In 1986, Jim Speiser of Fountain Hills, Arizona, got the urge to create an electronic forum dedicated to a discussion of paranormal topics. He started a BBS (bulletin board system) using six personal computers located at various locations in the U.S. and Canada linked together with a Fidonet system. People would dial a number that would access a computer through a modem, and they could read and post messages and access files. Speiser called his new BBS “The ParaNet.” In the summer of 1991, there was a “spin-off” of ParaNet named the Multi-national Investigations Cooperative on Aerial Phenomena, and ParaNet published a magazine called Continuum to get their investigations reports out to the public. The first case in the Volume 1, Number 1, September 1991 issue involves an investigation of a simple crop circle in a cornfield in Iowa that led researchers to other reports of strange activity in the area. The case became far more complex than a simple crop circle report, and this has ended up becoming a two-part blog. In the first part, we’ll look at the investigation and three witness accounts, and in the second part we’ll look at one more account, the conclusions, and the aftermath, which included poltergeist activity reported to have been experienced by one investigator at his home. Read more →