New York Times veteran investigative journalist Ralph Blumenthal’s first book on the subject of UFOs is about the charismatic, and controversial Harvard physiatrist John Mack. “The Believer: Alien Encounters, Hard Science, and the Passion of John Mack,” which hits store March 15, vividly tells the story of a man unafraid to tackle the unexplained. Mack, a Pulitzer Prize-winning author, professor and the head of the department of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, was predominantly known in the UFO field for his research that showed compassion, and helped garner mainstream attention to the abduction experiencer phenomena.
“I was in Texas for the New York Times ( I was the Southwest correspondent Houston), and one day I happened to pick up this book ‘Passport To The Cosmos,’” said Blumenthal. ”I was amazed. It was a Harvard psychiatrist writing about aliens abducting humans. He made a very persuasive case on why these people were not mentally ill, and it was not illusions or fabrications, and he went through all the steps on why he believed them, and basically they were telling the truth even though it was outlandish and unprovable.”
Blumenthal discovered Mack’s story in 2004, and thought his story would be perfect for the New York Times, but Mack tragically died when he was run over by a drunk driver before the story could happen. Blumenthal kept in contact with the Mack family, and eventually convinced them he should be the one to tell Mack’s story. He got access to Mack’s files, archives, studies, and journals. Previously, Mack wasn’t into UFOs, but he referred to Mack as his “entree” to the subject.
The book really dives deep into Mack’s history; his personal connections to some of academia’s fellow elite, his celebrity status, his family affairs, and his own struggles. Chapter 5 provides a nice overview of UFOs in the 20th century, which provides historical context for the average reader new to UFOs, and shows support for Mack’s research. There’s some odd coincidences here, as when Mack was faced to defend his research, a member of his legal team, Daniel Sheehan, once helped the estate of former union activist Karen Silkwood who like Mack was also mysteriously killed in an automobile accident. Sheehan, like many Mack encountered throughout his life, was no stranger to the UFO phenomena. Sheehan claimed he had connections that gave him access to the Project Blue Book documents, as well as the Vatican Observatory (Diana Pasulka’s “American Cosmic” also investigated the Vatican’s vested interest in UFOs).
“ One of the things that Mack found (to his surprise, and will surprise a lot of people), that the Vatican is very into UFOs, paranormal experiences, (and) obviously the whole theology of miracles and mysteries allow for things that can’t be proven scientifically, and yet have been with us since the dawn of time,” Blumenthal said." The Vatican would be predisposed to these things like an outbreak of another dimension per say. They never ruled out the fact there could be these unexplainable visitations of objects -UFOs, and manifestations of divine presences -They were influential, and the Vatican archives (like Pasulka found out), and Daniel Sheehan was a well-plugged in lawyer that obviously was a presence and knowledgeable in Catholic theology, and had some in-rounds at the Vatican with the Jesuits. The Vatican helped him get access to the Blue Book documents, and he was able to see files on UFOs crash that he said were super secret and classified. He made notes that were lost, and like you know in this field, proof can be elusive. He makes a good case for the information he found that gave credence to his UFO reports, so he was a very good lawyer for John Mack to have when they hooked up.”
One of the quotes in the book that stood out was when Mack shifted his focus to the after-life:
“Sometimes I think it would be a lot easier for me to do this work from the otherside” Mack said shortly before his tragic death after years of studying UFO abduction experiencers, consciousness and life-after death. It was almost foreshadowing, but Mack’s journey from advocating for community health reform, nuclear disarmament, world peace all came before his interest in UFOs/ consciousness, and life after death. Did Mack’s story arc reflect many of the experiencers' experiences of apocalyptic visions/ urging to save the world, and would also reflect the sensible transition from UFOs to life-after death like New York Times journalist and author Leslie Kean and others did?
“Mack was an enthusiast; he went from one field that captivated him to another,” Blumenthal said. “In the beginning, he was very grounded on earthly concerns, fascinated with social justice/ anti-nuclear and anti-war efforts, world peace, and he worked very hard to bring mental healthcare to Cambridge in the 1960s. He didn’t start off being a great believer in paranormal phenomena; that came later when he started to look at is own psyche through LSD/ drugs, elevated grieving, holotropic breathing / breathwork, so he started to access alternate states of realities, and that opened his mind and the UFOs flew in. I don’t think he was predisposed to that, on the contrary, he was brought up very materialistic, the son of an academic family (his parents were both professors), so he was not interested in the beginning of the paranormal. Because he was such an enthusiast, and he was courageous and threw himself into everything he did , so when he stumbled across the paranormal experiences, and UFO phenomena when he met Budd Hopkins he threw himself into that, and it was characteristic of him as he did everything very whole-heartedly, and sometimes not very judicially. “
Blumenthal was one of the journalists behind the pivotal 2017 New York Times Pentagon UFO story that helped legitimize the topic among mainstream media. His latest story for the New York Times reported on businessman Robert Bieglow’s latest venture Bigelow Institute for Consciousness Studies (BICS) after-life essay contest, which has Kean, To The Stars Academy of Arts and Science Hal Puthoff, and Rice University professor Jefrrey Kripal as judges. Bigelow’s story, which includes him claiming on “60 Minutes” that aliens live among us, NIDS study into the paranormal Skinwalker Ranch, Bigelow Aerospace and now BICS, could be the next story to be told, and a story outlets like the New York Times are open to tell.
“It was immediately accepted by the Style section,” Blumenthal said. “All our UFO reporting that Leslie (Kean) and I did were very well-received by the Times because they were always grounded with solid sources, on-the-record interviews, we were always up front on what he knew and didn’t know, so when I came to the times on Bigelow they thought of it as a very engaging feature on a guy who doesn’t give a lot of interviews ( an interesting character). As for more stories like this, I don’t want to make myself into the UFO reporter at the Times, or pigeonhole myself into someone who only writes about anomalous experience or fringe stuff. I’m an investigative reporter (that was my whole career); I investigated the mafia, political corruption, Nazi war criminals , and then when UFOs came up, I investigated UFO abductions, and experiencer accounts, but I like to think I did it with same rigorous attention to fact, and clarification I did with everything else. (The) image I want to project is a tough reporter who goes into interesting areas and demands answers, and the UFO mystery fits that criteria, and I think we will be reading more, and more about because there’s obviously a lot to be uncovered that the government knows about with the release of the Navy videos, and with the UAP Task Force. So, we are at a time when the public is receptive, and people are taking it seriously. The ridicule factor has diminished, and I’ll continue to follow UFOs, and other things.”
-By MIKE DAMANTE
If you are a fan of the Nimitiz incident, and journalist Ralph Blumenthal’s coverage for the New York Times of UAPs. Mike Damante’s latest book “Punk rock and UFOs: Stranger Than Fiction” features exclusive interviews with Tom DeLonge, Peter Levenda, Blumenthal, Jeffrye Kripal, Leslie Kean, Kevin Day, Sean Cahill, and the producers of “Unidentified.” Order now.