Saturday, April 22, 2017

Open letter to Richard Hoagland

Dear Mr. Hoagland,

        Your recent re-iteration of a claim to have originated the idea of oceanic life on Europanote 1 prompts me to remind you, and others who may be seeing this text, that this and several other claims you have made are false.

1. Ocean on Europa
In March 2004, in a message to Rob Roy Britt of space.com, you wrote:
"Clearly, I was NOT the first (nor have I ever claimed to be) to propose an original liquid ocean for Europa."
On 4 December 1997, on Coast to Coast AM, you said this:
"[W]hen I was covering the Voyager story out at JPL in the Summer of 1980, actually the Spring of 1979 and the Winter of 1980, we flew this extraordinary spacecraft, NASA did, by Jupiter for the first time and encountered the four moons, you know, Io, Ganymede, Europa, Callisto, and Jupiter itself, and it was as part of that observation that I began work on essentially what turned out to be the first scientific paper, which ultimately appeared in Star and Sky Magazine in the beginning of 1980, which was a prognostication, pulling all the data together, that there might be a global ocean under the ice cover that Voyager had revealed and that in that global ocean there actually might be some extant living life forms." (emphasis added)
        That looks very like a prior claim to me. It is certainly not justified--Lewis (1971)note 2 and Consolmagno (1976) were ahead of you, as were Cassen, Reynolds, and Peale (1979).note 3 I think you know this.

2. Life in Europa's ocean
        This is, of course, a separate question, and there is no doubt at all that you have  repeatedly claimed to have been the first to publish on this conjecture. However, as Greenberg notes:note 4
"On June 19th and 20th, 1979, the conference  "Life in the Universe" took place at NASA's Ames Research Center. Benton Clark gave a lecture Sulfur: Fountainhead of Life in the Universe at that conference in which he discussed the biochemistry of those deep-sea vent communities discovered on Earth, pointing out that they do depend indirectly on sunlight: Photosynthesis near the surface of the oceans produces the oxygen that those communities require. Clark then explained how sulfur could play the role of oxygen, and that deep-sea volcanic emissions could potentially provide all the necessary ingredients for a self-sustained ecosystem. In the final part of his lecture, Clark raised the possibility that life might exist in undersurface oceans on the icy satellites in our Solar System, including Europa, Ganymede, and Callisto in particular." (emphasis added)
In the written version of his lecture, Clark wrote:
 "Consider H2O-rich bodies. In our Solar System, this includes not only Earth, but quite possibly Mars and Triton, and certainly Ganymede, Callisto, and Europa.  Liquid water does not exist at the surface of any of these bodies, except Earth,  but we should not discount the existence of "buried" liquid water reservoirs.  ... Habitable zones include not only the surface ocean environment, but also the much more probable subsurface oceanic regions. Earth-like environments as abodes for life may be the exception rather than the rule. Occupation of the much more abundant buried zones is possible, and these should ultimately become an object of exploration. Whether such environments can support life long enough and at a sufficient level of activity to permit the evolution of highly encephalized forms (intelligent life) is conjectural." (emphasis added)
        Prof. Greenberg notes other prior work. You have characterized his comments as political, but in fact they are purely scientific. Claiming credit for other peoples' work is an unattractive trait in anybody, but for somebody who calls himself a scientist,note 5 it is particularly deplorable because of the importance of intellectual priority in that domain.

3. Creation of the Pioneer "message to the Universe"
        On your website you refer to yourself as "co-creator of the 'Pioneer plaque'." (scroll all the way to the bottom of the long page). On 13 July 1990 you said "Carl [Sagan] for many years has been taking public credit for the Pioneer plaque which, of course, Eric Burgess and I conceived." In fact you had no part in the design or creation of the plaque, which was done by Sagan, his then wife Linda, and Frank Drake. As for "conceiving" it (as distinct from "creating" it,) that was overwhelmingly to the credit of Eric Burgess.  In the epilogue to his 1982 book, By Jupiter: Odysseys to a Giant, Burgess wrote:
"I came up with the idea [that the craft carry a message from Earth]. And I mentioned it [at lunch that afternoon] to Hoagland [then a freelance writer] and Don Bane [Los Angeles Herald Examiner ]. . . . And I said that the right man to get this onboard would be Carl Sagan. So I went around to JPL [NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory] -- Hoagland was in tow with me -- and found Sagan. . . . And I said, "Hey, Carl, I've got an idea for you." All Hoagland did was support me and say it's a good idea."

4. The "hammer and feather" stunt on Apollo 15
        On 2 July 2013, on Coast to Coast AM, you claimed that this was your original idea. The truth is that it was, in fact, dreamed up by Dave Scott, Jim Irwin, and Joe Allen.note 6

5. The catchphrase "On the internet nobody knows you're a dog."
        On 11 November 2015, on your digital radio show, you claimed to have "coined" this bon mot. You repeated the claim much more recently, on Howard Hughes' radio show, 11 November last year. The original was a caption to a cartoon in New Yorker published on 5 July 1993. Credit for the phrase belongs to cartoonist Peter Steiner, not you.

         Would you kindly make an early opportunity to withdraw your claims and apologize to those whose work you have falsely taken credit for?

======================/ \=====================
[1]  The Other Side of Midnight (notice)
Partial text: Thirty-seven years ago, in December 1979 (published in January, 1980), I wrote a seminal article in “Star and Sky Magazine” — picked up and sent around the world by AP, lauded by Dr. Robert Jastrow (one of the founders of NASA), and Arthur C Clarke and (later) Ted Koppel — scientifically PREDICTING, decades BEFORE NASA: “The oceans of Europa [one of the four “Galilean Moons” of Jupiter] are the PERFECT habitat [beyond the Earth] for CURRENT non-terrestrial life! ... My article only dealt with the specifics of Europa’s habitability, but it foreshadowed the existence of an entirely new CLASS of habitable worlds, DECADES before scientists or NASA missions had discovered them — “Ice-covered moons … housing ‘world oceans’ … protected by a tens-of-miles-thick covering of ice!”

[2] Icarus, vol. 15

[3] Geophysical Research Letters, vol. 6

[4] An ocean on Europa? by Prof. Ralph Greenberg, 2002

[5] Dark Mission, 2nd edn, p. 224

[6] See this transcript, notes at 167:22:58

60 comments:

Dee said...

Hmm not sure if I'd agree with this one Expat. The situation seems rather muddled at best.

- It seems to me "The Europa Enigma" (EE) proposes "extant living life forms" under the ice as its main thesis. There does not seem to be any real separate claim for a "planet-wide" (?) ocean. But I'd love to see the case being made.

- The relevant work of Cassen et al is, as Greenberg notes, actually discussed in EE. And Consolmagno's student thesis of 1975 should really be reconsidered to list here at all. Did anyone actually read it? It's mostly about the possible physics and a mathematical model for this idea of internal heating. Greenberg then simply leaves out the next sentence in the appendix (not even worthy of the main summary): "we stop short of postulating life forms".

- Europa Enigma, or perhaps "Star and Sky" as a whole, was "science based" but not scientific in the academic sense and does not include the usual referencing as to establish clear origination. Hoagland as such should not claim anything based on a popular science article although he'd say initially others credited him (and he's correct to point it out). But Hoagland has little notion of scientific accreditation works since he seems to conflate voicing ideas with actually publishing a model or theory.

- Benton Clark's lecture/proceedings was published only in 1981! And keep in mind conference proceedings do not always count as publications. Lets just say it's a matter of perspective and background to the lecture. On the whole, not really strong "evidence" to counter RCH I'd say.

- The Pioneer plaque as "overwhelmingly to the credit of Eric Burgess" -- this is not a matter of record although in "Monuments" RCH wrote Burgess said first that: "it ought to carry a message". And in EE he simply states he was "Along with...Burgess...the first to urge".

- It's unclear to me where Joe Allen or Peter Steiner got their ideas from on the experiment although it's not hard to imagine. It's possible people think of the same things and phrases during the same period in time and sharing so much culture and language to such a high degree. The discussion on origination is as silly to assert as to counter but I do note Hoagland never was able to substantiate his feeling on the topic. It's also notoriously hard to do properly (ask Richard Lewis and his "...from hell").

Overall one can indeed see a stong tendency from Richard Hoagland to inflate or assign too much importance to his own role in the larger scheme of things. Which has set off this whole tit-for-tat (like at TEM website in the "skeptik.htm" article). But in the end many of these elements turn out to be really a matter of perception and interpretation.

Dee

expat said...

Thanks Dee, it's good to know that you at least read my text attentively. I have to agree that the "Life in Europa's ocean" is the hardest case to make, but better men than me (i.e. Phil Plait) have come to the same conclusion.

The other points are much more solid, and your reservations just seem to me like wriggling.

jourget said...

That post on the OSOM wesbite was so Hoaglandy I'd swear it was Poe if it weren't on his own page. The constant self-flagellating about fake accomplishments decades past, the syntax that makes it look like he fired a shotgun full of quotation marks and capital letters at his monitor.

We've had utter silence for 6 months. When his supporters ask what he's up to, we have promises that he's working on a book so groundbreaking that it's basically his life's work. All his faithful subscribers will get a free copy (!) for their loyalty; all they need to do is pay $10/month, every month, until the book comes out. Such a deal! For those who have stuck around since it was announced, they've already paid about 50-60 dollars for the free book, with no release date in sight.

Constant questions on the OSOM Facebook page about when the book's coming out or when the show's coming back don't get the slightest peep from Hoagland. What DOES get him to crack the door of the hermitage is a mention in the news of something he's claimed for years to have been the first on. It looks to me like he's missing the days when he had a public forum to rant about stuff like this. Noory would gently pat him on the head and say "Yes, of course Richard, we all know you were first and you're just the smartest guy in the room."

It must not massage the ego in the same way when he has to tell the walls of his office or the dog, so he's doing the Internet equivalent of standing in his backyard and screaming it as loud as he can. I don't care if this isn't the venue for it and that nobody even asked me, I WAS FIRST!. And by the way, join Club 19.5 and pay for my nonexistent radio show, you'll get a free book. At some point.

Anonymous said...

It seems to me that Hoagland sold out. After his central role in The UFO Diaries and his heavy promotion of Project Prometheus, before it was purchased by the DoD, he since has evaded all mention of those, culminating to his current hiatus. He may be under contract of non-disclosure, and perhaps has been privately disciplined for trying to circumvent that.

THE

Chris Lopes said...

All these claims are Hoagie's way of pretending he is/was a player. Truth be told, he was a writer not a scientist. His work for NASA was in public relations. So he was never in a position to suggest experiments or create space plagues. Hoagland isn't a has been, he's a never was.

THE Orbs Whiperer said...

What was Hoagland's response to your email of this?

expat said...

Nothing at all. Silence. The last I heard from him, on a different question, was this:

------------------------------
I hereby affirm that I will pay for your psycho therapy bills ... in full ... when EVERYTHING (sic) I have discovered is confirmed .... :)

You need to start psychologically preparing ... now -- for your own sanity.

Binaryspellbook said...

Do you know that Hoagland is even more irrelevant in our China than in Europe.
Mike Bara is an unknown, his books are available but only in the 1$ cheap second hand buckets imported from Hong Kong.

Having said that, I do agree with Hoagland on something. I would have voted for Bernie, in a heartbeat. I am glad that I left the USA. The place is going mental.


expat said...

Good heavens, I'm dead surprised anybody's heard of Mike Bara in Hong Kong. Even a dollar is too much.

Anonymous said...

[quote]
Constant questions on the OSOM Facebook page about when the book's coming out or when the show's coming back don't get the slightest peep from Hoagland.
[/quote]

When you say "constant questions," does that mean that the OSOM FB page generates a fair amount of traffic even now? Or we are talking "constant" in relative terms (e.g. one or two posts a week from followers)?

Does asking such questions result in an instant ban for the questioners?


WS

jourget said...

Constant questions in the sense of more than 50 percent of all comments referring to stuff like "What about the book?" and "When's the show coming back?". For a little spice, we had a woman the other day complaining about getting double billed after she tried to cancel.

But traffic itself is minimal, with only a few dozen new members to the page over the last six months since the show ended. I don't think they bother banning anyone. No one's really there anyway.

Anonymous said...

They cloak a lot of my comments, that can only be seen while logged on to my own account.

Brett Middleton said...

When the basic idea of life existing in an ocean under an ice sheet on an outer moon or planet has been seen in a book for _children_ copyright 1962 (Joseph Greene, _Lost City of Uranus_), I find it hard to get exercised about the issue of Europa. (Yes, as a scientist I know the difference between science and science fiction. I just find it amusing when everyone acts like everything about the idea is completely unprecedented. And Greene was not a terribly original writer, so a bit of digging could probably turn up even earlier stories from which Greene filed off the serial numbers and used in crafting his tale.)

Dee said...

Brett, there's no doubt to my mind that Hoagland provided, from a journalistic perspective, a good case for there being life on Europa.

The main problem became his attempt to elevate this relative success to the realms of scientific research where proper referencing and origination is fundamental (not to mention refereeing). In "The Europa Enigma" this was all hardly done but it was enough for the standards of the magazine and enough to inspire readers like Artur C. Clarke, people were not exposed to the idea before in that form.

It's true that in fiction many notions on alien life floated for many decades. Richard Hoagland is a writer and "journalist type", perhaps at the level of an energetic, talented planetarium tour guide who decided he could be way more just by the power of the 90's web sites and late night radio.

That particular balloon was quickly filled and emptied rather slowly.

That said, I do still credit RCH as the first to popularize the idea of life on Europa as a credible option. Attempts to discredit that accomplishment does ifteb sound like baseless "wriggling" to me. But RCH continued with popularizing many other ideas and theories, which didn't get any traction at all and have been dismissed thoroughly over time. And he elevated his earlier work which had at least a shred of credibility to a status it never had, inviting further scrutiny and debasing. Perhaps he should have left the past behind instead of referencing it at every turn.

Dee

Anonymous said...

Indeedydo, Dee. Well said. If Richard C Hoagland had been entirely baseless, Patrick and Sci-cop wannabees, wouldn't be working so feverishly to try and discredit him. Don't rule out a come back.

THE

Anonymous said...

[quote]
Constant questions in the sense of more than 50 percent of all comments referring to stuff like "What about the book?"
[/quote]

What indeed? Does anyone else remember this announcement:

https://archive.fo/rNXdO/image

...from December 24th?

There we have Hoagland invoking "the Christmas Spirit" and telling us all about how he is "anxious to give our faithful subscribers a BIG GIFT" of his "just recently completed" book.

Yet here we are, four months later, and his subscribers have nothing. It appears Hoagland wasn't particularly anxious to give away his BIG GIFT after all.

(He's even worse than Scrooge, who never made noises about "the Christmas Spirit," only to leave people empty-handed.)

[quote]
and "When's the show coming back?"
[/quote]

After being off the air for six months, the answer to that question appears to be "never."

If Hoagland were ever serious about getting back on the air, wouldn't six months be plenty of time to cut a cheque to another vanity radio station? I would think so. It is difficult to imagine anyone being kept off the air who demonstrates a willingness to pay for the privilege.

[quote]
For a little spice, we had a woman the other day complaining about getting double billed after she tried to cancel.
[/quote]

Curiously enough, Robin Falkov promised that Hoagland and company were hard at work on the double billing problem way back on November 24th*:


"Please understand what a monumental job this has been to repair the damage to the site. The problems gave you double, triple and more billing, inability to log in, inability to access archives and more. There is a team that has been hard at work to make sure these issues do not rear their ugly head again."


I guess the alleged "team" wasn't working all that hard, were they? Here we are five months later and people are still getting double billed.

In fact, looking back, I can't find one instance in the past six months when Hoagland has kept a promise. Whether it's telling listeners he going to be back on the air "soon very soon," promising to send subscribers a completed book, or having the basic decency to not double-bill them, he's lied his head off every single time.

At least he's consistent, you have to give him that.

[quote]
But traffic itself is minimal, with only a few dozen new members to the page over the last six months since the show ended. I don't think they bother banning anyone. No one's really there anyway.
[/quote]

At this point, I'm only too glad to hear Hoagland's FB traffic is negligible. That's the only appropriate outcome for a fellow who seems to be willing to utter any falsehood that happens to come to mind, provided he thinks it will put a dollar into his pocket.


WS


*expat provided a permalink for that announcement here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/1722954034652353/permalink/1809752579305831/?hc_location=ufi.

However, the permalink requires you to sign in to Facebook to view the page. Would it be possible for someone with a FB login to sign in and archive the page using the https://archive.fo site, then post the URL here so everyone can see it?

expat said...

Here it is but it's not complete.

Anonymous said...

Robin Falkov shared a link.
November 22, 2016

Please understand what a monumental job this has been to repair the damage to the site. The problems gave you double, triple and more billing, inability to log in, inability to access archives and more. There is a team that has been hard at work to make sure these issues do not rear their ugly head again.

May sound easy, but it sure is not. At least we now have our team that is in close communication and actually repairs these issues..

It has been a long wait for many of you, as well as us. We share your frustration..

Please understand. This must be done right. We do not want any of our 19.5 family to have repeats of the former frustrating experiences. Hang in there. There is a lot to sync with data migration and the integration of the technical equipment that will provide you with the highest listening quality yet!.

Producer Miss M did more than her due diligence for the show. After thorough research, she got the new tech team together and we all have interacted on the concerns. It has been a long road.

Richard appreciates all of you. At this point, after all the hard work, you will be presented with superior listening and functioning archives AND support.. Yes, support - the tech team will be available for any concerns. We are not expecting any.

It is a long story that I will leave for Richard to share with you all. One of those crazy stories that you think couldn't happen.

Please remember at this time of year to reach out to others. So many are alone and suffering loneliness and depression. A simple smile, some kindness and conversation go a long way to change the course of other lives to one of found community.

We wish you all the happiest of Thanksgivings with your loved one.

Together we make it better.

Dr. Robin Falkov

expat said...

Now that I read that again, I'm utterly disgusted. It's impossible to escape the conclusion that Robin Falkov is being completely insincere, writing whatever comes into her tiny mind to excuse her partner's laziness and incompetence, without any regard for the truth. Ugh.

Anonymous said...

Who is Miss M?

expat said...

The current producer (unremunerated)

Anonymous said...

[quote]
Here it is but it's not complete.
[/quote]

True, but, fortunately, only the first sentence and the first half of the second sentence were cut off. Anyone interested in verifying the full 22 November FB post from Robin Falkov firsthand for themselves can look here:

https://archive.fo/3m9v4

...for the first bit of text, then see the rest at the link you helpfully provided:

https://archive.fo/NYq9O

...which picks up at "inability to log."




Anonymous said...

[quote]
Anonymous said...

Robin Falkov shared a link.
[/quote]

(Other) Anon:

Thank you for cutting and pasting the full text of Robin Falkov's post. I felt obliged to ask for/put up archived webpages and screenshots because I didn't want Hoagland and company to try and get off the hook by telling people, "We never said that!" or "We did say that, but you took our remarks out of context!" or some similar rubbish.

(You can't be too careful with people for whom the truth means nothing.)

However, it was good of you to post the full text for those who do not care to visit the archive.fo site (or who, for reasons of their own, simply do not trust it).


WS

THE Orbs Whiperer said...



Great news! That Dick Hoagland will be back on the air in just a mere, couple of weeks!

Chris Lopes said...

It will be a couple of weeks give or take a few month/years.

Bill said...

RCH's book still isn't out yet after promising it to his subscribers, He goes on other radio shows but not his own, he fills the front page of his radio show with stuff from his website.....and now there are repeats of repeats.....not just repeat after repeat....not sure what's going.

expat said...

What's going on is just standard Hoagland. Start a project -- get a few people hooked -- walk away with vague promises.

Dee said...

From the Midnight homepage (written April 2017 by RCH)

If I was scientifically ahead of NASA on this [Europa], why could I not be right about Mars, the Moon and everything else I have been saying in the ~ 40 years since …!?

Because: A. nobody seriously published anything else you wrote, B. the only way to hear about anything else was by speculative late night radio and a random collection of dark, shiny HTML pages on the late 90's Internet, C. mental abilities and discipline usually decline post 30 if not maintained or sharpened by constant, open challenges, healthy lifestyle and allowing firm boundaries.

Dee

expat said...

« A. nobody seriously published anything else you wrote »

Ah, you're forgetting Pluto: New Horizons...etc. which Hoagland characterized as "my book" about a hundred times although it's Richard Grossinger's book. 62 pages of it is RCH's work, and I re-published an excerpt here.

Chris Lopes said...

I've read the Pluto book, and his chapter is a major part of it. When I have time, I might do a review of those 62 pages. Spoiler alert, it's aliens!

Anonymous said...

Don't buy <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=H9FnBAAAQBAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=Pluto:+New+Horizons&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjIseXFquvTAhUW-2MKHX7VAFQQ6AEIJjAA#v=onepage&q=hoagland&f=false'>this book</a>, it's free!

Anonymous said...

typo: ' instead of "

Dee said...

Expat "Ah, you're forgetting Pluto: New Horizons".

Well, you might have said that tongue in cheek but in any case, I did of course say "seriously published" and I meant scientifically or at least something seriously related to mainstream or even niche science. Although I do respect Grossinger, the publisher North Atlantic Books "aims to nurture a holistic view of the arts, sciences, humanities, and healing" with books on alternative medicine, ecology, and spirituality,raw foods, craniosacral therapy and shamanism. So I don't consider it a serious publication in the context of scientific or technical analysis of any theory from TEM. There's of course a speculative and literary angle, where bits and pieces from the scientific world of our understanding and exploration of space are re-arranged and like a totem pool erected for the consumer to dance around. It's all too human and I do not condemn it either. It's beyond comprehending meaning, if any at all, and dives right into the realm of the awesome deep powers of entertainment and belief.

And thanks for that link to Google Books anonymouse! It's all there. Not sure how intentional this was. Sometimes publishers upload it purposefully as I happen to know these forms of "open access" can push the total sales figure, in cases, or at least reference counts.

Dee

Anonymous said...

What's your opinion of George Haas?

expat said...

George is a dreamer whose ideas have no credibility whatsoever. Also he needs to find a new webmaster--his site is a fucking disaster.

THE Orbs Whiperer said...

Greg Ahrens
Latest word from RCH himself: the show will resume live broadcast on Saturday night, June 3, 2017, with special guest for three hours, Roger Stone.
To be discussed: a game changing announcement this summer from the Vatican. This is why POTUS is currently visiting the heads of the three major Western religions.
If you have let your Club 19.5 membership lapse, be sure to join again now! There will be several members only special events between now and then to bring us all up to speed on what's happening behind the scenes...
Stay tuned ... smile emoticon:)

20 hrs

expat said...

Roger Stone? How appropriate--that man lies without even thinking about it.

Chris Lopes said...

Awesome. It's the old "disclosure is just around the corner" ploy. When nothing happens by the end of the summer/fall/winter/spring, Hoagland will bring up some genetic Vatican press release about peace on Earth and such, combine it with some obscure astronomical positioning only he sees as important, and faster than you can say "I knew Carl Sagan" that will be Hoagie's proof he was right all along. The old fraud is nothing if not consistent.

Anonymous said...

The old fraud is nothing if not consistent.

So consistent, one can just about mouth the words right along with him by now.

If you have let your Club 19.5 membership lapse, be sure to join again now! There will be several members only special events between now and then to bring us all up to speed on what's happening behind the scenes...

Hoagland and company fail to give any details about these "special" events because (choose one):

A) They do not want to run the risk of overawing people.

B) Providing actual details would not induce anyone to part with so much as a half-sawbuck because the "events" are so pathetic and/or nonexistent.

(My money is on "B.")

As for his alleged upcoming radio appearance, we've heard that song before, haven't we? Hoagland has given a return date on at least a half-dozen previous occasions.

Given that he's lied his head off about this before, it will take a reliable third-party account confirming that a broadcast has actually taken place
to get me to believe he's not lying his head off again.

(Love the fact that he's booked his as-yet-hypothetical reappearance for a Saturday night. That has to be the time of the week when radio chat show audiences are at their lowest, surely?)


WS

THE Orbs Whiperer said...

It's just hearsay. Notice that Greg Ahrens claims that Hoagland said it. No doubt that Hoagland did actually misinform Aherns of that; probably even hinting that Greg ought to post the comment on Hoagland's facebutt page.

Chris Lopes said...

Didn't Hoagie make Ahrens his "first officer" or something back when he actually visited his FB page?

expat said...

Yes, Greg's a trusty.

Anonymous said...

It's just hearsay.

I don't understand. If it's "just hearsay" than why would you think it a good idea to repeat it?

THE Orbs Whiperer said...

Obviously, it's just the process of holding Hoagland's feet to the fire, but if you have to explain a joke, the idiot who fails to get it still won't think it's funny.

Chris Lopes said...

If it came from Ahrens, it probably originated with Hoagland. The post is most likely Hoagie's way of trying hold on to whatever suckers are left in the 19.5 club. He wants them for the immediate cash and the mailing list he can sell to others.

Anonymous said...


Obviously, it's just the process of holding Hoagland's feet to the fire, but if you have to explain a joke, the idiot who fails to get it still won't think it's funny.


Alternately, if a joke must be explained, the fault may lie with the person relating it.

THE Orbs Whiperer said...

I'm sure that Richard C. Hoagland finds this blog, a total laugh riot.

Chris Lopes said...

I'm sure expat stays awake at night worrying about what the Hoagie thinks of his blog.

Anonymous said...


@ THE Orbs Whiperer ...."I'm sure that Richard C. Hoagland finds this blog, a total laugh riot."

and your point is?

THE Orbs Whiperer said...

Anonymass, do you even get the name of this blog?

Chris Lopes said...

@anon
orb's point is that Hoagie is laughing at us, therefore we are full of sh*t. That point is only valid if you take Hoagland seriously. If you don't, his amusement just provides more evidence of just how reality challenged he is.

Of course even the assumption of Hoagland laughing at this blog could be faulty. As one who has witnessed Hoagie's reaction to criticism on his FB page, he never struck me as being all that light hearted about such things. The Hoagland I saw acted like a vicious little animal when confronted with alternatives to his narratives.

THE Orbs Whiperer said...

No, Topher, my point is that Richard C. Hoagland has no sense of humor, so most likely hates this blog. You, obviously now, have no sense of sarcasm, either.

Wait, I take that back. Hoagland once told George Noory that he'd like to accept the science award that Russia has to present to him, if only he could figure out a way to accept the award, without acceding to Putin's megalomania.

THE Orbs Whiperer said...


He's baAAahk!

Chris Lopes said...

Well sorta. He had 2 new shows and now 2 repeats. As Hoagie would say, stay tuned!

expat said...

According to the Bellgab "fan club," this is going to be the pattern now. Saturday/Sunday live shows 9pm-midnight PDT, replays on other nights. It's not clear who is putting him on the air, though--not KIYQ or KCAA.

From the same source I gather Gary Leggiere called in last Saturday and they had a civilized chat. Wonders will never cease...

THE Orbs Whiperer said...

How about you, Patrick? Do you suppose that you might be able to manage a civil conversation with Richard C. Hoagland? Have you ever called into his show? Maybe if you were to call in and keep your questions on topic, you might gain traction.

expat said...

No, I've never called into RCH. If I did, I would not be calling with questions but with accusations. A good idea of how we would react to each other is provided by this exchange of e-mails from July 2012.

Stuart Robbins got through once. It went like this.

THE Orbs Whiperer said...

I appreciate your candor, here, Patrick. It's big of you to admit that you can't stay on topic any better than the rest of us, but now that you offer these examples, I have to say that I never have been entirely convinced of your hypothesis that what Hoagland calls the Glass Domes, is actually scratches on a digital optical scanner, either. Furthermore, I find Hoagland to be more reasonable than either you or Robbins in these examples.

As Hoagland noted above, you publicize the controversy, just the same as he does.

That makes my point, that all of you trolls, serve Brookings, in attempt to desensitizing the audience from reacting as they did to Orson Wells', War of the Worlds.

expat said...

Well look, Theadora: Here's the official version of AS10-32-4820. Now here's Hoagland's. That's from a print that lay around in Ken Johnston's file for 32 years, then was scanned on Hoagland's office scanner and had the brightness cranked up to max. Don't tell me that isn't contamination--there's a goddam fiber in there, probably a beard hair.

Chris Lopes said...

It's not like Hoagland hasn't been given a chance to discuss things reasonably. On his FB page, those of us with differing opinions on matters would state our differences openly, only to have the Hoagster accuse us of everything from complete ignorance to being government agents. The actual merits of the argument were never discussed. So no, I don't think Hoagie would give a legit answer to a legit question. That's never been his style.