Nick Redfern's "Memoirs of a Monster Hunter"

My good friend Nick Redfern has a new book out, Memoirs of a Monster Hunter: A Five Year Journey in Search of the Unknown, that is a must-read for anyone who thinks a paranormal travelogue is a great idea. As always, Nick's breezy writing style engages the reader, and whisks them off to all sorts of strange places where Nick has tried to track down all sorts of strange creatures, from vampires to lake monsters. My favourite section is, of course, Chapter 15, which is about Nick's trip with yours truly and the Redstar crew to Puerto Rico in September, 2005, in search of the legendary chupacabra.

That was an exciting trip, with all sorts of twists and turns, witnesses, weird stories, odd coincidences, and so on (in the book Nick recounts a truly eerie MJ-12 story from his trip to Puerto Rico). As with all of his stories in the book, Nick brings our adventures alive for the reader, and makes it seem as if they were along for the ride.

I sometimes refer to myself as the "Jack Kerouac of the paranormal". If that's the case, then Nick is the "Hunter S. Thompson of the paranormal"... with perhaps a bit of Ernest Hemmingway thrown in for good measure. His writing informs and entertains in a field where authors tend to do one or the other, but rarely manage to do both at the same time (my pals Mac Tonnies and Greg Bishop are also welcome exceptions to this general rule).

In a brief passage in the aforementioned Chapter 15, Nick sums up nicely why he and I do what we do:

"That evening, we met in the bar for an evening of food and revelry... 'Life's never dull in this game, is it?' I asked Paul, in what was really a statement rather than a question. He heartily agreed. We toasted to a continued, productive week, and thanked God that we didn't have to work in the real world of 9-to-5. The conversation then turned to music, beer, gambling, and more, and bloodsucking vampires were forgotten about for the rest of the night."

Nick is one of those guys who gets exactly what Kerouac was talking about when he wrote:

"The only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn, like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars and in the middle you see the blue centerlight pop and everybody goes 'Awww!'"

There are plenty of "mad ones" in Memoirs of a Monster Hunter, an engaging journey through the strange world of the paranormal... and the sometimes even stranger world of Nick Redfern. Don't miss it.

Paul Kimball

2007 Zorgy Award nominations now open!!

Nominations for the 2007 Zorgy Awards are now open (you can see the 2006 results here). You can send your nominations for any of the following categories to Rear Admiral Zorgrot (seen above with Canadian actor Kris Lee McBride at the San Diego Zoo) at ZorgrotOnEarth@aol.com:

1. Best UFO / paranormal website [Magazine]

2. Best UFO / paranormalwebsite [forums]

3. Best UFO / paranormal website [news summary]

4. Best UFO / paranormal blog

5. Best UFO / paranormal radio show [non-Internet]

6. Best UFO / paranormal "Trouble-Maker"

7. Best UFO Podcast

8. Best UFO / paranormal publication (print)

9. Best UFO / paranormal research website

10. Best Ufologist

11. Best UFO documentary [released in 2007]

12. Best UFO conference

13. Best UFO book [released in 2007]

14. Top UFO story of 2007

15. Top Paranormal story of 2007

16. Best cryptozoologist

17. Best cryptozoology website

Nominations for The Pelicanist of the Year Award and The George Adamski Memorial Award will be determined by Zorgy and yours truly.

Nominations close November 10th - voting will commence soon thereafter, and run until December 31st. This year there will be statues for the winners, and an Internet broadcast awards ceremony!

Vox populi!

Paul Kimball

Peter Gersten interview - Part III

As the interview continues, Gersten talks about The Program and free will.

Paul Kimball

Peter Gersten interview - Part II

My interview with Peter Gersten continues, as he expands on his theory of "The Program" and what its end in 2012 will mean for him.

Paul Kimball

Peter Gersten interview - Part I

Part I of an interview I conducted with long-time UFO disclosure advocate Peter Gersten (co-founder of Citizens Against UFO Secrecy) in Sedona, Arizona, on 21 September, 2007. In this clip, Peter talks about 2012, and what it means to him.

Paul Kimball

Greg Bishop at the Integratron

Greg Bishop, Kris McBride and I travelled out to Yucca Valley, California, on the 2nd of October to shoot some footage of Giant Rock and the Integratron. Here Greg gives a brief description of what the Integratron was all about.

Paul Kimball

Greg Bishop on UFOs and Ufology

Author Greg Bishop (Project Beta, The Excluded Middle) discusses the state of modern ufology and how the study of the UFO phenomenon should be approached in this clip from an interview I conducted with him in his home in Los Angeles, 6 October 2007.

Paul Kimball

Stan Friedman on "working under security"

This is one of my favourite Stan stories. It didn't make it into Stanton T. Friedman is Real, but here it is from the 2000 pre-interview.

Incidentally, I always give my cameraman similar instructions with respect to taking care of the camera.

Paul Kimball

Review of Captured: The Betty and Barney Hill UFO Experience

Stan Friedman gets a nice review from my good pal, Halifax arts & entertainment critic Ron Foley MacDonald.

Paul Kimball

Fredericton UFO Expert Has Hot Summer
by Ron Foley MacDonald

World-renowned New Brunswick-based Unidentified Flying Object expert Stanton T. Friedman is having one hot summer. He just appeared on the widely seen CNN chat show Larry King Live to argue in support the possibility of extraterrestrial visits to earth; the former nuclear physicist has also just co-authored an exciting new book entitled Captured!: The Betty And Barney Hill UFO Experience.

This being the 60th Anniversary of the infamous 1947 UFO crash incident at Roswell in the American Southwest--of which Friedman is the leading civilian researcher--the affable Fredericton resident has been busy all across North America taking part in various UFO-conventions and commemorations surrounding the Roswell anniversary.

I caught Stanton T. Friedman at a Halifax Conference put on by Redstar Films last fall. He was a spellbinding speaker: funny, informed, and positively persuasive. I was looking forward to the new book--co-authored with Betty Hill's niece Kathleen Marden--because it would shed some light on what I think is the most puzzling and prominent UFO case since Roswell.

Captured! updates and deconstructs John Fuller's famous--but now out of print, alas--book The Interrupted Journey, which brought the Betty and Barney Hill story to a wide audience in the mid-1960s. Their tale reached an even bigger public in 1975 when a truly terrifying TV movie version starring James Earl Jones was broadcast on North American mainstream television.

I saw that movie as a teenager and it left an indelible impression. The nuts and bolts of the narrative are initially relatively simple. An inter-racial married couple, Barney and Betty Hill, believed they had an encounter with a UFO in September of 1961 in New Hampshire after driving down from a vacation in Canada.

They told only a few friends at first. After the couple began to experience disturbing nightmares, they contacted a psychiatrist who put them under hypnosis a couple of years later after a long course of preparitory treatment.

Astonishingly, Betty and Barney Hill recounted--under medical-supervised hypnosis--an amazing story of being taken aboard a UFO for some very uncomfortable tests. Betty even engaged in conversation with the aliens, and had them draw a star chart of where they came from. She re-drew the chart under hypnosis; it has become a key part in the controversy surrounding the Hill case.

Friedman and Marden go through the story step-by-step. They identify all of the major and minor players, and shed light on some of the short cuts that John Fuller took in constructing his version of the narrative.

All of this plays to Stanton T. Friedman's formidable researching strengths. He points out inconsistencies, gaps in logic and the many differences between Betty and Barney Hill's own testimony. More importantly, he coolly refutes the many debunkers who have grown up around the Hills' now-iconic narrative.

It's become all too easy to reduce the study of the UFO phenomena to a goofy side-show of crackpots, losers and loose canons. Friedman's lifelong crusade has been to give dignity to the process by treating the examination of UFOs through the compilation of useful and measurable data.

With the direct access to Betty Hill's diaries and other estate material provided by her niece and trustee Kathleen Marden (the other co-author of the book), an incredible amount of detail is now available to consider in what can only be considered the granddaddy of all UFO abduction cases.

And while skeptics can still spin all the metaphors about the case they can dream up--one of the favorites is that the whole thing was generated by the unconscious disturbances of a inter-racial couple in a time of deep discrimination--there's no question that Captured!: The Betty and Barney Hill UFO Experience represents the definitive statement on one of the great vexing para-normal encounters of our time.

Captured!: The Betty And Barney Hill UFO Experience is published by New Page Books, a division of Career Press, Franklin Lakes, New Jersey, USA, 300 pages, paperback, $21.95 Canadian. For more information check out www.newpagebooks.com.

Stan Friedman on Project Blue Book Special Report #14

Another clip from the research interview I conducted with Stan Friedman in 2000 while developing the documentary Stanton T. Friedman is Real - here Stan talks about Project Blue Book Special Report #14.

Paul Kimball

Stan Friedman - Refuting the arguments against UFOs

I recorded a lengthy pre-interview with Stan Friedman in Halifax back in 2000 for the development phase of the documentary Stanton T. Friedman is Real, which we took into production in 2001. In this segment, I asked Stan to imagine himself on the other side of the UFO fence, i.e. as a person trying to poke holes in his various arguments.

Paul Kimball

Nick Redfern on Ufology

In two comments at one of his UFO Mystic posts, Nick Redfern hits the nail square on the head with a spot-on analysis that will make many people within ufology cringe, or complain, or argue... but that won't change the fact that he's absolutely right.

Nick writes:

I predict that ufology will never be anymore than a subject that attracts a few thousand people on a regular basis (and maybe less now).

Many ufologists confidently think that the world is waiting for them to finally deliver the ET goods and go down in history.

They’re not. Most people outside could not care less about the petty arguments in ufology (and don’t know about it anyway) and unless someone really makes a major breakthrough (along the lines of proving that Roswell was ET, for example), we will not be remembered by science, the media or the public.

A good many ufologists are ego-driven and full of self-importance. But at the end of the day, we are just a group of largely unrecognized people who argue with each other, and publish things here and there that get read by a few thousand people. And that’s it.

Same as it ever was. Same as it always will be. I think the biggest problems facing ufology are (a) the image that we have with the scientific community and with the media - namely that we are all viewed as nutcases, eccentrics etc; (b) the fact that we lack any hard evidence in terms of something tangible that can be studied and proved to be anomalous (rather than different people having different opinions on something that remains enigmatic or unresolved); and (c) that we lack large funding to really devote to a deep study of the data.

I’m not sure how we change things, but I believe that things can only change if we can find some form of hard evidence to support the idea that UFOs exist.

But that will only ever happen (I personally think) if UFOs are literal nuts and bolts craft. If they have far stranger origins, it may well be impossible to get tangible, hard evidence. In which case, we may be perceived by the human race of the late 21st century and 22nd century in the same way that we view people who - 100 years ago - searched for fairies, or knocked on tables trying to contact the dead, etc.

In other words, we’ll be viewed as a group of people who looked into some unusual areas in search of the truth about aliens, but never really found any hard evidence that proved ET was visiting.

Ironically, if ET really does land, I personally think that ufology will be swept away in an instant as the public demands answers from the media, who in turn demand answeres [sic] from the government and the mainstream scientific community.

We may get a brief 5 minutes to say “we told you so,” but that will be it.

Unless we stumble on it first somehow.

The odds of anyone in ufology stumbling onto "the truth" (whatever that may be) are somewhere between slim and none, and most likely much closer to "none".

The one thing I'm absolutely certain of (and I talked about this on a Binnall of America appearance last year) is that if aliens ever do land, Nick is spot-on right that ufologists will be lucky to get 5 minutes to say "we told you so".

So, in the meantime, everyone should focus on the intriguing mystery, and have some fun, because that's what mysteries should be - fun.

This means that there should be room for some of the more "out there" theories (FYI - as far as the mainstream is concerned, that includes the ETH), even to the point of speculation. Where would I draw the line? When people are clearly lying, or when the theories and speculation goes so far as to be preposterous, at which point let 'em have it.

But that's me. Everyone needs to draw their own line in the sand, and then move forward from there.

Meanwhile, this doesn't mean that one can't make an effort to get science to take the UFO phenomenon seriously. We just have to remember that "ufology" is not a scientific endeavour - it is, by and large, a hobby, or entertainment. This is like the difference between serious scientists who study Mars on the one hand, and people like Richard Hoagland on the other - one should never confuse Hoagland with serious scientific study of anything, but he is entertaining, and that has its place, in the same way that the Jerry Springer Show is not real therapy for the people involved, but it has its place as entertainment.

Of course, there are people, like Nick and I, who walk the line between the two - serious study on the one hand, and entertainment on the other - but we understand that there is a difference.

Paul Kimball

The MJ-12 Brouhaha

At the moment controversy is raging within the "hallowed halls of ufology" about MJ-12.

"What," you ask. "MJ-12. I thought that was a dead fish".

Indeed. MJ-12 itself is a dead fish. It was a scam. Whether it was for disinformation purposes or financial gain is a secondary matter, as far as I'm concerned. Except for a few die-hard defenders (Stan Friedman foremost among them), everybody else has come to that conclusion some time ago, and for the most part moved on.

No, the controversy is not about MJ-12 itself, really, but rather about a paper written by Brad Sparks and Barry Greenwood, and presented at the recent MUFON Symposium. I had an advance peek at the paper weeks before the Symposium courtesy of Brad, and was going to provide some editorial input (mostly re: spelling, grammar, and overall construction, which it badly needed at that stage), but work and life got in the way, and I never got a chance to send back my suggestions, which Brad had asked for (putting the boots to any assertion that Brad can't take constructive criticism).

Anyway, the controversy, which is unedifying for all concerned, is between who wrote what, and when, and how much, and... well, you get the picture. Stuart Miller sums it all up nicely here.

Now, Brad is my friend, and was instrumental in making Best Evidence a well-received film, so I accept his account of how it all went down. Besides, I can't see what the point of all the argument is anyway. It is, in my opinion, a waste of time and energy.

With one exception.

As Stuart notes, Dick Hall has critiqued Brad for making reference to ongoing Roswell research, and big revelations on the horizon, without providing any specifics. Worse, Brad slams other researchers for their lousy methodology (fair game), but does so by comparing it with his own, which we can't check, because Brad hasn't published anything yet.

Dick is right, Brad - and I say this as a friend who has a great deal of respect for you and your work over the years. It is decidedly un-academic to use vague references to ongoing research that has not been made public to support your MJ-12 contentions, or anything else, including criticism of other researchers. If someone else tried this in a different context, I suspect that Brad would be one of the first people to go after them, and rightly so. This was the one part of Brad and Barry's MJ-12 paper that I immediately highlighted in yellow, with a couple of exclamation marks, and meant to send Brad a note saying I thought it was a bad, bad idea, but I never got around to it.

The unfortunate thing is that all of this petty to-and-froing has taken attention away from the real story, which was a paper that, by and large, was an excellent examination of the hows and whys of the MJ-12 fiasco, and should have been the final nail (if one was really needed) in the MJ-12 coffin.

Paul Kimball

Man as God?

In case you missed it, some scientists are claiming that we are within a decade of being able to create (basic) artificial life.

The quote that has me just a bit worried is this one:

"We're talking about a technology that could change our world in pretty fundamental ways - in fact, in ways that are impossible to predict."

Of course, that's followed by this one:

"When these things are created, they're going to be so weak, it'll be a huge achievement if you can keep them alive for an hour in the lab," he said. "But them getting out and taking over, never in our imagination could this happen."

Hmm... I guess I should feel better now.

Still, I'm left to wonder - are we really wise enough to be messing about with these things?

Perhaps it's time Joe Q. Public tuned in and started really, seriously thinking about what is coming down the pike.

In other words, perhaps they should stop watching Oprah and Springer, and start watching Battlestar Galactica.

Paul Kimball

D'Arcy O'Connor - Some Oak Island "theories"

Author D'Arcy O'Connor discusses some of the more "out there" theories for Oak Island - could it be UFOs, leprechauns, or German submarines in World War II?



Mac Tonnies should take note of the leprechaun theory - cryptoterrestrials, perhaps?

Paul Kimball

D'Arcy O'Connor discusses the Knights Templar theory for Oak Island

Author D'Arcy O'Connor discusses the theory that the Knights Templar were behind whatever might be hidden on Oak Island, Nova Scotia in this clip from the interview I filmed with him on August 12, 2007, at the Oak Island Resort (you can see Oak Island in the background on the left). The questions were asked by Halifax-based esoteric researcher Graham Simms, with whom I'm working on developing a documentary about Oak Island.

Paul Kimball

The Other Side of Truth - Halls of Fame and Shame Inductees, 2007

Ladies and gentlemen, the voting is now closed, the results have been tabulated, and the first five members of The Other Side of Truth's UFO Hall of Fame and UFO Hall of Shame have been chosen by you, the readers. They are:

UFO Hall of Fame
Dr. J. Allen Hynek
Dr. Jacques Vallee
Stanton T. Friedman
Major Donald Keyhoe
Dr. James McDonald

You can view the final Hall of Fame poll results here.

UFO Hall of Shame
Billy Meier
Philip J. Klass
Dr. Steven Greer
Dr. Edward U. Condon
Marshall Applewhite

You can view the final Hall of Shame poll results here.

I can't argue with any of the choices for the initial inductees in either Hall - all are deserving, for reasons that I will elaborate on in a future post. For now, however, thanks to everyone who voted - and see you again next year when the polling for the class of 2008 begins.

Paul Kimball

D'Arcy O'Connor discusses Oak Island, folklore and the paranormal

Author D'Arcy O'Connor discusses some of the paranormal myths and folklore surrounding Oak Island, Nova Scotia, in this clip from an interview conducted with him August 12th, 2007, at the Oak Island Resort.



D'Arcy's book The Secret Treasure of Oak Island: The Amazing True Story of a Centuries-Old Treasure Hunt, is a cracking good read, and an excellent overview of the Oak Island saga from the perspective of someone who is convinced that there really is some sort of treasure buried there. His lecture this past weekend at Explore Oak Island Days was "Debunking the Debunkers", a title many in the UFO field might find familiar.

More to come...

Paul Kimball

Psychic Eugenia Macer Story discusses the paranormal and Oak Island

Psychic and clairvoyant Eugenia Macer Story discusses Oak Island, Nova Scotia, and the paranormal, in this brief clip I filmed at the Oak Island Resort, 12 August, 2007:



This is raw, unmixed footage, so the audio is a bit low, and the camera mic is still mixed in with the lapel mic. Still, a sample of some of the stuff we got while we were down at Explore Oak Island Days this past weekend.

More Oak Island stuff to come.

Paul Kimball

5 Questions with Tim Binnall

A short Q & A I conducted this past weekend with Tim Binnall while we were camping in Martin's River, Nova Scotia, and attending a conference on Oak Island.



Yes, folks - the first Kimbinnall Summit has been a rousing success. More photos, video and anecdotes to follow.

Paul Kimball