I have completed Super Natural with my collaborator, Jeff Kripal, the Religion Chair at Rice University. It's going to be published by Tarcher/Penguin in February of 2016.

Jeff is a religion scholar who specializes in modern myth. He is open-minded about the UFO lore, but like me, thinks of it in a much broader way than the usual aliens are here/not here argument.

Since the beginning of history and no doubt before, human beings have been influenced in some way by light. A whole culture arose out of Moses vision of the burning bush. That culture was radically altered when Paul was startled by a flash of light on the road to Damascus. Mohammed was guided by a being of light in his cave. And nowadays, these plasmas or whatever they are seem to be everywhere, and there are apparent aliens to go with them.

So what is all of this about and, above all, why is this enormously important player in human affairs not studied?

These are some of the questions explored in Super Natural. Tarcher/Penguin will be calling in the most important book on the supernatural since Charles Fort published the Book of the Damned in 1919. I hope that it is seen as that and its suggestion that we re-envision the supernatural and the paranormal is embraced. If we do that, it will lead to a fundamental change in the way we view and understand our world and along with it a much-needed expansion of our vision of ourselves and the universe in which we live.

I'm open to questions about it, of course, but put them in the question area so emails will get to me, not in the comments here. Comments welcome, too, of course!