The official investigation identified failure of the right solid-rocket-motor joint and deficient O-ring sealing as the accident’s technical cause.
Challenger Disaster
EventChallenger Disaster
EventCase Claims
12These statements reflect the cited record and are not independent verification.
- InterpretationAsserted
The episode presents Jeffrey Mishlove’s interpretation that the physical and consciousness-related dimensions of UAP may be inseparable, while allowing that both physical craft and mind-mediated phenomena could exist.
Mishlove’s central position is that the “nuts-and-bolts” and consciousness dimensions of the UFO problem may be inseparable.
- Source reportedConfirmed
The Bigelow Institute for Consciousness Studies confirms that Jeffrey Mishlove received the $500,000 first prize in its 2021 life-after-death essay competition for “Beyond the Brain.”
Bigelow’s institute confirms that Mishlove won the $500,000 first prize for “Beyond the Brain: The Survival of Human Consciousness After Permanent Bodily Death.”
- Source reportedAsserted
Mishlove says he investigated Ted Owens from 1976 until Owens’ death in 1987 and assembled files from multiple researchers concerning alleged psychokinetic, weather and UFO demonstrations.
Mishlove then followed Owens until his death in 1987 and assembled records from several researchers.
- Source reportedUnverified
Mishlove reports that a December 1976 UFO sighting above Sonoma State College followed a forecast by Ted Owens and was seen, photographed and filmed by multiple witnesses; the episode does not provide the original records for independent review.
The centerpiece was a December 1976 sighting above what was then Sonoma State College in Rohnert Park.
- Source reportedContested
Mishlove says Ted Owens warned him on Christmas Eve 1985 about the next shuttle launch, but he acknowledges no evidence connects Owens or an outside object to Challenger; official investigations identified solid-rocket-booster joint and O-ring failure as the cause.
Mishlove says Owens called on Christmas Eve 1985 and warned him to stop the next shuttle launch, claiming his UFOs would destroy it.
- Source reportedConfirmed
Declassified records confirm that U.S. intelligence agencies sponsored remote-viewing research at Stanford Research Institute beginning in the 1970s, including work by Hal Puthoff and Russell Targ.
The public record confirms that U.S. intelligence agencies sponsored remote-viewing work and that SRI developed protocols in the 1970s.
- Source reportedConfirmed
A 1995 government review found some remote-viewing results appeared above chance but concluded the information was too vague, inconsistent and unreliable for actionable intelligence, while reviewers disagreed over whether a paranormal mechanism had been demonstrated.
The 1995 government review of the Star Gate program reached a divided but sobering conclusion: some results appeared above chance, yet the information was too vague, inconsistent and unreliable for actionable intelligence, and reviewers disputed whether a paranormal mechanism had been established.
Contemporary reporting, the published investigation, and the archival thread that surfaced them.
"'This is one of the most important phone calls you will ever receive. The SIs [non-human intelligence] really mean business. They will destroy the shuttle.' "...a month later, on January 28, 1986. I was shaken to my bones when the Challenger disaster occurred." (Since Ted Owens is in the "news" again, here's an excerpt from "The PK Man," written by Jeffrey Mishlove, which I shared in 2021 or so.) 1980 - The Space Intelligences = SIs = Non-Human Intelligence Owens: "The reason for all of this...

