In this Issue

• Maverick Milestones
• President's Message
• Items of Interest
• Member Spotlight
• A Farewell Funny
  

Maverick Milestones: SSE’s January Babies are in Good Company

 

Happy New Year!  And what a year 2025 will be with the launch of our quarterly Frontier Webinars. SSE’s annual conference (live or virtual) is always an engaging event, but now we aim to fill the entire year with our new program delivering leading-edge educational and entertaining content, all wrapped within a fun social vibe.

Webinars—or virtual seminars—remain a powerhouse in today’s academic world, because they break down geographical barriers and transform cyberspaces into global hubs of knowledge. They offer students, educators, and seasoned investigators unparalleled access to expert insights, cutting-edge research, experiential learnings, and collaborative discussions—all from the comfort of their own screens.

With the rise of interactive tools and live Q&A sessions, webinars create dynamic, engaging learning experiences that can rival in-person presentations. Plus, recorded sessions ensure that no one misses out, fostering a more inclusive and flexible approach to education. In an era where information moves fast, webinars keep academia connected, current, and constantly evolving.

Also, four distinct formats will keep our Frontier Webinars diverse and fresh:

See the details below on the first Frontier Webinar set for March — it’s a social and educational event not to be missed. In fact, the SSE Executive Committee and Council humbly suggest that your New Year’s Resolution be a pledge to attend all four sessions scheduled for 2025. Note that SSE members only pay half-price, whereas the general public is also welcome at a modest fee compared to most online educational events.

Now is obviously the perfect time to join SSE as a Full, Associate, or Student Member (click here: https://scientificexploration.org/join-us). We are a unique organization devoted to scientific bridge-building among the varied subfields in frontier science and anomalistics. These sessions are therefore designed to be a great investment in your personal and professional development, so please take time to learn more and help us to spread the news.

Let’s not limit making valuable connections, sharing critical insights, and pushing our own boundaries only to once a year at a conference. It’s time to unlock and activate SSE’s full social and academic potential… and everyone is invited to this party.

Warmly,

James Houran, Ph.D.

Interim-President, SSE
Editor-in-Chief, JSE

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Kudos to Mark and Jan Urban-Lurain and our Holiday Donors!

We are indebted to SSE’s members and donors who make our programs possible, including our new Frontier Webinars. Last month SSE’s own Mark and Jan Urban-Lurain launched another matching funds campaign, so our deepest appreciation goes to them and the following donors who so generously answered their call to support SSE’s 2025 projects:

Damon Abraham, Marsha Adams, Eric Berger, Larry Bowen, Ronald Bremer, Joseph Butenaerts, Marian Condon, Michael Hurt, Göran Johannesson, Mark Keller, Edwin Kellogg, Ivan Kruglak, Jon Mannsaker, Michael Mickley, Garret Moddel, Roger Nelson, Daqing Piao, Douglas Richards, Mark Rodeghier, Gregory Sandow, John Streiff, and Chantal Toporow.

Remote Viewing Unlocked! A “Try It Yourself!” Workshop

SSE’s first “Encounters” Frontier Webinar happens Wednesday, March 19th, 2025 (2:00-4:30pm Pacific time). Register today for this exclusive virtual event with Dr. Debra Lynne Katz, President of the International Remote Viewing Association (IRVA).

Why Attend?

• Hear the history of remote viewing as a scientifically-studied phenomenon and helpful practice for everyday life.
• Learn basic approaches to gain intuitive-based information about a distant “target” and how to extract additional data from earlier impressions.
• Participate in a real remote viewing session of an undisclosed location, activity, or event with the help of an experienced monitor/ interviewer and then compare your words and sketches to the feedback photo and video.

The only way to learn remote viewing and fully grasp how it can be used to describe the world around us, is to do it! Join us for an exploration into the potential and inner reaches of the human mind!

Learn how remote viewing is both a scientific methodology and an intuitive-based discipline that can be helpful in daily practice. If you have ever wondered whether it is truly possible to tune into and even sketch a distant and undisclosed location, object, activity, person, or event—or if you are already a remote viewer but seeking additional tips and approaches—you won’t want to miss this fun, educational, and inspiring hands-on event. 

Event Details and Registration

JSE’s 2024 Winter Issue Online Now

Holiday parties can’t stop frontier science! Enjoy the latest issue with its varied array of topics:

• Jeff Mishlove’s Guest Editorial about a new parapsychology education program.
• New findings on scopaesthesia (the sense of being stared at), reincarnation-type phenomena, and random event generator (REG) effects at Egyptian sacred sites.
• Thought leadership on biological and spacetime correlates of higher states of consciousness, plasma ball phenomena.
• Book reviews about UAPs and government programs, remote viewing, and freedom of speech.
• And Bill Bengston’s special obituary for SSE Founder Peter A. Sturrock.

 
Read the full issue: https://journalofscientificexploration.org/index.php/jse/issue/current

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Meet SSE’s wonderful Treasurer and full member, Daching Piao. Also known as Daegyong Park having (ethically) characteristically small eyes, he was born into an ethnic Korean family in the countryside situated at the northeastern mountainous area of present-day China. At the age of 29, he was offered an opportunity to come to the USA to pursue advanced degrees. After earning his M.S. and Ph.D. and completing two years of post-doctoral training, he started his present academic position in 2005. Daching became an SSE full member in 2020, thanks to the enthusiastic introduction of Dr. Garret Moddel, SSE’s Publication Chair and emeritus professor of Electrical and Energy Engineering. Here’s a little about his story, before and after his involvement with the SSE.

Please talk about your career journey and what led you to your current work


What do you find most rewarding about your research in frontier science?

National Public Radio (NPR) often says, “All music was once new.” I would like to borrow that quote and change it to the following: “All science was once frontier.”

We are enjoying the extraordinary technological advances of “now.” However, we often seem to ignore that every scientific settlement giving birth to a new knowledge and technology of fundamentally changing the world was once non-existent. It was the continuous pursuit of the human spirit to understand what is yet to be understood that propels us to where we are now and where we will be.

All science was once a humble settlement on the frontier. However, not every frontier can lead to a settlement that will grow to a town. At least clean water nearby must be found, even if it may be a small spring or a tiny stream, as I could appreciate from my earlier life living in the mountainous countryside.  
    
If you ask me “What is most rewarding about my frontier science research?”, I will say that the practicing of the rigor of model-developments benefits fundamentally my conventional research and directly my laboratory-centric teaching.   

What are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced in your career, and how have you overcome them?

To apply a known basic physical principle to a new direction of application and to develop the quantitative model to support that new application may have been the two biggest challenges that I have faced in my career.

The engineer’s motto of “If it doesn’t work, take it apart and put it back” could be a governing principle to overcome these challenges. However, “In theory, there is no difference between theory and reality. In reality, there is.” In practice, the working principles may differ between the two aspects of the challenges.

Finding a new direction of applying a known basic principle is almost always associated with interdisciplinary communication. Sometimes the next settlement in a jungle where the produce of this settlement can help is only a range-of-arrow away but blinded by the jungle. One must whistle to let the neighbor, who can whistle back, know there is someone here to help or vise versa.

Developing a quantitative model to support a new application, as I have done with some successes, has always followed the simple principle: being able to safely get back to the home settlement, however humble it might be, after all extending conditions for exploring new areas of the jungle have been relaxed, or failed.

How has being a part of SSE benefited you both professionally and personally?

Professionally, it broadens my scientific view and sharpens my research methodologies. Personally, it helps me find like-minded friends who help me toughen my skin and enrich my spirit.

What advice would you give to someone just starting out in frontier science?

It is never too late starting out in frontier science. However, it is never too cautious in stepping out the foot. When walking at night under only the moonlight, as I remembered doing in returning home along the country road after watching a motion picture in the open field, the ground that shines can actually be a swamp that one wants to avoid. If you are determined to shift your own boundaries, make sure that you reinforce your base settlement, get your survival gears and horn your survival skills , then make the move. Know where the “exit” is, if not, make one first.

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A Farewell Funny

“Why don’t extraterrestrials visit our Solar System? They read the reviews – just one star.”

If you haven’t yet joined SSE as a Professional, Associate, or Student, 
please do so today!
https://scientificexploration.org/Join-us  

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