Seeing the matter of UAP, or, as they have more traditionally been named: UFOs, unidentified flying objects, move through the halls of Congress, apparently towards some kind of official government disclosure, one might assume that what we’re dealing with is the rather clear cut matter of alien beings arising from elsewhere in our vast galaxy, visiting us in their sophisticated nuts and bolts spacecraft. Many assume this is the logical starting point based on what we think we know of the frontiers that are yet to be explored by our modern species.

However, if one pays close attention one notices the peculiar matter of the fact that these beings are referred to in official government documentation, specifically the so-called Schumer amendment, as “non-human intelligence”. No mention of the term “extraterrestrial” or “alien” can be found. Many have speculated that this is because the nature of these beings is perhaps more exotic than our sci-fi tropes would have us believe.

In truth, the exotic nature of this matter of the UFO Phenomenon goes far beyond simply the origin of the beings themselves. For if one spends any amount of time studying the nuances of this Phenomenon, it becomes clear that some very peculiar goings-on are seemingly baked-in to the entire enterprise. The term “high strangeness” has been coined to encapsulate the many aspects that are peculiar, mind-bending, and sometimes even apparently absurd.

In fact, the ways experiences with this Phenomenon tend to stretch – in cognitively uncomfortable ways – our very notions of what we think even can happen in a rational universe, are so frequent, and so seemingly impossible, that many have wondered if this is telling us that our conventional model of reality is, simply put, just wrong altogether. If these incidents of high strangeness are “real”, then how can our model be sufficient to account for what can arise in our material universe?

And to that point, in light of the bizarre nature of these experiences, is it even accurate to see the stage we traipse upon as a “material universe”, at all? In other words, does the very mind-bending nature of these experiences suggest that perhaps this is exactly where we should look for the locus of reality itself: in mind? And are these events arising from the machinations of our individual minds, a collective mind, or some combination of the two? These are the matters we’ll seek to explore in this, the 102nd episode of the Point of Convergence podcast.

Over the course of the 80 or so years that make up what is colloquially known as the modern UFO Phenomenon, various hypotheses have been generated to make sense of not only the remarkably sophisticated craft that seem to be leagues beyond the technology of any modern nation-state present on the planet, but also of the apparently non-human beings who occupy them, and of the high strangeness that seems so often to be part and parcel with these anomalous encounters.

Because mainstream Western civilization has been firmly in the clutches of reductionistic physicalism as a model of reality for the entire duration of the modern UFO Phenomenon, the vast majority of the hypotheses generated thus far have been based on this underlying materialist framework. What’s strange about this though is that physicalism has been dead in the water for quite some time now. Not only is it misguided in some of its claims, but it is demonstrably untenable based on modern research findings.

Bernardo Kastrup is a renowned contemporary philosopher who is one of the most vocal voices in the world today calling physicalism’s bluff. He counters the materialist delusion with a model he calls analytic idealism; arguing that reality is fundamentally a mental construct, a process of mentation, and we – along with all other sentient beings in the cosmos – are what he deems alters of Original Mind, or what others might call Source consciousness.

In this the second of my two-part interview with Bernardo, we cover a variety of topics, engaging with how idealism might present some very interesting and encouraging possibilities for further research. The issues addressed from the perspective of idealism include high strangeness and the peculiarly humanoid – almost neo-human – body type of many of the anomalous beings encountered across history.

While the UFO Phenomenon has undoubtedly proven to be one of, if not THE most enigmatic of modern topics, in this discussion we consider the insights that a metaphysical model like idealism might open up in our process of inquiry, in this, the 92nd episode of the Point of Convergence podcast.

In recent years numerous accounts involving the UFO Phenomenon have been made public that contain a broad assortment of bizarre, paradigm-stretching, and, for many, credibility-challenging, elements of so-called High Strangeness – i.e. elements that seem to contradict our consensus understanding of the possible. Recent books such as Skinwalkers at the Pentagon have helped to turn the spotlight on these co-arising elements of paranormality that tend to emerge alongside standard UFO sightings.

Some might look at these recent revelations and wonder if perhaps these elements are only now being presented because paranormality has become “in vogue”, so to speak. In other words, skeptics might look at these recent revelations and suggest ufology has become corrupted by the imagination of the time – as if people’s reports have become sprinkled with elements they internalized while watching too much Netflix, or something of the sort.

But the truth is, these elements of High Strangeness are not new. Not in the slightest. The truth is that the reason we see more reporting of these elements today is because there is less repression of these elements and these particular encounters by the ufological gatekeepers who, historically, wanted to present a cohesive nuts and bolts narrative so as to garner the attention and, they hoped, respect, of the scientific mainstream. In other words, historically, ufologists themselves often censored elements of high strangeness in the data that was collated.

But again, these reports have always existed. Paranormality and UFOs go together like the ocean and sand; in other words, not only do they simply co-exist together, but they seem to be directly linked in some kind of causal chain – even if the specifics have long eluded the grasp of researchers and theorists alike.

The curious encounters of a French man who, in order to maintain his privacy, came to be referred to simply as Dr. X, is a perfect case in point. This case is from the late 1960s, long before the current era’s focus on ufological high strangeness, and yet, it has it all: physical healing, the spontaneous appearance of triangular skin marks, memory manipulation, future-casting, poltergeist & hitchhiker effects, multi-generational impacts, etcetera.

What are we to make of this bizarre menu of elements that seem to – effectively – turn on their head almost all of our modern notions as to how reality is supposed to unfold? Do these elements merely demonstrate the impressive capabilities of a more sophisticated extraterrestrial intelligence, or do they perhaps provide hints regarding an origin for some of these mysterious others that flies in the face of the standard hypotheses put forth to make sense of this Phenomenon? These are the very matters we’ll seek to explore in this, the 61st episode of the Point of Convergence podcast.

Over the last several episodes we’ve been discussing some of the more bizarre, even absurd, elements of the UFO Phenomenon. For anyone who’s taken the time to do a truly deep dive into the data behind this Phenomenon, it is clear that there is much to make sense of here: much that doesn’t fit well with certain cookie-cutter, predetermined hypotheses meant to make sense of the data.

Two episodes ago we discussed Jacque Vallée’s groundbreaking, genre-stretching and controversial book Passport to Magonia: From Folklore to Flying Saucers, where Vallée drew our attention to parallels between elements of the so-called UFO Phenomenon and events from both religious history and historic faerie lore. Beyond somewhat superficial differences, the overlap was clear.

And in our last episode we dove directly into an investigation of the absurd or ridiculous nature of many of these encounters with supposed aliens. While we should always be wary of anthropocentric notions of how supposed space aliens “should behave”, it is difficult to look past the overwhelming degree of absurdity in many of these encounters. Are they merely so strange because we cannot make heads or tails of the actions of a much more sophisticated intelligence or species whose rationality supersedes our own? Or are the events themselves simply absurd – full stop?

Following up on his exhaustive study of the data we’ve covered over the last couple of episodes, Vallée, along with his colleague, physicist Eric Davis published a position paper titled Incommensurability, Orthodoxy and the Physics of High Strangeness: A 6-layer Model for Anomalous Phenomena in which they lay out the challenges that confront us in trying to study a Phenomenon that is so rich in elements of High Strangeness and paranormality.

This paper, though only totaling 9 pages, is rich in detail – touching on many of the key elements that anyone studying this Phenomenon should be paying close attention to. Beyond presenting these elements in a clear and concise manner, this paper by Vallée and Davis also makes clear many of the misguided assumptions that various researchers make in trying to “pin down” the ultimate origin and nature of the apparent intelligence or intelligences behind the mind-bending activity associated with the UFO Phenomenon, while also proposing the broad brush strokes of a way forward, utilizing a multi-pronged and multidisciplinary approach.

A deep dive into the informative and insightful nature of this paper by Jacques Vallée and Eric Davis is the topic of this, the 59th episode of the Point of Convergence podcast.

Just as someone interested in matters such as the UFO Phenomenon and the so-called “paranormal” aspects of reality begins to conclude that these topics will always remain on the very fringes of both our collective radar and our collective curiosity, a startling piece of news comes to the fore, demonstrating that, as painstakingly slow as it may feel to those of us deeply invested in these matters, the collective imagination does eventually come around, finally entertaining and investigating these fascinating dimensions of reality.

Such news emerged with fresh, startling clarity in recent weeks with the publication of a trailblazing new book titled Skinwalkers at the Pentagon: An Insiders’ Account of the Secret Government UFO Program. The book, penned by James, Lacatski, Colm Kelleher, & George Knapp, details a truly ground-breaking program known as AAWSAP – the Advanced Aerospace Weapon System Applications Program, that approached the topic of UAP – unidentified aerial phenomena – with a refreshingly broad lens, recognizing the uncanny but unmistakable connection between the UFO Phenomenon and what has come to be referred to as “high strangeness” or “the paranormal”.

It is one thing for a forward-thinking private think tank or some paradigm-challenging corner of academia to explore these matters. It is something else entirely for an official government body to do so. And yet, this is exactly the story we learn about in this book. The DIA – the Defense Intelligence Agency – steered 22 million dollars in tax-payer funds towards precisely this endeavor.

And, as is stated in the book, “AAWSAP personnel chose to launch the UAP program with as broad a scope as possible” and to “research paranormal phenomena that co-locate with UAPs and to examine psychic effects in UAP witnesses in addition to scrutinizing the core UAP technology itself.”

While this broad-reaching net was as ambitious as it was unorthodox, to say the least, ultimately the data it produced proved revelatory. And while the program seemingly opened up more new questions than it ever managed to answer, the findings are nevertheless essential, because they help to define the direction such research needs to take in the months and years to come.

It should not be surprising, however, that so many new questions emerged at the culmination of the AAWSAP program. Because, ultimately, these findings point towards the undeniable necessity to expand our current model of reality. But what were these revelations? And what do they hint towards in regards to the very fabric of what we call “the real”? These are precisely the matters we’ll seek to engage with in this, the 44th episode of the Point of Convergence podcast.

For many, the notion that non-human intelligences, whether extraterrestrial, interdimensional, or ultraterrestrial, may be operating advanced vehicles in the skies above our heads is a stretch, but one they can wrap their heads around. It only makes sense – to most people, anyway, that an advanced species would have technology that might very well out-class our own. And if a non-terrestrial species wanted to visit our planet, most can imagine them buzzing around our atmosphere, before moving on to other points of interest.

What is a more difficult notion for people to really track with is that the intelligences behind these vehicles may be interacting with us in a more direct and personal way. When you advance evidence suggesting these intelligences may be entering people’s homes, and are often taking them back to their craft in order to perform a variety of actions – some of a medical variety – and many people will balk.

One has to ask: is this knee-jerk rejection of this notion based on a rational consideration of the evidence, or is it fueled more by a subconscious fear of loss of power and agency. We are so accustomed to being the apex intelligence around these parts, that when we’re confronted with compelling evidence suggesting we may very well not be, many people respond out of deep-seated fear. We suddenly remember all of the less than humane actions we’ve performed on animals over the centuries, continuing even to today, and we wonder what it would be like to be treated in the same manner by a superior species.

When you add into the mix the apparent ability of these non-human intelligences to alter human perception, and to even control behavior, and you’ve now entered territory that makes most people turn around and walk the other way – not interested in engaging in such a conversation. And yet, that’s exactly what the literature behind the UFO Phenomenon suggests. All of the above. Craft of an advanced nature, operating in our skies. Entities entering our homes, passing through solid walls with no more difficulty than passing through a fine mist on a morning walk. And seemingly near total control of human consciousness – to the point where people look back with confusion and bewilderment at the nature of their own actions during such experiences.

Yet another piece of the puzzle that is simply too much to consider for many people in the general public, is the sheer number of life forms apparently involved and interacting with us. Yes, you have the greys, with their large, inky-black wraparound eyes – that has become the quintessential face of the alien for millions, but you also have entities that appear almost totally human, as well as hybrid species that look very much like a cross between a human being and something else. And of course you have 7 foot tall praying mantis type beings, equally tall reptilian types, and the list goes on.

For those who’ve had such experiences of what is often coined “high strangeness”, discombobulation is the inevitable result. These kinds of experiences are simply not of the sort that can be easily assimilated into most people’s working notions of “the real world”. Indeed, without support and the ability to process such experiences with others, these kinds of encounters can lead many to question their very grip on “reality”.

But this issue is not with most people’s grip on reality. These experiences are in every way real events. These kinds of encounters are happening — all around the world, and have been for a very long time. On this week’s podcast I’d like to offer some of my own family’s personal experiences with high strangeness. These are events that shattered former notions of what is and what’s possible, leading to a long, complicated journey in understanding the broader, richer, more colorful totality of all that exists. A reflection on the personal, generational encounters that have impacted me and my family are the topic of this, the 29th episode of the Point of Convergence podcast.

When we look back at the history of the topic collectively referred to as “high strangeness”, it’s clear that, for a long time, various phenomena were studied as distinct fields of inquiry. And often, so-called ghost-hunters, Bigfoot investigators, and UFO researchers were distinct groups of people, who kept to their “own lane”, so to speak.

As we’ve discussed previously on the Point of Convergence podcast, over time it has become clear that this is likely not the best way to approach these topics, because there appears to be a repeated overlap between them. For instance, a person who experiences one of these kinds of uncanny encounters is much more likely than an average random individual from the general population to experience other kinds as well.

Indeed, one of the most useful predictors of someone experiencing any form of high strangeness – whether that be a UFO sighting, contact with non-human intelligence, a near death experience, remote sensing, or an out of body experience – is that they’ve already experienced any of the phenomena from this list. That tells us that, clearly, some people seem “hard-wired” to perceive and experience a broader bandwidth of reality than the general population.

But uniquely “gifted” and “sensitive” individuals only represent one of the ways that we see overlap between these various kinds of contact modalities. Another fascinating data-point that has emerged from a cross-discipline study of various forms of high strangeness is that certain particular locations seem more prone than others to be host to such paranormal phenomena.

There are numerous examples of such places around the world: the Uinta Basin of Utah, Sedona, Arizona, New Zealand’s Kaikoura mountain range region, New York’s Hudson Valley, the Bermuda Triangle, and many more. Often these locations are not only known for just one particular kind of paranormal encounter, but several.

This has led some to postulate that such places may be paranormal thuways of some kind – where different realities can and do sometimes overlap and interact. This hypothesis suggests that it’s not necessarily that different entities and phenomena are related to each other per se, but that different entities are simply using the same interdimensional portals to gain access to our world.

Indeed, these otherworld gates, as we might call them, might not just be the bridge between two worlds, but a nexus point joining together not one but multiple other worlds and/or parallel realities. At least that’s one possibility. Another possibility is that what we observe in these porous “thin places” between worlds, is one singular phenomenon, that is able to disguise itself in many forms.

The existence of such portals is a mind-boggling notion, and yet the data certainly points in this direction. And it makes one wonder what might be possible if we could gain access to these throughways ourselves.

Are these locations the exit points for wormholes long ago established by non-human intelligences from elsewhere in our universe, or from a different universe entirely? And what does the existence of such portals suggest about ultimate reality? These and other fascinating questions and the topic of this, the 19th episode of the Point of Convergence podcast.

For almost as long as human beings have been attempting to document and study what is often collectively termed “high strangeness”, it has been assumed that various phenomena should be studied separately, as distinct fields of inquiry. Thus, when researchers wanted to conduct research and/or look for evidence suggesting human consciousness could survive bodily death, they would do so by isolating factors only related to that particular inquiry.

And if, for instance, another group of researchers wanted to investigate the psychic and personality effects brought on by supposed contact with non-human intelligence, they would proceed by only considering factors related to that narrow field of study. It was assumed this was the best way to proceed, so as to tease out data that was already difficult to ascertain – because these kinds of phenomena tend not to be easily reproducible under laboratory conditions.

However, almost by accident, when data was compiled and looked at as a whole, it was discovered that various – presumably unrelated forms of high strangeness – seemed to correlate with each other somehow. That is to say, a person who’d experienced one form of high strangeness was much more likely than, say, a random person from the general population (what one might consider “the control group”) to have experienced other forms of “paranormal” phenomena as well.

Interestingly and tellingly, this curious and surprising result has persisted, even with rigorous controls in place to ensure other artifacts aren’t creeping in to corrupt the data. And, as a result, a new paradigm has emerged – one so new that we’re still really getting acquainted with questions around how one might study this apparent connection, and what the implications might be in terms of our framing of ultimate reality.

Sometimes, even beyond this astonishing correlation point in the data, these various anomalous phenomena manifest in the same single experience. That is to say, not only is person A more likely than a person from the general population to have experienced two or more seemingly distinct forms of high strangeness, but sometimes these paranormal effects are observed/experienced in the very same event!

One such example of this kind of mind-boggling event — reported on numerous occasions – by unrelated individuals, is an experience where contact with non-human, apparently alien intelligence, also involves contact and interaction with deceased individuals from that person’s life. Yes, indeed. People sometimes experience meeting the Others, as they’re often called, as well deceased loved ones, in the very same encounter.

This apparent point of convergence between what were previously assumed to be completely unrelated forms of anomalous phenomenology, is as mind-bendingly confounding as it is utterly fascinating. And of course, the exploration of interrelated modalities such as these is ideal fodder for a podcast just such as this!

An exploration of these kinds of encounters, as well as a consideration of the astonishing implications that arise as a result, are the topic of this, the 16th episode of the Point of Convergence podcast.

In this, the 3rd episode of the Point of Convergence podcast, ExoAcademian reviews and explores the results of the Dr. Edgar Mitchell Foundation for Research into Extraterrestrial and Extraordinary Experiencers, international, multi-cultural and multi-lingual, Experiencer Research Study. This is the largest study of its kind ever conducted, and offers results that may prove confounding to some, and encouraging to others, on the nature of UFOs, the Phenomenon, non-human intelligence, and reality itself.

In this inaugural episode of the Point of Convergence podcast, ExoAcademian discusses how ufology: the study of UFOs and the Phenomenon, really belongs within the scope of a much larger question, addressing the very nature of reality itself. And this is because UFO sightings and contact with non-human intelligence share certain core features of “high strangeness” seen in related topics such as remote viewing, near death experiences, out of body experiences, PSI contact, sightings of apparitions, and more.