Reality Checking—Alternate Perceptions Magazine, December 2024
Strange News and the Loss of a Legend
by: Brent Raynes
It’s official now! Just got the good news that I'll be presenting at the upcoming 2025 Ozark Mountain UFO Conference April 11-13 in Eureka Springs, Arkansas. Link below.
https://www.ozarkufoconference.com/
My wife Joan and I had a great time Saturday, November 2nd, at the Strange Realities conference in Nashville, Tennessee, where I delivered a presentation on extraordinary Brazilian UFO cases. The MC for this event, second year in a row, actor and Fortean Steve Berg, took a few moments to share with me about cryptids, little people, mysterious lights and related Native American traditions and stories that he's been checking out in his home state of Nebraska. Click below and have a listen!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=whxBVPSFDkw&t=3s
Tony Healy, who I've done two video interviews with of similar things happening in his homeland of Australia, wrote me the following after I shared with him my interview above with Steve Berg. Healy wrote:
I was particularly interested in his mention of black panthers being seen along with sasquatch and 'orbs'/floating lights. That, as you know, occurs here also - Yowie sightings by white Australians and Aboriginal people, along with black panther reports and mystery light events - often in very close proximity.
Funny thing, though - although there is almost universal belief in Yowies among Aboriginal Australians, along with cave paintings of the critters, I don't know of any indigenous traditions about black panthers.
Similarly, in NZ, there are several colonial-era records of Maori belief in bigfoot-like critters, along with a smattering of recent eyewitness reports by both whites and Maori - but, as far as I know, no Maori traditions about black panthers - even though sightings of those big cats are quite common, in the modern era, in both the north and south islands.
So, it seems the black panthers may be a phenomenon of the modern era. Here in Australia it's hard to find reports dating from earlier than 1880. In NZ very few reports come from earlier than 1960. Same in the UK, which produces hundreds of panther and cougar reports these days - but very few from earlier than the mid-1950s.
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After I shared Tony Healy's response with Steve, the MC replied:
Wow yes, that is so interesting. It seems that the Midwest has had a decent number of Black Panther sightings going back quite a way. It's very fascinating to me. It seems like in Nebraska, the 1980's was the real hot time for Black Panther sightings. I have cases going back to 1897 too. Soooooo weird. I love it!
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The field of ufology mourns the tragically sudden and unexpected loss of one of its leading authors and researchers who contributed tremendously to numerous high strange investigations. Particularly, in the San Luis Valley region of Colorado, an area plagued by numerous reports of UFO encounters, mysterious beings, cryptids, and cattle mutilations. He was a very thorough, objective, and insightful investigator who was determined to leave no stone unturned. I did three interviews with him for this magazine, two of them with noted investigative journalist Peter Jordan. [April 2009, July 2023, and September 2023] Below is a link to a recent article that details his passing and his stellar contributions to ufology, Forteana, and the cattle mutilation mystery.
https://www.dailygrail.com/2024/11/vale-cattle-mutilation-researcher-trickster-stalker-christopher-obrien/?fbclid=IwZXh0bgNhZW0CMTEAAR1K9gUhOoQRSkywjSfVzspsjEJ4fAZHFie4WLkc7owvOBkkhHTaLohK17c_aem_4PmFyg5DRWmioyBUDsFzLw
