In which we review the downfall of a once-respected psychiatrist, as John Mack publishes his findings only to have them completely torn apart by a wide variety of critics. Worse, we learn how he was taken in by an undercover skeptic who fed him a totally unbelievable story which, as you might expect, he believed. Next time--we do a deep dive on the elder statesman of abduction research, Budd Hopkins. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information....
Jun 24, 2025•32 min•Season 6Ep. 34
In this episode, we wrap up the last bit of Strieber, before turning our attention to John Mack, a celebrated and respected psychiatrist who, late in his career, turned his attention to investigating, and then advocating for alien abductions. We learn why John Mack became obsessed, and how his friends, colleagues, and especially the vaunted institution he worked for tried to deal with this pillar of the psychiatric establishment embracing woo-woo nonsense. More on Mack next time. Hosted on Acast...
Jun 10, 2025•34 min•Season 6Ep. 33
Hearkening back to high school English class, we compare and contrast my and Whitley Strieber's unusual experiences. Also, we hear from my real-life parents, who do their best to recall what really happened with my lightning strike. I hope you find them as adorable as I do. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
May 27, 2025•36 min•Season 6Ep. 32
Whitley Strieber's alien abduction gets a whole lot weirder, but no more convincing. And to try to help us understand what is, and isn't, believable about that whole tale, Fearful Jesuit tells a strange but (he swears) true story that happened to him. Why is his story more believeable than Whitley's? We'll find out next episode. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
May 13, 2025•35 min•Season 6Ep. 31
We're back, baby. With cowbell! Seriously, though, we're ready to walk through one of the most famous abduction stories of the 1980s, the influential story of author Whitley Strieber and the aliens who brought him along for a quick visit. We also talk about the film version, which yes, stars Christopher Walken. As Strieber. So it's Christopher Walken dancing with aliens. Fun! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Apr 29, 2025•29 min•Season 6Ep. 30
We're done with Betty and Barney, but not with the subject of abductions. Not by a long shot. This episode, we talk about two different pieces of media, and how they talked about abductions. Spielberg's Close Encounters of the Third Kind has a more optimistic view, but by the time Mulder and Scully came around, alien abduction had become a completely terrifying experience. Why is that? Well, you'll have to wait for next episode to find out...We're taking one episode off, so we'll see you at the ...
Apr 01, 2025•37 min
The final part of our story of the Hills' strange encounter. We discuss the cheap hatchet job that Saint Carl Sagan did on the Hills' story, which came out quite tawdry in spite of Sagan's good intentions. Plus, we provide our suggestion for the best bet as to the real-life phenomenon that generated the Hills' legendary experience. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Mar 18, 2025•32 min
This episode, we deep dive into a TV movie adaptation of the Barney and Betty Hill story, starring and produced by James Earl Jones. An interesting film, and well intended, we examine the ways that it compromised the Hills' own conclusions about their experience in favor of a story designed to normalize interracial couples for a mainstream 1970s US audience. Enjoy! theparanoidstrain.com facebook.com/groups/theparanoidstrain patreon.com/theparanoidstrain Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for...
Mar 03, 2025•30 min
Barney and Betty's story goes public, and the US media decides they made up this alien story because of how hard it was to be an interracial couple in 1960s America. It's infuriating. Enjoy! theparanoidstrain.com facebook.com/groups/theparanoidstrain patreon.com/theparanoidstrain Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Feb 18, 2025•32 min•Season 6Ep. 26
Barney and Betty Hill had a weird night on September 19, 1961. Of that there's no doubt. But in this episode we investigate how the mid-century embrace of hypnosis as a psychological tool may have helped to generate the abduction story that would set the stage for the abduction mania of future decades. theparanoidstrain.com facebook.com/groups/theparanoidstrain patreon.com/theparanoidstrain Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information....
Feb 05, 2025•28 min•Season 6Ep. 25
We're ready to take on the story of Barney and Betty Hill, whose UFO encounter launched the abduction phenomenon, and whose personal story is even more fascinating. More on the Hills in two weeks. theparanoidstrain.com facebook.com/groups/theparanoidstrain patreon.com/theparanoidstrain Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Jan 21, 2025•29 min
We're back for 2025. This episode, we wrap up the story of The Seekers, the failure of their 1950s UFO prophecy, and the book that made them famous. We also dive into the ways cognitive dissonance theory interacts with other prophetic movements, including the early Christians. See you in two weeks. theparanoidstrain.com facebook.com/groups/theparanoidstrain patreon.com/theparanoidstrain Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information....
Jan 07, 2025•33 min•Season 6Ep. 23
The last part of our encore presentation. hope you enjoyed it--see you next week. In which Fletcher slowly loses what matters most to him, secures his legend, and goes down, senselessly, in a hail of bullets. Full lyrics, credits, and gorgeous fold-out album style artwork (it's a .zip file): https://drive.google.com/file/d/1zj0Mbk4JNrHajuAwHC3fOGzY8ZHeTDOg/view?usp=share_link theparanoidstrain.com facebook.com/groups/theparanoidstrain Listen to the music as an album on Soundcloud: https://soundc...
Jan 03, 2025•1 hr 12 min
Part IV of our re-post of the best thing we've done. In which Fletcher finally gets on the radio, tells us what 2001: A Space Odyssey is really about, and sees his life begin to fall apart. theparanoidstrain.com facebook.com/groups/theparanoidstrain Listen to the music as an album on Soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/paranoidstrainorchestra/sets/upon-a-red-horse-act-iv-five-minutes-to-midnight patreon.com/theparanoidstrain Like it? Please do spread the word. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/priva...
Jan 03, 2025•54 min
In part 3, we discuss our hero's magnum opus. theparanoidstrain.com facebook.com/groups/theparanoidstrain Listen to the music as an album on Soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/paranoidstrainorchestra/sets/upon-a-red-horse-act-iii-the-red-horse-and-the-sword patreon.com/theparanoidstrain Like it? Please do spread the word. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information....
Jan 01, 2025•45 min
Part 2 of our repeat posting of Upon A Red Horse in honor of the New Year. Original liner notes follow In which Fletcher, our hero, becomes a big deal in the UFO world. And reveals what really happened to JFK. theparanoidstrain.com facebook.com/groups/theparanoidstrain Listen to the music as an album on Soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/paranoidstrainorchestra/sets/upon-a-red-horse-act-i-the-rider patreon.com/theparanoidstrain Like it? Please do spread the word. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/p...
Dec 31, 2024•54 min
Because it's the holidays, and because we know many of you haven't had the chance to hear it, we re-present the best thing we've ever done. Part 1 of 5. The original liner notes follow: In which we hear the origin story of Marvell James Fletcher. theparanoidstrain.com facebook.com/groups/theparanoidstrain Listen to the music as an album on Soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/paranoidstrainorchestra/sets/upon-a-red-horse-act-i-the-rider patreon.com/theparanoidstrain Like it? Please do spread the w...
Dec 30, 2024•52 min
It's time for us to review one of the most fascinating after-effects of the UFO mania that followed the Arnold sighting. We'll learn how some incredibly lucky social scientists wrote a book about perhaps the world's first apocalyptic new age UFO cult, the Seekers. It's cognitive dissonance a go-go on this week's Paranoid Strain. We're skipping next episode for the holiday--see you in early January. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information....
Dec 10, 2024•29 min•Season 6Ep. 22
The lion's share of today's episode concerns the weird story of the MJ-12 (or Majestic-12) documents, which first surfaced in the early 80s, and purported to trace the government's UFO coverup back to the Harry Truman administration. Only, like, they were fake. We also talk about cognitive dissonance in advance of our next big story, on the 1950s UFO cult The Seekers. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Nov 26, 2024•31 min•Season 6Ep. 21
Yes, this is part of our Unidentified UFO series, but it's also just a super-sized digression to share with all of you some of the craziest stuff Art Bell ever put on the air--the Time Traveler and Antichrist call-in shows of the late 90s and early 2000s. I hope you enjoy this very odd compilation as much as I enjoyed putting it together for you. Back to regular programming next week. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Nov 12, 2024•1 hr 29 min•Season 6Ep. 19
After a little housekeeping to wrap Roswell, we kick off what will be a regular visit to the library of the greatest conspiracy and weird stuff broadcaster in history, Art Bell. We'll hear how he shaped a young Jesuit, what made him so great, and how his show featured some of the most interesting Roswell stuff of all. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Oct 29, 2024•29 min•Season 6Ep. 19
As the episode subtitle implies, we're gonna talk about why the Roswell "aliens" were almost certainly military test dummies. While we're at it, we'll explain why that's true in spite of the fact that those dummy tests didn't happen til years after Roswell. How? By explaining what science now knows about how memory works and--more importantly--doesn't. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Oct 15, 2024•32 min•Season 6Ep. 18
Continuing our skeptical look at Roswell, this time examine the story told by town mortician Glenn Dennis--a fascinating combination of real events, confabulations, and total crap. We also look into the eyewitness reports of little--well, not green men, but kinda orange? Anyway, eyewitnesses claimed they saw little dead aliens. But they didn't. We explain. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Oct 01, 2024•29 min•Season 6Ep. 17
We're back a week late, but I hope you agree it's worth it. Having heard the pro-UFO version of Roswell last time, we now seek to learn why so many dedicated investigators have looked into this situation and decided it's sound and fury signifying nothing. We've got a couple more episodes worth of Roswell stuff in the pipeline, and I look forward to sharing more with you in a couple of weeks. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information....
Sep 17, 2024•31 min•Season 6Ep. 16
Hey. We need an extra week coming back from summer, so here's a little taster of Dana Unicorn doing something silly to tide you over. See you next week. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Sep 10, 2024•5 min
This time, we hear the full story of Roswell--or, at least, the full story as it's told by those who are convinced that a UFO crashed there. This is audio captured during the great 2017 Paranoid Strain road trip, and we heartily thank Dennis Balthaser for allowing us to record and share his expertise with you. While we may disagree with his conclusions, we deeply appreciate his knowledge and his presentation. Next time: The skeptics get their turn. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more...
Aug 27, 2024•43 min•Season 6Ep. 15
Roswell is right around the corner, but first let's consider the unidentified objects that appeared in the night skies before everybody decided they were shaped like saucers. To wit, we'll cover The War of the Worlds, the foo fighter phenomenon, a strange tale of crashed Martians in late-19th Century Texas, and much more. Next time--we go full Roswell, New Mexico. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Aug 13, 2024•30 min•Season 6Ep. 14
We're fully on the UFO beat now, and addressing one of the most vexing questions asked by any scientist in the previous century--Enrico Fermi's question about aliens. That is, "Where is everybody"? We explore many solutions that have been proposed for this conundrum, and also investigate fellow scientist Frank Drake's equation that seeks to quantify exactly how likely it is that we will encounter alien life. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information....
Jul 30, 2024•37 min•Season 6Ep. 13
As promised, we're finally talking about UFOs in the UFO series. This time, we cover the long-overdue return of the Mother Plane prophesied by the Nation of Islam, as well as the decidedly odd interstellar object discovered back in 2017, that seemed briefly as if it might be a sign of extraterrestrial intelligence, Oumuamua. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Jul 16, 2024•31 min•Season 6Ep. 12
On our way out of the ancient aliens door, we explore a few miscellaneous but still really interesting sub-topics, including out-of-place artifacts, the Ancient Aliens TV show and its discontents, and finally a book that suggests, convincingly, that HP Lovecraft's cosmic horrors were a major inspiration for Erich von Daniken's bullshit, and everything that came later. Next time, swear to god, we'll cover a topic that actually isn't ancient aliens. Weird, right? Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/pri...
Jul 02, 2024•32 min
