UFO$, Inc. - Volume 3

Whitley Strieber. So much could be said about his role as a leading figure in UFO$, Inc. given that he's been at it for so long, creating and selling memes that have taken firm root in the broader popular culture, always without a shred of evidence to back it up, in increasingly outlandish scenarios. I think his work can best be summed up with his latest escapade, which is helping to keep the Roswell Slides Scam alive in conjunction with fellow UFO$, Inc. board members, including Linda Moulton Howe.

If you want something that will make your stomach turn and your head spin at the same time then have a listen to Strieber, Howe, and slides promoter Jaime Maussan on Strieber's program recently, as they try to resurrect the slides story. It's appalling and fascinating in equal measure. You can tune in for what Strieber calls "the most astonishing Dreamland I have ever done" here.

But like a very small-scale Bilderbergers-like group, UFO$, Inc members are always willing to work with their colleagues in order to allow everyone to profit.

Paul Kimball

UFO$, Inc. - Volume I

For many people interested in the subject of UFOs, it is just a hobby. There are also the true believers, of course.

But for a small group, it's a corporation - UFO$, Inc. For them, it's all about the money. Like the entertainment industry, they constantly have to generate new content to stay profitable, almost always riffing on the same basic stories and themes that they have been pushing for decades. They are a transnational conglomerate, no different in principle from Exxon or Lockheed - Martin (even as they are clearly penny ante in terms of practical impact)... or, in a less formalized sense, the Bilderberg Group.

So I've decided, in the wake of the "Roswell Slides" fiasco, to list the people who clearly comprise the Board of Directors of UFO$, Inc.

Some of them are con men / women and frauds, a few are true believers in the flying saucer gospel who are also very adept at turning that belief into buckets of bucks, and some of them are a bit of both. I'll let you, the readers, decide into which category each Board member fits.

First up - Linda Moulton Howe, the grand dame of UFO$, Inc.

More to come.

Paul Kimball

Mac Tonnies and the Paranormal Mainstream

I had a long chat with my good friend Mac Tonnies this evening, which always makes me smile, because when we start talking to each other it feels like a jam session with the old band, where we would just play and play until we were played out (just check out our extended, extemporaneous riffing with Greg Bishop on our 2006 Radio Misterioso gig to see what I mean).

Mac is one of the brightest and most articulate people involved in the paranormal / esoteric field of study, and is always well worth a listen, even when, as is sometimes the case with me, one might disagree with him. It is to the enduring shame of Coast to Coast, that the likes of Richard C. Hoagland and Linda Moulton Howe make regular appearances and pretend that they know what they're talking about, whereas Mac has never been invited to be on the show. The Coast people are shortchanging their listeners - in a big way. So too are most conference organizers, who invite the likes of Michael Horn or Steven Greer, but routinely ignore guys like Mac, who might actually say something worth listening to.

What Coast and these conferences are doing, of course, is preaching to the converted. It was undoubtedly a sound business model in the past, but it will eventually run afoul of the law of diminishing returns, i.e. without some new blood with some new ideas, people will eventually get bored, and stop coming or listening. Given the declining numbers across the board at conferences, it should be clear that this process is already underway.

Of course, Mac isn't the guy you want at your conference or on your show if you just want to reinforce the audience's pre-existing beliefs, or to make them feel better. But if you want to challenge people, and stimulate them, and introduce them to ideas and concepts with which they may not be familiar - and isn't that what you should be doing - then Mac is one of the guys you want on board. But when was the last time that the "mainstream" paranormal / esoteric community actually wanted to challenge anyone with new ideas?

And there's the irony with the situation Mac finds himself in, and Greg Bishop, and others - in a field of study where the weird, wacky and far-out should be the coin of the realm, where ideas should matter, and where an intelligent discourse should be paramount, most people have settled for the familiar, comfortable, and easy-to-digest orthodoxy of the commercialized paranormal establishment. "Same old, same old" is the rule, not the exception. Which is why fewer and fewer people seem to care these days.

Religion may be the opiate of the masses in the general sense (or one of them), but in the paranormal / esoteric world, it's Coast to Coast, and Linda Moulton Howe, and Richard Hoagland, and most conferences, and so forth. The stagnation is palpable. It reeks of complacency.

It's not too late to change that, mind you. A good start would be for one of the Coast producers to give Mac a call, or shoot him an e-mail, and invite him on for a full three hour long show.

In the meantime, if you haven't done so, check out Mac's blog, The Posthuman Blues, which is an always interesting, and often amusing, grab bag of stuff, both paranormal and otherwise.

Paul Kimball