Richard Hoagland: An unpopular opinion

FORMER MUSEUM CURATOR SHOOTS SELF IN FOOT

       Clyde Lewis runs a five-days-a-week radio show called Ground Zero. "A powerful voice in parapolitical and paranormal news and commentary," he says about himself. Today his topic was the once-mysterious 11-day closure of the Sunspot Solar Observatory at Sacramento Peak in New Mexico. One of his guests was the former museum curator Richard Hoagland, who is also a former radio host of sorts (his weekend-only after-midnight show is now on BlogTalkRadio.)

        The observatory shutdown, which was the subject of delirious speculation by the usual paranormal suspects, turned out to be connected with an FBI investigation of an (as yet unnamed) janitor on the site. In an affidavit, an FBI agent wrote that she was looking at the "activities of an individual who was utilizing the wireless internet service of the National Solar Observatory in Sunspot, New Mexico, to download and distribute child pornography." The raid was apparently heavy-handed, involving dozens of agents and a Black Hawk helicopter. The janitor has not yet been arrested or charged with an offence, but cell phones, laptops, an iPad, a hard drive and several thumb drives have been removed from his home.

        On the Ground Zero show today, Hoagland expressed doubt that we are being told the true story. He still thinks alien intelligences could be involved. This is what was said, verbatim:

RCH: "Human nature is human nature. Porn exists because people want it. There's a market and a customer. Is it illegal? See, it's illegal to send it because then you have to put children in the position of—you know, all that. But exchanging images from websites, downloading on your computer, is that illegal?
CL: "There's an issue...I guess you'd say, [?] of exchanging. The problem I have with this is that..."
RCH: "It didn't say he exchanged, it says he was just downloading. It's like freedom of the press. You look at stuff."
CL: "Right."
RCH: "First Amendment!"
CL: "Right."
::::
RCH: "Why make a federal case of it? Why would you make a federal case when the FBI is not investigating Kavanaugh... and this whole, you know,.. meshugga thing in Washington... Why would you dispatch a team of FBI agents and a Black Hawk to land in the most remote observatory in the United States, to look for a janitor who's looking at PORN????"

        Hoagland's opinion that child pornography is protected by the First Amendment is not likely to endear him to his intended audience. Neither is it correct.  Possession, manufacturing, distribution, or "access with intent to view" of pornography portraying minors are all federal crimes. The answer to Hoagland's question "why make a federal case of it?" is that the crime is assumed to cross State lines.  People are already tweeting very negatively, and I don't think we've heard the last of this.


source: NPR

Bellgabbers turn on Hoagland

        For the last couple of months, my morning internetainment has included a swift review of one of the forums in BellGab. BellGab was set up years ago for fans of the original Art Bell Coast to Coast AM overnight radio show. As history moved on, more fora were spawned to comment on George Noory (mostly "George Noory sucks"), the "bullpen" hosts, and the regular guests.

        As many readers will know, Hoagland was kicked off C2C-AM on 13 July after clashing with Noory and his producer Tom Danheiser. Since 21 July he's been hosting his own internet radio show, The Other Side of Midnight, on Art Bell's Dark Matter Digital Network. A BellGab forum sprang into life, for live chat and comment during the show. As I blogged a few days later, I don't listen and don't subscribe to the archive, but the Live Chat Thread has been lots of fun to read.

        At first there was plenty of hilarity over the inevitable teething troubles of a show hosted from a home office in Deming, NM by an inexperienced amateur personality -- the ringing phone, the barking dog, and most particularly the squeaking office chair. But then a wave of grudging admiration hit the forum. In the first place, the commenters seemed to love the guests that Hoagland's producer, Ross Campbell, booked. "Saucy Rossy" himself (a veteran of BellGab) posted to the thread regularly and showed himself to be a knowledgeable, easygoing guy with a very good sense of humor. And then, they saw an unexpected side of Hoagland, which they came to call his "Dick Cavett" alternate personality. This was an urbane, well-informed, engaging interviewer who could, in fact, create great late-night radio. It was transforming from a mock-in to a love-in, until this happened:

        Many suspected some variation of "the irresistible force of Ross Campbell meets the immovable object of Richard Hoagland's monsta ego." There was consternation, but nothing compared to what was shortly to come:

        Howls of protest were recorded. Rossy himself was an absolute gentleman, insisting that it was his own decision, he was ok with it, and please just move on, guys. But when Monday night/Tuesday morning rolled around, and the new producer (Scott McKay) was introduced, the mocking resumed. Hoagland apparently chatted with his new producer as if he was a guest, and the pair of them traded name-drops for at least 45 minutes. A few sample comments:

"I need a shot of Geritol."

"Oh my god dump this guy."

"oh gawd....are they really talking about 'kids these days'?"

"It's like sitting next to granddad-in-law at Thanksgiving dinner."

"It's just a private phone conversation that we are forced to listen too. Awful awful awful."

        Today the forum is hate-filled. Many members say they've canceled their subs to the archive. They've come around to what this blog has been pointing out for seven years -- Hoagland is an arrogant popinjay who thinks his audience is so stupid that they'll believe anything he says as long as he keeps reminding them that he was once Walter Cronkite's science adviser (and actually, that wasn't quite his position at CBS News). A comment from "Paper*Boy" at 05:30 EDT:

"Richard C Hoagland is everything each of his detractors on this board say he is.  I hope someone mentioned condescending, and contemptible."

        Since last night he roped in Robin Falkov as a supposed "expert guest" (the topic was Report from the Iron Mountain) another of the BellGab regulars summed it up thus-wise:

"Down to the wife for defense. Richard, you fucked this badly."

        Very few archive shows have been made available to sample, but here's one. It's the 11 September show on Ceres/Pluto, featuring Will Farrar, Andrew Currie, Robert Harrison, and crazy old Keith Laney.

Update 14 October 6:00pm EDT
        I have no idea who "ayala" is. He or she may be flying a kite for all I know. But "Coaster," a regular contributor who I believe has inside info, posted this:

"Ayala was accurate.  I won't say how I know, but it's true."

Rossy made it credible with this:

"... it wasn't that long ago that I defended him vehemently. But it took multiple wake up calls and a few final big ones for me to realize how wrong I was.

I don't want this to continue because I don't want my name to ever be spoken on that show ever again. I'm proud of the work I did, but dissapointed in myself for my misjudgment. I'm too often willing to trust, and give people the benefit of the doubt and that's because I want to be an optimist, however I've learned something very valuable from all of this and that is to trust your instincts. People don't show who they really are they are right away, usually it takes six months, I'm happy it only took two in this case.

So yeah, I'm going to move forward and leave this shit in the rearview, and make something positive out of it."

Gary Posner posts 1990-1 recordings of Hoagland boasting

        Gary Posner, M.D. is the author of one of the most comprehensive reviews of Richard Hoagland's efforts at self-promotion available. Under the title "The Face Behind the "Face" on Mars: A Skeptical Look at Richard C. Hoagland" the two-part essay covers "The Face" as well as Hoagland's exaggerated claims to have lectured to packed auditoria at NASA, to have personally designed the plaque on Pioneer 10, and to have been the first to suggest life on Europa.

        What special knowledge did Posner have that enabled him to write this somewhat devastating piece? In 1990 he was the founder of Tampa Bay Skeptics, and editor of its newsletter. He writes:

"At that time, Hoagland was serving as Science Advisor to the For The People radio program, which was based in Cedar Key, Florida, and broadcast daily across the United States on the Sun Radio Network (and worldwide via shortwave). Hosted by Chuck Harder, this "overheated radio talk show"... was devoted partly to useful consumer-oriented advice, and partly to conspiracy and fringe-science themes such as UFOs, suppressed cancer cures, and perpetual energy machines. I began taping some of the broadcasts, saving and cataloging the most preposterous comments (winding up with nearly five hours of priceless "Greatest Hits" snippets, many involving Hoagland), and writing about them in TBS Report."

        Now, in June 2015, Posner has dug out his old tapes and put them on the web. They come in ten parts and Posner has provided a synopsis. Hoagland's monster ego is fully on display, as he rants about Carl Sagan taking credit for his own work, grossly exaggerates his dealings with NASA, and brags about a miniseries he's producing for PBS called Hoagland's Mars -- which, guess what, is then canceled. Here's part of the synopsis on that topic, from tape 8:

Jan. 2 1991: 19:46: Hoagland on the "distorted" reediting of Hoagland's Mars to make him look "deluded." Considering legal action.
26:35: Harder thinks NASA is doing this because they weren't the ones who made these fabulous discoveries about the artifacts on Mars and "their egos prevent them" from giving due credit to Hoagland.
27:14: Hoagland suggests that a Congressional inquiry about all this is in order. Asks listeners to write to NASA and Congress.

        Chuck Harder himself ended up disillusioned with Hoagland. In a letter to Gary Posner, he writes "Mr. Richard Perez of Home Power magazine has filled Mr. Hoagland's shoes as Mr. Hoagland became more and more demanding, wanted money, and wanted to dictate program content." Why are we not surprised by that?

        The audio quality is poor in spots—some of these clips were recorded from shortwave—but they are pure gold. Thank you, Dr Posner.

Review of RCH/C2C 4th July

        Richard Hoagland's campaign to wrest the mud logs (see previous post on this blog) from Deepwater Horizon's owner, BP, didn't work. Or at least, it clearly hadn't worked by end-of-business (end-of-barbecue, perhaps?) on the National Holiday. For there he was, on Coast to Coast AM for two solid hours, taking another bite of the same cherry pie.

        In tones that ran the gamut from shrill to outright ranting, he exhorted his disciples to storm the gates of the US Congress metaphorically with e-mailery. He added an equally Stentorian plea for somebody to get him access to James Carville, who is apparently some magic component of the campaign. ONLY IF WE GET THOSE MUD LOGS, he explained again, can we solve this catastrophe.

        In a remarkable act of self-contradiction, he went on to propose two separate technical solutions to the gusher problem — and the solutions did not apparently depend in any way on those damned logs.

        FIRST, he wants BP to use nuclear technology to insert a high-energy emitter of radiation so powerful that it would plasticize the rock at some depth around the well-bore and so pinch it off. He was perhaps unaware that the bore is lined by a strong steel casing that would surely frustrate such an approach.

        SECOND, he believes the gub'mint has secret access to a fearsome "torsion field weapon" which would be capable of freezing the entire 3-mile column of oil solid. "They could then," he explained breathlessly, "pour in the heavy mud and concrete and seal the well for good." Host George Noory missed an opportunity to ask how on Earth mud and concrete could successfully be poured into a frozen column of oil. But then, listeners to George Noory are quite accustomed to his habit of letting utterly illogical propositions slide right on by.

        In a further display of shameless self-contradiction, Hoagland then announced that the gusher we've all seen gushing away in video for 70 days is not the main event in the Gulf of Mexico. It's "a sideshow — a distraction." THE BIG DEAL is a gash in the Earth's crust 10 miles away and some hundreds of feet long, leaking proportionately copious amounts of oil without, apparently, anyone paying attention to it. Again, the hilarious illogicality of that idea didn't seem to occur to Noory.

        RCH then turned to the plight of the millions of people on land who are already being subjected to near-toxic levels of methane and hydrogen sulfide in the air. "Go and buy gas masks and ozone generators," he urged them, "or simply move house." This was quite possibly sensible advice, albeit from the mouth of one who is utterly unqualified to pronounce on such matters.

        Possibly he felt he was qualified by proxy to his girlfriend, Robin Falkov, who he revealed uses an ozone generator while flying on commercial airlines. Given that almost everyone can detect ozone at a concentration as low as 0.1 part per million, and that most people's response is mild to severe headache, it's quite hard to imagine anything more inconsiderate to fellow passengers than such a device. Mustard gas, perhaps.

        All in all, a classic example of Richard Hoagland attempting to position himself to be able to claim that he was a key player in this disaster and its aftermath. It was, of course, totally despicable and C2C-AM would be ashamed of allowing it if they had any sense of shame at all. Alas, they don't.

Update:
        Today, July 10th, somebody possibly called Roo Reindeer posted this link on Hoagland's FB page, making it seem that he could get what he says he wants just by plonking down a few dollars. So what would he do then?