This episode features an in-depth interview with Jeffrey Mishlove, host of “New Thinking Allowed” and a pioneering parapsychologist, exploring his decades of research into UFOs, consciousness, psychokinesis, remote viewing, survival after death, and the intersection of these phenomena with intelligence programs and ancient traditions.
Robert Bigelow’s Essay Contest and the Shift from Nuts-and-Bolts to Consciousness
Robert Bigelow, aerospace billionaire and founder of Bigelow Aerospace, transitioned from studying UFO hardware to funding research on survival of consciousness after his wife’s death and the shutdown of his company during COVID.
Bigelow launched an essay contest on the strongest evidence for survival of human consciousness after bodily death; Mishlove won with an essay arguing that nine independent lines of evidence converge on this conclusion.
Mishlove notes a pattern among researchers (e.g., Nick Cook, Hal Puthoff) who begin with “nuts-and-bolts” UFO propulsion research and inevitably encounter the consciousness/parapsychology dimension, suggesting the two mysteries are inseparable.
The Betty and Barney Hill case (1961) and Kenneth Arnold’s 1947 sighting both involved subsequent paranormal experiences, indicating consciousness phenomena have always accompanied UFO reports but were suppressed due to academic taboo.
Ted Owens: The “PK Man” and His Documented Psychokinetic Feats
Ted Owens (1920–1987) claimed telepathic contact with “space intelligences” (whom he called Tweeter and Twitter, insectoid energy beings) and demonstrated repeated, documented macro-psychokinetic effects: summoning lightning, ending droughts, triggering UFO sightings, causing power blackouts, and influencing weather.
Owens published How to Contact Space People (1969); Mishlove studied him for 11 years (1976–1987) after receiving files from Russell Targ and Hal Puthoff at Stanford Research Institute (SRI), who had declined to work with Owens because his flamboyance threatened their CIA funding.
Ending the California drought (1976): Owens predicted he would end a severe drought within days, accompanied by strange weather and UFO sightings; newspapers soon reported the drought over, with hail, snow, and UFOs documented.
Lightning affidavit: Attorney Sydney Margules signed an affidavit (1960s) stating Owens pointed at the Camden Bridge during light rain with no lightning, and a bolt struck near the bridge moments later; Margules reaffirmed this 20 years later.
Sonoma State UFO sighting (Dec 1976): Owens predicted a massive, photographed, front-page UFO event within 4 days; a UFO appeared over an art department event at Sonoma State, witnessed by ~100 people, photographed, published on the Berkeley Gazette front page, and broadcast on Channel 9 news.
Challenger prediction (Christmas Eve 1985): Owens called Mishlove, demanding he warn the government not to launch the next shuttle or his “UFOs would knock it out of the sky”; Mishlove ignored it; weeks later Challenger exploded. Mishlove later learned another channeler had made the same prediction.
Hundred-day UFO marathon: After being rebuffed by SRI, Owens conducted a 90-day, three-sighting demonstration near San Francisco; Mishlove set up a controlled comparison with San Diego law-enforcement reports, documenting the Sonoma event and an abduction report in Concord.
Vindictive PK: Owens declared “war on the U.S. government” after his earthquake prediction failed; subsequent poltergeist activity on Navy vessels, attacks on nuclear plants, and sports-player “takedowns” were attributed to him. Mishlove experienced a scratchy-throat attack after criticizing Owens, which lifted 45 minutes later when Owens called to apologize.
Owens’ abilities required an “adrinergic” (high-adrenaline) state—often induced by anger, cigars, whiskey, and multiple TVs—consistent with Andrija Puharich’s theory that PK requires arousal while receptive ESP requires a relaxed “cholinergic” state.
SRI, the CIA Psychic Spy Program, and the Consciousness-UFO Nexus
Targ and Puthoff at SRI launched the CIA’s remote-viewing program (later Stargate) after work with Uri Geller; they avoided Owens to protect funding but were stunned when his drought-ending prediction succeeded.
Ingo Swann, remote-viewing pioneer, claimed to have viewed aliens on the Moon who forcibly expelled him, noting their telepathic abilities exceeded even his.
Pat Price (remote viewer) identified alien bases on Earth; the phenomenon of “bumping into” non-human intelligence during remote viewing suggests a shared information space.
Mishlove suspects a “legacy program” recruits “psionic assets”—often nonverbal, autistic children from indigenous cultures never taught psychic ability is impossible—to lure UAPs; census data hints at mysterious disappearances from such groups.
The “hitchhiker effect” (paranormal activity following researchers home) is reported by Skinwalker Ranch personnel and Mishlove himself, implying the phenomena are attracted to consciousness, not just hardware.
EVP/ITC: Tens of thousands of hobbyists use radios, computers, and “spirit boxes” to communicate with deceased; striking cases include images appearing on unplugged TVs and specific, verifiable details unknown to the medium.
Mediumship example: A grieving brother received dozens of unique, non-public details from a medium mimicking his sister’s personality; cold reading and internet search cannot explain the specificity.
Filter/transmission theory (William James, Myers, Bergson): Consciousness is not generated by the brain but filtered/limited by it; death releases the signal. Supported by conservation of energy/information and relativity (photon’s perspective: zero time, zero distance).
Michael Talbot’s Holographic Universe: Brain memory storage and subatomic reality both exhibit holographic properties; Talbot died young of the rare leukemia he had fictionally linked to vampirism—a striking synchronicity.
Jacobo Grinberg & Elizabeth Targ: Grinberg (lattice consciousness theory) vanished; Targ (healer-brain tumor research) died of glioblastoma. Mishlove acknowledges a pattern of premature deaths among frontier researchers but stops short of alleging foul play.
Historical Figures and Mentors Shaping Mishlove’s Worldview
Andrija Puharich: Physician, MK-Ultra figure, brought Uri Geller to U.S., conducted “Council of Nine” channeling sessions at Ossining, NY. Mishlove regards him as a brilliant scientist who understood reality as simulation-like and the Egyptian deities as intelligences interfacing with human consciousness.
Terence McKenna: Articulate advocate of psychedelic mushrooms as symbiotic intelligence; “stoned ape” theory links psilocybin to human brain expansion. Dennis McKenna critiques some speculations as ungrounded.
Zecharia Sitchin / Anunnaki hypothesis: Genetic intervention by ancient “gods” explains punctuated equilibrium in hominid evolution; Whitley Strieber’s abduction accounts (semen extraction) suggest ongoing hybridization.
Arthur Young: Bell helicopter inventor, process philosopher (The Reflexive Universe). Theory: universe descends from spirit (light) into matter (particles → atoms → molecules → DNA → life) then ascends back; humans are at “clam-level” of potential. Young mentored Mishlove and Robert Temple.
Robert Temple:The Sirius Mystery (Dogon knowledge of Sirius B); A New Science of Heaven links plasma physics to metaphysics. Claims Cordell-Lick plasma clouds at Earth-Moon L4/L5 are self-organizing, possibly conscious, and source of long-delay radio echoes. Reports personal contact with a plasma being on an airliner.
Robert Monroe: Hemi-Sync audio technology, Monroe Institute; Tom Campbell (NASA physicist) developed a “big theory of everything” from Monroe work.
Jean Houston: Co-founder of human potential movement; induced full mystical experiences in students (e.g., Mishlove’s epiphany during Hebrew Genesis lecture).
John Mack: Harvard psychiatrist; abduction research revealed “double identity”—experiencers come to identify as the aliens themselves, suggesting consciousness can port between forms.
Whitley Strieber:Communion; initial trauma transformed into “communion”; high-openness personality creates a local reality bubble affecting those around him.
Valerie Ransome: White House staffer (Ford), channeler (“boys upstairs”); predicted four UFOs landing at 3 AM—turned out to be Marine flares, which Mishlove interprets as synchronicity, not fraud.
Paul Feyerabend:Against Method; science advances through anarchic, accidental, non-methodological breakthroughs (e.g., Marconi’s ionosphere bounce).
Robert Anton Wilson:Reality is what you can get away with; model agnosticism, semantic flexibility.
Consciousness, Plasma, and the Nature of Reality
Plasma as conscious medium: 99% of visible universe is plasma; self-organizing, coherent structures (Cardell clouds, ball lightning) may host intelligence. Robert Temple, Rupert Sheldrake (conscious Sun), and Buddhist hitodama (plasma soul orbs) converge on this.
Phase transitions: Plasma ↔ particulate matter transitions may underlie UAP materialization/dematerialization and post-mortem survival (soul as plasma body).
Higher dimensions / Hilbert space: String theory’s extra dimensions may accommodate non-local consciousness; Arthur Young favored dimensional reduction instead.
Renormalization (Ken Wilson): Phase transitions in physics suggest reality’s “laws” change with energy scale—analogous to consciousness states.
Personal Journey and the “Weird” as Fate
Precognitive dream (1972): Great-uncle visitation at moment of death → career shift from criminology to parapsychology. Second dream: “I, E” magazine → found Focus magazine at friend’s apartment → realized nonprofit media path → KPFA radio → The Mind’s Ear show → created interdisciplinary PhD in parapsychology at Berkeley (unique diploma).
Criminology background: Group therapy with murderers/rapists at San Quentin taught unconditional respect—enabled decade-long relationship with volatile Owens.
“Weird” (wyrd = fate): Mishlove’s fate is studying the weird; non-consensus thinkers drive history (debated Michael Shermer). Physicist survey: only ~30% adhere to standard cosmology model—consensus is a myth.
Dark matter/energy as placeholders: No more empirically grounded than UAP data; Copenhagen interpretation is a pragmatic stance, not ontology.
Rebound effect in REG experiments: Flow-state PK collapses when ego identifies with success—mirrors societal resistance to rapid paradigm shifts.
Freudian defense mechanisms: Collective suppression of psychic knowledge because “we don’t want to know what’s in our own minds.”
Autobiographical quest: Every serious researcher (Mack, Hancock, Mishlove) entered field via personal synchronicity/trauma; skepticism is equally motivated.
Poetry/gnosis over logic: McKenna: “A secret is not something untold, but something that cannot be told.” Art, music, poetry convey truths that prose flattens.
Law of One / Ra material: “We are one with everything”—even the most hideous beings are fragments of the whole; evolution is the One knowing itself.
Anka and Tristan: A Living Demonstration of Non-Local Identity
Two personalities sharing one body, switching instantly, singing duets, maintaining continuous co-awareness—unlike dissociative identity disorder.
Claim past lives on other planets, mission to “unify timelines” and ease open contact with long-present non-human intelligences.
Neuroscientists interested in scanning their switching; suggests soul-body separability and supports filter theory.
Closing Reflections
Mishlove sees his work as slowly expanding humanity’s capacity to integrate these realities; the universe assists those aligning with deep purpose.
“With God all things are possible” → “All things are God.” We are splintered fragments re-integrating so the Whole can know itself (Alan Watts).
