Category: Podcasts

In this second part of Jimmy Akin’s interview with former US Army psychic spy Maj. Bill Ray of Project Star Gate, he hears about some of Bill’s most dramatic Remote Viewing experiences, including RV of aliens, UFOs, Roswell, and the Ark of Covenant.

Help us continue to offer Jimmy Akin’s Mysterious World. Won’t you make a pledge at SQPN.com/give today?

Links for this episode:

• Paul Smith’s book Reading the Enemy’s Mind
• Bill Ray retirement notice (with video)
• Transcript of Bill Ray’s description of San Matias UFO incident
• Paul Smith’s article “UFOs and Remote Viewing” (see Gulf of San Matias, pp. 15-16)
• Controlled Remote Viewing (by Paul Smith)
• Extended Remote Viewing (by Paul Smith)
• Lt. Gen. William Odom
• Suicide Help Line
• IRVA (International Remote Viewing Association)

• Please spread the word about the podcast. Leave us a review on Apple Podcasts!
• Purchase the books and other material from this and other episodes at the Mysterious World Bookstore.
• Join the conversation at the Starquest Facebook page and the Jimmy Akin’s Mysterious World Facebook page.
• Send your feedback or comments to mysterious@sqpn.com or send a tweet to @mys_world
• You can also leave a voice message on the Mysterious Feedback Line at (619) 738-4515

Mysterious Headlines

• Senator Introduces UFO Transparency Bill
• New Law Would Authorize Rapid Response Teams, Reverse Engineering of UFOs

This Episode is Brought to You By:
Jimmy Akin’s Mysterious World is brought to you in part through the generous support of Aaron Vurgason Electric and Automation at AaronV.com. Making Connections for Life for your automation and smart home needs in north and central Florida.

Catechism Class, a dynamic weekly podcast journey through the Catechism of the Catholic Church by Greg and Jennifer Willits. It’s the best book club, coffee talk, and faith study group, all rolled into one. Find it in any podcast directory.

Fiorvento Law, PLLC, specializing in adult guardianships and conservatorships, probate and estate planning matters. Accepting clients throughout Michigan. Taking into account your individual, healthcare, financial and religious needs. Visit FiorventoLaw.com

Want to Sponsor A Show?
Support StarQuest’s mission to explore the intersection of faith and pop culture by becoming a named sponsor of the show of your choice on the StarQuest network. Click to get started or find out more.

Direct Link to the Episode.

Subscribe on iTunes. | Other Ways to Subscribe.

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Project Star Gate was the Pentagon’s psychic spying program from the 1970s to 1990s. Jimmy Akin talks to one of those psychic spies, Major Bill Ray, who also served as commander of the unit for a time and asks him about his experiences, the history of the program, and about Remote Viewing.

Help us continue to offer Jimmy Akin’s Mysterious World. Won’t you make a pledge at SQPN.com/give today?

Links for this episode:

• Paul Smith’s book Reading the Enemy’s Mind
• Ed Dames’s book Tell Me What You See
• Bill Ray retirement notice (with video)
• Controlled Remote Viewing (by Paul Smith)
• Extended Remote Viewing (by Paul Smith)
• Kremlin (image)
• Gen. James Dozier
• Lt. Gen. William Odom
• Typhoon-class submarine

• Please spread the word about the podcast. Leave us a review on Apple Podcasts!
• Purchase the books and other material from this and other episodes at the Mysterious World Bookstore.
• Join the conversation at the Starquest Facebook page and the Jimmy Akin’s Mysterious World Facebook page.
• Send your feedback or comments to mysterious@sqpn.com or send a tweet to @mys_world
• You can also leave a voice message on the Mysterious Feedback Line at (619) 738-4515

https://youtu.be/l5XcosdhnNM

Mysterious Headlines

• Nobel Prize for 2 New (Obvious) Senses
• The World in Infra-Red (video)
• The World in Ultra-Violet (video)

This Episode is Brought to You By:
Jimmy Akin’s Mysterious World is brought to you in part through the generous support of Aaron Vurgason Electric and Automation at AaronV.com. Making Connections for Life for your automation and smart home needs in north and central Florida.

Catechism Class, a dynamic weekly podcast journey through the Catechism of the Catholic Church by Greg and Jennifer Willits. It’s the best book club, coffee talk, and faith study group, all rolled into one. Find it in any podcast directory.

Fiorvento Law, PLLC, specializing in adult guardianships and conservatorships, probate and estate planning matters. Accepting clients throughout Michigan. Taking into account your individual, healthcare, financial and religious needs. Visit FiorventoLaw.com

Want to Sponsor A Show?
Support StarQuest’s mission to explore the intersection of faith and pop culture by becoming a named sponsor of the show of your choice on the StarQuest network. Click to get started or find out more.

Direct Link to the Episode.

Subscribe on iTunes. | Other Ways to Subscribe.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Recently I ran an online survey in which I asked people to pick their 3 favorite episodes of Mysterious World from 2021. Over 200 people responded, and here are the results!

Like last year, every episode was in somebody’s top 3, so everything was among somebody’s favorites. In fact, no episode got less than 3 votes as a favorite.

(Fractional numbers are because some people divided their votes, and I wanted to be nice and tabulate them anyway.)

Border Patrol Ghost was clearly the overall favorite, and I decided to look a bit deeper at the results to see if there were any particular patterns or lessons that could be discerned.

First, here are the results with the episodes that were paranormal or religious highlighted. Non-highlighted ones are naturalistic mysteries.

Interestingly, only one of the top five mysteries was paranormal or religious. The other four were natural. Shows you can have non-paranormal, non-religious mysteries that are still compelling!

It is clear, though, that the religious mysteries rank higher than the paranormal ones, which isn’t surprising given the largely religious makeup of the audience.

One issue we’ve discussed is the use of 2-part episodes versus 1-part episodes. Currently, I’m using a mix of them, trying of one 2-part mystery a month and two 1-part mysteries.

Here are the results with the 2-part mysteries highlighted.

As you can see, the 2-part mysteries cluster among the more popular ones.

This suggests that doing a mystery in 2 parts can be worth it if the space is needed to properly explore it.

Finally, while I try to include some storytelling in every mystery, some mysteries are more purely story-driven than others. Here are the results with the story-focused mysteries highlighted.

As you can see, the story-focused mysteries also cluster toward the top rather than the bottom of the list.

That’s not at all surprising. Humans are wired for stories, and I’d expect them to be the most popular.

What I found heartening is how many of the “story-lite” episodes are still in the top half of the list! It’s a sign that we’re able to deliver engaging episodes even when we’re not relying on a narrative in story form to completely drive the episode.

Finally, I wondered if how recent a mystery has been covered might significantly affect its popularity, with people’s memories of more recent episodes being more vivid.

So, I gave each episode a number based on the order we did them in and then highlighted them based on how recent they were.

Do me, it doesn’t look like the recency effect was particularly strong, though there is a slight tendency to have the oldest episodes toward lower part of the spectrum.

Interesting results!

Thanks, everybody, for listening and sharing your feedback!