Nonetheless, as a youth with little understanding of things like the Cold War era, or of the horrors of a world at war with itself in the 1940s, these things weren’t quick to present themselves, and I often found myself critiquing writers based on my own misunderstanding. For instance, it wasn’t until years later that I realized that Rod Serling’s The Monsters are Due on Maple Street (the script of which we also read as an example of American literature) not only highlighted social issues such as the danger of prejudice and hysteria, but also played off the fears of Red Scare sentimentality.

But perhaps no author flew so gracefully over my head with his prose that it took more than a decade to learn to relish in his art than Ray Bradbury. I remember reading excerpts from stories like “Usher II” from the Martian Chronicles and thinking to myself, “this just seems corny!” The descriptions of robots and mechanical traps based on perils from Poe’s earlier stories didn’t captivate me quite as well as they had in the original works of Bradbury’s melodramatic predecessor. Years later, I began attending college and took an early interest in writing, and rather than the nonfiction I lapsed into much later, it drew from the inspiration I received from horror writers like Jack Cady and Stephen King. I understood that to become a good writer, reading a lot was a prerequisite; hence while combing through one of my local area libraries in search of dark thrillers, I stumbled onto a collection of Bradbury’s works, and for fun, decided to check out the volume and revisit some of the stories I had been subjected to in my earlier years.

Boy, were they ever different from what I remembered.

It was almost as though I had never read anything by the man at all; stories like “Darling Adolph,” which built tremendous tension around a self-absorbed actor portraying the fuhrer set in the mid 1970s, captivated me. Also, the critical commentary provided by Fahrenheit 451 was suddenly more frightening than I had ever before realized, and the lucid imagery that hooks the reader within the first few paragraphs in stories like “The Drummer Boy of Shiloh” and so many others pulled me into Bradbury’s works like few writers ever managed to do.

It’s almost funny in a way, since Bradbury’s fiction, with its focus on rocketry, space, monsters and the supernatural, lends itself well to the illustrated minds (or occasionally even an Illustrated Man) that most children possess, especially young boys. Most days I would much sooner be daydreaming about foreign landscapes on planets with dark atmospheres with weird alien life and pink fuzzy flowers growing all over the place, rather than to have to pay attention to what my history teacher was talking about (miraculously, it was never suggested that I suffered from ADHD, in spite of the jump kicks off of balconies and other antics I was well known to the faculty and staff for performing). In spite of all this, it wasn’t until I had matured and aged a little that Bradbury’s stories really struck a chord with me. I chalk it up to the sheer mastery it must take to weave such serious and deeply processed undertones into his works, however strange and sci-fi they seem on the exterior. When I read most authors of the last couple of decades, I don’t get nearly as much of this sort of insightful introspection.

Perhaps for some of us, however wicked it may come, it just comes naturally… I’ve never managed to wield prose the way Bradbury, Cady, or Poe did… but in a way, that helps me to enjoy and admire their unique styles and other-worldly weirdness even more. Thanks to guys like Bradbury, the stranger elements of this world are kept in proper perspective, and illustrate not only the oddities of existence, but of the human mind as well.

Tonight I’ll be appearing with my good friends Brad Steiger and Wm Michael Mott on The Jeff Rense Program. You can listen live by clicking on the link below:

The Jeff Rense Program

It should be quite the esoteric jam-session… don’t miss out!

Another expected element of this debate is that it has continued in other forums, as well. Most recently, the popular Skeptiko podcast interviewed Jeff Wise, author of Extreme Fear: The Science of Your Mind in Danger. Alex Tsakiris, at the Skeptiko website, says the interview addresses Wise’s involvement in scientific reporting that involves NDEs, and whether such investigation “is driven by a code… an invisible hand that drives them away from anything that might be labeled ’spiritual’, and simultaneously lowers their guard against weak research that confirms their pre-existing beliefs.”

You can listen to the entire interview by following this link:

Near Death Experience Research: Do Science Journalists Get It Wrong?

This Saturday, I’ll be appearing on The Bruce Collins Show, where Bruce will feature a recent interview we did that discusses my book Magic Mysticism and the Molecule. I have to say, this was one of the most enjoyable interviews I’ve done recently, and in spite of the wealth of information those of you may have who have already read or have followed information in other interviews about my book, there are a lot of obscure things Bruce took time to address, and there’s a little something for everybody in this edition of the show.

For those of you who would like to listen live, the show will air at 10am EST/ 7am PST, on WSMN 1590 AM out of Nashua, New Hampshire. Bruce also tells me the show can be listened to online at WSMN Radio’s website. However, for those of you who might like to get a sneak preview of our interview, the audio is already accessible via Bruce’s archive of the program. That said, you can listen to the interview any time by following this link: Listen Now!

The Mothership Connection

And to listen live, follow this link:

Listen Live

I’ll be discussing my new book, Magic, Mysticism and the Molecule, which can be purchased by clicking here.

Also joining me to discuss various weirdness is my good friend Mobius, who is a news contributor and senior fellow here with the Gralien Report with whom I’ve co-authored articles in the past. Finally, when he’s not doing The Mothership Connection, my pal Dobie is a hilarious stand up comedian. Here he is during an appearance on “The Late Show with Craig Ferguson”:

Therefore, other theories exist. An article appearing in the UK’s Daily Mail last week detailed the peculiar event, also making assertions brought forth in journalist Hank Albarelli’s 2009 book A Terrible Mistake: The Murder of Frank Olson and the CIA’s Secret Cold War Experiments, which makes the case for the events being the result of a classified CIA experiment involving LSD.

Looking at descriptions of some of the activity that occurred during the outbreak, this isn’t difficult to fathom:

Some ran screaming through the narrow, cobbled streets, crying out that terrible, flesh-eating demons were in hot pursuit. Others, wild-eyed and clearly deranged, jabbered that their brains had turned to molten lead and their internal organs were flowing, ablaze, from their ears.

Another man decided to take a dangerous leap of faith from a window, shouting ‘I’m an aeroplane’, before taking an unsuccessful landing into the street below. The Daily Mail article describes how the man got to his feet and staggered for 50 yards on broken legs before finally collapsing “in a pool of blood.” Another man, local stonemason Gabriel Validire, proclaimed to his wife that he was dead, and that “My head is copper! I’ve snakes in my stomach!” Strangely, animals suffered the unusual effects as well.

Albarelli claims the LSD theory is based on declassified CIA documents, as well as “coded White House papers ordering that the ‘Pont-Saint-Esprit incident’ be kept under wraps.” All evidence, he says, points to some kind of trickery involving a planned “experiment” at the modest French commune.

The horrors involving psychedelics used in this way–particularly those as potent as LSD–stand in stark contrast to the way they were perceived by the drug’s earliest advocates. In Magic, Mysticism and the Molecule, I discussed the many observations of Albert Hofmann, who is credited with the discovery of LSD. Hoffman called it “medicine for the soul,” and was saddened that it was later outlawed, in spite of its potential medical benefits, which remain widely unknown and under-appreciated today. “It was used very successfully for 10 years in psychoanalysis,” Hoffman said, explaining that the drug “was hijacked by the youth movement of the 1960s,” and though he was firm in his estimation that LSD can be dangerous in the wrong hands (as best evidenced, perhaps, by the events at Pont-Saint-Espirit in 1951, rather than that of the 1960s hippie culture), he felt that liberalization of its use by counter-culturists ultimately led to its prohibition.

Timothy Leary, who is credited with the very movement Hoffman opposed, viewed his work differently. During an appearance on William F. Buckley’s Firing Line in April of 1967, he argued that, “All the statistics that I’ve seen indicate that people who use psychedelic drugs are people who are pretty well adjusted by any standard or orientation you want to name: income, education, creativity, productivity; and they want more because what psychedelic drugs produce is not the dull, glazed three martini haze.” Nonetheless, those whom Leary hoped would lead the revolution of exploration of inner consciousness succumbed to both societal pressures, as well as the negative effects of the drug itself when used for mere recreation; circumstances under which LSD’s potential destructive side still pale when compared with the notion that such a thing might have been used for purposeful harm in the interest of measuring its effects on a foreign populace.

There is little argument that LSD has tremendous destructive potential, and if Albarelli’s assertions are correct, perhaps no greater example of this exists than the terrible mass-poisoning at Pont-Saint-Esprit. But what is even more alarming about this is that for it to become so destructive in a singular event, it must have been a planned and coordinated effort, used as a weapon against an unsuspecting citizenry. The substance alone is hardly any more dangerous unto itself than a pencil, an automobile, or a glass of water; it’s when an individual or organization with evil intent would use that pencil to stab someone’s eye out, mow pedestrians down with said automobile, or drown someone by forcing water down their throat that they become perceived as evil. Thus, Hoffman’s “medicine for the soul,” as well as Leary’s sophisticated class of people prone to the leanings of society’s intelligentsia, became demonized, and the drug itself may even have even been used for evil and destruction instead of the therapeutic treatments Hoffman had envisioned. Indeed, here history deals us a sad hand of warped affairs.

The Devil in Disguise: Demonic Dealings at the Vatican?

Right around the same time, my fellow MU blogger Amelia Crater did this excellent write up about the rather infamous Coast to Coast AM show where host George Noory had been toying with using what is alleged to be one of the occult’s most dangerous trinkets–the Ouija board–during a live broadcast of his popular late-night program. According to Crater, Noory claims that using Ouija boards nearly brought him to “the brink of an unfathomable black pool of chaos.” Here’s her story on it:

Ouija Board took Coast to Coast Host to “Brink of Unfathomable Chaos”

Image (above) by http://www.flickr.com/photos/hate/ / CC BY 2.0

Please keep in mind, the views expressed in these essays cover a wide array of opinions that do not necessarily reflect those of the moderators of this site, or even this contest. The are intended only as commentary or satire, and should be enjoyed as such!

That being said, our first place prize goes to Vance Pollock, an amatuer historian and researcher who provided this hilarious essay for us, based on actual historical events:

I nominate Pauly Shore and Barbara Streisand in the demon category, Richard Simmons and Dick Clark for their unexplainable immortality (no further comment) and the allegedly late Ronald Reagan because he is a cyborg.

I once saw a clip of Reagan receiving a crystal award statuette. A protestor leapt to the stage, snatched the crystal and smashed it on the ground, at which point Reagan visibly “shorted out” and had to be rolled off on a hand cart.

A great many mortals can see through the spell of Shore and Streisand, much like characters from They Live without sunglasses.

Upon learning of his prize winning essay, Mr. Pollock provided this video to accompany his essay:

Second place goes to Scott Lyall, an independent investigator in the UK:

For my money, the best film to deal with a Fortean topic was the BBC’s Ghostwatch. Briefly, it was a feature length drama broadcast on Halloween 1992 that purported to be a live broadcast from a poltergeist infested house on a London council estate. It starred a number of celebrities playing themselves, which confused many viewers into believing they were watching a real live broadcast. The line between fact and fiction was also blurred by it referencing various real life cases (it borrowed to an extent from the infamous Enfield poltergeist case). Even knowing it was a drama, I kept forgetting myself as the events escalated, especially with the fleeting appearances of the ghost in the background of a number of scenes and the gradual exposition of extremely unpleasant nature of the history of the house, though the OTT ending where the TV studio was taken over by the polt and the host possessed kind of blew the believability.

The tricksterish aspect to it is a delight-the makers of this were genuinely bemused by the outrage caused by viewers being duped. It had been conceived, filmed and advertised as a drama and they’d no intention of fooling people. But yet it was one of the BBC‘s most complained about programs, and has never been repeated. A suicide has been laid at it’s door, and allegedly two cases of post traumatic stress disorder in children who viewed it.

Reaction to films can often depend on the context you see them in, and I first saw Ghostwatch in a house where someone had died six months previously, and I knew I’d have to walk home through a dark wood that local rumour held to be haunted and where I’d an odd experience a few years earlier that I’d interpreted as a ghost! That combined with the juxtaposition of the supernatural in a mundane setting was a heady mix for my 17 year old mind, giving a genuine chill I’ve not experienced again since.

Oddly, this seems to be the fictionalised blueprint that most ghost hunting programs now follow- but don’t let that put you off!

Third place goes to John Colaw, former director of Skywatch Kansas, who submitted the following:

False-flag public UFO disclosure is imminent, as predicted by Werner Von Braun in 1977. Von Braun correctly predicted a sequence of threats – communism, then terrorism to be followed by asteroids and culminating in a staged alien invasion. Governments all over the world are releasing UFO reports, the US soon to follow suit. Black triangles are likely ours; harbingers of imminent false UFO disclosure. Consolidation of power and weaponization of space are the goals. True disclosure competes with this agenda-driven false disclosure. Economic collapse coupled with invasion fears will empower the New World Order, unless genuine UFO disclosure occurs first.

We do mostly Bluegrass, but we also throw in a good bit of old time country, folk, and even an occasional jazz or rock song (whatever comes to mind… or occasionally, whatever arrives at the tip jar written on the back of a five, ten, or twenty dollar bill)! If you’d be interested in hearing what a Gralien playing Bluegrass might sound like, follow this link, where you can learn about my new album, as well as hear some sample audio:

Runners of the Green Laurel

Greetings all,

At 6:00 PM EST US time today, I’ll be doing an interview at the Mabus Incarnate Chatroom about my new book, Magic, Mysticism and the Molecule. If you’d like to participate in the chat, just go to MabusIncarnate.com and you’ll be taken directly to the chat interface. Then, if you’re into customization, you can change the name of your online “alias” and your avatar (image) to suit your style a little better. Looking forward to discussing things with you!