The contingent of the UFO community known for holding a “nuts ‘n bolts” perspective has no doubt found recent developments within the space rather, shall we say, disconcerting. And that’s because, as time has gone on, the consciousness aspect of the conversation about UAP and NHI has only become more and more central; now even openly talked about by scientists and congresspeople seeking to wrap their heads around this age-old conundrum.

While recent years have seen a growing shift toward a consciousness-centric view of the phenomenon, this perspective is hardly new. For early pioneers like Jacques Vallée and John Keel, consciousness was central to understanding the UFO mystery. Additional key figures—such as Russel Targ and Hal Puthoff—also clearly saw the connection, and sought to research it in official capacity within programs funded by the US government.

Sitting alongside these paragons of new thought was the man we’re going to focus on today: Ingo Swann, credited with being the founder and architect of modern remote viewing protocols, and especially the structured version that became “Controlled Remote Viewing.” Swann’s participation with the Stanford Research Institute’s program in the early 1970s, working with the aforementioned Hal Puthoff and Russell Targ, is seen as foundational. He, for instance, provided a striking demonstration in his remote viewing of Jupiter, later said to match Voyager findings.

Swann’s psychic exploration of outer space didn’t stop with Jupiter, however. He was also tasked with psychically examining both the Moon and Mars, specifically in regards to potential extraterrestrial presences. What he found was as shocking as it was consequential to his later framing of what he saw as the limiting of humankind’s vast psychic potential in the modern world. And it’s that very matter in particular, outlined in his books Star Fire and Penetration, that we’re going to explore in this, the 119th episode of the Point of Convergence podcast.

For some time now here on the Point of Convergence podcast, we’ve been discussing the many ways that various forms of high strangeness tend to, well, converge. As we’ve discussed previously, often that means an individual who’s experienced one form of high strangeness is quite likely to have experienced others as well. The crossover effect, as one might call it, involves everything from NDEs (near death experiences), to contact with deceased, discarnate human beings, to OBEs (out of body experiences), to UFO sightings and apparent contact with non-human intelligences, as well as a wide variety of Psi phenomena (or what used to be more commonly referred to as “ESP”, or extra sensory perception) including clairvoyance, telepathy, psychokinesis, precognition, etc.

A central question that arises from the well-attested data we’ve just discussed is, what makes these more sensitive people the way they are? How is it that they are so much more attuned to this apparently broader bandwidth of reality than the rest of the population? Are they harbingers of what’s to come: a glimpse into the emerging evolutionary track of humankind in general? And regarding this shift into these new capacities, are these gifts, as one might refer to them, “natural”, or have such people been genetically “enhanced” somehow, perhaps by the intervention of a more sophisticated alien species?

The fascinating but bewildering case of Ted Owens is an interesting case in point, as it pertains to this question specifically. Not only was Ted Owens a man who seemed to know the future, and be able to — to absolutely discombobulating degrees — actually manifest it, often it seemed in whatever way he so chose — but he claimed to have had these astounding and well documented powers because of the very kind of alien intervention we just surmised about.

In fact, Owens went further. Not only did he claim that he had been entrained and led into certain kinds of life experiences, from early childhood on, by these highly advanced non-human intelligences, but he also insisted he had been operated on, neurologically, to fine-tune and further greatly enhance his innate predispositions for psychic and psychokinetic activity. Indeed, Owens claims all of the psychokinetic feats he went on to perform were done in partnership with what he called “space intelligences”, who were orbiting the earth in vast, sophisticated spacecraft that remained cloaked to the majority of the human race.

Regardless of whether or not you believe Owens’ account about how he received his unique gifts, one thing is clear: he had these gifts. And he had them to degrees – it is fair to say – not seen perhaps in any other human being in the history of the world. And most compellingly, this is not merely here-say, pieced together from accounts found here and there. No, Owens case is very well attested, as well-known and much respected para-psychologist Jeffrey Mishlove — long known in the public sphere for his role as host of the program New Thinking Allowed, followed and documented Owens exploits for a full decade, ultimately resulting in Mishlove’s much respected book, The PK Man.

How is it that a human being is able to will into existence phenomena such as hurricanes, tornados, power blackouts, broadly reported UFO sightings, lightning strikes, droughts, almost on demand? As astounding as these exploits were, was this more about precognition? Did Owens somehow rely on happening to know these events were going to happen — which is of course, astounding enough, all on its own. Or, did he actually in reality manifest them? And if the latter is the case, did he indeed do so with the assistance and sometimes inspiration of an alien intelligence that was orbiting the planet at the very times these events were predicted and then occurred – as Owens himself claimed?

Regardless of where we land with these particular questions, the implications for the future of the human race, and for our very models of reality, are perplexing and profound. These paradigm-fracturing issues are the topic of this, the 21st episode of the Point of Convergence podcast.