Tomorrow morning Stuart "astroguy" Robbins will be interviewing me again for his regular podcast, probably available by the end of the week. Topic will be the more political side of Richard Hoagland's work—NASA as a defense agency, Neil Armstrong as a parrot, and so on. I think we'll also touch on the Accutron nonsense.
In the evening, I'm taking up a kind offer from the Jammerstream Dark Matters producers to rebut Mike Bara's hour-long exposition last Thursday. I invited the producers to read my review and they did. Unless I screw up royally that will be on the net next Thursday at 9am and 9pm EDT. Pod thereafter.
I seriously doubt any of the material will be new to regular readers of this blog, so take a pass by all means.
27 comments:
Forget about the Hoagland -Bara nonsensical bullshit,I want to hear you talk about Diana Rigg & Jean Seberg ;)
Ha-ha, glad you enjoyed the stories. There's no more to tell really.
Please do give us a heads up when the Astroguy podcast is posted online. Ditto for the other one!
The Jammerstream interview is now up.
Good grief. They used a portion of the recording that I think you may have believed was not going to be broadcast.
They did indeed. Very, very stupid -- but fortunately not too damaging.
Good job expat. I particularly like the point you made about the problem with young people tuning into Coast to Coast AM and other shows that treat pseudo-science fantasists as though they were legitimate sources of information about the real world. I wouldn't have a problem if they started and ended each show with some sort of disclaimer. "This show is presented for entertainment purposes only. Any views expressed by the guests are most likely absolute bullshit coached to sell their books or future speaking engagements and should not be taken as statements of fact or real science."
Thanks TO. I'm glad you could hear me -- on my system the audio on my side was really bad.
Quite courageous for the producers of The Jammerstream Dark Matters to give air time to the "opposition". The host Ryan seems pretty open to criticism and dissenting views,& shows a really good sense of humor. Expat,you did a good job.We should collect some money and send Mike Bara a pack of diapers.
Somebody tell Mike about this, please -- he doesn't read my e-mails.
It's mikebara33@gmail.com
Désolé Expat, cannot help you on this one.Since I am closely acquainted with a leading scientist at SETI & Ames Research Center,from Mr Bara`s perspective I am "systematically" suspicious.Although I don`t know jackshit about space sciences,I am on Mike`s NASA shills list.
I hope you can be invited back to expand, clarify and debunk the specific things that Hoagland has stated as fact over the years, up to and including the 'apartments' on Mars, glass domes on the Moon etc. Do it on a point by point basis. I thought Ryan was a reasonable sort of bloke, and open to all sides but (thankfully!) appreciates logic and common sense. On the whole a good show Expat. An hour doesn't last long does it?
Yorkshire
Good job sir.
DJE
Ryan, the producer at Jammerdirect, has been immediately and thoroughly responsive to my concerns, and has re-edited the show accordingly. Thank you Ryan, brilliant.
Astroguy's blog and shownotes won't appear until tomorrow, but the audio is up already.
I'm very pleased with this one. Stuart was very conscientious and well-prepared. Perhaps more important, he got me well prepared, too.
@Expat.
In popular culture, we can trace the genesis of the NASA conspiracy mytho back to "Alternative 3", the British television programme produced in 1977. Coincidently, the German alternative researcher Horst W. Köhler wrote "Der Mars"(the planet Mars)- first published in 1978. Walter Hain released the first book on the Martian anomalies "We from Mars" in 1979,illustrated with photos from Vicking 1 & from Orbiter Vicking 2. the book contains corespondance exchanges with Don Bane, the JPL Public Information officer. Subsequently Hoagland released the first edition of "The Monuments of Mars" in 1987.As I stated before I believe most of Hoagland "The Monuments of Mars" materials was stolen from Walter Hain. As the to the Martian -Egyptian connections,again Hoagland merely "borrowed" the concepts & ideas from Dr James Hurtak & the school of New Egyptologists,back in mid 70`s.In 1975 Hurtak was already claiming that a "sphink type" monument was to be discovered on the surface of Mars.
I definitely agree about Walter Hain's book. Tell us about "Alternative 3' when you have time.
Alternative 3: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e2On1yQELJo
enjoy:) thanks for sharing the interviews to all concerned.
Expat.The reason Hoagland & Bara are so persistent about NASA Farouk El Baz being part of the conspiracy & "NASA-Mars-Egyptian connections",is because of El Baz involvement with excavations at the Great Pyramid of Giza (the south wall of the Queen's Chamber)in March 1995.El Baz was chosen to lead a team scheduled to work with equipment designed by Spar Aerospace (hydraulic arms used by NASA Space Shuttles).Conspiracy theorists claimed that 9 chambers & tunnels had been found & that the sensors had detected the presence of mysterious metallic objects.You may recall, I previously wrote an extensive exposé of Hoagland involvement with SRI International.To understand Hoagland`s fixation on the "Mars & Egyptian connections",readers need to be aware the larger "Hall of records - Mars-Egyptian connections" brought up by the alternative school of "New Egyptologists" in the 70`s & 80`s.Many of them were on the SRI International payroll & worked alongside Hoagland.
Exposing Pseudoastronomy: Expat in Hoaglandia...
NOW UP
That's a mighty impressive CV you've got there Mr. Expat.
Let's see: produced documentaries for the BBC, met astronauts both US and USSR, worked freelance in the USA and you have a science degree. Bet you're getting a nice pension to boot.
No wonder you're jealous of Mikey's success and his Vegas strippers. :)
Mostly I'm jealous because he's SO MUCH MORE IMPORTANT than me.
It's a strange thing though -- as mentioned on the show briefly -- how Expat's blog and background somewhat mirrors Hoagland's enterprises. Such different paths and yet quite a few similarities too. Explains the tenacity, I dare to psychologize.
Strange question perhaps, Expat, but do you happen to know Art Bozlee? I remember him being on a similar "mission" as you seem to be, at forums mostly and under a few names, but it's some time ago. What is it with these ancient space program encyclopedias? :-)
D.
Nope, never heard of Art.
Ms Peel, what is published about it (not sure if verified) is that Hoagland met the VP of SRI in 1983 and that resulted in the formation of the Independent Mars Mission together with Lambert Dolphin, the SRI physicist who was researching Giza between '73 en '82. I think the source for this might be Monuments but I picked it out of "The Stargate Conspiracy" which fleshes out some of the "entourage" and origination of some of the ideas in more detail.
There were several scientists involved with the Mission but it only lasted for seven months. It's not hard to see how these ideas formed at that stage although Hoagland claims getting the idea in '83 when working at SRI looking at DiPietro's and Molenaar's enhancements. Both scientists who already in 1980 published their conclusions about the possibility of Martian real estate.
The point is that there was a larger subculture present in the 1970's and Hoagland was just an exponent at some later stage. It can hardly be called "borrowing" if everyone you work with borrows in similar ways.
Hoagland went way further than any earlier influence though, adding Moon structures, JPL witchcraft and rituals, hyper-dimensional energies and their sacred geometry to the cocktail.
D.
I think the tragic thing about all of this sort of thing is the fact that with some help, Hoagland could have (and probably still could do so) created a reasonably marketable science fiction book or comic book series with the whole NAZI NASA secret ritual space exploration theme. I'm still trying to figure the formula out myself. Are they counting on "The Big Lie" rule of propaganda to yield better revenue than an honest presentation of the fiction or are they actually so enamored with the concepts themselves that these authors have come to believe their own fictions? It's a bit unclear whether that is to goad NASA into some action, generate book or lecture sales, or "educate the masses" in some delusional fit of nobility. I admit to be fascinated by the whole thing. I have poured over the LROC browser looking for things that were claimed to be in George Leonards "Somebody Else Is on the Moon" and so forth. As intriguing as the subject of artificial objects on the Moon are, at some point I think anyone who gets past the "wouldn't it be cool if?" reaction and really does some minimal research, has to admit there is really nothing of value to support the notion. Pipes, X-Drones, and structures on the Moon seem to only exist in low-resolution prints and bad copies. Expat, are you familiar with Allan Sturm's ULOs Unidentifed Lunar Objects Revealed in NASA Photography? I was wondering if you could comment on it. Bara actually lifted some of the photos from it for his last book. I think he used the shot of the big wheels or gears that Allan had in his ebook. If you are interested I can get a copy to you.
Trained Observer,
From what I've been told (by someone who knew him back in the day), Hoagland was at one time a straight shooter when it came to science. So it's safe to say that he really believed this stuff (some of it anyway) at first. Once the real evidence starting coming in though, he had to know he was wrong. Unfortunately he had already started his career in alternate science by then, so it was too late.
The truth angle lends a bit of spice to the fiction he's peddling, so I don't see him admitting it's fiction any time soon. I agree though, that Hoagland could have made a living as a pulp sci. Fi writer. Unfortunately he discovered (as did L Ron Hubbard) that peddling bad science fiction as "the truth" is easier (and more profitable) than making a semi-honest living as a fiction writer.
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