New book by Brent Raynes with an Introduction by Brad Steiger:

VISITORS FROM HIDDEN REALMS

Discover the connection between UFO visitors and shamanic lore!

Staying Focused!

I live for a good investigation in the field. Interviewing witnesses first-hand, visiting an encounter site and looking for clues or possible trace evidence. Whether it be UFO, paranormal, or so-called cryptozoological there’s a certain thrill of the chase–this pursuit of the great unknown–that for me just doesn’t quite compare to anything else. While I have had a few unusual and unexplained experiences over the years, I have also learned important lessons about maintaining ones objectivity--remaining analytical–or should we say centered--while at the same time allowing myself to “go with the flow” and being receptive and open to possible paranormal occurrences.

Some folks get freaked out, losing their focus entirely. It’s hard to be objective and analytical when you’re scared silly. Another problem is when someone too hastily puts a label or explanation on an event or experience that’s premature and incorrect. For example, I was in a “haunted house” in Alabama a few years ago and suddenly everyone was talking about the mysterious noise upstairs. It sounded like a drum beat! After everyone heard it they discussed it briefly and then returned downstairs. However, I wasn’t satisfied that this noise was supernatural at all, and indeed I found the cause–an overhead ceiling fan that was running really rough–needed WD-40 big time. Another time, of all places, I was with some friends and strangers in the notorious TNT area outside of Point Pleasant, West Virginia, looking for “Mothman” a few years too late, and with my usual impeccable logic I decided to try and leave a tape recorder running in an old abandoned building and return later and see what might turn up on the tape. Well, when we played it back everyone got excited and also rather spooked as it sounded like a heartbeat, over and over, until I figured out that I had a cassette tape that was running poorly. A spool on it had a hitch that was causing the heartbeat-type noise on the recording. I have also been involved in a good number of efforts to tape record “spirit voices,” and on a good number of occasions people I was working with really thought they had something–but as we listened carefully and played and re-played the portion of tape that was in question–many times it turned out to be someone across the room, in the next room, or outside the window who was talking. It wasn’t a ghost after all....although there have been a few occasions I’m still wondering about.

But anyway being a careful and objective investigator is my main point here, and I might as well use myself as an object lesson as well. A few years back, I embarrassed my wife and daughter at a Wal Marts parking lot looking at a “strange flashing light.” I got in the car and drove right up to....the foot of the tower! A new tower with flashing lights had been erected and installed nearby. Ugh!

A woman in Maine told me about how she was driving one night along a country road and this light appeared to her side, then ahead of her car, etc. During this time her car seemed to pull somewhat to one side of the road. Curious I took off down that same road one night and saw the light just as she described it. It was a radio tower. Damn those towers! Anyway, I guess she needed to have her steering checked or something....

One time someone supposedly thought I might be “one of them” – an alien presumably. I remember the incident. I was at this person’s house in Florida and out the window I had noticed the odd antics of a car that was stopping and starting, and so I pointed it out to this woman. I said something like, “Watch this. The car is going to go forward a few feet, stop, then move forward again and stop.” [ I said something like that ] Anyway that’s what happened. It was no mystery though because that’s what I had been observing. I didn’t mean to give the impression that I was predicting this! But later, this man was asking me about it, stating that this woman had told him that she wondered if I might be one of those aliens or something, and described how I knew what that car was going to do! In Ohio, I had traveled a number of times to the home of Madeline Teagle in Cuyahoga Falls, and there were often a good number of people there whom I interviewed. One day Madeline said that people were talking. At the time I was driving a green car with a green interior, and the suspicion was that Brent Raynes was with Army Intelligence or somebody. I had just gotten a good deal on a used green car! At the time I wasn’t working. I had saved up money for a couple or so years and was investigating UFO-paranormal stories full-time during this period. I never tried to do anything to draw suspicion to myself, but in this field it isn’t hard for paranoia to develop. I called up a prominent ufologist one time and he invited me to his home. As soon as I arrived he came out and wrote down my license plate number, and said he got to wondering about me and was thinking about checking me out! Toward the end of my visit though I think he was satisfied that I was harmless enough and for years afterwards we engaged in friendly correspondence.

Also disappointing is how many people confuse ordinary stars and planets for UFOs–mysterious orbs of light in the night sky. It’s not too funny when you’ve raced down the highway because you got this excited phone call and you wanted to see the UFO too, and it turned out to be just an ordinary heavenly body. I’ve got to admit though that sometimes when close to the horizon, especially the planet Venus, can look really bright and big. I remember once seeing a spectacular display like this where this housewife who was present was afraid and began to cry. She was some relieved when I was able to conclusively tell her it wasn’t a spaceship! (Although initially I wasn’t sure what we were observing)

Then sometimes it goes from bad to worse. I was in this house one time and heard a buzzing sound. A contactee told me it was a chakra opening or something. I said it sounded like a fly, but she said no, and then there it was...the fly! Another time there was a tapping noise from the window, and this same contactee told me an energy beam or something was hitting the window. I pulled the curtain back and saw a bug bumping into the glass trying to get out.

Another time, way back in 1972, I sought a psychic reading from an elderly spiritualist medium in Augusta, Maine. She had actually been recommended to me. So myself and another then high school student paid this medium a visit at her apartment one afternoon. She produced a tiny three legged wooden stool which, we were told, could produce spirit raps that would answer yes and no questions. With her much larger frame she sat upon this small wooden stool and we would ask a question and with a slight shifting of her weight she could cause it to make a sound. One time the question concerned the weather outside, and before she answered she opened one eye and glanced out the window (I happened to be looking right at her at that particular moment). My young friend had left the apartment excited and impressed by what he thought he had seen and heard.

But although the will-to-believe often leads many astray, these examples just cited only serve to illustrate the potential dangers of making errors in judgement or observation–the possible pitfalls- or sometimes in being deliberately misled. I remain convinced and on the alert, on the other hand, that there exists good and credible evidence that points toward authentic and inexplicable UFO and paranormal events.

Trying to define focus...

While I was a guest on the Jeff Rense program (www.rense.com) last month with Jeff himself and Brad Steiger, we discussed at some length how UFO activity in different areas of the world–different countries–seem to take on a whole different character from one location to another. Our discussion began when Brad wondered why so many Brazilian cases involved “nasty” acting aliens. Jeff countered that it seemed as though we were dealing with a “different crew” down there who had a “different agenda.” We discussed some of the “nasty”alien assaults on Brazilian natives that had been investigated by journalist Bob Pratt (who was interviewed in my new book, Visitors From Hidden Realms). Later I pointed out that in Peru there was a strong Space Brothers movement in contrast to the hostility events described in Brazil. Again Jeff returned to his thoughts on different groups dividing up the land among the different ones, and later mentioned the blood thirsty chupacabras of Chile (also mentioned in my book). Brad cautioned though that we still needed to examine the potential “cultural involvement.” As the program progressed Brad asked me straight out, “So where do they come from?” I told him that I favored the quantum physics ideas of things like parallel worlds. That I felt that area of theory seemed to fit the stories and accounts better and more comprehensively than the standard extraterrestrial explanation–embodying the total phenomenon rather than just select portions. Brad then agreed that he and Jeff had both commented how the “veil between dimensions” seemed to be getting thinner and thinner, “or they have greater access then they’ve had in the past, or maybe we’re just paying more attention.” I mentioned at this point how a combination of these factors could be involved and how a growing curiosity toward the unexplained, and how many people have spiritual issues and questions they’re trying to come to terms with. “And maybe their spiritual questing is making people more sensitive to view these entities and to see the thinning of the veil between dimensions,” Brad added.

At another point, Brad asked me to talk some about Native American medicine people and their traditions about these entities, and I came to focus mainly on the Hopi Indians and their beliefs revolving around the Kachinas, and I mentioned the Paul Solem case and how this “contactee” back in the early 1970s had a following among some of the Hopi elders. He seemed to have the ability to telepathically contact the entities and UFOs were seen–even by a number of journalists. Some of the Hopi elders perceived all of this as a fulfillment of their ancient prophecies. But then a big broad daylight event had been predicted and hundreds of people arrived....and it was a no show! Brad then interjected that this was “the con that some of these entities pull.” He felt that this kind of build up of confidence of the contactee and his followers represented a “testing period,” for he added that if the contactee became really “puffed up with self-importance” then it was almost a certain given that the “crucial prediction”would fail. I then responded as to how Dr. Greg Little had shared with me that often, in the beginning of a Native American vision quest, the Trickster would appear, would test you to see whether your motivations were good ones or not, and how you had to try and move past it. I added that Greg had pointed out how in the Betty Andreasson Luca case the little men were like Tricksters, but as the case unfolded Betty moved beyond that activity and evolved to a more satisfying spiritual level, and that other cases reflected these kinds of patterns too.

Brad stated that he felt the title of chapter five of my book, “The Ultimate Truth? It’s According to Who’s Telling the Story,” should be put on a plaque and posted above the desk of every serious UFO paranormal researcher.(Take a bow Dove!) Brad then stated that wasn’t intended to be a cynical observation. It simply means that each person will interpret these experiences “according to his cultural beliefs, whether he has fears or particular phobias, particular ideas and concepts of how the Other–whether extraterrestrial or multidimensional–should look.” So it isn’t cynical, Brad pointed out, in the sense of people lying and telling different stories. “We’re talking about sincere people now who are telling the truth as they see it and they understand it,.” Brad added. I agreed and stated that it placed tremendous responsibility on us as investigators to strive to be objective in our work because it is very easy to be pulled into a belief system ourselves.

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