goblin
Noble
It's worth going back and listening to the early Podcasts with David Biedny. I started at the beginning and I'm midway through 2007. The episodes when he calls out Billy Meier's media guy and Sean David Morton are classic.
It's also great anytime David talks about his personal experiences in the field. The story about the spirit of the young girl he witnessed with his friend is fascinating. I'd love to know, David, if you've given that anymore thought in the years since recalling the story. I believe it happened 12 years prior to that podcast and it's been 12 years since you related the experience.
One of things I enjoyed about David's analyses of paranormal claims is that he's brutally honest, even when it angered the guest. I would imagine that if someone else told the story about the spirit girl he might speculate that it could have been a trick of the light, a weird reflection of a girl somewhere nearby and her ghost-like image appeared before David and his friend. Or could it have been a projection, someone experimenting with movie projectors or holograms?
I've had all kinds of paranormal experiences myself and most always think they're authentic at the time, then later I try to rationalize and usually come up with one or two more reasonable explanations. I still believe the events could be genuine, but I also consider the possibility that my brain has been food by some outside forces. Or maybe even those inside my brain.
The Biedny era episodes of the Paracast were like a revelation to me. I had been ignoring paranormal topics - books, TV shows, etc., for a couple years at least, maybe longer. I decided to check out these things called podcasts toward the end of 2007, and somehow wound up listening to the Paracast. Sad but true I had never heard anyone engage with the topic the way Biedny did. I was used to tall tales, bullshit, delusions and mocking skepticism, but here was someone applying critical thinking.
Toward the end of his time on the show it did get hard to listen to. You could tell he was tired and fed up. His decision to move on was understandable but I miss his voice on the subject matter and am happy to listen when he's done the occasional podcast appearance over the years.
I believe I know what you mean about rationalizing possible paranormal experiences after the fact. I've had a few creepy seemingly paranormal episodes in my life - nothing hugely dramatic or life changing - and I certainly found myself rationalizing them away afterward. They were scary enough at the time I was experiencing them, though! Related, I think, I've had some non paranormal experience with how the brain decides what the eyes are seeing... I am not articulating this well but... I've had notable personal episodes of thinking I see something absolutely clearly then realizing I'm interpreting a false signal from visual 'noise'. Kind of humbling, but I can understand how people may decide they've seen something in a quick glimpse that they in effect didn't really see. A tree becomes a Bigfoot or what have you.