The Paracast Newsletter
September 6, 2026
www.theparacast.com
Introducing Joshua Chaires, The Phantom Detective, who leads a team of paranormal researchers in and around Pennsylvania, 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 6, 2026): Gene and Geneva introduce ‘The Phantom Detective” in the person of Joshua Chaires. Founder/Director of Phantom Detectives LLC. , he is a paranormal investigator, historian, writer, researcher, musician, and publicist. Chaires got interested in the supernatural at an early age while watching Unsolved Mysteries with Robert Stack. His interest in the supernatural peaked in 2002 when he had the opportunity to investigate The General Wayne Inn in Marion Station, Pa. Chaires is a 2008 graduate of West Chester University and a future graduate student majoring in Business Administration. in 2014 Chaires co-founded the Summerwind Restoration Society along with Wisconsin paranormal investigator Craig Nehring. Their goal was to use the original blueprints of Summerwind Mansion to restore, rebuild, and relaunch Summerwind Mansion as a museum. With its haunted history Summerwind is known to be the most haunted location in Wisconsin. In August of 2020 Chaires founded Phantom Detectives LLC as a way to help people who were going through paranormal experiences. Using the Paranormal Research Society blue-print Chaires is hoping to build a team of renowned paranormal investigators and is dedicated to helping people that are going through these experiences. On May 21, 2021 Chaires company, Phantom Detectives LLC, acquired the rights to the late Art Bell’s Affiliate Director news program Dark Matter News. In addition Joshua worked with the late Art Bell’s staff members on their respective radio shows.His main site is: PhantomDetectives.org
After The Paracast — Available exclusively to Paracast+ subscribers: Joshua Chaires, The Phantom Detectives, talks further about his work with Gene and Geneva. The discussion focuses on UFO photos and contactees, with The sharing details about how contactee George Adamski’s photos were easily duplicated and discussing fellow traveler Howard Menger’s changing stories about alien contacts. Joshua shares his organization’s work investigating paranormal phenomena across multiple states and discussed potential connections between near-death experiences and UFO abductions. Chaires got interested in the supernatural at an early age while watching Unsolved Mysteries with Robert Stack. His interest in the supernatural peaked in 2002 when he had the opportunity to investigate The General Wayne Inn in Marion Station, Pa. Chaires is a 2008 graduate of West Chester University and a future graduate student majoring in Business Administration. in 2014 Chaires co-founded the Summerwind Restoration Society along with Wisconsin paranormal investigator Craig Nehring. Their goal was to use the original blueprints of Summerwind Mansion to restore, rebuild, and relaunch Summerwind Mansion as a museum. With its haunted history Summerwind is known to be the most haunted location in Wisconsin. In August of 2020 Chaires founded Phantom Detectives LLC as a way to help people who were going through paranormal experiences. His main site is: PhantomDetectives.org
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 episodes of The Paracast were released in April. 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 for release, this week featuring Joshua Chaires, The Phantom Detective. There's a lot more to come.
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
A Blast From the Past
Editor’s Note: It’s hard to believe that the Paracast has been delivering a newsletter every week since 2009. I’ve written most of them, though a number have been submitted by the likes of Tim Swartz, Red Pill Junkie sand others.
Going back to the early days , this article earned plenty of attention, expected and otherwise I have made some edits to bring it up to date:
A Quick Look at Paranormal Psycho Talk
By Gene Steinberg
Let me first apologize to progressive talk show host Ed Schultz (who died in 2018) for borrowing the label he uses when he refers to what he regards as the crazy statements from some of those who hold opposing points of view politically. I'm doing it for one reason, which is to point out why it's so damned difficult to focus on common sense and logic in the UFO field.
As a blatant example, there is an active movement called Exopolitics that has, to be perfectly blunt, polluted the efforts of serious researchers to get a handle on what's really going on. The theory behind Exopolitics is best summarized by a mission statement at one of the sites devoted to this misguided initiatives: "Exopolitics is the study of the key individuals, political institutions and processes associated with extraterrestrial life."
Now this statement of intent is somewhat ambiguous. Are they referring to Earthlings who are somehow in touch with extraterrestrials, or to the ET themselves? More to the point, if it is the latter, what evidence is there that we even know who and what they are and their actual mission on Earth?
The answer is, of course, that we don't, which is why we still call those strange objects UFOs, although the U.S. government’s alternative, is getting more recognition. If we know what they were, they?d be IFOs, and thus there would be no mystery to investigate.
In any case, you can probably regard Exopolitics as the direct descendant of the infamous contactee movement in Ufology.
And aside from jumping the gun big time, the Exopolitics people are not above making up absurd stories, such as the one that we are in contact with beings who inhabit secret underground bases on Mars. Worse, humans may travel there via teleportation, something way beyond the capabilities of the transporters in Star Trek. Oh well, maybe they're actually using stargates. It also more or less matches the mode of travel taken by John Carter in the famed Disney movie of that name, although he mostly hung out near the “dead sea bottoms” of a desolate world.
In any case, there may indeed be mysteries on the red planet that beg for sensible explanations, but we certainly have no facts to demonstrate that there is any life there beyond, perhaps, primitive microbes. Even then, the best our most recent probes can do is produce a few drops of water.
No doubt the Exopolitics cultists will simply provide the excuse that this information is being withheld by terrestrial governments and that's why we require disclosure. Only there isn't a scintilla of proof about what they know, let alone that they know anything at all. What would this movement do if they discovered that authorities are as mystified about the whole thing as the rest of us, that they are simply withholding much of their data, such as it is, because they don't want to admit that they don?t have any answers?
Of course, if that turned out to be the case, there would be no Exopolitics movement, and all the donations they've received and courses they've sold will have been a waste of time and money.
I am not going to say that the people behind this movement or liars and thieves. It?s quite possible they believe what they say, and that, in itself, may be the most unfortunate fact of all. Perhaps they were simply looking for advanced beings to help give meaning to their lives and got caught up in a belief system that, itself, had no basis in fact.
These days, an amazing number of people are searching for answers. Compounding the situation is the fact that the current economic crisis and other uncertainties have made them more gullible, more willing to accept the words of people who claim they know the truth.
That might explain some of the more irrational protests and conflicts in the political world as well. But I shall gratefully ignore the increasingly boring nonsense that pervades cable TV in this country.
The best I can say about Exopolitics is that perhaps, over time, people will come to realize that they have no more answers than anyone else, and the movement will eventually die on the vine. Alas, it'll probably be replaced by something just as nonsensical if not more so. And that may have already happened.
Copyright 1999-2024 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 6, 2026
www.theparacast.com
Introducing Joshua Chaires, The Phantom Detective, who leads a team of paranormal researchers in and around Pennsylvania, 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 6, 2026): Gene and Geneva introduce ‘The Phantom Detective” in the person of Joshua Chaires. Founder/Director of Phantom Detectives LLC. , he is a paranormal investigator, historian, writer, researcher, musician, and publicist. Chaires got interested in the supernatural at an early age while watching Unsolved Mysteries with Robert Stack. His interest in the supernatural peaked in 2002 when he had the opportunity to investigate The General Wayne Inn in Marion Station, Pa. Chaires is a 2008 graduate of West Chester University and a future graduate student majoring in Business Administration. in 2014 Chaires co-founded the Summerwind Restoration Society along with Wisconsin paranormal investigator Craig Nehring. Their goal was to use the original blueprints of Summerwind Mansion to restore, rebuild, and relaunch Summerwind Mansion as a museum. With its haunted history Summerwind is known to be the most haunted location in Wisconsin. In August of 2020 Chaires founded Phantom Detectives LLC as a way to help people who were going through paranormal experiences. Using the Paranormal Research Society blue-print Chaires is hoping to build a team of renowned paranormal investigators and is dedicated to helping people that are going through these experiences. On May 21, 2021 Chaires company, Phantom Detectives LLC, acquired the rights to the late Art Bell’s Affiliate Director news program Dark Matter News. In addition Joshua worked with the late Art Bell’s staff members on their respective radio shows.His main site is: PhantomDetectives.org
After The Paracast — Available exclusively to Paracast+ subscribers: Joshua Chaires, The Phantom Detectives, talks further about his work with Gene and Geneva. The discussion focuses on UFO photos and contactees, with The sharing details about how contactee George Adamski’s photos were easily duplicated and discussing fellow traveler Howard Menger’s changing stories about alien contacts. Joshua shares his organization’s work investigating paranormal phenomena across multiple states and discussed potential connections between near-death experiences and UFO abductions. Chaires got interested in the supernatural at an early age while watching Unsolved Mysteries with Robert Stack. His interest in the supernatural peaked in 2002 when he had the opportunity to investigate The General Wayne Inn in Marion Station, Pa. Chaires is a 2008 graduate of West Chester University and a future graduate student majoring in Business Administration. in 2014 Chaires co-founded the Summerwind Restoration Society along with Wisconsin paranormal investigator Craig Nehring. Their goal was to use the original blueprints of Summerwind Mansion to restore, rebuild, and relaunch Summerwind Mansion as a museum. With its haunted history Summerwind is known to be the most haunted location in Wisconsin. In August of 2020 Chaires founded Phantom Detectives LLC as a way to help people who were going through paranormal experiences. His main site is: PhantomDetectives.org
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 episodes of The Paracast were released in April. 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 for release, this week featuring Joshua Chaires, The Phantom Detective. There's a lot more to come.
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
A Blast From the Past
Editor’s Note: It’s hard to believe that the Paracast has been delivering a newsletter every week since 2009. I’ve written most of them, though a number have been submitted by the likes of Tim Swartz, Red Pill Junkie sand others.
Going back to the early days , this article earned plenty of attention, expected and otherwise I have made some edits to bring it up to date:
A Quick Look at Paranormal Psycho Talk
By Gene Steinberg
Let me first apologize to progressive talk show host Ed Schultz (who died in 2018) for borrowing the label he uses when he refers to what he regards as the crazy statements from some of those who hold opposing points of view politically. I'm doing it for one reason, which is to point out why it's so damned difficult to focus on common sense and logic in the UFO field.
As a blatant example, there is an active movement called Exopolitics that has, to be perfectly blunt, polluted the efforts of serious researchers to get a handle on what's really going on. The theory behind Exopolitics is best summarized by a mission statement at one of the sites devoted to this misguided initiatives: "Exopolitics is the study of the key individuals, political institutions and processes associated with extraterrestrial life."
Now this statement of intent is somewhat ambiguous. Are they referring to Earthlings who are somehow in touch with extraterrestrials, or to the ET themselves? More to the point, if it is the latter, what evidence is there that we even know who and what they are and their actual mission on Earth?
The answer is, of course, that we don't, which is why we still call those strange objects UFOs, although the U.S. government’s alternative, is getting more recognition. If we know what they were, they?d be IFOs, and thus there would be no mystery to investigate.
In any case, you can probably regard Exopolitics as the direct descendant of the infamous contactee movement in Ufology.
And aside from jumping the gun big time, the Exopolitics people are not above making up absurd stories, such as the one that we are in contact with beings who inhabit secret underground bases on Mars. Worse, humans may travel there via teleportation, something way beyond the capabilities of the transporters in Star Trek. Oh well, maybe they're actually using stargates. It also more or less matches the mode of travel taken by John Carter in the famed Disney movie of that name, although he mostly hung out near the “dead sea bottoms” of a desolate world.
In any case, there may indeed be mysteries on the red planet that beg for sensible explanations, but we certainly have no facts to demonstrate that there is any life there beyond, perhaps, primitive microbes. Even then, the best our most recent probes can do is produce a few drops of water.
No doubt the Exopolitics cultists will simply provide the excuse that this information is being withheld by terrestrial governments and that's why we require disclosure. Only there isn't a scintilla of proof about what they know, let alone that they know anything at all. What would this movement do if they discovered that authorities are as mystified about the whole thing as the rest of us, that they are simply withholding much of their data, such as it is, because they don't want to admit that they don?t have any answers?
Of course, if that turned out to be the case, there would be no Exopolitics movement, and all the donations they've received and courses they've sold will have been a waste of time and money.
I am not going to say that the people behind this movement or liars and thieves. It?s quite possible they believe what they say, and that, in itself, may be the most unfortunate fact of all. Perhaps they were simply looking for advanced beings to help give meaning to their lives and got caught up in a belief system that, itself, had no basis in fact.
These days, an amazing number of people are searching for answers. Compounding the situation is the fact that the current economic crisis and other uncertainties have made them more gullible, more willing to accept the words of people who claim they know the truth.
That might explain some of the more irrational protests and conflicts in the political world as well. But I shall gratefully ignore the increasingly boring nonsense that pervades cable TV in this country.
The best I can say about Exopolitics is that perhaps, over time, people will come to realize that they have no more answers than anyone else, and the movement will eventually die on the vine. Alas, it'll probably be replaced by something just as nonsensical if not more so. And that may have already happened.
Copyright 1999-2024 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!
