The Paranoid Strain

Don't let the episode title fool you--we're still covering J Allen Hynek. But we're considering the period of his career in which a number of important events transpired, including the launch of the Russians' bleeping ball of evil, as well as the construction of the mysterious, time-traveling sound bath, the Integratron. See you in a couple of weeks.

We continue our exploration of J. Allen Hynek's life, but also take a sharp left turn to explore bayesian analysis, and how it can help us understand why aliens are not a particularly likely answer to the mystery of UFOs.

We move on from abductions with a look back at the greatest educational film host of all time, Phil Hartman. But then, in a more serious vein, we start our discussion of J Allen Hynek, a real and admirable astronomer who started out as the military's in-house scientist debunker, and eventually became one of the most prominent, authoritative, and dare we say it--sane voices in favor of the argument that UFOs deserved more serious attention than they were getting from the dismissive powers-that-be. Next time: more Hynek. He's a really interesting guy!

This is the second half of our Art Bell abduction coverage--this time, we're handling John Mack's and Whitley Strieber's appearances on the show. Art super-duper believes in this stuff, so there's not much push back, but these interviews really provide a flavor for each man's work and arguments, and I hope you'll agree that this is a great way to cap off our abduction mini-series. Next, we are diving deep into the Cold War. See you in a couple of weeks.

As we wrap the science portion, we also stop into the High Desert, the Kingdom of Nye--in other words, we clip some classic Art Bell episodes to explore how Budd Hopkins promulgated his stories--including the Linda/Manhattan Alien Abduction, with Art as very friendly interviewer. Enjoy. We'll wrap the Art Bell stuff next time.

Maybe after all of this abduction talk, you've wondered what real scientists have to say about people being taken aboard alien spacecraft. And specifically, what to make of all of their reports of forced reproduction and alien-human hybrids. Fortunately, real, responsible professionals have indeed done the work and gotten to the bottom of these questions. And we're going to hear from them in this episode and the next one. Enjoy!

Oops! Forgot to upload the episode. In this one, we get the denoument of the Budd Hopkins Manhattan alien abduction story. Next time, we hear from more skeptical, but still sympathetic, researchers who have examined abductions and abductees.

In this episode, we wrap with the sad end of John Mack's once-fine career, then dive deeply into the most "important" "alien" "abduction" that pioneering researcher Budd Hopkins ever covered. Yes, this is the story of a woman who was abducted by aliens from a Manhattan apartment tower into a flying saucer in front of 23 witnesses! Except, spoiler alert, maybe not. More Budd and then some sensible people next week.

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.