UFO Cover-ups / Death & the Paranormal

About the show

In the first half, UFO researchers and podcasters Bryce Zabel and Ross Coulhart joined George Knapp to discuss their contention that knowledge of UAP continues to be covered up by the US government, mainstream journalism, and Hollywood. Most recently, at a press conference, Department of Defense officials updated the public on their efforts to address UAP. For Zabel and Coulthart, however, the move was merely a disingenuous attempt to control the narrative of—and minimize the public's interest in—the government's involvement with UAP. They also pointed to the multiple delays in the release of a major report on the government's findings regarding UFOs and ETs. For its part, major media outlets like the New York Times have engaged in the "prebunking" of this report; in Zabel's view, this is evidence of prejudice against the paranormal by mainstream journalists.

But Zabel and Coulthart are not completely discouraged and cynical. Although they're disappointed in the slow march of information from the government and the press, the two related that in recent years they've enjoyed more positive attention from others about their investigations. Prominent political figures like the late senator Harry Reid, as well as Barack Obama and former intelligence director John Ratcliffe, did lend credibility to efforts to find answers to the UFO question. And ultimately, argued Coulthart, the power to demand better of the government and the media belongs to the American people.

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Researcher Joshua Cutchin was the guest in the latter half. Although his books typically deal with topics like UFOs, he explained, most recently, he's been writing about the role that death and the afterlife factor into a wide array of paranormal activity. Alien abductees sometimes claim to recognize people who have died throughout their experiences, for example; similarly, some ufologists believe that ETs are more interested in the souls of humankind than in our technology or resources. In addition, ghost activity is often reported in greater concentrations where a certain area has been "traumatized" by supernatural events.

Drawing upon Jung's idea of a collective unconscious, Cutchin cited a number of cases that suggest that, throughout human history, the afterlife regularly figures into a given culture's accounts of the paranormal, as well as its folklore and mythology. The "ball of light" sometimes used to describe UFOs is consistent with the Jungian theory of totality and a projected collective self. During the rise in popularity of a belief in fairies, he went on, reports of being warned about the fairy world by someone who had recently died were common. Even our fixation today on the "transportation" aspect of UFOs echoes a familiar concept in ancient mythology: the notion of death as a journey through the underworld.