I’ve known David Metcalfe since 2016, when I joined Darren Grimes and Graham Dunlop of ‘The Grimerica Show’ in an interview with him and Dr. Andrew Chestnut on Santa Muerte; a topic they’re both incredibly knowledgeable of.
But David’s expertise goes way, waaay beyond comparative religions and modern cults. In a recent interview for Dreamland (Whitley’s Strieber podcast) he is called a polymath, a term which barely does him any justice –our common friends jokingly call him ‘the Singularity’, because David is the kid of guy whose understanding of esoteric and paranormal subjects is so extensive, you can ask him a question about some obscure case or rare book and in less than 5 minutes he’ll provide you with at least half a dozen links referring to the subject –sometimes it feels like going to a fire hydrant for a glass of water!
As expected, David’s conversation with Whitley goes all over the place, but it particularly focuses on what he has coined liminal analytics, as well as his research showing how public interest in the modern surge of mainstream UFO coverage has not been as high as true believers and Disclosure pundits would have you believe. They also discuss the work of the late Angelia Joiner –a true journalist who suffered greatly for her coverage of the Stephenville sightings, as was covered in an article we published earlier this year— as well as the influence of Mac Tonnies, one of the last original thinkers in this field.
As per the cheeky title I chose for this post, it was directly inspired by one of David’s latest t-shirt designs, which David chose to release as a reminder that amid this new apparent ‘openness’ toward giving a trepidant welcome to the UFO phenomenon into social orthodoxy, one blaring omission is the input of direct experiencers. Admitting there are things out there we cannot explain is all well and good, but how the phenomenon is actually influencing human consciousness is what should interest us more –and saying we first need to let the N00bs get acquainted with the reality of UFOs before hitting them with the deep stuff, is like saying we need to let the rich get super-richer in order to have some of their wealth trickle down to the desperate masses.
I am indeed very fortunate to call David a friend.
[Featured artwork by David Metcalfe]
