THE PARACAST NEWSLETTER
July 30, 2011
The "New Ufology" Explored on The Paracast
Special Announcement: The Paracast is heard Sundays from 6:00 PM until 9:00 PM (Central Time) on the GCN radio network.
Here's How You Can Help The Paracast: Although ads help cover a small part of our expenses, the income they produce is never enough. Also, we do not receive any revenue from the ads placed on the show by our network. So we hope you'll be willing to help fill the gap if you can to help us cover increasing server costs and other expenses -- or perhaps provide a little extra cash for lunch. No contribution is too small (or too large
. We have a Donate link on our home page, below the logo and audio player. There's also a Donate link on our forums, right below our logo. Or just send your PayPal donation direct to sales (at) theparacast (dot) com.
Attention U.S. Listeners: Help Us Bring The Paracast to Your City! Last summer, The Paracast joined the GCN radio network. This represented a huge step in bringing our show to a larger, mainstream audience. On July 3, The Paracast was introduced to millions of listeners in New York City, New Jersey, and Long Island, when we arrive on WVNJ radio. But that's just one recent conquest.
We need your help to add additional affiliates to our growing network. Please ask one of your local talk stations if they are interested in carrying The Paracast. Feel free to contact us directly with the names of programming people we might be able to contact on your behalf. We can't do this alone, and if you succeed in convincing your local station to carry the show, we'll reward you with one of our special T-shirts, and other goodies. With your help, The Paracast can grow into one of the most popular paranormal shows on the planet!
You Can Now Order The Official Paracast T-Shirt: You asked, and we answered. We are now taking orders for The Official Paracast T-Shirt and a collection of other specially customized merchandise. To get your T-Shirt, just pay a visit to our new online store at Welcome to The Official Paracast Store to select your size and place your order. We now also offer a lineup of other premium merchandise featuring The Paracast logo.
Sunday, July 31, 2011: The Paracast covers a world beyond science, where UFOs, poltergeists and strange phenomena of all kinds have been reported by millions across the planet.
Set Up: The Paracast hosts interview long-time researchers in the field, to shed light on the mysteries and complexities of our Universe and the secrets that surround us in our everyday lives.
Join us as we explore the realms of the known and unknown, and hear great stories of the history of the paranormal field in the 20th and 21st centuries.
This Week's Episode: Gene and Chris introduce researcher Paul Budding, of The Serious New UFOlogy Institute, who has explored both the so-called “Old” Ufology and the “New Ufology,” not to mention Jungian psychology.
Christopher O'Brien's Site: Home - Our Strange Planet
Paul Budding's Site: The Serious New UFOlogy Institute | A UFO research organization
Reminder: Reminder: Don't forget to visit our famous Paracast Community Forums for the latest news/views/debates on all things paranormal: The Paracast Community Forums.
One Lie, All Lies?
By Gene Steinberg
It’s common for prosecutors in a criminal case to remind the jury that, if a defendant has been shown to be lying materially in one area, they have probably lied in others. If you take that conclusion a little too far, though, the white lies people sometimes tell will simply mean that almost nobody can be believed.
But when someone writes a large number of books reporting on paranormal encounters, and you discover that person’s background is mostly bogus, what are you supposed to do?
That returns us to the unfortunate case of researcher Philip Imbrogno, whose educational credentials – and perhaps his military record – have all been shown to be false. His motives aren’t important. Maybe he believed that enhancing his resume would make the information in his books seem more credible, and perhaps the lies took on a life of their own. I don’t pretend to know, although The Paracast has an open invitation for Imbrogno to come on the show and explain himself, although it’s highly unlikely he’s going to accept.
Certainly this sad example can be used by skeptics to suggest that, if someone with a reasonable degree of prominence managed to deceive people for so many years, maybe lots of others have done the same thing. Hence, their claims about the existence of UFOs and other unusual events are lies too; one lie contaminating the pool, putting the work of others into question.
Now some apologists suggest that we should ignore Imbrogno’s shortcomings and accept his work as genuine. If his material has been independently supported, maybe so. But the fact that he frequently withholds the names of witnesses in his books doesn’t help anyone verify the information. So there you go.
Some people have simply adopted a “shoot the messenger” approach to the whole affair. The Paracast broke the story, based on research conducted by skeptic Lance Moody, and now others, including our friends Don Ecker and Ron Collins. So it’s all our fault. We should have left well enough alone, or maybe the expose isn’t true to begin with. Maybe we made it all up, which is patently ridiculous, since it is MIT and other educational institutions that deny that Imbrogno ever attended, let alone received degrees, from those institutions.
Now as you readers and listeners know, we seldom name our severest critics on the show. Some of the attacks are so outrageous that they do not deserve extended discussoin. If we bothered, we would be embroiled in ongoing arguments and wouldn’t have time to do anything constructive.
On a few occasions, I’ve personally made attempts to talk sense into a few people, but that doesn’t help when someone has an agenda that cannot accommodate facts and logic. This doesn’t mean we’re perfect or anything close to that. At the same time, people who make up outrageous stories about us aren’t helping solve the problem. They are the problem, and that’s doubly unfortunate, since it makes it that much harder to get to the bottom of these age-old mysteries.
Some people simply regard, say, the UFO field as a toxic environment. All the in-fighting makes it impossible to do any real research. In that sense, the whole Imbrogno affair has become a large distraction. Even if you toss most of his work out the window, or at least the work that doesn’t involve a coauthor or coworker, there is still a tremendous amount of data about uncanny events around us and in our skies that cries out for an explanation.
Even as the noise grows louder, we continue to try to find that signal, and maybe we’ll even succeed from time to time.
The Paracast Copyright 1999-2011 Making The Impossible, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Privacy Policy: Your personal information is safe with us. We will positively never give out your name and/or e-mail address to anybody else, and that's a promise!
July 30, 2011
The "New Ufology" Explored on The Paracast
Special Announcement: The Paracast is heard Sundays from 6:00 PM until 9:00 PM (Central Time) on the GCN radio network.
Here's How You Can Help The Paracast: Although ads help cover a small part of our expenses, the income they produce is never enough. Also, we do not receive any revenue from the ads placed on the show by our network. So we hope you'll be willing to help fill the gap if you can to help us cover increasing server costs and other expenses -- or perhaps provide a little extra cash for lunch. No contribution is too small (or too large
. We have a Donate link on our home page, below the logo and audio player. There's also a Donate link on our forums, right below our logo. Or just send your PayPal donation direct to sales (at) theparacast (dot) com.Attention U.S. Listeners: Help Us Bring The Paracast to Your City! Last summer, The Paracast joined the GCN radio network. This represented a huge step in bringing our show to a larger, mainstream audience. On July 3, The Paracast was introduced to millions of listeners in New York City, New Jersey, and Long Island, when we arrive on WVNJ radio. But that's just one recent conquest.
We need your help to add additional affiliates to our growing network. Please ask one of your local talk stations if they are interested in carrying The Paracast. Feel free to contact us directly with the names of programming people we might be able to contact on your behalf. We can't do this alone, and if you succeed in convincing your local station to carry the show, we'll reward you with one of our special T-shirts, and other goodies. With your help, The Paracast can grow into one of the most popular paranormal shows on the planet!
You Can Now Order The Official Paracast T-Shirt: You asked, and we answered. We are now taking orders for The Official Paracast T-Shirt and a collection of other specially customized merchandise. To get your T-Shirt, just pay a visit to our new online store at Welcome to The Official Paracast Store to select your size and place your order. We now also offer a lineup of other premium merchandise featuring The Paracast logo.
Sunday, July 31, 2011: The Paracast covers a world beyond science, where UFOs, poltergeists and strange phenomena of all kinds have been reported by millions across the planet.
Set Up: The Paracast hosts interview long-time researchers in the field, to shed light on the mysteries and complexities of our Universe and the secrets that surround us in our everyday lives.
Join us as we explore the realms of the known and unknown, and hear great stories of the history of the paranormal field in the 20th and 21st centuries.
This Week's Episode: Gene and Chris introduce researcher Paul Budding, of The Serious New UFOlogy Institute, who has explored both the so-called “Old” Ufology and the “New Ufology,” not to mention Jungian psychology.
Christopher O'Brien's Site: Home - Our Strange Planet
Paul Budding's Site: The Serious New UFOlogy Institute | A UFO research organization
Reminder: Reminder: Don't forget to visit our famous Paracast Community Forums for the latest news/views/debates on all things paranormal: The Paracast Community Forums.
One Lie, All Lies?
By Gene Steinberg
It’s common for prosecutors in a criminal case to remind the jury that, if a defendant has been shown to be lying materially in one area, they have probably lied in others. If you take that conclusion a little too far, though, the white lies people sometimes tell will simply mean that almost nobody can be believed.
But when someone writes a large number of books reporting on paranormal encounters, and you discover that person’s background is mostly bogus, what are you supposed to do?
That returns us to the unfortunate case of researcher Philip Imbrogno, whose educational credentials – and perhaps his military record – have all been shown to be false. His motives aren’t important. Maybe he believed that enhancing his resume would make the information in his books seem more credible, and perhaps the lies took on a life of their own. I don’t pretend to know, although The Paracast has an open invitation for Imbrogno to come on the show and explain himself, although it’s highly unlikely he’s going to accept.
Certainly this sad example can be used by skeptics to suggest that, if someone with a reasonable degree of prominence managed to deceive people for so many years, maybe lots of others have done the same thing. Hence, their claims about the existence of UFOs and other unusual events are lies too; one lie contaminating the pool, putting the work of others into question.
Now some apologists suggest that we should ignore Imbrogno’s shortcomings and accept his work as genuine. If his material has been independently supported, maybe so. But the fact that he frequently withholds the names of witnesses in his books doesn’t help anyone verify the information. So there you go.
Some people have simply adopted a “shoot the messenger” approach to the whole affair. The Paracast broke the story, based on research conducted by skeptic Lance Moody, and now others, including our friends Don Ecker and Ron Collins. So it’s all our fault. We should have left well enough alone, or maybe the expose isn’t true to begin with. Maybe we made it all up, which is patently ridiculous, since it is MIT and other educational institutions that deny that Imbrogno ever attended, let alone received degrees, from those institutions.
Now as you readers and listeners know, we seldom name our severest critics on the show. Some of the attacks are so outrageous that they do not deserve extended discussoin. If we bothered, we would be embroiled in ongoing arguments and wouldn’t have time to do anything constructive.
On a few occasions, I’ve personally made attempts to talk sense into a few people, but that doesn’t help when someone has an agenda that cannot accommodate facts and logic. This doesn’t mean we’re perfect or anything close to that. At the same time, people who make up outrageous stories about us aren’t helping solve the problem. They are the problem, and that’s doubly unfortunate, since it makes it that much harder to get to the bottom of these age-old mysteries.
Some people simply regard, say, the UFO field as a toxic environment. All the in-fighting makes it impossible to do any real research. In that sense, the whole Imbrogno affair has become a large distraction. Even if you toss most of his work out the window, or at least the work that doesn’t involve a coauthor or coworker, there is still a tremendous amount of data about uncanny events around us and in our skies that cries out for an explanation.
Even as the noise grows louder, we continue to try to find that signal, and maybe we’ll even succeed from time to time.
The Paracast Copyright 1999-2011 Making The Impossible, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Privacy Policy: Your personal information is safe with us. We will positively never give out your name and/or e-mail address to anybody else, and that's a promise!
