Shatner's Weird or What? on the SyFy Channel

I'm always up for a paranormal themed show, but, always, have to remind myself: it's really, in the end, all just para-tainment. Nothing deep and certainly nothing that is true shall be revealed.

And, most of these shows (with some rare exceptions) have the need to include skeptics debunkers -- for, as they'll tell us, "balance." In reality, these so-called skeptics assume much in their expected snarky ways, or re-enact paranormal events in order to "prove" such things don't exist. As if, my painting of a pear proves pears don't exist -- after all, I re-created it, didn't I?

It's always fun to watch Shatner, whether it's vintage Star Trek television episodes, reruns of Boston Legal . . . that's a given, that it's fun to watch Shatner.

So what do I think about his latest venture, Weird or What? Not quite sure yet, but I find myself after watching two episodes, irritated. Debunkers, silly stuff in the kitchen to underscore the episode's theme,  and no meaty conclusions at the end. In other words, typical of Sy Fy, as well as shows of this genre in general.

I haven't given up yet however. If you're a UFO-paranormal-Fortean nerd like I am, you might find Weird or What mildly entertaining in a guilty sort of way, like indulging in some kind of yummy creamy dessert you know you really shouldn't have. Maybe.

Binnall of America Season Six: Brad Steiger, Whitley Streiber

Do not miss this! binnall of america : audio

The long and winding road that has been BoA:Audio, Season Six reaches its destination as the incomparable Brad Steiger returns to the program for our Season Finale. Over the course of this remarkable conversation we'll discuss WWII table tipping, how the Internet has changed the paranormal, 2012 and apocolyptic thinking, ancient civilizations, the Hollow Earth, and parallel species living on Earth (i.e. elementals), the UFO phenomenon and Ufology, Long John Nebel, Aleister Crowley, paranormal research in the 1960's, and the state of the world as we roll through 2012.

It's a truly is an episode for the ages as Brad Steiger makes his long awaited return to BoA:Audio and helps us close out Season Six in style.

From Ghost Hunting Theories: Most Notable Paranormal Shows Ever

Ghost Hunting Theories blog lists her top paranormal shows: Ghost Hunting Theories: Most Notable Paranormal Shows Ever Glad she included UFO Hunters! Some of her picks I agree with, others not, but read her choices for yourselves and see what you think!

Free Download: Flying Saucers Are Real

Donald Keyhoe's 1950 book Flying Saucers Are Real available for free; public domain: The Flying Saucers Are Real Cover art is classic!

USSR Did Roswell: Muddled Disclosures

Supposedly. Could be. In UFO World, anything is possible. Journalist Annie Jacobsen, author of Area 51, acknowledges there's definitely insidious and strange events going on in Area 51 and the UFO realm generally, but it's not aliens. (No, it could never be aliens.) Jacobsen and her book is currently making the mainstream circuit, including a recent appearance on Jon Stewart's The Daily Show. I knew before she came on that Stewart, who I adore, would mock any hint of alien/UFO reality, since it seems to be an affliction of the majority of the liberal-left-hip to sneer at fringe subjects. He didn't disappoint.

Jacobsen's contention is that yes, weirdness abounds but it's not aliens. It's the USSR and Nazi experiments behind the Roswell crash. And so much more, but all of these strange events have been orchestrated by humans. ET has nothing to do it, nor cryptids or vortexes or magick or anything other than human Dr. Evils.

Jacobsen has interesting ideas about what on, but there's no proof. As is admitted by everyone, but that seems to be all right, for Jacobsen is a legitimate journalist and not some tin-foil hat wearing conspiracy theorist:

Still, lack of proof hasn't exactly stopped the book from sparking speculation on the media circuit and on the Web. In the last day, Yahoo! searches skyrocketed 3,000 percent for "area 51 book." And the tome is penned not by a crackpot conspirator, but a respected journalist.

I'm impatient and cynical with this distracting crap, because it's muddled disinfo. (Which is probably an oxymoron.) Jacobsen's story gets attention, while all the other UFO stories, including abduction stories sans Nazi bastards-Dr. Evils-government experiments, continue to go utterly ignored, utterly mocked. Meanwhile, journalists, writers, researchers, scientists -- those "respected journalists" and the like --  who know nothing of the esoteric world yet decide to take a swim in the sparkling waters for a look-see are blind to what they consider nonsense. They come out with one small bit, show it off as the latest in theory, and happily go back to their rational worlds. Everyone thinks something groovy-weird has just been revealed, and all has been solved: including the "nonsense" of UFOs. Because, as has just been proven, no such things exist. It was really Russia, or Nazis, or ...

We're not done yet. The fact is, there very well could be some truth to these theories. Nick Redfern's book Bodysnatchers in the Desert  brought explored the idea of human experiments and manipulations as the cause for Roswell. MILABS are a very real possibility, and some UFO witnesses and researchers have been writing about this for a long time. Ironically, among UFO researchers, the MILAB "conspiracy" doesn't get much attention.

It's not that Jacobsen's story couldn't be true, or, some of it could be true...it's that once again, our attention from the reality of the UFO phenomena is trivialized and further pushed out to the edges. UFOs, the mainstream continues to insist, are entertaining and fun funny, but they're not real.

If Jacobsen's contentions somehow prove to be valid, (and/or Redfern's, etc.) that is horrifying, and the world needs to know. But what will happen in that event is that the many will accept that as the explanation for all of "it." Once again, we go back to clean dichotomies, something both the mainstream and many within UFOlgy are guilty of enacting.  It has to be this theory or that theory,  it's all aliens or it's all human psychopaths.

As I said, I'm impatient with this mainstream UFO denying stuff, but Nick Redfern has a calmer take on Jacobsen's book, giving us a bit of  background and data that is helpful, even if it does push us further down the rabbit hole. (Once you've fallen in, you just keep falling...:) You can read his review here.

Stan Gordon’s UFO Anomalies Zone (SGUAZ)

Just ordered Stan Gordon's new book: Silent Invasion: The Pennsylvania UFO-Bigfoot Casebook. I'm looking forward to reading this one, as the Bigfoot-UFO phenomena is one of my favorite cryptid/Fortean high strangeness mysteries to explore.


Gordon will be one of the speakers at the annual McMinnville, Oregon UFO Fest this May. I'll be there!

Stan Gordon’s UFO Anomalies Zone (SGUAZ)

The Interstellar Housewife: Paratopia Magazine: Preview

Deidre O'Lavery reviews Jeremy Vaeni and Jeff Ritzman's new Paratopia magazine preview: The Interstellar Housewife: Paratopia Magazine: Preview Deirdre comments:

 Paratopia pulls no punches with this puppy, building ever further on their case against hypnotic regression as a useful tool for abduction research and the lack of accountability by it's major players, namely Budd Hopkins and David Jacobs.

The Priests of High Strangeness, Carol Rainey's article on her close experiences with Budd Hopkins and his alien abduction research, starts things off -- and let me tell you, it's quite a powerful piece. If it doesn't get more of you looking at this area of Ufology with a more skeptical eye, I'm not sure anything will.

I agree with O'Lavery; Carol Rainey's The Priests of High Strangeness is an excellent article that has already ticked off many... as they did with Emma Woods, who labeled her as "crazy," "unbalanced" "trouble maker" and worse, attacks have begun on Rainey: "jilted," "scorned woman," and so on. Rainey was married to Budd Hopkins, close friend of David Jacobs and UFO researcher in his own right. She discusses many individual cases researched by Hopkins, and herself, during their marriage, and there is much there about the role of researcher, and the researcher/witness dynamic.

On UFOs, et al: Review of 'Journal of a UFO Investigator'

I'm still reading my copy of David Halperin's new book Journal of a UFO Investigator, so cannot review it yet. So far however, I am enjoying it -- I was surprised, right away, at how quickly Halperin brings you into the story. But here is a review you can read in the meantime, over on the UFOs, et all blog:UFOs, et al: DAVID HALPERIN & LORALEIGH

And here's more about the book on Halperin's site.

My Review of Sali Shepherd Wolford's Valley of the Skookum

I loved this book, couldn't put it down. Sali Sheppard-Wolford is mother to Bigfoot researcher  and author Autumn Williams, whose<u> Enoch</u> is fantastic. More on that book later. Meanwhile, enjoy! (You can also read the review at Amazon.com)

Valley of the Skookum: Four Years of Encounters With Bigfoot (Paperback) 

I started reading Sali Sheppard-Wolford's Valley of the Skookum, and I couldn't put it down. I stayed up until 3:30 a.m. reading it, almost getting to the end but not quite, and finished it the next day. (Sali Sheppard-Wolford is mother to Bigfoot researcher Autumn Williams. )


I expected to find the book interesting, but had no idea I would be so drawn to it. And I'm not sure why I felt such a strong connection and a familiarity with the topic as I was reading the book. Part of that connection might be due to Sali's writing style, simple and honest, a personal narrative of highly strange experiences. Sali writes about her years living in a remote place in Washington, with her young children, including Autumn, who was the youngest, staying at home with her mother during the day. Sali (and eventually the entire family) encounter Bigfoot, along with many other high strangeness events, including UFOs and orbs of light.


There's a beauty to this story and I can't put my finger on it. As I said, there was an echo of something that kept tugging at me. That aside, her experiences, while unique, do parallel other "LTW" (long term witnesses, as Autumn Williams calls them) of `paranormal" Bigfoot encounters.


This isn't fiction. This could be seen as a bold statement, after all, all this supernatural Bigfoot stuff causes so many researchers to gnash their teeth at the very thought of such things. But there are only two possibilities: one, she's lying. Or two, she's not. I don't think she's lying, so she's telling the truth. I choose to believe she's telling the truth. For one thing, her narrative style rings true. For another, as unbelievable as it may sound to some, her story isn't an isolated one. There are other witnesses out there with strange tales involving "high strangeness" Bigfoot encounters. Bigfoot researcher Autumn Williams (her daughter, and author of the Bigfoot book Enoch) saw Sasquatch when she was a child, confirming Sali's account. And lastly, I had the pleasure of seeing Sali Sheppard-Wolford give her presentation at the recent Oregon Sasquatch Symposium (which was a great conference all around) and it is clear Shepherd-Wolford is telling the truth.

pastel oil sketch of orange orb seen on Lorane Hwy, Eugene, OR

One of the things Sali writes about are orange orbs seen by herself and witnesses in the area. At times they're described as "basket ball sized" and when I read that, I almost fell off the bed. I've been collecting sighting reports of orange orbs for some time, and often they're orange "orbs" that are really pinpoints, or star sized, orange lights. The orange orb I saw so many years ago here in Oregon can be described as "basket ball sized." 

Impossible to know if these were the same kind of lights, or if the orbs in Sali Shepherd-Woolford's book have anything to do with Bigfoot. It's possible they do, it's possible the area is full of energy that caused these things to occur. Keep in mind that when I say "UFO" it doesn't mean flying saucer (necessarily.) In this context, I don't think they were. Of course, I wasn't there.


It is a fantastic story. And it may all seem a little much; psychic traits, psychic vampirism or energy drains, UFOs, MIBS, and Bigfoot. Sounds like a cheesy sci fi movie. As impossible as it may sound to some, there are people who've experienced these things. I know, because I know some of these people myself, and I've experienced a lot of these things myself.


It's a simple, honest and beautiful book.