Kaney's Weird Files - Issue 8 Volume 3

August 2025 in Review

Tim Kaney - Experiencer

Sep 05, 2025

Weird /wird/

adjective: weird; comparative adjective: weirder; superlative adjective: weirdest

suggesting something supernatural; uncanny.
"the weird crying of a seal"

August, 2025

WI, USA, Earth

Greetings Earth People,

August is always a bittersweet month for me. It marks my birthday and my middle son’s, which we love to celebrate together and with friends. However, it also means that Summer is coming to an end and kids will be heading back to school. Yet we try to get a few good outings together in before that happens. It’s always good for us to get out and enjoy life together that way. This last half of August was tough with me battling an illness after getting a liver biopsy. It was rough. I do not recommend it.

Finally, I have had time after the beginning of the school year to get to this issue. Sorry it is late!

Some cool stats - 65 followers, 31 subs, and a fair amount of reads / email opens this month. I am a bit shocked. I want to thank you all who just joined AND all of you who stay on for the fun each month. I am so grateful for this outlet. My plan is to put a bit more into each month if I can.

I want to take a minute to call out the good folks over at Breaking the Silence for recommending me. Thanks for everything and you all are great. Check out their account and subscribe below:

I want to touch on a couple things I keep hearing about, share the usual set of oddball / para news articles, and maybe get you a short review of the book I just finished. There is one or two small personal accounts I can share, also, but we shall see how it goes.

Thank you for being with us here.

Enjoy and stay well.

Regards,

Tim

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TikTok Rabbit Hole - Part 4

GATE research update: In a strange turn of events, while I was working on reframing my reply and sending, I got a letter from CIA. It was confirming the FOIA and to let me know they were working on it. However, they referenced a different number. I believe it was the original one before they kicked it over to the Privacy Act one. Right before this, I had reentered my reframed request onto one of their portals. I then hand wrote a letter and sent to them asking for clarification. I believe that was 4 weeks ago. I have heard nothing further on all three at this point. My next course of business will likely be to call or write a letter asking for an update.

There is a woman posting about this stuff on YT who seems to really know her stuff. Follow her or watch at Brananarama. The last time I saw a video she mentioned that forehead scars seem to be a very common trait with GATE kids. I was shocked and a bit blown away. Why? Well, I have had a straight, 3/4 inch scar dead-center on my forehead since I could remember. My mom tells me it was from a radio falling on my head when I was young. How interesting…

Again, I have an ask of all of you: if you recall being part of GATE, leave a comment with your story and / or memories.

Upcoming Appearance - Canceled

The ‘The January Encounter UFO/UAP Conference’ has been canceled.

Night Ride and Possible Paranormal Encounter

Anyone out there like going on bike rides at night? Especially during fall with the cooler evenings. For the longest time I was someone who went out after dark to either run, walk, or jog. It was after getting kids to bed, after sorting dinner, and the best way for me to unwind after a stressful day at work. I loved doing it. COVID and chronic knee pain really put a halt on that for a long time. So did the car accident I had back in 2022. There is something about the twilight hours, different evening creatures emerging, and just feeling more at home during that time of day. Several years ago, I had tried an app out on a walk in a park near where we live. The app is Ghost Tube. I had it recording and some of the things it picked up were very unsettling. It was so much that I stopped using it and rushed home. I hadn’t even opened the app since then. The first week of August, I went on a night ride on my back through that same park. I just wanted to enjoy the starry night, the full moon, and just sit for a minute. The sky was clear, the moon was like the sun and cast shadows all over. So, for fun, I decided to open up that app again and see what I could get. For those in the dark, it works like a spirit box in that it listens to frequencies that are theorized to be able to be used by spirits to communicate. It then plays words it hears and displays them to the user. I was recording and looking at the field in front of me when the app said and displayed, “Am I dead?” I even have the recording of it below. I freely admit that I got mildly freaked out and promptly left. I haven’t gone back to that spot yet at night. I plan to, though, and see if someone there is in need of my help. To be fair, I was caught off guard. I was not expecting a full sentence, let alone a cogent question. The last time I used it, there were only single words showing up. This time was very different. I think I didn’t get this on camera or the recording, but I do recall it picking up “Hello” just prior to the “Am I dead?” question. Of course, my mind was racing afterward. I even felt guilt. What if it were real? What if someone’s spirit was there, and they truly didn’t know they were dead. What if I could have helped them if I stayed and answered? Where are they now? Are they stuck there forever, wondering? What would you have done?

I was at Western Green Park in my hometown and was on a bike path facing west. I am curious if any of you all out there have used this app and what your experiences have been. Was it useful? Did you find it legit or flawed?

Should I head back out to see what happens if I go back to the same spot? I think I know the answer already.

‘Paranormal Ranger’ Review

It was good! There, done. Lol. Just kidding.

I would give it a 4 out of 5 stars.

I highly recommend this book if you are looking to read about how native mythology, law enforcement training, and reservation life intertwine and influence a man’s journey into the unknown and paranormal. Now, it did take me a long time to finish reading the book, so not everything in it is crystal clear in memory, but over it all I was always hooked and wanted to read more. What stuck out most to me were the encounters with Bigfoot, Skin Walkers, and the Grays he drew in his journal and shared in this book. The author, Stanley Milford Jr., takes us briefly through his childhood and upbringing, talks about his law enforcement training, and how the paranormal started to trickle in. Then, we are shown how he joins the Navajo Rangers, the cases he investigated, and ultimately, what he surmised at the end of his career. What’s interesting to me is I recall while being part of MUFON the training he presided over being offered to us. He talks about doing that in the book. I am still upset I was never able to go. His prose were very tight and well-structured for someone not typically known as a writer. I suppose that comes from a lifetime of careful, articulate reporting of his cases and investigations. The reveal of the book is more along the lines of yes the paranormal isn’t supposed to happen, but it does happen and I - a career law enforcement professional - witnessed it first hand. Not only that, but there was a dedicated team in the Rangers whose purpose was to look into cases of the weird and strange. The tone is very matter of fact, which helps in that Stanley seems to be geared towards relaying the facts of his experiences and less so in coloring them one way or the other or being preachy about what they might mean. He also refrains from ascribing spiritual, religious, or political meaning to them. His retelling seems to be more objective and more for the concern of the well-being of the witnesses he encountered. A truly noble person in the profession, we can be sure. One can only imagine what it must have been like to live the life he has. The cases in his memoir are interesting but not grandiose as are most big-ticket, paranormal ‘tell-alls”. That being said, there were no revelations, per se, that I did not already have some experience with or understanding of the existence of those things. So while I was not gaining additional facts regarding the phenomenon, I do have another great story to reference of personal contact and investigative exploration AND there were a couple stark similarities to my own experiences which I have found nowhere else. I think it did solidify that real, hardened, professional, law enforcement groups took reports of these kind seriously and dedicated teams and staff to look into them - i.e. they took them seriously. Not only that, they got tie in and help from government contractors and the big UFO group MUFON. If anyone needs more proof that at least high level orgs and people were involved in these events and studied them this is a great memoir with which to start. The lack of a 5 star full rating is mostly related to a few times the narrative gets bogged down in law enforcement protocol and the fact that I already knew of a lot of the things he encountered prior to reading. I think his sharing of Native myth really made up fo that and kept my 4 out of 5 rating.

Paranormal Ranger is available on Amazon via HarperCollins and you can find it at this link.

Lending a Helping Hand

A few weeks back, I had received a message from someone who had just read my book. I felt grateful that they had reached out to me and wanted to chat. I was happy to hear she enjoyed my book but there was something more here. She was in need of help. I listened and learned and offered compassion and empathy as we all should. However, as I did, I learned I was not fully equipped to help as I wanted to. So, I offered to send her contact information for someone I knew of in the field that I thought could help better than I could. Later, I was thanked by the professional I knew for the referral and was told they were already working together. That, right there, was one of the main reasons I wrote my memoir - helping others feel comfortable coming forward and asking for the help they needed. AND being able to help them with that -brings such a fulfilling feeling to me and helps fill in the ‘why’ of doing this in the first place. I am happy for her to have help in this topic in a safe, caring, non-judgemental way. Maybe, just maybe, things will be alright.

3I/Atlas Fervor Discussion

I feel this must be said. Everyone needs to calm down about 3I/Atlas. It was stated before that Avi Loeb’s paper was a ‘fun’ practice in hypothesis of the object. The thing is - we don’t know what it is yet. We have theories. Good, science-based, sound theories. But, unless I don’t know what others do or there are secrets yet to be revealed, we don’t know what it is. Scientists state it is most likely a comet. There are some key differences, which sparked the initial ‘space craft’ and ‘alien technology’ debate.

In the last couple of weeks, whether due to the algorithm catching up to me or it becoming more popular, I saw a large increase in articles online declaring that 3I/Atlas was, indeed, a bonfide alien spacecraft coming to invade and destroy Earth. It seems people did not know how to read the actual source material.

In his ‘Introduction’, Avi Loeb states that this is a purely ‘pedogogical’ exercise. Meaning, it is meant for teaching and learning.

Next, I want to paste actual quoted writing from his paper to explain what I mean even clearer:

“This paper is contingent on a remarkable but, as we shall show, testable hypothesis, to which the authors do not necessarily ascribe, yet is certainly worthy of an analysis and a report, for two reasons:
1. The consequences, should the hypothesis turn out to be correct, could potentially be dire for humanity, and would possibly require defensive measures to be undertaken (though these might prove futile).”

2. The hypothesis is an interesting exercise in its own right, and is fun to pursue, irrespective of its likely validity.

Then I feel a great need to share Avi’s Conclusion:

At the heart of this, is a question any self-respecting scientist will have had to address at some point in their career:
”is an outlier of a sample a consequence of expected random fluctuation, or is there ultimately a sound reason for its observed discrepancy?” A sensible answer to this hinges largely on the size of the sample in question, and it should be noted that for interstellar objects we have a sample size of only 3, therefore rendering an attempt to draw inferences from what is observed rather problematic.

One of the reasons there was debate, also, was that back in July, there was not as defined of a tail as would be expected in traditional comets. Now, with using updated imagery and different facilities, there is clear images of a tail emerging.

There is also a different composition than is typically observed with the coma being noted to have the highest ever observed amount of carbon dioxide.

Avi noted a difference in typical acceleration observed in the object back in July, also.

However, in most cases online, scientists and science journalists refer to it as a ‘comet’, through and through.

So, the point I am trying to make, is that while I would love to jump on the band wagon and call this an alien spacecraft, we just can’t. The paper, I think, was taken, and misrepresented for effect. Then others glommed onto the paper and used it for clout online. You can imagine the algos would more likely push that dramatic story than ‘oh, look, another comet’.

Let’s all just try to keep calm and use our minds and figure out the truth for ourselves.

That said, the image is really cool. So, here is one to share:

Also, for those who have experienced encounters, sightings, and / or abductions and remember them, the idea of them sending a nuts and bolts spaceship on an interstellar flight which is visible and trackable for millions of miles until it arrived is likely far fetched. That just isn’t how they appear to operate in most of the research and literature I have seen and in my own experience. They don’t fly as the crow does - one point and time in 3d space to another. They seem to have the technology to either fold space and travel between spaces and time or enter other dimensions and appear where and when they want back in the one they intended. Perhaps, even only contacting experiencers vis conciousness alone. And, as others have theorized, that type of communication is not reliant on proximity as modern near-field communication technology does.

My own theory is if this object is like the other one - Oumuamua - the exact nature will not have been ascertained before fading from the observation ability of today’s facilities as it passes harmlessly, eventlessly through the solar system.