The Conscious Cosmos: Skinwalker Ranch and the Skeptics

I am inserting a large portion of text from Frank Salisbury’s book the “Utah UFO Display.” It will be presented later on after a more detailed explanation. I think it points to the fact that what we currently see going on with the UAP/UFO phenomenon is not straight forward but purposefully has a highly nuanced narrative. It is suggested in my view by the recent theories and proofs in physics and cognitive science. They are so recent that they are not naturally considered in any discussions about the phenomenon or for that matter material science in general. Three things are important in this idea. First is the recent Nobel Prize in Physics given to three men who proved that the universe is not locally real. Second and equally important is the work of Dr. Donald Hoffman and his students from the University of California that shows that it is quite likely that space-time and the material universe arise out of consciousness. Third and not least, are many philosophers that have put forth very thoughtful explanations of panpsychism.

I have long had an interest in a panpsychist, panentheistic view of reality. The works of Aldous Huxley such as the “Doors of Perception,” Abraham Maslow’s “Religions, Values, and Peak Experiences,” and Fritjof Capra’s “The Tao of Physics” have influenced my thinking along with what would be best characterized as mystical experiences. It is only recently that what was once considered woo-woo has become more respected by some scientists. So while that is my bias up until recently I was skeptical of the UFO phenomenon. The thing that changed that for me was the first three seasons of the History Channel’s docuseries “The Secret of Skinwalker Ranch.” Now as the fourth season emerges, the skeptics are growing stronger. I think that may in part be because they do not seem to have a scientific voice that influences their editing.

I am confident in the veracity of the team and the owner of the Ranch Brandon Fugal. I am somewhat skeptical of how the History Channel has presented them so far. I believe that they are on the frontier of scientific investigation. However, it is important to emphasize that they are dealing with something that can be material and can be mental or conscious based. That fact should be emphasized in the docuseries. If then the critics continue to be skeptical so be it. I believe they will shortly be shown wrong as current science unfolds in the areas mentioned above. However, to emphasize the science as strictly physicalist is a mistake. Let me repeat, given the new advancement mentioned in the first paragraph, I would like to share a portion of Salisbury’s book that demonstrates a world-wide ubiquitous examination of the phenomenon. Not just on Skinwalker Ranch, but across the globe and not just recently but for the last seventy years. The inserted quote speaks for itself.

“In 1977, at the First International UFO Congress in Chicago, J. Allan Hynek presented his thoughts in a speech “What I really believe about UFOs.” (See Hynek, 1980.) “I do believe,” he said, “that the UFO phenomenon as a whole is real, but I do not mean necessarily that it’s just one thing. We must ask whether the diversity of observed UFOs… all spring from the same basic source, as do weather phenomena, which all originate in the atmosphere” or whether they differ “as a rain shower differs from a meteor, which in turn differs from a cosmic-ray shower.” We must not ask, Hynek said, what hypothesis can explain the most facts, but we must ask, which hypothesis can explain the most puzzling facts. “There is sufficient evidence to defend both the ETI and the EDI hypothesis,” Hynek continued. As evidence for the ETI (extraterrestrial intelligence) hypothesis he mentioned, as examples, the radar cases as good evidence of something solid, and the physical-trace cases. Then he turned to defending the EDI (extradimensional intelligence) hypothesis. Besides the aspect of materialization and dematerialization, he cited the “poltergeist” phenomena experienced by some people after a close encounter; the photographs of UFOs, sometimes on only one frame, not seen by the witnesses; the ability of some UFOs to change form right before the witnesses’ eyes; the puzzling question of telepathic communication; the fact that in close encounters of the third kind, the creatures seem to be at home in earth’s gravity and atmosphere; the sudden stillness in the presence of the craft; levitation of cars or persons; the fact that some witnesses develop psychic abilities after an encounter.

“Do we have two aspects of one phenomenon or two different sets of phenomena?” Hynek asked. Finally he introduced a third hypothesis. I hold it entirely possible that a technology exists that encompasses both the physical and the psychic, the material and the mental. There are stars that are millions of years older than the sun. There may be a civilization that is millions of years more advanced than man’s. We have gone from Kitty Hawk to the moon in some seventy years, but it’s possible that a million-year-old civilization may know something that we don’t…. I hypothesize an “M&M” technology encompassing the mental and material realms. The psychic realms, so mysterious to us today, may be an ordinary part of an advanced technology.”

Salisbury, Frank B.. The Utah UFO Display: A Scientist Brings Reason and Logic to over 400 Sightings in Utah's Uintah Basin . Cedar Fort, Inc.. Kindle Edition.

The Conscious Cosmos: Skinwalker Ranch an Alternative Perspective

I think it is important to begin this article with a fact about the most recent Nobel Prize in Physics. It was awarded to Alain Aspect, John Clauser, and Anton Zeilinger. These three essentially proved that the universe is not locally real. This means that matter is dependent on the observer and implies that consciousness is foundational to reality. Why do I bring this into the discussion about an overview of Skinwalker ranch? Well, it is to demonstrate that current physics may not be the answer to discovering what is going on at this location in the Uintah Basin of northeastern Utah.

According to Frank Salisbury and Joseph Junior Hicks, high strangeness has been ubiquitous in the Uintah Basin for at least eighty years. Then, there is the book “Skinwalkers at the Pentagon” and most recently the docuseries on the History Channel, “The Secret of Skinwalker Ranch.” I mention these three specifics because they are all interrelated and they paint a unified picture of the fact that consciousness is at work in this area in an anomalous and paranormal way. Of  course it is not just the above three that have led me to this conclusion but they provide the framework that needs to be fleshed out.

Since the 1960’s and going back hundreds if not thousands of years there are reports of UAP’s, Poltergeists, Orbs, Cryptids, and all-around strange happenings with the area. That would be very difficult to believe if reality is indeed material. However, if the universe is not locally real, if it needs an observer to collapse the wave function into a particle of matter, then all of those supposed anomalies and paranormal experiences would be possible. It can even account for how two individuals see the same event or object differently. It is in a non-locally real universe that all of the anomalies can easily exist. This brings us to the Uintah Basin and Skinwalker Ranch.

Current physicalist, materialist science asserts that the UAP phenomenon has to be nuts and bolts and the product of a further advanced civilization capable of unknown physics. But, if one looks at the universe in terms of the latest advancements in quantum mechanics there emerges a plausible way that what we call and consider the paranormal could in fact be normal, or at least feasible, just not normal with our current understanding. And, if it is not locally real it could even seem like it was spiritual and not natural or material.

This brings me to the book “Skinwalkers at the Pentagon.” It is a book that details the AAWSAP program and the experiences that happened on Skinwalker Ranch and how they affected the lives of some of the participants even away from the ranch. As it turns out, much of the anomalous phenomena was of a nature that could be considered spiritual, or consciousness generated. AAWSAP was a program financed by the Department of Defense that financed a scientific investigation of UAP’s and other high strangeness associated with the ranch. The contractor that received the contract for AAWSAP was Robert Bigelow and his BAASS organization. BAASS stands for the Bigelow Advanced Aviation and Space Studies.

AAWSAP was headed up by James Lacatski of the DoD and also involved an intelligence analyst, Jay Stratton (called Jonathan Axelrod in the book Skinwalkers at the Pentagon.) There has been a lot of scorn thrown at the program, especially by Steven Greenstreet of the New York Post. He has done a video series that ridicules the program and throws shade on all those associated with it.

BAASS had among many employees Colm Kelleher who headed the program and others like Hal Puthoff who were involved with remote viewing. There are photos that show Kelleher and Puthoff along with Jacques Vallee’ and Robert Bigelow from an earlier association. These are all individuals that were convinced by experience of the strangeness of the phenomenon. This fact adds to the ridicule that the venture gets from those firmly ensconced in a materialist physicalist dogmatic approach to science.

During this time, Robert Bigelow owned Skinwalker Ranch. The AAWSAP program lasted through 2012 when it ended. Four years later Bigelow sold the ranch to Brandon Fugal, a wealthy real estate businessman from Salt Lake City Utah. This ultimately led to the scientific investigation of the ranch that has culminated in the docuseries on the History Channel, The Secret of Skinwalker Ranch. This four-season series continues to document and study all of the anomalous phenomena on Skinwalker Ranch.

Moving back to the Nobel Prize in Physics for 2022, I find a question for perhaps a different or alternative perspective of Skinwalker Ranch. What if all of the materialist, physicalist scientists are wrong about the phenomena? What if consciousness is fundamental and the material universe with space and time and matter arises out of consciousness? That would make James Lacatski, Colm Kelleher, and Hal Puthoff et. al. not ridiculous but scientific pioneers. That would mean that all of the strange experiences reported in the book “Skinwalkers at the Pentagon” were actually true.

So now, the Brandon Fugal team, and the History Channel docuseries, are drawing in some circles, the same ridicule, skepticism, and accusations that are connected with the former program and the entire phenomenon in the Uintah Basin. In this perspective it is important that the current team and their effort continue as designed and let the critics be damned. It is possible that the scientific investigation will lead a path closer to understanding the strange universe we live in.

The Conscious Cosmos: Skinwalker Ranch, My Analysis Part One

Consciousness does not arise from physics. Physics arises from consciousness.

I am not a scientist, so this is not a scientific analysis. I am more of a philosopher and am deeply interested in the nature of reality. This analysis is more philosophical, psychological, and sociological than scientific, especially if you do not view the former three hard sciences. I hold to some kind of idealistic panpsychist view of reality. It is in this that my interest in Skinwalker Ranch and the docuseries arises. Skinwalker Ranch is a veritable laboratory for consciousness.

Sometimes the obvious is obscured. Historically we have had at the most two-hundred and fifty years of materialist physicalist science. On the other hand, we have had thousands of years of philosophy with humanity trying to answer the basic questions of the nature of reality. Too many people have lost sight of that history and have smugly settled for the more recent history of science. That has been to the peril of advancement in my view. Not to technological advancement. But, it has to philosophical advancement in understanding the nature of reality. Every physicalist theory has always been replaced as incomplete and just a portion of the larger story. From Copernicus to Galileo to Newton to Einstein, to all of the many physicists the understanding of the nature of reality has evolved and each theory has been replaced by the next generation. Those theories were good so far as they went but were simply incomplete. It is time for physicalists to exchange their hubris for humility!

So, this brings me to Skinwalker ranch and the Uintah Basin. There is a remarkable history of personal anecdotal stories about the anomalous and paranormal activities of that area. One of the areas that sociology takes into consideration is people’s stories and experiences. They are very important. Testimony has been revered for centuries in the legal area. We have given people the death penalty and locked people up for life based on testimony. The fact is that the more similar testimonies that exist, the more reliable they are. It should be noted that experiences and observations are a product of consciousness. It mystifies me as to why people are so incredulous for people’s stories about the anomalous and the paranormal. Especially when these stories of experience have been told over thousands of years by a multitude of experiencers.

The overview of the Skinwalker Ranch and its surrounding area shows that a multitude of people have experienced all kinds of anomalous phenomena. It ranges from orbs, to lights, to unusual entities, to unusual energies, to poltergeist activity, and it seems to me like a playground for consciousness. It seems obvious to me that it is consciousness that causes all of the phenomena and that it is for some reason messing with perception. Therefore, investigation and documentation is very important. That is what the docuseries is doing. In addition, the investigation team is openly offering themselves to public scrutiny by their many appearances on YouTube, and at conferences. The Insider’s Website is also giving unprecedented access to the ranch and its environs.

No, I am not a blind believer in anything. However, I do believe people until it is proved otherwise. One can intuitively judge people and their stories and their motives. At least I can, and I think many others can as well, and truth be told, all can if they would but trust and develop their gut awareness’s. I believe the current Skinwalker Ranch team and their stories. I believe the stories told in the book Skinwalkers at the Pentagon. I believe the stories related in the Ryan Skinner and Cheryl Carter books. I believe the stories that were collected by Junior Hicks and recorded in the book “The Utah UFO Display. There are way too many of them and they have too much in common to be all fictitious.  When you add to this all of the stories reported to MUFON and again look at the similarities the picture is overwhelming.

If consciousness is foundational and it appears that it may be; If as the latest Nobel Prize winners in physics proved that the universe is not locally real is true; Then consciousness is likely foundational and since that has been the predominant theory for thousands of years until the last two hundred years, a lot more credence should be given to exploring the experiences of the anomalies, recording them to build a database that can be analyzed by AI and begin to find predominant patterns that exist across the globe and across time.

Because of that I applaud Brandon Fugal and the History Channel for giving Skinwalker Ranch and the Uintah Basin a platform for a large audience to see.

Part 5: Basement Office Rebuttal, Skinwalker Ranch – Judgment Day

Greenstreet’s final hit piece on Skinwalker Ranch was entitled Judgment Day.  In it he was hyper critical of the docuseries and Brandon Fugal. I am presenting an alternative judgment about the docuseries and the scientific investigation taking place in the Uintah Basin in Northeastern Utah. Greenstreet caps it off with his camping over night at Homestead 2 on the ranch. However, he uses this to inject some of his most vitriolic criticism of the Brandon Fugal stewardship. But also, he unwittingly bolsters the current narrative of the ranch and I’ll get into that a little later. Like the other three episodes on the Fugal years, he was critical of the Mormons.

He shows his experience at homestead 2 but most of the time is spent with inserts suggesting that the narrative from the docuseries is fabricated or at the very least greatly embellished. The thing I find perplexing is that Brandon Fugal and the team are very sincere in their entire exchange with Greenstreet and it is a stretch for him to suggest that they are untruthful. He goes on to ask them about the more sensational things mentioned in the book “Skinwalkers at the Pentagon. He is fixated on the dino-beaver story and gets them to say they have not seen anything like that. What he does not take into consideration is that some of the experiences that accompany the ranch for some people are likely generated in consciousness. This would be very plausible if consciousness is foundational to reality and it is certainly a theory that is gaining strength.

However, there are ample examples of things happening at the ranch that are anomalous. For example, when he entered homestead two there were several loud thumps against the wall. It was not just a one time thing. There were indeed several loud thumps. They are not that different from what Dr. Travis Taylor reports about what happens to him at night in his trailer. He often hears thumps and banging on the outside walls. Greenstreet offered no plausible reason for the knocking, and if he could have, he certainly would have. That is obvious from him chasing down a bat to explain what flew in front of him in the dark. However, in the case of the thumps he came up with no answers.

Now, when he walked to the fence line of the property, based on what he had heard from a security officer from the Bigelow era, he had some additional experiences that by his admission were anomalous. When he arrived at the fence line bordering Ute property, he felt fear. He then, through what could only be called mystical means, felt the necessity to speak words assuring that he meant no harm and had now ill will, and as he spoke them it was as if they came into his mind with specific instructions. He said very slowly as if it was coming to him on the fly, “I harbor no ill will (pause) and intentions. The way he said it showed that he was receiving instructions as he thought. This was indicative of someone or something affecting his consciousness at the moment. But there was more. At that precise time his lightning detector which warns of electric energy spikes went off. Coincidence? From watching three seasons of the docuseries, I do not think so. Then, at the same moment his eyes and face began to burn. They swelled up. Why? He claims that is was an allergic reaction, but that makes no sense. The reason is that he was at that fence line earlier with Brandon and had no allergic reaction. He then went on to explain that when he left the ranch, he bought allergy medication, and it went away. But it could also have gone away because he left the ranch. So, Greenstreet actually experienced some of the high strangeness that he tries to debunk.

Another area where he corroborated Brandon Fugal was centered around Brandon being summoned to Washington D.C. to testify before governmental officials. Brandon had photos of the meeting and there were definitely people there from the Department of Defense. Greenstreet tried to get information about the meeting and instead got the run around. He finally received an answer that he thought was implausible and silly. They stated that he was requested there to provide his plans for Skinwalker Ranch. This is one place I have to agree with Greenstreet, the answer makes no sense.

So, it is my judgment that Greenstreet did a hit piece on Brandon and the ranch. It should not surprise me because he has been doing that all along. He stated that his source in the Pentagon told him that there were those there believe in UFO’s and search for them on the taxpayers `dime. Lue Elizondo has stated repeatedly that there are those in the Pentagon who do not want to acknowledge UFO’s for religious reasons. Having been a theologian at one time and affiliated with evangelical Christianity, frankly I believe Lue. It seems that there is an interest with the Department of Defense and the military in the ranch. There have been several documented cases of black ops planes and helicopters nosing around. Is Dr. Taylor right? Does Greenstreet have a nefarious motive associated with shadow entities? By shadow entities I mean black operations and not shadow people. It is possible. Quite frankly it is as likely as the conspiracy theory that Greenstreet has spun about the Brandon Fugal era.

You can find Part 1 - Part 2 - Part 3  Part  4 here.

 

Part 4: Basement Office Rebuttal, Skinwalker Ranch – Signs and Wonders

It is in his next to last video, “Signs and Wonders” where Steven Greenstreet was the most guilty of the sin of omission. I use the term because he wanted to use a religious metaphor in all of his videos about current day Skinwalker Ranch, the docuseries, and the Brandon Fugal Stewardship of the ranch. I really like Brandon’s use of the word stewardship to describe his relationship to the ranch as sole owner. The fact is that we should all think of ourselves as stewards with everything we own and really all of our relationships with family, friends, spouses, pets and everything on the planet living or not. We are most definitely stewards of the material corporeal world, and being aware of that would go a long way toward improving how we act and treat our planet and its occupants.

Back to Greenstreet. I already mentioned in the introductory post that he misrepresented the way the team spoke about the foyer of the ranch house. James Lacatski saw what he saw in the kitchen from the foyer and so the team changed nothing with their anecdotes about visitors to the ranch house. This is especially true considering that consciousness is foundational to reality and there are many known power spots across the planet where many people, and I mean thousands, experience paranormal activity. A famous one that comes to mind is near Sedona Arizona. It is very plausible to believe that the foyer is one such power spot. I think it is funny because in one of his ads running up to the series, he had a photo of himself sitting in the foyer contemplating tubular bells as he said. This demonstrates that he knew that Lacatski was in the foyer when he saw them. Greenstreet certainly omitted that when he proceeded with his butcher piece.

I completely assumed that he would address things that were shown in the three seasons of the docuseries and ask questions about that but, he did not. He only showed glimpses of the medical issues and through inuendo dismissed them as either false or not caused by the ranch. He had ample opportunity to ask them about the metal found in the mesa, or the multiple UAP’s that were spotted in places and at times where they could not be Starlink satellites. He never referenced Dr. Travis Taylor’s radiation poisoning. It was almost as if he had not watched the docuseries. Throughout all of his videos connected with the visit to the ranch he continually made religious references and was overtly suggesting that the all of the team were gullible believers in UFO’s and the paranormal and he used their religious affiliation as proof that they had a different motive for the ranch investigation.

It was like he bought all of the physicalist scientific arguments against the exploration and investigation without really understanding them. Rather, he seemed to simply accept as fact all of physicalist scientific dogma oblivious to the fact that it is coming under heated scrutiny these days. He was definitely an experiencer but a non-believing skeptical experiencer denying his sighting of a UAP in Utah years before. Interestingly, he does a cameo appearance at the end of the film “A Tear in the Sky” and is supportive of it. The fact is that the film, while very good in my estimation, actually is very similar to the docuseries he is hell bent on debunking.

As I see it, Brandon Fugal, the Skinwalker Ranch team of investigators, and their docuseries is on the frontier of scientific investigation. While I do not doubt the experiences of the NIDS team and the BASS AAWSAP program, the current investigation has purposefully avoided some of the more exotic claims. Likely those claims are real experiences of a consciousness induced nature. As some form of the panpsychist view is gaining more credibility and respectability, the current investigation has more and more importance. Documenting the anomalies, energy spikes, apparitions, and UAP sightings is important. It is like the key and the kite which led to a giant leap forward for humanity technologically. Let the doubters, the debunkers, the physicalist dogmatist keep on. To insinuate there is not a scientific investigation going on at Skinwalker Ranch requires a hidden agenda.

You can find Part 1 - Part 2 - Part 3 here.

Part 3: Basement Office Rebuttal, Skinwalker Ranch – Angels and Demons

 When I grew up in the 1950’s and 60’s, spinning a yarn was a metaphor for concocting a fictional story. It was a pejorative politely describing a liar. In watching The Basement Office Video by Steven Greenstreet, entitled Angels and Demons it became clear to me that he was spinning a yarn. It was not entirely fictional, but it was a definite spin of facts that he took advantage of. I believe it is instructive to look at the possible motives of this yarn. Greenstreet was raised Mormon in Utah. He went on a mission in his late teen’s early twenties as so many Mormon young men and women do. In fact, if one is a Mormon male child, it is expected that one goes on a mission. Obviously, somewhere along the line, Greenstreet rejected his faith and certainly that is not a problem and is understandable however, to have been programmed at an early age by LDS doctrine would leave a subconscious mark on anyone. Therefore, if one no longer accepts their prior teaching and faith one can have an adverse reaction to anything that is not tangible, measurable, and repeatable. Anything that seems like it could be spiritual or supernatural can and often does cause a discomfort that necessitates eliminating it altogether. I believe this to be the case for Greenstreet, and a motivation for discounting and dismissing the possibility of any truth about Skinwalker Ranch.

To add to this, the Mormon Religion has another text translated by Joseph Smith called the Book of Abraham, which is in The Pearl of Great Price, and in that is mentioned a distant star called Kolob. It was supposedly from an Egyptian Papyrus that Joseph Smith acquired. Therefore, any extra-terrestrial or interdimensional being could cause a chink in the materialist armor of an individual that had previously been indoctrinated with a specific religious dogma. The fact is however that is not a necessary conclusion even if it is a common one. If consciousness is foundational to our universe, then an experience with pure consciousness, that has been deemed mystical because of lack of understanding could provide for the individual a mixture of truth and personal input. It is very possible that what Joseph Smith received mystically was just for him and perhaps Oliver Cowdery. All too often, humanity has taken the mystical revelation that individuals received and turned it into a dogmatic religion. Hopefully we will progress past that. However, this gives a plausible alternative to Greenstreet’s yarn.

Now moving to Brandon Fugal, a person with a very similar religious background, but a person who is optimistic and open to exploring the mystical realm. In fact, I would call him a mystic and a visionary. It appears, that he has kept an open mind to the unlimited possibilities that this universe offers without becoming cynical. He obviously has a sense of adventure and a longing for the mysterious. Being open to this, the conscious universe answers his call and provides him with the experience that allows him to say that he is not a believer he is an experiencer. I find it interesting that in the fifties, Abraham Maslow wrote a book entitled Religions, Values, and Peak Experiences. The premise of the book was that there are individuals who have peak mystical experiences and there are those who simply vicariously take those experiences and turn them into a religion. We can see evidence of this throughout history. It is even visible in indigenous cultures with the veneration of Shaman.

In this way, I view Brandon Fugal as a modern-day mystic. A mystic of the technological age. So with this backdrop look at the history of the Uintah Basin. It seems to be a virtual playground for all aspects of creative consciousness. If one reads the many books that have documented the strange happenings of the Uintah Basin as well as specifically Skinwalker Ranch one finds that there is a plethora of experiencers. A large portion of MUFON’s case files concern this area of Utah. This is precisely why the physicalist, materialist dogma that is wide spread within the scientific community is so limiting to the pursuit of knowledge about phenomena that has been reported across the globe for at least a hundred years, and has been reported by ancient civilizations in petroglyphs, hieroglyphics, and a variety of codex.

Will scientific discovery be able to understand and explain consciousness and the spiritual mystical universe? I don’t know that answer, but we should all take our hats of to Mr. Fugal for making the effort. The Skinwalker Ranch project under his direction is not a waste of time and money. It is a gift to humanity!

 If you have not read Part 1 or Part 2 here are links.

Part 2: Basement Office Rebuttal, Skinwalker Ranch – Sins of Omission

Steven Greenstreet just completed a six-part series over an eleven-month period on the recent history of Skinwalker Ranch. In my view it was a hit piece. This is in large part because he omitted a major portion of the information. I am fairly new to ufology. I have been interested in spirituality and consciousness for many years but did not include the UFO/UAP phenomena in my study and research. It was only after watching the docuseries “The Secret of Skinwalker Ranch” on the History Channel that I made a connection between consciousness and paranormal activity with regard to the UAP phenomenon. That came about in large part because of the combination of apparent nuts and bolts UFO’s and paranormal spiritual activity. I believe it was that final piece of information that convinced me that it truly is all one thing, and the foundation of the one thing, is consciousness. Luckily for me, foundational consciousness is steadily gaining respect in the scientific community.

Not only did he omit a ton of information about the Fugal years, but he also omitted a lot of information about the AAWSAP years as well. I base this on reading the book “Skinwalkers at the Pentagon.” This post will be an overview of the omissions and in subsequent blog posts I will do a deeper dive into the specifics. His main point in his video “Skinwalker Ranch Dino-Beavers,” was that it was all fiction. He cited all of the paranormal stories and investigation and did not mention the UFO/UAP investigation including the investigation into the Tic-Tac event. AAWSAP did several investigations that were generated from Mufon. While one could say that the stories are merely anecdotal, it should be pointed out that there are thousands upon thousands of anecdotal stories with very similar descriptions. The stigma against these stories comes from an repressive dogma position from physicalist scientists. With the ever emerging theories that the foundation of reality is consciousness, with respected physicists proclaiming that space-time is dead the ubiquitous occurrences of these anecdotes should be given far more credence and a lot more investigation. This was dare I say the main focus and emphasis of AAWSAP. Further, with the military budget of the USA, it is ludicrous and asinine to get excited over a two-year expenditure of a mere $22,000,000.00.

The level with which he ridiculed the intelligence analysts showed that he had some kind of an axe to grind. It is safe to conclude that he accused them of lying. His suggestion that the hitchhiker effect should have been reported to the CDC ludicrously borders on malicious sarcasm. This by the way is something that he brought up with Brandon Fugal as well and Brandon’s look showed that he knew that the question was a ridiculous one. He also through inuendo suggested that there were no real medical consequences from being on the ranch.

Now for the omissions of the Fugal years. My question is will this post become too long? The omissions from the docuseries are legion. For brevity I will list them in bullet form and then in subsequent posts will examine them more closely.

Greenstreet Omitted:

• The UAPX visit and their testimony. He also omitted the physical distress of Jason Turner and how the faraday cage solved the problem. All three of the UAPX team witnessed a uap.
• The astronomers who visited from Salt Lake City whose telescopes had data removed from a closed system, not once but several times and who witnessed a UAP during their visit.
• The rabbi that performed a ceremony designed to open portals and the subsequent temperature vortex that was repeated with the same result from play a recording of the ceremony.
• The laser that was bent and split
• The nature of the metal recovered from a dig into the mesa
• The many mysterious ailments and medical conditions that happened to various cast members including Tom Winterton, Travis Taylor, and Tom Lewis

I could go on but the post is getting long and there will be an opportunity for a deep dive into these and more in following blog posts. Again, let me reiterate, he was a practicing Mormon at one time that left the church. I cannot help but believe that this plays a large part in his skepticism against the whole thing. After all, by admission he is a UAP/UFO experiencer.

If you have not read Part 1 just use this link.

Part 1: Rebutting the Basement Office Hit Piece’s on Skinwalker Ranch

 

Introduction:

This will begin a series of posts that will offer an alternative plausible explanation of the things that Steven Greenstreet has been critical of in his “Basement Office” series on the New York Post’s YouTube channel. The series in question has been presented over the last eleven months. It began with the Bigelow years, James Lacatski, and Jay Stratton and moves through the Fugal years with the docuseries “The Secret of Skinwalker Ranch” on the History Channel.

It is my view that Greenstreet borders Yellow Journalism in his six-part series. He mis-represents the facts by eliminating some and emphasizing others to present his point of view. His YouTube videos are a hit piece on the UFO/UAP phenomenon, Skinwalker Ranch and to a degree Mormonism. According to him he was raised Mormon and even went on a mission as a young man. While he obviously left that religion it appears that he may have an axe to grind with it and has chosen to do so with Skinwalker Ranch.

It is my intent over several blog posts to take a deeper dive into each one of his videos and point out what I see to be blatant and glaring misrepresentations. It is not that he prevaricates, but rather just chooses to select facts that bolster his narrative and eliminate many that do not. It is his omissions that I will focus on in this series.

It appears that his narrative is informed by a physicalist materialist view of science. This of course has been the standard since the beginning of the Age of Reason, or the Enlightenment, but is rapidly losing ground in the face of cognitive scientists like Dr. Donald Hoffman, cutting edge physicists in the field of quantum mechanics like Sir Roger Penrose, Max Tegmark and others and last but not least, philosophers like Bernardo Kastrup who have some form of a panpsychist view of reality. Many are speaking out against the dogma of science claiming that younger scientists are discouraged from exploring other theories because it can lead to career suicide. The pendulum is swinging back toward a far more platonic view of reality, and it is causing consciousness to have a foundational place in the nature of reality.

When one looks at the phenomenon associated with Skinwalker Ranch that goes back historically at least eighty years in modern times and has a history that goes back at least a thousand years with the stories, petroglyphs, and superstitions of the Native American people that surround the property. There is a narrative there that cannot possibly be all fiction. Even beginning with the documentation of Junior Hicks one finds a plethora of anecdotal information that points to what is called a high strangeness for the Ranch and the surrounding area. For a further background on my view, you can view my post entitled It is all one thing.

Since I want to be brief as possible in each of the posts without neglecting salient factual alternatives, I will cite one incident in this post. I use this because this explanation got me blocked on Greenstreet’s twitter account. It was either this or my pun on his mission but, either way it is obvious that he does not deal well with cogent alternative theories to his.

The incident involves his next to the most recent video that was entitled Signs and Wonders. In that he interviewed the team in the ranch house that is occupied by Kandus Linde and Tom Lewis. The discussion is centered around what James Lacatski saw in the kitchen from the book “Skinwalkers at the Pentagon.” I will insert an image that I showed in response to Greenstreet on his twitter feed that subsequently got me blocked. The images will be at the bottom of this post.

Greenstreet insinuated that the current SWR team had changed the story from the kitchen to the foyer and that is far from the truth. Lacatski was definitely in the foyer when he saw the phenomenon in the kitchen which would definitely place the source of the perception distortion in the foyer. It also reinforces a panpsychist view as there were others with Lacatski that did not see it. This is a ubiquitous occurrence over the multitude of stories that involve the ranch.

As stated above, this is but one instance of many where Greenstreet either omitted information or erroneously presented a false narrative. I look forward to continuing this series. Stay Tuned!

The images below show that I was blocked by him on twitter and the above image shows what I posted on twitter that challenged his narrative.

God Beyond Religion: Ufology and Paranormal Activity It’s All Connected

I recently watched the Netflix Series “Manifest.” The phrase “it’s all connected” was used over and over in the show. It was a drama about the divine consciousness and while it exaggerated the action and suspense to make it appealing to a large audience, it covered basic principles that would be important in a panpsychist view of reality. I have written previous posts about the fact that it is all one thing. If you haven’t read any of my previous posts, you may be asking what’s all one thing? The answer is ufo’s/uap’s, portals, interdimensional phenomena, cryptids, poltergeists, etc. 

There is a controversy on UFO Twitter with respect to the veracity of Lue Elizondo, Christopher Mellon, Sean Cahill, Dr. Garry Nolan, Ross Coulthart, George Knapp, Dr. Travis Taylor, Dr. Eric Davis, Jeremy Corbell, et.al. When I look at it with historical retrospect, I see that the critics are very likely wrong. The reason?  they do not take an overall historical look at the phenomenon. I am including in the critics Steven Greenstreet, Mick West, John Greenwald, and most recently Lu Angeles. So what are they missing? They overlook years of a preponderance of evidence that begins with the Air Force acknowledgment of a crash in Roswell New Mexico in 1947 with a questionable at best quick retraction. That alone should be all the evidence anyone needs but fortunately, that was but one event of a plethora of events, and the recent advocates are just a few of the historical many that believed the phenomena was real.

 

I am old enough to have been in my late twenty’s early thirties in the 1970’s. I was privileged to attend a lecture by J. Allen Hynek at Central Michigan at that time. His presentation was very convincing. He told of many encounters and was convinced that the subjects of his many year’s investigation were telling the truth. I am sure that the ilk of Greenstreet and West would find a way to show Hynek as a misguided believer, but that is the only thing they can do. They just sling mud! In large part they do that by believing the DOD and that in itself is a joke and should show what they are.

 

Here is an excerpt from and Article that J. Allen Hynek wrote for the Journal of the Optical Society of America in April 1953. It is entitled “Unusual Ariel Phenomenon” and it is in vol 43. Here is the quote:

 

“Radar observations as well as visual observations are involved in this problem. Early last month shortly before dawn colored lights were observed in the sky southeast of the radar station. At the same time and the same azimuth, unidentified targets appeared on the scope. Only a very slight temperature inversion was present, 1° at 25,000 feet. No more than two lights appeared at one time. They were observed to be moving in a rather erratic pattern and changing colors occasionally. The last thirty minutes of observation revealed the lights remaining yellow prior to that they were red, green, and blue. They moved in no apparent formation but mostly appeared in one area and disappeared in another, when either the light went out or the objects dived behind clouds. They were starlike objects and appeared to develop long, white vapor trails, when they dived. They were motionless at times and moved rapidly at other times. This corresponded to similar movements observed on the radar scope.”

 

The article itself is an interesting read and can be found at ufo - UFOs at close sight: J. Allen Hynek paper in the Journal of the Optical Society of America, 1953 (patrickgross.org). When you add this to the multiple testimonies of military and law enforcement individuals, and the documentary films by James Fox such as “Moment of Contact” and “The Phenomenon” the preponderance of the evidence is overwhelming. For anyone to believe the government over Lue Elizondo, Christopher Mellon, Sean Cahill, Garry Nolan et. al. defies logic and demonstrates that those skeptics have ulterior motives. When you add to that the high strangeness of the Uintah Basin via the show “The Secret of Skinwalker Ranch” it simply adds another layer to the preponderance!

God Beyond Religion: Musings of a conscious universe, “it’s all one thing Part 2”

Panpsychism makes it all one thing:

If the universe is a creation of consciousness. If the main energy source of the world around us is consciousness. If indeed consciousness creates reality, then all phenomena stem from one thing. And to state the obvious, that one thing is consciousness. This would include normal phenomena, and also paranormal phenomena, or anomalous phenomena. Over the centuries, there have been a multitude of stories about anomalous phenomena. So, what are the various forms of these anomalies? Well, there is the UFO/UAP phenomenon. There is the spirit/ghost/poltergeist phenomenon. There is the cryptid phenomenon. There is the power spot or power vortex phenomenon. There is the interdimensional portal phenomenon. There is the psychic, clairvoyant, medium, telepathic phenomenon. I do not claim this list is exhaustive as I have probably missed many paranormal phenomena, but I simply want to point out that it is widespread. It is widespread over the planet, and from stories of the past it is widespread over time. In fact, from petroglyphs and hieroglyphs it goes back thousands of years, and conservatively, fifty centuries, and quite likely one hundred centuries. What is the old adage? Where there is smoke there is fire, and the smoke of these ubiquitous stories, point to a fire of plausibility. I like the term, preponderance of evidence. In this regard, the preponderance is overwhelmingly evident.

All of these anomalous phenomena have been met with skepticism over the ages, and I would say that over the last one hundred plus years, they have been ridiculed. And yet, over this same time frame, religions with likewise wild claims, have been accepted without question.  Who are the main ridiculers? Dogmatic Christian groups and dogmatic materialist, physicalist scientist. The obvious reason is that they interfere with the dogma and bring it into question. Yes indeed, I am linking materialist, physicalist scientists with dogmatic religion. There is a level of hubris in both groups that is unmatched. Likewise, they both have a vested interest in downplaying and debunking these phenomena.

On the other hand, the mental universe has been a continuous story across cultures for millennia. While I mostly understand it from the perspective of hermeticism and Taoism it is prevalent in other spiritual traditions including animism. So back to the concept of preponderance of the evidence. There is a preponderance of views about mental alchemy. The Logos, which is the conscious word of the creator has been widely reported for thousands of years beginning with Pythagoras and the Greeks who claimed that it originated in ancient Egypt. Circle all the way to 2022 and you have many scientists that hold a view called panpsychism. Of course, I have often mentioned Dr. Donald Hoffman and Dr. Rupert Sheldrake as two scientists that believe that reality is first and foremost mentation. Hoffman is a cognitive scientist and Sheldrake is a biologist that has developed a theory describing morphic fields of resonance in animals and humans.

But now breaking it down into the categories. There are Multiple reports annually about flying saucers. There are thousands per year in the USA. In fact, in 2020 there were 7200 reports in the USA alone. Many of these reports are from the military and military pilots who have seen and captured them on cameral. Added to this, there is radar evidence to back them up. Not only do they fly at unheard of speeds and maneuver in ways that impossible to our current technology, but they can zip into the water and emerge. In fact, the evidence is beginning to show that some of them at least may have a base of operations in the oceans. It is a phenomenon that affects the navy more than the air force.

So, what is the implication of these craft? What is the implication of the presence of other worldly or extraterrestrial beings observing us? I say other worldly because they may be extra-dimensional or they could be from another planet, star system within the galaxy. The fact remains that if the universe is mentation, then it is possible for worm holes and portals to be accomplished by mental manipulation, a skill that we have not yet understood or developed. If from another dimension it could be that they have constructed UFO’s, UAP’s, and USO’s that help maneuver in this three-dimensional world. One thing for sure is that it expands greatly the concept of the creative source of the universe and eliminates a god in the box that religion has created. It also establishes the fact that what was once ridiculed and considered mass hysteria is now admitted existing by governments around the world. It is not a quantum leap to believe that all paranormal activity that is widely reported across cultures and time has validity as well.

But what about spiritual dimensions? Could they simply be dimensions within the universe that we as yet do not understand? That is more than likely the case. However, if the universe is an organic and atomic computer creation, and if it is sentient then it is possible that what we have come to call the spiritual world or spiritual dimension is all there is. At this time, I lean in that direction. There is one thing that is undeniable. What we call paranormal activity is reported extensively over all locations and time eras. It crosses cultures and centuries and by the sheer preponderance of the reporting it should be taken seriously. Especially when the reports are so similar.

There is a growing number of panpsychists that offer the possibility that it is all one thing. Many of them are well respected and published scientists and philosophers. While not all of them are comfortable calling consciousness spiritual, the fact is that it operates as essentially the same thing. Most metaphysicians look at spirituality being another name for panpsychism. It is definitely in this realm that all of the above-mentioned paranormal phenomena can fit nicely together as one thing, and that is likely why you have such wide reporting of a variety of phenomena at places like Skinwalker Ranch in the Uintah Basin, and Mount Shasta in Northern California. Up until the time that I began to understand panpsychism I had a hard time accepting that cryptids, and portals and other spiritual anomalies accompanied UFO/UAP activity. Panpsychism offers a unifying medium for all of them. Certainly, panpsychism offers a plausible answer to the problem of inter-stellar distances, explains how it is possible for extraterrestrials to hide in plain sight. It also explains portals in the sky and on the earth.

 

God Beyond Religion: It’s all one thing!

If we live in a mental universe; If the first axiom of the Kybalion is correct; If the All is mind and the universe is mental, then the corporeal and material world arises from consciousness and conscious activity. I am finding this increasingly interesting in view of the fact that it seems that paranormal activity, UFO’s/UAP’s, portals, and cryptids all seem to be connected. Further, often when you have one, you also have another and sometimes all of them. In the last post I mentioned the TV series on the History Channel, The Secret of Skinwalker Ranch. Certainly, in that area, in and about the ranch all of the forementioned phenomena are reported and observed.

It is also interesting that petroglyphs and hieroglyphs, many which are thousands of years old contain images that resemble space travelers and portals. There are petroglyphs in Utah, near the ranch in the Uintah Basin that are thousands of years old. If we simply trace the concept back to Egypt, it goes at least 5,000 years in the past and quite likely is much older than that. Add to this the recent archeological find of Gobleki Tepe, and it dates to 11,000 years ago. Of course, Plato wrote about Atlantis, an ancient civilization that was destroyed by water.

The point to all of this is simply that the concept of the universe being mentation is thousands of years old. While it cannot be proven, it is not wild speculation that people from an advanced civilization interacted with the ancient Egyptians and many of the Mezo-American civilizations. Imagine if you will that those of ancient Egypt were visited by advanced people from the sky. Further, imagine that they also experienced cryptids emerging from portals on the earth. This is a very plausible speculation about how various ubiquitous myths came about, and how they were similar across time, regions, and cultures. The myths are very similar even when the cultures did not have contact with one another.

There are two regularly recurring myths that span thousands of years and thousands of miles. One has to do with the concept of father in the sky, and the other is the demons and the underworld. So, what if they originated from people having experiences with UAP’s and cryptids? The myths of father in the sky could have originated from UFO’s/UAP’s, and the myths of the underworld and demons could have originated with portals and cryptids. It is important to note that while the concept of heaven has been given a spiritual connotation through the various myths, the Greek word describing the heavens was simply Ouranos meaning the sky. Many indigenous people thought of father sky and mother earth, and that the “great spirit” inhabited both.

I am including below a quote from the Kybalion. As I have stated many times before the Kybalion was written in 1908, likely by Wm. Walker Atkinson. I refer to it often because it is a no nonsense stating of the Corpus Hermetica, or in other words, the hermetic material that dates back at least to ancient Egypt 3,000 years BCE. I use this quote as many believe that the archaeological data suggests that the ancients had tutors from an advanced civilization. The quote comes from the beginning of chapter three in the Kybalion which covers the idea of mental transmutation.

Mental transmutation is the craft of the alchemist. This passage is meant to suggest that those who instructed the ancient Egyptians were very sophisticated in the sciences.

Chapter 3.

Mental Transmutation. "Mind (as well as metals and elements) may be transmuted, from state to state; degree to degree; condition to condition; pole to pole; vibration to vibration. True Hermetic Transmutation is a Mental Art." — The Kybalion.

“As we have stated, the Hermetists were the original alchemists, astrologers, and psychologists, Hermes having been the founder of these schools of thought. From astrology has grown modern astronomy; from alchemy has grown modern chemistry; from the mystic psychology has grown the modern psychology of the schools. But it must not be supposed that the ancients were ignorant of that which the modern schools suppose to be their exclusive and special property.”

“The records engraved on the stones of Ancient Egypt show conclusively that the ancients had a full comprehensive knowledge of astronomy, the very building of the Pyramids showing the connection between their design and the study of astronomical science. Nor were they ignorant of Chemistry, for the fragments of the ancient writings show that they were acquainted with the chemical properties of things; in fact, the ancient theories regarding physics are being slowly verified by the latest discoveries of modern science, notably those relating to the constitution of matter. Nor must it be supposed that they were ignorant of the so-called modern discoveries in psychology — on the contrary, the Egyptians were especially skilled in the science of Psychology, particularly in the branches that the modern schools ignore, but which, nevertheless, are being uncovered under the name of "psychic science" which is perplexing the psychologists of to-day, and making them reluctantly admit that "there may be something in it after all."

~ The Three Initiates. The Kybalion: A Study of The Hermetic Philosophy of Ancient Egypt and Greece (Illustrated) (p. 13). The Kybalion Resource Page. Kindle Edition.

I want to emphasize the sentence above that is emboldened and underlined. But it must not be supposed that the ancients were ignorant of that which the modern schools suppose to be their exclusive and special property.” This definitely suggests that the ancients were knowledgeable and skilled in the sciences we have today, and quite likely much more advanced. The bottom line is that This explains why the various paranormal anomalies that are found here on the planet are often accompanied by a variety of phenomena that at first glance do not seem related but actually are because they are all a product of transmutation of a material universe that is mentally generated. Likewise, it accounts for many of the spiritualized myths that form the various religions.

  

God Beyond Religion: Skinwalker Ranch, Occam’s Razor, UFO’S and Mentalism

 There is a fascinating show on the History Channel called “The Secret of Skinwalker Ranch.” I know, the History Channel has a dubious reputation, but this series is on the up and up based on the people featured in the show. Skinwalker Ranch is a ranch in the Uintah Basin of Northern Utah that has an infamous history surrounding UFO’s and a variety of other paranormal activities. It would take several posts to explain all that has gone on with the ranch but to list the phenomena, there is UFO/UAP activity, potential portals, poltergeist activity and cryptid activity. This has been documented over the century by many including the federal government. There have been mysterious cattle mutilations as well.

There have been three seasons produced already, and I believe they are working on season four and if you want to binge on a series, this one has my highest recommendation. It should also be noted that the U.S. Defense Department recently organized the Unidentified Arial Phenomenon Task Force (UAPTF.) It was disclosed on various YouTube channels, that the physicist on the show, Dr. Travis Taylor is also chief scientist for UAPTF. I mention this because I want to explain that not all the people on the show are fellow travelers with what is called woo woo. And, I want to also explain that those who are on this show have all experienced what one would call woo woo while working on the experiments on the ranch.

The most recent owner of the ranch is in my view above reproach with his integrity and honesty. He has devoted his time, energy, and most telling his money to try and explore, explain and understand the anomalies that have plagued and accompanied the ranch for at least the last eighty years. They do scientific experiments and scientific inquiry to try to ascertain the anomalies. This brings me to my purpose and interest in telling, about the show, the ranch, and the work being done there.

They are trying to solve the mystery of the ranch through scientific endeavor, and while they are uncovering a great deal of data, the ranch seems to be an illusive entity. Yes, you read me right. The ranch behaves like a cognizant entity. Perhaps more accurately, it behaves like a pre-cognitive sentient entity. So where does Occam’s Razor fit into the picture? In this case, not from a materialist, physicalist point of view but from a mentalist perspective. As I have documented over and over in this blog, there is a rich history that spans at least 5,000 years beginning with Hermetic teaching that explains that the creative force of the universe is conscious energy. This was passed on in western civilization through the Greeks and recently revisited in what has been called the “new age” movement.

So, for Occam’s Razor, here are my thoughts. Occam’s Razor states that the simplest explanation of a situation is probably the correct one. how does this correlate with the Skinwalker Ranch show? The varied phenomena that present on the ranch can be examined by measuring various types of electromagnetic radiation and studying the concept of inter and intra dimensional portals, unidentified ariel phenomenon, and cryptids. However, if as is stated in the Kybalion, The All is Mind, the Universe is Mental, that is the place to begin the investigation. Bringing in a genuine psychic, such as a clairvoyant, clairsentient, or claircognizant would be a great place to begin study.

It would require one who is grounded in the understanding that the creative source of the universe is love and peace, and that peace is the highest vibration prior to enlightenment. If such a person went to the ranch with a reverent regard for the forces at play and was grounded in love, light and peace at its highest vibrational state, then one could examine all that is at play there and perhaps discover the most beneficial path for exploring and explaining all the anomalies. That one would need to be cautioned of the fact that originally, the ranch was the source of a conflict between indigenous tribes and a curse put in place by one of the parties. Perhaps it could be liberated from its malevolent past and become a jumping off place for additional scientific and metaphysical study.