Radio Misterioso

The man known as “Red Pill Junkie” has long been a mystery to me. He started commenting on the old UFOMystic site a few years ago with thought-provoking ideas and always seemed to move the discussion to a new level or make us aware of developments that were little-known at the time. Eventually, he caught the attention of bloggers and luminaries such as Micah Hanks and became a columnist and blogger in his own right. The conversation was like talking to someone I had known for years, especially since we seemed to have been influenced by many of the same people and ideas. The talk veered from concepts of God to how legitimate the practice of channeling might be to the use of the Chupacabra mystery as a coverup for political corruption in Mexico. As requested by RPJ, the show opens with part of a song called “El Aparato” by Cafe Tacuba, which is about a UFO abduction.

Here’s one of those “alternating with weird music” interludes advertised at the top of the page. Gorightly suggested that I post this because he liked (most of) the music. Weirdness included a DEVO hit played on an old push-button phone, another space monkey song, and a little Tenesee Ernie Ford for my dad’s birthday. Listener Steph called in to talk about poltergeists and the history of our interest in the paranormal.

Kenn Thomas, author of landmark books such as The Octopus and JFK and UFO, joined me last week to announce his retirement from the JFK assassination research community. He’s made his contribution, he says, and awaits others to continue in his footsteps. We talked about the basics of the the assassination and why it still matters. Kenn brought up a few new issues that appeared in advance of the 50th anniversary of the event, such as a NOVA special that supports the single-bullet theory. He also went into some detail about his research into the shadowy figure of Fred Crisman and his possible involvement, as outlined in JFK and UFO. We went on to talk about the burnout factor in conspiracy and paranormal research, and a few people who we think are carrying on some of these traditions of questioning the status quo. I’ve known Kenn for over 15 years, so of course I had no list of questions or topics. We mostly just talked.

Albert Rosales is someone I didn’t know I wanted to interview until Tim Binnall stated the obvious: Why not just ask him? Albert and I talked about his own history of strange encounters, which led him to create his incredible … Continue reading →

Tim Binnall joined me again last week to talk about his recent guests on Binnall Of America, how we conduct interviews, and to announce that I had officially won the 2013 BoA baseball pool, among many other subjects. We also … Continue reading →

Fortean and all-around expert writer Skylaire Alfvegren and psychology professor Tim Brigham joined me for a rambling discussion about subjects ranging from the psychological makeup of UFO witnesses to the reasons for Nick Redfern’s work ethic to contactee airplane pilots. … Continue reading →

Owls figure prominently in abduction accounts and literature, and Mike Clelland has become the point man for this aspect of the phenomenon. Mike is a very talented illustrator (most notably for Mac Tonnies’ Cryptoterrestrials.) He is willing to entertain almost … Continue reading →

Paul and I have been friends since 2006. In that time, we have agreed on many things, disagreed on others, and not taken any of it too seriously. I have also seen Paul go from a fairly hard-line stance on … Continue reading →

There is a huge mythology surrounding the so-called Dulce underground base in northwestern New Mexico. Most if not all of the stories surrounding this subject were started as disinfo from government sources. My guest Greg Valdez was on the front … Continue reading →

Chris has a new book in the works and it may be his best to date. He is probably one of the best known and respected “cattle mutilation” researchers in the world, and his next book (entitled Stalking The Herd) … Continue reading →

Historically, the subject of the Flying Saucer Contactees has been anathema to "serious" UFO research groups, and this is one of the reasons why we discuss it regularly on this program. A.J. Gulyas has just written a scholarly historical treatment of this underrated movement (entitled Extraterrestrials and the American Zeitgeist) and we dissected it on June 9th. Aaron is a history professor at Mott Community College in Flint, Michigan Aaron says, ultimately, that the question of the Contactees boils down to this: "Why did they decide that making up easily disprovable stories about space brothers was the best way to get their political ideas out to the people?" This may surprise (and even disturb) some, but we both agree that at least some of the contactees may have actually had some sort of paranormal experiences. We also went into a lengthy comparison of John Keel's Mothman Prophecies as compared to Gray Barker's The Silver Bridge and decided that Barker's book is ultimately the hipper, cooler version of the Mothman story. We also talked about the strange book Trance Formation of America and its weird, hilarious and disturbing tales of personal abuse and intrigue by elements of the U.S. power structure. There was also a segment where we tried to top each other with vintage Contactee books that we have in our collections. This was just the sort of rambling conversation that I always love and I hope you do too.

Last Sunday, Mr. Fab from the excellent Music For Maniacs blog brought along some more gems from the strange and wonderful world of outsider sounds. The wonderfulness began with a piece which incorporated audio from early UFO "abductee" Herbert Schirmer. We followed with such nuggets as a five-year old singing about why "You Make Me So Crazy," a refreshing ripoff of "In A Gadda Da Vida/ Wild Thing" by a Bollywood singer, and a song about sex with hamsters. Of course William Shatner makes an appearance covering "Silver Machine,"a 1967 composition by the Brit hippie band Hawkwind. A complete list of tracks can be seen at Mr Fab's site.

Walter Bosley's new book is called Empire Of The Wheel Part II: Friends From Sonora. It is the second in a trilogy of non-fiction books examining little-known intrigue surrounding an unsolved murder of a mysterious woman which happened almost a century ago in Southern California. Walter discussed his research and revelations about the identity of the woman and her possible connections to the airship mystery of the late 19th century, German immigrants who may have been operating flying machines in the US before the Civil War, and two of the most famous outlaws of the old wild west. Some of you may remember Walter's background includes stints as in the FBI and the Air Force Office of Special Investigations. In the last part of the show, we looked at Sgt. Richard Doty's Air Force record (sent to me recently by researcher Alejandro Rojas) and discussed the implications of this legally released material.

Tim Cridland is known to most of the world as "Zamora The Torture King." There is plenty available online about his carnival acts of flesh piercing, sword swallowing, fire eating and laying on beds of nails. What many people are not aware of is that Tim is a scholar of the strange and has been ever since he published the landmark independent magazine Off The Deep End in the late 1980s and early '90s. I was a big fan of the publication, which featured such adventures as an interview titled "Walking The Dog With Phil Klass." Tim and I discussed this during the over 2 hours that he stopped by my house yesterday. The new digital recorder was there to pick it all up. We also talked about Tim's theory that Klass may have been the hoaxer of the MJ-12 documents, manifested thoughtforms, magicians who experience actual magic effects, the fundamentalist skeptic mindset, and Tim's research into Alan Le Baron, a self-taught archaeologist who in the early 1920s claimed that the deserts of Nevada were the cradle of humankind.

On April 14th, longtime paranormal researcher Brent Raynes joined me for a very fun and synchronistic couple of hours. I could have sworn that he looked up info on me beforehand as he mentioned my middle name and birthday seemingly out of nowhere in the course of talking about his investigations. Very strange. We talked about his long-running magazine, Alternate Perceptions, his association with researcher Dr. Greg Little, the importance of truly strange UFO cases, and experiments and adventures with the spirit box. We ended with an discussion of Peruvian whistling vessels, which are claimed to put listeners in altered states. Thanks for all of your patience while life and problems with those interwebs have conspired to keep us apart.