Wednesday, January 5, 2011

Ken Johnston gets another 15 minutes

        Ken is the former Grumman technician and former clerk in the Lunar Receiving Lab who was trotted out by Richard Hoagland at the notoriously underattended "press conference" at the National Press Club on 29th October 2007 (video).

        Ken's job at the LRL was to ship moonrocks to scientists who had successfully applied to conduct experiments on them, along with context photographs showing their original environment and exact orientation. As such he had in his file cabinets a collection of copies of photo prints from the main Apollo archive, which was in a separate building.

        Somehow Johnston's role in Apollo became inflated in the tiny minds of Hoagland & Bara to "Director of Apollo Photo Archives" and the reason he was introduced (to almost nobody) at the 2007 press conference was that Hoagland was convinced that Johnston was the sole possessor of incriminating Apollo photography which showed unequivocal evidence of a lunar civilization. As it turned out, the so-called evidence was not merely equivocal but downright unconvincing (compare the actual file images AS14-66-9301 and AS14-66-9279.)

        Nor was that all. James Oberg found time to look into the curriculum vitae ascribed to Johnston by Hoagland & Bara and found it largely fictional. Mike Bara made a valiant attempt at defending it on the Dark Mission blog, but Hoagland, Bara, and their ignorant publisher Adam Parfrey all had to climb down and amend the text of Dark Mission's second edition. Pity they didn't correct more of the errors while they were at it.

        Just over a week ago, somebody using the pseudonym LiveForever8 posted two Youtube videos (originally from Sacred Mysteries Productions) of Ken Johnston on Above Top Secret, and the controversy gained a second life. The thread makes a good read, with Oberg in fine form giving us all a lesson in how to stick to the topic in the face of many attempts to derail the discussion into irrelevance.

11 comments:

Biological_Unit said...

Here is the helmet portion of AS12 48 7071. It shows a reflection near the top edge, right of center, which needs explanation.

I have my own explanation.
It doesn't "reflect" well on NASA or the goofy Branch Hoaglandians. Really, there are "problematic" images seen in Astro-Nots visors and no one points out that the damn things were faked in a Movie Studio?
All of the Moon Rocks were scooped up by UNMANNED missions, and there aren't hundreds pounds of them.

Biological_Unit said...

Jim Oberg wrote:

I went to Congress in 1997 to testify about the decay of the NASA safety culture under Russian influence

Russia has only 3 deaths in Space, TOTAL.

The Shuttle program killed 7 AFTER 1997!

Chris Lopes said...

I was as amazed as Oberg that no could actually defend Johnson. I'm not surprised though, that neither Bara or Hoagland were bothered by the lack of real credentials until they were forced to do so. Since neither of them has any real credentials, someone else not having any is no big deal.

Anonymous said...

I heard Mike Bara on a recent Paranormal Podcast and something sounded fishy so I did a search and ended up here, among other places.It is so disappointing to try to separate the signal from the noise. Someone once said something to the effect that a wise man chooses his battles carefully. In this field one needs inside experience like Jim Oberg in order to choose a battle. Unfortunately for me I have no experience whatsoever in this field save for a basic understanding of the scientific method. ~~~~Alexi

Chris Lopes said...

Alexi, that puts you way ahead of either Bara or Hoagland.

expat said...

What was your search string, Alexi? "mike bara" +bullshit?

Just kidding. Seriously, welcome -- hope you read this post.

Biological_Unit said...

Ian RoeBuck What was it a one minute interview? I tuned in 9 minutes after your announcement and he wasnt on.

Robin Falkov It was only for a few minutes. The first hour repeats after the show is over.


Coast to Coast has gotten sick of him too, I guess! He hasn't done a full show in years, AFAIK

expat said...

You've been sleeping too much. He did a full 3h January 2/3.

Chris Lopes said...

Expat, there is no doubt that C2C still sees Hoagland as entertaining enough to warrant an occasional full show. What they don't seem to think though, is that he is fit for any real science story.

Over the past few months, I have noticed that whenever there was a real science story in the news that required real understanding of what was going on, C2C tended to go to real experts in the matter first. Then they'd bring on Richard to add some color to the subject. It seems that they don't see him as much of a "science adviser" either.

Biological_Unit said...

I wuz wrong.

Coast will have the same mix of non-info info forever.

Chris Lopes said...

Bio, that is to be expected. Remember they are in the business of selling gold futures and seed banks, not providing actual information to people. People like Hoagland have the ability to keep the gullible listening long enough for the sales pitch to be made. As long as he can do that, he will always have a place at the table.