For University of West Georgia alumnus Trey Hudson ’87, the truth is out there.
In the corners of reality, where the ordinary blurs into the unknown, lurk incidents of high strangeness. Whispers of shadowy figures slipping between worlds, lights that hover impossibly in the night sky, and time that fractures into moments too bizarre to explain – these are the strange threads that weave through the paranormal. It’s a realm where logic falters, and the impossible becomes a flickering possibility.
In the heart of such oddities, Hudson and the Anomalous Studies and Observation Group (ASOG), an organization he founded, encounter curiosities that defy reason and leave them wondering if perhaps the universe is far stranger than anyone could ever imagine.
“Behind the folklore – the vengeful ghost, the strange lights in the sky, the hairy beast in the field – there’s probably a nugget of truth,” Hudson hypothesized. “The stories are likely based on a collective consciousness going back generations.”
A Haunting Past
“I was a child of the ’70s,” Hudson began. “There were a lot of science-fiction TV shows and movies that got people talking about UFOs, Bigfoot and ghosts. Leonard Nimoy’s ‘In Search Of’ helped me develop a heathy interest in these types of phenomena. I started having questions – maybe everything that we see around us isn’t all there is.”
Hudson’s paranormal interests were naturally piqued in the early 2000s when ghost investigation television shows grew in popularity. He founded the Oxford Paranormal Society (OPS) and enjoyed chasing down ghostly encounters until referrals and requests dwindled. Not one to rest on laurels, Hudson expanded the group’s optics and brought in people with a variety of expertise, from cryptids to UFOs, evolving into ASOG.
“We are wary of narrowly labeling phenomena,” explained Hudson, who is also a Mutual UFO Network investigator. “We look at things that can’t be categorized. We incorporate various techniques and tools from other fields to maximize not only our research but also the anomalies we encounter. For example, we recently discovered radiation spikes whenever any strange phenomena are around.”
One of the group’s most intriguing experiences is what Hudson describes as the South’s version of Skinwalker Ranch. He’s even titled his book chronicling ASOG’s encounters after it – the Meadow Project.
“This location delivers the whole gamut of anomalies, from cryptids to disembodied voices to possible portals, every time,” Hudson shared. “On one occasion, we’d dispatched a team to investigate an area where boxes – which are common in areas of high strangeness – would appear and then dissipate on thermal. When they approached the exact area, their heat signatures completely disappeared. We tried to recreate it, but we couldn’t. It was almost like there were two realities existing at the same time.”
That event was featured on an episode of the Discovery Channel’s “Alien Encounters: Fact or Fiction.”
Science Meets the Supernatural
As Hudson matured, so did his interest in the field. As luck would have it, there was a school not too far away that considered the same questions he did with dedicated faculty and students searching for the answers.
One of only two public universities in the United States offering a humanistic and transpersonal psychology focus, UWG has been a beacon of enlightenment for free spirits, existential enthusiasts and cerebral connoisseurs. And with psychology and parapsychology legends like Drs. William Roll and Mike Arons, Hudson said the 1980s was an exciting time to be part of the program at then-West Georgia College.
“Most universities at that time were teaching psychology from a strictly behaviorist perspective,” Hudson explained. “UWG had a much broader view of the world that really drilled down into what it is to be a human. In my perspective, we can have volumes of data and measurements, but unless there’s a human being there to experience it, does it matter?”
An avid outdoorsman, various other life experiences also have been influential for Hudson and would later prove to be of paramount importance in investigations. While in high school, he was awarded the Eagle Scout award – the highest rank in Boy Scouting – and in 1982, he received a scholarship to attend the prestigious American Wilderness Leadership School. He has been a U.S. Army Military Intelligence Corp member since 1988 and is now a retired disabled veteran.
Hudson believes it’s important to study and understand these types of anomalies and implications that could have an effect on future generations.
“I think as the experiential nature of these studies expands – where people recount their experiences while scientists drill down on the mechanisms of the quantum state – there’s going to be a crossover point where the two meet,” he expounded. “I think that’s when we’re really going to start understanding answers to timeless questions. Is this all there is? Is there life after death? How do we fit in the big picture? The world is a lot stranger than people think it is. Look around. That’s where the real excitement lays.”
