The Paracast Newsletter
September 20, 2026
www.theparacast.com
MUFON board member Bob Sperling explores the pyramids, UFOs with larger interiors than exteriors, and more weird phenomena this week on The Paracast.
The Paracast is released every Sunday and available from our site, https://www.theparacast.com, your favorite podcast app, and the IRN Internet Radio Network. All episodes from 2022 and later now feature better audio and fewer ads. We are also re-releasing some of our most popular classic episodes.
WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOU HAVEN'T SIGNED UP FOR THE PARACAST+ YET? PLEASE SUBSCRIBE TO THE PARACAST+ SO YOU CAN SUPPORT THE SHOW 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 bonus podcast, After The Paracast, plus a special version of The Paracast with all the ads removed, when you join The Paracast+. We also offer a special RSS feed for easy updates of the latest episodes on your device. Episodes for subscribers to The Paracast+ are now released 24 hours earlier. Flash! Now includes over 100 classic episodes, so take advantage of our lowest rates ever! Act now! It's easier than ever to susbcribe! For the easiest signup ever, please visit: https://www.theparacast.plus
This Week's Episode (September 20, 2026): Gene and Geneva present MUFON board member Robert Spering, who shares his extensive experience and research in the field of UFOs and related phenomena. The conversation covered a wide range of topics, including the history of Spearing’s involvement with MUFON, changes in the UFO field since 2017, and skepticism about figures like Lou Elizondo. Spearing discussed various UFO cases, the concept of craft being bigger on the inside than the outside, and theories about the nature of alien entities, such as the possibility of them being plant-based. The group also explored historical UFO incidents, the potential for government and corporate involvement in UFO research, and the challenges of verifying UFO reports. Spearing has long been involved with MUFON’s various special projects including the Project Aquarius historical Database with over 2 terabytes of historical information, the opening of the Pine Bush, N.Y. UFO Museum, the MUFON Observer Social Network and the upcoming launch of the ANDRUS Database! Bob also handles many aspects of MUFON’s Social Media Platform content. He has had numerous articles published in various UFO related magazines around the world in several languages including four MUFON Journal cover stories. Spearing has appeared in the Travel Channel television series “UFOs: The Lost Evidence” as a photo analyst and in a Ancient Aliens episode about MUFON in February 2023. He also writes articles for the MUFON Newsletter and MUFON.COM. and speaks at U.S. and International Conventions.
After The Paracast — Available exclusively to Paracast+ subscribers: MUFON board member Robert Sperling rejoins Gene and Geneva. to talk about such topics as a complex narrative involving missing and murdered scientists across the years, potential connections to NASA and exotic propulsion technology, and the alleged assassination attempt on President Trump. Are there any sinister connections between these various events? The episode concluded with a look at MUFON’s current projects and future plans for a global UFO reporting network. will all this work bring about UFO disclosure — whatever the secret might be — after lo these many years? Spearing has long been involved with MUFON’s various special projects including the Project Aquarius historical Database with over 2 terabytes of historical information, the opening of the Pine Bush, N.Y. UFO Museum, the MUFON Observer Social Network and the upcoming launch of the ANDRUS Database! Bob also handles many aspects of MUFON’s Social Media Platform content. He has had numerous articles published in various UFO related magazines around the world in several languages including four MUFON Journal cover stories. Spearing has appeared in the Travel Channel television series “UFOs: The Lost Evidence” as a photo analyst and in a Ancient Aliens episode about MUFON in February 2023. He also writes articles for the MUFON Newsletter and MUFON.COM. and speaks at U.S. and International Conventions.
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. And look for @theparacast on Bluesky Social, Facebook, Threads and X.
Editors Note: Several months have passed since the episode with Preston Dennett was first recorded. In the interim I suffered from yet another bout of pneumonia. After a prolonged period of recovery, I’m back in the game with new Paracast episodes.
As you might expect, I am still overloaded with medical copays and other expenses. Please try to help the cause with your donations. You can send a PayPal payment (friends or family option), online or through the app with my thanks to:
paypal@technightowl.live
Gray Aliens — a Fungus Among Us?
By Geneva
Our recent guest on the Paracast, Robert Spearing mentioned a hypothesis that the greys could be a human-plant or human-fungus hybrid. He wondered if this was the result of biotechnology experiments, presumably by government or Big Pharma. But could it possibly be the result of natural symbiosis?
I've read that most mass of the human body is comprised not of human cells but of micro-organisms. Fungi in particular have amazing capabilities. They appear to be a form of distributed intelligence — think flock of birds in flight — that can act individually or as a unit, as circumstances require. With nothing resembling a brain, they exhibit learning, memory, decision-making, prediction, sensory awareness, and complex networked communication. Some researchers now speak of the forest's "Wood Wide Web." Thread-like filaments called hyphae span large areas underground to exchange nutrients, water, enzymes, and pheromones among plants in the area. Chemical and electrical signals coordinate responses to environmental changes.
With the possible exception of some termite colonies, the largest organism on Earth is thought to be the Humongous Fungus that spans over 2,400 acres — the size of 165 football fields — in Oregon's Malheur National Forest. ("Unfortunate Forest"? What happened to earn it that name?) Most of the fungus is underground, with only small clusters of mushrooms on the surface. It's estimated to be 2,500 to 8,000 years old. Plants and even single cells demonstrate memory, some of which can be passed down to descendants. Even if their collective intelligence works very slowly, that's a LOT of historical time!
Fungal spores are hardy under deep space conditions and may have been the first life forms to travel between planets. Giant fungi colonized Earth long before plants and animals, or even algae. Mushroom spores can affect the weather, particularly rainfall. (So can powder from the harvest on large tea plantations!) Fungi and bacteria are now being mixed with desert sand in an effort to produce soil for crops; this concept is still unproven.
Many readers will know of the slime mold, which lives as single cells where there is water, but when a pond dries up, the cells coalesce into a slug-like creature that crawls off in search of another pond. They're intelligent enough that they surpass both humans and computers in finding the most efficient routes through a maze, so they are now used by some city planners!
Many scientists, fishers *and* fish in the Carolinas have been poisoned by dinoflagellates in their waterways. Depending on the environment, these microorganisms can take 17 different forms, which appear on the surface to be different species. Most forms are harmless, but a few contain a deadly toxin that can cause permanent brain damage just from breathing the air near it. Transition to the toxic form has been triggered by warmer water and pollution from pig farms that spilled over during hurricanes. Of course, publicizing that toxin could mean an end to the states' tourism and fish economy! The pig farmers already have to observe sanitary precautions almost as extreme as high-level research labs. One coronavirus is more deadly to pigs than Ebola is to humans!
Some mushrooms glow in the dark with a green light. The ones with psychoactive properties may have quickened the brains of our apelike ancestors. One of their psychedelic substances can produce encounters with entities described as "self-transforming machine elves," who seem eager to communicate. Could those manifest as gray aliens when they appear to humans in other contexts?
It's hard to imagine how such frail spindly creatures, with their huge heads and lidless wrap-around eyes, could have evolved naturally. That head would never fit through the tiny pelvis even as a newborn, so infants would need to develop outside of their apparently genderless body — but no pouch is evident. Some contactees seem to have experienced the removal of pregnancies. This could be symbolic of a repressed memory from childbirth, where the helpless newborn is poked and prodded by terrifying creatures wearing masks and goggles. To an infant, sexual abuse and a medical procedure could feel equally traumatic.
Some say that the grays resemble starving children, of which our planet has plenty (especially since DOGE has eliminated government aid programs). Contactees often develop an interest in saving the planet, but saving the children? Not so much.
Recently I've noticed a spate of AI-generated tales on YouTube about people who belatedly realized that their parent, roommate, coworker, or some lost child seemed nonhuman. They're usually described as having cold, gray, clammy skin. They're polite and helpful but taciturn. They avoid sunlight, age slowly, and eventually go away. How did AI learn to write these stories?
You may have seen the videos about "zombie" ants and caterpillars, whose brains have been replaced by a fungus that controls their movements to favor its own replication. Fungal possession of a human being would open up even more possibilities. The human might not realize that it was hosting another entity. Biologists say that the greater mass of our body is already made up of nonhuman microorganisms and parasites. They are known to affect our mood and general personality, but what if the control were more specific? Already our brains don't always operate as a unit, as anyone is aware who has tried to diet or quit smoking (or any other addiction), or has had split-brain surgery for seizures. We could be hosting many different microscopic entities, some having conflicting agendas. Our ancestors called them spirits or demons. Most people notice their presence only during hypnogogic states or out-of-body experiences. But occasionally someone does something totally out of character, and later isn't able to explain what happened.
Our frontal lobes are always ready to concoct a plausible explanation for our own behavior, but occasionally some action seems just too strange. I'm thinking of the executive who was recently flying first-class when he suddenly began strangling the passenger next to him, and cursing at the flight attendant who tried to intervene! Passengers and crew had to restrain him with duct tape. He'd only had one drink on the plane, but no one knows what he consumed before the flight, or in the washroom. Some people just can't hold their liquor or tolerate the Sacred Herb revered by so many.
Come to find out, the victim was a religious fanatic promoting his latest book, so I feel a bit of sympathy for the strangler, who has just lost his job and is now unemployable. Maybe that duct tape could have been better used over the mouth of the cult leader trying to promote his books, who is now convinced that his attacker was possessed by a demon! A saner person could have just asked a flight attendant to move one of them to a different seat. But most of us can recall being seated next to an infuriating individual who would NOT shut up about some obsession that we didn't share!
It would be interesting to compare the microbiomes of religious people vs. atheists, or MAGA voters vs. progressives. I have seen people change so suddenly, and so extremely, that it did seem like a plummet into the Uncanny Valley! Communion ceremonies often entail members consuming the same substance, referred to as the "host." But if that is the host, who is the guest?
Knock-knock... Is anybody home?
Copyright 1999-2026 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!
September 20, 2026
www.theparacast.com
MUFON board member Bob Sperling explores the pyramids, UFOs with larger interiors than exteriors, and more weird phenomena this week on The Paracast.
The Paracast is released every Sunday and available from our site, https://www.theparacast.com, your favorite podcast app, and the IRN Internet Radio Network. All episodes from 2022 and later now feature better audio and fewer ads. We are also re-releasing some of our most popular classic episodes.
WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOU HAVEN'T SIGNED UP FOR THE PARACAST+ YET? PLEASE SUBSCRIBE TO THE PARACAST+ SO YOU CAN SUPPORT THE SHOW 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 bonus podcast, After The Paracast, plus a special version of The Paracast with all the ads removed, when you join The Paracast+. We also offer a special RSS feed for easy updates of the latest episodes on your device. Episodes for subscribers to The Paracast+ are now released 24 hours earlier. Flash! Now includes over 100 classic episodes, so take advantage of our lowest rates ever! Act now! It's easier than ever to susbcribe! For the easiest signup ever, please visit: https://www.theparacast.plus
This Week's Episode (September 20, 2026): Gene and Geneva present MUFON board member Robert Spering, who shares his extensive experience and research in the field of UFOs and related phenomena. The conversation covered a wide range of topics, including the history of Spearing’s involvement with MUFON, changes in the UFO field since 2017, and skepticism about figures like Lou Elizondo. Spearing discussed various UFO cases, the concept of craft being bigger on the inside than the outside, and theories about the nature of alien entities, such as the possibility of them being plant-based. The group also explored historical UFO incidents, the potential for government and corporate involvement in UFO research, and the challenges of verifying UFO reports. Spearing has long been involved with MUFON’s various special projects including the Project Aquarius historical Database with over 2 terabytes of historical information, the opening of the Pine Bush, N.Y. UFO Museum, the MUFON Observer Social Network and the upcoming launch of the ANDRUS Database! Bob also handles many aspects of MUFON’s Social Media Platform content. He has had numerous articles published in various UFO related magazines around the world in several languages including four MUFON Journal cover stories. Spearing has appeared in the Travel Channel television series “UFOs: The Lost Evidence” as a photo analyst and in a Ancient Aliens episode about MUFON in February 2023. He also writes articles for the MUFON Newsletter and MUFON.COM. and speaks at U.S. and International Conventions.
After The Paracast — Available exclusively to Paracast+ subscribers: MUFON board member Robert Sperling rejoins Gene and Geneva. to talk about such topics as a complex narrative involving missing and murdered scientists across the years, potential connections to NASA and exotic propulsion technology, and the alleged assassination attempt on President Trump. Are there any sinister connections between these various events? The episode concluded with a look at MUFON’s current projects and future plans for a global UFO reporting network. will all this work bring about UFO disclosure — whatever the secret might be — after lo these many years? Spearing has long been involved with MUFON’s various special projects including the Project Aquarius historical Database with over 2 terabytes of historical information, the opening of the Pine Bush, N.Y. UFO Museum, the MUFON Observer Social Network and the upcoming launch of the ANDRUS Database! Bob also handles many aspects of MUFON’s Social Media Platform content. He has had numerous articles published in various UFO related magazines around the world in several languages including four MUFON Journal cover stories. Spearing has appeared in the Travel Channel television series “UFOs: The Lost Evidence” as a photo analyst and in a Ancient Aliens episode about MUFON in February 2023. He also writes articles for the MUFON Newsletter and MUFON.COM. and speaks at U.S. and International Conventions.
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. And look for @theparacast on Bluesky Social, Facebook, Threads and X.
Editors Note: Several months have passed since the episode with Preston Dennett was first recorded. In the interim I suffered from yet another bout of pneumonia. After a prolonged period of recovery, I’m back in the game with new Paracast episodes.
As you might expect, I am still overloaded with medical copays and other expenses. Please try to help the cause with your donations. You can send a PayPal payment (friends or family option), online or through the app with my thanks to:
paypal@technightowl.live
Gray Aliens — a Fungus Among Us?
By Geneva
Our recent guest on the Paracast, Robert Spearing mentioned a hypothesis that the greys could be a human-plant or human-fungus hybrid. He wondered if this was the result of biotechnology experiments, presumably by government or Big Pharma. But could it possibly be the result of natural symbiosis?
I've read that most mass of the human body is comprised not of human cells but of micro-organisms. Fungi in particular have amazing capabilities. They appear to be a form of distributed intelligence — think flock of birds in flight — that can act individually or as a unit, as circumstances require. With nothing resembling a brain, they exhibit learning, memory, decision-making, prediction, sensory awareness, and complex networked communication. Some researchers now speak of the forest's "Wood Wide Web." Thread-like filaments called hyphae span large areas underground to exchange nutrients, water, enzymes, and pheromones among plants in the area. Chemical and electrical signals coordinate responses to environmental changes.
With the possible exception of some termite colonies, the largest organism on Earth is thought to be the Humongous Fungus that spans over 2,400 acres — the size of 165 football fields — in Oregon's Malheur National Forest. ("Unfortunate Forest"? What happened to earn it that name?) Most of the fungus is underground, with only small clusters of mushrooms on the surface. It's estimated to be 2,500 to 8,000 years old. Plants and even single cells demonstrate memory, some of which can be passed down to descendants. Even if their collective intelligence works very slowly, that's a LOT of historical time!
Fungal spores are hardy under deep space conditions and may have been the first life forms to travel between planets. Giant fungi colonized Earth long before plants and animals, or even algae. Mushroom spores can affect the weather, particularly rainfall. (So can powder from the harvest on large tea plantations!) Fungi and bacteria are now being mixed with desert sand in an effort to produce soil for crops; this concept is still unproven.
Many readers will know of the slime mold, which lives as single cells where there is water, but when a pond dries up, the cells coalesce into a slug-like creature that crawls off in search of another pond. They're intelligent enough that they surpass both humans and computers in finding the most efficient routes through a maze, so they are now used by some city planners!
Many scientists, fishers *and* fish in the Carolinas have been poisoned by dinoflagellates in their waterways. Depending on the environment, these microorganisms can take 17 different forms, which appear on the surface to be different species. Most forms are harmless, but a few contain a deadly toxin that can cause permanent brain damage just from breathing the air near it. Transition to the toxic form has been triggered by warmer water and pollution from pig farms that spilled over during hurricanes. Of course, publicizing that toxin could mean an end to the states' tourism and fish economy! The pig farmers already have to observe sanitary precautions almost as extreme as high-level research labs. One coronavirus is more deadly to pigs than Ebola is to humans!
Some mushrooms glow in the dark with a green light. The ones with psychoactive properties may have quickened the brains of our apelike ancestors. One of their psychedelic substances can produce encounters with entities described as "self-transforming machine elves," who seem eager to communicate. Could those manifest as gray aliens when they appear to humans in other contexts?
It's hard to imagine how such frail spindly creatures, with their huge heads and lidless wrap-around eyes, could have evolved naturally. That head would never fit through the tiny pelvis even as a newborn, so infants would need to develop outside of their apparently genderless body — but no pouch is evident. Some contactees seem to have experienced the removal of pregnancies. This could be symbolic of a repressed memory from childbirth, where the helpless newborn is poked and prodded by terrifying creatures wearing masks and goggles. To an infant, sexual abuse and a medical procedure could feel equally traumatic.
Some say that the grays resemble starving children, of which our planet has plenty (especially since DOGE has eliminated government aid programs). Contactees often develop an interest in saving the planet, but saving the children? Not so much.
Recently I've noticed a spate of AI-generated tales on YouTube about people who belatedly realized that their parent, roommate, coworker, or some lost child seemed nonhuman. They're usually described as having cold, gray, clammy skin. They're polite and helpful but taciturn. They avoid sunlight, age slowly, and eventually go away. How did AI learn to write these stories?
You may have seen the videos about "zombie" ants and caterpillars, whose brains have been replaced by a fungus that controls their movements to favor its own replication. Fungal possession of a human being would open up even more possibilities. The human might not realize that it was hosting another entity. Biologists say that the greater mass of our body is already made up of nonhuman microorganisms and parasites. They are known to affect our mood and general personality, but what if the control were more specific? Already our brains don't always operate as a unit, as anyone is aware who has tried to diet or quit smoking (or any other addiction), or has had split-brain surgery for seizures. We could be hosting many different microscopic entities, some having conflicting agendas. Our ancestors called them spirits or demons. Most people notice their presence only during hypnogogic states or out-of-body experiences. But occasionally someone does something totally out of character, and later isn't able to explain what happened.
Our frontal lobes are always ready to concoct a plausible explanation for our own behavior, but occasionally some action seems just too strange. I'm thinking of the executive who was recently flying first-class when he suddenly began strangling the passenger next to him, and cursing at the flight attendant who tried to intervene! Passengers and crew had to restrain him with duct tape. He'd only had one drink on the plane, but no one knows what he consumed before the flight, or in the washroom. Some people just can't hold their liquor or tolerate the Sacred Herb revered by so many.
Come to find out, the victim was a religious fanatic promoting his latest book, so I feel a bit of sympathy for the strangler, who has just lost his job and is now unemployable. Maybe that duct tape could have been better used over the mouth of the cult leader trying to promote his books, who is now convinced that his attacker was possessed by a demon! A saner person could have just asked a flight attendant to move one of them to a different seat. But most of us can recall being seated next to an infuriating individual who would NOT shut up about some obsession that we didn't share!
It would be interesting to compare the microbiomes of religious people vs. atheists, or MAGA voters vs. progressives. I have seen people change so suddenly, and so extremely, that it did seem like a plummet into the Uncanny Valley! Communion ceremonies often entail members consuming the same substance, referred to as the "host." But if that is the host, who is the guest?
Knock-knock... Is anybody home?
Copyright 1999-2026 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!