By Tim Binnall
The dangers that might come from reviving extinct species, the life and legacy of UFO investigator J. Allen Hynek, and the search for extraterrestrial intelligence were among the fascinating realms explored this past week on Coast to Coast AM. And, here at the C2C website, we told you about a possible Ogopogo sighting, a break in the case of an iconic tree that was felled in England, and footage that seemed to show a flying humanoid in Turkey. Check out our round-up of highlights from the past week ... In Coast You Missed It.
The search for extraterrestrial intelligence took center stage on Tuesday night's program as astronomer Seth Shostak provided an update on his work with the SETI Institute. Although the organization has around 100 scientists, he explained that most of their research involves astrobiology experiments rather than trying to detect signals from aliens out in space. That said, should the group wind up picking up a proverbial call from ET, Shostak indicated that SETI would first work to ensure that it was genuinely anomalous before alerting scientists around the world to direct their telescopes toward the source in the hopes that they could provide further confirmation of the landmark discovery.
The legendary Canadian lake monster Ogopogo was back in the news this past week after a woman reported a possible sighting of the proverbial Nessie of the Great White North. While walking along the shore of Okanagan Lake, where the creature is said to reside, Natasha Chalmers noticed an unusual form emerge from the water. Although she initially suspected that it was simply a bird, when the oddity submerged and never returned, she began to suspect that it just might have been Ogopogo. Alas, Chalmers was unable to film the anomalous creature, though she did capture footage of some inexplicable waves that appeared on the water shortly after the animal vanished back into the lake.
Could reviving extinct species, such as the woolly mammoth, have unintended consequences for the human race? This thought-provoking question was explored on Monday night's program by journalist Douglas Preston, who detailed how the company Colossal Biosciences is hoping to bring a form of the long-lost pachyderm back to life within the next five years. While this would be a rather fantastic development, he expressed concern that such genetic tinkering could ultimately be used on people and lead to a scenario wherein parents are pressured to transform their children into 'superhumans' or a rogue nation develops a race of soldiers with advanced abilities.
This past week featured two cases involving rather unusual aerial phenomena being spotted in the sky. First, in Argentina, a sailor captured footage of a peculiar illumination seemingly hovering over an iconic hotel that was recently visited by the country's president. The bewildered witness insisted that the strange glow was not a reflection as the sun was obscured by clouds at the time of the sighting and no part of the building could account for the blinding light. Later in the week, a Turkish shepherd filmed what appeared to be a flying humanoid hovering in the sky over a field where his sheep were grazing.
The trailblazing work of UFO investigator J. Allen Hynek was revisited on Sunday's night program as his son, Paul Hynek, discussed the astronomer's life and legacy as well as his own research into the enigmatic phenomenon. Sharing a childhood memory of being taken to an ESP conference by his father, he noted that the esteemed scientist was actually open-minded about the possibility that psychic abilities might exist. Paul also talked about how his father's famed classification system for UFO events could be expanded to include realms that had previously not been considered, such as technological, physiological, and hallucinogenic encounters.
A pair of thoughtless acts of vandalism made headlines this past week, beginning with an unfortunate story out of Russia wherein misguided miscreants desecrated a memorial to the hikers who perished in the infamous Dyatlov Pass incident. The reprobates, whom police are understandably hoping to catch, not only scrawled words and symbols on the tomb, but also defaced a picture of one of the victims and stole a metal seal from the obelisk. Meanwhile, over in England, authorities announced that two men have been charged with last September's shocking felling of the iconic centuries-old tree known as Sycamore Gap.
Coast Insiders can check out all this week's shows as well as the last seven years of C2C programs in our enormous archive. Not a Coast Insider yet? Sign up today.