UFOs And The Nature Of Reality - Dr. Jonathan Kendall

UFO stories are easy to dismiss until you look at what serious researchers actually wrestle with: physical traces on the ground, multi-witness sightings, “unknowns” admitted by official programs, and a strange pattern of spiritual aftereffects that do not fit a simple materialist story. We sit down with Dr. Jonathan Kendall, a practicing nephrologist and the author of The Metaphysics of UFOs, to ask a questions and explore the reality beyond what we currently call reality.

We start with the basics, including why “UAP” (unidentified anomalous phenomena) has become the modern label and how stigma has shaped public conversation. Then we go deep into classic high strangeness territory: Point Pleasant’s Mothman reports, waves of UFO sightings, and the unsettling Men in Black phenomenon that seems to blur government intimidation with something far more uncanny. Jonathan shares why the evidence base is bigger than most people realize, from Project Blue Book’s persistent “unknowns” to modern reporting, media scrutiny, and congressional attention.

The heart of the conversation is metaphysics: UAP as an overtly physical phenomenon that still leaves a spiritual signature. We talk about landing effects, radiation cases, and also the reports of orbs, apparitions, psychic experiences, and the surprising number of people who describe long-term personal transformation. We connect that thread to Jonathan’s other work on apparitions and after-death experiences, and we end with the question we ask every guest: what do you believe lies beyond?

If you’re curious about UFO evidence, UAP disclosure, Men in Black, Mothman, psychical research, and the spiritual dimension of close encounters, press play and join us. Subscribe, share this with a friend, and leave a review so more listeners can find the show.

Here is a recent article that Dr. Kendall published: https://www.llewellyn.com/journal/article/3340?utm_source=paraup0626&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=paraup0626

Bio:
Jonathan Kendall
I am a practicing Nephrologist in Eastern Kentucky, board certified in Internal Medicine and Nephrology. Independent Christian belief (i.e. very non-denominational). My belief is that current traditional belief systems lack a coherent understanding of reality as evidenced in my research and writing on apparitions and UFOs. Needless to say I have an immense fascination (and always have had) with the spiritual and the paranormal.

Transcript

Welcome To Belief Being Beyond

GDC 0:01

Welcome to Belief Being and Beyond with your host, Granddaughter Crow. Hi, everybody, Granddaughter Crow here with yet another episode of Belief Being and Beyond. And we at the show love to let you know that belief systems constitutes how you behave in the world, your beingness. But there's always something more, right? There's always something beyond, beyond even our consciousness. And so tonight we have an extra special phenomenon tonight. So get comfortable, maybe dim the lights a little bit, because we are going to explore, encounter the activity that is out of this world, or is it? Right? So tonight we have Dr. Jonathan Kendall and his latest book, The Metaphysics of UFOs. Yeah, published by Llewellyn Worldwide. Oh my goodness, this is going to be a brilliant conversation. So before we bring on Jonathan and Jenny Seabelle, let me tell you who is Jonathan. Jonathan is a practicing neuro, not neurologist, nerfist. Nephrologist. What? What is that? Don't worry, guys. I got your back. I got your back. I've got Google. Basically, he works with kidneys. So he is an Eastern Kentucky board certified in internal medicine and nerphology. I hope I'm saying that right. Anyway, we are gonna learn so much today because we're sitting down with somebody who obviously, I mean, is a doctor, right? Lots of IQ here, lots of scientific method, lots of quantitative research and analysis. And we're talking with him about UFOs. This is gonna be cool a little bit more. Independent Christian beliefs, i.e., very non-denominational. His belief is that current traditional belief systems lack a coherent understanding of reality, as evident in his fascination with spirituality, a phenomenon, apparitions, and UFOs. Oh my goodness. Enough with me. Let's bring on Jonathan to the show. Welcome, Jonathan.

Jonathan 2:50

Granddaughter Crow, Jenny, thank you for that. And thank you for that introduction. I hope I'm half worthy of that.

GDC 2:56

Oh, you are? Are you kidding me? You give me just a little bit of that. I mean, this is going to be incredible. This is going to be incredible because we haven't had the opportunity to sit down with a scientific-minded individual who is going to then take us to the beyond with the phenomenon of UFO. Now, UFOs, I understand, right? Unidentified flying objects. But then as I start opening up the book, I see another acronym. UAP. Okay. So first lesson for Granddaughter Crow. What is a UAP?

UFO Or UAP And Why Names Matter

Jonathan 3:40

So UAP is essentially the replacement word for UFOs in modern parlance. It means unidentified anomalous phenomena. Some people say it's uh it also can stand for unidentified aerial phenomena. And the term term goes back a long ways. It's not clear why that that why that or exactly how that term replaced UFO, but I think it was done in more modern times to try to replace the stigma because there's a stigma associated with studying unidentified flying objects. It not deservedly takes up a fringe area in in terms of science. And that's that's why UAP was part of this rebranding.

GDC 4:25

I love that. See, I'm learning stuff new already. Okay, so this begs the question, and you have it in your book, so I feel at liberty to ask. Verbatim. So why on earth does a nerfologist study UAPs? Like, bridge this beautiful logic, unseen phenomenon. Help us understand.

Jonathan 4:54

I've always been fascinated by the paranormal. Growing up, I was in fourth or fifth grade, I can't remember which, but we were supposed to write a report on a subject of our choice. So while other people are taking fix or more mainstream science and writing on topics related to history, things like that, I chose UFOs. So I've always been fascinated with it. But about six years ago, I got into psychical research, studies of apparitions, ghosts, haunted houses, things like that. And that that led into a subject that I think is related, UFOs. So that's how I got into it. I've I've never actually seen one, although, interestingly enough, my my grandfather has, several people in my family have over time. My sister-in-law, when my wife and I had taken off to New York to go catch a catch a Knicks basketball game, she saw one flying over the tree line behind our house. So I don't know if they come to pay me a visit, but their timing was bad if that was the case. Exactly.

GDC 6:01

I love it. And so you're in Kentucky, and what okay, so Mothman. I'm just gonna, I don't even know how to jump in. I'm just Mothman.

Jenny 6:13

That was a good starting book. You got me sold immediately. So yeah, can we talk about Mothman? Um, that chapter is in the beginning of the book for people that get the book, which I highly recommend. And there were details of like what all the research you did on Mothman. There was new information to me because my son and I love cryptids. And so, can we talk about Mothman and what does Mothman have to do with the metaphysics of UFOs?

Mothman Links Cryptids And UFOs

Jonathan 6:45

Absolutely. I think that's a great point to start because that's how I start the book after the introduction. Chapter one's about the Mothman. So I grew up near a town, Point Pleasant, West Virginia. I lived in Cross Lanes, West Virginia originally, but Point Pleasant's about 40 miles from where I grew up. So we would, I would grow up hearing tales about the Mothman. Didn't know much about it. But when I started doing this research, I found that it was connected to UFOs. I'll get I'll get into how that's the case presently. But the Mothman, best book on it is probably John Keel's The Mothman Prophecies. He visited Point Pleasant, talked to people that actually saw this creature, and what it was was a creature that was about six or seven feet tall, had wings, had muscles like a man, didn't have a human head. The head kind of stopped at the shoulder blades, and there were these red eyes on it. Steve and Mary Millette, Roger, Linda Scarberry, they were the initial witnesses, as far as we know, back in 1966. They were out in this place called the TNT area, which is an old World War II munitions area. And they actually spotted this creature. One of its wings was was caught seemingly in the gate, and they were just mesmerized, transfixed by it, almost hypnotized. Well, anyway, they they came to their senses, and Roger Scarberry, who was driving the Chevy, took off, went back towards town to get the sheriff, and along the way they would still see this Mothman. It would be like it's this creature would stay one step ahead of them. And it would take up in the it would shoot up into the air with its wing spread, almost as if defying physical law, how it did this. And that that's what kicked it off. And over 100, there were over 100 witnesses of this Mothman. Importantly, there were several times when it was seen by two or more people, up to five, I think, which that rules out hallucination being a case. And the reason that's connected with UFOs is while at the same time these Mothman sightings were occurring, there were all kinds of UFO sightings there in Point Pleasant. There was a farmer in Keel's book that said that he didn't even think it was a phenomenon worth pointing out at some point because they got so commonplace in Point Pleasant, and then across the across the river in Gallapalis, Ohio. Yeah, so that's how it's connected. And then of course you've got these sinister men in black that uh visited the area as well. You had poltergeists, things like that. And that's Point Pleasant 1966 through 68 with the Mothman. It shows it's a good synthesis of how cryptids, UFOs, and ghostly like phenomena seem to seem to keep each other's company for whatever reason.

GDC 9:33

Okay, men in black. You said men in black.

Jenny 9:38

Chapter three, Men in Black.

GDC 9:40

Yeah. So when I saw Men in Black, I was like, oh, great show. And then I started digging in, and I'm like, oh no, this is not what I thought, you know, because help us understand a person like me who's like, oh yeah, let's talk about the men in black and who they actually are.

Men In Black As A Real Phenomenon

GDC 10:01

The phenomenon.

Jonathan 10:02

Yeah, so so before reading Keel and before really getting into the UFO literature, I didn't even know there was a men in black phenomenon. I thought the movies, the Will Smith, Tommy Lee Jones movies were just I didn't know that was based on an actual phenomenon. But these are ostensibly government agents that will come and intimidate UFO witnesses shortly after their sighting. I do believe that that has actually happened. There have been some documents that have been declassified which attest to this. But there also seems to be a paranormal aspect to them as well. Sometimes they seem to be spectral. So Kiel, he would he would chase some of these or claim to these Cadillacs down dead end roads and they would disappear. Or some the two cases I discuss at some depth in metaphysics of UFOs. You have there's one case where a car just disappears when police officers get close to it. Herbert Hopkins, who's a doctor in Maine, interviewed or uh entertained a very frightening guest, and a men in black, which made a coin literally disappear from from his own hand, the doctor's own hand, and and seemingly just disappeared into the night after after the sighting. And what gets really eerie is some of these people will encounter men in black before they've even reported the sighting. They'll they'll see a UFO, they'll be frightened by it or have some kind of experience, and then they'll stop by at a diner before they've had a chance to tell anybody, and there will be a men in black there or a man in black trying to intimidate them. So it they seem to be mostly sinister individuals, whatever, whatever they are.

Jenny 11:43

And not quite human, because there's a couple stories about them trying to drink Jell-O and them seeming to not know how to use utensils or what food is. That was like so eerie. I have goosebumps right now while we're talking.

Jonathan 11:58

Yeah, Jacques Vallet, he's a ufologist that studied uh a case, UFO case. Kind of reminds you of Point Pleasant, where you have this conglomeration of paranormal phenomena. Happy Camp California, and he actually knew a couple of ladies personally that had a had an MIB go in and got steak, got jello, didn't know how to, didn't know how to cut the steak, had to be showed how to cut it, had to be, and tried to drink the jello, solid, solid jello, tried to drink it. So yeah, I I think it's almost a theatrical performance for for us viewers, but it it's certainly very fascinating. A lot of times, interestingly enough, they'll show up in antique cars that actually have the new car smell. I don't even know how the government's going to get their hands on, say uh even back then, an old Cadillac that has a that's in pristine condition and even has a new car smell if you're close enough to get to it. And that's that's why there seems to be more than meets the eye to some of these MIB cases.

GDC 12:58

Clarify MIB, men in black. I'm just like, yeah, I'm just like, okay, new acronyms, guys.

Jonathan 13:07

Ufology is full of these acronyms. I have a hard time keeping up with them.

GDC 13:12

I absolutely am intrigued because you know, when I'm looking through your book, at first glance it's like, okay, okay, okay, let's go here. And then I was really impressed with the bibliography and who you research. Like, this isn't just, I mean, yes, this is kind of like we're around the campfire, got the flashlights telling stories, but in truth, we're looking at a lot of credible research here. A lot of credible research, like to the degree that I'm like on YouTube looking up Mothman, and I see this quick little documentary with these very, very well-renowned credible sources. And then I look in the back and I'm like, oh, yeah, Jonathan like looked at them. Yeah, Jonathan, you did a lot of research for this. It's not just uh, oh, here's a perspective. Can you kind of lead us down the I guess the fascinating part is the ability to have a scientific mind, uh be a credible researcher, know the scientific method, and still find yourself exploring these phenomenons, showing that there is more quantitative or quality and the phenomenon. Help us to bridge the help me to bridge that. Help me to bridge that all of the research, and yet you're still coming out going, guys, you need to pay attention. There's something here.

Evidence And Stigma Blue Book Unknowns

Jonathan 15:00

Yeah, so thank you for pointing that out. It it was a lot of research. It took about four years. I started this in 2022, the research for this UFO book. And I didn't know necessarily what I would find when I first started it, but what I was impressed was just the wealth of evidence that supports the reality of UFOs, UAPs, if you will, the men in black phenomenon. And just it Jay Allen Heinek, he's a famous ufologist from and worked on Project Blue Book back in the 50s. He went from being a debunker to someone that was a believer in this phenomenon, and he wrote about it in a couple of really good books that he published later. He called it an embarrassment of riches, and that was just based on the data that he had then. So, just to give you an indication of that, Project Blue Book that was the government's study of UAPs from about 1952, terminated in 1969. And they came, Edward Condon, when he released his report, he came to a very, I would say, skeptical conclusion. He didn't say that UFOs don't exist, but he said that they weren't worth studying, that they were not a threat to national security. I think that flies in the face of a lot of the data that you see even pre-1969, frankly. But even by the most conservative standards, even Blue Book concluded that there were over 500 unknowns, that is, unidentified flying objects. So I think that's significant. And of course, in the last 56 years, we've accumulated a lot more evidence as well. So I guess to put it in spiritual or faith terms, Granddaughter Crow, Jenny, I might say that knowing what I know about this phenomenon, it would take me far more faith not to believe that something anomalous is behind this UFO phenomenon than to believe that somehow it can all be explained away.

GDC 17:04

Mic drop moment. There you go. That was a mic drop moment. Maul, you heard it here, guys. You can support it by liking, subscribing, and sharing. Also, connect with us, leave a comment, text the show option wherever you listen to podcasts, leave a review, or email us at beliefbeingbeyond at gmail.com. Also, I'm on Patreon where a small donation goes a long way. Find this and more episodes at Granddaughter Crow.com. Thank you. Now back to the show. You heard it here, guys. You heard it here. Yeah, we're sitting down tonight with Jonathan Kendall and the new release, the metaphysics of UFOs. Oh my goodness. So now that we're kind of bridging it to like spiritual or faith-based, um, how did the metaphysics, because I know that you even talk about Carl Jung in in the book, help us bridge a little bit more about the metaphysical aspects of the UAP, UFO, MIB stuff.

Jonathan 18:18

Yeah,

Physical Traces And Spiritual Aftereffects

Jonathan 18:19

so in terms of trying to get a grip on what these things are and what they teach us about the nature of reality, I think the UFO does that. What I've found are these overtly physical aspects of UFOs. They they can land, they can leave depressions on the earth after they take off. These depressions, whole books have been written on the scientific analyses of what's found inside these circles after they land. They might affect the vegetation surrounding. They might cut a tree limb in half. They unfortunately have resulted, I would argue in most cases, inadvertently in harming individuals. I know Jacques Vallée lists that there are 900 documented instances of harm being done to individuals that may have been in the vicinity of a UFO. It usually takes the form of ionizing or non-ionizing radiation. And there's been other cases, many others, where people are healed in super. I like to talk about that aspect a lot more, but in supernormal ways. So you've got that. They're chased by fighter jets sometimes. They're an overtly physical phenomenon, and yet they leave behind this spiritual signature. Because going all the way back even to Kenneth Arnold's sighting in 1947, a lot of times people that will have close encounters will see these mysterious orbs going through their houses. They'll wake up to see apparitions, shadowy creatures. Some of the abduction literature people might see deceased loved ones, interestingly enough. A lot of times people have transformative life experiences as a result of these. They will give up self-destructive behaviors, they'll become more altruistic, more compassionate. That may have been the biggest surprise for me because some of these, especially these abduction phenomena or close encounters in general in general, can start off to be very traumatic. And yet a number of surveys indicate eventually a lot of these people find that they've had a positive experience. And then there's poltergeist activity and other things. And then people will have they find that they'll be psychically charged. They'll have these psychic experiences, they'll have these intuitions that they didn't have before, or they they'll feel like they can heal people or experience telepathy. And so the spiritual aspect of these things has to be taken into account as well. The evidence for both aspects of this phenomenon, both physical and spiritual, has taught me to believe that a purely substance dualism or Cartesian dualism, where we divide that the physical and the spiritual world, probably is not correct.

GDC 21:11

Yeah, I I love the way that you said that. The first sentence you said, I wish I could rewind it, but it's like the nature of reality isn't necessarily how we're seeing it, and that there is this phenomenon within this world. I mean, that's exactly how I see things too, you know. I love it.

SETI Media Disclosure And Hearings

GDC 21:37

One time I was um at a conference and I um ran into, I think it's SETI, S E T I. They had a booth there. And I got to sit down. Tell us, because I know you mentioned SETI. I know this might be a little off topic, but I'm like, oh, I met them. Like, I met the people. So Tell us a little bit about what is SETI and how do they fall into this whole phenomenon, just because that's how I I've met them.

Jonathan 22:09

Yeah. So SETI that stands for the search for extraterrestrial intelligence.

GDC 22:14

Yeah.

Jonathan 22:15

Among the luminaries that founded it were Carl Sagan, Frank Drake, and the movie Contact, for anyone that's seen it with Jodie Foster and Matthew McConaughey. That movie, I think, was loosely based on SETI. They believe that extraterrestrial life exists. After all, it'd be a lot of empty space in our universe otherwise, right? But they believe, but they also take a more skeptical view that we are being visited. They don't think that because the universe is so big, they don't think that extraterrestrials have probably made it here. They don't think the evidence for it is is as strong. Of course, as we've already discussed, I would take great umbrage with that latter statement.

GDC 22:58

Great. You know, okay, so here's just another side ball, and then I'll throw it down to my grounded Jenny. Okay, so we were under the pandemic, right? In like 2020 or 2021, somewhere in there, and all of a sudden, you know, everybody's all shelter in place. Oh no, we can't go outside. By the way, we have evidence that there are UFOs. Oh yeah, pandemic. Did you like, did they slip it in like news? Do you even know what I'm talking about? Because the news circuit was like, oh yeah, the United States government now confirms that there are UFOs. Bye, let's back to the pandemic. Do you remember that?

Jonathan 23:38

I do. Uh vaguely at least. I know what seemed to put the UAP back on the map, and it's gotten such a hot topic now is a 2017 article for the New York Times, Leslie Kane, Ralph Blumenthal, and and one other author whose name is escaping me wrote a book or a wrote an article on the on the Tic Tac UAP that occurred off the coast of San Diego in 2004. And that seemed to be the initial snowball that rolled downhill. And I know since 2023 we've had three congressional assemblies where people have been questioned on this issue. And this is the one thing in Washington, ladies, where we actually have some bipartisan support for. You've got prominent Democrats and prominent Republicans that are that agree on this and they're trying to get disclosure. Yeah. So I don't remember anything during the pandemic being mentioned specifically, but I do remember those things that happened on either side of it.

GDC 24:33

You know what I love about that is that, hey, you know, if we can't come together and cross the aisle because of humanness, let's do it because of UAPs. Let's do it because we need to think beyond our own humanness and our little cycle. So anyway, Jenny, I'm gonna toss the ball back to you because I'm going. I love it.

Jenny 24:57

Well, that

How To Talk With Skeptics

Jenny 24:58

that all connects to a question I had, which is, you know, with all of the things the government's been releasing, the congressional hearings, and even Obama being on the podcast and saying, yes, aliens do exist. What what do you think, like when people say absolutely not? Like when they say to you they're complete skeptics, no UFO, no UAP, no extraterrestrial, what is something like what are some questions or some things we could point out gently? We don't need to be, you know, like you have to believe, but like gentle things to be like, well, what about this? And what about this? Just for our skeptics out there.

Jonathan 25:33

Right. I think skeptics wouldn't be convinced no matter what you tell them. But to be honest with you, I I think my favorite thing to point out is the fact that Project Project Blue Book, all the way back in 1969, they even although they had skeptical conclusions, there were at least 500 plus things that they admitted they had nothing that were well had a lot of data supporting them, by the way, that they didn't really know what to do with. So you could go a lot beyond that. You could talk about the incursions over our nuclear facilities that have been legion all the way back going going all the way back to Los Alamos in 1945. You could you could talk about how so many of these people that have had these experiences auto also have these spiritual experiences as well. I I think what I would point out to someone that is a believer in the spiritual is say, hey, we believe in the spiritual realm. UFOs are, I believe, a large part of that. Why would you be so closed-minded to that? I hope that answers the question or at least circles around it some.

Jenny 26:44

I love that.

Jonathan 26:48

I will just add to that. My impression is with skeptics, what regardless of what you're talking about, they're not going to be convinced if uh an alien they talk about aliens landing on the White House lawn. I think aliens could land on their lawn, their on their lawn, and they're not going to be convinced by it. So but but somebody that's open-minded, yeah, there's a there's a lot of data out there that supports it.

GDC 27:11

I love that. This is beyond people.

Apparitions Seeing The Messiah Research

GDC 27:14

Tonight we're sitting down with Jonathan Kendall and talking about UFOs and talking about UAPs, and you also have another book. You have a book about seeing the messiah, and so let's talk a little seeing the messiah. Talk to us about this.

Jonathan 27:41

So my background going gosh, going back to 15, 16, 18 years, I studied Christian apologetics. So I got into the question of the resurrection of Jesus and whether or not whether or not there's good historical reasons for accepting it. And one one thing I come across from a from a scholar that talks about this at great length in his 2005 book, and then again in his 2021 book named Dale Allison. He writes about apparitions, ghosts, if you will. And reading his material just in his 2005 book, it's called Resurrecting Jesus, I was amazed at the evidence that supports that these ostensible visitations from the dead occur as well. And so I said, Well, that's a game changer. What if people that saw that are claiming to see the Messiah, not just Jesus, but not just the disciples having seen Jesus, but also I talk about a 1990s uh messianic figure in Hasidic Judaism, the Lubavitcher Rebbe. People claim to have seen post-mortem appearances of him as well. What do apparitions have to say about that? So I dived into the Society for Psychical Research, all their literature, their seminal works went back to the 1880s, all the way up to present day. The first two-thirds of that book, seeing the Messiah, just discusses apparitions and spiritual phenomena. That one, that material was an ontological shock for me as well. And then I then at the end, the last two-thirds, I examine the appearances of Jesus, the appearances of the Lubavitcher Rebbe to early followers against that backdrop.

GDC 29:29

Wow. So much to explore. And that book is already out there. So I've got another question for you, Jonathan. Beyond the supernatural and paranormal, what drives you to write on these topics?

Jonathan 29:51

Wow. I like to think of divine imperative. You know, um, one thing this research has has done for me or done to me, is it's really humbled me. I think that there are very valid spiritual experiences across all cultures, objective ones, benevolent ones. I think that's something I probably believed beforehand, but now I've experienced overwhelming evidence of that as well. And I'm very grateful to this. It's it's caused, if I had a, let's say, a metaphysical jigsaw puzzle, and I and I thought in my own mind's eye that everything fit. I've got it. The puzzle completed, I know everything now. Well, I can tell you, after six years of researching these topics, I don't know anything anymore. I don't know how all the puzzle pieces fit together. I think I'm at the beginning of this journey. And I love the material. I'd love to, I want to write more on it. So I hope that answers the question somewhat.

GDC 30:49

Time. Time, you know, I often think, you know, what is it, King Solomon that even says the wisest man says he doesn't know anything. And Neil deGrasse Tyson says it's really scary when you know enough about a topic to think you're right, but then find out you didn't know that you were absolutely wrong. This ability to be humbled by consciousness, information, phenomenon, curiosity is, yep, there's there we meet once again. So, Jenny, what else do we have? What else do we want to ask Jonathan Kendall?

Jenny 31:25

Yeah, so I just want to say I really love this idea of inviting in what we would call paranormal or supernatural phenomenon into traditional religion. I got really interested in this idea right now when you're talking about apparition, because why not? Number one. Um, but also something I've always taken solace in as someone who has seen ghosts and has always believed in ghosts and apparitions and aliens and all the things, really, is that it gives me peace of mind. Like I'm not scared to talk to a spirit or go to a haunted location. I'm excited because it's like proof of what I already know. It's proof that there is life beyond this world, that there is life in the universe, that there is life after death. And I feel like this book, I want people to understand that it's not just about UFOs, it's not just about aliens. There is a spiritual understanding woven throughout. There's metaphysics. It's I've never read anything like it. And I've been like a person who likes to read UFOs and alien books since like middle school. This is a very different and unique take. And so I just want people to fully understand that. And then um, I have a question, actually, what's a favorite uh story that you, when you were doing research and you're like, this is so fun. It's either, you know, like a cryptid story or UFO story, any kind of story that you were just like, I think this is one that's gonna stick with me.

Jonathan 32:59

There's so much to choose from, but I'm gonna go with an apparitional case because I was thinking about this before this interview, things I might talk about. Chapter seven of my Seeing the Messiah book. I have each chapter goes through the for the first eight or nine chapters, goes through the different what I call categories of apparitions. And I call the this chapter, I go through what I call reunion apparitions. There are so many cases where people will see a deceased loved one. And usually it's spontaneous, it's spontaneously occurring, it's a very well-known phenomenon. I think a lot of people have had these experiences and they don't like to talk about them because they're fearful of ridicule, they're fear fearful of the stigmatization. The chapter, I start off that chapter with my favorite story in the whole book. There's a and it goes back to Sir Ernest Bennett's 1930s book, Apparitions in Haunted Houses. It's a young lady who had lost her father not too long ago, and they had had all kinds of tragedies. I think several family members, I think they lost their mother. And her father started, they were a Christian family. Her father started having doubts about certain particulars of the Christian faith. And uh sorry, I get a little uh I get a little emotional with talking about this this case. Okay. So he died, and she was worried, well, did he did he make it to heaven? Because he started doubting these things. And she prayed for some sign of reassurance, and uh I'll try to get through this without getting choked up, but one night he appeared to her in just this transfigured form and said, Blessed child, forever blessed. And he fades into the background and and she wanted to embrace him, but that I that was my favorite case. It wasn't the most evidential case because it was just a one one person seeing it, but I love that case. I love that case. It just really pulled on my heartstrings.

Signs From Pets And Psychokinetic Effects

GDC 35:04

It just pulled on my heartstrings too.

Jonathan 35:07

Can I give you a personal anecdote? So for someone that's interested in the paranormal, it might surprise you to know I've had very few. It depends on how you slice it, but I've had very few what I would call paranormal experiences, but maybe four or five years ago we had we love cats, we've got four. We had a cat dropped off at our house and it was an orange cat, so we named him Milo, but he was very sick, so we had to take him for vet care. He stayed at the vet for a while. I he seemed really grateful for what we were able to do do for him, get him some vet care, get him get him three hots in a cot, so to speak, each day, or I guess it'd be two hots in a cot for our cats. Anyway, so he's getting better. We would go to the vet to visit him because my sister-in-law is one of the techs, so we we got had back backstage access, so to speak. I'd get to feed him, got clothes, we were w wanting to take him home. And our s my sister-in-law called and said he he I'm sorry something happened, he got worse and passed away. Okay, so sometime after that, maybe maybe a couple weeks, I pulled out a video on my phone and it it was a video of me, of me, uh me feeding him. And it was way too soon. I I completely broke down, cried. About 10 to 15 minutes later, I heard a noise. And I I assumed it's one of our living cats that probably knocked something off the shelf, because that happens all the time. What it was, uh our hallway bathroom, it's always closed the door as we found that there was a placard that had fallen face forward and and it hit a figurine and knocked it to the floor. And the figurine was was as as of a cat. And on the placard, I didn't notice this at first, but on the placard, it was of an outhouse. That's why we had it in the bathroom, and there was a there was an orange cat that resembled Milo right beside that, right beside that placard. Okay. Now, I always like to take the skeptical side of this. A skeptic would say, I'm either making up the story, or more likely we we walk down the house down the hallway and it vibrated and and and that caused the placard to fall and knocked off the figurine. But I can tell you it's a pretty stable in-wall shelf in there. That's nothing like that's happened before or since. And it's been 13 years. And what the clincher was for me, I was studying Dr. Louisa Ryan's material on psychokinetic effects. When someone dies, like a clock will stop at that exact moment, or a picture will fall from the from the floor. So if that was Milo sending me a message of reassurance or or some other some other force, I think that force knew I would take that sign seriously.

Jenny 38:11

I love that. I love that. And I love that you take in cats. That's I'm a big animal person, and we've rescued dogs and rescue cats, and I think that's beautiful. I I have a real quick story kind of similar but different. Um my daughter's cat, Bobby, was her best friend. Her name's Lucy, and that's important to the story.

Jonathan 38:33

And we have a cat named Lucy also, and I'm sorry to interrupt.

Jenny 38:36

No, no, and he's a yellow cat. You know, he's orange, but he's so like yellowy orange, and he passed away uh about a year ago, maybe two now. And just recently, my best friend, her daughter, adopted a cat that could be Bobby's twin and already came with a name, and her name is Lucy. And so I was like, I feel that's a sign from Bobby saying, Hey, I'm still here and I still love you.

Jonathan 39:03

I totally believe that.

GDC 39:05

I love that. Oh my goodness. And you know what, Jonathan, the fact that it fell off of that that picture or whatever fell off of a counter or a post, that is exactly like a cat. Cats do that it is. That is the way I mean, like, like if anything else would have happened, you would have been like, that wasn't cat-like. But the fact that they just, you know, I never thought of that.

Jonathan 39:34

You're 100% right.

GDC 39:35

Oh, yeah, that's the nature, that would be the nature of the cat. Oh my goodness. I thoroughly am enjoying this dialogue because you know, you've got the science, you've got the understanding of, you know, being a skeptic, you've got the we need empirical, la la la, credible, all of this. And yet you're just like, hey guys, this is worth investigating. And I love the way that you do it in your book because you have so many credible sources in your book. When I say credible sources, I'm not just talking about like, you know, the people on ancient aliens and the other doctors and things, but you also go into providing us with this is what the New York Times said, this is what the Wall Street Journal said. This is so basically it's kind of open. It's not like, here, take this on faith. You're like, here is the evidence, make up your mind, you know, explore. That's how I'm taking it. It's beautiful.

Jonathan 40:46

Yeah, that that made something else pop into

Nuclear Sites And The Malmstrom Case

Jonathan 40:49

mind. Getting back to Jenny's question. I always like to see what the government says or what the debunkers say, right? Give it your best shot. And if they're if they're way off the target, if their explanation is utterly ridiculous, I think it enhances belief in the original case. So in Malmstrom, Montana, 1967, there was a UFO incursion over a nuclear site, actually knocked a couple of flights of nuclear weapons off.

GDC 41:16

Wow.

Jonathan 41:16

Really offline for a short period of time. And I wonder if that's the aliens' way or these spirits, whatever you want to say that they are. Their way of saying, be careful with those things, don't destroy yourselves. That would be my best guess. But the Wall Street Journal in a recent article said that that was an electromagnetic device. So they they admit that the UFO occurs apparently, and there are all kinds of problems with that view. So you can't put an EMP device in. Why would you do that around a nuclear facility? That sounds very reckless for starters. And then, yeah, and then I would add too that Bob Sallas, who was actually there, he's the main source on on that on that UFO case. He wrote just an actual decimation of that article. He gave about 10 to 15 reasons why there's no way that could have been an electromagnetic device that caused that to happen.

GDC 42:13

So cool. This and so much more. You guys get your copy, Llewellyn Worldwide. Jenny, do you want to ask the last questions or do you have, yeah, let's ask the final question that we ask all of our guests here on belief being and beyond.

What Lies Beyond Consciousness After Death

Jenny 42:30

Yes, since it's belief being and beyond, we're always curious, and it's very open-ended, what you believe lies beyond.

Jonathan 42:41

Wow, what a question. Yeah, I I certainly believe consciousness survives bodily death. Yeah, I I do study near-death experiences. I think that's good evidence of that. And I think the UAP phenomenon is a good is good evidence of that as well. If you go into some of the indigenous tribes of the United States, R.D. Six Killer Clark, Professor Emeritus of Montana State, she followed a couple of explorers' paths into Central America and Mexico, got all of these great UAP cases that she put together into a book called Sky People. Well, these folks, the indigenous tribes of shamans, they've they've known about these things for a long time. And they there's been even cases where they've seen the grays, the so-called grays that are commonly associated with these close encounters. So yeah, if there was once upon a time I used to think that scientific materialism, if anything caused a challenge to my faith, my faith, it would be that. I think that's been incinerated literally by the fires of psychical research, spiritual research like this, UAPs now. So if you go beyond whatever that afterlife is, I don't really know what it's like. I like to think it's communing with all our friends, all our family, all our animals that have passed before us, and you live on for eternity and bliss. That might be a simplistic answer, but that's probably the best I've got.

GDC 44:13

I love it. I'll go there. I'll meet you there. I absolutely excellent.

Jonathan 44:18

I look forward to it.

Final Thoughts And Where To Find More

GDC 44:20

I love it. So you guys pick up your copy. Um, credible research, metaphysics, the metaphysics of UFOs. This is evidential research, wonderful. We're looking, we sat down tonight with Jonathan Kendall, Lou Ellen, author. Thank you so much. Just really, really appreciate you being here. Is there any last thing that you wanted that you remembered that you might want to add for our listeners?

Jonathan 44:53

I will say be open-minded. You know, if you're going to dismiss this, at least do it after being after looking at the evidence in a fair-minded manner. Especially if you already come from a spiritual background. This is whatever this is, whether it's extraterrestrial, I lean more towards a spiritual, interdimensional view. Spoiler alert. But be open-minded to this and study the evidence very thoughtfully and very with a sense of humility.

GDC 45:23

Oh, thoughtfully with a sense of humility. I love that. That's going to be my new mantra for the rest of the day. Thoughtfully with a sense of humility. Absolutely. Well, thank you guys for joining us once again on another episode of Belief Being and Beyond. We love you guys, and we'll see you on the Philippity Flip. Thank you for listening to another episode of Belief Being and Beyond. Please subscribe and share with whomever would enjoy this podcast. And please leave us a review. We really, really appreciate that. For more about Granddaughter Crow, Granddaughter Crow.com. There you can learn about her classes, sessions, and all of her books. And for more about Jenny C. Bell, please visit Jenny CBell.com where you can learn about her books, her classes, and her Our Coven community. Thank you so much for listening.