Author Archives: Garry Rodgers

About Garry Rodgers

After three decades as a Royal Canadian Mounted Police homicide detective and British Columbia coroner, International Best Selling author and blogger Garry Rodgers has an expertise in death and the craft of writing on it. Now retired, he wants to provoke your thoughts about death and help authors give life to their words.

WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT PERSONAL DNA TESTING

Personal DNA testing is a huge business. Genetic profiling on an individual or home-based level is a multi-million dollar industry that’s tripling each year. As the biological identification process becomes faster, easier and cheaper, more and more people are submitting their spit. What they’re finding can be fascinating—or terrifying—which makes some folks reluctant to try. But, if you’re curious about checking out your molecular makeup, here’s what you need to know about personal DNA testing.

DNA stands for deoxyribonucleic acid. It’s the basic building block of organic life—the blueprint prescribing every bit of non-local as well as tangible information required to make a bee a bee, a bird a bird, and a beluga a beluga. DNA is also what makes you… you.

About 99 percent of your DNA is universal to the living world. You share most of the same biological codes with other carbon-based life forms. As you move closer to your mammalian cousins like the apes or the now-extinct Neanderthals, that 1 percent of your human coding narrows. By the time you reach your individual family level, DNA gets very unique.

Your personal DNA profile is as individual to you as your fingerprints. That’s unless you have an identical or monozygotic twin, in which case you’d have the same genetic blueprint. Or, you might be an exceptionally rare occurrence known as a chimera. In that event, you’d have two different DNA profiles within your cells.

How DNA Operates in Human Cells

Cells allow you to be a living human. Every part of you, from your blood to your bones to your brain, is made of individual cells. There’s no way to count the number of cells in your body as they’re constantly changing. You have more cells as you grow from a toddler to a teen and less cell material when you succeed on your diet.

It’s estimated the human body, like yours, completely recreates itself every month or so. New cells replace your old cells and life goes on until you die. Then your cells stop reproducing, and you begin decomposing which is an entire science of its own.

The amazing thing about your cell regeneration is that, for the most part, they perfectly reproduce. That’s thanks to the specific information encoded in your DNA. Without DNA direction, you’d be like trying to repeatedly rebuild the space station without the plans.

What makes you unique as a human being, rather than an ape, is your chromosomes. These are particular chapters in your DNA playbook and appear as lengths of information in your genome sequence. As humans, we have 22 pairs of chromosomes that direct everything from skin color to disease resistance. It’s problems with information breakdown in chromosomes that are leading causes of birth defects and inherited disorders.

There’s a distinct difference in boys and girls and women and men. That’s because of the 23rd pair of chromosomes that complete our human makeup. All females have two X-chromosomes in their last pair while males have one X chromosome complimented with a single Y-chromosome. Genetically, female chromosome equations get expressed as 22+XX while males are 22+XY.

The numbers associated with the human genome project, and where DNA fits in, are truly staggering. It’s a wonder we function at all. There are four biological building blocks in your DNA which are nucleotide chemical bases—adenine (A), thymine (T), cytosine (C) and guanine (G). You have approximately 3.2 billion pairs of A, T, C and G in your cellular makeup. That’s a total of 6.4 billion letters describing your DNA genome code which contains 6,500 segments known as centimorgans (cM). Multiply this by the trillions of cells in your body…

You actually have two DNA types active in your cells. One is “regular” deoxyribonucleic acid that supplies codes for building physical cell structure. The other is mitochondrial deoxyribonucleic acid (mtDNA). The mitochondrion is a human cell component that creates energy. Each cell contains 16,569 base pairs of mtDNA.

Mitochondrial DNA is Maternal

You get mitochondrial DNA from your mother who got your genetic recipe from your grandmother. It’s a unique biological occurrence that happens on your maternal side and geneticists believe it’s because the pre-fertilized egg that you started from needed an energy source and coding to initially program it. From the point of conception, when your father’s sperm joined your mother’s egg and created you as a zygote before you were an embryo (Google it – zygote is a freshly fertilized egg), your cell nucleus information remained maternally bound.

Mitochondrial DNA has nothing to do with determining chromosomes and whether you turned out male or female. Having two XXs or a Y and an X was a biological crapshoot. It’s a flip of the coin, according to theory, and it’s amazing that after the billions and billions of babies born, they average about 51 percent female and 49 percent male. Go figure who figured the odds.

But your chromosomes, directed by your regular DNA and powered by your mtDNA have everything to do with how you turned out. Some speculate DNA contributes to how you act and feel, as well. Although there’s no scientific proof of DNA contributing to emotions, let alone consciousness, it’s because of DNA that we’re alive and curious. One of the biggest curiosities today is what our DNA profile tells us about who we are and where we came from. Perhaps it’s that knowledge that helps us understand where we’re going.

How Personal DNA Testing Happens

An internet search finds over twenty outlets offering personal DNA profiling services. Some are credible. Some are not. It’s caveat emptor in the profiling business and we’ll cover that in a bit. First, let’s look at how a typical DNA profile happens. It goes like this:

Research the Service and Provider Best Suited to Your Goal

That might be tracing your ancestry, determining parentage, finding relatives, planning a family, identifying genetic risk through inherited deficiencies, determining pharmacological compatibility, developing a lifestyle or any one of a number of motives for why you’d want to see your profile. Be cautious, though, of relying on dubious predictions on optimal diets and such. Experts warn that using DNA tests to extrapolate this type of information is probably pseudoscience.

Order Your Collection Kit Online

Most companies now use sterile swabs for collecting saliva. Good old spit is by far the best-suited substance for DNA typing. Sure, the forensic scientists can isolate DNA from blood, bone marrow, hair follicles, semen samples, vaginal fluid and mucus. But, for obvious reasons, these aren’t best managed for a personal collection.

Collect Your Saliva Sample

Your mouth is full of genetic material. By far the best area of your mouth to swab is your inner cheek or under your tongue where you store the largest amount of buccal swabs. Some companies supply tubes to simply spit into, but the most efficient and accurate collection method is swabbing. At any rate, you can’t go wrong by following the manufacturer’s instructions.

Package Your Sample

Your kit provider will include a vial to seal your swab and prevent contamination. Cross-contamination can ruin a personal DNA test, so make sure you have limited handling and that you keep others some distance from your swabbing. The return envelope or container should be pre-addressed and suitable for regular mail. You might have to buck-up for postage, depending on who’s doing your test.

Register Your Sample

This is extremely important. All DNA testing companies require online registering before they receive your swab. Otherwise, they can’t process it. Again, follow the directions and select your options. Some testing agencies require completed questionnaires. If you have privacy concerns, it’s best to read the fine print or call their customer service line.

Wait for Your Results

You’ll have to wait anywhere from four to eight weeks to receive your DNA profiling results. This depends on the particular company, their backlog and how detailed an analysis you requested. You’ll be digitally notified, likely by email, or you may have to log on to your private portal.

Decipher Your Personal DNA Test

This might be the most difficult part of your whole DNA profile procedure. If you’re simply looking for ancestry information, it might be straightforward. But, if you’ve ordered an in-depth search into your maternal or paternal lineage, there’ll be more to it. That’s certainly so if you’ve requested genetic information pertaining to your health.

Available DNA Testing Services for Individuals

There are three main DNA testing services available for personal profiling. Keep in mind that you’re dealing with a civilian process that’s an interesting information exercise rather than a forensic examination bound by the rules of evidence. Civilian genetic testing agencies will offer one or all of these services:

Autosomal Testing — This is the most basic and popular means of genetic testing. It’s commonly called the family finder. The autosomal method looks at your 22 standard chromosome pairs, not including the ones that determine your sex. The first 22 chromosome pairs are called autosomes. Through autosomal typing, the service aligns you with other profiles already stored in their database and matches you with similar people. As regular DNA changes with generations, autosomal testing only goes back 5-8 generations, unlike the other two services that can profile you between 20 and 100 generations.

mtDNA Testing — Mitochondrial services focus on the X chromosome in your DNA profile. Every human has an X chromosome signature regardless if they’re female or male. mtDNA profiling is precise and this is where geneticists zero-in on abnormalities in your traits and indicate issues that you’d otherwise have no idea about.

Y-DNA Testing — This one’s for boys only. As women don’t have a Y chromosome, they can’t play this game. Y-DNA testing follows the paternal line that’s passed from fathers to sons. However, don’t write-off the girls too quick. They have a way around determining their paternal line. If you’re female, you can simply ask your biological brother for a Y-DNA test and you’ll find all about your dad’s side of the family.

How the Science of Personal DNA Testing Works

There’s nothing simple about DNA testing science. This is a highly-trained, exacting discipline done in expensive laboratory environments. As with other science arenas, DNA testing methods have rapidly improved with technology. Today, scientists can extract the smallest DNA fragment and multiply it as many times as necessary to develop an accurate profile. It’s like cloning.

Once your saliva sample hits the lab, technicians extract your DNA content from the liquid through a centrifuge and plating procedure. What they’re looking for is an area of your genome sequence that displays certain variable number tandem repeats (VNTRs). Within the identified VNTR points are smaller sections called short tandem repeats (STRs) which are microsatellites that really tell the story of who you are, who made you and where you came from.

You’ll find a lot of DNA lingo if you surf the net. Some terms are PCR, RFLP and ALFP but the only notable acronym that applies to personal testing is STR. From STR information, technicians apply a quantitative analysis that provides a statistical interpretation of approximately 20 “loci” core markers. This is as technical as you need to get in order to understand what’s happening with your spit at the shop.

It’s the power of statistical discrimination that’s amazing in STR DNA analysis. You’ll hear DNA technicians speak of statistical probabilities when quantifying the reliability and accuracy of your DNA test. It’s common to hear results like 99.999 percent or one-in-a-billion. No matter how they present your results, you still have to do some interpretation.

Commercial Services for Personal DNA Testing

No doubt you were waiting for this part. Now that you have some idea of what personal DNA testing entails and are taking the plunge into the biological soup-pot that supports you, the question is what services are suitable for you. In other words, what’s the best bang for your biological buck?

Well, this website isn’t associated with commercial DNA testing and receives no referral fee, so there’s every reason to be independently objective. There are plenty of providers and gobs of internet information available, so you’ll have to do a bit of homework. To help you speed the process, here are the highest rated commercial services for personal DNA testing:

Cellular Research Institute (CRI) — This seems to be the Cadillac of DNA testing services, according to Genetics Digest. It also seems to be the only one employing a world-renown, Harvard-educated genetic scientist who trained under Dr. Watson (who is one of the co-discoverers of the DNA double-helix molecule). CRI has an amazing depth of analysis and a widely expanding database. They’re not expensive, though, considering what you get. You can pay $99 for a quick ancestry test and $199 for a basic ancestry & heath profile. The price quickly rises for specialized work.

AncestryDNA — These DNA testers are probably the best known providers. That’s because they’ve been around the longest after starting Ancestry.com. Originally, Ancestry was an online family tree service. They got into the DNA business as a value-added service and are highly reputable. Ancestry is also relatively affordable. Prices start at $129 and go to $299, depending on what service you want.

23and Me — If you’re looking for thorough ancestor reports and some decent health observations, 23andMe is a good choice. They’re fairly new and their marketing really appeals to millennials. So does their price point. 23andMe has an a la carte menu starting at $99.

tellmeGen — If you’re a hypochondriac, you’ll want to pick up a tellmeGen personal DNA testing kit. They do basic autosomal tests, but really shine when drilling down into what’s behind your health concerns (real and imaginary). You’ll pay for it, though, as their entry level test is $169 and it climbs from there.

MyHeritage — For basic, bottom-line DNA testing on a budget watch, get yourself a kit from MyHeritage. You’ll shell out $109 and they’ll be back to you in 3-4 weeks with a really cool pie-chart of what’s going on in your body.

Remember Caveat Emptor

In personal DNA testing—like most things in life—you get what you pay for. Good services cost money and, if you want credible results, you’ll have to buck-up. That’s not to say that many other commercial DNA services aren’t honorable, credible and valuable. A quick internet scan finds agencies like LivingDNA, FamilyTreeDNA, AfricanAncestry and even National Geographic Geno 2.0. They’re probably fine, too.

But you will find some scammers. One online investigator submitted saliva from his golden retriever, Bailey. He got back a computer generated profile that missed Bailey’s species but got her hair color right. The report also profiled Bailey as not suitable for contact sports and suggested she take up golf.

THE SECRET TO BEING A SUCCESSFUL WRITER

Please welcome super-successful writer, savvy social media specialist, and total-no-bs marketing expert Rachel Thompson of Bad Redhead Media with her thought-provoking post shared on DyingWords.net.

Regardless of how you publish your books, articles, or blog posts, the secret to being a successful writer is not anything pie-in-the-sky or full of inspirational goo-gah. Besides, I’m not the kind of person to spray glittery sunshine up your you-know-what, so here’s the real deal. It’s the big secret. Ready? Grab your pen.

Don’t Be Lazy.

That’s it. Let me deconstruct this a bit. Pull up a chair.

Make It Happen

You. Yes, you. Stop looking around.

I’ve worked with writers in all kinds of ways since hmmm, gosh, 2009-ish. Ten years of observing that unique species of human we refer to as, writer. I’m a writer myself (six books released so far , been in a few anthologies, two new books on deck for this year), so I fully comprehend the challenges of balancing writing, marketing, the day job, real life, chronic pain, mental health, and single parenting.

Completely and totally get it.

There isn’t room in any of those roles to be lazy if we’re being #TruthBomb honest here. Yet, in my ten years of working directly with writers, I can count on one hand the writers who are get-out-of-my-way go-getters.

Not the kind who will eat you for lunch with some fava beans and a nice chianti. I mean those who actively set aside time for writing AND marketing AND promoting strategically — not creepy, spammy, ‘must take a shower after seeing this’ ways. Nope, I mean those who treat their publishing career as a business, not a hobby where they lollygag around on social media arguing politics or talking about writing their book, then hope and pray someone eventually buys it.

In fact, I so related to that panicky, ‘Where do I even start?” feeling I experienced with my first book back in 2012, that I created an entire month last year (year two is happening right now! and every May going forward if I decide to continue this exhaustive effort) where I’ve wrangled publishing experts this entire month of May to generously donate books, guides, and consultations, and yet shockingly (she says not shocked), few writers are taking advantage of it.

When I speak with them as to why not, several have told me they know about it but don’t want to participate because then they’ll HAVE to work on their writing and marketing.

This baffles me. And yet, nah, it doesn’t.

Lazy Writer Syndrome

It’s a thing, right? We all get it. I get it, too.

It’s not that I’m not writing. I’m here, aren’t I? I also write for my own author blog (RachelintheOC.com as well as on Medium, which are important parts of my author marketing and business marketing. I have those two manuscripts mentioned above on my desktop: one is in edits, and the other is in draft. I also keep a journal, a planner, and a book just for creative notes and ideas.

So, yea, I’m writing. Yet sometimes it feels like I’m not writing writing.

Am I accomplishing stuff? Am I climbing the mountain? Well, yea. Kinda.

It feels like this: it’s a big mountain, full of mud. It’s raining. Hard. I’m carrying this heavy weight. But I’ve got this! It’s just that some days it’s just…so exhausting. Or I have a migraine. Or I’m running my kids around (single mom). Or I’ve got client deadlines (solopreneur).

So, I set the weight down and make camp. For a little while. To rest and recuperate. And then get back out there when I’ve got my wind back.

That’s okay. I’m getting there. We’re all getting there (wherever the hell there is). (Maybe lazy doesn’t describe me. I am a Capricorn, after all.)

Are You a Lazy Writer?

These are the hard questions you have to ask yourself:

  • What am I doing to move my writing career forward?
  • What am I not doing?
  • What actions am I taking to build relationships with readers?
  • How can I learn more about how to market my work?
  • How am I standing in my own way?

Creating an author platform is not a choice in today’s market. It’s not an option. At least, not if you want to sell books and be taken seriously by not only readers but also other writers, book bloggers, and book reviewers (as well as agents and publishers, if you go that route, or plan to). Many writers refuse to treat their writing like a business — they think if they can just sign with a traditional publisher, and then that publisher will swoop in and do all that work for them.

If only.

As a survivor of childhood sexual abuse, I deal with many stumbling blocks: anxiety, depression, chronic pain. There are days where all I can do is the bare minimum for my business, kiss my kids, and that’s it. And that’s okay. Big fan of The Four Agreements: always do your best, and if your best is just getting out of bed that day, okay. I Scarlett O’Hara that bitch: tomorrow is another day.

In my business, many of my clients are traditionally published. Big 5 even. They hire me to do their social media and book marketing because no publisher does that for them. It’s on you, writer friends. Start early, share often. Learn author branding (we brand the author, not the book).

You don’t need to hire someone to do this marketing stuff for you. You learned how to write. You can learn how to market.

The other big secret I’ll share with you is this: book marketing isn’t about spamming your book links with everybody (that’s desperation). It’s about building relationships with readers early on.

I do a free weekly chat on my @BadRedheadMedia business Twitter, #BookMarketingChat, every Wednesday, 6 pm pst, 9 pm est. Every week for the last 4 years, I share my time and/or recruit an expert in publishing and marketing to share their expertise with you, the writing community.

Invariably, someone says, “Yea, I should do that,” or “I’ll give that a try.”

Writing is great. Publishing is a business. Treat it like one. 

~Rachel Thompson

*   *   *

About Rachel Thompson

Rachel Thompson is the author of the award-winning, bestselling Broken Places (one of IndieReader’s “Best of 2015” top books and 2015 Honorable Mention Winner in the Los Angeles and San Francisco Book Festivals), and the multi-award-winning Broken Pieces, as well as two additional humor books, A Walk In The Snark and Mancode: Exposed.

Rachel released the BadRedhead Media 30-Day Book Marketing Challenge in December 2016 to rave reviews, with an updated ebook and print version in December 2017. She also released an SEO mini-book just for writers in February 2018 which immediately shot to #1 on 5 lists! You can purchase that here for only 99c.

Rachel Thompson owns BadRedhead Media, creating effective social media and book marketing campaigns for authors. Her articles appear regularly in The Huffington Post, IndieReader.com, FeminineCollective.com, Medium, and Mogul.

Not just an advocate for sexual abuse survivors, Rachel is the creator and founder of the hashtag phenomenon #MondayBlogs, the weekly live Twitter chat, #SexAbuseChat, co-hosted with C Streetlights and Judith Staff (every Tuesday, 6pm pst/9pm est), and #BookMarketingChat (every Wednesday 6pm pst/9pm est), helping authors learn all kinds of great tips to market their books!

Rachel hates walks in the rain, running out of coffee, and coconut. She lives in California with her family.

DID ALIENS REALLY ABDUCT GRANGER TAYLOR?

On the evening of Saturday, November 29th, 1980, then 32-year-old Granger Taylor departed his parent’s farmhouse near the town of Duncan in the Cowichan Valley on southern Vancouver Island, British Columbia, Canada. Granger vanished—apparently into space—never to be seen alive again. Some closest to Granger believe his mysterious disappearance was an actual close encounter of the third kind. They’re convinced that, somehow, aliens really did abduct Granger Taylor.

Alien abduction stories are rare—exceptionally rare. Most people dismiss an alien abduction story as pure bullshit or the product of a mentally impaired mind amplified by hallucinogens. But the theory of Granger’s alien encounter and subsequent space trip are based on interesting facts. That’s partly because Granger Taylor told his friends and family about ongoing telepathic alien contact and left a note explaining what he was up to the night he left home forever. Here’s what Granger’s message said:

“Dear Mother and Father, I have gone away to walk aboard an alien ship as reocurring dreams assured a 42 month intersteluar voyage to explore the vast universe, then return. I am leaving behind all my possesions to you as I will no longer require the use of any. Please use the instructions in my will as a guide to help. Love, Granger.”

Hearing a will mentioned in a run-away note immediately raises suicide suspicions. However, Granger modified his will and replaced the words “death” and “deceased” with “departure” and “departed”. The problem with suspecting suicide in Granger’s case was he had absolutely no sign of suicidal thoughts or tendencies. In fact, Granger Taylor had everything to live for. He was an exceptionally bright and gifted man.

The best description for Granger was an eccentric genius. Although Granger was odd in some ways and did a few things outside the lines, no one ever called Granger Taylor crazy. Associates described Granger as “eccentric”, “a prodigy”, “brilliant” and a “mechanical guru”. Over his short time on earth, Granger lived up to these terms and more. However, there’s far more to the Granger Taylor story.

Was this an actual case of alien contact?

Granger Taylor

Granger quit school after Grade 8. He said he’d learned every academic thing he needed to know including reading, writing and arithmetic at a level far beyond his years. Granger went to work repairing and building machinery. He proved a natural machinist and mastered self-taught skills ranging from welding to electronics.

They say Granger was somewhat shy and reclusive, although by no means antisocial or a hermit. He was a large man but extremely gentle and generous. Granger was never one for girls or the party scene, rather he immersed in mechanics and engineering. He remained single and attached to his parents where he slept in his childhood bedroom on their 21-acre rural property.

At age 12, Granger scratch-built an automobile powered by a one-cylinder engine he designed. By 14, he could tear down and rebuild practically every type of motor vehicle and moved on to heavy equipment. That took in logging trucks, farm tractors and vintage bulldozers.

One of Granger’s most ambitious projects was rescuing a derelict steam locomotive from an abandoned logging site. He disassembled the train engine and packed it piece-by-piece from the bush to his farm. Over time, Granger restored the locomotive to full working order. Today, it sits on display at the British Columbia Forest Museum in Granger’s home town of Duncan.

Not satisfied with wheels and tracks, Granger developed a keen interest in flight. His mechanical curiosity was unbounded and he longed to understand how airplanes operated. As strange as it seems, Granger source the fuselage of a World War II Kitty Hawk fighter plane. As with the locomotive, Granger found parts for the plane. What he couldn’t buy, he built.

Within two years, Granger made the Kitty Hawk airworthy. Although he didn’t have an airstrip at his farm, let alone a pilot’s license, Granger’s intelligent creativity came up with a flight plan. He installed restraint bars in the back of the plane and then chained it to a massive tree. By powering up the engine and working the flaps, Granger elevated the aircraft and held it to hover.

Granger’s farm plane was a huge community hit. Many people watched him demonstrate the fighter which he eventually sold to a collector for a tidy sum. Speaking of money, Granger was no slouch when it came to business. By the time he disappeared, Granger amassed a considerable bank account which he left for his parents.

Although Granger was somewhat reserved, he was exuberant about helping the local youth. Granger gave his time and teachings to help kids throughout the Cowichan Valley. There was never a hint of impropriety with young folks associating with Granger and he never had the remotest hint of being troublesome in the community.

Granger Taylor was clearly project-orientated. Once he mastered the mechanics and engineering principles of mobility like vehicles’ locomotives and aircraft, Granger extended his interest horizons. He began studying spacecraft which led to his curiosity about intelligent alien lifeforms and what advanced technology they likely possessed.

Granger made it his mission to find out. The late 70s were a time fixated on the possibilities of space and space life. This was the time of TV shows like Star Trek and movies such as Close Encounters and Star Wars. UFO reports were common and a few alien abduction stories sporadically surfaced.

Granger watched, read and observed everything he could about space travel and what machines would take him there. That led to Granger Taylor building a flying saucer. He made it from two huge satellite TV dishes and welded together a convincing concoction which, for all the world, looked like the classic UFO shape often depicted in alien contact stories.

Granger didn’t intend his flying saucer model to fly. Rather, he used it as a think-tank where he’d spend hours in quiet thought—meditating is a good analogy—and it was during long periods of solitude and altering his state of consciousness that Granger Taylor began to have episodes where he reported telepathic contact with voices from beyond.

One of Granger’s closest friends and confidants was a man named Robert Keller. Bob Keller was younger than Granger—just in his late teens when Granger departed. Bob still lives in the Cowichan area and firmly believes Granger was in full control of his faculties despite disclosing his conversations with distant deities.

Bob Keller also described a side of Granger many didn’t see. It turns out Granger Taylor loved smoking marijuana. He did some of his best thinking while stoned. Keller states he and Granger would seal up the space ship and turn it into a giant hotbox where they’d blast away and reef themselves into another reality.

During these weedy sessions, Granger elaborated on his recurring alien contacts and how they’d offered him safe passage to distant parts so Granger could experience advanced technology first-hand. Granger told Keller that his departure day was approaching and leaving the earth was something he had to accomplish.

Bob Keller also disclosed that besides cannabis, Granger experimented with hallucinogens—specifically LSD or acid. In later media interviews, Granger’s sister confirmed the LSD abuse but was steadfast it was simply a curiosity for Granger to expand his mind. There were no reports Granger was a habitual drug user with bad trip troubles that would negatively affect or impair his thought process.

Granger Taylor’s parents also confirmed Granger “did some drugs” but he had no substance abuse issues, including alcohol. Granger didn’t drink. The parents were also adamant Granger showed no sign of mental illness and absolutely no hint of suicidal plans. To all Granger’s family members and friends, Granger was on a continuous curiosity voyage and it was a natural step to seek higher knowledge.

Granger’s Parents – Jim & Grace Taylor

Family and friends were divided about the alien abduction theory surrounding Granger Taylor. Some believed it and some didn’t. But all agreed Granger’s whereabouts was a total mystery. As Jim Taylor (Granger’s father) put it at the time, “It’s hard to believe Granger went off in a space ship, but if there is a flying object out there, he’s the one to find it.”

Granger Taylor’s 42-month hiatus expired on May 29th, 1984. During the time, Jim and Grace Taylor kept their back door unlocked and their son’s bedroom intact in the remote hope the ship would land and Granger would return unharmed. It didn’t work out that way.

In 1986, nearly six years after Granger left the note for his folks, forest workers discovered a giant blast site in the woods. Not too far from the Taylor farm, as the crow flies, there was an overgrown debris area roughly 600 feet in diameter. This was off a secluded service trail near the top of Mount Prevost which is the high point overlooking the Cowichan Valley.

Strewn about the blast site were vehicle parts. Shrapnel was embedded in trees well above the ground and other parts were driven deep into the soil. The police investigated and soon tied the blast site to Granger Taylor. Within the debris field were parts displaying the vehicle identification number (VIN) recorded on Granger’s pickup truck. A police dog search found fractured human bones, the largest being a left-arm humerus. And, sadly, Grace Taylor confirmed that clothing remnants recovered from the site were consistent with a shirt she’d made for their son.

There was nothing left of Granger Taylor’s body to make a positive ID. His skull and teeth weren’t found, and this was the days before prevalent DNA testing. However, the circumstances were sufficient for the coroner to confirm Granger’s death and the police were satisfied there was no foul play—despite the enormous explosion.

Officially, Granger Taylor’s missing persons case was closed with his classification of death being “undetermined”. Coroners have five death classifications available to wrap up their investigations—natural, accidental, suicide, homicide and undetermined. Common sense dictates no case could arguably be made of Granger dying from natural causes. Additionally, there was no evidence that someone killed Granger to establish a homicide ruling.

It’s a stretch to think Granger accidentally blew himself up, certainly not with a force of that magnitude. That leaves a hard look at suicide. However, coroners must follow a guideline called the “Beckon Test” where the balance of probabilities must overwhelmingly support a conclusion the decedent intentionally took their own life.

In Granger Taylor’s case, the coroner obviously struggled with firmly concluding the death was a suicide. One supporting pillar for a suicide conclusion is any history of suicidal thoughts, expressions or tendencies. In Granger’s case, there was nothing—absolutely nothing—in his past to suggest he was planning a suicide. Within the normal understanding, that is. It appears the presiding coroner ruled with caution and gave Granger the benefit of the doubt despite knowing about suspicious occurrences happening the day Granger Taylor said goodbye.

Jim Taylor reported that a “significant” volume of dynamite disappeared from his farm along with Granger. The Taylors were licensed to keep and use explosives for stump clearing on their land. Granger was completely familiar and competent with using dynamite and engineering explosive demolitions.

Something else happened on November 29th, 1980. A “100-year” storm hit the Cowichan Valley that evening. It knocked down trees and killed power across the area. Granger knew it was coming, and he’d told Bob Keller that the aliens would arrive under the cover of a storm to camouflage their presence.

Granger was last seen leaving a diner where he was a usual patron. This was about 6:30 pm. It’s a half-hour drive from the restaurant to the top of Mount Prevost through a tight, switch-backed dirt road. Around 8:00 pm, residents at the mountain’s base heard a loud “Boom!” It wasn’t consistent with storm thunder.

Looking back, there’s no doubt Granger Taylor died in a vehicle explosion. The evidence is overwhelming and conclusive. There’s also no realistic doubt Granger orchestrated the blast that ended his life. The question is why.

Why did an apparently untroubled and free-thinking man do something so outrageous? Why did Granger plan his demise and tie it to contacting alien intelligence? What in this world was going on in that brilliant mind?

I don’t think this puzzle can be solved. It can only be speculated. Perhaps the answer lies within the mind and where sources for ideas originate—no matter how bizarre, creative or devastating these notions can be.

Most people believe in some sort of a higher power that provides all information necessary to govern the universe. You can call it God, Infinite Intelligence or Mother Nature. Regardless of the name, human minds seem programmed to tap into this source of ideas that Plato called “Forms”. That’s where the word “information” derives.

Granger Taylor was a remarkable man. In life, he was inventive and inquisitive. Many similar people are described as a blend between nuts and geniuses. Maybe it’s because their thoughts are so far out on some intelligence plane that “normal” people like me can’t relate.

Possibly a genius like Granger projected his thoughts into a part of the universe not experienced by most humans at this point of our evolution. Maybe, in return, some sort of thought pool—call it an alien presence, if you’d like—responded to Granger and communicated in some telepathic way. Strange things happen. Think how lesser species like spiders get instructions to build web structures that humans can’t recreate with our current technology.

There’s an argument that Granger had some sort of undiagnosed mental trouble. Compounding the mental illness, his mind might have been polluted by illicit drugs. But that doesn’t wash given Granger’s history and the mass of literature indicating few people, if any, are driven to a thoroughly planned-out suicide by a mellow pot buzz or a good acid trip.

No. Something else had to be going through Granger Taylor’s head when he rocketed himself and his truck on top of the mountain. Perhaps it was a true belief he’d mentally connected with alien intelligence forms and the only way to leave his earthly shackles and join them was by blowing himself into space.

If that’s the truth then maybe, in some bizarre psychological way, aliens really did abduct Granger Taylor’s mind.