For the second year, Rice University will host one of the largest conferences centered around its massive archive of documents, data and research from the likes of Jacques Vallee, Whitley Strieber, and others, as well as the academic exploration of the paranormal. From May 11-13 at Rice University, "Archives of the Impossible II: Transnationalism, Transdisciplinary, Transcendence” will take place with in-person and digital participants taking part in seminars, and plenary and flash talk sessions that will include speakers Rey Hernandez, the director Consciousness and Contact Research Institute, Greg Eghigian, professor of History and Bioethics at Penn State, and others.
Read the 2022 coverage including the punkrockandufos exclusive with Vallee and Strieber here, and here.
Registration is open for the event, which will also include three conversations/ sessions starting in April. The event is spearheaded by J. Newton Rayzor Professor of Religion and Associate Dean of the Faculty and Graduate Studies Jeffrey Kripal. Read a previous punkrockandufos interview with Kripal here.
Last year featured over 200 in person guests, as well as over 200,000 streams on its YouTube channel coverage. Last year also included guests like Vallee, Strieber, and Leslie Kean.
“We are making headway here,” Kripal said. “We want to make more headway. We want this thing to ‘tip,’ or, as I say, ‘flip.’”
-By MIKE DAMANTE
If you are a fan of academia and paranormal, Mike Damante’s latest book “Punk rock and UFOs: Stranger Than Fiction” features exclusive interviews with Travis Taylor, Leslie Kean, Tom DeLonge, Peter Levenda, Kevin Day, Sean Cahill, Diana Pasulka, Jeffrey Kripal, and the producers of “Unidentified.” Order now.