long as it lasted.
Eventually Moseley returned to the field and came out with a nonscheduled newsletter, Saucer Smear, which contained both serious and humorous commentary focusing on the activities, including the foibles, of prominent people in the field along with an occasional sighting report or two.
Now I attended most of the NUFOC conferences in the 1960s and 1970s. I even sponsored one, which we held in 1975 in Valley Forge, PA. Attendance was decent, but not decent enough. My business partner at the time and I ended up with a $135 loss. I remember that figure well, and perhaps we should have invested more to promote the event, but that might, in the end, have resulted in a larger deficit.
The long and short of it is that many UFO conferences barely break even, although the recent ones are better organized and thus deliver a decent amount of revenue to the sponsors.
The NUFOC pulled down its shingle in the early 200s.
With a few exceptions, I have attended UFO conventions only rarely in recent years. The shutdowns caused by the arrival of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 meant that many in-person events were canceled or postponed.
Things are surely changing for the better, although it’s fair to say that COVID-19 hasn’t left us, and likely never will.
Another long-standing event is the International UFO Conference, which is holding its 31st annual session on October 12-16, 2022 at the Sheraton Mesa Hotel at Wrigleyville West in Mesa, AZ.
The IUFOC is very much an assemblage of different approaches to UFO/UAP investigation. Prominent researchers, academics, authors and aviation experts are on hand to deliver the latest evidence about possible UFO reality. The approaches are both serious and, sometimes, controversial.
Many of the most famous figures in the field, have been present over the years. Some of them have appeared on The Paracast, and that includes Jacques Vallee, who was a featured guest at the IUFOC several years ago.
I only wish I had the chance to catch up with him. I first met Vallee in 1965 during a jaunt through the midwest, joined by my fellow NUFOC colleagues: Greenfield, Hilberg, Moseley and Rettig.
As usual, this year’s list of guest lecturers is fairly large, and you’ll certainly recognize filmmaker James Fox, Micah Hanks, Ben Hansen, David Marler, Dr. Michael Masters, Travis Walton and TV producer Bryce Zabel.
As I write this, I’m preparing to attend, at least part of the time when I’m not recording and editing The Paracast. I particularly enjoy browsing the vendor booths, where you can meet not just the lecturers but people who have paranormal books and trinkets to sell. You may even encounter a few of the fascinating eccentrics who populate these fields.
And I’m always glad to meet listeners and chat with them.
I’ve also made arrangements with IUFOC producers Karen Brard and Alejandro Rojas to offer listeners to The Paracast a special deal to attend the virtual or in-person events. So if you use the coupon code PARACAST when you sign up, you’ll get a 20% discount.
While some registration packages are already sold out, the basic “lectures only” and daily packages appear to still be available. Certainly this is encouraging news, because it means that UFO conferences are still hot tickets, and there are plenty of people out there who want to attend them, even travel across the U.S. and, in fact, the world, to be there.
For more information, please visit: https://www.ufocongress.com
I’ll have more coverage on how the IUFOC turns out on upcoming episodes of The Paracast.
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 9, 2022
www.theparacast.com
Parnormal Author Shane Cashman Explores The Inverted World of Strange Events and Government Dirty Tricks 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.
HIS IS IMPORTANT SO 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, that accepts major credit or debit cards, Apple Pay and Google Pay. For "qualified users," you can now take advantage of Pay Later options, so act now! For the easiest signup ever, please visit: Choose Your Membership Upgrade
Note: In last week's issue, the URL for The Paracast+ was scrambled due to a glitch in our mailing list software. If you had a problem reaching the sign-up page, just use the link above, which should work (we hope!).
This Week's Episode: Gene and cohost Tim Swartz introduce Shane Cashman, host of the paranormal podcast Tales From the Inverted World, which investigates the mysteries that lie beneath the surface of everyday life. Shane searches for answers concerning UFO encounters, cryptids, ghosts, inter-dimensional beings, secret government experiments — just to name a few topics. This episode will focus on his 2021 book, "Tales From the Inverted World: Close Contact with Ghosts, UFOs Serial Killers and Simulation Theory Volume 1," released in 2021. His stories have appeared in The Atlantic, BBC Travel, Atlas Obscura, Narratively, VICE, Salon, The Los Angeles Review of Books Blog, and elsewhere. In 2015, he received first place in the PEN Center USA 500-word short story contest. He is a Glimmer Train short fiction finalist, and his nonfiction has been featured as an Editor’s Pick at Longreads.com.
After The Paracast — Available exclusively for Paracast+ subscribers on October 9: Gene and cohost Tim Swartz are rejoined by author Shane Cashman, whose book, “Tales From the Inverted World: Close Contact with Ghosts, UFOs Serial Killers and Simulation Theory Volume 1,” was released in 2021. This episode focuses on such topics as our fascination with serial killers in the media, and whether the children of these murderous might inherit some of their vicious and gruesome traits. Cashman also talks about what he learned about life from his maternal grandmother, and their discussions of whether we might all live in a simulation. He is host of the paranormal podcast Tales From the Inverted World, which investigates the mysteries that lie beneath the surface of everyday life, and searches for answers concerning UFO encounters, cryptids, ghosts, inter-dimensional beings, secret government experiments — just to name a few topics.
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
Random Thoughts on the Convention Circuit
By Gene Steinberg
I visited my first flying saucer or UFO convention back in 1964. Some friends of mine, mainly Allen Greenfield, Rick Hilberg, Allan Manak and Dale Rettig, decided to put together an event to counter those presumably crazy meetings featuring prominent contactees, such as the Giant Rock convention in California.
So instead of featuring people promoting their latest alleged meet-ups with ET, they wanted speakers to deliver serious, scientific information on the topic. They called it the Congress of Scientific Ufologists, and the first and many subsequent sessions were held in or around Cleveland, OH.
Pretentious? You bet, but there were plenty of reliable sighting reports to cover in a compelling fashion without succumbing to the fringe. It was meant as the alternative for serious people.
But most of the founders, other than Manak, were teenagers and hardly scientists. That didn’t stop my pals from working really hard to promote the annual event and deliver a right and proper presentation of the evidence that appeared to favor UFO reality.
Within a year or two, the crew let me join their governing board, the Permanent Organizing Committee. Eventually, Jim Moseley, another old friend and editor, then, of Saucer News, also came aboard and, a few years later became the permanent chairman.
It didn’t take long for our crew to come to the realization that the name was not just pretentious but awkward to announce, so they made the sensible move to change it to National UFO Conference (NUFOC).
During the early days, Moseley was on a quest to grow Saucer News and actually make money from it. He hired me as his part-time Managing Editor for $5 an hour; I was studying broadcasting in those days. That wage may seem paltry by 2022 standards, but if you raise it by the level of inflation over the decades, it would be $47 an hour, certainly a respectable sum.
In any case, Jim more or less burned out as the result of the 1967 NUFOC in New York City. The guest roster included many notables, including Long John Nebel, the original paranormal radio host and others. Rather than an attendance of hundreds, it soared to an estimated 8,000.
The exact figure is somewhat uncertain, because Moseley failed to provide a secure method to make sure freeloaders didn’t sneak in. As a result, and with the high expense of paying lecturers, including airline travel fees, he barely broke even.
Within the next few years, Moseley ended up selling Saucer News to his old buddy — and faux antagonist — Gray Barker. The magazine took a turn for the worst for as long as it lasted.
Eventually Moseley returned to the field and came out with a nonscheduled newsletter, Saucer Smear, which contained both serious and humorous commentary focusing on the activities, including the foibles, of prominent people in the field along with an occasional sighting report or two.
Now I attended most of the NUFOC conferences in the 1960s and 1970s. I even sponsored one, which we held in 1975 in Valley Forge, PA. Attendance was decent, but not decent enough. My business partner at the time and I ended up with a $135 loss. I remember that figure well, and perhaps we should have invested more to promote the event, but that might, in the end, have resulted in a larger deficit.
The long and short of it is that many UFO conferences barely break even, although the recent ones are better organized and thus deliver a decent amount of revenue to the sponsors.
The NUFOC pulled down its shingle in the early 200s.
With a few exceptions, I have attended UFO conventions only rarely in recent years. The shutdowns caused by the arrival of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 meant that many in-person events were canceled or postponed.
Things are surely changing for the better, although it’s fair to say that COVID-19 hasn’t left us, and likely never will.
Another long-standing event is the International UFO Conference, which is holding its 31st annual session on October 12-16, 2022 at the Sheraton Mesa Hotel at Wrigleyville West in Mesa, AZ.
The IUFOC is very much an assemblage of different approaches to UFO/UAP investigation. Prominent researchers, academics, authors and aviation experts are on hand to deliver the latest evidence about possible UFO reality. The approaches are both serious and, sometimes, controversial.
Many of the most famous figures in the field, have been present over the years. Some of them have appeared on The Paracast, and that includes Jacques Vallee, who was a featured guest at the IUFOC several years ago.
I only wish I had the chance to catch up with him. I first met Vallee in 1965 during a jaunt through the midwest, joined by my fellow NUFOC colleagues: Greenfield, Hilberg, Moseley and Rettig.
As usual, this year’s list of guest lecturers is fairly large, and you’ll certainly recognize filmmaker James Fox, Micah Hanks, Ben Hansen, David Marler, Dr. Michael Masters, Travis Walton and TV producer Bryce Zabel.
As I write this, I’m preparing to attend, at least part of the time when I’m not recording and editing The Paracast. I particularly enjoy browsing the vendor booths, where you can meet not just the lecturers but people who have paranormal books and trinkets to sell. You may even encounter a few of the fascinating eccentrics who populate these fields.
And I’m always glad to meet listeners and chat with them.
I’ve also made arrangements with IUFOC producers Karen Brard and Alejandro Rojas to offer listeners to The Paracast a special deal to attend the virtual or in-person events. So if you use the coupon code PARACAST when you sign up, you’ll get a 20% discount.
While some registration packages are already sold out, the basic “lectures only” and daily packages appear to still be available. Certainly this is encouraging news, because it means that UFO conferences are still hot tickets, and there are plenty of people out there who want to attend them, even travel across the U.S. and, in fact, the world, to be there.
For more information, please visit: https://www.ufocongress.com
I’ll have more coverage on how the IUFOC turns out on upcoming episodes of The Paracast.
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!