Suggested Guests

[~Foo Fighter~]

Just FYI, I sent off an email today to one of the absolute highest powers within the Church of the Subgenius, asking about whether this clown was full of it. His response...

[size=medium]Correct. This ASSHOLE has jammed the Church for years and deserves to
be BURNT DOWN. He is a PLAGUE and I SHIT UPON HIM. May death find him
before I do.[/size]

'Nuff said.

dB

Nuff said if you give a fuck about the COSG...I don't.

But I'm not here to argue or pursuade. You say he isn't going to be on the show, so I'll not mention it again.

~Foo Fighter~

 

[David Biedny]

Foo Fighter,

It's OK, it's just that I'm very close friends with one of the founders, and have been into the SubGenius since I was a wee lad. No worries, I was just sharing...

dB

 

[digigeek]

Suggested Guests (Bill Birnes)

David and Gene,

You should get Bill Birnes back on soon and ask him what the heck they are doing with the History Channel show. I mean, it is one thing to get everyday folks into the topic, but quite another to do so by presenting the show in such a ridiculous way - most of the episodes are so full of holes and shoddy work that it makes me cringe. I would love to hear what Birnes has to say about this. I was really surprised when I saw the show, I expected much more from him.

 

[Siani]

I think Tony Dodd might make a good guest. He's a former RAF man, and was also a sergeant with a UK police force. He had a personal UFO sighting, whilst on duty with another police officer. He talks about it here:

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I've seen him deliver a lecture, and spoken to him by telephone (a long time ago), and he's an interesting speaker. I don't necessarily agree with everything he says, but I think he could make an interesting guest. He can apparently be contacted via this web page.

 

[freemars2259]

I second that, Tony Dodd as a former police officer, plus his time in the Royal Air Force make him very credible, and at the very least he can tell a good story.

 

[macavity]

Wow, Tony Dodd! There's a name I haven't heard in a while. I also heard him speak a long time ago (believe it was a UFO Magazine get together in Leeds in the 80s or early 90s). For some reason I didn't get the feeling he was all that credible - perhaps he seemed just *too* sure about things - and I thought the police officer angle was overplayed. He can tell a good story, though

 

[Graphimancer]

Unless Dodd has something new to add, I'm not sure what the point is. It seems to be the thing to have invite the old gaurd again and again. Marrs, Steiger, Mosley, Tonnies, and Friedman all seem like great guys, and tell good stories or have very established positions, but unless they have something new why keep revisiting them?

I think this why UFOlogy ate and digested itself decades ago, and nothing new has really developed.

If anything the kooks and the wackjobs and the practitioners of bad science brobably bring more new ideas to the field. I'm not saying that you need to have more crazy-ass people on, but someone needs to bust the old paradigms for anything new and substantial to develop.

Has anyone ever been on who stated: "I don't want disclosure. We can't trust the government anyway, so disclosure would further muddy up the field. So, no thanks." That's the kind of guest you need, iconoclasts to take it all to the next level.

 

[Siani]

I wouldn't really class Mac Tonnies in with the old guard. He's a young guy, with some very fresh ideas. I get your point about one or two of the others, I guess. But for some reason, we just aren't seeing too many younger people involved in this field. Off the top of my head, I can think of Nick Pope, Richard Dolan, Nick Redfern, Mac Tonnies, Paul Kimball and The Clueless One - and by young I mean 40-ish and under. It seems the old guard often have so much more to say - even if most of it has been said before. Where are all the young people in ufology? Are they there and I've just missed them?

 

[Graphimancer]

Point taken on Tonnies. (I even kind of like his ideas.)

My guess is that the young people don't come because

a) They are desensitized through entertainment to UFOs and aliens, so, unless they are experiencers themselves, ufo reports are nothing more than "cool." How can rotten ufo video stand up to Hollywood special effects?

b) There has been no sexy media venture to promote the field since the X-Files. (Well, I don't know this, because I haven't had a tv in years. Correct me if I'm wrong.) No big hit, like close encounters. No real juice in the Star Trek franchise. etc.

That's my guess. I'm middle-aged, so I have no real clue what turns kids on these days.

 

[Siani]

I'm middle-aged, so I have no real clue what turns kids on these days.

Join the club . Kids are a mystery to me, at the ripe old age of 42. Your point about desensitization is a very valid one. Plus kids seem awfully old and cynical these days, compared to my generation at their age.

Wasn't there a sci-fi series called Roswell? I watch very little TV myself, so I'm not too clued up on what sci-fi dramas are around these days.

A thought that has occurred to me (I do have thoughts occasionally, LOL), is that whenever UFOs are mentioned in the mainstream media, it's usually accompanied by jibes and sniggering. When I was a kid, there was no way I'd align myself with anything that was deemed uncool, and thereby, risk ridicule. So maybe that's a factor, too. It's a shame, as the whole field needs new blood and fresh minds.

 

[musictomyears]

Should aliens one day turn up at American Idol and sing karaoke whilst hovering across the stage, some kids might get curious. Failing that... Forget about it.

 

[schticknz]

Should aliens one day turn up at American Idol and sing karaoke whilst hovering across the stage, some kids might get curious. Failing that... Forget about it.

Although how do you know that some of the kids on American Idol haven't been aliens already??... I know I'm being facetious ... ... but I'm 40, and I'm getting increasingly disturbed and baffled by young people, how they get away with what they do and what they are into (culturally, musically etc). Is it just because I'm older or is pop culture, young persons culture, whatever you want to call it totally devoid of content of any kind, and utterly barren.

Case in point: Eerie Indiana ... brilliant imaginative early 90s kids tv ... its being repeated over here in New Zealand on a Sunday ... at 5AM in the bloody morning (don't worry, I've set my tape )!!!!

schtick ... increasingly getting grumpier with old(er) age

ps. the reason why kids aren't into UFOs is partly that they're more concerned about consumer items, money and peer status than things metaphysical or 'weird' ... even though an alien looking down on them from its mother ship would go 'blimey ... what a weird and strangely alien bunch you earth teenagers are' ...

 

[Poi]

On December 30th (07) John B. Wells interviewed on Coast Neil Howe who together with another author wrote The Fourth Turning. The team had decided to research how different generations of people had impacted history, but the curious thing they found was that there are four generational types throughout history who seem to repeat every twenty years or so. A new generation tends to throw off ideals and practices of the last while adopting what they favor, and is needed at the time, instead, but each has it's unique talents and has impacted in the same way its type has in the past, over and over.

Generational Cycles - Shows - Coast to Coast AM

It's one of the books on my list for required reading, but the reason I mention it here is because Howe describes Boomers as the artists capable of creating great music, art, forward thinking, etc. If he's correct, until the Boomer mentality rolls through to its cycle, we will not see a return of many of our values, practices and ideals and certainly not the level of artistic realization.

There are several years in which individuals fall within the cusp of preceding generations or into future generations so one must take into account maybe three generational aspects filtering through any given one, but most traits of each of the four generations are apt and describable. In other words, there's a good reason we can't understand our kids way of looking at the world. My kids fall under the tag of Millenials. Son fits it to a tee, but my daughter, born in 1980, is a child of the Gen Xers and Millenials. Until I heard this show on Coast, they never made sense to me. Really cool because the broader aspect, politics and the world situation comes into greater perspective too.

From an individual perspective, the four turnings don't seem to have as much impact, but on a basis of mass interaction and influence, it's pretty much on target, I think.

 

[Gil Bavel]

This may sound a little "outside", if anything can truly sound "outside" in this realm, but comic writer and author Grant Morrison would be an excellent guest for the Paracast. Grant is a practicing Chaos Magician, but as part of that he has some very interesting ideas about the nature of UFOs and alien abduction. He claims to be an alien abductee himself, having been taken in Timbuktu, but he claims that the aliens are earth's own antibodies, and the real threat comes from a dark diminsion. That's a drastic simplification of his essential ideas on this, but I can pretty much gaurantee that he would be an entertaining and informative guest.

If we're going to have abductees on, let's go with somebody that has a book or two out, and a history we can track.

I don't remember if Jim Sparks has been on, but he's very entertaining.

My vote would be for Leah Haley of Greenleaf Publications; her story of being aboard a saucer during an abductions when it was shot down by the military and being harassed by both the aliens and the military (black helicopters, weird noises on her phone) is extremely compelling. I've put on her lecture twice, and she's good people. Her story smacks of truth, and she certainly believes what she's saying. Her last book, Unlocking Alien Closets, was great. She was also a close friend of Karla Turner, who was doing very important work and was the ONLY researcher/abductee that was trying to convey a message that the aliens are to be avoided at all costs and only show us what they want us to see when she was struck down by a very rare and rapid form of cancer. By the time I got notice she was sick, she was already dead.

But Karla always used to say, "Abductees report alien-controlled information". That is, they don't report anything that the aliens don't want them to, and it can't be taken at face value. Both Leah Haley and Katharina Wilson (The Alien Jigsaw) worked with Karla, but I haven't heard from Wilson in a while, so I don't know what she's been up to recently.

Leah and Marc Davenport (Visitors from Time: The Secret of the UFOs) would both make excellent guests. They are solid, proven speakers, and they have very innovative ideas about the why and how of UFOs.

 

[Graphimancer]

"If we're going to have abductees on, let's go with somebody that has a book or two out, and a history we can track."

You mean, like Grant Morrison?

 

[The Ghost of Bill Hicks]

I would like to see a show focusing on the Bilderburg Group. Alex Jones would be a good one for this, (ego could be an issue), but no worse than Bill Birnes as far as shameless promotion.

 

[schticknz]

I would like to see a show focusing on the Bilderburg Group. Alex Jones would be a good one for this, (ego could be an issue), but no worse than Bill Birnes as far as shameless promotion.

I think if you're going to talk about the Bilderberg Group you should really get on Jim Tucker (James P. Tucker Jr) who has written about this, and tried to cover every meeting for something like 25 years or more.

Here's his 2007 report for the American Free Press (online version):

BILDERBERG 2007

I think if anyone knows anything about Bilderberg, Jim Tuckers your man rather than Alex Jones ... but thats just my humble opinion of course

 

[digigeek]

I'm middle-aged, so I have no real clue what turns kids on these days.

Join the club . Kids are a mystery to me, at the ripe old age of 42. Your point about desensitization is a very valid one. Plus kids seem awfully old and cynical these days, compared to my generation at their age.
...

Come on now. Most of that curmudgeonly stuff is a put on. I'm older than you and I totally "get" and appreciate my kids, the things they like, the way they are very curious about their world, and I even like a lot of what they are into...and they like a lot of things from my youth that I have introduced to them.

You guys sound just like your Dad's did when you were younger. Remember how the music you liked made perfect sense to him? Not! Have you forgotten how you promised yourself you would never get that cynical?

Everything around you is input and is important in its own context. Soak it up, filter it, take the good knowledge from it and live a happy life.

 

[Gil Bavel]

Would you guys like to start an "Indigo Children" thread? That's the closest thing I can think of that might be appropriate for what you're discussing.

How did we get off on this tangent?

Jim Tucker is a potential guest that, if we want him on the show, we'd better get him on soon. He's no spring chicken.

But you'll probably have an easier time with him than Jones. Jones claims to do several interviews a day, for Japanese TV and Canadian radio, etc. On top of his daily radio and once a week TV shows for public access and Internet consumption. I would think he would be a tough interview to get.

 

[Siani]

Come on now. Most of that curmudgeonly stuff is a put on. I'm older than you and I totally "get" and appreciate my kids, the things they like, the way they are very curious about their world, and I even like a lot of what they are into...and they like a lot of things from my youth that I have introduced to them.

You guys sound just like your Dad's did when you were younger. Remember how the music you liked made perfect sense to him? Not! Have you forgotten how you promised yourself you would never get that cynical?

Everything around you is input and is important in its own context. Soak it up, filter it, take the good knowledge from it and live a happy life.

Maybe you understand kids because you have some. I don't - so there's nothing 'put-on' about my failure to understand today's kids. The only frame of reference I have is to my own childhood days, which were very different to the way kids live here in the UK these days. BTW, I'm not a guy!