On the Edge of Reality

Beginning in the late 1960s, both Brent Raynes and I started on a parallel quest in hunt of the truth about UFOs. Brent's many early trips included visits and contacts with some of ufology's major figures, people who became his friends, such as Betty Hill, Dr. Berthold Schwarz, and John Keel.

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When he began his search Brent was only 14. Even during his stint with the U.S. Navy, which began when he was twenty, Brent never let up on his correspondence and visits with UFO personalities. Though he was once mistaken for a possible man-in-black or government agent, Brent's style and easy manner befriended many people, both researchers and those who reported strange experiences alike. People liked Brent, and not without reason. He never sought the limelight and avoided conflict and argument, gradually becoming ufology's "Gentle Giant," as he could be described today.

It was in 1985, about a year after my first UFO book, The Archetype Experience, was published that I met Brent through a mutual contact who had numerous experiences with UFOs and entities. He was then producing a nonscheduled newsletter about UFO research entitled, Para-UFOlogy Forum. I wrote a few articles for his newsletter and we collaborated in some UFO investigations together for several years. At that time both of us became interested in the many links between Native American Indian lore and the UFO phenomenon. Both of us were intrigued by the rituals and myths of "little people," unexplained lights, and out-of-body experiences reported by shamans and reported in other Native American lore, because they seemed too similar to modern UFO reports, but with a culture-specific aspect.

In 1993 Brent published the 24th issue of his then renamed newsletter (UFO Perceptions) and I came on with him as a co-editor. In issue 28 we renamed the newsletter Alternate Perceptions and changed the publication to a slick, color-covered magazine of 56 pages. After about two dozen issues, and even with a good circulation, in 2002 (issue # 56) we decided to take the publication to a monthly internet magazine and made all of the content free. The change resulted in a huge readership, generally averaging over 25,000 readers a month. Alternate Perceptions Magazine (www.mysterious-america.net) has now put out over 140 issues.

Over the years Brent has conducted hundreds of investigations of UFO reports, Native American experiences, bizarre and unexplained phenomena, crop circles in the U.S., and so many more scientific issues that it is mind-boggling. In addition, he has conducted and published interviews with a vast number of people, from the biggest names in ufology and the most prominent researchers in paranormal phenomena to some of the more obscure individuals who decided to allow him access to their bizarre and unexplained experiences.

I found Brent to be one of the most caring and meticulous UFO investigators I ever met. He allowed people who had encounters with unknown phenomena to just tell their story and he withheld judgment and ridicule. He truly investigated reports even going so far as to compile a psychological profile of UFO percipients that has been widely cited by others. He faithfully reported on UFO accounts often seeking out the most interesting and unknown cases. His careful and nonjudgmental style was one reason so many people have told him some of their deepest secrets. This book contains some of the most intriguing interviews Brent has conducted. Those who are genuinely interested in unexplained mysteries will find it intriguing and insightful.



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Chapter 1
Gateway to Other Worlds

I had never been to New Mexico or Colorado, so I was certainly very excited about this trip, as was my wife Joan. Flying into Albuquerque, New Mexico late Thursday night, August 7th, 2008, we were met by Priscilla Wolf, an Apache medicine woman, storyteller, artist and author and her dear friend and long time companion Steve. They greeted us as we were headed to pick up our baggage. The way we conversed and laughed a stranger watching us doubtless would have assumed that we had all known each other and been close friends for years. But the truth of the matter is that we began communication with one another via the Internet, snail mail and telephone back in April of this year. I owe a solemn debt of gratitude to that indefatigable researcher and prolific writer Brad Steiger for ultimately bringing us together.

Though the trip to their home in the mountains of Tijeras, east of Albuquerque, is approximately twenty miles, it seemed like no time at all till we arrived at their beautiful mountain home/retreat. However, not long after arriving the adrenaline was beginning to wear thin from the long trip, which our gracious and perceptive hosts quickly picked up on as they introduced us to our sleeping quarters. They told us to feel at home and they certainly did indeed make us feel that way.

Powerful Earth Energies

The next morning we proceeded at a relaxed pace. A healthy and very delicious home prepared breakfast was set before us as we found an endless variety of subjects on which to converse. Day One was going to involve a trip over to Albuquerque, to the west bank of the Rio Grande where the Petroglyph National Monument is located. I had proposed this particular field trip to Priscilla a few weeks earlier and had even emailed her a copy of an interview I had done last year with New York researcher and writer John Burke, author of Seed of Knowledge, Stone of Plenty.

Priscilla was very impressed with Burke's work and even began exchanging emails with him. Burke had visited ancient mounds, henges, pyramids, stone chambers, and known sacred spots at such diverse places as England's Silbury Hill and Avebury Henge, Guatemala's oldest Mayan city of Tikal, the Black Hills of South Dakota, to name but a few, and using a fluxgate magnetometer, a standard voltmeter, and an electrostatic voltmeter he and his colleague Kaj Halberg repeatedly detected unusual earth energies at these places.

"Overwhelmingly, the ancient megalithic architects all over the world chose to build on conductivity discontinuities, and then designed and built these enormous structures in such a way as to further concentrate the natural electromagnetic energies present at these sites," Burke explained in our interview. He further expanded, "A conductivity discontinuity is simply the intersection of two zones of land, one of which conducts natural electrical ground current relatively well and the other less well. At such sites the normal daily fluctuations of the earth's geomagnetic field are magnified several hundred percent, and with them the telluric currents that flow through the ground." Burke also pointed out that Canadian neuroscientist Dr. Michael Persinger had "confirmed that the magnitude of magnetic changes we have found at these sites conforms to those he has found capable of creating visions in volunteers in his lab."

At any rate, the largest conductivity discontinuity that Burke had ever studied was (you guessed it) the Petroglyph National Monument! As he explained in our interview, "it contains thousands of rock carvings which are considered by anthropologists today to have been made by shamans illustrating their trance hallucinations. I measured very powerful and extremely odd surges of electric current in the ground there. When the ranger at the Visitor Center heard what I was finding, she said to me, 'You know, periodically I get these 'New Age types' coming in here and telling me they just love to go sit up in the rocks and feel the energy. I thought they were a bunch of flakes, but you're telling me there might be something to this."

These thousands of ancient petroglyphs are scattered across the face of a 17-mile long West Mesa escarpment that was the result of volcanic eruptions that began about 150,000 years ago. There are said to be more than twenty thousand images covering many of the countless volcanic rocks at this immense site, images said to have been created four to seven centuries ago. Most of these petroglyphs are found on south and east facing slopes. We visited the Boca Negra Canyon portion of this site, walking what is known as the Mesa Point Trail. Boca Negra Canyon was the area where Burke took most of his measurements.