"Paranormal Planet"

     If you keep your eyes and mind open, you will find that the paranormal, the miraculous, the simply inexplicable not only happen, but are not even uncommon. If you haven't had an experience which defies the paradigm of modern science, which appears to violate the laws of nature that we know, then you know somebody who has. Four years ago I published a book entitled, Apparitions: tulpas, ghosts, fairies, and even stranger things, which goes further than simple ghost stories, but explores a parallel world of non-material beings which is only occasionally perceptible to us. Now I have produced a companion volume entitled simply, Paranormal Planet in which I seek to document and explore more than a dozen aspects of the paranormal which do not involve apparitions

Interview re "Apparitions"

       Recently, I was approached by Wendy Garrett in Kansas, who interviewedme  for 40 minutes by telephone about my recent book, Apparitions. You can now access the podcast at https://audioboom.com/posts/7960496-malcolm-smith-10-17-21-aussie-fortean-blogger-writer-researcher-apparitions-paranormal. I hope you find it interesting, if only to listen to the two quite different accents. (I might add, it was a little disturbing to hear myself talking, because you never hear your own voice the way other people do.)

       One thing I found interesting was Wendy's account of her own experience at 11.57. She was weeding the garden when she heard an invisible choir chanting something like, "Mother, bring us rain". Then a cloud passed over, there was a short sprinkle of rain, and the voices stopped. I have no explanation for that.

A New Book on Apparitions

      I started this blog with the aim of collecting reports which were in danger of being forgotten, in the hope that, in the aggregate, they might form a pattern. Well, I have now managed to see some sort of pattern - one of which I wasn't aware initially - so I have now collected it into a book. It is called Apparitions: tulpas, ghosts, fairies, and even stranger things, and it is available from Amazon in both paperback and Kindle e-book form. Much of it has already been published, but a whole lot more is new: collated from both nineteenth and twentieth century sources. With 213 endnotes, it is fully documented.

Introducing a New UFO Novel

"I can't believe it," he said. "We've actually seen a flying saucer crash in front of our eyes."

     Everything else in this blog concerns events which the witnesses claimed genuinely happened. But this is different. It is my first science fiction novel.

    Ever since my teenage years - approximately 55 years - I have been following the UFO scene, and I have become fully conversant with its many facets. I know what flying saucers are supposed to look like, and how they move. I am also familiar with the wide varieties of occupants observed in or near them, and even the weapons they are known to use.
    It will come as a surprise to most people that the interiors have been reported innumerable times, and by people's whose memories did not require hypnosis to be revealed. The descriptions are consistent: in every single case they describe light diffusing the room without any obvious source, and doors for which no visible join in the wall is evident. Over the decades, too, other bizarre phenomena have been frequently reported: truncated light beams, beings levitated on light beams, humanoid occupants passing through walls to give just a short list.
     I had long held the intention, therefore, of producing a UFO novel which would be authentic - one for which it would be possible to say: This might have happened; all the phenomena described are known to be real.
     The central theme is simple, but I don't think it has been explored before. A group of bushwalkers, or hikers, are alone in the wilderness, when they happen to witness the crash of a flying saucer. On inspection, they discover, to their amazement, that the alien pilot is still alive, but injured. What would you do in such circumstances? They feel they have no choice but to treat him like a human casualty, construct a makeshift splint and stretcher, and carry him to civilisation. They do so with mixed emotions; one is excited, one is terrified, another is full of compassion for the injured alien, and so forth. But soon they discover that there are Others interested in the alien - and of their motives and technology they know nothing.
     The novel is self-published through Kindle Direct Publishing. Yes, I know the cover is crappy, but I am not prepared to hire a professional artist. It can be ordered through Amazon in whatever country you are in, and comes in two versions: a paperback and a Kindle e-book. The former I hope will eventually filter into bookstores and libraries. As for the latter, it costs the same as a large coffee, and if you don't possess a Kindle e-reader, the app can still be downloaded for an Ipad (tablet), PC, or phone. Amazon will also allow you to look inside the novel, if you are doubtful about my narrative skills.
     Let me know what you think. If you like it, tell all your friends, and write a review. We first-time novelists need all the help we can get.

     PS I note that a reviewer has now described it as "a gripping and imaginative tale".

It Happened to Them!

     Did you hear about the cat called Mandrake which, in four consecutive months - but only at the full moon - brought a mouse into the house and drowned it by holding it down in the dog's water bowl? Friends of the owner suggested that it was offering sacrifices to Diana, or else it was destroying evil witches who had transformed themselves into mice. Or what about the ants which, after having burning paraffin poured down their nest one day, and boiling water a few days later, marched in several lines nine metres to deposit their dead in a heap in front of the home of their destroyers?