April 11, 2013
One of the day to day activities I engage to remain sane is a daily walk with my dogs. We have a number of locations off the beaten path, where the dogs can run free and my mind can run free listening to a growing number of anomaly/paranormal related podcasts.
Several days after April Fools day we went along a route we hadn't been on in over a week. The dogs brought my attention to a broken eggshell. Not a small native bird egg which might have been washed out of its nest during the storms we'd had a few days before, but clearly a generic chicken egg shell. Odd, out there quite far from the road, but various bits of detritus from humanity show up there from time to time.
Walking a bit further along, we came across another broken eggshell. Strange, but even stranger we came across another broken chicken eggshell, and then another, and then more and more. There were at least two dozen of them scattered over several hundred yards of open ground, and probably even more.
What was going on here? How had all these eggs showed up here, shortly after April Fools Day, truly anomalous from any previous experience walking back in these woods? The human mind is a pattern seeking tool, always attempting to make sense of its world, placing phenomena within a familiar framework in order to deal with them. Anomalies seem to cry out for an explanation.
I'm almost ashamed to admit that one possibility came to mind was some sort of Fortean fall, possibly even some eggs that had been sucked up during the recent storms, which had after all been of a fierce magnitude rarely seen around these drought stricken parts. Listening to so many podcasts recently about similar strange happenings had indeed make this at least one possibility to consider. Another was the more obvious explanation that someone was eating eggs out there, but why so many? Or had someone come across several dozen spoiled eggs and decided to throw them about, for reasons that were far from clear to a reasonable mind?
But other possibilities had to also be considered, and one finally came which has since stuck. True, it had recently been April Fools day, but immediately prior to that was Easter. A local tradition here in Central Texas involves cascarones, brightly dyed empty chicken eggs filled with confetti to be broken over the head of fellow celebrants during this holiday's celebrations. They are sold by the dozens by the roadside in the days before Easter, along beside bizarrely misshapen pinatas meant to represent favorite childhood pop cultural icons. But cascarones are always characterized by their brilliant colors, while all these eggs were their natural white color, and there was no sign of confetti any around.
So what was going on here? My mind has to have some sort of answer, especially when I can hardly ignore this odd assortment when I walk the dogs here.
Have you come across the answer yet?
No, not a localized deluge of shattered ovum, but rather the remnants of an cascarone fight! The dye had washed off the shells and the confetti washed away with the recent rains. Another anomaly debunked, although another attempt by an April Foolish mind.
Thursday, April 11, 2013
Monday, December 12, 2011
Re-reviewing the Podcasts
After months of ignoring this blagh, it seems appropriate to weigh in again.
The field of fortean falderal continues to go on, but at times the weight of it seems hardly worth noting. The non-fortean world demands a significant amount of attention and draws away the focus.
Looking back on previous entries, one of the more interesting ones was on the podcasts which helped draw me back into this field. Some of them have, to my way of thinking, begun to fade into the background in my consciousness, often for different reasons.
Paratopia is one that has fallen off my radar for a pretty straightforward reason---it's become a pay site. I can't fault someone for wanting to make a buck on what can be a time consuming, as well as nominally costly preoccupation. But unless I'm getting something of a regular, clear value, it's hard to justify putting out yet more bucks (hey, I have to pay for my internet access too!) and, every bit as importantly, the time. One thing my daddy used to tell me was that the most valuable thing I own is my time, and I shouldn't let someone else waste it. I'm perfectly capable of doing that on my own.
RedIceRadio has the same suffered on my listening list for similar reasons. They do still offer some interesting subjects, though I'm sad to see that some of their most interesting back podcasts are now only available to paying subscribers. And quite frankly, lots of the subjects are taking on some rather bizarre elements that a little too out there even for my eclectic ear, i.e. hollow earth, pre-Columbian colonization of North America, the war on vitamins and nutrition.
One podcast which was of recurring interest was Gene Steinberg's The Paracast. I really did enjoy this one, especially once he took on his co-host Chris O'Brien. I'd still be listening to it, and at times still do with interesting enough guests. Their lengthy back catalog is actually worth wading through and all in all I still would probably suggest it to anyone wanting to delve more into the arcane field of ufoology with a host who has been working in it long enough to give it some real perspective. But alas, they taken to being a sponsored site. Some ads I can deal with, others are so insulting to one's intelligence (or at least mine) that I just can't stomach them anymore. Gun enthusiasts are one thing, apocalyptic ads selling products to get you through the impending collapse of civilization are interesting enough, but I drew the line at the recurring ad that kept telling me about how silica was the precursor of calcium in metabolism smacked a little too much of alchemical transformation of the elements for me.
I still have a very soft spot in me for Binall of America. I even still listen to it occassionally, and wholeheartedly recommend it's back catalog to a newbie just getting into the field of ufoology or a hardened old sceptic who'd just like to hear some intriguing interviews with some of the luminaries of this all-too-often not-so-bright subject. But of late, some of the guest he's chose just really don't do it for me, though I'll grant that he has gone through some of the more interesting guests already. And I hope, Tim, (can I call you Tim? I feel like I know you on a first hand basis after listening to you for so long), that you won't take it the wrong way if I say that you are starting to come across as more gullible than open-minded at times.
PsiOpRadio is one podcast that has become a regular for me, and SMiles Lewis and Mack White are even more enjoyable now that they've dropped those horrendous commercials from their podcast. I can now listen to them without having to listen to Alex Jones trying to sell me seeds that will be worth more than gold once the government has driven society into a bad Mad Max movie. A big plus for me is that they are Austin based, as am I, and they do a review of news stories that I wouldn't catch otherwise, sometimes for a good reason. They don't have guests on as often as they used to, but when they do, they are generally of a pretty high caliber.
One podcast did fall off the radar all together after a monster hack attack, yet has come back even better than ever. RadioMisterioso is still a podcast that has this listener's unreserved recommendation. Greg Bishop has a degree of open minded scepticism that is not only a breath of fresh air but inspiring as well. I've even managed to put aside a prejudice against the ghost hunter fad that has been running rampant through the paranormal podcast field with some his recent interviews. Listen in, and while you're at it, make sure to get a copy of his book, Project Beta, which is one of the best books on the UFO phenomena to come out of the past decade. Seriously, even if you don't beleive in UFOs or are a hard core skeptic, this is one book that is still worth reading. The true beleiver in little grey men and government wars with UFOs in hidden underground tunnels in Dulce should definitely read it, though they might not find it quite as satisfying.
After months of ignoring this blagh, it seems appropriate to weigh in again.
The field of fortean falderal continues to go on, but at times the weight of it seems hardly worth noting. The non-fortean world demands a significant amount of attention and draws away the focus.
Looking back on previous entries, one of the more interesting ones was on the podcasts which helped draw me back into this field. Some of them have, to my way of thinking, begun to fade into the background in my consciousness, often for different reasons.
Paratopia is one that has fallen off my radar for a pretty straightforward reason---it's become a pay site. I can't fault someone for wanting to make a buck on what can be a time consuming, as well as nominally costly preoccupation. But unless I'm getting something of a regular, clear value, it's hard to justify putting out yet more bucks (hey, I have to pay for my internet access too!) and, every bit as importantly, the time. One thing my daddy used to tell me was that the most valuable thing I own is my time, and I shouldn't let someone else waste it. I'm perfectly capable of doing that on my own.
RedIceRadio has the same suffered on my listening list for similar reasons. They do still offer some interesting subjects, though I'm sad to see that some of their most interesting back podcasts are now only available to paying subscribers. And quite frankly, lots of the subjects are taking on some rather bizarre elements that a little too out there even for my eclectic ear, i.e. hollow earth, pre-Columbian colonization of North America, the war on vitamins and nutrition.
One podcast which was of recurring interest was Gene Steinberg's The Paracast. I really did enjoy this one, especially once he took on his co-host Chris O'Brien. I'd still be listening to it, and at times still do with interesting enough guests. Their lengthy back catalog is actually worth wading through and all in all I still would probably suggest it to anyone wanting to delve more into the arcane field of ufoology with a host who has been working in it long enough to give it some real perspective. But alas, they taken to being a sponsored site. Some ads I can deal with, others are so insulting to one's intelligence (or at least mine) that I just can't stomach them anymore. Gun enthusiasts are one thing, apocalyptic ads selling products to get you through the impending collapse of civilization are interesting enough, but I drew the line at the recurring ad that kept telling me about how silica was the precursor of calcium in metabolism smacked a little too much of alchemical transformation of the elements for me.
I still have a very soft spot in me for Binall of America. I even still listen to it occassionally, and wholeheartedly recommend it's back catalog to a newbie just getting into the field of ufoology or a hardened old sceptic who'd just like to hear some intriguing interviews with some of the luminaries of this all-too-often not-so-bright subject. But of late, some of the guest he's chose just really don't do it for me, though I'll grant that he has gone through some of the more interesting guests already. And I hope, Tim, (can I call you Tim? I feel like I know you on a first hand basis after listening to you for so long), that you won't take it the wrong way if I say that you are starting to come across as more gullible than open-minded at times.
PsiOpRadio is one podcast that has become a regular for me, and SMiles Lewis and Mack White are even more enjoyable now that they've dropped those horrendous commercials from their podcast. I can now listen to them without having to listen to Alex Jones trying to sell me seeds that will be worth more than gold once the government has driven society into a bad Mad Max movie. A big plus for me is that they are Austin based, as am I, and they do a review of news stories that I wouldn't catch otherwise, sometimes for a good reason. They don't have guests on as often as they used to, but when they do, they are generally of a pretty high caliber.
One podcast did fall off the radar all together after a monster hack attack, yet has come back even better than ever. RadioMisterioso is still a podcast that has this listener's unreserved recommendation. Greg Bishop has a degree of open minded scepticism that is not only a breath of fresh air but inspiring as well. I've even managed to put aside a prejudice against the ghost hunter fad that has been running rampant through the paranormal podcast field with some his recent interviews. Listen in, and while you're at it, make sure to get a copy of his book, Project Beta, which is one of the best books on the UFO phenomena to come out of the past decade. Seriously, even if you don't beleive in UFOs or are a hard core skeptic, this is one book that is still worth reading. The true beleiver in little grey men and government wars with UFOs in hidden underground tunnels in Dulce should definitely read it, though they might not find it quite as satisfying.
Friday, December 17, 2010
Mirage Men, the Movie?
Pilkington's Mirage Men was about as good a look into a UFO convention from a documentary viewpoint as one could hope for, complete with interviews with Richard Doty himself. It too is to be released as movie by John Lundberg and Mark Pilkington at some point in the future, and that is one to look forward to.
Another really entertaining look at the more, shall we say eccentric, aspects of UFO conferences is in the form of a Rick Wood podcast from the 2010 X Conference. His interview with an attendee there manages to encompass, in the persona of this one true believer, just about every aspect of the UFO phenomena that makes you want to cringe and deny that you have any interest in such a field like this. Yet, while it is quite embarassing it's also immensely entertaining at the same time, not unlike convincing yourself you are slowing down by that car crash to make sure everyone's okay rather to see just how really bad it is.
The title, Jimmy Carter, Underground Alien Bases and Talking Velociraptors From Outer Space, is almost worth the price of admission in and of it self. ( Check it out here and here.) But beyond the entertainment value alone, there are some useful points to be pulled out of this interview. One is the incredible mashup of belief that has evolved, or rather is in a constant state of evolutionary flux, a sort of transconceptual miscegenation. The other is that in this ufological/ufoological evolutionary flux, there is not necessarily the survival of the strongest but of the weirdest. Not that any of the old concepts every completely die out, they just wait to be picked up by once again by newcomers unfamiliar with why they were laid aside in the first place.
Which makes one wonder if indeed there is any truly bad publicity other than no publicity when it comes to anomalous phenomena...Anyone remember Bridey Murphy? Thought not...
Another really entertaining look at the more, shall we say eccentric, aspects of UFO conferences is in the form of a Rick Wood podcast from the 2010 X Conference. His interview with an attendee there manages to encompass, in the persona of this one true believer, just about every aspect of the UFO phenomena that makes you want to cringe and deny that you have any interest in such a field like this. Yet, while it is quite embarassing it's also immensely entertaining at the same time, not unlike convincing yourself you are slowing down by that car crash to make sure everyone's okay rather to see just how really bad it is.
The title, Jimmy Carter, Underground Alien Bases and Talking Velociraptors From Outer Space, is almost worth the price of admission in and of it self. ( Check it out here and here.) But beyond the entertainment value alone, there are some useful points to be pulled out of this interview. One is the incredible mashup of belief that has evolved, or rather is in a constant state of evolutionary flux, a sort of transconceptual miscegenation. The other is that in this ufological/ufoological evolutionary flux, there is not necessarily the survival of the strongest but of the weirdest. Not that any of the old concepts every completely die out, they just wait to be picked up by once again by newcomers unfamiliar with why they were laid aside in the first place.
Which makes one wonder if indeed there is any truly bad publicity other than no publicity when it comes to anomalous phenomena...Anyone remember Bridey Murphy? Thought not...
Saturday, December 11, 2010
Some Thoughts on the Etymology and Uses of ‘High Strangeness’
The term ‘high strangeness’ has found widespread acceptance and is currently widely used in ufology and related paranormal fields. But the etymological origins of this phrase are unclear, and not readily discernible through that font of modern wisdom, the internet (at least not with the sort of cursory search that passes for research with persons such as myself). It is often tossed about without much thought given to how it came about in the first place, or what it may mean in relationship to, say, low strangeness, a term which is rarely, if ever used.
The first use of the term that presents itself to this reader is from 38 years ago. Chapter Four in J. Allen Hynek’s The UFO Experience, is entitled On the Strangeness of UFO Reports, and it is here that he mentions the term ‘high strangeness’ some 7 times, primarily in relationship to a “Strangeness Rating” for the “’strangeness-spread’ of UFO sightings.”
“Still, there exist UFO reports that are coherent, sequential narrative accounts of these strange human experiences. Largely because there has been no mechanism for bringing these reports to general attention, they seem to be far too strange to be believed.
They don't fit the established conceptual framework of modern physical science. It is about as difficult to put oneself into a 'belief framework' and accept a host of UFO reports as having described actual events as, for example, it would have been for Newton to have accepted the basic concepts of quantum mechanics.
Yet the strangeness of UFO reports does fall into fairly definite patterns. The 'strangeness-spread' of UFO reports is quite limited. We do not, for instance, receive reports of dinosaurs seen flying upside down, Unidentified Sailing Objects, or strange objects that burrow into the ground…
The Strangeness Rating is, to express it loosely, a measure of how 'odd-ball' a report is within its particular broad classification. More precisely, it can be taken as a measure of the number of information bits the report contains, each of which is difficult to explain in common-sense terms. A light seen in the night sky the trajectory of which, cannot be ascribed to a balloon, aircraft, etc., would nonetheless have a low Strangeness Rating because there is only one strange thing about' the report to explain: its motion. A report of a weird craft that descended to within 100 feet of a car on a lonely road, caused the car's engine to die, its radio to stop, and its lights to go out, left marks on the nearby ground, and appeared to be under intelligent control receives a high Strangeness Rating because it contains a number of separate very strange items, each of which outrages common sense.”
This concept of a Strangeness Rating is further expounded on by Jacques Vallee in The Invisible College (1975, also published in England 1977 as UFOs: The Psychic Solution). He acknowledges Hynek’s discussion of the subject, which certainly has received less widespread acceptance as the Close Encounters of the First, Second and Third Kind heuristic model found in the same book.
Vallee also proposes a ranked series of Strangeness Categories that, though useful in grading the phenomena and even helping to understand why, where and to whom they are reported, has generally been overlooked. I quote it at length here because it helps expand on the possible meaning of high strangeness by contrasting it with incidents of lesser strangeness. It also exhibits the low key humor which makes Vallee such an enjoyable writer.
“A basic characteristic of the confrontation with a UFO is the strangeness of the occurrence. Dr Allen Hynek, in his book The UFO Experience, proposed a study of the strangeness in connection with the reliability of a report Is it necessarily true, he asked, that the strangest reports (such as the landing cases with occupants) always come from the least reliable sources? He found that such was NOT the case, and that many reports existed in his files with both high reliability and high strangeness.
Let us take this idea one step further and discuss the probability that a given witness will report seeing a UFO. Assuming ten people have seen a strange object in the sky, how many of these reports will I be able to obtain? This depends, of course, on how willing each of the witnesses will be to tell anyone about his experience, and also it will depend on the person to whom he relates it. On this basis I have defined seven categories of strangeness and I have constructed for each category an appropriate scenario, as follows:
Strangeness Category 1: You see a flickering light as you come out of the garage. It reminds you of a firefly, but you have never observed fireflies under quite similar conditions. Result: You are unlikely to call the police or the Air Force to report this! If you do tell someone about the sighting, it will probably be a friend or associate: “I didn’t know there were fireflies at this time of the year.”
Strangeness Category 2: As you come out of the garage you see a flaming object that plunges behind the hill. Perhaps you have read somewhere that meteors and fireballs often appeared to be quite close when in fact they were hundreds of miles away. However, you call the police to report it because the summer has been very dry and you are afraid the phenomenon, whatever it is, may cause something to catch fire.
Strangeness Category 3: You put your car away and come out of the garage in time to see a luminous object giving off a blue glow that plunges behind the hill. It looks like a large, circular aircraft and seems to have some windows but no tail or wings. Could it be that the Russians are up to something? You call the nearest Air Force base to report it, out of a feeling of civic duty.
Strangeness Category 4: You park the old Chevy by the side of the barn and as you walk toward the house you suddenly see a large disk with lighted portholes that comes down with a gentle rocking motion and touches the ground near the pen where the pigs are kept. It makes a humming sound that turns into a high pitch whistle and it takes off again. You think of calling the police, but it occurs to you that the neighbors will be intrigued and the story will be all over the town the next day. You realize that the Air Force might be interest, but you think better of it when you wife tells you she read an article in a magazine explaining how the Air Force paid some big university to study those things and it came out negative. ON the other hand, Joe down the street has lots of books on the subject and gets a little journal from a private UFO group in Indiana. Perhaps he would pass along the information to them. This way you could at least tell someone about it without being ridiculed.
Strangeness Category 5: As you lock the garage to make sure no vandals will scratch the pain on the new Corvette you are suddenly confronted with a dwarf wearing a silvery diving suit. It has no visible arms but its oversized eyes glow with a strange orange light. It turns around and walks stiffly away into the bushes. A moment later a round object takes off from behind the hedge. At first you are too shocked to move, but you come to your senses and go into the house. You tell your wife you don’t feel like going on that camping trip next weekend. She wants to know why and you reluctantly tell her about what you’ve just seen, after she promises not to tell her mother.
Strangeness Category 6: You are lying in bed, wondering whether there is enough gas left in the car to drive to church and back tomorrow, when suddenly a light appears in the backyard. At the same time the baby starts crying in the next room. Your get up in your pajamas to check the screen door and a large blue object comes into view, hovering six feet away. A beam of light appears underneath. It sweeps along the ground with a small white spot and comes toward you. When it hits your face thousands of thoughts come into your mind. You become “locked” within the strange light. A torrent of ideas seems to be transferred into your consciousness at a high rate. It suddenly stops and the blue object vanishes on the spot. You lean against the door wondering whether it was of God or the devil. Your mind is filled with burning questions. Could life exist on other planets? What if what we call God was only one of millions of higher beings who exist throughout the cosmos? You develop a throbbing headache. You take a sleeping pill and go back to bed without awakening your wife. The baby seems to have gone to sleep.
Strangeness Category 7: You are driving a truck at fifty miles an hour around a bend in the road when you become aware of a large, dark object that blocks the whole highway. There seems to be no possibility to avoid a collision but an invisible force appears to take hold of the fifteen-ton rig and bring it to a stop within a few feet of the object. A ring of smoke extends from the base of the dome-shaped craft and you start choking as it reaches the truck. The next thing you remember is that you are driving around another bend in the road fifty miles to the south. You look at your watch and it is an hour later than you thought it was. “
Although as a tool it might not necessarily be picked up, dusted off and used again, but at least because by understanding the proposed use of Strangeness Categories we can gain some insight as to why it was developed in the first place and to what purpose such models can be put in helping to sort out unexplained phenomena.
The first use of the term that presents itself to this reader is from 38 years ago. Chapter Four in J. Allen Hynek’s The UFO Experience, is entitled On the Strangeness of UFO Reports, and it is here that he mentions the term ‘high strangeness’ some 7 times, primarily in relationship to a “Strangeness Rating” for the “’strangeness-spread’ of UFO sightings.”
“Still, there exist UFO reports that are coherent, sequential narrative accounts of these strange human experiences. Largely because there has been no mechanism for bringing these reports to general attention, they seem to be far too strange to be believed.
They don't fit the established conceptual framework of modern physical science. It is about as difficult to put oneself into a 'belief framework' and accept a host of UFO reports as having described actual events as, for example, it would have been for Newton to have accepted the basic concepts of quantum mechanics.
Yet the strangeness of UFO reports does fall into fairly definite patterns. The 'strangeness-spread' of UFO reports is quite limited. We do not, for instance, receive reports of dinosaurs seen flying upside down, Unidentified Sailing Objects, or strange objects that burrow into the ground…
The Strangeness Rating is, to express it loosely, a measure of how 'odd-ball' a report is within its particular broad classification. More precisely, it can be taken as a measure of the number of information bits the report contains, each of which is difficult to explain in common-sense terms. A light seen in the night sky the trajectory of which, cannot be ascribed to a balloon, aircraft, etc., would nonetheless have a low Strangeness Rating because there is only one strange thing about' the report to explain: its motion. A report of a weird craft that descended to within 100 feet of a car on a lonely road, caused the car's engine to die, its radio to stop, and its lights to go out, left marks on the nearby ground, and appeared to be under intelligent control receives a high Strangeness Rating because it contains a number of separate very strange items, each of which outrages common sense.”
This concept of a Strangeness Rating is further expounded on by Jacques Vallee in The Invisible College (1975, also published in England 1977 as UFOs: The Psychic Solution). He acknowledges Hynek’s discussion of the subject, which certainly has received less widespread acceptance as the Close Encounters of the First, Second and Third Kind heuristic model found in the same book.
Vallee also proposes a ranked series of Strangeness Categories that, though useful in grading the phenomena and even helping to understand why, where and to whom they are reported, has generally been overlooked. I quote it at length here because it helps expand on the possible meaning of high strangeness by contrasting it with incidents of lesser strangeness. It also exhibits the low key humor which makes Vallee such an enjoyable writer.
“A basic characteristic of the confrontation with a UFO is the strangeness of the occurrence. Dr Allen Hynek, in his book The UFO Experience, proposed a study of the strangeness in connection with the reliability of a report Is it necessarily true, he asked, that the strangest reports (such as the landing cases with occupants) always come from the least reliable sources? He found that such was NOT the case, and that many reports existed in his files with both high reliability and high strangeness.
Let us take this idea one step further and discuss the probability that a given witness will report seeing a UFO. Assuming ten people have seen a strange object in the sky, how many of these reports will I be able to obtain? This depends, of course, on how willing each of the witnesses will be to tell anyone about his experience, and also it will depend on the person to whom he relates it. On this basis I have defined seven categories of strangeness and I have constructed for each category an appropriate scenario, as follows:
Strangeness Category 1: You see a flickering light as you come out of the garage. It reminds you of a firefly, but you have never observed fireflies under quite similar conditions. Result: You are unlikely to call the police or the Air Force to report this! If you do tell someone about the sighting, it will probably be a friend or associate: “I didn’t know there were fireflies at this time of the year.”
Strangeness Category 2: As you come out of the garage you see a flaming object that plunges behind the hill. Perhaps you have read somewhere that meteors and fireballs often appeared to be quite close when in fact they were hundreds of miles away. However, you call the police to report it because the summer has been very dry and you are afraid the phenomenon, whatever it is, may cause something to catch fire.
Strangeness Category 3: You put your car away and come out of the garage in time to see a luminous object giving off a blue glow that plunges behind the hill. It looks like a large, circular aircraft and seems to have some windows but no tail or wings. Could it be that the Russians are up to something? You call the nearest Air Force base to report it, out of a feeling of civic duty.
Strangeness Category 4: You park the old Chevy by the side of the barn and as you walk toward the house you suddenly see a large disk with lighted portholes that comes down with a gentle rocking motion and touches the ground near the pen where the pigs are kept. It makes a humming sound that turns into a high pitch whistle and it takes off again. You think of calling the police, but it occurs to you that the neighbors will be intrigued and the story will be all over the town the next day. You realize that the Air Force might be interest, but you think better of it when you wife tells you she read an article in a magazine explaining how the Air Force paid some big university to study those things and it came out negative. ON the other hand, Joe down the street has lots of books on the subject and gets a little journal from a private UFO group in Indiana. Perhaps he would pass along the information to them. This way you could at least tell someone about it without being ridiculed.
Strangeness Category 5: As you lock the garage to make sure no vandals will scratch the pain on the new Corvette you are suddenly confronted with a dwarf wearing a silvery diving suit. It has no visible arms but its oversized eyes glow with a strange orange light. It turns around and walks stiffly away into the bushes. A moment later a round object takes off from behind the hedge. At first you are too shocked to move, but you come to your senses and go into the house. You tell your wife you don’t feel like going on that camping trip next weekend. She wants to know why and you reluctantly tell her about what you’ve just seen, after she promises not to tell her mother.
Strangeness Category 6: You are lying in bed, wondering whether there is enough gas left in the car to drive to church and back tomorrow, when suddenly a light appears in the backyard. At the same time the baby starts crying in the next room. Your get up in your pajamas to check the screen door and a large blue object comes into view, hovering six feet away. A beam of light appears underneath. It sweeps along the ground with a small white spot and comes toward you. When it hits your face thousands of thoughts come into your mind. You become “locked” within the strange light. A torrent of ideas seems to be transferred into your consciousness at a high rate. It suddenly stops and the blue object vanishes on the spot. You lean against the door wondering whether it was of God or the devil. Your mind is filled with burning questions. Could life exist on other planets? What if what we call God was only one of millions of higher beings who exist throughout the cosmos? You develop a throbbing headache. You take a sleeping pill and go back to bed without awakening your wife. The baby seems to have gone to sleep.
Strangeness Category 7: You are driving a truck at fifty miles an hour around a bend in the road when you become aware of a large, dark object that blocks the whole highway. There seems to be no possibility to avoid a collision but an invisible force appears to take hold of the fifteen-ton rig and bring it to a stop within a few feet of the object. A ring of smoke extends from the base of the dome-shaped craft and you start choking as it reaches the truck. The next thing you remember is that you are driving around another bend in the road fifty miles to the south. You look at your watch and it is an hour later than you thought it was. “
Although as a tool it might not necessarily be picked up, dusted off and used again, but at least because by understanding the proposed use of Strangeness Categories we can gain some insight as to why it was developed in the first place and to what purpose such models can be put in helping to sort out unexplained phenomena.
Thursday, December 9, 2010
How I Almost Became a True Believer
I can’t really remember when I first became fascinated with the concepts of UFOs and flying saucers, but it is firmly embedded with images of the library branch where I read everything I could on the subject. This was back in the early ‘60s so it was almost exclusively nuts and bolts related, though by this time there was also a healthy dose of contactee material sprinkled in. Okay, healthy may not be the right analogy, but it was certainly a heady mix, especially when supplemented by the very real fact that we were also travelling into outer space at the time, reinforced by a steady ongoing diet of rockets and space suits in the press.
This fascination with flying saucers didn’t go unnoticed by my family. My siblings came to me all excited and told me that there was one outside, an excitement which was contagious and sparked me to come running out to finally see the visitors from beyond for myself. What I found there was their hilarious derision and laughter at my credulity, as well as healthy respect for the very real human capacity for deceit in the pursuit of a hoax, as well as an appreciation for a degree of skepticism about the claims of nonbelievers.
I cut my teeth on the Condon Report when it was published, which I took to imply that although there is much going on in the sky which can be misinterpreted, which when sifted through leaves a residual amount of strange phenomena which is still beyond our current understanding. Eric von Daniken was all the rage in high school, but following through in studying the cultural, anthropological and archaeological backdrop he was drawing made clear the height of the conclusions he was jumping to and supplied an Occam’s razor which cut like butter through most of his conclusions.
But it was the whole Bill Moore and Aquarius affair that put the subject to bed for me for almost three decades. With so many conflicting theories and what was clear even then as massive amounts of disinformation the field of ufology was becoming so muddied I put aside the subject. Oddly enough it this same affair which has sparked renewed interest in the whole field of ufoology (thanks to Jim Moseley for that oh so perfect term!) when Greg Bishop’s Project Beta added some much needed perspective on that truly bizarre episode. For me it closed one window but opened up a door onto what the late Robert Anton Wilson called maybe logic, that blessed state of being able to consider everything while believing in nothing.
It was in that same period that another formative event occurred, which has not only helped me understand the nature of becoming a true believer, but the emotional commitment and psychological burden such a belief system entails.
It must have been well over thirty years ago, walking back from a friend’s apartment on a road alongside Saint Edwards in Austin, one with an incredible panoramic overview of the city. It was late at night when I notice a light in the sky approaching from the west. It grew closer and brighter, and as it became clear that it was a series of moving lights. Coming ever closer it began to resolve itself as a series of colored lights that seemed to be moving horizontally beneath a solid surface.
I began to get quite excited about this, visualizing it in my minds eyes as lights rotating around the bottom of a classic disc shaped flying saucer. The implications of this were beginning to reshape my sense of what this implied, that the world would change for me as I went from being someone who had always had an interest in the subject to becoming a full blown believer, one of many of what was sure to be a widely viewed phenomena that would perhaps not only precipitate a major flap but mark the beginning of a mass landing. There was an emotional excitement of anticipation mixed with fear mixed with wonder, a waterfall of feelings running over me, drowning out whatever doubt the inner skeptic could muster because there it was before my very eyes. My whole world view was changing right there and then, some inner element of my psyche welcoming it as a childhood dream finally come true.
And still it grew closer, the lights and their apparent rotation clearer. At one point, however, it became clear to me what was really going on. I could now hear the drone of a small private plane's engine drone, and see that it was pulling behind it a lighted advertising banner with still unclear words scrolling across it.
And so my world changed again. It was, and remains clear to me now, that I have to be careful about allowing my preconceptions and residual belief systems guide my perceptions into seeing what I want to or expect to see. That much is clear, and it applies every bit as much when reading or hearing about the anomalous experiences of others.
But there is another, more frightening aspect to this experience. If that plane had turned sooner, before I'd been able to make out what it really was, I would now be one of those poor fools who run around trying to tell everyone about the UFO I saw, wondering why no else had reported it (or why the sighting was being suppressed) and getting sucked into the bizarrely puzzling world of a true believer in visitors from another world. That is scary.
But it has also helped guide my views on the UFO phenomena. Over the past couple of years I've returned to a fascination with that phenomena, though I feel compelled to say without the true believer's psychological baggage. But high strangeness has an attraction all its own, if for no other reason that as a social and cultural phenomena that may even have distinct applications by the military as a tool of misinformation in psychological operations.
One very clear example of this is covered in Greg Bishop's book, Project Beta, which has implications well beyond Kirkland Air Force Base using intelligence officers to feed a believer’s investigations of covert operations there, leading not only to his mental disintegration but feeding the UFO community a new mythology of underground bases at Dulce Mesa well away from the air base in Albequerque to divert attention. Another recent addition to the field is the fascinating Mirage Men, by Mark Pilkington, which is one of the most delightful, readable, and enjoyable accounts of the military's involvement in attempting to understand as well as manipulate the public's focus on unknown aerial encounters and belief in aliens over the past 63 years. And H.P. Albarelli’s A Terrible Mistake, about as well documented a book on MK-ULTRA as can be found, makes clear the degree to which government will go to hide its motives and methods, especially during the early days of the Cold War when its paranoia reached a degree that was not only pathological but bordering on the sociopathic.
But make no mistake about it, there is every bit as much paranoia and as many attempts to guide public opinion by true believers as well. What it is that the true believers believe in spans as wide a gap as the diehard skeptics on one side and the wide-eye New Age Naïf’s, Nazi nut-and-bolters, extraterrestrial exponents, ultraterrestrial underlords, transdimensional time travelers, abduction victimologists and far more evolving even as the anomalies emerge.
There is a cultural meme associated with this phenomena that is continually morphing and endlessly fascinating. The cost of admission to this freak show is minimal, but one must be endlessly cautious once inside the tent to remain part of the audience, for it is not always clear where the sawdust ends and the stage begins.
This fascination with flying saucers didn’t go unnoticed by my family. My siblings came to me all excited and told me that there was one outside, an excitement which was contagious and sparked me to come running out to finally see the visitors from beyond for myself. What I found there was their hilarious derision and laughter at my credulity, as well as healthy respect for the very real human capacity for deceit in the pursuit of a hoax, as well as an appreciation for a degree of skepticism about the claims of nonbelievers.
I cut my teeth on the Condon Report when it was published, which I took to imply that although there is much going on in the sky which can be misinterpreted, which when sifted through leaves a residual amount of strange phenomena which is still beyond our current understanding. Eric von Daniken was all the rage in high school, but following through in studying the cultural, anthropological and archaeological backdrop he was drawing made clear the height of the conclusions he was jumping to and supplied an Occam’s razor which cut like butter through most of his conclusions.
But it was the whole Bill Moore and Aquarius affair that put the subject to bed for me for almost three decades. With so many conflicting theories and what was clear even then as massive amounts of disinformation the field of ufology was becoming so muddied I put aside the subject. Oddly enough it this same affair which has sparked renewed interest in the whole field of ufoology (thanks to Jim Moseley for that oh so perfect term!) when Greg Bishop’s Project Beta added some much needed perspective on that truly bizarre episode. For me it closed one window but opened up a door onto what the late Robert Anton Wilson called maybe logic, that blessed state of being able to consider everything while believing in nothing.
It was in that same period that another formative event occurred, which has not only helped me understand the nature of becoming a true believer, but the emotional commitment and psychological burden such a belief system entails.
It must have been well over thirty years ago, walking back from a friend’s apartment on a road alongside Saint Edwards in Austin, one with an incredible panoramic overview of the city. It was late at night when I notice a light in the sky approaching from the west. It grew closer and brighter, and as it became clear that it was a series of moving lights. Coming ever closer it began to resolve itself as a series of colored lights that seemed to be moving horizontally beneath a solid surface.
I began to get quite excited about this, visualizing it in my minds eyes as lights rotating around the bottom of a classic disc shaped flying saucer. The implications of this were beginning to reshape my sense of what this implied, that the world would change for me as I went from being someone who had always had an interest in the subject to becoming a full blown believer, one of many of what was sure to be a widely viewed phenomena that would perhaps not only precipitate a major flap but mark the beginning of a mass landing. There was an emotional excitement of anticipation mixed with fear mixed with wonder, a waterfall of feelings running over me, drowning out whatever doubt the inner skeptic could muster because there it was before my very eyes. My whole world view was changing right there and then, some inner element of my psyche welcoming it as a childhood dream finally come true.
And still it grew closer, the lights and their apparent rotation clearer. At one point, however, it became clear to me what was really going on. I could now hear the drone of a small private plane's engine drone, and see that it was pulling behind it a lighted advertising banner with still unclear words scrolling across it.
And so my world changed again. It was, and remains clear to me now, that I have to be careful about allowing my preconceptions and residual belief systems guide my perceptions into seeing what I want to or expect to see. That much is clear, and it applies every bit as much when reading or hearing about the anomalous experiences of others.
But there is another, more frightening aspect to this experience. If that plane had turned sooner, before I'd been able to make out what it really was, I would now be one of those poor fools who run around trying to tell everyone about the UFO I saw, wondering why no else had reported it (or why the sighting was being suppressed) and getting sucked into the bizarrely puzzling world of a true believer in visitors from another world. That is scary.
But it has also helped guide my views on the UFO phenomena. Over the past couple of years I've returned to a fascination with that phenomena, though I feel compelled to say without the true believer's psychological baggage. But high strangeness has an attraction all its own, if for no other reason that as a social and cultural phenomena that may even have distinct applications by the military as a tool of misinformation in psychological operations.
One very clear example of this is covered in Greg Bishop's book, Project Beta, which has implications well beyond Kirkland Air Force Base using intelligence officers to feed a believer’s investigations of covert operations there, leading not only to his mental disintegration but feeding the UFO community a new mythology of underground bases at Dulce Mesa well away from the air base in Albequerque to divert attention. Another recent addition to the field is the fascinating Mirage Men, by Mark Pilkington, which is one of the most delightful, readable, and enjoyable accounts of the military's involvement in attempting to understand as well as manipulate the public's focus on unknown aerial encounters and belief in aliens over the past 63 years. And H.P. Albarelli’s A Terrible Mistake, about as well documented a book on MK-ULTRA as can be found, makes clear the degree to which government will go to hide its motives and methods, especially during the early days of the Cold War when its paranoia reached a degree that was not only pathological but bordering on the sociopathic.
But make no mistake about it, there is every bit as much paranoia and as many attempts to guide public opinion by true believers as well. What it is that the true believers believe in spans as wide a gap as the diehard skeptics on one side and the wide-eye New Age Naïf’s, Nazi nut-and-bolters, extraterrestrial exponents, ultraterrestrial underlords, transdimensional time travelers, abduction victimologists and far more evolving even as the anomalies emerge.
There is a cultural meme associated with this phenomena that is continually morphing and endlessly fascinating. The cost of admission to this freak show is minimal, but one must be endlessly cautious once inside the tent to remain part of the audience, for it is not always clear where the sawdust ends and the stage begins.
Wednesday, May 19, 2010
Jacques Vallee in BoingBoing
Dr. Jacques Vallee is one the finest and most well respected researchers on UFOs, and his body of work is not only prolific but captures the evolution of his thought on the subject quite succinctly. Starting with his early observation of an unidentified object as an astronomer and the cover-up of that sighting by the bureaucrats above him, his viewpoints evolved from a nuts and bolts viewpoint (Anatomy of a Phenomenon: Unidentified Objects in Space – A Scientific Appraisa(1965)l and Challenge to Science: The UFO Enigma(1966)) through to his exposition of the similarities of the phenomena with other anomalistic phenomena throughout written history in Passport to Magonia: From Foklore to Flying Saucers(1969). His take on the subject is often at variance to that of the general public and usually well ahead of it; hence his books The Invisible College: What a Group of Scientists Has Discovered About UFO Influences on the Human Race (1975) and Mesengers of Deception: UFO Contacts and Cults (1979). But after a trilogy published from 1988 to 1991 (Dimensions: A Casebook of Alien Contact, Confrontations – A Scientist's Search for Alien Contact and Revelations: Alien Contact and Human Deception) he published little on UFOs and began to focus more his work as a venture capitalist. He worked with DARA in the early development of what was to become the internet, and recently has begun to reemerge as a iconic figure in the ongoing history of the scientific study of anomalous phenomena.
Crop Circles, Part Deux: Alien Glyphs, Human Myths, Blogging BlissJacques Vallee at 8:47 PM April 8, 2010 http://www.boingboing.net/2010/04/08/crop-circles-part-de.html
In Search of Alien Glyphs (or are they microwave blasters?)
Jacques Vallee at 11:12 AM March 23, 2010
http://boingboing.net/2010/03/23/in-search-of-alien-g.html#previouspost
Of Flattened Flora and Expulsion Cavities: The crop circle controversy continuesJacques Vallee at 11:21 AM April 28, 2010 http://www.boingboing.net/2010/04/28/of-flattened-flora-a.html
Crop circles themes on ufologie.net, with a particularly nice collection of pictures, including obviously fake, poorly executed circles and exquisitely beautiful patterns and links to wide variety of web articles http://www.ufologie.net/htm/cropthemes.htm
Links from comments section are quite interestingSand Art: A New Kind of Land ArtExquisitely beautiful, reminiscent of crop circles and hauntingly ephemeralhttp://theswedishbed.wordpress.com/2010/04/27/sand-art-a-new-kind-of-land-art/
BLT Research Team, Inc.PURPOSE: The BLT Research Team Inc.'s primary focus is crop circle research - the discovery, scientific documentation and evaluation of physical changes induced in plants, soils and other materials at crop circle sites by the energy (or energy system) responsible for creating them and to determine, if possible, from these data the specific nature and source of these energies. Secondly, our intent is to publish these research results in peer-reviewed scientific journals and to disseminate this information to the general public through lectures, mainstream articles and the internethttp://www.bltresearch.com/
Crop Circles: Artworks or Alien Signs?National Geographic article, unfortunately lacking photographshttp://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2002/08/0801_020801_cropcircles.html
The Field Guide: The Art, History and Philosophy of Crop Circle Making, by Rob Irving and John Lundberg, from the publisher of Strange Attractor Journalhttp://strangeattractor.co.uk/fieldguide/
And the authors website, Circlemakers.orghttp://www.circlemakers.org/index.html
How Crop Circles Work, on HowStuffWorks.com, well researched and pretty well balancedhttp://science.howstuffworks.com/crop-circle.htm
There are two interesting things about crop circles from the viewpoint of The Anomaly Agnostic; the need for people to hoax others, in the sense of making crop circles and crowing about it afterward, and the need of people to believe in other explanations in spite of the clear evidence of hoaxers operating in the field.
Tuesday, April 13, 2010
Podcasts of interest
One of the benefits of the internet doesn't require being tied down to a computer anymore. I was a little late coming to the joys of listening to them, and am now just gobsmacked with the tremendous amount of information that can be carried around and listened to, anytime, anywhere.
Here are some of interest to both budding young anomalists and crusty old skeptics still invested with an interest in the odd and unusal...
Adam Gorightly’s Untamed Dimensions --- Although only in operation from 2006 to 2008, these are some truly entertaining shows to go back and revisit. Gorightly is also a prolific, self labeled ‘crank historian’ (with an unspecified emphasis on crank or historian) whose works on Kenneth Thornley and Charles Manson are some of the best out there, and in Thornley’s case about the only one out there. But the podcasts are a downright hoot, where one will find information that supplements his written work and often goes off onto even more bizarre tangents. His interviews with the clear cut crackpots are especially appealing in that he doesn’t judge them and gently guides them into their own particular brand of eloquent craziness. And this is your go-to guy for the latest low down on Charles Manson, a case long far richer than that presented to the public by Vince “Helter Skelter” Bugliosi.
Greg Bishop’s Radio Misterioso --- Bishop is another author who has brought his skills and background into the podcast realm. This is an author who has done plenty of footwork in his investigation of the Paul Bennewitz case, which has imbued him with a deep and firmly grounded understanding of the depth and breadth deception that government disinformation programs can engage in.
Binnall of America --- A relative newcomer to anomalies (the mid 2000s), Ted Binnall has put together an impressive collection of interviews (well into its fifth year now) that is definitely worth the hundreds of hours they encompass. If you’re into baseball, don’t miss his annual baseball show with a wide range of other podcasters and investigators (including Adam Gorightly and Greg Bishop) expounding on another favorite subject of theirs.
Paratopia --- Lots of interesting programs here, though often tucked in between lots of banter and emotional outbursts with the feel of broadcast flame wars. But there is a healthy dose of skepticism and the hosts make no secret of their opinions, which they wisely hold back until after their interviews, so I don’t feel too bad about opining on their own personal vagaries. Expect a heavy dose of ghost hunting and odd excursions into personal grow here.
Eerie Radio --- Interesting material out there, though the back and forth banter at times makes it, well, on some of their own descriptions that own up to this and recommend not downloading them. I did feel, along with the hosts, a certain amount of embarrassment for the Hessdalen Project scientist Erling P. Strand they interviewed, especially if he listened to their post show wrap up, although the interview itself was pretty well done. But if you’re looking for that feeling of sitting around shooting the shit with a bunch of old friends with names like DK and Fizz, this could be your show. Heavy emphasis on ghost hunting here too.
Out There Radio --- This is another now defunct podcast that bears many rewards for the listener willing to go on through all 50 episodes. These are well researched and reach well into “the world of conspiracy theories, the occult, hidden history, and the counterculture” that stand as excellent introductions to many different areas that are too often presented in a more hysterical fashion. This was originally a college radio show where the intellectual background of the hosts shines through.
Welcome to Mars! --- This series of 12 half hour longs podcasts presents a cultural history of the 50’s that should not be missed. It is not only well researched and presents the mindset that gave rise to the idea of the past’s idea of the future, but the background music (with theremin) by Simon James creates an eerie aural ambience that captures the nature of the 50's beautifully. Anyone who wants to get a clearer understanding of the anthropoloical setting that the flying saucer phenoma arose should check this one out!
Conspiracy Skeptic --- It’s not only the true believers that warrant a listen. There are so fairly complete synopses of conspiracy memes here that offer a counterbalance to overly open minds, the kind where the brains start falling out. I particularly liked the one on the Satanic Panic of the 80s and 90s as an example of how unquestioning acceptance of conspiracy theories have led to witch hunts with horrendous casualties in modern day America.
PsiOp Radio --- This is an Austin based podcast which took me a while to warm up to due to its decided parapolitical leanings. But SMiles Lewis and Mack White do make a pretty good team and do offer some pretty good guests. Mack is a good old boy cartoonist with a delightfully anomalistic bent to much of his work, and SMiles is the mastermind behind the Anomaly Radio network of shows. Unfortunately, many of the downloads are burdened with some lengthy commercials that haven’t been edited out.
Blue Rose Radio --- This is an earlier and now discontinued podcast from SMiles Lewis, but still available if you dig deeply enough through the Anomaly Radio backlists. Drawing its title from a Twin Peaks reference, the earlier numbers are pretty dad gummed interesting and well worth the time.
There are some podcasts that I’ve come across because of interviews they’ve done, usually of authors of interesting books. Mitch Horowitz (Occult America), Peter Levenda (the Sinister Forces trilogy) and H.P. Alberelli (A Terrible Mistake) are examples of such authors. Adam Gorightly (The Shadow over Santa Susanna, The Beast of Adam Gorightly) and Greg Bishop (Project Beta) are authors have not only have (or have had) podcasts of their own, but are often interviewed on other podcasts, which make them worth a listen and further consideration.
Gnostic Media --- I can’t really say a whole lot about this podcast, though I can heartily recommend the interviews with Horowitz and Levenda that can be found there. There is a strong emphasis on psychedelic related research in many of these podcasts, with many interviews with very serious investigators, including Dr. Stanley Grof.
Red Ice Radio --- A Swedish podcast in English that has presented some in depth programs with Albarelli and Levenda here. This is good, straight forward interviewing with a peculiarly non-American spin that is refreshing in its own right. An update on Julian Jaynes (The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Brain) research is an excellent introduction to a concept that probably offers more insights into the study of anomalous behavior than is generally recognized. Most of the shows are broken up into two hour long parts, the second only available to subscribers, but if you look hard enough some of the more interesting second halves can be found out there.
Here are some of interest to both budding young anomalists and crusty old skeptics still invested with an interest in the odd and unusal...
Adam Gorightly’s Untamed Dimensions --- Although only in operation from 2006 to 2008, these are some truly entertaining shows to go back and revisit. Gorightly is also a prolific, self labeled ‘crank historian’ (with an unspecified emphasis on crank or historian) whose works on Kenneth Thornley and Charles Manson are some of the best out there, and in Thornley’s case about the only one out there. But the podcasts are a downright hoot, where one will find information that supplements his written work and often goes off onto even more bizarre tangents. His interviews with the clear cut crackpots are especially appealing in that he doesn’t judge them and gently guides them into their own particular brand of eloquent craziness. And this is your go-to guy for the latest low down on Charles Manson, a case long far richer than that presented to the public by Vince “Helter Skelter” Bugliosi.
Greg Bishop’s Radio Misterioso --- Bishop is another author who has brought his skills and background into the podcast realm. This is an author who has done plenty of footwork in his investigation of the Paul Bennewitz case, which has imbued him with a deep and firmly grounded understanding of the depth and breadth deception that government disinformation programs can engage in.
Binnall of America --- A relative newcomer to anomalies (the mid 2000s), Ted Binnall has put together an impressive collection of interviews (well into its fifth year now) that is definitely worth the hundreds of hours they encompass. If you’re into baseball, don’t miss his annual baseball show with a wide range of other podcasters and investigators (including Adam Gorightly and Greg Bishop) expounding on another favorite subject of theirs.
Paratopia --- Lots of interesting programs here, though often tucked in between lots of banter and emotional outbursts with the feel of broadcast flame wars. But there is a healthy dose of skepticism and the hosts make no secret of their opinions, which they wisely hold back until after their interviews, so I don’t feel too bad about opining on their own personal vagaries. Expect a heavy dose of ghost hunting and odd excursions into personal grow here.
Eerie Radio --- Interesting material out there, though the back and forth banter at times makes it, well, on some of their own descriptions that own up to this and recommend not downloading them. I did feel, along with the hosts, a certain amount of embarrassment for the Hessdalen Project scientist Erling P. Strand they interviewed, especially if he listened to their post show wrap up, although the interview itself was pretty well done. But if you’re looking for that feeling of sitting around shooting the shit with a bunch of old friends with names like DK and Fizz, this could be your show. Heavy emphasis on ghost hunting here too.
Out There Radio --- This is another now defunct podcast that bears many rewards for the listener willing to go on through all 50 episodes. These are well researched and reach well into “the world of conspiracy theories, the occult, hidden history, and the counterculture” that stand as excellent introductions to many different areas that are too often presented in a more hysterical fashion. This was originally a college radio show where the intellectual background of the hosts shines through.
Welcome to Mars! --- This series of 12 half hour longs podcasts presents a cultural history of the 50’s that should not be missed. It is not only well researched and presents the mindset that gave rise to the idea of the past’s idea of the future, but the background music (with theremin) by Simon James creates an eerie aural ambience that captures the nature of the 50's beautifully. Anyone who wants to get a clearer understanding of the anthropoloical setting that the flying saucer phenoma arose should check this one out!
Conspiracy Skeptic --- It’s not only the true believers that warrant a listen. There are so fairly complete synopses of conspiracy memes here that offer a counterbalance to overly open minds, the kind where the brains start falling out. I particularly liked the one on the Satanic Panic of the 80s and 90s as an example of how unquestioning acceptance of conspiracy theories have led to witch hunts with horrendous casualties in modern day America.
PsiOp Radio --- This is an Austin based podcast which took me a while to warm up to due to its decided parapolitical leanings. But SMiles Lewis and Mack White do make a pretty good team and do offer some pretty good guests. Mack is a good old boy cartoonist with a delightfully anomalistic bent to much of his work, and SMiles is the mastermind behind the Anomaly Radio network of shows. Unfortunately, many of the downloads are burdened with some lengthy commercials that haven’t been edited out.
Blue Rose Radio --- This is an earlier and now discontinued podcast from SMiles Lewis, but still available if you dig deeply enough through the Anomaly Radio backlists. Drawing its title from a Twin Peaks reference, the earlier numbers are pretty dad gummed interesting and well worth the time.
There are some podcasts that I’ve come across because of interviews they’ve done, usually of authors of interesting books. Mitch Horowitz (Occult America), Peter Levenda (the Sinister Forces trilogy) and H.P. Alberelli (A Terrible Mistake) are examples of such authors. Adam Gorightly (The Shadow over Santa Susanna, The Beast of Adam Gorightly) and Greg Bishop (Project Beta) are authors have not only have (or have had) podcasts of their own, but are often interviewed on other podcasts, which make them worth a listen and further consideration.
Gnostic Media --- I can’t really say a whole lot about this podcast, though I can heartily recommend the interviews with Horowitz and Levenda that can be found there. There is a strong emphasis on psychedelic related research in many of these podcasts, with many interviews with very serious investigators, including Dr. Stanley Grof.
Red Ice Radio --- A Swedish podcast in English that has presented some in depth programs with Albarelli and Levenda here. This is good, straight forward interviewing with a peculiarly non-American spin that is refreshing in its own right. An update on Julian Jaynes (The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Brain) research is an excellent introduction to a concept that probably offers more insights into the study of anomalous behavior than is generally recognized. Most of the shows are broken up into two hour long parts, the second only available to subscribers, but if you look hard enough some of the more interesting second halves can be found out there.
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