The Fairy Podcast Dan Baines & Fiona Maher

Recorded a week before the release of the highly anticipated report on the Pentagon's research into Unidentified Aerial Phenomena (UAP), aka UFOs, we discuss the connection between aliens and fairies. Although encounters bear many similarities, are they separate entities, or are they the same phenomenon we have just interpreted differently?

Could extraterrestrials actually be terrestrial? Have we been searching deep space for alien life, when in fact, it's been here all along? We tackle all of these questions and much more.

In this special episode we interview Sebastian Baczkiewicz about his long-running series for Radio 4, Pilgrim, which draws on the myth and folklore of the British Isles and stars Paul Hilton as the immortal protagonist, William Palmer. The series was nominated for the Prix Italia and awarded silver at the Prix Europa.

Many religions incorporate fasting as a means to bring people spiritually closer to god but can fasting also make our brains more receptive to paranormal experiences? Has the modern diet fogged our psychic perception that once allowed us to see things such as fairies more frequently?

Could ancient stone circles mark the entrances to other worlds and do they have a greater purpose than just charting the passing of the seasons or places to conduct funeral ceremonies?

We discuss this and more.

We interview John Walker, one of Canada's most respected documentary filmmakers about his 2000 film , 'The Fairy Faith'. We talk to him about his personal journey into a world of myth and imagination that he learned from his grandmother and his search of this potent “otherworld” of the imagination.

We also discuss The Fairy Flag of Dunvegan, which some materialists believe to be only a relic of the Crusades -- a consecrated banner of the Knights Templars, but which all true Highlanders affirm to have been a gift to some ancestral MacLeod, from a fairy maiden.

Fiona visits Ireland's most mysterious farm in Ballinasloe, County Galway and interviews Pat Noone. A Fertility Stone, Local Cures and Healing, a Fairy Fort, Iron Age Swords, and an Entrance to the Otherworld can all be found at Green Hills Farm but what will Fiona make of it?

We also discuss the connection between fairy folklore and shadows starting with the most iconic shadow/fairy connection; Peter Pan. We also discuss the strange tale of a Scottish man who was almost the victim of a fairy shadow theft. What does our shadow represent and why does it seem that our shadow has some form of desirability and importance to the wee folk?

A bumper episode in which we cover listener fairy sightings, the Missing 411 series by David Paulides, UHFs (Unidentified Human Forms) in the landscape and even Bigfoot gets a mention and how he could be more fairy than hairy.