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| John E. L. Tenney, paranormal investigator and author.
Photo courtesy of Michigan Mutual UFO Network |
If you are a believer in the paranormal, you are not alone. It may be the feeling of a spirit presence or a rush of air, followed by an ice cold temperature drop.
The experience of supernatural occurrences varies widely from person to person, and studies have shown that most people believe in at least one form of paranormal events.
A Gallup study conducted in 2005 revealed that nearly three out of four people in the United States acknowledge a belief in the paranormal, with extrasensory perception (ESP), and haunted houses being the top two most experienced events. Only 27% of the population said they did not believe in any form of supernatural phenomena.
Those numbers indicate that a majority of people view the supernatural as a regular part of their everyday lives.
“I’ve spent 27 years investigating reality,” said John E.L. Tenney, a paranormal researcher. “There’s weird stuff that goes on all the time, whether it’s paranormal, supernormal, normal, or scientific.”
The Royal Oak native, whose brief encounter with death prompted a lifetime interest in the topic, thinks serious scientific study of the paranormal is warranted given the large volume of credible reports of unusual happenings.
“Science, which I love -- it gives us everything we have and it works very well, mostly -- is not supposed to be dogmatic, it’s a method of inquiry. Scientists don’t study ghosts because they say ghosts aren’t real. That’s not the job of science, they have gotten themselves into a closed loop,” he said.
Tenney was a senior at Kimball High School in 1989 when a heart attack left him clinically dead for three minutes.
Although he was no longer aware of the physical world, Tenney was cognizant of an alternate state of understanding what, and where we are after we die.
“It is difficult to explain, but it’s a conscious awareness of yourself inside of infinity. Even though I was only dead for three minutes, my consciousness was there forever. Everything all at once, forever,” he said, describing what he refers to as, “the void.”
During a year-long recovery period, Tenney eagerly searched for any information on death and what lies beyond the material, earthbound plane. He collected evidence on everything paranormal from ghosts to UFO’s by diligently probing government files, libraries, bookstores, and the editorial morgues of local newspapers.
By the time he was 20, Tenney was working in the research department for the 1990’s television show “Unsolved Mysteries,” hosted by a trench coat clad Robert Stack. A fashion accessory Tenney continues to emulate to this day.
“I still wear a trench coat because I loved Robert Stack so much,” he said.
While Tenney’s own personal experience fuels his pursuit of supernatural truths, he keeps an open and somewhat suspicious mind when he is scrutinizing a paranormal incident.
“After 27 years of doing this, the hardest part for me to do is walk the line between believer and nonbeliever,” he said. “If I’m a complete skeptic and I write it all off, I’m missing stuff. If I’m a true believer, I write all this other stuff off and miss that.”
After conducting numerous investigations throughout Royal Oak, Tenney believes it is one of the most haunted cities in the area. He names the Orson Starr house, St. Mary’s Cemetery, the Normandy Road railroad overpass, and an entire block of basements along Washington Avenue as having the highest amount of activity.
“Most of the places that I investigate, the majority of people are fine with it, they just want to know that they are not insane,” he said. “The hyperbolic nature of television makes everybody think it’s demons and evil, and people are being attacked, that’s just not a real scenario.”
Tenney is scheduled to be a guest speaker at the 2016 Swamp Gas UFO Conference in Ann Arbor on Saturday. The Michigan Mutual UFO Network is sponsoring the event to mark the 50th anniversary of one of the most highly documented UFO incidents ever.
From March 14 to March 23, 1966, hundreds of witnesses across Livingston and Washtenaw counties reported seeing multiple lights and unexplained aircraft in the sky. The vast number of accounts and reliability of many of the observers, prompted the U.S. Air Force to send investigators to the area. After a brief inquiry, the sightings were dismissed as nothing but “swamp gas” by the government officials. A term that was deliberately used more as a joke than a formal statement on the sightings.
“People have these ideas and they have these experiences, but because of the way it’s portrayed in the media, they are afraid to profess it out loud. If we did talk about this to each other, we would realize it’s worth investigation and study,” Tenney said.
John Tenney can be contacted at weirdlectures.com
More information on the 2016 Swamp Gas UFO Conference is available at swampgasufo.com
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