Welcome to Open Minds Radio with Alejandro Rojas. Open Minds Radio is a UFO
news authority presenting evidence and the latest news regarding the UFO phenomenon. Here's your
host, Alejandro Roja. Hello, it is Alejandro. Welcome to Open Minds
Radio, your UFO news authority. This is Alejandro Rojas and we have another
great show today. You know what, I don't know why I always say
this too. I just get so excited about our guests, and this week
I'm definitely really excited about our guests. I'm sorry, I get so excited
all the time. I'm just excitable. And that is Steve Volk. And
here is a gentleman who is a journalist. We talked about him last week
at that He wrote a book called Stringeology, and its subtitle is how I
tried to explain away the unexplainable and couldn't you know. He's a journalist.
His family talked about ghosts. He's like, yeah, right, you know,
and he's kind of takes a typical journalist where it took the typical journalist's
kind of attitude and he looked into this stuff and he found all of the
credible stuff. And guess where he found the credible UFO information right here on
Open Minds Radio. Pretty cool dudes. But anyway, he's got a book
out there. It's made some news. He's gotten on Huffington Post he wrote
his story on He's got some stories out there, so that's really exciting.
His book actually tackles, of course, ghost stories, because that's how it
all started from his family ghost stories. But he does talk about UFOs,
psychics, near death experiences, and other paranormal stuff that he just found.
You know, wow, there's a lot of credible stuff. There's some science
done around some of these subjects. And why do people run away from these
subjects? Why do they make fun of them? You know? Why does
society have such a problem talking about the paranormal? A question that has perplexed
us here at Open Minds for decades. We've been doing this business for nearly
one hundred and fifty years now, and every year we wonder that same question.
Actually, it's been a lot less than that, but it feels like
a long long time, a long journey, probably because past lives. We're
probably doing this paranormal research in past lives and many past lives, and I
think he talks about past lives in his books. So that's if you're doubting
me, If you're like, yeah, really, dude, pass law Is,
go check out his book and he'll talk about some of the information that
may show you there is possibly some legitimacy to that study as well. So
this is going to be a lot of fun talking to Steve. He's a
really great guy, a great researcher, and of course, as my listeners,
especially our listeners, appreciate, you know, kind of middle of the
road taking a look at everything and being unbiased and weighing the evidence here or
there. So that's gonna be a lot of fun. Of course, we've
had some move On guests on lately, some people who are going to be
speaking at the move On Symposium this July twenty ninth to the thirty first in
Irvine, California. We're looking forward to being there and checking that out and
having a booth and signing stuff. We'll sign your T shirt even if you
don't ask us to, we'll just run up there and sign it. But
Open Minds was here, so you remember us. And we're also going to
be in Roswell from July first to the fourth because that is a famous Roswell
festival. A lot of stuff going on, and we cover daily UFO news
every day to let you know about the UFO stuff going on all around the
world. And we have this incredible news correspondent who's with us every week.
Ladies and gentlemen, help me give a warm welcome to Jason McClellan. Jason,
how are you good? Thanks Bud. That was quite warm. There's
people clapping all over this place. Hooray. They're trying to drive and clap
while they're listening. Well, I certainly hear it. Hello Alejandro, and
greetings to all of our listeners. This is your Open Minds News Brief for
Monday, June twentieth, twenty eleven. In Alejandro, I share your enthusiasm
for today's guest, and so I feel I must start off the news with
a story about our wonderful guest today. Great So, a Philadelphia reporter recently
took a journalistic look into the paranormal. In an effort to understand the unexplainable.
Steve Volk put his journalistic skills to you since spent three years researching paranormal
phenomena from a variety of angles and sources. According to phillybirds dot Com,
and the result of his multi year research are in his new book. As
Alhondra mentioned, the book is fringeology. How I tried to explain away the
unexplainable and couldn't. In a recent interview with Philly Post, Walk was asked
about the percentage of things that are truly unexplainable. He responds by pointing to
UFO studies that show how a low percentage of UFOs remain unidentified, and similar
information was presented by someone we've had on the show before, also a journalist,
Leslie Kane, author of UFOs, general's Pilots and government officials go on
the record. After a ten year investigation, Kine concluded that ninety five percent
of all UFO sidings can be explained as ordinary phenomena, leaving five percent of
the sightings unexplainable. Falk set out to gain a better understanding of paranormal topics.
Phillybirds dot Com points out that Balk is no closer to having all the
answers about the paranormal, but he's fine with that. Through his book,
he hopes to spark discussion and debate, and hope skeptics and believers will learn
to listen and learn from each other. And I have not read the book.
I'm actually really excited to read the book and I can't wait for the
interview. Yeah, I haven't read the whole thing. I've read the UFO
part, the introduction and other pieces and parts, but I'm I'm really excited
to sit down and I know I'm just going to sit down and want sending
and read it to beginning to end. It's a great read. He's a
great writer. It's a lot of fun, and it's I'm really excited about
the book. It's it's great, and I get excited when people do this.
You know, journalists or other people happen to sort of casually look into
paranormal paranormal related topics and they get hooked. Yeah, you know, they
have a response they didn't expect to happen, and they just it sort of
overtakes them. They're oh, wow, I didn't realize it was so much
here, And I was certainly like that. That's one of the reasons,
you know, I kind of relate to the book because I was a journalism
student when I really got into this stuff, and so I didn't really put
too much into it. But then you know, when I really started looking
into it, it was like, holy moly, there's something here, Martha.
And with this top with UFO topic and any other topic, really,
it's sort of refreshing when someone comes in with a fresh perspective and a truly
sort of journalistic approach to it. They're coming in with a fresh set of
eyes, no knowledge on the subject, and they're just looking at the facts
that they can dig up. Yeah, that's always great, and it's great
to hear from you listeners, because sometimes we hear from the listeners who are
like, you know, I wasn't really I put much into sticking to this
subject either, but I heard an interview with guests of yours and I've really
gotten into it, and that's wonderful. I love to hear that. Absolutely.
Well, we've talked, oh, not really a lot, but we've
talked a little bit about SETI over the past few weeks. A recent budget
deficit hampered the SETI Institute's effort to scan the skies for extraterrestrial frequencies, causing
operations that their Alan telescope array in California to be suspended. Fortunately for SETI
and other researchers, though the search continues. While their Alan telescope array is
inactive. SETI continues to operate vers City of California, Berkeley astronomers recently announced
a listening project in progress that involves pointing the Robert C. Berg Green Bank
Telescope in West Virginia at eighty six planets that have been selected as world's most
likely to resemble Earth, with the hopes of detecting alien signals. The data
collected from this project will be analyzed by a network of computers running SETI software,
called the SETI at Home Project, But search efforts aren't isolated to the
United States. Europe's Low Frequency Array, or lo FAR, came online last
year and hopes to compliment seti's search for signs signals from that could point to
signs of extraterrestrial life. Theworld dot Org describes lo FAR as it consists of
fields of antenna spread out over five European countries, and while many radio telescopes
scans for signals at higher frequencies, lo FAR is designed to aim at the
lower noisier bands. So astronomers are working with lo FAR hope that SETI can
get back online completely soon because they feel that their efforts work nicely with seti's
because then they can cover more ground looking at larger, larger frequency bands,
more coverage. But still they acknowledge that it's sort of a crapshoot. But
yeah, yeah, I knew people would be coming to seti's rescue. You
know, people get excited about SETI all over the world, more so unfortunately
than you know, some of the grassroots kind of UFO investigations, which I
think are a better investment. In fact, I think it was Bernard Age,
but it was a well known astronomer who said, you know, people
who are actually investigating UFOs will probably find the smoking gum before we get a
signal from somewhere. But it's interesting. It's always good that people are continuing
to be interested in looking for e T well. And it's interesting how the
SETI news, the news about their budget problems, it still is making headlines.
Still see it reported as it's something fresh, something that just happened,
when it happened more than a month ago, right, And you know,
this is just my thought, but I assume SETI is appealing for headlines because
it's a scientific organization. There are other organizations looking for extraterrestrial life. I
mean, NASA, almost every public university, but they have search for extraterrestrial
intelligence in their name and that's what they are. So I think when they
see the science organization and a lot of I think that's why it's still making
headlines because I think there are a lot of news organizations out there that had
no idea there was an organization searching for extraterrestrial intelligence. Probably yeah, I
mean it's just such old news to us, but you're probably right. There
are probably people all over the place thinking, wow, there are actually scientists
doing this right well. As we've stated before, I certainly wish them luck
and hope they get back to what they do, but again I would like
to see money going to other efforts, but they need money to you know
what. I kind of get this image in my head of you know,
them getting a message and it says we're right behind you and they turned around
and there's a UFO like Mars attacks or something that's big silver who added that
to Mars attacks? Write the writers were right behind you? Yeah, Mars
attacks too. Excellent. Well, New Zealand has proven itself to be quite
the UFO hotspot and lately the city of Rotorua seems to be inundated with UFO
sidings. Witnesses have reported many UFOs in the sky above Roetrua. Lately,
these UFOs have buried in appearance and have demonstrated various behaviors. The Daily Post
has been publishing stories about the sightings. Any stories have resulted in additional witnesses
sending in their own eyewitness accounts, photos and videos to the Daily Post.
In response to one of these videos, a reader suggested that the object in
question could be the Space Shuttle because at the time the video was taken,
the Space Show was re entering the atmosphere. With most of these sightings,
most of these sightings that are reported, readers like to respond with their opinions
of what the unknown aerial objects could be. The suggestions sometimes there are plausible
explanations, while other times they are far far stretches by people trying to force
an identification to make sense of something unknown. And I watched the video of
this one particular object in the sky that one reader suggested could be the Space
Shuttle, and it's certainly possible because it's moving pretty quickly through the sky.
And I've seen the Space shuttle in the sky, not re entering, but
when it was in space, and in space it was moving quite fast.
But this was supposedly when it was re entering from a mission, burning through
the sky. But just a month ago there was another video from the same
place and the light just kind of sat there above the trees and it moved
a little bit one way and stayed there and then moved back. And that
is certainly not a space. But lots of different UFO sightings in this area,
like I said, different behaviors, different shapes, different movements. It's
interesting too. From one city. We keep hearing about this right and fortunately
for them and for everybody, the local press seems to cover it quite a
lot. Unfortunately for us, it's hard to say the name of the town
and hopefully we're getting it right road to Ua Roa, Torua Road Torua,
but yeah, hopefully there's It is really interesting that they're having so much activity
and it seems to be you know, yeah, why is it just a
big craze in the area where everybody's looking. That doesn't seem to make sense
because you don't you know, it's not like Hoole Town to typically get really
excited about something like that. Yeah. Well, and as I mentioned to
you Lehandro that when The Daily Post has been posting these stories. Along with
the stories of the sightings, they posted a poll that asked their readers,
do you believe in aliens? And eighty percent have responded yes, they believe
in aliens, which is great. And I know you and I have talked
about this and that's probably true here too, But I don't know if those
numbers would come through if you talk to people in person. Certainly an online
poll that's kind of secret. But I know when you talk to people in
person, they're not so quick to admit that they accept the idea that extraterrestrial
life is out there, especially if they're in a group of people. You
know, they don't want their friends to know. The default response is to
laugh it off and wait and see what other people respond. And it's always
good to break that down, you know, do you believe in extra trustrials?
And then do you believe that? You know, do you a foes
or extraterrestrial that's always interesting because and then again the other one they like to
throw in theres do you believe extraterrestrials are here? Visited? Earth or are
here now, because the numbers vary, And that's the one I get really
interested in. Right, we saw a recent pull. Their pulls all the
time, but he saw a recent one that had fairly high numbers for people
feeling that extraterrestrials are here with us now. Yeah, and I don't remember
what that was me either. Well, exciting, all right, very much.
On the Costa Rica, a tour guide captured a video of what could
be a UFO, either above or on top of a volcano in Costa Rica.
The tour guide saw a shiny reflection coming from the top of the Arena
volcano, something he's never seen before, so he took out his camera to
record video of the strange occurrence. It's possible that the reflection was from a
person on top of the volcano, but as Inside Costa Rica points out,
climbing the Arena volcano is illegal and it's surrounded by a national park with restricted
access. This video was shown in the local news and it's currently being analyzed.
Yeah, and it's I mean, whatever it is, it's on the
rim up there, right, and it looks like it's on the rim.
Yeah, possible it could be floating behind it, but it's probably on top,
right on the rim. Yeah. So yeah, something big and refective
up there. It's interesting. It is interesting. And the individual who took
this video works for Caravan Tours, which is a very large tour company in
Costa Rica. I'm in fact going to be using them later this year,
the Costa Rica trip. Cool. They're very, very popular. They do
lots and lots of tours consistently. So I don't know how long this guy
worked has worked for Caravan Tours, but he's there all the time. Yeah,
and his story there all the time. Yeah, and had never seen
that, right, So it's an interesting one. And I don't know if
UFOs are attracted to volcanoes or not, but we have another UFO of volcano
story. Many witnesses deserve strange, strange lights and objects above a volcano in
Chile as it erupted on June fifth, one witness managed to capture a photo
of a UFO above the erupting volcano. Other photos and videos were allegedly taken,
but according to LTMFO dot com, experts have yet to authenticate this evidence,
and that one was actually an object in the air in the sky sort
of to the side of a UFO as it was erupting or as a volcano
was dropping. Yeah, I know in Mexico supposedly they've gotten videos of UFOs
near volcanoes, but it does seem to be somewhat of a popular thing.
Interesting. Yeah, maybe they like the warm space is cold, they're warming
up next to a warm volcano, and it could be you know, like
again, there could be lots of explanations, but yeah, certain certain things
tend to tend themselves to have higher photos and videos of UFOs, Like there
are lots of UFO sightings around the fourth of July. And while that could
be because there are a lot of fireworks in the sky, yeah, it
could also be that more people are looking up to the sky at that one
to that point. So with volcanoes, more people are watching an erupting volcano.
There's lots of live cams on volcanoes too, right, and that's where
people get UFO videos often. So that would make a lot of sense that
there's cameras on volcanoes a lot. That's why we get them so much.
Right, Well, I have another story. I get excited when I hear
things like this, But a professor at Penn State is searching for Earth like
planets and is optimistic about finding a planet or planets out there capable of sustaining
life. Jim Casting is a distinguished Professor of Geosciences in Penn State's College of
Earth and Mineral Sciences and is an expert in atmospheric evolution. Before joining Penn
State, Casting was a research scientist that NASA's Aims Research Center, and he
has become one of the foremost experts on planetary habitable zones. He even wrote
a book called How to Find a Habitable Planet. Casting says that lack of
funding is a big obstacle in the search for extraterrestrial life. He recently told
Penn State Live. What hurt our funding is the previous administration's interest in putting
men back on the Moon and trying to send them to Mars. Also,
right now, a lot of astronomers are more interested in researching the Big Bang
and dark energy, as well as gravitational waves. We need to convince more
of them to be interested in planets and the search for extraterrestrial life. Casting
is just one professor and a growing trend of university scientists searching for habital planets
and extraterrestrial life. Yeah, kind of coots, kind of like I wonder
if that's going to be a major, major, major soon. I mean,
it's like you could go to any university and you can study extraterrestrial life
and how to discover extraterrestrial life. It's becoming so popular, extremely popular.
I've actually had conversations with people recently who I just met, and when they
find out what I do, they say, oh, our daughter is thinking
of going into astrobiology. Really wow. In astrobiology, as we've talked about,
really in mainstream universities, is a new field, and asu Arizona State
here in our hometown, happens to be at the forefront of this. But
I think you're right. I think astrobiology and these other scientific fields of looking
for extraterrestrial life is going to become quite common, which is exciting. And
I mean, of course, manned spaceflight is very exciting, but searching for
extra treasural life doesn't necessarily mean you need manned a space flight. It's probably
easier with robots and rovers and things like that. And if we focused on,
for instance, looking for life on Mars or is the Moon going to
those places? Where there's water or more likelihood of it. Who knows,
maybe that would that would you know, be more fruitful. And it's always,
of course exciting to think about what will happen when that happens, but
it's you know, I think also we heard from Nick Pope who was at
the Royal Society of Science, you know, when they had their astrobiology conference,
and how you know, up on stage or in public, these guys
don't want to acknowledge that they have anything to do with UFOs, or think
about UFOs or have any opinion. But behind the scenes, when he went
to dinner with them, when I enjoyed a pint at the pub, you
know, they were willing to say that, yeah, we're into UFOs and
we follow that stuff. And he was surprised, he said, at how
many of these scientists really knew a lot about UFO researching UFOs. That's why
I love seeing these professors at these universities where that is their main focus,
and it's known that that's their main focus. They talk about it, they
write books about it, and then it becomes more accepted. Maybe they'll be
a secret UFO society. It's where they can get together and talk UFOs,
but they, you know, take a pledge not to share. Who believes
in what that already exists? My friends, oh my gosh, and Alejandro
will get to the last story for today. A thirty year old one farmer
claims to have been hospitalized after an encounter with the UFO in Manipur, India.
The Atham Tribune reports that the alleged incident took place on the afternoon of
June fifteenth, and according to the witness, he was shooting video of fish
farm with his cell phone when he suddenly saw the UFO in the sky.
He claims that the UFO sped towards him, resulting in an electric shock that
rendered him unconscious. After regaining consciousness, he returned home. His family took
him to the hospital, where he was treated and released the same day.
But in the article published by the Assum Tribune yesterday, the witness said he
had not fully recovered from his UFO encounter. Yet. Critics of the video
footage suggest the UFO was nothing more than a glitch in the camera resulting from
shooting directly into the sun. However, there's been no official explanation for the
UFO or for the physical reaction claimed by the witness. What do you think.
We've seen that glitch of the sun a lot, and if you were
to go out there people and video the sun, it happens a lot.
You get a dark spot in the middle of the sun, and a lot
of people think that UFOs, but it's not. It's a defect of the
camera, right, and that's certainly more likely to happen with a lower quality
PHONK than is a lower quality. It looks like he was shooting at the
sun, though I remember looking at this and I don't remember thinking, oh,
he's shooting right at the sun. It's difficult to tell from the video
that we saw because it's so cut together and weird. There's some interview with
the guy and so it's hard to tell. It really didn't look like direct
into the sun but unsure. Yeah, and then he gets sick. Yeah,
yeah, interesting reaction. He apparently fell back and knocked himself out.
Ouch. Yep. That's careful, Yeah, be careful when you're shooting UFOs.
I know it's difficult because you get really excited and the adrenaline gets going,
but so I guess it's hard not to pass out. If the UFO
zooms at you. Yeah, that's scary. Always practice safe UFO hunting,
safe ufoing. Yep. Absolutely. Well, that is it for the news
for today, Alejandro. Be sure to check out these stories and more at
Openminds dot tv, your source for UFO related news. I'm Jason McLellan,
your Open Minds News correspondent, and you've been briefed back to you, Alejandro.
All right, thank you, Jason. So a couple of the feature
stories that we've put up. We've talked already last week a lot about Steven
Spielberg and Reagan and Reagan's comment during the showing of the ET at the White
House in nineteen eighty e two. And we have the guest list stuff.
I told you we'd have that up and that iscept Now. I have a
review of Super eight up. It was awesome. I liked it, Go
check it out. We also have more information on the Argentinian Air Force UFO
Commission, so they've actually started the commission. They've stated their mission which is
to document, analyze, and study unidentified phenomena in an orderly, systematic and
truthful manner by means of conventional control systems on the airspace under the national jurisdiction
so that's really cool. This is coming from the Argentinian Air Force. They're
actually starting a commission of officers who are going to be looking into the uf
subject. They're going to be studying cases, They're getting a website up,
they have a cool little logo up already that we have at the website,
and this is a breakthrough. Another breakthrough is they're actually meeting with civilian UFO
organizations, their version of move On and others to ask them their advice,
to talk about cases they should look into, to hear their stories, and
to work together. So they're working together with the civilian So this is pretty
incredible, great news from Argentina taking a very proactive, very open approach to
investigating UFOs. So really exciting news. And we have that story and all
the data on our website on that. Also, Jason and I have talked
about this before, even in detail, about a video or some pictures that
Jason got in Mexico using some of our equipment that's really high tech, and
what he thought of what he had captured. So and he even felt that
this was possibly some sort of living entity that he captured floating around in the
sky. So you can go to our website and see hits video on that.
It's gone very popular. Whitley Strieber posted it today. We've gotten a
lot of hits on that, so go check that out too. And you
know, Jason tells a whole story of how it happened and what he thinks
there as well. So those are some of the cool stories that we have
up right now on the website. So you're gonna want to go check those
out Open Minds dot tv. However, without further ado, let us go
ahead. I'm really excited to get Steve Vulk on the line. So let's
talk with Steve Vulk about fringe Ology, his new book. All right,
I am so excited, and I always say that I always am usually,
I'm so excited to have Steve Bulk on the show. Steve, thanks for
joining us. Thank you so much for having me. I've been looking forward
to this. Well, I'm really excited about your book and the whole idea.
I mean, it kind of draws upon my own experiences because I was
really a journalism student when I really got involved with the paranormal and it was
kind of, you know, a similar to kind of like, well,
let's look into this. I mean, you know, at first I blew
it off, and when I took a hard look, it was like,
wow, you know, I can't blow all of this off. Yeah.
I mean obviously, for me, I had in a way a leg up
on some people because I grew up with this kind of family ghost story in
my background, and so I always had some sort of interest in the paranormal
in general and a kind of empathy for witnesses to strange things, because it
just seemed to me like in our situation, creaking floorboards and superstition couldn't account
for it, you know, And that's sort of the weather balloon equivalent of
the description for ghosts, you know that the art skeptic will give, right,
So I always just kind of felt like the explanation that's given should at
least to some degree match what's been reported, and that's often not the case.
So I came into it really just sort of interested in delving into some
of the areas I hadn't before, right, So I'd done some reading on
these things. I certainly looked into ghosts quite a bit because of my own
family background. But for me as a reporter now, to take the skills
I've learned I mean, I've been reporting for fifteen years to say, Okay,
how am I going to tell or really exciting and in some ways hopefully
you know, definitive UFO story, right, And it was just a gas
now getting into you being a journal and you mentioned that in the book that
kind of the rule of THEMB for journalists is to make fun of this.
You know, go out during Halloween and film The Ghost Hunter and kind of
I have some tongue in cheek fun with it. Now, did you run
across that when you began as a journalist and how did you Did you have
a problem with that at first? Well, I mean it's in a lot
of ways. It's not like it's ever even spoken. It's just sort of
assumed. And I think it's just by tradition and custom. This is how
these things are covered. You cover them in Halloween, or you cover them
in time with some big movie premiere, and you do it in a way
that winks at the reader and lets the reader know you know, you're not
one of them. And what's funny is I mean, I'm not one of
them. I have a very balanced view of this, I think, But
at the same time, no, you're one of them. I've read your
book. Sorry, I wanted them. Which one of them am? I?
No that I want to get into them and the who's the them?
But who them is? It depends on which side of the fence you're standing
on right right, you know, Well, so you can tell me which
one of them I am? I guess as this was, I'll look forward
to the diagnosis. Well, the hard part is just by entertaining the idea
to a lot of people, you're one of them, right, And I
just think that's total bass. I mean, I think that's fortunate. Yeah,
that position falls down and throws up all over itself before it even reaches
the first hurdle. You know, if you don't look into something, you
can't know what's going on. It's that that part to me seems pretty clear
one, especially as a journal journal if that's what you do. You look
into something, You take an unbiased look, to take a to see what's
there. And you know, that's what I love about journalism and what we
try to do. If you're not making a you're not forming opinions, you're
informing about the back. Well, and I have to say something else that's
been important to my career as a journalist is I started out in alternative newsweeklies
and I work at Philadelphia Magazine NAW and have for several years. And in
both of those realms, one of the things we talk about and fess up
to is that true objectivity is impossible. You know. You come to this
with some sort of worldview to begin with, whatever it is you're covering,
and what's good about, say the alternative weeklies. And for people who don't
know what those are, it's like think the Village Voice in New York,
you know, that's the most famous of them, or the Boston Phoenix in
Boston. But every city, you know, most major cities have an alternative
weekly. Right. We allow for the fact that we have a worldview by
going ahead and putting it on the page, you know, right and so
and in here at Philadelphia Magazine they always say, well, what's your take?
You know, that's the phrase we use here. So in other words,
what you know, where are you coming out on this story? What's
your position? Ultimately at the end of the day, I mean, I
make it admission. I think somewhere in here that one of the reasons I
didn't look into alien abductions is because it was just sort of too much for
me, right, I mean, it was just that part was just somehow
a step too far. I would have had such a hard time wrapping my
mind around that is that possibility and dealing with it head on that I decided
to stick to sightings, And so I sort of admitted I could have done
it, sure, you know, but it would have been a bigger challenge,
right, And so I decided to just sort of table that. You
know. The other issue for me doing this, and this is something I
hope people come to understand about both UFO coverage in particular, since that's,
you know, your focus, and paranormal coverage in general, is that particularly
with this book like this one, right, I'm getting into mental telepathy,
I'm getting into ghosts, I'm getting into UFOs, spoon bending, prayer,
meditation, dreaming, a wide array of topics, each of which is the
subject of books in and of itself that I'm doing at a chapter's length.
So I also had to make decisions, real, really ruthless decisions early in
the process. Where am I going to draw the line, like, so
I don't end up trying to cover everything and miss my deadline by five and
a half years, right, And yeah, and I think where UFOs are
concerned. I mean, look, I'm over the last three years in particular,
right. I mean, I've been listening to Coast to Coast constantly.
I've been listening to this show quite a bit. I've been listening to lots
of different paranormal radio shows and podcasts. And you hear people talk a lot
about the media ignoring these things. I think one of the things that encourages
the media to ignore them is that there's so much paperwork, and there's such
a glut of you know, cases that different people consider absolutely pivotal. Well,
you've got to know about this case. And I remember, I can't
remember who sent me an email, but at one point I got an email
from some researcher telling me I had to look into the Trent case in Micmanville,
and then if I didn't, I just shouldn't even bother. Oh wow,
It's like, look, you know, and that's a fascinating little case.
I mean, I did look into it. It's a fascinating little case.
Somebody could easily build a very worthwhile chapter out of that. But it's
not as if there aren't you know, tons of other cases that are worth
looking into. And so I think for a reporter who's looking at well,
I'm going to go ahead and cover this, a lot of times they're going
to take the path of least resistance, and seeing the amount of literature that's
out there, particularly on UFOs, I mean, it's it is daunting and
a lot of decisions need to be made up front about what you're gonna what
you're gonna read, and what you're going to cover. And I think for
a lot of reporters it's easier to just keep their tongue in their cheek,
you know, right about the standard plate story and move on, rather than
do any actual research. Well, I've learned what doing pr for? Move
on that exactly, that that you've got lots of people, even a move
fun people. And when we get into Stephenville, it was a perfect example
of this. Aren't really upset with the media and how they cover it,
so they aren't helpful with the media, and then of course they're surprising the
media doesn't cover it well. Or there are times I always took their perspective,
help them out as much as possible and only give them the good meaty
stuff which they loved. They love meaty stuff. They love to say a
major said this, or an astronaut said that, or in the koustinage situation
that the presidents had said, uh this or that. And so it depends
on if you if you give it to them, and you've got to talk
to them in the first place in order to give them some of that good
stuff. Otherwise, like I learned, like what you said there, the
media is largely lazy and they're gonna, well they're they're busy people. Yeah,
there's just so many deadline stacks. Yeah, I should say, that's
a better way to say it. Yeah. And then also they they're gonna
want themselves to look good. Yeah, and you got to keep that mind
and that sometimes that doesn't work in your favor, but if you're careful at
crafting the way you communicate with them, it can work in your favor.
Yes, I mean I agree with all of that. And you know I
had to deal when you talk about the media, you wouldn't believe I call
it the second head. Look, then I got a lot when I would
somebody would say I heard you're working on a book, what is it?
Yeah, And I tell them what it was. They would sort of rear
back, and you can see they were just reappraising me on the spot and
sometimes literally, And it's funny when you think about it, because it's a
subconscious reaction in their part. I think they would literally look me up and
down, like look down to my shoes, you know, and up like
I'm gonna be wearing clown shoes I got. And I think the reason they
had to reappraise me was because, you know, they know me as somebody
who goes to like Philadelphia's cedious drug corners and reports on what's going on there.
And does you know a lot of street level journalism and covers politics in
town and these things are seen. Is so very very different, you know.
But I mean, at the end of the day, its story is
a story. And I do feel like the media, while I'm not sure
that anyone should necessarily have a UFO beat, right, I think that might
be a little much that. Yeah. I do think, however, that
from a journalistic perspective, You've probably heard the phrase low hanging fruit, right,
this is low hanging fruit. You know. There's these are dramatic stories
that, in some cases, rightly or wrongly, right, they change people's
lives. You've got generally sympathetic protagonists, who are people who are not deluding
themselves, but they saw something they couldn't explain and they're trying to reframe sometimes
the whole world according to what it was they just saw. Now, me
as a professional storyteller, like, that's great material to work with. Why
would I turn that down? Yeah? But the custom is to turn that
down and to keep moving. Were you hesitant to take this project on?
Oh? Yeah? And I mean there were nights, I have to be
very honest with you, Even once I took it on and had the contract
and all this sort of stuff, there were nights where it just sort of
hit me when I was doing and I would actually like wake up at three
am with my heart racing, thinking, my god, what have I done?
Because my career is going just fine. You know, I'm real happy,
and now I'm people are forced by by just the culture in a way
to reappraise me, and I do I want to go through that? And
what I kept coming back to you was that these stories are just so common,
you know that, Yeah, twenty percent of Americans. Depending on the
pole you're looking at, it's always around here, you know, right,
report a ghost around twenty percent report a UFO, you know, having seen
one of thirty percent. Sometimes I've seen as high as forty percent report some
kind of psychic experience. And I'm not saying that all these experiences by any
means are real, right, but well, it's always a real experience,
you know, it's always a real experience. Something happened that was odd and
that this person may still be trying to figure out. And for us to
then stigmatize. Gosh, when you look at that Baylor Religion survey, sixty
eight percent of America holds some sort of paranormal belief, you know, whatever,
whatever the subject might be. To stigmatize people over this, stigmatize is
such a massive proportion of the population that just seems ridiculous. And so the
books in part a permission slip for people to tell their stories and be willing
to consider all the possibilities that might explain it. And that includes the mundane
ones, but yes, goes all the way out into the ones that qualify
as paranormal. At this point, do you regret writing the book? Not
at all? Good, Not at all. At this point, I'm very
very glad I did it. At this point, I've gotten a lot of
good feedback, and it is an incredible thing to go through the process and
be able to look at the final product. Did you have any preconceived notions
about the people you would be interviewing or talking to when you started doing the
research that were changed. That's such a good question. I think I've learned
enough over the years that you've just got to go meet people and sort of
take it on, and my preconceptions, if this makes sense, end up
being formed in the first few seconds I meet someone, and sometimes those get
exploded, if that makes sense. So, like in other words, I
hadn't everything before I met somebody. I think with a pretty open mind,
because I've just learned that, you know, the sound of someone's voice on
the phone doesn't tell you what they're going to look like. The quotes you've
seen in the paper don't tell you what wasn't quoted. You know, what
they what else they might have said, or what else might be be behind
all that. So I really kind of take people on fresh when I go
to meet with them. But the funny part is the times when you first
see someone and you have an impression of them and then that gets exploded,
you know, like half an hour later or something like that. Yeah,
Like the first thirty seconds you might be thinking, ah, you know,
I don't know about this guy, and then half an hour later they do
something or say something where you're they turn your head around. You know.
One of the things I found is that some of the people, particularly in
the UFO field, they have a source experience i'd call it, like,
so they start talking to you about Niberu and the alien implant and an arm
that they don't actually want to get removed because you know, they make they
give you some reason for it, but it just doesn't sound rational, right,
because if you have something like that in your arm, you'd figure you'd
want to get it out and prove that it's there. Hm. And I
had I met a couple of people like that who seem more interested in being
able to go to UFO conferences conferences and say that they have something in them,
then actually get it removed and verify that they have something in them,
right, you know. But with those with those people as well, and
I have to confess, when I hear this sort of thing, I would
immediately be thinking, well, there's not going to be much for me here.
And what I started finding out is that they had what I call this
source experience. Something strange happened, They saw something that wigged them out.
You know that they couldn't explain. That sounds really odd, and that sighting
or whatever it was, sounds very credible in comparison to the other stuff they're
saying, and it kind of affected their filter, if you know what I
mean. I know exactly what you mean. Yeah, And so now they
start viewing I don't want to say everything, that's too big a word,
right, but they start viewing a lot of things as potentially, you know,
either part of some conspiracy or strange or paranormal, when those things might
actually have a very reasonable explanation. But there's that core source experience that started
it all. Did you mind if I talk about some of the besides UFOs
for a second, some of them what something designs UFOs for a second.
Oh no, definitely, you know, cover the gambut. And now it's
just going to say that, you know, I love the psychological aspect too,
and even with people who are very grounded, people I've seen exactly what
you're talking about, they have an incredible UFO experience. But then all of
a sudden you know, they're seeing things that are definitely airplanes, and that's
the UFO. They kind of they're filter a kid to just like you're talking
about about, right. And so in the first chap try and deal with
Elizabeth koopl Ross, the lady who wrote on duson Dying as a psychologist and
you know, famous book kickstarted the whole hospice movement nationally and internationally, you
know, rightfully, one of the most important books of the last century.
It's just, you know, it's rare to be able to say that about
a book, but that was really qualifies and Cooubler Ross, in the midst
of researching what terminal illness was like for the people going through it, for
the medical staff around them, and for of course their loved ones, and
coming up with a kind of psychological diagnosis of all these people, was also
hearing these stories of near death experiences and then that phrase hadn't been coined at
the time. It was, you know, the mid sixties to late sixties
when she was doing this work, and so this was stuff that nobody had
heard about before. There were other people I actually ran across my research.
There was an Army colonel named Diane Corcoran, who was a nurse at the
time who had an experience very similar to kouble Ross's, and that she was
hearing these stories from soldiers in Vietnam. But anyway, kouble Ross encounters the
near death experience, which I consider to be still unexplained. And it doesn't
mean that they won't eventually come up with a material explanation for it. I
just don't think they have yet, and so not to go too deep down
that particular rabbit hole. But you know, the near death experience, if
it's brain based, the different circumstances under which it takes place, it should
produce a different experience, right, So if somebody was under anesthesia or not
under anesthesia, they're lacking for oxygen or not lacking for oxygen, it should
produce some change in the experience because the brain is mediating everything we take in.
But the skeptics don't really have a model for that yet, for how
these big differences in the circumstances create any meaningful differences in the experience itself.
So I considered at this point still unexplained. So kuble Ros encounters this experience
and the next thing, you know, man, you know, six years
later, after on Dathan dying, she's writing the forward for Raymond Mooney's Life
after Life. That's fine, that's good. She's outing herself now as someone
who had experienced these things. But in the backlash to that, when she
was being criticized for having done that, she starts seeing psychics. She starts
seeing really just occultists, frankly, and she ends up getting taken in by
a con man. And it was a really long con that went on for
a number of years and did severe damage. I write about this in the
book. It did severe damage to her credibility and her reputation, and it's
a cautionary tale the way I see it. But the one thing it doesn't
do, and the one thing it doesn't alter, is that those initial experiences.
I mean, it wasn't just one patient who told her about something like
this. I talked to her, you know, her research partner, the
Reverence she worked with at the time, and he said they had two of
those long, deep filing cabinet drawers just filled with your death experiences and what
they call death by visitations. So they encountered some real mystery and it damaged
for filter. That's the only way to put it. And I just think
that that goes on a lot. That's why I think, you know,
reporting on one of the reasons why reporting on it and communicating this sort of
information is so important because in our Western thinking, our very rational, logical
kind of perspective, we don't prepare people for the situation. Let's say they
see a UFO and like you explain, and like I try to explain,
that just means unidentified, doesn't mean she knows what it's from. But they
need to be prepared to take some sort of action to alleviate that, even
the trauma or the effect that has on them personally and otherwise. I think
stuff like this happens when they don't have an outlet. There's these extremes that
people go to. And here's an example where unfortunately this person had ran into
a lot of problems. Yeah, oh, I mean think about it.
To go from really the heights of her profession to being a pariah. I
mean, there are few, you know, I'd have to think long and
hard about. I mean, Michael Jackson sell that hard. Yeah, you
know, that's the kind of cultural icon you have to think about. You
know, who else in our the last fifty years has fallen to that degree.
Yeah, and unfortunately people do fall, and I think it's one of
it's something you definitely tackle them. For instance, let's take Kusinich. Yeah,
you know, he fell when he was interviewed very near the Stephenville period
of time on by Tim Russert and of course asking him about his UFO siding
that was written about in Shirley McLain book. And I thought, for me
and I would like to hear your perspective as well, it was kind of
creepy when Tim Russard asked that question and people laughed. Yeah, I see
when we talk about him falling. Now here's a guy who, as near
as I can figure, I'm not sure that his filter was damaged by what
he saw necessarily, and I'm not sure if that paradigm, but it shows
you culturally that to just even go here at all is for boton. Now,
I think there's an extra layer to this also with you know, Kusinich
was considered this kind of marginal candidate to begin with. I do think even
his physical stature and his appearance and the fact that people already described him as
elfin didn't work in his favor, you know, So it was like the
deck was just completely stacked against him. And you know, Tim Russer knew
exactly what position he was putting Dennis kussinic in and just as a reporter,
I'll tell you this man, I was going to do something like that to
somebody on live TV, I would know in my heart that I'm about to
wipe this guy out of the election, right, And that's exactly what Russer
did. It was I mean, you know, Kucinich couldn't have begun with
a more rational response. He said, very forthrightly, with no offling when
he said, you know, did you see UFOs? Where I think Russert
wrapped up his question and he said, yes, right, so they're you
know, leaving no doubt and not seending the hedge at all, which I
really admire. And when you watch the YouTube video of it, it's pretty
dramatic, but immediately people gasp and start laughing, and he of course reaches
for what the definition of a of a UFO is people, it's an unidentified
flying object. And you know, I actually side with the people to some
extent, even though I didn't get into this in the chapter. Who want
to go with UAP? Right? Unidentified aerial phenomena. I have a lot
of respect for that position. But anyway, he starts to emphasize the idea
five part of that acronym, and and people won't let go. I mean
you just hear them continuing to titter and laugh. And his candidacy, while
it was never gonna result in the presidential nomination, was over in those few
seconds by you know, this Tim Russer flash knockout, by just invoking UFO
at all. The staggering part about it to me too, is that,
look, I mean, Jimmy Carter talked about it, Rat talked about it,
you know, and Hillary Clinton, I mean Hillary Clinton actually dedicated people
to work with Lawrence Rockefeller on this. She actively was doing something regarding UFO
research. But of course, and she was on stage right there. Yeah,
it would have been interesting to pursue her on that. I have to
be tell you to choose. I didn't. I haven't done the full load
of research on that. There's that image of her with the book under her
arm, yes, and you know, there's every possibility and again I haven't
looked into it that. You know, you have a guest and he gives
you a book, and you you end up carrying it with you. You
know, there's more to that. You'd have to look at presidential UFO dot
com. There are documents would show Rockefeller working with the president the advisor on
science, and they talked about how they were channeling this information through Hillary Clinton's
office, and her office was it was about UFOs, It wasn't about something
else, because that's the only thing I heard that it might have been something
else. Definitely there's another one then, But should we even need another one?
Like it says what I mean, like should we yea said Carter and
Reagan, And we've got just this whole history in which people are seeing this
and all he's saying is he doesn't know what it was. Call him down,
people relast. It was just kind of quickly that they were just yeah,
just so. I think people kind of wanted to get rid of Kustinitch
anyways, because they felt that he was frivolous and his campaign wasn't going anywhere,
and so they wanted to traversation. But so who knows if they would
have reacted the same way if the question was asked to Hillary or something similar.
But it's an example of right just being associated with the topic kind of
hurting people, and you know, I talked to the LA Times during that
and that's what I said. I said, Unfortunately, you know, people
bring it up in politics to hurt their opponents, and it works very effectively.
But at least their coverage was pretty good on that story because I mentioned
the other presidents and they put that in there and they had a serious tone,
and I felt and I get your perspective on this too, because most
of your chapter on UFOs is around Stephen Bill. That Stephen Bill in the
media. Even though there were aspects of it that weren't positive and spun in
kind of a silly way, it still overall was treated a lot better than
some of the previous UFO stories. I agree with that, and I that
when you consider the history of these reports, this was one of the better,
better treated groups of witnesses that you're going to run across. At the
same time, though, I do think that some of these you know,
the fact that the Walmart line got recycled again and again, and Steve Allen,
for those who you know, need the background on this, had described
the UFO initially as being as big as a Walmart, and that quote was
continually recycled, and you know, look, as a reporter, I printed
it. Of course I printed in this context. But I would have wanted
to print it too, because it's just it's fascinating and it's a colorful detail.
But it also serves to locate him in this very specific you know,
socio cultural context, right or sootconomic context. And Ricky Sorels, this is
the one I don't think I would have done. He kept being described as
a deer hunter, you know, and in that space, that parenthetical space
where people will insert between commas what someone's profession is. Instead of saying machinist,
you know, or instead of describing as him as a husband and father,
you know, they described him as a deer hunter. And that certainly,
I mean, it just sends that that hicic label out there, and
and that to me was really unfortunate. And and that was one of the
things I wanted to try and get across in that chapter is you know,
these weren't hicks, whatever that means, you know, to people. Now,
these were from what I could see and from the people I met,
I mean, these were credible people who saw something that they couldn't explain that
sat outside you know, all the normal boxes for them. Here's the question
I have for you. And that's always been curious to me because I was
there, you know, when the Well Stephen thing, Stephenville thing started and
h you know, I was working for move On doing PR and you know,
talking to low News, talking to AP, talking to different news sources
all of the time. And there were lots of stories about UFOs very similar
to Stevenville, with multiple sighting witnesses, people seeing something at night in rural
locations, and in fact not too Just a few days before there was a
sighting in San Diego by some college students, one of them at least a
physics student. And I thought that was a really interesting story, and I
was excited for that one to blow up, and that was Fox covered it.
So I get the call from Angela, work with her to get her
with the move On people, get the call from the AP lady, which
is exciting that she's going to write on it, but it's just kind of
an everyday thing. I never could understand why that story blew up, as
opposed to the many stories that were very similar. In fact, some of
them, like I said, in the middle of downtown San diego. Yeah,
you know, who knows what that alchemy is? Right? I mean
one of the things that I would say, and don't I don't remember specifically
everything that was going on at the time. What else was happening in that
few day window that allowed us to take off? So, in other words,
was there so little happening for whatever reason in that forty eight hour time
span or seventy two hour timespan when when the story started to leak out of
Stephenville that people felt like they needed something to run with us? I mean,
because to me, what really made that story take off was the amount
of coverage CNN and Fox were giving it, right, you know, when
the national news agencies like that arrive and I felt that their tone was hugely
respectful. Yeah, I felt that too. I mean it was shocking.
I was having Hurraldo kept calling me, his guys kept calling me. We
want to send someone out, Where should we send someone? When can we
send someone? Can you help us with this? Can you help us with
that? And you know we've got well why didn't you tell us that CNN
was going to be there? And why didn't you tell me? And it's
like, you know, it was we were inundated and that really surprised me
that, I mean, it got that big and so much attention, like
you said, from the big guys. I can tell you I think it
it happened now. I mean I wanted to kick around an idea or two
there, But to me, it's that you've got multiple witnesses from different angles
and perspectives who weren't all seeing it together in one group, you know,
And and for me as a reporter, that starts to lend it credibility right
away that you know, it's something a little odd must have been happening because
you've got people who it's not like they were all like Steve Allen had a
little group of friends out there. Well, it wasn't just Steve Allen and
his group of friends that saw it. You know, there were other law
enforcements. There were not other laws. There was a LA enforcement there,
but there were law enforcement people that saw it from different angles, multiple law
enforcement people, there were you know, other citizens. I mean, they
sort of had this thing staked out from a lot of different angles, and
that's that's gosh. That gives it a lot of a lot of weight.
I mean, some of the illusory sort of explanations fell down right away,
like the one about sunlight glinting off a jetline, because I mean sunlight glinting
off a jetliner. Hey, look, I'll give you the benefit of the
doubt man that that dramatic description that Steve Allen and as people described, I
mean, I don't think they could be described. It could be explained by
some some like living off a getliner at all. But let's just even pretend
that it could. Why would somebody then another mile or two over in another
direction also see something mm hm, you know what I mean? Because those
sorts of illusions are are very definitely based on, you know, the angle
at which you're standing and perceiving this thing from. So so that one just
right out of the gate was so laughable. Yeah. And then at the
other enigma for me with the media was that then the biggest part of the
story I felt was it wasn't that big of a deal as far as sightings
go until the radar analysis was done, where we had a radar expert and
a guy at MUFON who were able to determine that there was radar data from
the FAA that could show that there was an object where those witnesses said it
was, but that got practically no media at all. If it wasn't for
Angela helping us to get it on Larry King, it wouldn't have even gotten
on there. Yeah, I mean, they just moved on. And I
think it shows you to some degree that, you know, when they were
covering it, were they ever necessarily taking it all that seriously? You know,
I just still look back at that part of the episode and I tried
to view things a lot to the the lens of you know, believer of
v skeptic, right, and so like looking at the James mcgahey explanation,
mcgahey ends up getting quoted saying that this they took a couple of hits from
from the radar data and drew a line between them, and it was just
such a convenient And I certainly and accused him of being wilfully deceitful. But
in the event, you know, it sort of turns out to be deceitful,
because that's not the track that's most interesting, you know, that that's
the track that I suppose could be coincidence. I mean, the other track
that's so fascinating is the one where they had over you know, well over
one hundred straight hits from a tower that wasn't malfunctioning. And you know,
they had a radar expert in tow here who could tell them what are the
signs of a functioning tower, and this is not a functioning tower, and
it corresponded to some of the witness testimony. Now here's my thing, Man,
that doesn't mean it was an alien spacecraft. I'm not saying it wasn't
an alien spacecraft or that it was, but it definitely doesn't mean that because
there was something there that James mcgahey can't explain that aliens came to visit Stephenville.
But mcgahey and the skeptics act like they seem to me anyway, to
act like if they just sort of throw their hands up in the air at
some point, or even give Muffon credit for having unearthed more than they gave
them credit for that. Somehow, the whole world's going to fall apart if
there was a UFO, If we admit that there was something unidentified, we're
all going to die and the culture is going to end. It's ridiculous.
Yeah, I think you mentioned we've touched on false certainties, which you talk
about in the book on both ends such as mcgahey and it's false certainty that
there wasn't anything there. I was just radar without you know, looking fully
at the evidence. And on the other side, we've talked about believers and
how sometimes people will have these false certainties that there's something going on where there
isn't something going on, and this aspect of false certainties, you talk about
how that's dangerous and especially when people take it to these extremes. And I
think, yeah, like you said, it is one of those unfortunate aspects.
But it's kind of the middle ground is not as interesting, doesn't seem.
And I could see that where the media would want to pick up on.
It's not as interesting to cover some guy who says, I don't know.
It's more interesting to cover some guy who says, damn it, this
is it. You know what though I and I hear you, and I
understand where you're coming from. I really do. But I think if people
thought about it for a beat, right, if e medias thought about it
for a beat, I don't know, is where the fun starts. I
agree, because that's where I am. Yeah, there's there, and who
doesn't want to solve a mystery. I mean, here's my thing. I
don't think that people like uncertainty in general. And look, I'm a person
I don't like uncertainty. But I tried to get comfortable with it as I
kept running into it again and again, and I found that, you know
that the more I ran into it, the easier it got to sort of
tolerate. So so people see UFO, right, and they see unidentified there,
and I think they the instinct is to force a conclusion on that mystery.
Well, you know, it was weather balloon or the military three weeks
later, so they were dropping flares, so that must be what they saw.
And on the other end, it's well, you know, I guess
it was. It was et And of course the worst thing you run into
on the on the real hardcore us on and as the people who know it
had to be like some people from Niberu, you know, who were actually
in that craft. And and so they force a false conclusion on what remains
a mystery. And I just I think that, you know, in that
space where something's unidentified, one of the things we can do, like one
rational response is to just enjoy the story. Yeah, I mean, it's
a fantastic story what happened in Stephenville, and the fact that there isn't a
firm conclusion on it yet it might make it hard, I guess, to
shoot the feature film in some respects, but I think it could be all
the more poignant for that. Yeah, the feature film that'll come up with
a conclusion. I would assume that they would, although I think that,
you know, not knowing what it was, the people in Stephenville, to
my mind, have been finding their own conclusions. And I don't necessarily mean
that they've been they've been then, you know, forced to one of these
false certainties. I think that they've largely as a town, been working on
making peace with the fact that this weird thing happened and no one's sure what
it was. And yah, yeah, oh, I was just gonna say,
I like, you know, it's something that I repeat over and over
on this show and the most the people I respect the most who I bring
on the show, or those who are willing to admit they don't know.
Typically when you go to a lecture or you start a book on the paranormal
where they say I've got it all figured out, it's most likely not going
to be a very good book or a lecture. But when they say I
don't know, it's usually like, well, that's where you're going to learn
the most. And these people say, and the people who have been researching
the most, and especially scientific minded or often say they don't know. I
gotta I gotta share this with you. I've done like something like twenty interviews
now, and it's been really fascinating to me how some people get so disappointed,
Like when I you know, there's probably about six interviews, six of
the twenty five or six of them somewhere in there, because it's not like
I've been keeping this as a statistic, but I feel like once, you
know, every five or six interviews I do, when I just say,
well, you know, I don't really know what it was, there's this
kind of gasp on the other end. And I think it's because they're used
to people if they wrote a book about it. It's because you know,
they're claiming to have found the conclusion. But I mean, that's just total
bs. I mean, and you know, they may have found here's the
thing. They may have found a plausible or semi plausible conclusion, and like
the skeptics will put something forward and say well, this is you know,
more likely statistically or whatever, since we know that weather balloons exist and we
don't know that alien spacecraft exists. Well, I'll even concede that a prosaic
explanation is quote more likely, But it doesn't mean it was the explanation,
and it doesn't mean it was it's now explained unless you really have an data
to demonstrate that this was what it was. Was there a weather balloon in
the area, pal, you know, If not, then you've just got
an idea. I've got a thought. Congratulations, I've got something do it's
still a UFO and and you know, and I think that what it is
from the skeptical point of view, I mean I think that in that because
of an unidentified space people can leap in and then say, well, it
must have been alien. They feel like they've got to guard against that,
and I think they undermine their own cause drastically because they start to seem irrational,
like they're they're so committed to explaining it away that it's like a religion.
Yeah yeah, And when I have found that there are especially with the
conventional media, when you tell them I don't know, they respect you as
an end instigator researcher of the paranormal more because they can see that okay,
it's someone who's interested in looking into it, but they're not going to give
us some really zany kind of answer. And I've gotten some good responses that
way, and I think luckily I've been able to create some research or some
relationships with some people that way. I think from you know, and I
think in your context right as the guy who and forgive me, I can't
remember now, I think you moved on from Mofon, right, yeah,
yeah, because when I met you and you were with Moufon. In your
context is a guy who's running a podcast on UFOs. I mean, I
think people would expect you to be this kind of pie eyed believer, and
when you're willing to say I don't know, it does give you tremendous credibility.
Now, on the other hand, for me as an author, when
I say I don't know, there's this sense of like, well, what's
your book about then, because usually people write books claiming they've got the answer.
And in my point in this is that you know, I don't know
is often where we're at, and then we plaster it over with a bunch
of garbage, right like with our own beliefs. And that's a lot of
what I'm trying to get at in the book. I mean, you know,
even with the Old Family ghost story, I'm not saying ghosts exist,
ors that they don't. I'm saying that, you know, we can't go
back at a time capsule and gather enough data from those days to determine what
was really going on in my house in nineteen seventy five. We are left
in uncertainty, and people can create whatever kind of you know, narrative they'd
like to explain what it was, and I guess if that helps them get
through the night, like have a nice night sleep, you know, But
the fact is it's it's still unexplained. Doesn't mean it was a ghost,
doesn't mean it wasn't. And I just think that's that's how the paranormal lines
up a lot of the time. And we're dealing with eyewitness report wors.
We're dealing with a subjective assessment of what was what these people saw see and
I love that. I think that may be one of the most helpful contribution
to society that paranormal research can have, is to get people to a place
where they're comfortable to say I don't know, because I don't know. Is
opens up great possibilities. Anything's possible. And then more than that, it
keeps people from diluting themselves and coming up with these, like you said that,
the false certainties that are just as irrational on either side. And I
don't know if you'll agree with this or not. You know, I'm not
clear on how much of the book you've read. And you know, there's
always the possibility that I fail, right, But my idea in writing the
book was to write a book, and this look just developed over time too,
as I did the research to write a book that has ghosts and UFOs
and mental telepathy and spoon bending and all these things in it, right,
But it's not necessarily about those things, or at least it's not only about
those things. I mean, at the end of the day, I think
this is a book about us, you know, this is a book about
what it means to be human. And I think we have brains built to
bring us to a conclusion. You know, when we don't know what something
is, or we don't know what to make of information, we get a
lot of anxiety messages within our own brains, and it's like it's that sort
of danger Will Robinson moment from Lost in Space, you know, with a
robot alert going on up there. Yeah, you know that we got to
figure this out, and so people will immediately move toward a territory that's more
safe, where they have some definition that's part of humanity. And so I
agree with you fully when you say that the paranormal is this sort of great
jumping off point for people to understand there are we don't have all the answers,
and that you know, in that space there's there's a real freedom to
create and think and hypothesize what might be there. And I also think there's
a great space to get together. You know, like if we could get
Joe Nichol to admit that there's something he can't explain, you know what I
mean, or mcgahey, and then have them sit down with Stanton Freeman.
They may have a story. I'd love to you know, be able to
talk to them mcgahey and unravel this story where he was, you know,
last week in his closet crying because he thought a monster was in his house.
You know what. You may have his own story that would be awesome.
Yeah, but you know what we should write one. I love that
idea, but you know, like, to me, that space of uncertainty
or mystery really is a place where people can get together, you know,
and maybe let their guards sound a little bit and understand that we are in
this together. Yeah. Yeah, I love that, and I love that
you covered all the different aspects because I think it's another funny quirk that there
are probably people listening to this show right now who are UFO? People are
thinking, oh, man, ghosts, that's just a bunch of who and
you know, just disclosed minded about other paranormal phenomena than the one that they
subscribe to. And I've certainly ran across that, which is another strange dynamic
that I find because, as you mentioned in your book, you know,
there's still when especially when you're asking people, well, religion's kind of the
same thing, when you're asking people to accept that I can't prove something,
but I believe it, and I ask you to respect my belief, but
you're not willing to do the same for others. You know. One of
the things I've come across, because you know, in giving and doing sort
of public appearances to promote the book, and that's sort of thing. I
mentioned those statistics that I mentioned earlier about twenty percent of seeing in UFO and
twenty percent of ghost and I've run into a lot of people later on and
say, well, but aren't they the same twenty percent, like very dismissively
because they don't believe in either of them, and they're not. They're not
not any percent at all. And I actually I don't have the numbers in
front of me. I've been meaning to go back and look them up,
but like out of the Baylor Religion survey, for instance, they're not the
same twenty percent in the least, and you know, and that and that
really starts to widen the pool of people who would claim definitely some sort of
paranormal experience. That's what I was thinking of when you were going over those
stats, because I actually do. I've have for years held a lecture series
on different aspects of the paranormal. I've gone on plenty of ghost hunts and
even a big foot hunt here and there, and I've gotten im botherss all
of it, just to kind of just look and discover and see what people
are saying, because I think these things are sociologically interesting yep. And unless
you can definitely disprove something, you know, I think it's wise to keep
an open mind to it, because what if there's something there? Yeah,
you know, it's funny you bring the Bigfoot one up. I was going
to write a chapter on Bigfoot, and I decided not to. And one
of the things I was going to explore is the idea that you know,
among the most responsible sorts of researchers and I have no opinion on Bigfoot,
but I thought it was a good way to sort of analyze the sorts of
things we're talking about. When you listen to like the Lauren Coleman's of the
World, they're not describing a paranormal creature, you know, they're not describing
something that exists outside the realm of science. I mean, is it really
outside the realm of science to discover an unknown animal? Heck? No,
do it every year, you know. Now this one would be particularly unusual.
But when you filter through some of the more odd aspects of the reports,
which are actually fairly rare, I mean, usually people are talking about
I mean, just from the little cursory reading I did to consider using it
as a chapter. You know, they're usually describing what sounds like an animal,
you know, and so I don't get it, and like, I
just don't get it. Where there there becomes this sense erected that somehow,
if someone's interested in going out and looking for bigfoot over the weekend, that
they're they're they're deficient in some way. I mean, it's simply not the
case. Yeah, and oh man, I had a good point foria,
but I lost it. You can add that aspect. Yeah, but you're
I you know, there's there's cryptozoological especially is along those lines. But yeah,
it keeps coming back to like you mentioned, and I just love the
uh, the whole phrase of false certainties because you find a lot of that
and where really uh it perplexes me and some of these skeptics, especially the
scientific sort, because it's kind of counters scientific and being an ultimate skeptic because
science has always been found in those areas and you even get into this where
people are exploring beyond their comfort realm. You know, you mentioned about how
a lot of the discoveries people make are not in the lab, but in
the shower or driving down the street right right, And my favorite story,
like Fenn, is the Hansburger story, and I guess it was during World
War One and he was a soldier and he fell off a horse and was
nearly killed by an artillery sort of brigade that was behind him, you know,
a horse drawn artillery carriage, and the driver managed to bring it to
a halt, and he but he had a moment where he thought for sure
he was about to die. And when he got back to the barracks or
whatever, there was a telegram and his sister had been worried that he was
in grave danger. And you know, her fear was from the same time
as this incident, and he took it as as not to be a coincidence.
And so he started off on a search for what physical mechanism could explain
this, and settled on electricity and eventually invented you know, despite the derision
and howls of protest from scientific colleagues, he eventually invented the EEG and found
there is electrical activity in the brain. I mean, you know, people,
the world is like worth exploring. You know, let's let's do it
and do it with an open mind, and who knows what we'll find.
I mean, I I just think that's a fabulous story because the EGE just
became sort of the foundation of modern neuroscience. Mm hmm. Yeah. So
if you have people complaining about what you're doing, it probably you're headed in
that right. Well see, and that's right, that's it's an interesting point.
And I know you're overstating it to make the point, right. I
mean, sometimes people are complaining and they're they're really as bad science going on.
But it's also true that you know, very very possibly the best discoveries
that we'll be looking at twenty years from now will be things that a handful
of people were saying, hey guys, look at this, Hey guys,
look at this right right now. And that's a part of the history of
science. And so whenever people sort of guard the current store of knowledge rather
than guarding the method, you know, like the scientific method, mayantenna go
up because science isn't its current base of knowledge. Science is its method,
and the base of knowledge is always changing, you know, because we're always
learning more. Right now, I want to get back before because we're starting
to run out of time. One question was when it came to UFOs,
because you did you know, how you had those ghost stories that in your
family, and so you were open to that particular subject. How did you
feel about the UFO? And I'm a prior to investigating it for the book
interested, right, and I had read books already over the years, so
here and there. But I have to admit, you know, it's not
like it was a passion. So it was a really enjoyable chapter in to
do in that way because I was I was able to enter into it really
fresh, and I had a very open mind on the topic because look,
I'm still waiting for a smoking gun, you know. But at the same
time, aren't we all. I love the way your voice fell there.
But at the same time, I think a lot of the arguments that come
up against this sort of you know, interstellar travel are just funny, you
know, because they're based on what we know about the world right now,
and we're they're based on the technology we can conceive of right now, and
that is on its very face. Now, Look, I understand that those
things are important, but they're not authoritative. They don't close the discussion because
you know, in the last hundred years, I write about Edgard Mitchell in
the book. In one hundred years, his family went from traveling west and
covered wagons to putting him on the moon, right, so what we accomplish
in the next hundred years, for the next five hundred years, It is
laughable to me when people just sort of snort derisively and wave their hand and
say, well, that sort of thing isn't possible. It's just a non
starter from the people who have done that in the past when it comes to
fight or quart crafting the ocean or anything that they they're the fools, the
skeptics when it came to sure, you know what another comment that you made,
which I thought was great. Then It's something that I've said before too,
is when people ask, well, why would they do that? Why
would they go to you know, the middle of nowhere in Texas and like
you similar to what you're saying now, you know there, if they exist,
if there are aliens, they'd be alien by definition. We wouldn't have
no idea. And I often when people ask about motives, say, I
have we have There's no way we can have any idea behind motive of why
someone might be doing something. All we can do is follow the data.
The data you know, I have to tell you. And then also reflects
such a cultural bias, particularly where a place plank Stephensville is concerned because you'll
you'll hear people say, well, why would they go to a countdown,
you know, as if aliens are going to be interested in the met you
know what I mean, like more naturally. I mean, it just it's
another claim that just sort of it's just laughable on its face. I had
a great time in Stephenville for that matter. Let me point that out.
I live in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. I love it here. It's a big,
big city, you know, I love it here. Maybe they went
there because they thought it would be a great time, you know what I
mean, I'd have no clue. Yeah, until we can act, right,
until we can converse with them, you know who it would say,
Yeah, I'll tell you what the Heart eight Barbecue would be worth coming in
for. By the way, a funny story there, Alejandro. I went
into this place called the Heart eight Barbecue in Stephenville because I mean, I
wanted to you know, while I was there, I wanted to enjoy Texas
and Texas culture need some good barbecue. And I go in there and the
song A Third Rock from the Sun was playing. Oh that is funny.
That is absolutely awesome. I just burst out laughing. It was terrific.
I know Angela would enjoy that too. Yeah, it was absolutely terrific.
I had a great time with her as well. I mean, she was
a good interview. And you know, the people of Stephenville, and I
don't know how he's about this, and I know you need to wrap it
up, but I just say this, the people of Stephenville, I think,
also provide a kind of lesson for the rest of us in terms of
how to handle this because you're taught, you know, and by this I
mean the paranormal, because you're talking out a town of seventeen thousand people where
they all know each other and feelings can run awfully hot, you know,
and they're finding a way to coexist and continue on with life as they knew
it in spite of the fact that this very strange thing happened in town.
And by the very strange thing, I would include, you know, the
media hitting them like crazy, you know, and becoming a media center where
they never thought that that would ever happen to them. And the decision the
town had to face as to whether or not to embrace an identity is kind
of like a UFO mecha or not, and the tension that developed between the
people who were embarrassed by the fact that the UFO was seen there and the
people who simply want to know what the UFO was. They've gotten along in
spite of all that, and they were so careful and so kind and so
caring when they talked about people on the other side of the fence. You
know, after spending months and months and months mired in the literature going back
and forth between skeptics and believers, it was so refreshing to see real people
focused on caring a little bit about one another and getting along. Yeah.
I love that part in your book because it's always we shouldn't have to avoid
talking about religion and politics or paranormal you know, we should be able to
be civil with each other and respectful with each other talking about differing opinions.
And it's unfortunate that it's almost a rule of them that you don't go there
because you know and decidedly we don't know how to be civil talking about those
subjects. Well, you know what, I loved the chapter of the book
on Stephenville. I think you got the bigger story there with not just how
people reacted and treated each other, but how the media handled it, what
these people were like. I think that you were able in one chapter to
encapsulate the Stephenville situation on a bigger scale and how it relates to all of
us, more so than anything I've read on Stephenville or really on UFOs.
Oh, thank you very much. It was awesome. I haven't finished a
whole book, and I'm so excited to finish the book because i just really
love the perspective, not just the openness, but just the frankness and really
grounded down to earthness of the book. So I'm very excited about it.
Thank you so much for writing it. Well, you know what, man,
thanks for all those kind words, and thanks for having me. And
you know, i'd listened to this show many times as part of my research,
and uh, you know, it's it's a kick to be on here
now myself cool. Yeah, Well we'll have you on again because I feel
like I just scratched the surface of some of the stuff I wanted to talk
about with you. So it was a lot of fun. Okay, thanks
on, all right, thank you, all right, Steve. Book ladies
and gentlemen, so really neat guy. You know, a very thoughtful person.
He's put a lot of thought into this, and the book shows that.
I think he brings a fresh new perspective to this whole thing. And
that's why I really enjoyed the Stevenville thing. I mean, it reminded me,
of course, of what went down when all of that happened, but
he was able to touch on aspects that others hadn't touched on, and some
of the importance of that case that others haven't gotten onto either. So I'm
very excited about his book. I love the UFBO chapter. I've lost some
of the other stuff, and I can't wait to finish it. It's a
great read, so I didn't want to put it down, but I had
to because I had to go back to work and I had to do the
interview and stuff, or else i'd be reading it. Probably right now,
people, we are out of time, My fine friends, thank you for
listening to Open Minds Radio. Don't forget to visit Openminds dot tv for more
UFO news. Next week we'll be on the air and we will have mystery
guest X. Why is it a mystery? Because I'm not quite sure,
to be honest, who we're gonna have on X, but it's gonna be
somewhat exciting. I have a lot of ideas and a lot of people I
want to bring on. I was holding out for some Moufon guests to hear
back because I'm helping them with their symposium, so possibly a Moufon lecturer.
But if I don't hear from a Moufon lecture by tomorrow, I'm gonna go
ahead with some of the other really cool guests that I have been holding on
to. It's gonna be a great show next week either way. People,
thanks for joining us, and we will talk to you then. T T
T to tr tr tr t t y