It was the oddest experience I’ve ever had doing a radio interview. Or possibly the most remarkable.
I’m still not sure to what extent Rob McConnell and I managed to communicate when he interviewed me for his “X” Zone Radio Show about my 2011 novel Journal of a UFO Investigator. I seem not to have persuaded him, or even to have made intelligible to him what I meant when I said that myths are real and that UFOs can function as symbols for the alienness of death. Yet he knew from my voice that I was an only child when my mother died–the autobiographical event at the center of the novel—and at that moment I had the sense: yes, we’re on the same wavelength.
Which degenerated into static shortly afterward.
We did the hour-long interview on the evening of November 26; you can hear it at https://www.spreaker.com/user/xzoneradiotv/xzrs20181126ep1emdavidhalperin. I was among the more than 4500 guests Rob has had on his show, which he’s been doing for the past 29 years. He told me that in all those years of talking with people about UFOlogy and other aspects of the paranormal, he’s “never, ever, ever heard” ideas like the ones I expressed. I don’t think he meant that as a compliment. I was flattered nonetheless.
I didn’t quite expect Rob to say the things he did, either.
“Together we’ll investigate the world of the paranormal,” the show promises; and its website declares it to be about things like “Alien Abduction, Aliens, Angels, Apocalypse, Astrology, Atlantis, The Bible, Chinese Astrology, Conspiracy Theories, Cosmology, Crop Circles, Cryptozoology, Crystals, Demonology, Dreams And Dream Interpretation”–and that’s just A through D. (UFOs are near the end of the alphabetical listing.) Its commercials advertise “online shamanic classes” and L. A. Marzulli’s book UFO Disclosure: The 70 Year Coverup Exposed.
Obviously the show is aimed for believers. Yet Rob, it turns out, is not one of them.
UFOlogy, he told me, is against everything science stands for. Belief in it is “contrary to religious studies”–a statement to which I, as a specialist in religious studies, would take strong exception. “People are using UFOlogy and the paranormal as an escape from reality.” At one point he spoke of UFOlogy and the like as a “crutch,” with obvious pejorative intent. (Although my sense is that crutches are often rather useful instruments.) The UFOlogists themselves, including I imagine many of his guests, are “charlatans, liars, and people out to make a quick buck.” (Not the ones I’ve known.)
Paradoxical: a guy who sounds straight out of CSI (the former CSICOP), hosting a radio show straight out of “The Twilight Zone.” Yet maybe not CSICOP material after all. He spoke of himself as “a steadfast Christian” who expects to go to heaven when he dies and there to encounter his grandmother, whose loss in his childhood affected him the way the loss of my mother did me.
And who thinks it’s absurd to say that myths are real.
I spoke about Perseus and Medusa. Of course they’re real; not that either of them ever existed on this terrestrial globe, or that a woman can exist whose hair is snakes and the sight of whom turns people to stone. But at the heart of the myth is the profound truth that an unendurable reality can be faced if you do so through a mirror that you yourself control. I know this is true because I lived it. My “unendurable reality” was my mother’s dying; the “mirror” I used so I could face it was UFOlogy. That was what Journal of a UFO Investigator was all about.
At the end of the show, our conversation got a bit heated. I challenged Rob: if you have such a low opinion of UFOs and the paranormal, why do you do a show four hours a night, five nights a week, 29 years running, that’s mostly dedicated to them?
His answer: “I do this show for one reason, one very selfish reason: I want to believe.”
I said to Rob: you remind me of Houdini. The great magician spent the latter part of his life debunking mediums; but all that debunking was a search for a medium who was real, who could put him in touch with his beloved mother, and who after he died could serve as a channel from him to his equally beloved wife Bess. Bring her the message of love and hope from the other side of the grave: ROSABELLE BELIEVE.
(“Rosabelle” was Houdini’s pet name for Bess, taken from “their” song, the super-hit of 1913: Rosabelle, sweet Rosabelle, I love you more than I can tell. You can read the story in Raymund Fitzsimons’ marvelous book, Death and the Magician: The Mystery of Houdini.)
I said: Houdini could never find a medium he couldn’t debunk, and it broke his heart.
Rob made a joke about him (Rob) being not “medium” but “extra large,” and the line–we were doing the interview by telephone–went dead. That was the end of the conversation. It’s a pity. I think we had a lot more to say to each other.
Again, the link to the interview is https://www.spreaker.com/user/xzoneradiotv/xzrs20181126ep1emdavidhalperin. Listen to it if you get a chance; let me know what you think.
by David Halperin
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I can’t say much about Rob — it’s been a few years since I listened to him — but Chris Rutkowski and Kevin Randle know him professionally. They might have insight.
My impression of Rob’s topics a while back was that he gave proponents a safe space to speak, but he wasn’t as credulous as Noory. Then, he got fed up with psychics always being wrong. He made more time for sensible ufologists (already named). However, his YouTube account started posting clips with right-wing, Breitbartian-style “news.” I pushed back in the comments for awhile then gave up.
Thanks, Terry! I appreciate your thoughts.
Interviewers needn’t always be sympathetic to the interviewee, yet they should always be receptive, if an interview is to be at all successful. To do otherwise throws everything off balance. There’s a delicate balance that takes place in an interview, and any interviewer worth his or her salt is always carefully attuned to this. From your description above, it’s plain that McConnell, at least in this particular instance, failed in his role. That you were his interviewee makes this all the more disappointing!
Mark, David, Eric–thank you so much for posting!
David, you’re not alone in having a weird experience with Rob. I know a number of people that have had awkward experiences with him – including myself!
I was on X-Zone right after I was a guest on Midnight in the Desert – the topic I was talking about on Midnight was a bit broad (they wanted sacred geometry – and I wanted to talk psychical research, I thought I could transition…but…not so much) and I had to go for 3 hours, so it was a pretty painful experience – but Dave Schrader, while critical, was able to banter with it and we were able to get a good, if somewhat tense, rapport.
Rob…not so much. I had a bad line connection since I live in a rural area, and that started him off on a negative track – which continued when I said that the internet was developed by a public/private partnership between universities, think tanks, government orgs, etc. – he kept pushing me to say it was a military/intelligence plot and at about the time he was turning to more of an attack mode my line cut out.
He mentioned getting back in touch to continue the interview – and I’m thankful he didn’t, as I’d have to decline.
Rob’s weirdness and my Midnight experience lead me to make a somewhat joking (somewhat serious) declaration that I’m only going to go on Greg Bishop’s Radio Misterioso show! : )
It made me really take account for what I was trying to get out of going on podcasts, and what the benefit for the audience is if the host isn’t fully versed in what the topic is (or the guest – mercy, I will NEVER do a show on sacred geo without the ability to put up diagrams! These areas are so confused already – shame to muddy the waters more with awkward interviews.
With that in mind – I am so glad that you were able to actually converse and dialogue with Rob! That kind of maturity and communication is so so necessary in our world today.
Just like my recent interview experience with him. Only he got nasty with me AFTER he hung-up.