Reality Checking
When CIA secrets were coming through EVPs!
By Brent Raynes
On our recent (10-24-11) Liveparanormal internet radio show (Reality Checking, appropriately enough) with our guests Bret and Gina Oldham of Halo Paranormal, my co-host Chandra Harrison and I were talking with them about the electronic voice phenomenon (EVP) when I shared with everyone a fascinating account that I had just read in The Force Is with Us by Thomas Walker, a story that I had essentially read years before about the famous psychic Uri Geller being tested by scientists at the Lawrence Livermore Laboratory out in California back around the mid-1970s and all of the really strange things that transpired. But this book had a paranormal wrinkle that I had not remembered reading in the other book by Jonathan Margolis, Uri Geller: Magician or Mystic?
But before I get to the EVP part, let me give the reader a little background to this story. This book also recounted the really bizarre things that the Livermore scientists had experienced during this time, as when scientists in the lab were involved in a little intellectual discussion of things that I presume scientists might talk over and a small 8-inch diameter looking gray saucer-shaped object suddenly appeared and flew about the room and then vanished as mysteriously as it had appeared. One physicist and his wife reportedly saw a phantom arm just appear in the air of their livingroom. The sleeve of the arm was covered by plain gray material while there was a hook where one would have expected a hand! It too vanished as mysteriously as it had appeared.
Then one day, while testing Geller, as was part of the normal routine during such experiments, the session was being tape recorded. But when they played this audio back they were rather spooked to hear a strange metallic voice in the background. Largely unintelligible, a few words could be made out. Rick Kennett of the CIA (the intelligence community was quite involved in psychic testing) was called in and as he listened to the audio he was quite alarmed to hear top secret code names for high-security government projects. These were code names that neither the Livermore scientists nor Geller would have had any access to. Kennett was truly mystified!
After listening to me recount this CIA related EVP story on our show, Bret remarked how he often tells people before they do a “ghost box” session with them that if they have any secrets they don’t want to come out, then they might want to reconsider going any further.
Man, some spirits out there just won’t let you take your secrets to the grave! Ugh!
But getting serious once again, back in 2003, I asked Uri Geller in a brief phone interview about his thoughts on the Livermore events. He said that that was something that he felt was “outside” of him and had “nothing to do” directly with him and his psychic abilities. “But for those credible, quite prestigious scientists to see such phenomena is just mind blowing,” he added. When I asked Geller about whether he felt that his abilities had an ET connection, as Dr. Puharich believed, he said, “It is possible-I can’t prove it-but it is possible that maybe my abilities do emanate not from me but from some higher source. Maybe it is an extraterrestrial source in nature. I don’t know, and I am still on a journey to discover where my abilities come from.”
Geller recalled the UFO experiences he had in the Sinai Desert as described in Dr. Puharich’s book Uri (1974). “It must have been extraterrestrial in source and nature because they were traveling so fast, zig-zagging in the sky,” Geller explained to me. “That is impossible to do with our current technology.”
A lot of strange things seem to go on around Geller on a fairly regular basis. Here’s a portion of the transcript from our phone interview that detailed an instance that occurred in Ohio, that Geller was surprised to admit he couldn’t remember. (Maybe too many things have gone on over the years to remember them all?)
Brent Raynes: Okay. Earl Neff, a UFO researcher in Ohio - I know that you had met him years ago.
Uri Geller: Yes.
Brent Raynes: He was telling me that he was like an amateur magician and he had experienced enough with you that he knew that you were authentic. He also had something that he shared with me in a letter that I would like to read to you.
Uri Geller: Okay.
Brent Raynes: Here it is:
“Uri had been doing a radio show at W--¬. That night, when only the night watchman and an all night disc jockey were in the building, a loud noise was heard. It was later traced to a heavy clock on the wall having fallen due to the strong nail holding it having bent. When Uri returned they told him about this and another story I will share with you. He said, ‘This is what frightens me. I do not understand the power I have that causes these things to happen after I leave.
“It was after Uri left the first time that ___ ___ (name withheld but on file) and a couple other men there were having a snack in their little kitchen. It was a Sunday night, as I recall, and no snow was falling nor was there a wind stirring. There was a light fall of snow on the ground, however. Also I should mention it was a cold winter evening. It was still light enough out to see the big radio towers. All at once one of the men noticed a most unusual thing occurring. It was like a time lapse effect. One of the towers started to come down. No, it did not fall to the side. It seemed to collapse slowly...perhaps crumple would be a better way of describing it.”
I was wondering if you remembered that and if that kind of a thing seemed to happen on other occasions too?
Uri Geller: No. First of all, it is very difficult for me to remember. This sounds like a major event and I’m surprised that I can’t remember it. But I can remember on many, many occasions when strange and bizarre phenomena would occur when I am being filmed for television or (interviewed for) radio. But they’re never negative. They’re always bewildering, strange, mysterious, but they would never hurt anyone.
The Jinn Again?
As previously discussed in this column, some UFO researchers feel that a good number, if not all of terrifying “alien abductions,” are actually committed by supernatural beings of the Muslim religion, commonly known as the Jinn. Ufologist Ann Druffel told me that the Jinn “reportedly can materialize and dematerialize, and so can our Western culture’s abducting creatures.” She added, “They shape shift in various forms, they delight in harassing and traumatizing human beings…They reportedly abduct human beings and transport them long distances in a matter of seconds.”
Back in August, I received an email from someone who was interested in what I had previously written about the “similarities of Jinn and aliens” as she had recently had some experiences. I wrote back hoping to encourage her to share some details of what she had experienced.
“My experiences began about 8 months ago,” she replied. “I saw a UFO in the field across from our home, and strangely enough went back to bed. I was awake though, as I could not sleep. I don’t really know what happened, but it was like I blinked and I was somewhere else other than my room. Lots of things happened. I saw odd things, felt odd things and then eventually was put back in my bed, wide awake. I didn’t feel scared, but I immediately woke my husband up and told him something took me. He thought that it was either Jinn, or that I was dreaming. Over the next few days, I became increasingly terrified until my husband put a camera in our bedroom to assure me I wasn’t being taken. Two days later, I woke up in the morning, and told my husband I had been taken again at night whilst sleeping. After checking the footage we were shocked to find that there appears to be a time where I completely disappear from my bed, and then 13 minutes later I reappear. Since then there have been several other incidents.”
“I can assure you that we aren’t hoaxsters, as both my husband and I are practicing Muslims and have no such time for games. I am a mother of 5 children, and I homeschool several of them. So we honestly don’t have the time or energy to misguide people. In fact, neither one of us were interested in UFOs or aliens until these experiences. But we both have some doubts as to whether or not we are actually experiencing something extraterrestrial or something more interdimensional, such as Jinn. I kind of feel that it might be both. But I have no conclusive evidence.”
“I suppose it doesn’t really matter in so many ways WHAT it is, but I would like to know there is some hope of it stopping. That would be my ultimate goal.”
Did Mothman fly low over Dickson County, Tennessee?
Back late in July, Sandy Nichols of the Alien Research Group up in Thompson Station, Tennessee, received an intriguing email from a person claiming to have seen a “mothman-type creature” over Dickson County. Sandy was just about to leave on an out-of-state trip and would be gone for a week, and so he asked Bret and Gina Oldham of Halo Paranormal up in Lebanon, TN., or myself to look into it. I replied that I felt that Bret and Gina should do a follow-up on the report as I was busy with other matters, but expressed that I wanted to be kept in the loop on what happened and be able to offer feedback.
Pretty soon a very interesting story emerged. This person claimed that the sighting had occurred “roughly 2-3 years ago,” happened at about 3:10 a.m. The location was about one miles north of Dickson, near Highway 48. When Bret asked him if the creature seemed to noticed him, the witness replied, “Yes, in fact it did. Upon first sighting it, I thought it to be a hang glider out at night and I stared at it in order to discern its nature, but upon inspection it appeared as a large humanoid with a set of large wings on its back. About 3-4 seconds after spotting it, it looked down upon me with large, iridescent red eyes and did so for about 2 seconds. Afterwards, it looked straight ahead again and disappeared into thin air.” He claimed that the total length of the sighting was nearly 8 seconds, that the creature was “completely silent,” and that it was flying east to west. “Though hard to discern, the creature’s wings looked roughly 1 foot longer on each side than its arms,” he added. “The creature looked about 7-8 feet in height, so perhaps around 9-10 feet, but this is just an estimate. All I remember is that its wings were bat-like and very large.”
When Bret asked for a description, he got the following:
“The creature had well-defined arms and legs and a distinctly humanoid shape. The creature had a stark brown color to it that seemed almost iridescent, and because of this I could make out a silhouette. It was very muscular looking and had an almost chiseled appearance. Its hands appeared larger than a human. The hands appeared elongated and slightly claw-like, but large and vaguely human-looking. The feet looked human, but with claw-like protrusions where its toes may have been (similar to someone having overgrown toenails that were sharp in appearance).
“Its head was bulbous and swollen looking. It was roughly ½ to ¾ larger than a normal human skull. Its head had the likeness of that of a typical grey alien in shape. It was round but slightly oval in appearance. Honestly, the creature struck me as being overwhelmingly reptilian in appearance, with large leathery wings. I had previously heard of the “Chupacabras” (not the hairless canine creature, but the reptilian looking humanoid sighted in Puerto Rico) and its appearance may be likened to that, albeit larger and more upright-looking.”
When Bret asked him if he knew of any similar sightings by anyone else in the area, the writer replied: “I have not heard of any other mothman-type sightings in Dickson Co. There is also the continuing saga of a type of hairy humanoid sighted in Montgomery Bell State Park (“Werewolf” of Werewolf Springs) that Dickson residents have claimed to see repeatedly since the 19th century, though I’ve never seen this creature myself.”
After reading this email that Bret had gotten back from the alleged witness, I was curious over the fact that he had mentioned “typical grey alien” and “Chupacabras,” indications that he had been doing some reading about UFOs and reports of strange creatures. I wondered if he had had other paranormal experiences too, as some witnesses (including Mothman witnesses in West Virginia), when questioned further about other possible experiences, would reveal details of quite an assortment of other anomalous, paranormal experiences. Bret followed up on my suggestion, along with other questions that the entire group of us had generated, and indeed the witness shared quite a variety of odd additional experiences. He wrote:
“I am one month from 21 years of age, and I actually have had a very interesting life involving the paranormal. I started out roughly at the age of 6 not believing anything I could not see and being non-religious. I later on began to have a severe case of demonic oppression, and roughly all I remember was seeing/hearing things typical of haunted individuals, and a continuous emotional/mental dark haze that shadowed over me. I tried telling those closest to me some of the paranormal things I had experienced (poltergeist/telepathic communication of dark entities via dreams/seeing orbs of light move around/hearing voices audibly), but I was told it was imaginary, so that discouraged me from speaking out or seeking help of any kind, until one day. I thought I’d try to pray to God for help, and honestly I did not know what would happen, nor expected anything happen, but desperate enough to try. I came out of that experience feeling completely renewed and I became a Christian.
“My experiences ceased for awhile, but began to pick back up. I was about 9-10 years old. Developing a prayer life helped me to heal from the more traumatic experiences in my earlier years and learning about spiritual warfare helped ward off these dark entities. I even began to have more positive spiritual experiences as well. Oddly enough members of my own household had concurrently experienced some of the same things as I did, which I was not informed of until later in my life. Long story short, I have experienced phenomena ranging from being choked in my sleep (feeling a massive weight on my neck and chest similar to ‘night hag’) to what was already mentioned, to seeing fully physical manifestations of alien and fairy-looking humanoids (non-flying), and even four alien abduction attempts (note: I was not actually abducted, but they came so close that the final time they tried to abduct me I was dreaming I was levitating, then I proceeded to rebuke in Jesus name whatever was trying to take me. Then I awoke (eyes open) and my body dropped back onto the couch I was sleeping on and bounced twice).
“Before I continue on, I would like to insert a disclaimer. Please bear with me, as this may be rather long. I do not drink or smoke, neither do I ingest any drugs or medications. I have never been tested for mental illness, but have never been suspect of it or recommended for psychological exams. For a while I did have sleep problems out of fear of things like these happening to me, but from about 15 on my sleep schedule began to recover. My imagination is relatively sterile. I do not seek attention nor do I make extraordinary claims without first thinking about the objectivity of said claims. I firmly do not believe that I suffer from self-fulfilling prophecy problems as I do not seek to have any of these experiences; they just happen. I also do not believe that all aliens are demons, but the things I have encountered were definitely of that nature (reacting strongly to exorcism/seemingly phasing in and out of physicality/appearing malevolent and attempting to invoke fear/harm/some of these entities appearing similar to grey aliens, albeit more reptilian in nature and tall). Though I can only speak according to my own experiences, I can say that what I believe has been influenced by supernatural experiences, not the other way around, and that the exercising of said beliefs later on in life against entities that appeared has altered later experiences (such as stopping them in the case of negative manifestations/bringing about positive experiences). Furthermore, I understand that there is a more physical side to researching the paranormal, which I cannot provide much of aside from testimony, but my experiences have been largely spiritual/supernatural in nature.”
Whispers in the Bermuda Triangle?
Here’s a tale that John Keel mentioned briefly in his thought-provoking book The Eighth Tower (1975), about “strange whispering sounds” being picked up electronically near the Bermuda Triangle, but according to an ezine of the National Institute of Standards and Technology, it wasn’t true.
In a posting in a Jan/Feb. 2003 edition of their ezine, it read: “The People’s Almanac (1975) states in the section on the 1945 disappearance of five Navy planes in the Bermuda Triangle that ‘In 1965-1966, NBS studied the coastline along the edge of the Triangle, using special microphones and instruments to pick up ultrasonic noise. They did hear some strange whispering sounds, but technicians could not identify them.’ While NBS researchers did measure the speed of sound in the ocean in the 1950s, no ‘whispering sounds’ were ever noted.”
Website
Magnetites in our inner ear fluid and “Vortex” energies
A researcher named Ben Lonetree reports that he has been studying the “vortex” energies out in the area of Sedona, Arizona for a decade with Fluxgate magnetometers and large induction coils. “I have recorded many intense magnetic in and outflows of energy in Sedona and it is my belief this energy is sensed by the magnetite in our inner ear fluid,” Lonetree reports. “Unlike the process of hearing which relies on mechanical vibration (the ear drum), to produce electrical impulses to the brain, the magnetite, as a receptor produces the impulses that through additional processes work on temporal lobes of the brain.”
“Studies have shown women typically have higher concentrations of magnetite in their inner ear fluid than men,” Lonetree also noted on his website. “Therefore, they are more receptive to subtle electromagnetic energies. This fact known it does not mean men will not experience vortex energy. It simply means they may need to be more aware and alert to subtle changes while exposed to the energy.”
I have previously written in this column how high-frequency harmonic sound waves (as in those produced, for example, by the Peruvian whistling vessels) may generate strong electrical impulses connected with the ears that may stimulate the brain hemispheres (i.e., consider the work of French physician Alfred Tomatis), as well as electrically charge the central nervous system and the brain’s cortex, and Lonetree’s observations seem to possibly lend some credence to that notion.
Reality Checking on Liveparanormal!
Brent Raynes and his co-host (also daughter) Chandra Harrison will be doing a live internet radio show called Reality Checking once every two weeks, for about an hour, beginning at 8 p.m. Central Time, on Monday nights. On the 24th of October, we had Bret and Gina Oldham of Halo Paranormal on as our guests, and we had a lively live discussion about EVPs, Bigfoot, hauntings, etc. It’s archived so you might wanna check it out. Go to: www.liveparanormal.com. Our next show will be Monday, November 7th, at 8 p.m. Central, so please feel free to join us!
