• NEW! LOWEST RATES EVER -- SUPPORT THE SHOW AND ENJOY THE VERY BEST PREMIUM PARACAST EXPERIENCE! Welcome to The Paracast+, eight years young! For a low subscription fee, you can download the ad-free version of The Paracast and the exclusive, member-only, After The Paracast bonus podcast, featuring color commentary, exclusive interviews, the continuation of interviews that began on the main episode of The Paracast. We also offer lifetime memberships! Flash! Take advantage of our lowest rates ever! Act now! It's easier than ever to susbcribe! You can sign up right here!

    Subscribe to The Paracast Newsletter!

It Came from Ohio with James Renner

Forums New posts

Free episodes:

Gene Steinberg

Gene Steinberg

Forum Super Hero
Staff member
On Tuesday, June 10, we'll be recording a segment with freelance journalist, novelist and blogger James Renner, author of a neat little book, "It Came from Ohio." The book contains what are called "true tales of the weird, wild, and unexplained," including the famous 1966 case involving Ohio deputy sheriff Dale F. Spaur, who, along with another officer, chased a UFO across state lines. The UFO was dismissed as conventional by the Air Force, but Spaur's life was essentially ruined in the aftermath of the sighting. The chase formed the basis of one of the early scenes in Stephen Spielberg's "Close Encounters of the Third Kind."

Renner will also discuss reports of strange creatures, including Bigfoot and werewolves. According to his bio, "In his spare time, he hunts serial killers."
 
The Spaur case is fascinating for not only the chase, but for the witness aftermath. Good details here: Portage County UFO chase - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
However, Spaur absorbed the brunt of the publicity in the case, and had the most tragic outcome. Quintanilla's final report on the UFO chase report mentioned only Spaur, and Quintanilla's ambiguous wording led some to conclude that only Spaur, and not more than half a dozen others, had claimed to have seen a UFO. Spaur would suffer from nearly relentless ridicule, and from persistent nightmares about the UFO chase. Still, he refused to speculate as to the origins of the UFO, and did his best to avoid the publicity. After an uncharacteristic fit of rage one day when he violently shook his wife, Spaur quit his job and disappeared from public view. His wife Daneise was later quoted as saying:

Something happened to Dale, but I don't know what it was. He came home that day, and I never saw him more frightened before. He acted strange, listless. He just sat around. He was very pale ... He'd just disappear for days and days ... Our marriage fell apart. All sorts of people came to the house. Investigators, reporters ... They hounded him right into the ground. And he changed. (Clark, 1998)
Six months after the UFO chase, Spaur had separated from his wife, and was located by John de Groot of the Associated Press. Living in a $60 a week motel in Solon, Ohio, Spaur was nearly destitute, earning $80 a week as a house painter, and sending $20 a week to his wife, and was subsisting on a bowl of cereal and a sandwich per day.
Click to expand...
 
Gene Steinberg said:
On Tuesday, June 10, we'll be recording a segment with freelance journalist, novelist and blogger James Renner, author of a neat little book, "It Came from Ohio." The book contains what are called "true tales of the weird, wild, and unexplained," including the famous 1966 case involving Ohio deputy sheriff Dale F. Spaur, who, along with another officer, chased a UFO across state lines. The UFO was dismissed as conventional by the Air Force, but Spaur's life was essentially ruined in the aftermath of the sighting. The chase formed the basis of one of the early scenes in Stephen Spielberg's "Close Encounters of the Third Kind."

Renner will also discuss reports of strange creatures, including Bigfoot and werewolves. According to his bio, "In his spare time, he hunts serial killers."
Click to expand...

OMG Gene, this one might just earn you a few biscuits on the other side of the 10th. I am the biggest UFO nut case (aren't we all...), not to mention a very real secret fandom affair I have with Robert Ressler - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

I'll try and put together some questions today. You know, you are blowing my mind with this one Gene. Behavior correlations. Whether serial killers (a named coined by Wrestler) or UFOs, behavior is where it's at with respect to effective investigations IMO.
 
I'm hoping the interview with Renner will shine light on one of the most troubling and recurrent themes in UFOlogy: A lasting negative impact UFO encounters sometimes have on the lives of witnesses.
 
Q1. Do you think the singling out of Dale Spaur as a scapegoat, which ultimately destroyed his life, is something that would repeat today with a UFO witness, or is society more accepting and believing of the UFO incident?

Q2. What draws you to pursue the serial killer as a topic and how has studying such disturbing human behaviors affected your own mental health?

Q3. What is the truth of the Loveland Frog?
 
MR. Renner,
1) As a skilled hunter, do you feel intuitively that there is an external agent involved in the scope of the paranormal, or as some, do you feel the paranormal is an anomalous projection or extension of the self contained human mind that we simply do not understand at this time?

2) With the greatest respect for your fascination and direct pursuit of serial killers, in your estimation, are these deranged, yet highly functional serial killers, a self contained and thereby solely (singularly) motivated mission based within demented and psychologically damaged human psyche, or do you feel that possibly an external form of evil comes into play wherein these individuals are directly influenced by a completely independent evil volition due to their inviting hunger for the same? (Demons)

3) Have you yourself directly suffered from looking into the abyss, as it peers back into the unresolved void that the depth of your curiosity creates within yourself as Friedrich Nietzsche suggests?

“Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster. And if you gaze long enough into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you.”

Sometimes I feel this way about the paranormal, especially UFOs. As many have determined due to their own cavernous misfortunes, the hunter can become the hunted, the ravenously hungry are quite often too soon to be devoured.
 
1. Do you have any cases of Men in Black type encounters in Ohio over the years.

2. Are there any paranormal "hotspots" in Ohio?

3. What are the most interesting cryptozoological cases you've heard of?
 
Back
Top