Tuesday, April 3, 2012

Two books for your Christmas list

        "When you publish on the Web nobody takes you seriously," said Hoagland last night on Coast to Coast AM. "To be taken seriously, you need to publish A BOOK." Accordingly, he announced The Heritage of Mars: Remembering Forever—his latest collection of overused italics, upper-case typography and self-reference, due later this year. The funny part is, of course, that nobody took Dark Mission seriously despite it being A BOOK. Yes, it came extremely close to being a New York Times best seller, but it was reviewed by precisely nobody unless you count Amazon reader reviews as reviews. In The Space Review, James Oberg not so much reviewed it as tore its guts out.

       Hoagland was, in fact, pre-empted by his former co-author Mike Bara, who had announced his own new book—on Blog, Facebook and Twitter, in the modern way—just hours earlier. This is how it goes in the non-fiction paperback world: Sign in March, deliver final copy and art in October, publish in time for Christmas. Yesterday morning, Mike went one better than RCH by actually having cover art to display.

Art credit: Adventures Unlimited Press

        I look forward to reviewing both works, although I don't count my own reviews as "professional." I did at one time write book reviews for money, but those days are long past. Pending release of these works of unintended fiction I will, as they say, "keep an open mind."

        Hoagland reckons to spend the advance money on a trip to the Giza plateau during the Venus transit on 6th June. If that doesn't work out he seriously threatened to "pass the hat" round his radio audience—Hmmm, hard to know how that's going to work. In any case, I think his publisher is going to see to it that he's too busy writing to go galivanting around pyramids, accutron watch in one hand and wife in the other.

A Sputnik Moment
        On the steam radio last night, Hoagland took an optimistic line on the state of the national space program, which others have lately described as virtual carrion. His logic, as usual, tortured the mind, but I think it went like this: ExoMars and Mars Astrobiology Explorer were cancelled as part of a master plan by the Obama administration. The Powers That Be already know that Curiosity will find unmistakable signs of life when it lands in Gale crater in August, and they require nothing to compete for funds with what will then become a crash program to send men (and women) to investigate. "This will be another Sputnik moment," Hoagland said several times, referring to the nation's horror on discovering, in 1957, that the Sovs already knew what we were struggling to understand. Nobody asked why, if the Gale crater result is already known, we aren't getting the manned (and womanned) mission together already.

        Later, in answer to a caller interested in cities on the back side of the Moon, he repeated his mis-information about the atmospheric pressure on the Moon, first trotted out at the Amsterdam conference in April last year. He stated that the atmospheric pressure has risen by a factor of 100 since it was measured by the Apollo ALSEPs in 1969-72, thus demonstrating that a) He doesn't understand the difference between day and night atmospheric pressures, and b) He doesn't read this blog. I'm mortified, of course.

        There were moments of high comedy last night. He claimed the distinction of being the recipient of a decapitation threat by none other than Zahi Hawass. He shouted down a caller with the words "I NEVER SAID ELENIN WAS A SPACESHIP." If George Noory had been on the ball,he might perhaps have said "So if Elenin was just a Big Dumb Rock, how come it could raise a tetrahedral shield to protect it from CMEs?" No hope of that, however.

Barsoom or bust
        Hoagland's major message last night, however—taking almost all of his first hour—was to ruthlessly plug some science fiction movie he's seen twice. I'm not going to help his cause by mentioning its name, even—he said over and over and over that the faithful have a duty to go see this film. The point was, apparently, that there's a conspiracy to make this work of fiction fail because it's really a coded version of the TRUTH about Mars. If it succeeds, there are two followups in the pipeline, and Hoagland says they must be made.

        He has an unshakeable faith, apparently, in the ability of his followers to make things like this happen. Just like they forced BP to release the mud logs of the Macondo oil well because he, Richard C. Hoagland, believed they would reveal yet another conspiracy. Wait, though... where are those mud logs again?

Update: 
I just came across this highly interesting quote from Coast to Coast AM:
STARTQUOTE The model that I am most comfortable with now is that the human race is a lot older -- a lot more extraordinary -- than we have ever been told. And the fact [is] that we once used to live all over the solar system -- that the extraterrestrials are our  guys. We're  the guys that built the stuff on Mars . . . and the stuff that we think we are now seeing on [our own moon and on] the moons of Jupiter. . . . There is so much that we are now getting glimmers of. . . . [My next book] is going to be called The Heritage of Mars: Remembering Forever,  because my thesis now, based on almost 20 years of doing this [research] . . . is "history is not as we've been told." . . . It has been carefully manipulated so we are not allowed to see this breathtaking heritage, because it would not benefit a few who are in control . . . and who want us to live this diminished existence not knowing who we really are because, frankly, it would threaten the power structure.ENDQUOTE
 The date of that broadcast? November 17/18, 2000.

ref: http://www.gpposner.com/Hoagland_follow-up.html

72 comments:

Chris Lopes said...

I haven't listened to the show yet (I still might not), but it sounds like classic Hoagland. Being taken seriously isn't really the issue here, it's being able to pay the bills. The folks who stroke his ego on his FB page aren't very good at helping him do that. So his interest is only in paying customers these days.

As to the movie in question, it's actually pretty good. It is bombing because of both bad marketing and the fact that the source material isn't very familiar to the general public. A pity Hoagland didn't feel the same way about the other attempt to bring this story to the screen. It was a direct to video thing starring Tracy Lords (you may remember her earlier work ;) ) and Antonio Sabato Jr. It also had the production budget of your average local theater group. Almost as painful to watch as one of Hoagland's presentations.

jourget said...

More of his firm conviction that there is apparently no such thing as science fiction. Does anybody know if he got really excited about "Mission to Mars" back in 2000? As I recall, its contention was pretty close to what he says actually happened on Mars.

Binaryspellbook said...

Watch out for increased facebook activity as Hoagland moves into high gear. Using it as a marketing tool for his next "major research piece"...."The Meaning of John Carter."

This latest Disney flop will be used as his next "Elenin." Guaranteed.

strahlungsamt said...

@chris
I think this is what you're talking about:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1531911/

@jourget

As for Mission to Mars, Hoagland never mentioned it once as far as I know. Maybe it's because he ripped off the image of the Face from the movie on his site and he didn't want the copyright people to find out and try to decapitate him.

http://enterprisemission.com/GMET-2006-B.jpg

Jiminy Oddbird said...

I only heard chop suey of the show, but I did happen to catch Hoagland mention something about the physics in the story being correct and that the movie reveals all the secrets.

Did anybody happen to hear him say if the movie explains the secrets and how the physics work?

Jiminy Oddbird said...

Hoagy also said something about religion being the problem, then proceeded to reference the Book of Revelation as revealing what he claims is going to happen, even though his assertions are not in that book at all.

Jiminy Oddbird said...

Do you have any links or citations for your old, paid, book reviews, Pat, or would that reveal who your really are?

expat said...

No links. As an example, I reviewed Tom Robbins' book Skinny Legs and All for the San Diego Union Book Section, 20 years ago. Since the Book Section no longer exists (and some would say the newspaper itself no longer exists in any meaningful sense) you aren't going to be able to find the review and blow my cover.

Biological_Unit said...

RCH responds to criticism by saying "don't listen".

A fine suggestion.

Anonymous said...

Is Noory's job to be anything other than Hoagland's personal fluffer??... Expat is spot on with saying Noory *should* have called Hoagland out on the "I never said Elenin was a spaceship" quote, but to realistically expect him to do after all these years of massaging Dick's ego would make one as delusional as the all-knowing master himself.

Where to even start with this broadcast!!....

Everyone simply MUST see the John Carter movie! "Doctor Robin" says so!! She's the greatest most critical most insightful movie assessing person ever, so if she says its good and contains super-secret messages you can take that as absolute PROOF 1000% it does!... The sad fact is, you can be sure a large number of his "fans" will be rushing out to see it simply on their leaders word and see exactly what he says you can see in the movie, before exploding in fits of orgasm over it, all over facebookland. Gotta love those disciples!...

Only, I fail to grasp that bit where Hoagie says TPTB are squashing the movie because they don't want the masses to realizes the truth about our heritage and the oh-so-evident existence of torsion physics... and yet TPTB were somehow not powerful enough to stop the movie-rights ever being picked up? Not powerful enough to have the studio squash it BEFORE production? Not powerful enough to make sure no director, actors, or distributors wanted in on the project?... Hmmm - yeah, makes perfect sense to me, Dick!

In fact, the only time he stopped fawning over the writer and director long enough (talking as if they were his newest-yet-oldest close friends like Arthur C and Rodenberry), was to say he wants another show so he can "de-code" another 20 movies because he is the ONLY one who knows the truth, the ONLY one who is studying this stuff?! And he wants to do it in a Hollywood theatre so the masses can flock to him as if he is Messiah 2.0?? Like that would EVER happen! Delusional Dick.

Then the grand master of mathematics makes the mistake (twice!) of saying he has 40,000 fans which (somehow?) equates to he being able to reach '8 or 9 million people, George'. It's a valid point: I don't know about you, but I tell everyone I meet about the amazing Mr Hoagland - I have a t-shirt with his website on it and I even ring a bell in the street shouting his URL on my lunch break.

Anonymous said...

And then he wants to go cap-in-hand to his faithful to pay for a holiday to Egypt - sorry, "scientific research trip" - where he can run up and down Giza with his torsion-detecting acutronomoter device looking for ectoplasm, or whatever he is supposed to find. In fact, he himself said on days of eclipse 'the physics goes nuts'. Is that the scientific term for it, Richard?

And this is ALL before we even get to barry, who is going to tell us all the truth about aliens and their ancient houses in the tetrahedral Gale crater and it's just an 'illusion' when he "pretends" he can't string a sentence together without his teleprompters being 2 foot in front of him.

Dick said 'Curiosity will reveal ancient life on Mars' - a direct quote from a man who does not make predictions... but somehow seems to think that the SAME NASA who has been hiding the truth for 50 years is now magically the SAME NASA which is going to show us all pictures of what Curiosity finds, and barry will confirm it - as per the Christmas card (it's in the physics dont ya know!... er, I mean, symbols).

Which of course leads us to the caller questions - how quickly did the callers who DARED to question King Richard about Elenin and "saviour barry" get cut off?! Noory needs to get better screeners for his beloved 'space advisor, head of the Enterprise Mission' (a website that has had 'software issues' for two years according to Dick). We can't have people bringing up FACTS when we're trying to tell cool stories to the billions of listeners who adore Hoagie in the middle of the night!

The whole thing was an absolute pathetic joke... and I've typed way too much to even get onto the subject of Dicks new book, which will tie all this stuff together for those of us who are too dumb to figure out the secrets for our selves - as only Dick can... because of course, you MUST write a book if you want to be taken seriously, no one cares what's on the internet (wait, I could have sworn Dick has banged on about this amazing invention that connects everyone on more than one occasion?... Guess I must have imagined that).

(Oh, and I've not been on facebook for a few days, but I'm guessing the faithful are still in fits of pleasure and thanks, at the secrets revealed by their leader... unless they're all at the movies that is!).

Chris Lopes said...

strahlungsamt,
Yeah, that's the one. As the good folks of Mystery Science Theater 3000 used to say "DEEP HURTING!"

expat said...

Heavens to Betsy, yes, I'd quite forgotten the Allais effect, which turns out to be, like torsion waves and hyperdimensional physics, imaginary. I'm sure he'll have fun with it all the same.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allais_effect

Chris Lopes said...

BTW, did anyone else notice Hoagland taking most of the credit/blame for Dark Mission? I know it was mostly his "research", but without Bara turning the whole thing into something semi-readable, it would have sank of its own weight. It's really the only thing that saves the book.

Monuments of Mars (the only book Hoagland has written all by his lonesome) on the other hand, is a complete mess. It's a door stop with no value what so ever, that goes from fuzzy pictures and leaps of logic to mind numbing pseudo-mathematics. Frankly I'm amazed that Hoagland actually thinks he can create anything readable on his own. So dissing Bara's contribution was really stupid.

Trekker said...

Expat, he's already musing about going to Texas to measure the 'torsion fields' of tornadoes, seemingly unable to believe that they're capable of lifting an 18-wheeler off the ground.

Chris Lopes said...

HD physics driven tornadoes? LOL

Gee I hope all this "research" doesn't interfere with the book he's working on. It'd be a shame to miss the publisher's deadline and lose the advance and all.

Anonymous said...

BULLETIN: can you IMAGINE if hoagland actually wrote A BOOK on his own , there would be speling misstkaes and GRAMMATICAL ERRORS all over the place - let alone the use of RANDOM CAPS that he loves so much.

Chris Lopes said...

Expat, since you've actually had books published, how likely do you think it is Hoagland will actually be able to submit a final product for publication? I mean he's all wrapped up with that movie he talked about and he's also hanging with the faithful again. Add to that the tornado chasing that Trekker talked about (and all the other likely news events he won't be able to stay away from) and you have quite a full plate. Is putting a book to bed that easy?

Biological_Unit said...

Did anybody happen to hear him say if the movie explains the secrets and how the physics work?

Don't listen. It's a waste of life's precious moments.

Chris Lopes said...

One more thing. I note with a sense of irony that the guy (and his gal pal) who screamed the loudest about Youtube versions of his copyrighted work was more than willing to tell the listeners of C2C that the Disney space episodes (which are great viewing BTW) are available on Youtube. Apparently he doesn't think Disney's intellectual property is as important as his own. Weird huh?

Jiminy Oddbird said...

Actually, Anonymous, Hoagland is always saying that science IS about making pre Dick shens, but yeah, two years to solve software problems for the master of hyper dimensional physics? He even was foolish enough to hit the time line button on his Facebook page. Now nobody can read anything there.

How convenient, though.

He even asked George or rhetorically, how to scroll down and find O'bamass' Christmas pix.

Biological_Unit said...

I liked Traci Lords in the First Wave SF series - one of those Vancouver TV productions. We're better off blobbing in front of the TV than becoming enraged at RCH's whole-cloth fakery.

Chris Lopes said...

Misti,
Those of us who have been following the saga of the dead website have marveled at the ineptness of Hoagland's tech support. If Hoagland is to believed (yep, as big an if as the universe itself), this website that could fit on a data DVD has been unmovable and inaccessible for almost 2 years. In that time (again according to Hoagland) he has been unable access the site (despite the fact that the hosting service is able to place ads on the thing) and moving it to a new server hasn't been possible.

His latest claim on this topic is that he'll be adding new stuff to it REAL SOON NOW. Apparently the issues involved have been pretty much fixed. That's the same claim he's been making for pretty much the past 2 years, but I suppose it might be true this time.

I mean it's possible that the advance he's waiting for might cover his ISP bill (the probable real reason for him not adding anything) and he'll be able to do his thing. On the other hand, putting together a book sounds more like a full time job which wouldn't leave a lot of time to create material for the nonpaying customers. I guess we'll see in a few weeks either way.

Biological_Unit said...

We're so close to disclosure right now

Gotcha! I'm being sarcastic.

expat said...

Chris, here are the realities of the book publishing world as I know it.

Gone are the days when a 4-page outline got you a $10K advance and a "Seeya in 6 months with the MS." Now they want a _very_ detailed outline with all chapter headings, all Level 1 section heads, often Level 2 heads as well (I even had a request for Level 3 heads once, which I smartly declined.) Then you get a schedule of delivery, in chunks of 2 or 3 chapters. 2 chapters every 3 weeks would be typical. They really don't want you swanning off to the pyramids in the middle of it all. You're expected to respond to their edits at the same time as writing ahead to the next chunk. Editing can come at you from 3 sources--the book editor, the copy editor, and the tech editor. The development editor (a senior suit) might have a go too. Some publishers might be a bit more relaxed, especially if the material isn't highly technical. I had to deal with the "...for Dummies" editors -- the worst of the worst.

So now Hoagland's absence from FB between Christmas and April is explained. He said it was a "Major research project" -- but he was writing his outline. The only way he can get to Giza is if in fact he was pre-writing during that period. That would be risky, obviously -- taking a chance on the contract -- but I wouldn't be surprised if he'd done it. His arrogance would be enough to make him dismiss the possibility that he might end up stiffed.

Binaryspellbook said...

Two years for the discoverer of torsion field physics to fix a software problem that prevented access to his website is completely incredilous. Utter lies. He caught Facebookitis and ditched interest in it.

expat said...

The HiRISE team have done a page of Gale crater images. Funny, I don't see any tetrahedral cities...

http://www.uahirise.org/releases/msl-gale-crater-captions.php

Anonymous said...

@Binary - Ha! Spot on!... The only & leading authority in the entire scientific human race on torsion physics cannot find one techie in TWO YEARS to sort his website out, even if he couldn't do it himself?! Yeah, right - sure thing, Dick! (If only those super-hi-tech ancient ancestors of ours would have had the internet, they might have found a way to avoid being destroyed by torsion physics?!)

@Expat - I think the reason you can't (or any one else can't) see the tetrahedral-ness of Gale is because you have to WANT to see it, like the faithful... or you have to be looking at it from 19.5 degree angle... or because HiRISE is being photoshopped by TPTB to keep the secret hidden... or it's underground and only Hoagie can see it... I forget which one of those it is...

Anonymous said...

That said... I don't think it's "too crazy" a suggestion to think RCH might just get a decent advance from his publisher to pay for a trip to Egypt - perhaps the trip is of "vital importance" for certain sections of the book (thus, requiring a week or two break from writing).

Wiki says Dark Mission was ranked 21 on the NYT Best Sellar list in Nov 07, so -if accurate- it must have sold quite a few copies between now and then... his "celebrity status" and "faithful following" has grown on the pseudo-circuit more than it has shrunk over the last 5 years, so even if only a mere 10-20% of his 30,000 flock were to purchase a new book at around the same $20-25 price range, that's enough to get him to and from Giza.

Obviously, book sales / printing costs / writer profits / advances etc are not as straightforward as that, but my point is: for better or worse, RCH probably has enough of a faithful fan base that he can churn out another hack book and it will be profitable regardless of content accuracy... and keeping in mind Expat's breakdown of the book-publishing process, I would not be surprised at all to hear Dick will be running around Giza come July.

expat said...

Oh yes, there's little doubt that "Heritage" will make some money. Refresh your memory about the power of a good puff session on C2C-AM:

http://dorkmission.blogspot.com/2010/11/sheer-sales-power-of-coast-to-coast-am.html

The wikipedia article is accurate as to the sales of DM. The first edition sold approx. 55,000 copies. Adam Parfrey probably made about $125,000 on it -- the authors maybe split $60K. Just ball-park figures since we don't know production costs.

But coming up with the round-trip air fare ABQ-CAI plus 2 overnights at the Hilton Pharaohs is one thing, finding time for the trip is another.

However, please note today's blog update. This book may be "vaporware" after all....

expat said...

Another find:
http://www.ecampus.com/heritage-mars-awakening-forever-hoagland/bk/9781883319663

That ISBN is assigned to the title "Europa," but no such book is actually available. Another Hoagland FAIL?

jourget said...

expat,

Could he possibly have written the majority of the book over the past decade and been wrangling with the editorial problems since then? Maybe he's finally ready to publish, which is why he's mentioning it again. If it's already written, it would also give him time for the Magical History Tour.

expat said...

That's not a bad idea. In that scenario, he's not so much "writing a book" as resurrecting and polishing an unfinished project from ten years back. Very possible....

Anonymous said...

Hoagie certainly has been talking about Mars for a long time, so it wouldn't surprise me if Book 3 was a "jazzed-up version" of his "papers" and musings and semi-writings over the years... plus whatever bits he can "artistically borrow" from other current books/films/resources about the subject; with his current theories about the next few years of NASA-Mars-related stuff being the bow with which he ties it all together.

Facebook & his website aside: he's had 5 years to put material together in one way or another to squeeze a viable book out of it... and it is infamous 2012 after all! Ideal selling time.

Chris Lopes said...

I guess that's a possibility. I was having a problem imagining someone who hasn't been able to produce much beyond Power Point presentations for the past 2 years would be able to manage a book, especially if he's spending time getting his ego massaged by the faithful. If he's been working on it on and off (mostly off) for the past decade or so, it might be ready.

As to waiting on editors, if he is using the same people who did DM, that won't be a problem. They didn't spend much time on editing that one either. The catch is the advance. I don't know if even a sleazy publisher would want to risk it without a nearly completed book.

Chris Lopes said...

BTW, nice find on the update Expat. Hoagland does seem to have trouble finishing things.

Anonymous said...

I don't wish to get too far ahead of ourselves with regards to the content of the next book, but if it's "our heritage on mars" I'm pretty sure he'll be staying well away from even mentioning Elenin or YU55 (even though they were sent by our ancient ancestors)... although Phobos will probably pop up in a chapter or two or three or four as that one is definitely not just a chunk of rock, it's a time capsule or escape pod or space observatory or ancient library - but not a "spaceship" though...

Jiminy Oddbird said...

Another point about the movie that Hoagy tried to make, was that the title didn't give attribution to the original book, in what he claimed to be an attempt to obfuscate.

It occurs to me, that the current title might have been chosen, because it contains exactly three syllables; as do most hit movies and songs.

Jiminy Oddbird said...

Personally, if I were to receive an advance from a publisher, I'd sure as hell hit the road if I felt like it. You can write from any coffee shop in the world of wi-fi. Besides, no publisher can expect a writer to put in longer than an eight hour day. Hell, a page per day is pretty good.

Chris Lopes said...

Well at the rate that Hoagland works, it's more like a page a week or month.

Peter Uwira said...

During the Hoagland show some people called and quoted from the Wells/Lear show that aired two days earlier. Neither Hoagland nor Noory found it necessary to make it clear that John B. Wells himself declared the Lear show an "April Fool's Edition". (Funny enough there wasn't so much difference to a regular show...)

@jourget:
http://www.enterprisemission.com/MTM.htm

expat said...

OMG that's the page on which he writes "there seems to be no other reasonable explanation..." for his incidental appearance in an A&E TV biography of Sagan, than that Sagan's "last wish" was to pay homage to the Great Hoagland.

Pardon me while I go to the vomitorium....

Jiminy Oddbird said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Jiminy Oddbird said...

As usual I only listened to a bit of the April Fool's edition, and missed the announcement of it being as such. From what little I did hear, I had written off Wells, entirely, for letting Lear bend his ear and let him have it in the rear.

Binaryspellbook said...

Got my 3rd or 4th bot banned. My crime; the same as usual. Asking challenging questions and not towing the party line.

jourget said...

Peter,

Thanks for that link. Expat, I agree that the Sagan comment is pretty shameless. It's par for the course for Hoagland, though. Back on March 18, 2008, during a "remembering Arthur C. Clarke" segement on C2C, he maintained that Clarke implied to RCH in the weeks before his death that Clarke was "being watched", and that's why Hoagland didn't send him a copy of Dark Mission. Free resume bullet!

Chris Lopes said...

As someone who has actually read The Demon Haunted World, to say Hoagland isn't being totally honest about Sagan would be an understatement. The book specifically mention the face on Mars in the same dismissive tone he always used. The only point Sagan was trying to make was that you can at least test the face hypothesis (which has been done) as opposed to other pseudo-science topics like ghosts and UFO's that leave no evidence.

Anonymous said...

Would anyone like to take a guess which world-leading hyper-dimensional physicist / exo-biologist / nasa expert / rocket scientist / egyptologist / mythologist / photo imaging expert / mathematician / hidden message movie-decoder is now actually advocating to his sheep to MAKE PIRATE COPIES of 'John Carter' by sneaking in with a video recording device....?

http://i39.tinypic.com/351hg00.png

So much for "do you think people work for free?"... Oh how I would love for Dick to get arrested under some SOPA laws and thrown into a fema camp as instigator of a mass piracy operation, never to been seen or heard from again, all under his beloved barry's administration - that would irony at it's best!

Anonymous said...

Oh, I take it back - apparently Dick is NOT a doctor in every singe field and subject... (who knew?!?)...

http://i40.tinypic.com/2h3o8rs.png

But if only he was a doctor in 'computering technologisms' or something, he might not have been hacked for two years... (I could have sworn he said it was a software issue... or was it a server issue... or perhaps a programming issue?!)... I guess TPTB must be using every resource at their Black-Ops disposal to keep Dick's stuff off the web...

expat said...

Dead right, anon. Copyvio cuts both ways.

Chris Lopes said...

Yeah, he asking his faithful to cross the MPAA, a group of people who make the Men in Black of his fantasies look like boy scouts. This can not end well.

Biological_Unit said...

Yous should not make fun of mentally ill persons! You should enable them with your silence!

jourget said...

New article on space.com about the origin of Iapetus' equatorial ridge. Against all odds, it appears to be natural. "They" strike again.

http://www.space.com/15195-saturn-moon-iapetus-ridge-formation.html

strahlungsamt said...

@jourget

Yeah, Clark is being watched yet Hoagland walks free and tours the country giving speeches on the lies of NASA.

Oh, and that story about the ridge on Iapetus is a (wait a minute)..

That "story".....about the RIDGE ON IAPETUS ... is ...."STUNNING ... CONFIRMATION" .. of a "BIG" ... CONSPIRACY "involving" THE NUMBER 19.5 (which is AFTER ALL the SQUARE ROOT OF 47 and three quarters of "PI" divided by 23.

(Sorry, my HOAGLANDESE needs a .... little "practice")

Chris Lopes said...

strahlungsamt,
The "I'm being hunted by government agents" meme has also been a big part of the legend that is Richard C. Hoagland. The same vast conspiracy that killed both JFK and the Apollo 1 astronauts (both in front hundreds of witnesses) can't seem to reach an elderly unemployed former museum curator. Apparently his fame (with insomniac radio listeners) is enough to protect him from forces capable of causing wars and tremendous economic disruption. All hail the power of Art Bell.

Jiminy Oddbird said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Jiminy Oddbird said...

Whether one praises Richard C Hoagland or derides him, if he is such a big nothing, then what does that make of those who devote their lives to him?

Chris Lopes said...

Oh Richard is most definitely something. In fact he's really something else. :)

Biological_Unit said...

if he is such a big nothing,

RCH is an American on an American syndicated Radio program.
So there's really no need to verify anything he says??

strahlungsamt said...

@Misti

If Hoagland has the right to preach false information, then the rest of us have the right and the duty to correct him and set the record straight. Those in the Scientific Community have spent years studying, countless hours analyzing data and cross-referencing their findings with other scientists to verify said data is real and not caused by errors in measurement or calculations.

Then when some know-nothings like Hoagland and Bara or Creationists or Moon Landing Deniers rise out of nothing and try to claim "secret knowledge" without a shred of evidence, that's not just wrong, it's insulting.

Hoagland made a big mistake years ago when he decided the Face on Mars was artificial and made a big career out of that. He's a lousy showman, his material is excruciatingly boring and by all appearances he's bankrupt, both financially and morally. He made his own bed, now he can lie in it. I don't feel a bit sorry for him nor for his Homeopathic porn-fluffer of a girlfriend.

expat said...

Hoagland is not a "big nothing," not at all. He can sell 55,000 copies of a book that's mostly garbage.

That's 55,000 people (plus some of their friends) who think NASA is a demonic, Egyptian God-worshiping, devious agency of mis-information. Those of us who know better are right to devote some time to attempting to set the record straight.

Jiminy Oddbird said...

What's Hoagland's take of the book sales? Is it a living wage?

expat said...

That would be a confidential matter between him, his co-author, and his publisher (the ever-ignorant Adam Parfrey.)

Earlier in this thread I wrote:
"Adam Parfrey probably made about $125,000 on it -- the authors maybe split $60K. Just ball-park figures since we don't know production costs."

As for "living wage" -- no, decidedly not. The major sales were ignited by Hoagland's C2C appearance on 10/9/07. By the time the 2nd edition was published (mid 2009) sales had already tapered way off. I feel very confident in writing that none of them have got a dime out of it for quite some time. Hence the need for more writing....

expat said...

Here's another estimate, from a discussion topic on the Amazon page. The discussion is titled "Is Adam Parfrey the stingiest publisher in the world?"

"The first edition sold about 55,000. At full price this would have grossed $1.37M. Discounted, let's say around a cool million. Publishing overheads of pre-production, printing & binding, marketing, distribution, retailing probably took 75% of that. The authors would have got 12% if they were lucky (and Hoagland must have jumped for joy, given that he hasn't actually had a job since the Apollo Program ended in 1972). That leaves about $130K for Parfrey to play with. I'm sure, in the whole of the publishing world, he could have found someone to index this book for $3/page. That's about $2000. To have failed to spend that much has got to qualify him as contender for "stingiest ever" as well as identifying him as a publisher who really doesn't care about his readers. "

Biological_Unit said...

The dead Economy will preclude any Manned Missions to any Planet or Moon in our lifetime.
We will have to take their word for it, and being American, it's impossible to be a fake.

Jiminy Oddbird said...

How much money does George Noory make?

Chris Lopes said...

Misti,
A lot more than Hoagland, but he has the advantage of actually having a job.

Jiminy Oddbird said...

There was a time there for awhile, over the course of the first couple instances of Art retiring, that Hoagland was acting as if Coast was going to make him host.

Chris Lopes said...

Misti,
I can see some logic in that, as he does have an audience. The problem is, the C2C audience is a bit wider than his. Few but the most dedicated could take all Hoagland, all the time.

Anonymous said...

Hoagland running C2C - haha! Then he'd REALLY never have time to write his "papers" and get around to fixing his website, and running up and down pyramids with his gadgets n gizmos.

Of course, in the extremely unlikely situation that anyone did get a lil bored of hearing about Mars for hours on end every night, he could always freshen up the show with "doctor Robin" being an ever-present mystery guest, bringing us the startling news that vitamins are good for you, or whatever else she's uncovered lately.

(Suddenly I don't dislike Noory as much as I used to!!)

Jiminy Oddbird said...

Could you imagine Hoagy interviewing John Lear and Robert Zubrin? He'd end up shouting them down as usual, then blocking and deleting them like the objective inquisitors and clowns on his Facebook page.

expat said...

I heard today that "John Carter" is an official flop, earning for Disney negative $200M. There isn't the remotest chance that the follow-on movies will ever be made.

Thus John Carter joins the BP mud logs as a massive FAIL for Hoagland's exhortations to his cult.