My biggest influences in writting were the great Frank Edwards and Charles Berlitz. Both men tried to do what I would also like to attempt: show the world that there are things out there that we may not understand, or not want to accept, but that does not make them any less real. Carmen McLaren was born and has lived in Troy, New York (the Home of Uncle Sam) for 45 years. After surviving a near fatal stroke in 2009, he decided to spend more time in pursuit of his first love writing about all things paranormal and historical. His works about the paranormal include the 352 page UFO Conspiracy (which MUFON journal editor Roger Marsh described as a book "that could easily be incorporated as standard reading for Ufology 101 at a university level") and Real Life Science Fiction - True Accounts of Mysterious Happenings covering a multitude of weird but true happenings. His historical pieces about the unique history of his beloved hometown of Troy, New York could be read in a series of articles published by the Troy Record newspaper. Carmen is an alumnus of Union College in Schenectady, New York (Cum Laude 1993), Hudson Valley Community College in Troy, New York (High Honors Graduate 1990) and a proud "Brother's Boy" having graduated from the Christian Brother/US Army JROTC run La Salle institute in Troy, New York in 1987