Episodes

Oops! Forgot to upload the episode. In this one, we get the denoument of the Budd Hopkins Manhattan alien abduction story. Next time, we hear from more skeptical, but still sympathetic, researchers who have examined abductions and abductees. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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 people next week. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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 Hopkins. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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 of the psychiatric establishment embracing woo-woo nonsense. More on Mack next time. Hosted on Acas...

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.

Yes, it really happened.

Whitley Strieber's abduction, and the film it inspired

How the way we look at abductions changed between the 1970s and the 1990s

Barney and Betty Hill, part 5

Barney and Betty Hill, part 4

Barney and Betty Hill, part 3

Barney and Betty Hill, part 2

Barney and Betty Hill, part 1

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 Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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 facebook.com/groups/theparanoidstrain Listen to the music as an album on Soundcloud: https://s...

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 patreon.com/theparanoidstrain Like it? Please do spread the word. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com...

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-rider patreon.com/theparanoidstrain Like it? Please do spread the word. Hosted on Acast. See acas...

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/sets/upon-a-red-horse-act-i-the-rider patreon.com/theparanoidstrain Like it? Please do spread...

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. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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.com/privacy for more information.

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 Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Plus the very last Roswell stuff.

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 more information.