Will Paranormal Journalism Take Root?

Just when it feels like journalists are incapable of treating the paranormal with anything but scornful smugness, I come across an article on the Examiner site. In the article Roger Marsh discusses an experiment at Northwest Missouri State University—an experiment in paranormal journalism. Under the tutelage of instructor Jason Offutt, students have begun writing serious articles about paranormal phenomena which they publish on a blog. The articles treat the topics being discussed, from palm reading to haunted houses, with an objectivity sorely lacking in mainstream media outlets such as CNN or the New York Times.

Of course not all professional journalists scoff at the paranormal. I have been interviewed for a number of newspaper articles and talk radio shows, from Toronto’s Globe and Mail to the Marquette (Michigan) Mining Journal. In the vast majority of those interviews I have received a fair and objective treatment. In fact I have mainly encountered hostile, derisive interviewers on talk shows devoted to the paranormal. Go figure!

Some paranormal researchers could stand to take a few lessons from Jason Offutt and his students. Will paranormal journalism take root? Let’s keep our fingers crossed.

The UFO-Evolution Connection

Consider the Cambrian Explosion, a time 500 million years ago when life erupted into countless bizarre varieties of life-forms. The Cambrian Explosion remains a mystery. How did it happen? Why did it happen? A mass extinction later wiped out most of the Cambrian creatures. Throughout our planet’s history, life has gone through cycles where life blossoms then is struck down by mass extinction.

Could a connection exist between the cycle of extinctions, the Cambrian Explosion, and evolution? Imagine an alien race first visited our world eons ago. They found primitive life-forms, bacteria and the like. These aliens have advanced technology. They see a primeval world in need of molding. A great experiment ensues.

The aliens tinker with the life-forms already present on Earth. They create a mind-boggling array of creatures, just to see if they can. Maybe the creatures they made eventually got too wild, or perhaps the aliens got bored with them. Either way, they decided to make a fresh start. They lob an asteroid at Earth, or perhaps use a weapon that leaves a meteor-like crater. Bam! Extinction.

The aliens could’ve repeated this cycle many times. Cook up some life-forms, study them, kill them off, and start again with a new batch. Humans researchers will use animals in their experiments, then kill the animals once they’ve completed their study. Humans researchers also try to create new life-forms.

Scientists have made transgenic animals—creatures with foreign genes inserted into their DNA—which they use in lab experiments today.

If we can do it, so can “they.”

The True Definition of a Theory

Many paranormal researchers—especially Bigfoot researchers—proudly proclaim they have no theories. Why? Probably because to theorize means to state an opinion, to say “I believe this…” Nobody wants to stick his neck out like that. What if one day someone proves you wrong? Eeks, how embarrassing!

Hogwash. How does any field of research advance if no one wants to theorize? With the words “paranormal” and “belief”—from which Bigfoot researchers flee faster than a man who accidentally wandered into the ladies’ room—part of the problem stems from a misunderstanding of the word’s meaning. So what does the word “theory” really mean?

First, let’s separate everyday theories from scientific ones. (Many “scientific” theories fail the scientific theory test though! See my book The Evolution Conspiracy for more on that.) Like a lot of words, theory has several definitions. One states a theory is “the analysis of a set of facts in their relation to one another.” Nothing to fear there, right? If you gather facts or evidence but never analyze them then you are wasting your time.

Another definition calls a theory “an unproven assumption.” This is the most common definition, and the most relevant to paranormal research. Consider these two definitions together. A theory, or unproven assumption, arises from the analysis of a set of facts.

So what if someday your unproven assumption is proven wrong? Maybe, just maybe, someday you will prove your theory right. If you don’t theorize, you’ll never know.

Definitions taken from Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary, 11th Edition.

Fact Meets Fiction: Cave Paintings

Katy stopped. She swept the light over the walls. Images scrolled in and out of sight as the beam moved, lines and dots that comprised the bodies of animals, spears, hominid figures. Cave paintings. She was standing in a gallery of hairy hominid art that rivaled the Lascaux cave art in France.

—excerpt from The Hunt for Bigfoot by Lisa A. Shiel

In Chapter 13 of The Hunt for Bigfoot my main characters, Katy Gallagher and Rick Bergren, find sophisticated artwork painted on the walls of an underground chamber inhabited by hairy hominids (aka Bigfoot). Katy recognizes the similarity between the artwork she sees before her and the paintings in Lascaux cave. Lascaux is a real place, with real cave paintings dating back at least 15,000 years. The paintings in Lascaux cave evince a sophistication not seen again until the European Renaissance. Although archaeologists speculate about the meaning and purpose of the cave paintings, no one knows exactly why the artists chose to paint their masterpieces in hard-to-access locations deep within caves or precisely what purpose the artwork served—whether as pure decoration or religious icons.

Could Bigfoot have had a hand in creating the European cave art? Could Bigfoot live in caves? These questions inspired some of the events in The Hunt for Bigfoot. To find out what Katy and Rick learn from the cave art they found, buy your copy of The Hunt for Bigfoot in paperback or e-book formats.

Fact Meets Fiction: The Paluxy Man Tracks

When I write nonfiction, such as Backyard Bigfoot, I strive to draw a line between what is known as fact and what is speculation. As a fiction writer, however, I enjoy making things up to create an exciting and interesting story. Yet the best fiction is based on at least a kernel of truth. Today I begin a series of blog posts exploring the truth behind my fiction—taking snippets from my Human Origins Series novels and expounding on the real stories behind them.

She kneeled beside the hole. Shoving her hand into the water, she felt along the edges of the depression. At the wider end, she probed the bottom. Her fingers bumped ridges in the rock.

Ridges.

Using the tape measure she had stuffed in her hip pocket, she measured the print—9 inches long, 3.1 inches wide across the ball of the foot. Oh yes, this was no mere consequence of erosion.

It was a 100-million-year-old human footprint.

—excerpt from The Hunt for Bigfoot by Lisa A. Shiel

In the first chapter of The Hunt for Bigfoot, book one in the Human Origins Series, my main character Katy Gallagher discovers a human footprints fossilized in limestone dating back to the Cretaceous Period—the time of the dinosaurs. As Dave Barry would say, I’m not making this up. In the early 20th Century a number of human-shaped tracks were discovered in Cretaceous limestone near Glen Rose, Texas, in and around the Paluxy River. Mainstream scientists have dismissed them as forgeries or misidentified dinosaur tracks, but controversy lingers. The main reason scientists want to dismiss the tracks is because creationists discovered many of them. When I lived in Texas I visited the Paluxy River several times, once specifically to look for man tracks. While I found some vaguely human-shaped depressions, I saw nothing convincing until I paid a visit to the Creation Evidence Museum located just outside Dinosaur Valley State Park. I am not a creationist, but you don’t need to be one to appreciate the fossilized tracks displayed in the museum.

Whatever you think about the nature of the prints, dubbed the Paluxy man tracks, they do exist.

To find out what happens to Katy and the man track she discovered, buy your copy of The Hunt for Bigfoot in paperback or e-book formats.