Monthly Archives: October 2013

Open Minds Team

Open Minds Production is based in Tempe, Arizona. The Open Minds team consists of internationally-recognized journalists, researchers and media specialists who have worked in the UFO arena for decades.

ALEJANDRO-ROJAS_142_1Magazine Editor, Open Minds UFO Radio Host

Alejandro Rojas is the host for Open Minds UFO Radio, editor and contributing writer for Open Minds magazine as well as OpenMinds.tv. For several years Alejandro was the official spokesperson for the Mutual UFO Network as the Director of Public Education. As a UFO/Paranormal researcher and journalist, Alejandro has spent many hours in the field investigating phenomena up close and personal. Alejandro has been interviewed by media organizations around the world, including the largest cable and network news agencies with several appearances on Coast to Coast AM.

antonio_2012Contributing Writer, Open Minds Magazine

J. Antonio Huneeus has covered the UFO field from an international perspective for over 30 years. His articles have appeared in dozens of publications in the U.S., Latin America, Europe and Japan. He was also the co-author of the Laurance Rockefeller-funded “UFO Briefing Document – The Best Available Evidence” and edited the book “A Study Guide to UFOs, Psychic & Paranormal Phenomena in the USSR.” Huneeus studied French at the Sorbonne University in Paris and Journalism at the University of Chile in Santiago in the 1970s. He has lectured at dozens of UFO Conferences all over the world and been interviewed by many media outlets including The Washington Post, the Sy-Fy and History Channels, Nippon-TV, etc. He received the “Ufologist of the Year” award at the National UFO Conference in Miami Beach in 1990 and the “Courage in Journalism” award at the X-Conference in Gaithersburg, Maryland, in 2007.

jason_2012_teamMagazine Editor, Spacing Out! Host/Producer, Web Content Manager

Jason McClellan is an editor and staff writer for Open Minds magazine. Jason is also the producer and co-host of the web series Spacing Out!, web content manager and staff writer for OpenMinds.tv, and co-organizer and technical producer of the International UFO Congress.

maureen_2012_teamMarketing Director, Spacing Out! Host/Associate Producer

Maureen Elsberry is the Marketing Director, Co-host and Associate Producer for Spacing Out!, and Co-Organizer of Open Minds Events. She is also a contributing writer for OpenMinds.tv and Open Minds magazine. With a degree in Journalism and Media Production, Maureen has spent over 8 years working in Internet Media, Marketing and Radio. She now spends her time investigating, reporting and spreading news related to the UFO phenomenon.

tom_2012_teamTelevision Executive Producer

Tom Ruffin began his career in television in 1984, with a BA degree in Broadcast Journalism from Cal State Long Beach. Working for a small, and at the time unknown, show called Entertainment Tonight. As the popularity of the show grew he began to climb the ladder. After 21 years he was the only one employed who was a member of the Directors Guild of America (DGA) and the International Alliance of Theatrical and Stage Employees (I.A.T.S.E.) . In the summer of 2009 Tom was hired by Open Minds to develop a television show for broadcast television. He looks forward to this challenge and learning more about this interesting and vital topic.

michael_cline_avatar21Video Editor, Segment Producer

Michael Cline has a diverse background with more than ten years of video production experience at multiple TV stations and ad agencies, along with his own freelance endeavors. A strong interest in the unknown motivates him to research, write, and edit video segments on a variety of UFO related topics.

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Dr. David Clarke – Ufologist

drwho-ClarkeDr. David Clarke

Dr. Clarke’s bio on his website is well written, so we’re just pasting it here without edits. We want you to know about him regardless. Why reinvent the wheel when a perfectly good one exists and we can just share it? He states…

I am course leader and senior lecturer in journalism at Sheffield Hallam University, South Yorkshire, UK.  The department forms part of the Media, Arts and Communication subject group.  I am responsible for nine members of staff and more than 250 students on the undergraduate Journalism course. The university also runs postgraduate courses in International Broadcast Journalism and Sports Journalism.

The journalism team also form part of the university’s CCRC (Communication and Computing Research Centre). My specialist research interests include investigative journalism, the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), official secrets, censorship and media law. I teach on UG and PG modules in Investigation and Research Skills, newsroom skills and Media Law. I also mark Media Law exam scripts for the National Council for the Training of Journalists (NCTJ) and qualified for the NCTJ’s National Certificate in Journalism whilst training on regional weekly newspapers. I was the winner of the Yorkshire Press Awards Feature Writer of the Year (Weekly Newspapers) in 1994 for my work as Deputy News Editor on the Rotherham Advertiser.

Prior to teaching journalism skills I worked as a news reporter for The Sheffield Star and the Yorkshire Post covering a range of general news and crime stories. Included in my exclusives was a plan to fly nuclear waste over Yorkshire cities, a major corruption scandal in local government and a multi-million pound scam to re-sell contaminated meat to unsuspecting consumers.

After leaving the journalism beat I spent four years working as a Press Officer in local government as ‘poacher turned gamekeeper’. My freelance work has appeared in a variety of national and international newspapers, magazines and academic journals including BBC History, Contemporary Legend and Folklore. I continue to co-write a monthly column, Flyingsaucery, for the news-stand magazine Fortean Times.

In addition I am the author and co-author of 12 books on aspects of supernatural belief, UFOlogy and contemporary legends. In my capacity as a journalist and ‘expert’ on UFOs and modern myth, I frequently work as a consultant and contributor to a range of radio, TV and satellite programmes covering these subjects.

In 2000 I launched a campaign to persuade the Ministry of Defence to release the remaining UFO files retained in their archives (mostly post-1984).  I quickly became their most “persistent correspondent”, using firstly the Code of Practice for Access to Government Information and, from 2005, the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) to apply for the release of UFO-related policy documents and other papers.

During 2001 my requests led to the release of the MoD’s file on the famous Rendlesham Forest UFO incident of 1980 (known as ‘Britain’s Roswell’) and the 1951 report by the oddly named ‘Flying Saucer Working Party’, set up by the MoD to investigate reports of strange objects in the sky. This report was used to brief PM Winston Churchill during the following year when a UFO flap in Washington made headlines across the world. MoD had long maintained the report had been destroyed, but my inquiries discovered the last surviving copy and this was released to me – and to the world – in 2001.

The later stages of my campaign for UFO document disclosure coincided with the introduction of the UK’s Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) in 2005. In the first year, the subject of UFOs became the third most popular subject for requests made to the MoD. And it was during 2005/6 that I used the FOIA to secure the release of a hefty four volume study of UFOs (or UAPs, as MoD preferred to call them), known as ‘the Condign report’. Originally classified as ‘Secret – UK Eyes Only’ the report was completed by the secretive Defense Intelligence Staff in 2000. Its release in 2006, made headlines across the world.

My work to secure full release of all surviving UFO data held by MoD continued and in 2007 the Ministry announced that it planned to transfer its remaining papers to The National Archives, in a phased programme that began in May 2008 and is still continuing.

What do you think?

Is Dr. Clarke’s work significant to the progress of Ufology? In your opinion, what do you think are the three main factors inhibiting a unified front within the Ufology community?

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Curator’s Bio & CV

ZenGarden

Bruce ‘Zen’ Benefiel began his interest in Ufology very young and not because he was merely curious. Although he did find the early sci-fi television shows and movies intriguing, he had another side of his life that he kept hidden for a long time. He experienced various forms of contact when he was a youth and they continue to present day. His life story, incredible as it may be, has been met with the typical highly skeptical views of others yet he hopes his openness will encourage others to come forward.

Just after his eighth birthday he awoke in what he thought was a dream, hovering in the upper corner of his bedroom. He watched as his body got up, opened the window and climbed out. He passed through the wall and continued to observe his body walk across the neighbor’s back yard and over to a fence surrounding a 10-acre pasture. He climbed the fence, began walking out into the field and started rising up into the air. The ‘observer’ looked up to see an orange cigar-shaped cloud, looked back at the body rising up toward it. The two converged as they entered the cloud together.

That ‘dream’ repeated about once a month for about two years. Occasionally he would wake up with a nose bleed, but for the most part he was excited at the prospect of returning. There was no sense of danger or fear whatsoever. It wasn’t until he was introduced to Ruth Montgomery’s Strangers Among Us at 23, did he put it all together. According the book the orange cigar-shaped cloud was the most common contactee experience in the Midwest during the late 50s and early 60s. Now being the curator of UfologyPRSS.com allows him to share his passion beyond just sharing his story.

Principal and owner of Be The Dream LLC (since 1988), specializing in personal/professional coaching, customer service improvement and motivational speaking. Managing Partner of Team Partnering LLC (2009), a professional services company specializing in partnering facilitation, project management, organizational development, strategic planning consulting

  • Master of Business Administration degree in Project Management
  • Master of Arts degree in Organizational Management
  • B.S. degree in Business Administration, minor in Finance
  • Certified Hypnotherapist and Transformational Life Coach
  • Over twenty years experience facilitating partnering workshops
  • Over 10 years as a college and secondary instructor/teacher

Short Bio

Started college at Ball State University with honors on a pre-Med program, switching in his second year to Psychology with a minor in Comparative Religions after a near-death experience. Dropped out mid-way through, got married and finished a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration a decade later while working for an aerospace company in Phoenix.

While working as a production control coordinator for Allied-Signal Aerospace in 1988, he founded Be The Dream LLC as a vehicle to promote holistic understanding in business and personal achievement. Years later he founded Team Partnering LLC to continue work as a partnering consultant and facilitator for large building, road and bridge construction projects. Father of four and church Elder, he was divorced later the same year.

Created ONE WORLD television show and produced over 100 shows in the early 1990s. The show featured cross-cultural and multi-disciplined guests discussing inner and outer relationships in the process of overcoming common fears in life. During that period he also served as a liaison for the Phoenix Indian School Preservation Coalition, a Native American effort for park design inclusion.

Zen is an international presenter on holistic project planning. After teaching for several years he co-created a vision and business plan for a holistic model community serving at-risk youth, calledContrarian Spectrum Academy. He crafted PlanetaryCitizens.Net to showcase people, places and things aligning with positive change. He spoke at the 2010 International Association for Near Death Studies, realizing a 35-year dream.

Inclusive of his eclectic career were several decades as a performing and studio drummer as well as an extensive reading list. Mr. Benefiel is an author on awareness and performs workshops on bridging worlds, called Quantum Coagulation, designed for a direct experience of inner awareness and spiritual significance. He’s authored several books.

Zen resides in Gilbert, Arizona. He now has eight grand children.

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OffPlanet Radio

OffPlanet RadioChris Holly and Randy Maugans produce one of the Internet’s prime selections of News of the Weird… OffPlanet Radio. The show covers topics that include UFOs and Extraterrestrials and much more. Chris and Randy both have their own experiences of the Weird that fuel their quest for exploring and investigating the truth about such topics, or at least the truth about the experiences and information shared by others.

Chris was drawn into ‘the work’ from her own experiences and developing a flairchrisholly for writing about them. She’s lived a life filled with extreme experiences and unique events involving that which we do not understand and felt it her destiny to tell these true events to the world by way of her short stories or articles based on true experiences of her own or reports.

Chris provides her own investigative flair from those experiences and her ChrisHolly-Bookunderstanding of the paranormal. She says, “I have found over the years that those who come forward to report strange experiences fall into two categories. One is of people who do not seem to have encountered any fear from their strange event or harm and the other, of course, are the people who have been traumatized, terrified, and at times physically harmed by what they either saw or experienced.” She’s also got her own blog called Endless Journey.

From their website Randy states, “I have spent my adult life seeking the truthrandi_fellow about “what’s out there”, as result of two (known) childhood “contacts” with “something” I could not explain. “Exotica” (now Off Planet Radio) is the natural outgrowth of my interests in the areas of the paranormal, technology, and communications…the “future” caught up with me.”

Randy says, “My experiences have included missing time, intrusions, night time astral events, and sitings of craft over a 25 year period. While I blocked many memories early in life, I also have several “eyes wide open” events that confirmed (to me) the reality of what are described as abductions and interactions with off-world/other-dimensional entities. In recent years details of early life encounters have begun to surface, showing me that not all interactions are negative, but that both good and evil reside both on Earth, and outside it.”

Randy’s been around radio all his life. Beginning as a boy, building crystal radio set; to DJing, on-air RandyMaugansDJ, and talk show host duties. He’s been on the internet as well as shortwave radio since 2002, being one of the earliest of what are now called “podcasters”. …For over four years the internet talk show, “OffPlanet Radio” has been a hub for the unraveling of deep mysteries which are rarely discussed in mainstream media.

You can find them at OffPlanet Radio on Friday nights from 10pm to Midnight Eastern Standard Time.

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Jesse Marcel Jr – Icon in Ufology… RIP

From Wikipedia and Telegraph

Major Jesse Marcel

During the first week of July 1947, William Brazel, a foreman for a ranch in Roswell, New Mexico, was examining livestock when he noticed a wreckage of an unknown shiny, metallic material. Brazel collected a sample of the debris and showed it to George Wilcox of the Chaves County, New Mexico’s Sheriff Office where the two talked “confidential-like”. Wilcox brought down Major Jesse Marcel from the Roswell Army Air Field (RAAF) to examine the debris. After the discussion, Marcel, Brazel, and Counterintelligence Corps officer Sheridan Cavitt traveled to the debris field, which covered an area approximately 0.75 miles (1.21 km) long and was several hundred feet wide. Marcel informed the United States Air Force (USAF) of the flyer saucer, and it was handled by the Eighth Air Force (8 AF).

On July 8, the Roswell Daily Record reported the RAAF found a flying saucer in the Roswell, New Mexico region. A press release from the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) was released the same day claiming a weather balloon was found instead of a flyer saucer. The debris was flown from Roswell to the 8 AF’s headquarters in Fort Worth, Texas that day on a Boeing B-29 Superfortress. Marcel flew, too, and he met with General Roger Ramey, where parts of the debris was set up for the press to photograph. A telex was sent on July 8 from the FBI’s office in Dallas, Texas to the Cincinnati, Ohio office. The writer said a flying disc—hexagonal in shape and 20 feet (6.1 m) wide—had been found, and the debris was going to be transferred to Wright Field in Riverside, Ohio for a special investigation. The press reported the weather balloon story from Fort Worth, and nothing else was reported.

The incident was more or less forgotten until 1978, when a UFO researcher called Stanton Friedman went to interview Jesse Marcel Sr, who insisted that he really had found a flying saucer, but that his superiors had covered it up and ordered everyone who came into contact with the UFO never to talk about it. Subsequently (Major Marcel died in 1986) other witnesses came forward to corroborate his story, with some even claiming that alien bodies had been found in the wreckage — small, humanoid figures with large heads and huge, slanted almond-shaped eyes.

Jesse Marcel Jr

Jesse Marcel Jr, died at age 76, was an American ear, nose and throat specialist who insisted, until the end of his life, that as a child he had handled debris from a flying saucer. The association proved lucrative, too, for Marcel Jr, who appeared on numerous television and radio shows, went on lecture tours and in 2007 published The Roswell Legacy, in which he continued to insist that the wreckage had an extraterrestrial origin – he even provided artists’ impressions of the mysterious hieroglyphs.

Jesse Marcel Jr was born on August 30 1936 in Houston, Texas, and served as a medical officer in the US Navy from 1962, becoming a specialist in ear, nose and throat surgery. After retiring from the Navy in 1971 he opened a medical practice in Helena, Montana. In 1975 he became a medical officer in the Montana National Guard and earned his flight surgeon wings (flight surgeons at the time were allowed to fly solo in helicopters) at Fort Rucker, Alabama. He was appointed State Surgeon of of Montana and retired from the military in 1996.

During Operation Iraqi Freedom he was called up again for active service and, from September 2004, spent 13 months as a flight surgeon with the 189th Helicopter Battalion in Iraq, reaching the rank of colonel.

He is survived by his wife, Linda, and by eight children. You can find his son Jesse on Facebook.