The largest (best attended) indoor UFO convention in US history took place on the weekend of June 24, 1967 in the Hotel Commodore in New York City. Organized by UFO researcher James Moseley, speakers included John Keel and Roy Thinnes, who was the star of the popular Invaders TV show. Tim Beckley recalls:

There were quite a variety of speakers like Venus from the planet Venus, Dr. Frank Stranges, Howard Menger, and in fact Dr. Condon of the infamous Condon Report was there. He was in the audience taking notes.

Another personality who “appeared” so to speak, was Albert K Bender, famous for his founding of the International Flying Saucer Bureau (IFSB), and his book on the Men In Black enigma. Due to unspecified fears or some other reason, he sent a tape recording of his presentation which was played to a room full of eager listeners.

Bender described his MIB experiences, the history of the IFSB and curiously, his growing contactee-type experiences which were going to be part of a book that publisher Gray Barker was going to release. The book never saw the light of day. Barker described it as “not good enough to do anything with.”

Bender apparently lives about 5 miles from me, but I have repeatedly heard that he wants nothing to do with any UFO researchers, so I have left him alone.

I have posted this before at ufomystic, but the link is broken, and I can’t seem to find the speech anywhere else online. The snippet of introduction at the beginning is the voice of Gray Barker.

In early February, British researcher Sacha Christie claimed that the whole affair was a psychological test or exercise to test the security of the nuclear weapons at Bentwaters Air Force Base. She referred to a document which seemed to indicate that the technology to produce all the reported events and effects were available in 1980. I can’t seem to find any specific references to the Rendlesham events or Bentwaters in the document, but that doesn’t mean that there isn’t a connection or that Christie is wrong. She has been invited to the Rendlesham conference this year, to talk about her abduction research and her own UFO experiences. Peter talked about why he seriously doubts Christie’s conclusions.

I believe that we covered all the questions sent in by listeners and even discussed Peter’s work with abduction researcher Budd Hopkins. Peter has always been an intelligent, thoughtful researcher who is honest about his work, motivations, and the fact that his opinions are open for discussion.

“Paranormal Voices,” posted at archive.org, has nothing to do with UFOs, although it does inform my opinions on the paranormal in general. The talk ranges from the cut-up method that Burroughs used in his writing, to recordings of pioneering EVP researcher Constantin Raudive, cut-up audio tapes and the fevered ramblings of the dying gangster Dutch Schultz.

The lecture called “Technology and the Ethics of Wishing” is probably one of the most inspiring talks I have ever heard. The description says “discussion includes rules for wishing, the dogma of science, L. Ron Hubbard, The Big Lie, and sympathetic magic.” That should be enough to get most listeners to download this historic discourse. Perhaps some of you can listen to the talks and we’ll discuss them on the show.

Listening to his voice and thoughts has a strange effect that causes me to think in new ways. It may liberate and refresh your neural pathways too.

Peter Robbins has been rescheduled for this Sunday (5/6.) Please join us then.

In weeks where I don’t have a live show to post or an archived one to thrill you, I will post  rare and forgotten recordings of lectures, music, interviews, and other odds and ends from my UFO and paranormal audio collection.

This week’s selection features J. Allen Hynek talking about the Papua New Guinea encounter case, Patrolman Herbert Schirmer discussing the “men” he met on a lonely road in Nebraska in 1967, and Betty Hill describing her archetypal abduction. All of the testimony is from the actual witnesses. Great stuff and surprisingly balanced, although heavily weighted towards the ET hypothesis, of course. It’s a high-class production, with music and sound effects mixed in throughout.

This recording used to be available online though a couple of different sites, but the links appear to have been broken.

Enjoy!

Side 1

Side 2

Side 3

Side 4

We began with a reminiscence about our early bonding on such subjects as western occultism, Robert Anton Wilson, and Monty Python. We went on at length about the motif running through his latest songs. The underlying theme is The Denial of Death, a 1973 book by Ernest Becker. Becker argued that all human motivations stem from a realization of our own mortality and how we try to rationalize the inevitable or attempt to transcend it.

I also played some comedy from Patton Oswalt‘s latest album and a bootleg recording I made of Tony Clifton.

I don’t think we mentioned UFOs even once.

On May 6th of 2010, my friend, author John Shirley presented a contact of his who claimed that he had worked on a hybrid airship that could duplicate many of the the reported movements of classic UFOs (i.e. stopping in midair, abrupt changes of direction, etc.) The man, known only as “Matthew,” said that he believed that this explained the famous “Belgian Triangle” sightings of 1990.

I thought that “Matthew” presented a compelling case that would benefit from further research. A quick open source search did not turn up any such craft as our guest described, but advanced technologies in development seldom receive any publicity. Walter was in the studio to provide his perspective on the history of possible anti-gravity craft.

Image: Alberto Santos-Dumont’s combined aircraft/dirigible experiments of 1906.

This was the last interview he gave before leaving public life entirely and moving back to the East Coast in 2006.

After telling me he would be late, Bill arrived far earlier than expected and we launched into a discussion of the Alexander Litivenko polonium poisoning case. We were soon discussing his first contacts with the Air Force Office of Special Investigations, which occurred in 1980 during book tours for Roswell. Moore corrected a misstatement that researcher Jerome Clark made about this period.

We then discussed a little-known incident involving a breach of Air Force base security in which Moore was involved with his research partner Jamie Shandera, which then led to some discussion about the history and methods of counterintelligence.

Moore recalled his first trips out to New Mexico to interview Roswell witnesses: He said that ten primary witnesses all said that they’d handled parts of a flying saucer, or at least something unearthly. He also recalled with some pain how his co-author Charles Berlitz changed and sensationalized Moore’s reports and data as he worked them into the manuscript.

We changed subjects and talked about possible occult elements in the Wizard of Oz, and humorous names Bill had come across in his research. Walter revealed that the son of Larry Fine (of Three Stooges fame) was an Air Force OSI agent. Walter also described (as much as he legally could) the history of Russian intelligence in the closed files of the FBI, which he saw as an agent. The balance of the show was filled with a discussion of other mysteries and a bit on Moore’s research and writing about on the origins of the Mormon faith.

As with many shows here, this was much more of a fun conversation than a strict interview, since I would never force Bill into any formalized discussion of subjects that most researchers would prefer. Nevertheless, there is much here for the seasoned UFO veteran to gain, if they will take the time to listen carefully.

The interview was recorded on December 10th of 2006.

Some minor technical problems did not deter us from having a great talk about the mystic origins of the SubGenius “faith,” which began with phone and CB radio pranks and evolved to crazed pamphlet-writing and eventually a worldwide phenomenon. We also discussed the problem of SubGenius members who believe too much, which is strange since it seems that the entire movement was founded on the idea of fanatical non-belief masquerading as unwavering devotion.

You might not hear it, but I was laughing hysterically off-microphone for much of the program. The show ends abruptly due to a technical glitch while we were talking about the band DEVO, but Ivan has told me that he wants to continue the conversation a later date.

The image above is from issue #5 of my old magazine. Stang wrote the cover story. Art by Hal Robbins. That’s a terrified Stang looking up at the smelly alien.

We continued the conversation on March 4th with a short wrap-up of the Alternative Universe Conference, which was apparently the first-ever completely online paranormal convention, and occurred the day before. Walter and I were two of the featured speakers. We had a longish discussion about the individual vs. the collective or universal consciousness. We then talked about UFO researcher Bill Moore’s FBI files, which Walter (a former FBI employee himself) had a chance to examine earlier in the day. We had a first-time caller (Vicki from Hawaii) and Ward again for the last 1/3d of the program.

A fun couple of shows which you will enjoy I am sure. I inserted a tone between the two shows as a marker for listeners. I will be back next week with a new show and perhaps a guest.

Walter called in to talk about psychological and psychotronic warfare, as well as good old garden-variety disinfo he experienced while in the Air Force.

We ended up with a some complaints and suggestions about UFO and anomalies research.

On September 7th, 2003, Jim was in Los Angeles for the National UFO Conference. For some reason, he did not want to make the 5 mile drive to the studio for an interview, so we called him in his hotel room at the Beverly Garland hotel in North Hollywood. Ralph Coon, director/ writer/ producer/ editor of the Gray Barker documentary Whispers From Space was on hand to ask non-sequitur questions.

We delved into the history of Saucer Smear, Jim’s experiences with the classic flying saucer contactees of the 1950s-’70s, Al Bender and his Men-In-Black experiences, his history with a certain arch-fundamentalist skeptic and a longish discussion about Moseley’s best friend, the late Gray Barker, among many other subjects.

This was a very enjoyable interview with one of the legendary figures of UFO study, who also happens to be quite sensible and agnostic about the mystery, which makes him one of my favorite personalities.

Primitive recording and microphone techniques were in evidence throughout.

Photo: Moseley wonders who has stolen the film out of his camera at the 2004 National UFO Conference. Conference director Lisa Davis is baffled.

I will post a previously unavailable, archived show or two during the two-week hiatus until then.

Audience question: should I have Peter Robbins on to talk about the new Rendlesham Incident controversy?

Subjects that came up in the free-form conversation included: the Tim Biscardi Bigfoot Hoax, the most-likely-not-hoaxed Bigfoot DNA case from last year, and quite a bit about the heavy influence on both of our lives of philosopher Robert Anton Wilson. We also  played a few fun tracks from Adam’s CD release Transmissions From A Dying Planet and listened to a recording of a British dude from the 1960s jabbering in what he says was Venusian and Plutonian.

A good talk with longtime friend. Enjoy and thanks again for your continued support!

Illustration by the very talented caricaturist Dennis Rano.

What came up were discussions on his new UFO monitoring system in the San Luis Valley (which has just recently been set up), the underground base, UFO, and Bigfoot lore of Dulce, New Mexico and how the Jicarilla Apache Tribe feels about it, the oblique way of communicating with Native Americans, Phil Imbrogno’s fall from paranormal grace and  strange and scary new case O’Brien has been investigating with Rosemary Ellen Guiley.

Along the way, I hope Chris was able to answer the questions sent in by listeners. We had a lot of fun and I apologize for talking too much, but Chris and I have known each other for many years, and Radio Misterioso is often just an excuse for a conversation. Enjoy.

My favorite quote from Karla that day, and one I have come back to many times in the 17 years since, was “The truth to me more likely is going to lie in the anomalous details.” After our talk, we kept in touch by phone and Karla kept me supplied with leads and contacts for my own research as well as any help I could provide to her. I came to consider her a friend and was shocked and saddened when she died of cancer in 1996.

Most of the text was published in The Excluded Middle, and is available in the book Wake Up Down There! Wes Nations from Crash Collusion magazine asked a few questions as well. This was perhaps the third or fourth interview I conducted, and it shows. I should also apologize for the quality of the recording, which was digitized from a mini-cassette. Over at UFOmystic, I wrote about Karla and her influence on my thinking.

The photo above was taken just after the interview.

We started with one-of-a-kind recording from “EJH,” which stands for “Electronic Jew’s Harp,” played through all sorts of flangers and other electronic gadgetry usually reserved for guitar heroes. Top-notch stuff. There were also recordings of Daffy Duck singing classical tunes and warning us of the dangers of illegal drugs, a Thai recording of the 1975 song “Black Superman” about Muhammad Ali, several selections from a 1963 musical entitled “Space Is So Startling,” and a new recording of William Shatner’s cover of “Rocket Man.”

As always, amazing stuff from our friend Mr.Fab. Enjoy!

The small, evil “Well, it could happen” voice seems to be whispering more loudly in Tim’s ear than mine, and we discussed our almost purely emotional reasons why. We also went over some of the Binnall of America shows from this past year. I was particularly intrigued with the “meat-eating horses” episode. Tim’s show has matured into one of the most wide-ranging and thought-provoking programs in paranormal podcasting, so we also talked shop about producing our respective programs and what motivates and interests us.

Happy New Year and keep listening!

I recently uncovered a rare interview in my cassette tape archives and present it here as a sort of bizarre Christmas/ Holiday present.

The circumstances surrounding this audio file are strange and perhaps a little disturbing. Peter Jordan appeared on Robert Larson’s old Cartoon Pleroma show July 30, 1998 to talk about his 20-year investigation into the cattle mutilation phenomenon centering around Dulce, New Mexico. Robert and I felt it was important to get Jordan’s story out on a commercial radio station and not the pirate station I was broadcasting from at the time.

In 1997, I read reprints of Jordan’s article from a 1982 Fortean Times which revealed his research using remote viewers in a study of mutilations. Just as many police departments have quietly used psychics to solve some cases, Jordan enlisted the help of four unnamed individuals to reveal helpful hints about the probable non-”alien” nature of unexplained cattle deaths. He (and other noted mutilation researchers such as the late Gabe Valdez) suspected long ago that some answers could probably be found in the world of biological warfare and surprisingly, the beef industry. Both involved possible coverups of pathogens which may have been accidentally released into the environment sometime in the early- to mid-1970s. There were also tributaries leading to drug companies and land grabs.

The disturbing part of this interview is that Jordan promised and wanted to come back on he show to discuss things further, but he called me a few days before his next appearance and said that he didn’t want to speak on the subject any more. He never answered any of my emails or phone calls again.

This interview remains one of the few instances where Peter Jordan shared his research so openly in a public forum. There is a great deal of information here that you will hear nowhere else. More info about Jordan and other sources that I published at the time can be seen at the Excluded Middle site. For more on the non-ET aspects of this subject, see the National Institute For Discovery Science findings on mutilations.

The audio quality starts off fair, but improves throughout the program. Sorry, but all of the contact info given out on this show is now defunct. Robert’s current show is Out The Rabbit Hole on Irvine (CA)’s station KUCI on Thursdays from 4-5PM PST.

Image: Fortean Times #38, 1982 with cover story by Peter Jordan.

In the meantime, I will be posting a couple of classic shows that I recently discovered in my archives (this time, it was in an old ammunition box in the garage.) If I can get permission from Robert Larson, one of them will be a long-lost 1998 interview with cattle mutilation researcher Peter Jordan which we conducted on his live radio show Cartoon Pleroma. The other is my 1994 interview with famed abduction researcher and writer Karla Turner, which occurred at the annual MUFON convention in Austin, Texas.

Recently, my late friend Mac Tonnies’ mom Dana sent me a few of his pictures and writings. I’ll post more of them over the next few weeks. Here’s a badass pic of Mac in a graveyard. And yes, I think he would have liked that I posted it. It was taken as a promo for some of his early stories.

We started off with a discussion of the tools of the trade. James and her husband actually use a Playskool audio recorder to try and capture so-called eletro-voice phenomena. James says that they work just as well as their more expensive equipment, especially for picking up voices of what appear to be children. She also uses visible and infrared cameras, which she claims have recorded identical phenomena, including the ubiquitous “orbs.” She described a poltergeist case in Fountain Valley, CA where hot water was seen shooting out of walls where there were no water pipes. She also described serious physical attacks by apparent entities, which are apparently very rare.

We discussed cursed places and possible reasons for supposed “portals” of bad fortune. James also says that there are (or were) satanic cults operating in the small tourist town of Jerome Arizona, which is also known as a haunting hotspot. We finish with a few ideas about how lab parapsychology may inform paranormal field research.

Many of you may be aware of my old show called The Hungry Ghost, which aired on pirate FM radio station KBLT from 1997 to 1999. On July 1st of 1998, I talked to hispanic researcher Scott Corrales, who had just published his book Chupacabras And Other Mysteries. Scott also wrote a few articles for my old magazine, so at that time I had already known him for a few years.

We talked about the history of the chupacabras, and how sightings had spread in an almost rumorlike way throughout Latin American countries. Scott spoke on the history of strangeness in Puerto Rico, including a thing called the “Moca Vampire,” which terrorized the countryside in the 1970s. We also discussed various theories about these goings-on and how the human mind might be connected to the paranormal.

Graduating from a print ‘zine in 2005, Scott now maintains the excellent site Inexplicata: The Journal of Hispanic Ufology.

The recording begins with the show in progress. I had to convert the interview from a cassette tape and it is unfortunately not complete, but 99% of the show is here. At the pirate station, the interviews were often an hour or less. Listeners must also excuse the audio levels throughout the program, as I was both inexperienced as an engineer and using jerry-rigged equipment to boot.

A couple of months ago listener Ward suggested Dr. Taff as a guest which reminded me that I have wanted to talk to him for years. We started off with a history of the UCLA lab and Dr. Taff’s work there, including a study of his own apparent psychic abilities.

We also covered remote viewing, some of Taff’s more edgy ghost investigations and  various theories about the paranormal and ended with his history of UFO studies and experiences with early (1970s) abductions.

Dr, Taff has recently been stricken with severe cataracts and a fund has been set up to help him cover the considerable medical costs. If you want to help out, you can donate here.

We began the interview with a short discussion of his adventure fiction. His newest collection of short stories is entitled, Thrilling Adventure Tales In The Age of Steam. We spent the next two hours in deep discussion about his countless ghost cases. From the poltergeist that manifested a dancing clown in a hallway to a phantom wound on a psychic that bled profusely but very quickly healed, a talk with Richard Senate is always full of strange and unsettling stories. Throughout the conversation, we kept coming back to possible theories that would make sense of some of the phenomena. Mr. Senate also busted a few myths about ghosts and related phenomena.

We ended with Mr. Senate’s plea for cooperation amongst paranormal researchers in order to advance what is seen as a hobby for amateurs into more of a scientific pursuit.

His newest ghost book is Silver Ghosts: Haunted Places and Phantom Encounters In Northern Nevada.

Based on years of research (which was occasionally thwarted by persons unknown) the authors believe that the creation myth of the Mormon Church was based largely on an 1812 book called A Manuscript Found by an American Revolutionary War veteran named Solomon Spalding. They contend that church co-founder Sidney Rigdon borrowed or stole the manuscript from a printer in Pittsburgh after Spalding’s death. It contained the basic story of what Joseph Smith later claimed to have channeled for the Book Of Mormon.

In the book, the authors claim that they are not out to gut the Mormon Church; they were only interested in getting to the bottom of a story that had almost been forgotten, and found literally reams of documentary evidence to support it. Cowdrey himself says in the interview, “We care for the Mormon people, but we think that they’re living under a delusion.”

P.S. Bill Moore is not actually listed as an author, and he explained in the program that this was because he acted as editor and research associate. WARNING: UFOs were not mentioned in this program!

We started with a discussion about our spiritual paths, or at least how it has affected how he look at the anomalous. This led into a discourse about how we may be co-creating our reality and more relevant to this program, how we may be more creative in our experiences with the paranormal than we think. There was also a long reminisce about our late friend and abduction researcher Karla Turner.

Richard and I have also shared some of the same experiences with intelligence people from various government agencies (or claiming to be) and this shaped our opinions about what may be going on with the UFO subject and how the conversation about it is controlled. The people who talked to us cautioned us to be careful about what we accepted as truth, but to listen to everything. Instead of frightening us into catatonia, this advice seemed liberating. We also bought up moon anomalies and possible censorship of photos.

This was a rare show with many insights that haven’t come out in other interviews. I must apologize for all the times I interrupted Richard as he jogged my memory and imagination, but he’s good at that.

Listen and enjoy.

Image above from the independent release “bu!” by the Stealing Orchestra.

Aaron Gulyas, Tony Morrill, Nick Redfern, Paul Kimball and Mike Clelland joined me for over two hours as we discussed how we met and/or were influenced by Mac and what his legacy might be. We all still miss him terribly and our thoughts go out to his family and other friends.

For more about Mac Tonnies, visit his archived blog, Posthuman Blues, or tribute sites Post Mac Blues and Macbots. His two most well-known books are After the Martian Apocalypse (out of print) and The Cryptoterrestrials. Our interview from July of 2009 can be heard here. Paul and Mac were live in the studio in May of 2006.

We opened tonight’s show with a discussion of the favorite food of Bigfoot, which is apparently blueberry bagels, according to a recent report out of Michigan. Also discussed: The seminal book The Rebirth Of Pan, the influence of John Keel and his maverick outlook on weirdness, a recent study that projects what humans will look like in a few thousand years, the Mike Judge film Idiocracy, our first forays into fortean and UFO literature, paranormal TV shows, what types of paranormal experiences we would like to have and the nature of Bigfoot (paranormal or biological?)

Halfway through the show, outsider musician David Liebe Hart showed up unexpected-like and had me play two of his compositions. He must be psychic, or the synchronicity streams were flowing our way that night.

There was some contention about the legacy of the work of the late Budd Hopkins. Paul believes that he was a belief-driven researcher whose work was dangerous to the mental health of some of the abductees he worked with. Nick and I differed on just how damaging he was, but we were all in agreement that the subject appears far too complicated to be reduced to supposed aliens taking people’s DNA and breeding hybrid children.

Near the end of the show, Walter brought up crop circles and we talked about the “hoaxers” who consider their work in the crops as art and sometimes feel that there are non-human forces at work while they make their patterns in the plants.

We ended with a song requested by Paul as a show of solidarity with the recent anti-greed protests in New York and other cities. We forgot to mention the death of Charles Hickson of the Pascagoula abduction. I will post an essay about him soon.

Photos: Nick deep underneath the Devil’s Gate dam in Pasadena, 10/2/11, Paul and I at a minor league baseball game last June.

This week, he sent me an untitled work in progress. The paper examines the genesis of the Area 51 story and concludes that the reason for the so-called “leaks” from the secret base in the early 1990s was that a group in the U.S. intelligence community was trying to get the truth of alien contact and ET technology into the public discussion. By selectively releasing stories ranging from nearly benign to totally paranoid, Cameron thinks that there is a plan to both frighten and desensitize the public so that when the reality of an alien presence is revealed, the dominant emotion will be relief that the wildest rumors were only that.

Grant and I have been in contact for many years, and have communicated with many of the same government people. During the program, we debated many of the finer points of evidence for government knowledge of the UFO subject. He has concluded that, based on the public statements of current and former intel personnel, that the U.S. Government is dealing with a non-human race which has arrived on Earth in “nuts and bolts” craft. I am not quite ready to make that leap, and I hope that our back-and-forth over the course of the show is enlightening. It was for me, even though I remain unconvinced of anything, especially when it involves the statements of spies and others tasked with keeping national secrets. A fun and lively interview.

While there are certainly many troubling issues in UFO abduction research, I do not personally have all the data and experience of someone like Peter Robbins to be able to come to a solid conclusion about the way it has been conducted in the last 30 years, although I have been occasionally critical of it in the past. Peter addressed some of the charges leveled at Hopkins concerning the treatment of apparent abductees, protocols for interviews and hypnosis sessions and guarding against bias from both the researcher and the subjects.

Peter brought up a new case he’s been working on involving a security guard at a prison in the southwest and his sighting of a massive (100-yard or more) black, disc-shaped object which silently appeared and then disappeared in the night sky. Peter has promised to ask the witness if he would appear on the program for a short interview.

We also discussed the problem of fundamentalist thinking and how it pervades the skeptical community, UFO researchers, religion and politics. This led to a segment about compassion and how we should conduct our lives to do the most good for others and ourselves.

The theme of the program is probably best summed up as: “As much as you can, withhold judgment for as long as possible and keep your emotions in check.”

Robbins’ paper that is referred to during the program, Politics, Religion and Human Nature: Practical Problems and on the Path Toward Official UFO Acknowledgment can be downloaded by clicking on the title.

Photo credit: ICAR.

This Sunday (September 18th) we’ll talk to renowned UFO researcher Peter Robbins about his work with the late Budd Hopkins and try to clear up some misconceptions about Hopkins’ abduction research and his personal life. Robbins worked with Hopkins for over 20 years and has some insights which he will share for the first time.

On September 25th, Grant Cameron makes his first appearance on the show. Cameron’s site Presidential UFO catalogs his research into each administration’s UFO involvement from FDR to Obama. He has said that he wants to ask me some questions, so this should be a good one.

For October 9th, we welcome back ghost hunter Richard Senate to the program to talk about his recent research as well as his new collection of adventure fiction, entitled Steam.

Stay tuned and thank you for your continued support!

Actually, there are only three 9/11-themed songs in this show, and we get them out of the way right at the beginning. Also on the menu: Country music with distorted guitar and sitar, music produced entirely with computer-generated voices in close harmony, a jazz cover of “Voodoo Chile” with a tuba taking the lead, a ska version of the Beatles, and the original recording of the Plan 9 From Outer Space theme before Ed Wood got ahold of it. We end with a few favorites from the Messer Chups.

Special thanks to Mr. Fab at Music For Maniacs for a couple of these gems!

Like many of us, his projects evolved out of a need to learn more from those we considered leading researchers and theorists. What better way than to ask them yourself? Binnall of America started as a fan site for Coast To Coast AM and quickly developed it’s own unique personality.

We began with a discussion on the sorry state of mainstream paranormal radio, and the twin disasters of the 2008 Bigfoot hoax and Sylvia Browne’s psychic prediction backtracking in 2006 which played out on Coast to Coast. I also mentioned my deep dislike of Sean Morton, and Tim called him and his ilk “Performance bullshit artists.”

We talked shop about interviews, problems with contemporary UFO study (a long segment), and then Tim launched into his negative assessment of Arizona Governor Fife Symington’s about face on the Phoenix Lights sightings of 1997. Paul Kimball suddenly called in to comment on Symington and entered into a debate with Tim as to whether the man was a “coward” or just an opportunist. Three callers later, we closed with a discussion about the nature of what exactly constitutes a “ufologist.”

This program was recorded on April 1st of 2007.

The photo above is from when Tim and Paul were visiting L.A. in 2008. (Tim is on the left and Paul is on the right. )

For the first 15 minutes we actually discussed the problems that authors face with publishers, self publishing, and selling ideas. We then dove into our subject with an examination of Bender and some little-known parts of his story, including Nick’s ideas about Bender’s psychological state during his MIB visitations. We continued with a few well-known and not a few less well-known encounters with Ufology’s shadowy silencers.

For most of the last hour of the program we discussed theories about where the MIB might come from, how they are perceived and how these two issues interact in legend and reality. At the end of the show I played a segment from a rare recording of Albert Bender describing his experiences.

The drawing above is Bender’s depiction of the entities which he said scared him right out of his UFO studies.

Most people who listen to Radio Misterioso know about flying saucer contactee George Van Tassel and his famous Integratron. What many might not realize is that when Van Tassel moved his family from Los Angeles in the early 1950s, he didn’t just pick the desert at random. His friend Frank Critzer told him about the area and carved out an 800 square foot living space underneath one of the world’s largest freestanding granite boulders. In contrast to his reputation as a retiring hermit, Critzer also graded the roads and built an airstrip to encourage visitors. Critzer was accused of being a Nazi sympathizer (probably not true) and may have provided support to Japanese families hiding from arrest and internment camps during WWII. Barbara expanded on all of this, busted a quite a few myths and revealed much new information publicly for the first time during our interview, which lasted over two hours.

We started out with a report from and commentary on the Laughlin UFO conference. Mike returned from the 2010 meeting with a mixed bag of impressions and memories. While at the conference, he attended an abductee support meeting, which he described in detail.

We also spoke about conversations with our late friend Mac Tonnies. His analogy of a cat chasing a laser pointer and the comparison of humans seeing UFOs occupied us for a good while. This led to a conversation about Mac’s last book The Cryptoterrestrials and how it might affect UFO research.

Mike made the important point that many abduction researchers have agendas that ignore the variety of UFO encounter and abduction experiences. We went on to talk about the experience of the paranormal and how it changes lives.

This interview was recorded on March 7th of 2010.

No interview scheduled this week (8/7). Weird music will occur during your regularly scheduled program.

Empire Of The Wheel recounts Bosley’s increasing efforts to follow leads based on newspaper accounts, public records, and coroner reports from the autumn of 1915 in an effort to reconcile the unusual spate of unexplained deaths in the burgeoning town of San Bernardino, California. On the way, he and co-author Richard Spence discovered possible links to spiritualist groups, Masons, foreign spies, Aliester Crowley, and even a possible coverup by members of the local establishment at the time. Spence’s most recent book is Secret Agent 666: Aleister Crowley, British Intelligence and the Occult.

Perhaps the strangest and most startling revelation was that the infamous “Zodiac” serial killer of the 1960s may have been using elements of occult geology to plan his murders in the same way that an unnamed person or persons might have been doing at the turn of the 20th century in San Bernardino.

Bosley and Spence do not claim to have solved the mystery, but ask that the questions they raise be considered as hitherto unexamined motivations for the possible murder of at least seven people over a four-month period, which was highly unusual for the time.

In short, Final Events and the Secret Government Group on Demonic UFOs and the Afterlife is the story Nick uncovered about a secret U.S. Government group that has been around since the 1950s and who labor under the belief that all UFO and specifically “alien” phenomena are demonic in origin. They are committed to fighting this supposed evil influence over mankind, and if possible, to defeat it.

Nick describes the genesis of this group called the “Collins Elite” which began in the 1950s while background checks were being done on infamous rocket pioneer Jack Parsons and his connection to the “wickedest man in the world,” Aliester Crowley. The group became convinced that Parsons and his cohorts opened some sort of psychic doorway that ushered in the age of flying saucers.

Confused? Intrigued? You’ll be less of the first and more of the second after listening to this episode of Radio Misterioso, recorded on April 17th of 2011.

Note: Neither Nick nor I “believe” all of this wholeheartedly. As Nick says, it is an interesting story and one he wanted to tell after talking to a few individuals in the group.

The photo above was taken when Nick and I visited the grave of Paul Bennewitz in New Mexico.

This night we talked about his involvement with the early personalities involved in these stories, such as John Lear, Bill Cooper, Ted Gunderson, and Anthony Hilder. Norio recalled his 1990 interview with Area 51 “whistleblower” Bob Lazar and the strange men who wouldn’t leave his side throughout the filming of a segment for Japanese television. He also noticed that Lazar’s home didn’t looked lived in, more like a movie set. This sounds very much like Lazar’s leaking of government secrets were highly scripted. Norio also mentioned that he first heard of Area 51 and the supposed Dulce base in a packet of reading material he requested from Bill Moore in 1988. We also discussed our experiences with a man named “Mike Younger” and our impressions of him as a disinfo agent. Much of what he did also seemed scripted and designed to create definite ideas and opinions.

Throughout the program, Norio stressed his agnostic approach. Like many others, he has found that interested non-belief is probably the best way to approach the UFO subject as well as so-called conspiracy issues. We also went into his background and bio since his immigration from his native Japan. I particularly liked his stories of working the night shift at a mortuary.

We ended with one of his original keyboard compositions entitled “Showdown At Dulce, New Mexico.”

We have not spoken much since this program was aired on January 5th of 2003, and I plan to remedy that situation soon. On this night we spanned the spectrum of the weird, speaking about his UFO investigations, ghosts and ouija boards, the Cash-Landrum UFO incident, and UFO songs. I played a few gems on the show, such as “(You’d Better Pray To The Lord) When You See Those Flying Saucers” and UFO contactee Frank Stranges’ audio documentary from the mid 1960s.

This was a really fun show and I’m glad that I found the CDs on which it was recorded. Hello Jerry, wherever you are!

Photo credit: Peter Stenshoel

We started the program with an examination of mysterious Fred Crisman and his little-known role in both one of the first famous UFO sightings of the modern era, as well as his involvement with men accused by D.A. Jim Garrison in his prosecution of the New Orleans connection to the JFK assassination. Of his new book Kenn says “It focuses on the intertwining connections between the parapolitical world of assassinations and conspiracies, and the ufological subculture, and how they work together even today.” Thomas described his recent listen of a rare 1950s recording of British philosopher Gerald Heard lecturing about scientific attitudes towards UFOs. We then discussed the theory that JFK was killed over a military contract for a jet fighter. The the new Area 51 book controversy was mentioned and the probable fallacy of mistaking a U2 for UFO (although listener Carlos wrote in to say that this was an excuse given to pilots who saw the aircraft while it was still secret.) Kenn also recounted his own UFO sighting at Area 51 many years ago.

Kenn had to go, so Adam Gorightly called and we spent a half-hour talking about the Bigfoot press conference, people who approach us to talk about their UFO sightings, and anything else that came up. Adam talked about his well-known UFO sighting while on LSD, so I had to mention one of my only UFO sightings which happened in Death Valley a few years ago.  We ended with a a discussion about the value of reputation in the UFO field (I say it doesn’t count for much, unless you are respected outside the community.)

Jeffrey Gonzalez is the founder and director of the Sanger Paranormal Society (SPS), which investigates and documents all manner of strangeness in California’s Central Valley. If lights are hovering over your house, things are bumping in the night, or weird creatures are trying to carry off your chihuahua, SPS will investigate and document the disturbance, as well as offer any explanation that seems reasonable.

One month ago, Gonzalez says he found evidence of what he believes to be the face- and handprints of a Bigfoot creature on the window of his pickup truck, which was parked in a remote area of the Sierra Nevada mountains. He and his research group say that the place has been a recent hotspot for Bigfoot activity.

On June 23rd, the SPS held a press conference in Fresno to announce the find and ask for help to test the DNA traces left on the truck on or around May 30th of 2011. I attended and arranged for Gonzalez to appear on Radio Misterioso. This is the first interview he has given about the recent events.

We talked about the controversy surrounding the event and the public and private reaction. We also delved into Gonzalez’ other paranormal investigations, including his discovery of anomalous ruins in the hills north of Fresno. We also discussed his UFO research, why he has recently resigned as an official of the Mutual UFO Network, and then listened as he fielded a live call from a local skywatcher while an apparent sighting was in progress during the program.

The subject of 2012 prophecy came up, as well as government and military involvement in the UFO subject. We ended with a conversation about paranormal theories and Jeffrey’s opinions about them in light of his personal investigations over the past few years. He also promised to take me out to the area where the Bigfoot has been seen.

When this happens, a report will follow!

Yesterday afternoon, I attended the Sanger Paranormal Society press conference in Fresno, California with friend and journalist Skylaire Alfvegren. Spokesman Jeffrey Gonzalez and his team announced that they had acquired “potentially the most convincing evidence of Bigfoot since the Patterson film of 1967.”

Gonzalez told this story: From May 27th to 29th of this year, he and five others camped in an area of the Sierra Nevada mountains that they identified as active in the past for apparent bigfoot activity. Nothing notable happened during the camping trip. A storm of rain and snow began on the night of the 28th. By 2AM the group were concerned that they would be stranded if they remained in the area. Everyone piled into two cars and left. The next day, Gonzalez realized that his laptop was still in his stranded truck. On the way back to retrieve the truck and computer the group noticed felled trees and logs blocking the remote dirt road.

As Gonzalez approached his truck, he noticed dirt and smears on the driver’s side window. It appeared that something had left the marks while peering into the cab. He drove the truck down to an area where there was cel coverage and phoned Mickey Burrow, a local forensic examiner and paranormal investigator.

Burrow met Gonzalez in the foothills and took pictures of the markings on the window. At the conference, Burrow (while admitting that he is not a biologist or zoologist) offered the opinion that the apparent nose and lip marks did not seem to match those of a bear or mountain lion. Samples of the marks were taken for later analysis. Gonzalez later had the window removed for safe storage. He has not washed the truck since the incident, almost a month ago.

The group made a plea for donations, leads, or services to perform DNA testing on the samples. Some reports indicate that the entire conference was a ploy to make money, but the local news had to pin Burrow down on a figure: “I guess five thousand would be enough” he said. It seems that if the Sanger group were going after the big score, they would have gone about things differently.

My impression is that Gonzalez and his group are sincere in their convictions. The videos, photos, and other evidence presented at the event are debatable and probably unconvincing to most. If they can get their samples tested by at least two labs and the results agree, perhaps their claims can be at least partially verified.

JT’s work can be seen at these sites:
jtlindroos.carbonmade.com
bookgasm.com/author/jt-lindroos/

On March 1st, Rob Sterling of the Konformist website, and later, the author of 50 Reasons Not To Vote For George Bush was scheduled by phone to discuss political intrigue in the form of what is known to most people as “conspiracies.” Just as we started the program, author Jonathan Vankin and his (then) wife and noted journalist Deb Vankin walked into the studio unannounced, so I gave them a microphone.

What followed was an unexpected meeting of the minds on the effects of the Bush family on American politics, police brutality at the recent Democratic National Convention, and Jonathan’s books The 50 Greatest Conspiracies Of All Time and The Big Book Of The 70s. The current hot topic of Napster’s legal battles also came up. Of course, anything else that came to mind was also fair game and the conversation was stimulating and informative as always when sharpies like these get together.

Through the wonders of modern technology, this program was digitized from the original 90 minute cassette tape recorded over a decade ago.

In the next few weeks, I’m going to be posting some of the shows that were recorded during the site outage that started late last year.

In the first week of December, Adam Gorightly and filmmaker Sam Fielder took a group of us out to the high desert of Southern California to shoot a documentary about authors, artists and radio people who were into the weirdness starting in the early 1990s. Most of us knew each other by our shared interests back then and that’s when I started corresponding and meeting with people like Gorightly, Chica Bruce, Nick Redfern and Robert Larson, who will all appear in the documentary. Others who we met later, such as historian and journalist Jayne Pojawa and author and photographer Andy Colvin were also out in Yucca Valley, Landers and Giant Rock over the weekend of December 4th. Walter Bosley, my long time co-host is also in the documentary and was in the studio that night.

Kate Burke, Chica Bruce, Gorightly, Redfern, and Jayne Pojawa at Bombay Beach on the Salton Sea.

Chica, Jayne and her husband Jared joined us in the studio to talk about the film and what inspired our interest in UFOs, the paranormal, and general strangeness. Andy called in from home, then Gorightly and finally Nick to round out almost two and a half hours of a very fun show that was much more like a party than an interview.

Paul also addressed those who think that he’s gone all new-agey. He says he’s just revealing the non-public side of his personality, but I think he’s actually tired of pointing out what’s wrong with UFO study and ready to discuss the positive. What interests him personally now comes first. Like a few (a very few) others in the field, he’s decided to mostly ignore the petty squabbles and look for personal meaning in the mysteries.

I think that’s the best that any of us can do right now.

As the Radio Misterioso site continues to be repaired, I will occasionally post shows that either have not been heard in awhile or ever (at least since the original broadcast.)

My good friend Farah Yurdozu appeared on Radio Misterioso in 2007 when we had just met at the Roswell UFO festival, where we both appeared as speakers. We found that we shared many opinions on UFOs and the paranormal, and I immediately asked her to appear as a guest. Since then, we have met a few times at conferences and I eventually visited Farah in her home country of Turkey, where she was a gracious and knowledgeable host. This interview was recorded in late July of 2007. Farah talked about her many books in at least two languages (she speaks Turkish, English, and Spanish) her own paranormal experiences and those of her family, the Djinn tradition and how it relates to the abduction phenomenon, and the Turkish government and press attitude towards UFO sightings.

Rare insights by a renowned researcher, author, and sensitive. Enjoy.

(Farah has agreed to appear on the program again in the near future, so keep visiting and listening!)