Leslie Kean and Professor Jeffrey Kripal aren’t afraid of bringing paranormal topics to discussion. (Mike Damante)
Veteran investigative journalist Leslie Kean’s groundbreaking book “UFOs: Generals, Pilots, and Government Officials Go on the Record,” followed by her co-authoring two major New York Times news stories about the Pentagon UFO program and Navy pilot sightings, has helped provide legitimacy to the unexplained. Her latest foray into the unknown, the 2017 book “Surviving Death: A Journalist Investigates Evidence For An Afterlife”, continues her search for answers within these extraordinary topics. Kean is working on an upcoming documentary series based on “Surviving Death,” which includes coverage of past lives among other research areas. Both her non-fiction bodies of work are important in that they tie together multiple phenomena. Her research has shifted from UFOs to consciousness/afterlife, but did it feel like a logical progression?
“It did feel like a logical progression, partly because the topic of survival past death is something I’ve been interested in for a long time, throughout the years I was reporting on UFOs. It was sort of in the background for me, and at one point I assisted producers making a documentary on the topic, so I was exposed to a lot of the information and experts in the field. In doing that,” said Kean,”it wasn’t so much that I saw a link between these topics and UFOs, but I was very fascinated by the question of possible survival after death, and I knew there was a lot of research I could do on it. The difference was I didn’t know much about the topic yet. My UFO book represented the culmination of ten years of work, but this was different. I was jumping into something that was relatively new to me, and it was much more of an exploratory journey that took place while I was researching and writing ‘Surviving Death’. When I started, I didn’t know how it would come out, and never expected to have the experiences I had along the way.”
This past November, Kean was a guest of Professor Jeffrey Kripal at Rice University and presented some of her findings from “Surviving Death”. In her presentation she detailed some of the things she’s witnessed, which makes UFO sightings seem “normal” by comparison. Kean has witnessed a physical medium elicit ectoplasm, which would make for good evidence, but begs the question: would it ever be possible for a medium to do it on camera, or live on camera, to help convince the majority that this is legit?
“All of us would love to have that, and theoretically yes, it is possible. Historically, legitimate photographs were taken of ectoplasm, but others were faked, which creates major problems. To do this now, first of all it’s a matter of finding a medium who is trustworthy,” Kean said. “We would have to know there is no fraud. The medium would have to be developed enough to handle low-level light in the room and the equipment needed to film, without impacting the phenomenon itself. Ectoplasm is very sensitive to light. Then, this medium has to be willing to allow this. There are many reasons why a legitimate physical medium would not want to undergo the kind of controversy that would come from engaging in something like this.”
Kean has been working with Stewart Alexander, a British physical medium who has been practicing his mediumship for forty years. She has seen with her own eyes the manifestation of a “living” human hand form out of ectoplasm on multiple occasions, as have many others, and has touched the hand. These events occurred under controlled conditions so that Kean could be sure of their authenticity. Regarding filming this, Alexander is not in favor of the idea due to it’s potential professional and personal ramifications. Kean explained that Alexander is a private person, and doesn’t want to draw disruptive attention to his small, regular weekly circle and his family. The media hoopla would be destructive, and the skeptics and scientific community would no doubt claim the whole thing was bogus, as they have done to the detriment of genuine mediums in the past. Alexander wouldn’t want this hanging over his legacy, leaving his heirs to deal with such questions. The stress of this could affect the sensitivity he needs to maintain in order to continue with his mediumship.
(Handout)
“He explains this in more detail in my book, and I understand and respect his reasoning, “ Kean said while also noting this does not mean such documentation cannot, or will not be obtained.
Kean’s presentation at Rice University was an all-ages affair. While in Houston she gave another presentation to Kripal’s class about her work with UFOs. While making appearances and doing lectures at colleges, Kean has noticed the attitude from the younger generation regarding the paranormal is mostly positive.
“I was really impressed with the younger set of PhD students and Masters students,” Kean said.” I get a sense that there is a lot of interest in the younger generation, and they may be more open to these things since they haven’t been as affected by the scientific status quo or restrictive materialistic views that we older people have been dealing with for decades. Younger people have a freshness and openness that is wonderful, as well as an intelligent curiosity, and they seem to accept these realities more easily. We need them to carry these studies forward .”
Her current work on the afterlife is a work-in-progress, and Kean is still involved with the documentary series to be released next fall. She acknowledges that the intersection between the larger UFO phenomenon and the exploration of consciousness are not that far apart. With many UFO-centric studies shifting to consciousness and afterlife, these once taboo topics now can be talked about in the same conversation.
“I think the question of the relationship between the UFO phenomenon and consciousness, the paranormal, and surviving death is a really fascinating one. Throughout my career, I have always thought of them as separate, and when I was working on ‘Surviving Death’ it was never linked to UFOs in my mind in any way. But now I’ve become more interested in finding that link,” Kean said. “Other people have been working on the link for years, and know way more about that than I do. I have come to see that there is some sort of overlap. We know that close encounters with UFOs impact people in paranormal ways, in terms of the abilities they develop or extraordinary experiences they have. For example, some experiencers report events that seem to combine seeing or interacting with deceased loved ones at the same time as alien beings. Or they develop paranormal abilities after encounters. There are a lot of interesting things going on between the edges of the two realities. I think it is really the next step, the future direction we need to go in - to find out how they connect and to integrate them, and make that aspect acceptable to the mainstream. As we learn more about the nature of consciousness, we will learn more about the more paranormal aspects of the UFO phenomena, and vice versa. But I will continue my role as a journalist reporting on UFOs as unexplained physical phenomena that need to be taken seriously. In terms of reporting, we have to go one step at a time."
Former Cheif of Staff John Podesta is an advocate for FOIA, and UFOs.(Photo provided by Leslie Kean and used with her permission. Should not be removed or reproduced from this website)
By MIKE DAMANTE
BONUS:
Q:In your book “UFOs” you got John Podesta to write the forward. How did this come about, and why was it important to have his words lend to credibility of subject/ book?
KEAN:”"His willingness to write the foreword of my book was really meaningful to me, and it added a lot of credibility to the book because he was President (Bill) Clinton’s Chief of Staff for many years, and was running an organization called The Center For American Progress, which was an important think tank in Washington. To have someone of that stature stand behind my book was tremendous for me, and I’ll always be grateful for that.“