It was at this time last year that the inaugural edition of the Point of Convergence podcast was launched. In that very first edition I discussed some of the broad brush topics I planned to cover in the coming weeks and months. I didn’t know exactly what direction the podcast would take, but I had a strong sense that it would attempt to weave together topics that are often taken as distinct and disconnected: topics such as alien beings and the UFO Phenomenon, psi phenomena such as psychokinesis, telepathy and clairvoyance, and the mystery of life and death, revealed with growing clarity through phenomena such as out of body experiences, and even more so, near death experiences.

I also understood that central to our inquiry would be the underlying role that consciousness seems to play in connecting each of these subjects – which are often collectively referred to as “the contact modalities”, almost like spokes in a wheel. Over time it has become increasingly clear that, as I recently heard it put, it’s not so much that we possess consciousness, as that we, on the most fundamental of levels, are consciousness.

Somehow, despite the temporary sense of separation we often experience in this particular earthly iteration, we are actually part of capital “C” consciousness, which, as quantum physicist Erwin Schrodinger put it: “Consciousness is a singular of which the plural is unknown. There is only one thing and that which seems to be a plurality is merely a series of different aspects of this one thing, produced by a deception, the Indian maya, as in a gallery of mirrors.”

While the UFO Phenomenon, which has been our most central topic of inquiry, might at first seem like it doesn’t belong in such a conversation, I think it’s clear, based on the various cases of contact with non-human intelligence that we’ve covered over the last year, that nothing could be further from the truth.

Indeed, the connection between UFOs and aliens, with psi phenomena and out of body and near death experiences, is not even secondary and subtle, but often quite immediate and direct. In fact, we’ve come across cases where deceased relatives show up in the very same encounters where people meet and interact with apparently alien beings. We also know that the altered state of consciousness that experiencers of the UFO Phenomenon frequently describe involves striking overlap with elements of out of body and near death experiences.

Now, speaking of those various experiences of contact with apparently non-human, alien entities, it has been informative to see how different people have described different kinds of experiences in cases we’ve covered over the last year. While there are too many striking similarities to count, there have also been some striking differences, perhaps suggesting, as I’ve postulated for some time now, that we’re dealing with different elements within one totality we conveniently, colloquially title “the UFO Phenomenon”.

Now that we’ve reached the one year mark of this podcast, while also reaching the end of this calendar year, now seems like an apt time for a retrospective of sorts, looking back to compare and contrast the various elements of these otherworldly, anomalous experiences.

Over the last 365 days or so, we’ve covered nine specific cases of contact with alien intelligence. And now we’ll seek to take an overarching view of those cases, considering in what ways they’re similar, as well as distinct, and in what ways they did or didn’t somehow touch on the other “contract modalities” we discussed earlier, in this the 53rd episode of the Point of Convergence podcast.