The Paracast Newsletter
August 4, 2024
www.theparacast.com
Discover the Incredible Suppressed History of "Lost America" and the Entire World with Explorer Rick Osmon on The Paracast!
The Paracast is released every Sunday and available from our site, https://www.theparacast.com, your favorite podcast app, and the IRN Internet Radio Network. All episodes from 2022, 2023 and 2024 now feature better audio and fewer ads.
WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOU HAVEN'T SIGNED UP FOR THE PARACAST+ YET? PLEASE SUBSCRIBE TO THE PARACAST+ SO YOU CAN SUPPORT THE SHOW AND ENJOY THE ULTIMATE PARACAST EXPERIENCE AT A SPECIAL LOW PRICE! We have another radio show and we’d love for you listen to it. So for a low subscription fee, you will receive access to an exclusive bonus podcast, After The Paracast, plus a special version of The Paracast with all the ads removed, when you join The Paracast+. We also offer a special RSS feed for easy updates of the latest episodes on your device, and those episodes are now released 12-24 hours earlier. Flash! Take advantage of our lowest rates ever! Act now! It's easier than ever to susbcribe! For the easiest signup ever, please visit: https://www.theparacast.plus
This Week's Episode: Gene and cohost Tim Swartz discuss the suppressed secrets of early America and other parts of the world with Rick Osmon. At the top of the agenda is "Lost America," a docutainment streaming video series about ancient places, ancient people, and ancient mysteries. Osman and his crew explore those people, places, and things in North America that don't seem to fit the narrative we heard in school about the people who lived here before us. They also explore some of the ugly events that happened in the history of the United States to suppress the truth about such things, some of which involve famous figures in the country's history. And that's just the beginning. You can check out a trailer for "Lost America" at Vimeo. In his prior life, Osmon worked in the defense industry for more than 25 years in sensor systems acquisition and testing. Radar, LIDAR, Night vision, laser aiming and target designation systems, and navigation aids were his main areas of regard. He brought those technical skills to bear in investigating ancient mysteries.
After The Paracast — Available exclusively for Paracast+ subscribers on August 4: Explorer Rick Osmon returns to discuss the suppressed history of "Lost America" and other parts of the world. Speaking with Gene and cohost Tim Swartz, Osmon will focus on the controversial theories of Immanuel Velikovsky, author of several books offering revised interpretations of catastrophic events throughout history. Also on the Agenda: Such curious phenomena as the "face on Mars," discoveries of ancient humans, such as the Kennewick Man and how archeologists have ignored or suppressed compelling evidence of advanced ancient civilizations. And what about the possibilities of a breakaway civilization hidden away from prying human eyes? You can check out a trailer for his series on revised or suppressed history, "Lost America," at Vimeo. In his prior life, Osmon worked in the defense industry for more than 25 years in sensor systems acquisition and testing. Radar, LIDAR, Night vision, laser aiming and target designation systems, and navigation aids were his main areas of regard. He brought those technical skills to bear in investigating ancient mysteries.
Reminder: Please don't forget to visit our famous Paracast Community Forums for the latest news/views/debates on all things paranormal: The Paracast Community Forums.
What I Learned About the History of UFOs
By Greg Eghigian
Author of After the Flying Saucers Came: A Global History of the UFO Phenomenon
I get asked a lot about how I became interested in writing about the history of UFOs and the world’s obsession with them. Like so many fascinated with the unidentified flying object phenomenon, my interest in it started when I was a kid. I read everything about them I could back then, spending a lot of time in my local public library picking up and reading whatever I found on the topic on the shelves there. I read books by Coral and Jim Lorenzen about strange and unsettling alien encounters, Charles Berlitz on the Bermuda Triangle, J. Allen Hynek on analyzing sightings, John Fuller detailing the experience of Betty and Barney Hill, Erich von Däniken’s theory of ancient astronauts, and Carl Sagan’s skeptical take on all of these.
I’m not sure what exactly motivated me so much at the time. I think it may have simply been the idea that there seemed to be other worlds and other beings out there in the universe who were going to reveal themselves to us one day. What would they be like? What did they want from us? It was all so strange and bewildering.
By the time I was in college, my interests veered off into other directions. I studied theater for a while, then psychology. I became ever more fascinated by how human beings think, feel, and behave, and how they sometimes find themselves mentally adrift, unhappy, or distressed. I was sure this meant that I should become a clinical psychologist or psychiatrist. But along the way, I developed a love of history. It seemed to me that, as a field of knowledge, history offered the most satisfying explanations for the way the world works.
And so, I pursued training and a career in modern European history. I never cast aside my interest in psychology, though. And over the years, most of what I have taught and written about has been about the ways in which scientists and doctors in the modern world have tried to make sense of and handle those people, behaviors, and ideas deemed to be different, deviant, or downright dangerous: the disabled, delinquents, the mentally ill, criminals, among others.
Then, after a long period of time pursuing these other interests, I returned to UFOs more than a decade ago. On a lark, I had decided to look over some postwar German newspapers during the late-1940s and early-1950s to see if there was any coverage back then about “flying saucers.” Sure enough, there was. Once again, I was drawn in and resolved to write a book. This time, I was revisiting what had first captured my attention in my youth but now through my eyes as a professional historian, poring over old newsletters, magazines, and books dating back to the very beginnings of the flying saucer era more than seventy-five years ago.
Things sure look different to me this time around. It isn’t that I somehow understand the phenomenon itself any better. In many ways, I think the experiences some witnesses describe having now seem to me even more puzzling than before. No, I’m no wiser on that count.
Instead, I realize that I had never fully appreciated just how much hard work went into reporting, studying, analyzing, and discussing the incidents I had read with so much enthusiasm. I had never joined a UFO organization; never interviewed a witness; never attended a UFO conference; never even subscribed to any UFO periodicals. I had been content being an armchair enthusiast – something I think many people were and still are happy to do as well.
Now, I see that across the world countless people donated a lot of their free time – and money, it has to be said – to organizing groups and events, collecting and assessing reports, and writing up cases. The dedication and energy they showed over the decades has left an enduring impression on me.
For most, this was no simple hobby. It was something they felt compelled to do, in the conviction that they were among a group of individuals who were on the cusp of a great discovery. As Gene’s old friend and one of Ufology’s luminaries, Jim Moseley, once put it, “we were on to something those of the mundane world didn’t – and maybe couldn’t – get. We were certain the answer to the flying saucer enigma was just around the corner, and each of us was playing a part in it cracking the case.”
Once I understood that, I realized I had found the key to approaching the history of UFOs, and the approach I would have to take in writing my book. It would be to tell the story of how various people, groups, and institutions shaped the way the UFO phenomenon has been understood. To do this means looking at that history with a much wider lens than is commonly done by writers and cable TV documentaries. That’s because the phenomenon has not just been about the experiences witnesses have had but also about how those experiences got translated into reports and stories and then, in turn, how those reports and stories led to investigations, analyses, speculations, and discussions.
J. Allen Hynek was fond of saying, we don’t study UFO sightings – we study UFO reports of sightings. In other words, there’s always been somebody – someone often unacknowledged and oftentimes more than one person – who stood in between a UFO sighting and what we come to hear about that sighting. Someone answered the phone or replied to a letter; someone asked questions, took notes, asked follow-up questions, wrote up their notes, and gave the final report to their superiors, entered it into a log, or published it in a bulletin or periodical.
The bottom line is this. You can’t make sense of the history of UFOs just by looking alone at famous UFO cases or recounting the testimony of witnesses. Ufologists, UFO publications and organizations, newspapers, magazines, journalists, editors, social media, academics, military intelligence agencies, legislators, policymakers, debunkers, filmmakers, science fiction writers, and followers of UFO news: all of them have contributed to making the UFO phenomenon what it has been and what it is today.
Once you appreciate that fact, it seems to me it obligates any serious historian to adopt an attitude I did in my book – namely, don’t play judge and jury. No matter whether you feel that some writer was correct about the nature of UFOs, or whether you suspect someone was a blatant liar or con artist, or whether you believe another was treated unjustly, it does not help refine your historical evaluations and interpretations when you go on a crusade or have an axe to grind. The responsible historian’s job is to identify the parts everyone and everything – even those historical figures or ideas you may dislike – played in the grand drama surrounding unidentified flying objects. History is too messy for easy answers.
Copyright 1999-2024 The Paracast Company. 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!
August 4, 2024
www.theparacast.com
Discover the Incredible Suppressed History of "Lost America" and the Entire World with Explorer Rick Osmon on The Paracast!
The Paracast is released every Sunday and available from our site, https://www.theparacast.com, your favorite podcast app, and the IRN Internet Radio Network. All episodes from 2022, 2023 and 2024 now feature better audio and fewer ads.
WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOU HAVEN'T SIGNED UP FOR THE PARACAST+ YET? PLEASE SUBSCRIBE TO THE PARACAST+ SO YOU CAN SUPPORT THE SHOW AND ENJOY THE ULTIMATE PARACAST EXPERIENCE AT A SPECIAL LOW PRICE! We have another radio show and we’d love for you listen to it. So for a low subscription fee, you will receive access to an exclusive bonus podcast, After The Paracast, plus a special version of The Paracast with all the ads removed, when you join The Paracast+. We also offer a special RSS feed for easy updates of the latest episodes on your device, and those episodes are now released 12-24 hours earlier. Flash! Take advantage of our lowest rates ever! Act now! It's easier than ever to susbcribe! For the easiest signup ever, please visit: https://www.theparacast.plus
This Week's Episode: Gene and cohost Tim Swartz discuss the suppressed secrets of early America and other parts of the world with Rick Osmon. At the top of the agenda is "Lost America," a docutainment streaming video series about ancient places, ancient people, and ancient mysteries. Osman and his crew explore those people, places, and things in North America that don't seem to fit the narrative we heard in school about the people who lived here before us. They also explore some of the ugly events that happened in the history of the United States to suppress the truth about such things, some of which involve famous figures in the country's history. And that's just the beginning. You can check out a trailer for "Lost America" at Vimeo. In his prior life, Osmon worked in the defense industry for more than 25 years in sensor systems acquisition and testing. Radar, LIDAR, Night vision, laser aiming and target designation systems, and navigation aids were his main areas of regard. He brought those technical skills to bear in investigating ancient mysteries.
After The Paracast — Available exclusively for Paracast+ subscribers on August 4: Explorer Rick Osmon returns to discuss the suppressed history of "Lost America" and other parts of the world. Speaking with Gene and cohost Tim Swartz, Osmon will focus on the controversial theories of Immanuel Velikovsky, author of several books offering revised interpretations of catastrophic events throughout history. Also on the Agenda: Such curious phenomena as the "face on Mars," discoveries of ancient humans, such as the Kennewick Man and how archeologists have ignored or suppressed compelling evidence of advanced ancient civilizations. And what about the possibilities of a breakaway civilization hidden away from prying human eyes? You can check out a trailer for his series on revised or suppressed history, "Lost America," at Vimeo. In his prior life, Osmon worked in the defense industry for more than 25 years in sensor systems acquisition and testing. Radar, LIDAR, Night vision, laser aiming and target designation systems, and navigation aids were his main areas of regard. He brought those technical skills to bear in investigating ancient mysteries.
Reminder: Please don't forget to visit our famous Paracast Community Forums for the latest news/views/debates on all things paranormal: The Paracast Community Forums.
What I Learned About the History of UFOs
By Greg Eghigian
Author of After the Flying Saucers Came: A Global History of the UFO Phenomenon
I get asked a lot about how I became interested in writing about the history of UFOs and the world’s obsession with them. Like so many fascinated with the unidentified flying object phenomenon, my interest in it started when I was a kid. I read everything about them I could back then, spending a lot of time in my local public library picking up and reading whatever I found on the topic on the shelves there. I read books by Coral and Jim Lorenzen about strange and unsettling alien encounters, Charles Berlitz on the Bermuda Triangle, J. Allen Hynek on analyzing sightings, John Fuller detailing the experience of Betty and Barney Hill, Erich von Däniken’s theory of ancient astronauts, and Carl Sagan’s skeptical take on all of these.
I’m not sure what exactly motivated me so much at the time. I think it may have simply been the idea that there seemed to be other worlds and other beings out there in the universe who were going to reveal themselves to us one day. What would they be like? What did they want from us? It was all so strange and bewildering.
By the time I was in college, my interests veered off into other directions. I studied theater for a while, then psychology. I became ever more fascinated by how human beings think, feel, and behave, and how they sometimes find themselves mentally adrift, unhappy, or distressed. I was sure this meant that I should become a clinical psychologist or psychiatrist. But along the way, I developed a love of history. It seemed to me that, as a field of knowledge, history offered the most satisfying explanations for the way the world works.
And so, I pursued training and a career in modern European history. I never cast aside my interest in psychology, though. And over the years, most of what I have taught and written about has been about the ways in which scientists and doctors in the modern world have tried to make sense of and handle those people, behaviors, and ideas deemed to be different, deviant, or downright dangerous: the disabled, delinquents, the mentally ill, criminals, among others.
Then, after a long period of time pursuing these other interests, I returned to UFOs more than a decade ago. On a lark, I had decided to look over some postwar German newspapers during the late-1940s and early-1950s to see if there was any coverage back then about “flying saucers.” Sure enough, there was. Once again, I was drawn in and resolved to write a book. This time, I was revisiting what had first captured my attention in my youth but now through my eyes as a professional historian, poring over old newsletters, magazines, and books dating back to the very beginnings of the flying saucer era more than seventy-five years ago.
Things sure look different to me this time around. It isn’t that I somehow understand the phenomenon itself any better. In many ways, I think the experiences some witnesses describe having now seem to me even more puzzling than before. No, I’m no wiser on that count.
Instead, I realize that I had never fully appreciated just how much hard work went into reporting, studying, analyzing, and discussing the incidents I had read with so much enthusiasm. I had never joined a UFO organization; never interviewed a witness; never attended a UFO conference; never even subscribed to any UFO periodicals. I had been content being an armchair enthusiast – something I think many people were and still are happy to do as well.
Now, I see that across the world countless people donated a lot of their free time – and money, it has to be said – to organizing groups and events, collecting and assessing reports, and writing up cases. The dedication and energy they showed over the decades has left an enduring impression on me.
For most, this was no simple hobby. It was something they felt compelled to do, in the conviction that they were among a group of individuals who were on the cusp of a great discovery. As Gene’s old friend and one of Ufology’s luminaries, Jim Moseley, once put it, “we were on to something those of the mundane world didn’t – and maybe couldn’t – get. We were certain the answer to the flying saucer enigma was just around the corner, and each of us was playing a part in it cracking the case.”
Once I understood that, I realized I had found the key to approaching the history of UFOs, and the approach I would have to take in writing my book. It would be to tell the story of how various people, groups, and institutions shaped the way the UFO phenomenon has been understood. To do this means looking at that history with a much wider lens than is commonly done by writers and cable TV documentaries. That’s because the phenomenon has not just been about the experiences witnesses have had but also about how those experiences got translated into reports and stories and then, in turn, how those reports and stories led to investigations, analyses, speculations, and discussions.
J. Allen Hynek was fond of saying, we don’t study UFO sightings – we study UFO reports of sightings. In other words, there’s always been somebody – someone often unacknowledged and oftentimes more than one person – who stood in between a UFO sighting and what we come to hear about that sighting. Someone answered the phone or replied to a letter; someone asked questions, took notes, asked follow-up questions, wrote up their notes, and gave the final report to their superiors, entered it into a log, or published it in a bulletin or periodical.
The bottom line is this. You can’t make sense of the history of UFOs just by looking alone at famous UFO cases or recounting the testimony of witnesses. Ufologists, UFO publications and organizations, newspapers, magazines, journalists, editors, social media, academics, military intelligence agencies, legislators, policymakers, debunkers, filmmakers, science fiction writers, and followers of UFO news: all of them have contributed to making the UFO phenomenon what it has been and what it is today.
Once you appreciate that fact, it seems to me it obligates any serious historian to adopt an attitude I did in my book – namely, don’t play judge and jury. No matter whether you feel that some writer was correct about the nature of UFOs, or whether you suspect someone was a blatant liar or con artist, or whether you believe another was treated unjustly, it does not help refine your historical evaluations and interpretations when you go on a crusade or have an axe to grind. The responsible historian’s job is to identify the parts everyone and everything – even those historical figures or ideas you may dislike – played in the grand drama surrounding unidentified flying objects. History is too messy for easy answers.
Copyright 1999-2024 The Paracast Company. 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!