The Paranoid Strain

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...

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 Hopki...

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...

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.

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.

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...

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'l...

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.

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.c...

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.

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...

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.

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...

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...

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 pa...

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.

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-ride...

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...

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...

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.co...

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 Ac...

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.

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 mo...

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 fo...

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. Hoste...