Quick and Ray – A Psychic Influencing Experiment

heat-hitA few months ago, longtime listeners Stephanie Quick and Steve Ray told me that they had been experimenting on me. They heard me complain about a lack of first person paranormal experience amongst researchers, or specifically, myself. To that end, they devised a psychic influencing experiment to see if they could affect the content of the shows by concentrating on a theme. For instance, On a show recorded on January 18, 2015, the focus chosen was “heat,” and a car fire erupted right next to my car parked on the street below the studio. This was the most spectacular example, there were other more modest “hits” throughout the months-long experimental period. The last third of the show was taken up with discussions of Zen temples and the power of a positive mindset.

Excel files and images documenting the experiment can be downloaded here.

Posted in new research, parapsychology, Radio Misterioso exclusive | 10 Comments

Ufology Roundtable – An Oblique Kick In The UFO Butt

mario-deeJoining me for this RM popup show were Michael Hughes, Seriah Azkath, and Josh Cutchin. We all agree that UFO study can be changed and improved by some sort of personal involvement with the subject and whatever causes it. More people working along these lines would be a good thing and the time appears to be ripe. Subjects discussed included: ritual magick, chaos magick, DMT, Whitley Strieber, tulpas and whether people can handle what might happen if the abyss or anything living there stares back (or worse.) It was a lively and fast-paced talk. Michael brought up a forward thinking researcher I hadn’t heard about in years and who was making these connections 20 years ago: a guy who called himself “Brother Blue.” We called for people to get personally involved with the phenomenon in whatever way they can and then, and most importantly, get back to us and others with their reports and findings. Go!

Illustration by RPJ from It Defies Language!

Posted in new research, occult, Radio Misterioso exclusive, ufology | Tagged , , , , | 12 Comments

Nick Redfern – The Women In Black

wibNick is of course an old friend and having him on the show is just an excuse to catch up and talk shop, although we spent an amazingly substantial amount of time on his new book: Women In Black: The Creepy Companions of the Mysterious M.I.B. Nick can say whatever he wants to on my show and he did. We spoke quite a lot about Albert K. Bender and his occult interests and experiences, and a bit about his involvement with alchemy, of all things. The subject of fairy lore came up, and some of the similarities to aspects of visits from the Women In Black. Nick found that these entities, while having a similar M.O. to their male brethren, tend to act more like what we think of a vampires, at least in their theatrical aspects, being more seductive and less overtly threatening. We even got to a case of a woman in white who harassed a witness to an apparent whale mutilation in the UK.

 

Posted in Authors, books, contactees, Government, Intelligence | Tagged , , , , , | 1 Comment

Mystery Aircraft Sighting

plane

Just a few days ago, I was alerted to a strange sighting from the UK in 2009. The witness, (who wishes to remain anonymous, and along with 3 others) reported seeing a passenger aircraft flying dangerously low over the British countryside. As they approached closer, they realized that the object appeared to be hanging perfectly still in mid-air. This was rather disconcerting, along with the fact that the airplane was perfectly white, with no markings whatsoever. We talked about this, my own stationary UFO sighting, and what might be happening to witnesses of weird stuff.

Posted in pop up broadcast, Radio Misterioso exclusive, sightings | 6 Comments

Clownwatch 2016!

JIB

New idea: Occasional pop-up RM episodes dealing with current topics.

This morning I saw a post from Daniel Malone on facebook with a map of the area around the recent mysterious and disturbing Greenville, South Carolina clown sightings. He pointed out that the area is also a UFO hotspot, which of course got my attention.

greenville 3In a couple of hours, we arranged to talk about the facts and implications of this strange, but not unfamiliar phenomenon, as Loren Coleman (who coined the term “phantom clowns” in 1981 for his landmark book Mysterious America) has recently pointed out. Show friend Skylaire Alfvegren also joined us for historical and symbolic perspectives.

A couple of audio captures from the local news lead off the show.

Posted in all-around genreal weirdness, pop up broadcast | Tagged , , | 9 Comments

Weird Music With Joshua Cutchin #2

starcherJoshua joined me a second time to delve into our audio vaults of the strange. We had to catch up first, so we talked UFO shop for the first twenty minutes, then right into the weirdness. This time, we decided to give each other 2 songs per turn. Highlights included a band named Hayseed Dixie and their cover of “Walk This Way,” in which you will hear and actually understand the lyrics to this song. A favorite from my virtual vaults was “On the Eve of my Multiplication” performed by Buddy Starcher, whose big hit was “History Repeats Itself” about the similarities between the JFK and Lincoln assassinations. We also listened to a light country ditty entitled “Flying Saucers In The Air,” which I probably haven’t played before.

Posted in Music, UFO audio, UFOs | Tagged , , , , | 2 Comments

Walter Bosley – Origins of Airships and Breakaway Civilizations

aeronMy favorite co-host Walter returned to tell us about his new book Origins: The 19th Century Emergence of the 20th Century Breakaway Civilizations. The book presents a radical view of when, how and who was behind early controlled manned flight, and how early that this may have been achieved. We started off defining what exactly a “breakaway civilization” is, and moved quickly to a discussion of the famous airship artist Charles Dellschau, and how his beautiful drawings of aircraft from the 19th century may not have been merely fantasies. Walter says he has found many indications that those Dellschau mentions in his “fanciful” recollections were actual people.

Walter further contends that there was a group in Germany who funded the efforts of airship researchers in the U.S. and that these inventors turned on their benefactors when they discovered that the research was for the purposes of war. We also talked about Dr. Solomon Andrews and his demonstration of a controllable airship to Abraham Lincoln’s War department. He says that this was the basis for the first “black project” sponsored by the U.S. Government.

 

Posted in alternate history, Authors, books, Government, Intelligence, secret technology | Tagged , , | 3 Comments

Steve Berg: Longtime Fan, First Time Guest

Steve BSteve Berg took me out to lunch a couple of years ago and we had a great time. We went again recently when my newest book was released. This was when I found out that Steve’s job was comedy writing and acting, and that he has a fairly successful career doing both. People may know him from the excellent Comedy Central show Drunk History or his acting work on Idiotsitter or even this superbowl ad. To start the show, we watched a video called “Two Hamsters, One Wheel,” and some music I located (titled “Ciocarlia”) that goes perfectly as a soundtrack.

I had some questions for Steve and he had some questions for me. He likes my books and I like Drunk History and comedy, so the show veered between these themes. Steve considers UFO crazies like Steven Greer a form of performance art, and I can’t argue with that at all. Surprisingly enough, he says he was inspired to go into the funny biz by the comedic stylings of character actor Dabney Coleman. I played my bootleg recording of comedy legend Tony Clifton, which impressed Steve. He is worried about the phenomenon of more people (especially college-age kids) who are easily offended and how this is killing traditional comedy and satire.

He asked me about the mysterious Naval intelligence man who was known as “Mike Younger” and our interactions, which forced me to wrack my brain for memories, as well as some of the research leading to Project Beta. We discussed the solution to the moving rocks mystery of Death Valley before a spaced-out dude called in for stilted shenanigans.

Posted in comedy, Radio Misterioso exclusive | Tagged , , , , | 3 Comments

Author Interview for “It Defies Language!”

tshirt design2Red Pill Junkie (RPJ) and Robert “Burnt State” suggested that they should interview me about my latest book, and I agreed immediately. They are both very “inside baseball” on the subjects I discuss and I thought they would have a great perspective to really delve into the subject matter. For the most part, we concentrated on theories and opinions about how we (as humans) look at the UFO phenomenon and how researchers and other interested parties can frame their questions in different ways.

We started with the idea that perhaps we need to examine the value of subjectivity and how closer encounters seem to affect many witnesses on a deep, individual level. RPJ said the attitude among most UFO fans seems to be “We have iphones, so our model is more valid than yours,” forgetting that some societies have solid traditions of communion with “the other.” We are also limited by our language. We also discussed that some researchers (such as Dr. Leo Sprinkle and Raymond Fowler) even seem to have gone “native” after years of interaction with witnesses.

In contrast to other interviews I have done for the book, this one concentrated more on my favorite parts of the book, such as the alien writing chapter that suggests we can interact with a possible non-human consciousness in ways that are not necessarily direct or that even make sense. As Robert said “We need to have an adequate response in the song, when the ‘other’ calls out to us.”

The illustration above by RPJ was a preliminary sketch for the cover of the book.

Other links: Kindle, Amazon hard copy

Posted in Authors, books, Radio Misterioso exclusive, ufology | Tagged , , , , , | 10 Comments

Weird Music #1 With Josh Cutchin

Adriano_Celentano

The author of the singular and amazing A Trojan Feast joined me to indulge our mutual interest in strange and otherwise outsider music. For the first 20 minutes or so, we talked shop about UFOs. In his recent lectures, Josh was pleasantly surprised to find that civilian research groups were considering other approaches besides the extraterrestrial hypothesis, then we dove right in with the tunes. One of the standouts was the 1972 Italian hit “Prisencolinensinainciusol” which consists of wonderful gibberish that is an attempt to sound like English, or what Italians think English sounds like. It is genius and has become a personal favorite. Other standouts in our musical visit included a cover of “Day Tripper” in Thai, a virtuoso performance on the theremin, and a broken carousel calliope trying to play “76 Trombones.” There is also a seriously dirty blues song from 1935 that forced me to change my itunes rating to “explicit.”

Posted in Music, ufology | Tagged , , , , | 3 Comments

Seriah Azkath – Broadcaster of the New Aeon

For months now, people have been asking me to interview Seriah Azkath, host of the very popular “Where Did The Road Go?” podcast. Seriah and I found that we had a lot in common in our views on the paranormal. Unlike myself though, he has had a wide variety of strange and sometimes disturbing experiences which he revealed throughout the program. For example, he said he once saw the moon come through the clouds at night and apparently vibrate in the sky.  He also talked about how an undiagnosed medical condition was brought under control when he used a kundalini model to deal with it. We also discussed the state of UFO study, possible new models of the phenomenon, and different ways to gather data from sightings, as well as its interconnectedness with other paranormal events. Seriah also mentioned this weird fact: some ghost hunters have seen “midgets” or small humanoid shapes showing up on specialized cameras that seem to be climbing on people. For much of the last part of the show, we engaged in “shop talk” about how and why we do interviews. A fun show with a kindred spirit.

Posted in abductions, Fortean, Ghosts | Tagged , , , , , | 4 Comments

Chris Aubeck – UFOs Throughout History

The old quote about those not knowing history who are doomed to repeat it is just as relevant to the study of UFOs as any other subject. For many years now, Chris Aubeck has been chronicling the history of strange objects seen in the sky to show that the phenomenon is much older and more pervasive than most people think.

Chris told me that the very term “flying saucer” was in common usage in the English-speaking world starting in the late 19th century. It referred to clay targets used for trap and skeet shooting, and he argues that the press had a ready-made phrase when Kenneth Arnold reported his sighting in 1947, and which may have affected preconceptions of witnesses and the press afterwords.

In 2003, Aubeck visited Dr. Jacques Vallée at a speaking date in Portugal and asked him to collaborate on a book he was going to call “Return To Magonia.” Vallée at first said “no,” but called him a few months later and agreed to co-author what would become Wonders In The Sky. The book examines reports of strange objects seen in in the sky from antiquity to the late 19th century and weeded out accounts that were hoaxes and misidentifications of natural phenomena by combing through historical records of people, places, weather, and astronomical data. A deluxe edition has been announced.

Since Wonders, Chris has co-authored two other volumes: OOPARTs: Ojetos Fuera De Su Tiempo (Things Out Of Time) (Spanish only) and Return To Magonia: Investigating UFOs In History. We talked about both books and how the use of historical records explained many events that have been attributed to paranormal, unearthly, or mysterious origins have turned out to be false or easily explainable. In Return, Aubeck and co-author Martin Shough picked a top 20 of UFO cases throughout history and found some that were explainable and others that remain unidentified.

Chris has lived in Spain since age 19 and we talked about the convoluted and sometimes harrowing series of events that led him to adopt that country as his home. His next project is an examination of the history of beliefs about extraterrestrial life.

A very fun and informative interview which I enjoyed thoroughly. I hope you will too.

Posted in history | Tagged , , | 10 Comments

Cassidy Nicholas – MUFON Evolves

For all my bashing of large UFO groups, I haven’t actually confronted someone from one of those groups to pose some of the questions that I’d been asking almost rhetorically. Hearing about Cassidy Nicholas changed that. For the past two years, she has been Associate Communications Producer for the Mutual UFO Network (MUFON) which puts her in charge of their national media. She is also the author of three books on the paranormal, as well as a field investigator for MUFON, and has hosted many radio interviews. We started out with her experiences as an interviewer and the chance it gives the host to learn directly from the guest, which is something I always like.

How does an investigator keep from imposing their views and even unconscious motivations on a UFO witness? Nicholas says that MUFON field investigators are supposed to adhere to a standard set of questions that have no ET or other bias. She emphasized that they are routinely reminded not to impose any point of view in their reports or questioning. She added that MUFON as a group does not espouse the ET explanation, even though individual members may try to speak for the organization with that belief. I asked of there was any movement towards the inclusion of nonstandard questions about the witness, such as ethnic background as well as subjective data about emotions, feelings, or life changes, and she indicated that they were moving towards some of these goals, and are open to alternate viewpoints.

Cassidy began as a paranormal investigator of ghost and haunting cases, but soon grew tired of the culture of that group, as well as the realization that she might not be able to deal with some of the more disturbing aspects of that world. She says her young son was thrown out of bed in the middle of the night during a period when she was working on a particularly intense case. At one investigation of a site with a myriad of phenomena, she told me that all the various researchers (bigfoot, paranormal, and UFO people) all got along great, which surprised me.

The one statement which impressed me the most in this interview was Cassidy’s response to my question about what she thought was the source of UFO reports and what she might be searching for when investigating a case. “I don’t know,” she said.

Posted in bigfoot, Fortean, Ghosts, researchers, UFOs | Tagged , | 16 Comments

Mike Clelland – The Messengers

Mike’s new book The Messengers defines a new category in close encounter studies. He has singlehandedly created and developed a whole subgenre of the abduction/ encounter scenario with his careful and insightful observations of the imagery of owls that are reported along with strange experiences. He has been studying this phenomenon intensely for about five years. He does not assign the classic abduction scenario to his own strange and sometimes disturbing experiences, and he does not judge or categorize other accounts that he has collected.

He says that the owl connection to abductions is something that has been a factor for a long time, but it was one of the things that major researchers like Budd Hopkins and John Mack considered just another of the many weird outlier events connected with their studies and which they wouldn’t normally reveal because it didn’t fit in a neat box with their main focus. Mike has concluded that as an archetype, the owl imagery fits in very well as a way to view connections between apparent alien encounters and the human history of mythology and symbolism and how they help us deal with issues of the psyche. One of the most striking non-UFO stories that Mike has collected involved a girl who was prevented from committing suicide due to an amazing encounter with an owl.

Illustration courtesy Red Pill Junkie

Posted in abductions | Tagged , , | 10 Comments

Allen Greenfield – The Occult and UFOs

Allen Greenfield has been in the UFO biz almost since the beginning. He has been on the board of the National UFO Conference (NUFOC) since its inception and was there in the 1950s and ’60s along with James Moseley, Gray Barker, and later, Tim Beckley as they pulled off legendary UFO conferences attended by thousands.

He is also heavily steeped in occult lore, particularly Aliester Crowley’s Ordo Templi Orientis. I have long believed that the mind-expanding rituals of Western Occultism may be an important key to the solution of the UFO enigma, and Greenfield’s 1992 book, Secret Cipher Of The Ufonauts made that connection for many.

On this program, we talked about the early NUFOC gatherings and the strange and famous people who used to show up, including James Randi, who gave a talk about the mysterious Nazca Lines. We also spoke about Jim Moseley and Gray Barker’s juvenile jokes and hoaxes which were pulled on anyone they considered deserving targets, such as John Keel and George Adamski. Greenfield recalled the weird antics of Albert Bender, the man who brought the term and idea of the “Men In Black” into public consciousness. He says that Bender may have been performing some sort of ill-formed rituals that summoned these entities and that he didn’t know how to get rid of them.

In conclusion, Allen said that what needs to be done with UFO study is to use our limited human comprehension to examine various aspects of the unknown and make connections between what we find in order to understand the underlying structures.

Guest intro stolen from Adam Gorightly’s Untamed Dimensions podcast.

Posted in history, occult | Tagged , , , | 16 Comments

Adam Gorightly – Blood Moon 2015

On September 27, Gorightly was in town for an interview with the MANdate crew. It just happened to be the night of the “Super Blood Moon” eclipse, so we climbed the mountain to Los Angeles’ famous Griffith Observatory for the festivities. There was no agenda or list of questions and the second-ever remote Misterioso broadcast was glitch-free as we stood on the upper deck between two huge telescopes.

We could see the searchlights from the Hollywood Bowl where Grace Jones was performing as Gorightly described a new UFO book project. He has also learned a bit more about late UFO publisher James Moseley’s mysterious girlfriend and her alleged alien contacts in the 1950s and ’60s. She eventually wrote a book entitled Those Sexy Saucer People. Gorightly has also uncovered a previously unknown flying saucer contactee story from the 1930s. Ever the sleuth, he also shared the story of a UFO sighting wave from France in 1954 and how it may have coincided with a outbreak of ergot fungus poisoning, which mimics the effects of LSD.

We also talked about how much Nick Redfern hates Paul McCartney while we tried in vain to see the eclipse, which was obscured by cloud cover. As soon as the event was over, the skies were clear again. Typical.

A short, but enjoyable show which was limited by the time constraints imposed on us by the remote broadcast software.

Posted in alternate history, contactees, forgotten history, new research | Tagged , , | 16 Comments

Joshua Cutchin – UFOs and Food and Drink

Joshua has written A Trojan Feast, a singularly amazing and insightful book about food offerings in UFO and other paranormal encounters. For me, reading it was one of those “Why hasn’t someone thought of this before?” moments.

We began by comparing experiences of meeting authors and researchers we admire and how they turned out to be pretty friendly. Everyone who is interested in these strange subjects learns and builds on the work of those we admire and respect. At about 28 minutes into the program, we actually started talking about the book!

Echoing the words of one my favorite researchers, the late Karla Turner, Josh says the weird details of paranormal encounters are probably where a solution, or part of a solution, lies. A Trojan Feast is full of stories that are strange even for a UFO book, all centering on the subject of food and drink during encounters with “aliens, faeries, and Sasquatch,” as the book’s subtitle indicates.

Significantly, Cutchin has found that much of the food and drink that witnesses claim were given to them adhere to the Hindu “sattvic” diet, which is recommended for seekers of spiritual truth. Also, although we tend to eat a lot of both in North America, meats and candy are virtually never reported.

As we got deeper into the discussion, we talked about the idea of UFO abductions as a form of shamanistic rite returning to a technological society. We also compared “soft” (feelings and impressions and effects on witnesses) vs. “hard” (“just the facts”) research and the value of the qualitative vs. the quantitative. We also agreed that paranormal researchers need to consider how the witnesses and indeed those who talk to them are interpreting the experience and how that may give a false sense of what may be actually happening. He brought up the example of the dress color that people argued about on Twitter and how it shows that perception is individualized.

In a first and exclusive for Radio Misterioso, Joshua is a professional musician who plays the tuba in a brass band, so we ended the show with a private solo on the Sousaphone.

Above: Joe Simonton, who was given flax cakes by UFO occupants in 1961.

Posted in Authors, books, Humanoids, Music, new research | Tagged , , | 4 Comments

Walter Bosley – Did Sir Richard Burton Discover A Lost City In Brazil?

Richard Francis Burton was a Victorian explorer, linguist, spy, loner, and scientist. Walter Bosley’s new book (Secret Missions 2: The Lost Expedition Of Sir Richard Francis Burton) speculates that he was secretly tasked to find lost civilizations. We discussed his early life and background, including Walter’s suspicion that he was involved with a secret society at Oxford University in the 1840s. This group supposedly wanted to find out about ancient civilizations to see if they had esoteric knowledge and perhaps ancient technology. Burton worked for the British East India Co. which was essentially a 19th century Wackenhut – a private company with almost sovereign government powers.

Burton visited the US in 1860 and went to Salt Lake City to visit Mormon leader Brigham Young. Walter says that Burton believed the Mormons knew something about the esoteric history of the US and perhaps beyond.

Burton, who documented his travels in minute detail, somehow did not describe one particularly compelling period when he was traveling though the jungles of Brazil in 1868. Walter’s theory is that he was there to look for a lost city described in documents which Burton published himself in his account of the time. We also discussed the strange miles-long prehistoric tunnels of Brazil, which researcher/writer David Childress explored years ago.

Concluding, Walter says that he writes about what resonates personally with him. In this case, he saw a kindred spirit in Burton and his intelligence activities, since Walter is a former government intel employee (FBI and Air Force.)

For no reason whatsoever, the show starts with a few minutes’ discussion of Electro-Voice Phenomena.

Posted in alternate history, forgotten history, Government, secret technology | Tagged , , , | 37 Comments

John Fenderson and Adam Gorightly – Perception, Magick, and the “Missing Fundamental”

Gorightly messaged me a few weeks ago asking if I knew anything about the phenomenon known as the “Missing Fundamental,” which is a strange effect produced by the human hearing system. I said no, but did he want to do a show about it? He said he knew just the guy to bring along.

Gorightly’s buddy John Fenderson is a sharp and eclectic dude. He’s interested in perception and consciousness, and his view that as a pattern-recognizing species, that much of our thinking and delusions flow from this. It’s good for survival, but not for the evolution of ideas. “Schizophrenia is pattern-matching gone out of control,” says Fenderson.

Many years ago, Fenderson and some friends built a few of those plastic bag/ candles  hot-air thingies and let them float high over their town. He says that everyone reported seeing the same thing, but interpreted it based on their predispositions. How to quiet the mind and try to iron out some of these fixed beliefs? Some people try isolation tanks. Others meditate or seek answers in psychedelics.

The Missing Fundamental is a phenomenon where the mind fills in a missing harmonic tone and makes us think we are hearing a third singer, instrument or oscillation that is not there. Fenderson says this fact is used in the design of high-end headphones. The effect can actually be “shaped” into a perceived space by the subtle adjustment of frequencies.

The human visual system changes what is seen before we are consciously aware of it. “Most of what you’re seeing, you are actually imagining” says Fenderson. “You’re filling it in based on patterns you expect. When something happens that you don’t expect, very often you won’t see it at all.”

Because of our rationalizing minds, subjectivity and objectivity have soft and fuzzy definitions. Nobody’s life is a straight narrative, we just edit and change our memories to make it sound like one.

The occultist and the scientist and how they are going about achieving their goals in pretty much the same way, even though they seem completely different. As an example of the similarity, we can change our behavior to change life into something we want. This has been experimentally proven.

At his Discordian-themed site Singlenesia, Fenderson published a lock-picking manual that was authored by a group of MIT students and says that it is a metaphor for his whole philosophy of being aware how to hack yourself and your environment. Hacking yourself begins by re-imaging your reality to conform to what you want or want to do.

All these subjects and many more were covered in this very enjoyable program. Many thanks to Adam Gorightly for introducing me to his friend and helping to steer the show.

Posted in counterculture, Music, occult, Radio Misterioso exclusive, spirit | Tagged , , , | 20 Comments

Paul Kimball Reports: The East Coast Paraconference (and other stuff)

This conversation was recorded the evening that Paul returned from the conference, where he had just given his presentation that morning. Of course, he is the originator of UFO/ paranormal conferences in Canada/Nova Scotia, since he organized the New Frontiers meet in October of 2008.

Also speaking that weekend were Paul’s uncle-in-law Stan Friedman and famed cryptozoologist and prolific author Loren Coleman. Uncle Stan actually ran Paul’s powerpoint slides for his talk, showing that family is thicker than ideology. During his talk, he also proposed to famed paranormal radio host Tim Binnall. His take away from the weekend was that the mix of presenters (ghost hunting/ psychic stuff/ ufos/ cryptozoology) was unique and worked well.

We also answered a question from a listener about why he won’t be doing another UFO film in the near future, and launched into a discussion of synchronicities where Paul mentioned an earlier episode from 2011 when he was in Los Angeles staying at my place and the synchronicities were running rampant.

One of the events for the weekend was a ghost hunt in and old theater where Kimball had a strange and creepy episode in the basement under the stage. He describes it in detail. In a first for this show, just as he was getting to the scariest part of the story, a voice seemed to cut in to the show feed. See if you can locate it and give us your take on it! (Photo above was taken during the ghost hunt.)

Posted in conferences, film, Fortean, Ghosts | Tagged , , | 16 Comments

Richard Dolan, Nick Redfern and Peter Robbins: So Now What?

There is no doubt that more than ever, the study of UFOs and related phenomena is in need of definitive change. I had a roundtable discussion with Nick Redfern, Peter Robbins and Richard Dolan about what forms that might take.

As many know, the so-called “Roswell Slides” and the fallout from that episode reminded some that eagerness and the will to believe should never trump even a normal amount of research. Nick criticized the method of release of the slides as clumsy and secretive. Richard maintained that the information was controlled by Adam Dew, the producer who located the slides, and not the researchers.

I brought up the subject of egos, media, and the rush to be first with information and how that should change. Peter suggested that UFO study should be an academic pursuit with the same checks and balances inherent. He uses his own conscience as a guide. Rich talked about peer review, of which he is skeptical because of the lack of standards in the field to begin with. Nick said that we can’t peer review a phenomenon that many people can’t even agree exists. Nick went on to talk about peer pressure and how it shouldn’t affect UFO study.

How do we get rid of UFO=ET? It’s one of many theories, but always takes center stage. Richard acknowledged that no one theory accounts for all the data. Nick and I argue that other theories (such as those incorporating interdimensional and psychological approaches) should get more time.

Is the emphasis on degreed professionals needed? Peter offered that it is, but they also need backing for their work, but agreed with Nick and I that we don’t need to require people to be officially trained professionals to do good work.

Nick wants to see more alternate viewpoints represented in conferences, such as psychedelic drug studies and occult issues. He also mentioned that almost all researchers have had other weirdness and synchronicities enter their lives. Richard mentioned Mike Clelland and his alternate views on the abduction phenomenon and his upcoming book. He also pointed out that we come from a materialistic culture and that determines the direction of research and agreed that it should and will change.

How do we categorize witness testimony? The instrument (humans) which we use to record and report things is fallible, and some of the answers are encoded in the questions. Rich called this a “psychological approach.” My point was that everything with UFO witness testimony is “psychological.” Mundane things like direction and speed may not be, but Nick and I were concerned with UFO reports, how they are gathered, and what categories they are placed in.

Nick brought up the fact that people see what they expect to see in different eras, which suggests a phenomenon that adjusts it appearance as some sort of control system.

The take away from this show is something like this: People who have integrity will continue to contribute, we should ignore or refute bad research and thinking and any new techniques/ theories will come from outside the establishment. Get to work.

Show suggested by Michael Reynolds and Radio Misterioso listeners.

Posted in abductions, conferences, new research, Radio Misterioso exclusive, researchers, ufology | Tagged , , , | 5 Comments

Joe Berardi – Percussionist

Joe Berardi and I have been trying to set up this interview for a few years. The reason I wanted to have him on the show is that he has been the drummer on some of my favorite music ever since he was a member The Fibonaccis, who were active in the 1980s in Los Angeles and remain my favorite band. Soon after that, he was working with former Wall Of Voodoo frontman Stan Ridgway. Along with vocalist/ musician Kira Vollman, he has also been half of the avant-garde duo Non Credo for over 20 years, and finally, he holds down the percussive duties for the uncategorizable sonic party that is Double Naught Spy Car.

We talked music, influences, highs and lows throughout his career, and the time the Fibonaccis had a rain of gym socks thrown at them onstage. We forgot to play “Second Coming,” the Radio Misterioso favorite by the Fibs with lyrics about “swamp gas saucers,” so I added it at the end.

Posted in Music, Radio Misterioso exclusive | Tagged , , , | 6 Comments

S. Miles Lewis – Just Everything

“Smiles” has been a close friend for many years. We met during the ‘zine “revolution” of the 1990s and have been encouraging each other in our pursuits for about 20 years now. Miles helped Radio Misterioso in the early days by maintaining and providing a home for the show at his Anomaly Radio network.

His Anomaly Archives has recently been the recipient of a large collection of books and other ephemera from the collection of the late Bob Girard, who owned the mail order book giant Arcturus Books. We talked about the legacy and relatively little-known interests of Girard, which varied from UFOs to the paranormal and esoteric religions.

Miles was also a member of the Roswell Slides Research Group which discovered the real source of the image that was claimed to be an alien. We talked about what we have we learned from this episode. That led to a discussion of UFO percipients and what the phenomenon may be doing to us. Does this mean we should “reboot” UFO research? Miles suggests that we should make information more open source so that all may participate Miles also discussed the effects of non-human and non-local consciousness on paranormal witnesses.

We reminisced a bit about our history together and our early forays into study of the strange with a group we formed in the 1990s, called the “Texufonia Illuminaughty” comprised of zinesters, writers and artists from Texas and California, hence the name.

Later, we talked about a study of African-American abductees and Adam Gorightly messaged in to tell us that Jim Moseley had a black girlfriend in the 1960s.

We ended with a short discussion of our hopes for future of UFO study.

Posted in all-around genreal weirdness, counterculture, influences, new research | Tagged , , , , | 5 Comments

A Tribute To Bruce Duensing – Life Is But A Dream

On Friday May 29th, I received a text message from Bruce Duensing that said “I am in the hospital with crappy WiFi…open heart surgery on Monday.” His daughter posted on his FB page that he passed away on the morning of June 4th, presumably from complications.

This was a shock to my guests “Red Pill Junkie” and “Burnt State” (aka Robert) and to me of course. We were just beginning to communicate on a deeper level with Bruce, sending messages and posts to each other about ideas we had either never thought of or hadn’t developed fully. We got together on the night of June 6th to talk about Bruce Duensing’s ideas and what little we know of his personal life from videos he posted online.

His basic philosophy is the idea that we are not equipped to deal with the paranormal on its own terms, since our perceptions have so many filters before they reach conscious and cultural awareness. The show centered on many concepts:

– You can’t study Ufology with Ufology. UFO study hasn’t kept up with the latest science.
– Energy and information are the same.
– How does the observer effect change what we are thinking about with UFO witnesses?
– Strong emotion inhibits randomness and entropy.
– UFO waves seemingly follow worldwide emotional events.
– Abnormal mental states and shamanism as windows to understanding of the unknown.
– Set and setting as factors in paranormal encounters.

The program opens with a pulled quote from the RM interview of February 1st, and ends with a segment of Bruce from one of his online videos that were located by Robert.

Illustrations of Bruce Duensing’s ideas courtesy of the talented RPJ. The Cafe Tacuba song at the end of the program is Olita Del Atlamar (Little Wave Of The High Seas.)

Posted in abductions, Fortean, influences, new research, Radio Misterioso exclusive | Tagged , , | 25 Comments

Adam Gorightly – Friendly Talk and Live Listener Contest

Gorightly was is town for a couple of days and I couldn’t get in the house because it was full of posion gas, so I invited him for a friendly chat on the show. We have known each other for about 20 years and it shows in the almost (or actually) annoyingly informal nature of this show.

Adam had the great idea right off to use the inevitable sirens that come by the studio as the basis of a listener contest, which of course turned out to be A HUGE FAILURE BECAUSE THERE WERE NO SIRENS THIS TIME. So it was changed to a song guessing contest. Informal!

Since Adam’s latest is entitled Historia Discordia, we talked about the connections between Discordianism founder Kerry Thornley and former New Orleans D.A. Jim Garrison. At one point Garrison believed that the Discordian religion was a CIA front. We then read Thornley’s “Epistle To The Paranoids,” which makes vicious fun of paranoids. Many years later, Thornley became one himself. Beware.

We also spoke on the 1990s ‘zine revolution and how we met through that, and how it allowed us to interview the famous “Unicorn Killer” Ira Einhorn in the pages of my old magazine. We went on to talk about the “Varo Edition” of the 1955 book The Case For The UFO by Morris K. Jessup. I also found out from Adam that Jack Parsons’ wife Marjorie Cameron lived a few miles from the Integratron and knew famous UFO contactee George Van Tassel.

We  played some Frankie Laine songs and announced the winner of the song-naming contest before escaping.

Above: Gorightly with Robert Anton Wilson. Photo credit: Greg Bishop

Posted in Conspiracies, counterculture, forgotten history, history | Tagged , , , , | 3 Comments

Listener “Farusha” talks about Remote Viewing and Abductions

Taking a break with no scheduled guests, a listener from New York nicknamed “Farusha” answered my call for calls. We quickly dove in to a 45 minute discussion about inflexible opinions, her experience with Russell Targ and his remote viewing class, and her own experiences with non-human consciousness. This was all sandwiched between two thick pieces of wacky music tracks. Nice interlude before getting back into it again.

Posted in abductions, Call Ins, Government, parapsychology | 7 Comments

The Roswell Slides Explained

(Note: This interview, recorded on May 10, 2015, was the first and exclusive talk with some of the group who deciphered the placard writing in the so-called “Roswell slides.”)

The week of May 4, 2015 was perhaps a watershed time for the UFO research world. Images found on old slide film were claimed to be connected to the Roswell Incident and showed what the promoters and researchers they represented said were the dried body of an alien being. Experts were consulted and concluded that the body shown on the slides was not human.

After two years of changing stories and claims by the “Roswell Dream Team” researchers, Mexican TV journalist Jaime Maussan announced that the slides would be revealed to the world in a highly-anticipated presentation in Mexico City on May 5th. Tickets were sold for the show and live streaming was offered for a fee of about $20. Our guest “Red Pill Junkie” actually attended and on this show he describes what transpired.

Three days after the public reveal of the images, a group of researchers announced that they had solved the mystery and that the slides were pictures of the mummy of a two-year-old child found in the Southwestern US in the early 20th century. The vast majority of those who were interested in the mystery of the “Roswell Slides” now agree that their conclusions are correct.

In an exclusive interview, my guests Curt Collins, Paul Kimball, and Lance Moody described the events and cooperation that led to this revelation. The “Roswell Slides Research Group” (RSRG) used freely available image-enhancing software to decode a blurred placard that was visible in one of the images. They also produced a video showing how anyone with a computer can reproduce identical results. TV producer and slide promoter Adam Dew currently maintains that the image was either tampered with by RSRG, or was not processed properly.

While I do not agree with all of my guests’ opinions, it is important to note that a wide variety of viewpoints exist in the RSRG as well, ranging from the strict skepticism of Lance Moody to respected UFO researchers such as Chris Rutkowski, and my friend S Miles Lewis, whom almost no one would categorize as a “UFO skeptics.” The important thing is that they all agreed on this issue.

I will mention that the opinions expressed on the show are not necessarily those of myself or the killradio collective.

Posted in history, new research, Radio Misterioso exclusive, researchers, skepticism, ufology | Tagged , , , | 6 Comments

Tim Binnall – “Tenth Anniversary Special”

The title refers to the fact that as of the date of recording, it has been ten years since the  first episode of  Tim’s legendary show Binnall of America. For this go-around we again started out with a little “shop talk” about what we do to produce our respective shows, how we conduct interviews, and who were the most influential and conversely, worst guests Tim has had. He also recalled one of his favorite interviews which was about the Dyatlov Pass Incident in which nine hikers were found dead under apparently mysterious (and very creepy) circumstances.

We talked about how large UFO groups (specifically MUFON) should rebrand themselves to guard against irrelevancy and bemoaned the prevalence of stupidity and non-critical thinking in general and on the internet in particular. Favorite TV shows were discussed as well as the good and bad stars of the remote viewing world. We ended up half-jokingly calling for  UFO conference of our own, to be held during the eclipse of 2017.

Photo above was taken by Tim while he was actually on the program.

Posted in all-around genreal weirdness | Tagged , , , | 2 Comments

EsoterX – If Monsters Don’t Exist, Why Are They Out To Get Me?

The blogger known as EsoterX (aka Aaron Dabbah) is a rarity. He looks at the world of the anomalous, and instead of asking “Who?” or “How?” he asks “Why?” Trained as an archaeologist and information specialist, he turns his intelligent eye on such conundrums as “Fairy Fishing,” disappearing islands, and why unicorns are jerks.

Aaron asserts that anomalies are not so implausible if you are willing to suspend your disbelief. We started with his premise that the search for the meaning of the anomalous is the important part of the equation and our reaction to weirdness is more important than the actual weirdness itself. Moving through subjects at a leisurely pace, we also discussed the strangest of strange stories, such as an account that Charles Fort repeated about a cat who appeared before a crowd and asked “Hot enough for you?” before disappearing in a puff of smoke. We also dealt with the decline of quality humor and satire before he concluded that “Looking for respectability [as a researcher] is a losing game because you’re playing by rules that don’t apply to what you’re looking at.”

Many words and ideas to live by in this episode. He will be back.

Posted in all-around genreal weirdness, Fortean, Ghosts, UFOs | Tagged , , , | 3 Comments

“Burnt State” – The Story’s The Thing

“Burnt State”‘s own artwork provided for our Easter day interview

“Burnt State” (or simply “Robert”) is the online alias of a man who has looked deeply into our relationship to the paranormal. After my last appearance on the Paracast, I noticed his comments in their forums and asked him if he would consent to an interview on RM.

Robert is interested in the way that we use storytelling to make sense of the world; particularly the stranger parts. Any witness to something that shouldn’t be has to find a way to make sense of it and in many cases communicate the experience to others. In this  insidious way, weirdness remains locked in a context that we have created.

We started out with Robert’s own dramatic UFO sighting from childhood and how it still affects him. He made the case that trauma can be experienced as abuse, violence, or just something that doesn’t make rational sense. Our brains either cover it up or make sense of it with a story that we can handle. We discussed the problem of schizophrenics and how simple talking therapy may help them and others with buried issues.

Robert is a high school teacher and he described the pressures that children and teenagers are subjected to in an age of almost total digital sitmuli and aggressive marketing. He has some novel ways of making his students aware of this and taking back their individuality. He also had an amazing story about his Ouija board experiments.

There is just a sample of our wide-ranging conversation, so I’ll shut up now and let you listen.

P.S. The audio of UFO witness testimony discussed during the show is available here, track 15. See also the story of “Conjuring Up Philip,” mentioned during our talk.

Posted in abductions, all-around genreal weirdness, Humanoids, new research, spirit | Tagged , , | 29 Comments

Dr. Tyler Kokjohn, Jeff Ritzmann and Jeremy Vaeni – Project Core

The most important connection we have to examining the paranormal are the witnesses. For too long, researchers have concentrated on how testimony can fit in to preconceived notions of anomalous abduction episodes, psychic occurrences, and ghost sightings. Fields of inquiry are neatly divided into UFOs, cryptozoology, paraspychology, and ghost hunting.

The aim of  Project Core is to do away with strict categorization and let witnesses tell their stories without filtering. People who experience apparent entity visitations often report psychic episodes, strange animals, poltergeist phenomena and many other weird events, and the project’s anonymous online reporting format allowed participants to report their experiences without fear of ridicule or censure. Three of the directors of Project Core are credentialed scientists with doctorates in their fields.

Jeremy Vaeni and Jeff Ritzmann both have a history of extraordinary paranormal encounters and Dr. Tyler Kokjohn is a biochemist with a keen interest in these areas not normally examined by science. They joined me for a discussion of what was found, and what it might mean for our understanding of these seemingly disparate subjects. This may be one of the first glimpses of future paranormal research.

Jeremy made a music request for “Stay Hungry” by Twisted Sister, so that’s at the end!

Posted in abductions, Ghosts, new research, researchers, ufology | Tagged , , , , , | 14 Comments

Mike Marinacci – Crazy California Cults

Mike is the author of the touchstone book about a forgotten side of Golden State history, Mysterious California. Published in 1988, it predated the “weird” travel book craze by almost 20 years, and started me on a path to meet him in 2006 when we were co-authors of Weird California. He has been studying the history of non-scheduled religious movements and groups in our home state for more than 20 years, and now chronicles these strange groups and people at Califia’s Children.

We discussed what makes a “cult.” While he is careful to label only the most dangerous groups with that name, Mike pointed out that all religions start out as a cult. People join mainly for a sense of belonging –  to be part of a “tribe.”  Many of the groups minister to the rejected and the marginalized, and not all have negative effects on the members.

We talked about the strange connection that the Santa Susanna Pass area has in the lore of  the Los Angeles area. Krishna Venta, a former convict turned religious prophet whose story bears eerie similarities to Charles Manson, settled there in 1948. He was dead by 1958, killed by suicide bombings by two disgruntled members.

We embarked on an extensive discussion of occultist Manly Palmer Hall and his influence on Los Angeles history and society. We also discussed the notorious Children Of God group and their sexualization of Christianity. Mike gave a unique perspective on Scientology’s concentration on Los Angeles and the power of celebrity endorsement. Near the end of the program, we mentioned the bizarre Incest and Homosexual Church of the Universe, which at its peak had perhaps 4 acolytes.

Posted in all-around genreal weirdness, counterculture, forgotten history | Tagged , , , , | 12 Comments

Bruce Duensing – Becoming The Change We Want to See

Bruce Duensing has been writing about UFOs and anomalies for many years now. His old blog, Intangible Materiality, was decommissioned, but A Transit Of Contingencies carries on his explorations into the nature of time, memory, cognition, and language as they relate to our relationship with the anomalous. If the study of UFOs is to continue, and we don’t want to run the same scripts forever, we need to take a look at the instrument (our minds and the way we experience things) that is gathering and interpreting the data.

In a completely informal conversation, we discussed the problem of identifying something of unknown origin for which all of our frames of reference are from ourselves and our culture. Duensing asked how we might escape the trap of our senses, memories, and subconscious filtering, and suggested some solutions. He also lamented the fact that most people prefer simple and uncomplicated explanations. He introduced the concept that fear may be a sort of “carrier wave” for experiencing the unknown, both from our perspective and perhaps more importantly, from the view of any non-human intelligence behind it.

We discussed what we might ask an “alien” if given a chance. “I’d ask it what it thought I was,” he said, which might give us a perspective from outside of human experience. I thought that I might instead tell the entity that I didn’t believe in it and see what happened.

During the interview, Bruce said “There is a lot of unspoken nihilism going around UFO research” which is something I want to put on a T-shirt! I gained much hope and perspective during this 2-hour talk, and would be quite interested to see the comments.

Posted in abductions, influences, ufology | Tagged , , | 14 Comments

Paul Kimball and Aaron Gulyas – The 2014 Zorgy Awards

The Zorgy awards are solely curated, voted upon, tallied and announced by Paul Kimball, and what he says is an alien explorer but looks like a fat, fuzzy stuffed duck. It’s basically an excuse to go over the previous year in the UFO biz. Here’s a full list. Our buddy, author, author, and history professor Aaron Gulyas joined us with his incisive commentary and supplied many good laughs and bon mots.

After a short discussion about how we shouldn’t be afraid of criticism, first up for examination is the recent “disclosure tweetstorm” which attempted to bludgeon the US Government into submission with requests for UFO info. We covered Best Paranormal Facebook group, Best Paranormal News Site, and then a little on the death of print magazines. We also reserved some criticism for the Hangar 1 TV show. We continued with Lamest Paranormal Story of the Year and Biggest Paranormal Moron, and finished up with the Best Paranormal Researcher.

At the end, Paul listed off new inductees to his halls of Shame and Fame. Let the discussion begin.

P.S. Radio Misterioso won for best Podcast. Thanks Paul and Admiral Zorgrot!

Posted in ufology | Tagged , , , | 20 Comments

Mr. Fab Returns Returns

After a long absence, the legendary Mr. Fab returns to educate us on the best of the worst. Music, that is. Mr. Fab is the meister of the long-running blog, Music For Maniacs – a site from which I steal much material for my music shows. Better to get it straight from the source. The evening featured a few space and UFO songs, and even Frank Sinatra Jr’s version of the Gumby theme.

Gaze upon this mighty playlist and despair/ enjoy!

Jean And the Esquires – Space Race
Travis Wammack –  There’s a UFO Up There
Monte Johnson – Flying Saucers In The Air
Billy Vaughn & Orch – Telstar
The Chaperones – Man From The Moon
Satanic Puppeteer Orchestra – Where Can He Dood It?
The Noctures – 3rd Star to the Left
Iggy Pop – Monster Men
Moog Cookbook – Hotel California
Marlin Wallace – That Flyin’ Saucer
Satanic Puppeteer Orchestra – Frankenstein’s Laundromat
The Tiger Lillies – Snip Snip
Michael Douglas & William Shatner – Keep It Gay
Twink – Breakfast Machine
Survival Bomb Shelter Ad
Fritz Guggenheimer and his Sauerkraut Band – Stars and Stripes Forever
Marlin Wallace – Millipede
Little Bang Theory – Garden Party
Rich Little – Real Live Girl
Frank Sinatra Jr. – Gumby
7 Singing Sisters – William Tell Overture
Jack Hodges – Everything Is Fresh Today
Homer Henderson and The Dalworthington Garden Boys – Lee Harvey Was A Friend Of Mine
Spike Jones – Ah 1 Ah 2 Ah Sunset Strip
Blarney Stein (Evolution Control Committee) – 1999
Spike Jones – The Wonderful World Of Hari Kari
Ronald Vaughn – Jennifer Love Hewitt
Senator Sam Earvin Jr. – Bridge Over Troubled Water
E-Cousins – Elvis On Terrorism
George Formby – When I’m Cleaning Windows
Peter Pringle – Indian Love Call
Posted in Music | 4 Comments

Nick Redfern – The Roswell Slides and Hacked Researchers

In the past few months, much has been made in certain quarters about the recent surfacing of slide film supposedly depicting dead aliens from the Roswell crash. The so-called “dream team” of researchers who are keeping their findings about these artifacts under wraps until they say that they can authenticate them conclusively have still not been forthcoming with any new information.

Nick was on the show to discuss the recent hacking of his personal computer and online accounts by a mysterious person or group. The members of the Roswell research group were also affected. Nick reports that two years before the announcement of the existence of the slides, he was contacted by an individual asking how much he thought that the images were worth. The fact that this person went to UFO researchers rather than a more mainstream media outlet (or was rejected by them first) is telling. Nick and I both agreed that the slides, even if “authentic” would prove very little to those outside of the UFO research community.

During the second half of the show we discussed Nick’s upcoming Men In Black book and how UFO study could most likely not reinvent itself to make any headway towards solving the mystery. It would also do little to gain mainstream respectability, which I contend is not worth the struggle.

A fun talk with a lot of laughs from an old friend of mine and a singular voice on parnaormal topics.

Posted in Government, researchers, UFOs | Tagged , , | 11 Comments

Walter Bosley – Secret Missions

My friend and former co-host Walter returned recently to discuss Secret Missions: The Hidden Legacy Of Old California, the fifth book in his “Empire of the Wheel” series concerning strange happenings in Southern California and the American Southwest. He informed us that early European explorers may have arrived in the area in the 17th century to search for a powerful symbolic object that Walter thinks was hidden here by the Knights Templar or their agents. He contends that he object that they may have been seeking was a weapon made of metal from a meteorite, which was supposed to possess great power.

We started with a short history of Spanish conquest and the idea that conquistadors were often sent with explicit instructions to treat the native populations with respect. We also talked about which non-native civilizations may have first set foot in North America, and  accounts which cast doubt on the death of one of the most famous explorers of early California history and his burial location on one of the Channel Islands.

For the last part of the show we turned to the subject of debates with critics and how to get through them in a civil manner as well as Walter’s extensive fiction writing.

Posted in alternate history, forgotten history | Tagged , , , , | 16 Comments

Red Pill Junkie Pt. 3

RPJ joined us again to talk about the issues of putting on the Paradigm Symposium, but of course we soon slipped into a 2 1/2 hour conversation about UFOs, neolithic technology, and other little things like the meaning of existence.

What is the true nature of UFOs and other paranormal phenomena, and how can we experience them directly, even on demand? Is debate among friends better than with adversaries? Is the wish for government UFO “disclosure” a dead end that stifles individual thought? How does one go about becoming obsessed with a subject and then writing about it?

These were big questions with fun, if sometimes inconclusive answers. As Jim Moseley used to say “But so what?

Posted in all-around genreal weirdness, conferences, forgotten history, spirit | Tagged , , , | 12 Comments

Paul Kimball Makes Me Say Things

Paul Kimball was on again a couple of months back and the show truly turned into a conversation with Paul asking me who would be on my personal Mount Rushmore of UFO Shame and Fame. We also delved into the saga of the MJ-12 documents and who might have faked them. While Paul is almost sure that Bill Moore had a hand in it for personal profit or ego or an effort to “shake the tree,” I seriously doubt this theory. Other subjects that came up were the pervasive presence of Ancient Aliens and what Steven Greer’s guards (or “goons” as Paul called them) did to him at the 2001 MUFON conference. We talked (in a theme that has become a staple of the show) about UFO study and what might be done to change it. I expressed my continuing opinion that it should be done away with so that something new could blossom. The phenomenon might even change as a result of a different point of view.

Paul Kimball’s websites are The Other Side Of Truth and beyonderstv. He also says one of his other popular sites is Stantonfriededman.com, but I doubt that.

Posted in Government, ufology, UFOs | Tagged | 36 Comments

Aerika Keith and Kenn Thomas – Carry On Jim Keith

Aerika Keith is one of the late Jim Keith’s daughters. Look him up, but what you need to know is:

“Keith authored popular books on conspiracy topics, including Mind Control/World Control, Black Helicopters I and II, OK Bomb, Saucers of the Illuminati, Casebook on Alternative 3, Casebook on the Men In Black and many others and his views are considered unapologetically controversial.

One of the underlying themes of Keith’s works is that the UFO phenomenon is, in fact, of entirely earthly origin and has its roots within a parallel program of technological development. Keith maintained a steadfast commitment to the earthly-origin theory, and he believed that there was a concerted effort to put forth the extraterrestrial hypothesis into the public consciousness.”

If for only that last part, Keith is worthy of serious consideration and at this point, re-evaluation. My personal favorite was Saucers Of The Illuminati, which had an almost John-Keelian point of view of the UFO phenomenon.

Kenn Thomas introduced Aerika (over facebook) and we all made a date to talk on the exact day that Jim passed away in 1999 (which we didn’t realize until Kenn pointed it out on the show.)  The talk ran the gamut from Jim’s writing to pharmaceutical coverups to cutting-edge comedy. Aerika also announced her plans to release some of her late father’s unpublished work. Enjoy.

Posted in Authors, Conspiracies, counterculture | 4 Comments

Adam Gorightly – Historia Discordia

Gorightly’s back again with a new book based on his custodial ownership of the original holy documents of the Discordian movement. The religion, founded in a Southern California bowling alley in 1957, was the first modern joke disguised as a religion, or was it?

We talked about the history of the Discordians, Gorightly’s interaction with Discordian-affiliated luminaries like Robert Anton Wilson and Bob Newport, and its influence on the counterculture.

Halfway through the program, I played the 1975 hit, “Convoy,” featuring Adam Gorightly singing under his CIA-assigned pseudonym, “C.W. McCall.”

Photo of Gorightly as Rodin’s “Stinker” by Barbara Harris.

Posted in all-around genreal weirdness, counterculture | Tagged , | 9 Comments

Walter Bosley – The Nameless Ones

The third and final book in the Empire Of The Wheel series by my guest and former co-host Walter Bosley ties together all of the themes presented so far, and introduces some new evidentiary threads involving horror writer H.P. Lovecraft, the Zodiac Killer and the horrifying activities of a little-known serial killer of the 1920s.

The events center around a rash of unsolved murders in the Inland Empire area of Southern California in the first years of the 20th century.

In the course of his investigations, Walter believes that he also has found evidence that Harry Houdini was targeted for death by the Spiritualist movement because of Houdini’s relentless persecution of members who he claimed were taking advantage of bereaved relatives of the deceased.

Walter also describes some strange shenanigans at the Secret Service archives and National Archives when he asked for a file from 1915, the period of the action in the books. This was the first time he mentioned this turn of events.

Learn more at Walter’s site dedicated to the mystery.

Posted in forgotten history, Government | Tagged , , , , , , , | 32 Comments

Patrick Connelly – They Rode The Flying Saucers

Orthon's footprint

When Patrick originally got in touch with me about his documentary, entitled “They Rode The Flying Saucers,” I was wary that he was another producer out to make a fun, kooky film about a bunch of stupid weirdos. How wrong I was. Connelly is serious about the movement, while not taking all the claims at face value, which is exactly my take.

Patrick is even more protective of the contactee legacy than I am, and is well on the way to finishing a film composed of archival footage, vintage audio from the 1950s and ’60s, and most excitingly, animation done by Connelly himself. He showed me a little bit of his animation of the George Adamski 1952 meeting with his space brother friend Orthon.

We discussed his film, opinions of contactees, fundamentalist skeptics, and our favorite documentary filmmakers, among many other things. We laughed a lot and I talked too much. Check out Patrick’s blog for more.

Posted in contactees, film | 5 Comments

Aaron Gulyas: The Chaos Conundrum

Aaron’s newest book is a collection of essays on many of the subjects we cover here on the show. I admitted up front that I hadn’t read all of the book, but Aaron was gracious about it and we dove right in. I guess neither of us really should have had any worries, as the show was great fun.

Among other subjects, we delved into ufological stalkers, the de-evolution of UFO study into an “echo chamber,” and the infamous book “Trance Formation Of America” and its shocking indictment of beloved folk/ country singing star Boxcar Willie.

When I asked what interested him in writing about the paranormal, Aaron eloquently said that he was basically “trying to restate the question in a more interesting way,” which might be the best description of why anyone writes about these subjects that I’ve heard in years.

Posted in all-around genreal weirdness, Conspiracies, Fortean, Ghosts, ufology | Tagged , | 14 Comments

Chris O’Brien: Cattle Mutilations Make No Sense At All

Whatever your opinion is of unexplained animal mutilations in general and the work of Chris O’Brien in particular, his newest book Stalking The Herd is perhaps either the first or last you will need to read on the subject. In my opinion, it is exhaustive and well-balanced, afraid of neither the mundane or the truly bizarre.

We discussed the history of cows and their relationship to humans. Chris mentioned the fact that countries with less consumption of beef have no record of cattle mutilations, even if they have a thriving beef industry. He also elaborated on the fact that many of the cases of unsolved animal deaths have historically seemed to cluster downwind from facilities that process and use uranium. These are only a couple of the subjects that came up during the wide-ranging conversation.

With all this information, it is surprising that Chris has come to the conclusion that so far there is no one theory that seems to fit the mystery.

Posted in animal mutilations, bigfoot, Government, history | 15 Comments

Micah Hanks: The Future of UFO Study

No list of questions was needed for this fun and informative talk with one of the most unique researchers active today. This show was classic Radio Misterioso (which means I talked a lot more than I should have) but Micah is one of those people who makes me think a lot about why we’re all interested in this UFO stuff.

We opened with a discussion of the Malaysian Airlines mystery. We then looked at the classic case known as the “Battle Of Los Angeles,” and reports of a “butterfly”-shaped object in the sky during this WWII-era incident.

One of my favorite parts of this show was our extended talk about the problems with UFO reports and data-gathering, and how it should be much more extensive with regards to witnesses’ backgrounds and follow-up interviews. We also delved into the abduction/ DMT connection. At the end of the show, I asked Micah about his favorite movies and books, only some of which are UFO-related.

Posted in abductions, history, influences, researchers | Tagged | 9 Comments

Albert Rosales: I ♥ Humanoids II

Almost everyone would agree that reports of humanoid entities are far more interesting than lights in the sky. For our second go-around, Albert started with a list of his more intriguing cases from this year. Then I asked him about Bigfoot entities seen in the vicinity of UFO sightings. We continued with a discussion of how more humanoid reports have been coming in during the last few years, and how that may be due to Rosales having a place to actually report them. After we talked about one of Albert’s own experiences, we discussed some of  the strangest cases he knows of, which are labeled “type x” – a literal X-File. We also had a lengthy discussion about so-called “repeater” cases, which used to be anathema to large UFO groups. One of the most famous is Charles Hickson from the Pascagoula abduction. I agree with Albert when he says that the weirder the story, the more believable it probably is.

Albert’s site is Humanoid Sighting Reports and Journal of Humanoid Studies.

 

Posted in Humanoids | Tagged , , , | 4 Comments

Curt Collins: Cash-Landrum Reconsidered

If you don’t know about this case, read up before listening. The short version is that two women and a small boy encountered a strange, hovering object on a lonely road in East Texas on the night of December 29th 1980. Soon afterwords, a group of military-type helicopters surrounded the object and the group flew slowly out of sight. After the incident, the witnesses appeared to suffer varying degrees of effects from what appeared to have been ionizing radiation.

What my guest Curt Collins is doing is trying to get past both the misinformation that has been propagated by UFO investigators as well as the attempts of fundamentalist skeptics to explain it away as a hoax or misidentification. What emerges is a tale of selective attention and beliefs leading the investigations (or lack of them.) Collins is very careful to keep from falling into any set theory, and keeps his investigation open-ended.

More can be seen at his excellent site Blue Blurry Lines.

Posted in Government, history, secret technology | Tagged , | 3 Comments

Nick Redfern: For Nobody’s Eyes Only

Nick was in town a few weeks ago and joined me to talk about his new book (which is the title of this post) as well as many, many other subjects. The book deals with government files on many famous people and makes the point that what we are not allowed to see tells us a great deal about what is publicly released.

I sort of apologize for the fact that we were both drinking beer during the show. This is probably the only interview you will ever hear where Nick is occasionally possessed by a chicken. Really.

The subject of weirdos at UFO conventions came up, as well as occult issues, the illusion of time, a strange missing person story with little-known contactees and a lot of other things that we have never mentioned on his other appearances on the show.

Posted in all-around genreal weirdness, Authors, books, conferences, contactees, Government, Intelligence, researchers | Tagged , , | 19 Comments

Red Pill Junkie Pt. 2

For our second conversation, RPJ and I continued with our faint condemnation of large UFO groups, and the pros and cons of abduction research. I bought up the seeming rise of fundamentalist skeptics in sheep’s clothing as popular UFO study slumbers through a fallow period, and we discussed the possible reasons that a strain of self-righteous skepticism has attracted hipster culture. RPJ asked me about meeting Jacques Vallee and John Keel and we discussed our favorite whiskies and bourbon. We got back on track with cultural differences in humanoid sightings and the strange Voronezh UFO occupant case. Much more to like in this segment. RPJ will be on again without a doubt.

The translation of the lyrics to the Cafe Tacuba song “Zopilotes,” played at the end of the show is in RPJ’s article here.

Posted in abductions, all-around genreal weirdness, Ghosts, Humanoids, ufology | Tagged , | 29 Comments