Mike Bara misinforms the millions -- again

        TV critic Ramsey Isler wrote of The History Channel's fantasy pseudo-doc series Ancient Aliens "....the ridiculousness of this series, including the black and white art with aliens photoshopped in, and interviews with people of dubious authority." He was actually commenting on the South Park spoof, but the comment was right on anyway.

        Someone of extremely dubious authority popped up last night for Season 4 Ep 5: "The NASA Connection." That someone was cuddly Mike Bara, aerospace technician laid off by Boeing in 2010 and unable to find a job ever since. The show was a very predictable re-hash of all the familiar "What did NASA know and when did they know it?" nonsense that appeals to people who have no relish for facts. As usual, the production values were good to excellent, and Mike Bara's on-screen personality was engaging. It was what he said that gave me the screaming ab-dabs.

Point 1. Right up front, pre-title, Bara tells us "The Brookings Report says very specifically 'Don't tell anybody.'" IT SAYS NO SUCH THING. As this blog has commented before, the report recommends studying whether it might be a good idea to withhold certain information from the public, but does not itself even consider the question. Mike Bara has been told this over and over again, but he just does not take it on board.

Point 2. About 06:30 in, Bara states that 33 minutes after the landing of Apollo 11, Armstrong and Aldrin both participated in a communion service at the moment when the belt stars of Orion were on the horizon. Well, Bara should give himself a refresher course on his own book, Dark Mission. In the first edition, it was stated that Sirius was at 19.5° above the horizon 33 minutes after landing. That was amended in the second edition to Regulus at 19.5° below the horizon, more than two hours later, when Buzz Aldrin performed his little religious ritual. Neil Armstrong was not involved. No NASA official could possibly have contrived to create this dubious piece of astrological theater, even if one had wanted to. On the Aliens show, Bara was WRONG, WRONG, WRONG.

Point 3. Bara later developed the 33 meme by saying that the figure 33 crops up again and again all through the history of NASA. As examples he tells us that the runway at Cape Canaveral is runway 33, and that the only launch pad at White Sands missile range is pad 33. Well, the orientation of the Cape runway, 330°/150°, was dictated by available space. It was built parallel to the pre-existing State Route 3, now known as the Kennedy Parkway. As for White Sands, my information is that the prime launch location these days is Launch Complex 32. LC-33 was the historical facility, now a National Monument, designated by the US Army in 1945. That's 13 years before NASA was created, Mike. There are also pads designated LC-35 (Navy), LC-37, and LC-38.

Point 4. Bara trots out the fallacy that NASA is really part of DoD. He says "A lot of people have the idea that NASA's a civilian science agency -- it's not." This is not just wrong but irresponsible. The history records again and again that the relationship between NASA and DoD is contractual, not dependent. Look it up. Ending the show, Mike says "NASA's core mission was to go to the Moon and retrieve evidence that there was a prior civilization." Oh, what nonsense.

        It's really a bit disgusting that this misinformation should be pumped out to a couple of million suckers on their sofas, plus who knows how many more that will be sucking it up from Youtube. The only thing that cheers me up is the thought that Richard Hoagland must be eating his heart out not to be part of it. So much of this trash is his own personal mythology. As he sat there in New Mexico last night, watching Erich Von Daniken explain that there's a face on Mars, he must have contemplated getting out of the woo-woo business immediately. I wish he would. I wish Mike Bara would get a job and stop torturing us with mis-info.

Update: Mike has a brand new blog. I took advantage and posted this comment:

re: "Ancient Aliens: The NASA connection"

Buzz Aldrin's communion ceremony did not occur 33 minutes after the landing of Apollo 11, it was an hour or so later. Neil Armstrong took no part in it.

Also, if the belt stars of Orion were on the horizon at Landing +33, why wasn't that mentioned in "Dark Mission"? Instead you wrote that Sirius was 19.5° above the horizon. Strange.

My jaw dropped when I read Mike's reply:

I don't control the content of their show, dumbass.

 Well, now we know. He can't control what comes out of his mouth. That explains a lot.