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Okay... George Knapp, good guy or bad guy?

Jeff Crowell

Paranormal Annoyance
So, I'm reading Hunt for the Skinwalker and have to say I'm pretty disappointed in the book. A lot of the claims in the book are, frankly, very unbelievable, under the most open-minded conditions. The claims of a "scientific" assault against the phenomena that happened on the Gorman ranch are a bit beyond my realm to believe, too. Oh, sure they use the most technical of equipment and there are a lot of people with Ph.D's on the NIDS's research team, but any monkey can learn to use that equipment (believe me, I'm a ghost hunter, I know. I'm a monkey and I use much of that gear myself), and exactly what to these people have Ph.D's in? Hrm? I mean do they have their doctorate in folk lore, Eastern Religions, or quilt making, or do they have their doctorate in physics, biology, or some other respectable branch of science? And what school did he/they get their Ph.D's? Online, Yale? What? I'm a little insulted by the author of the book (more on that later) in the assumption he makes that I'm going to believe part-and-parcel in what he's saying because he claims he has a Ph.D. I'm just supposed to blindly follow that? Come on. It's like using the "N" word to obtain credibility for a UFO story. UFO story tellers think they have an 'in' for credibility when they say a source is in NASA, as if every single person who works at NASA is emotionally stable, super intelligent, and 100% credible?! Remember, oh, say, 2 summers ago when that NASA astronaught geared up in a diaper and with some binding rope to go have a little chat with her lovers mistress? Not really a mark of stability, there. Just like Catholic priests, people from NASA have their faults, too so don't expect me to simply believe a UFO story because it was supposedly told by someone who worked at NASA.

Okay so to my point; this book has George Knapp on the cover as an author but the book is terrible. It reads like it was edited by a 5th grader (seriously my 11 year old daughter writes better friction than this), and like I said, the events described and methodologies employed by the NIDS team seem a little under par regarding say, criminal justice techniques or scientific methods in other, more mainstream fields. Now, I don't see how George Knapp, an acclaimed journalist, could have written this rag, then turn around and get the praise and respect he's receiving on the Paracast. Something doesn't mesh. Is it that this other guy, Colm Kelleher, mostly wrote the book and Knapp just sat off in the back? What gives? Is Knapp on the "credible" list or not?
 
Not only is he credible but during the Memorial Day weekend show on Coast he even mentioned The Paracast. Real quick but there it was.
 
I think he belongs firmly in the grey basket. He does some research but not an overwhelming amount. Just enough to pass the "obvious bullshit" test. He is a serious journalist. Therefore he only spends a small amount of time on a story. Does enough quick research not to make a complete ass of himslef and then moves on to the next story. It is not as if he is trying to lie or disinform. It is that he is researching these topics in the same manner he would a peice on cactus smuggling. Get the story and get out.

Lazar for instance. He still believes that Lazar was employed at the infamous "S4" and probably worked on the programs he claims he worked on. He still points to the Los Alamos phone diretory listing even though Friedman and others have long ago put the particulars of that to bed. Why does he believe this? Because he checked with some guys he knows that did work there and it turns out Lazar knew what color the lunch room was and whatnot. To that I say an actor can recite the Ranger Creed having never earned the tab.

I too was disappointed in the book. I thought it was weak on proof. it just smacked of equal parts interesting and BS. After I read the book I had an unsettled feeling. Like I had been duped into buying and reading it.

I understand that high strangeness is by definition wierd and illogical. Though I have never experianced it I do grasp the concept. Maybe it is just that, I have never experienced it therefore I am illprepared to accept it. Still the secretive nature of the whole thing bugs me. If so many scientists were around, then phyisical evidence must have been analyzed. Yet precious few exapmles are offered of this. I didn't really understand Knapps involvment either. As I understand it, he went out and helped scare some teenagers away and interviewed some people but never really saw anything. He was basically just a name to go with the book. Marketing and nothingmore. That is what upset me the most. I expected to get something more out of it. Instead it just felt empty.
 
He was basically just a name to go with the book. Marketing and nothingmore. That is what upset me the most. I expected to get something more out of it. Instead it just felt empty.

Though I haven't read the book myself, I can agree with that opinion. I like George, and certainly want to like him, and I think he's a good guy. For that reason though, types like him sometimes spread themselves too thin and end up in some hazy areas due to the fact that they're just that, a good guy. Not only that, but I find some researchers tend to tell stories a little too well for their own good, which isn't all that appealing for our crowd at times. We want results, proof, facts. Not an entertaining story.
 
Despite his links with Lazar, I'd consider Knapp one of the good guys. He's one of the few mainstream journalists to treat UFOs as a serious topic, without resorting to the usual 'little green men' BS usually touted by the mainstream media.
 
I never heard of the guy until the Lazar story and then it was on the History Channel.

He seemed poised and intelligent, but that's all my observation consists of.

He still has his mainstream job at the TV station he's always worked, right? So must be they consider him credible, despite the Lazar thing.
 
The claims of a "scientific" assault against the phenomena that happened on the Gorman ranch are a bit beyond my realm to believe, too. Oh, sure they use the most technical of equipment and there are a lot of people with Ph.D's on the NIDS's research team, but any monkey can learn to use that equipment (believe me, I'm a ghost hunter, I know. I'm a monkey and I use much of that gear myself), and exactly what to these people have Ph.D's in?

The co-writer Colm Kelleher holds a PhD in biochemistry.

When I started looking into the UFO subject a few years ago, I did devote some time reading most of the material at NIDSCI website (which incidentally has been wiped clean a month or so ago). With the exception of NIDSCI hosting some interesting reports on the triangles (people sent them reports directly), I couldn't find anything of real interest or any ground-breaking research. Also, their report on the "triangles" was wrong in too many ways IMO.
 
Really? In what context, if I may ask?

If it's the episode I'm thinking of he was interviewing Doty about MJ-12 and mentioned you'd just had Hastings on your show earlier that night. It was very a brief and completely neutral shout-out.

As for Knapp, I think he's a good-enough guy. I don't buy nito the whole good guy/bad guy thing. Works great for comic books but rarely applies in real life.
 
If it's the episode I'm thinking of he was interviewing Doty about MJ-12 and mentioned you'd just had Hastings on your show earlier that night. It was very a brief and completely neutral shout-out.

As for Knapp, I think he's a good-enough guy. I don't buy nito the whole good guy/bad guy thing. Works great for comic books but rarely applies in real life.

You sure Capn? You saying Doty was on C2C in the last couple weeks talking MJ12?

You sure it wasnt Bob Collins?
 
Knapp has always come across as a fairly decent go-between for the UFO community and the powers-that-be. I imagine that the NIDS team collected more 'interesting data' than they are prepared to comment on and I wouldn't doubt that Mr. Bigelow has something to do with all this, afterall, it's his group, and dollars, on the line.
 
I'm nearly done with the book (Hunt for the SkinWalker), and have to say that the last few chapters I've read do seem to have been written by someone else. Since Knapp and the other guy (the name escapes me) co-wrote the book I'm thinkin' that these last chapters were written by a professional journalist, or at least someone who knew <b>how</b> to write and edit. The last chapters are also tinged with a stronger logic and are not quite as conspiratorial. This is the type of work I'd expect from someone with as much respect as Knapp in the UFO research community.

If you get a chance to read the book you should be able to see what I'm talking about. The first half is just crap, but the "results" part of the book is much more level headed.
 
Really? In what context, if I may ask?

dB

Sorry David,

I didn't see this post and just happened back onto it by trying to figure out the new forum. :) If memory serves (and it's been a few months now.) He was listing some podcast worth listening to and the paracast was on the list. But, I'm not real sure now since it's been so long. I do know it was in a positive way and not negative. Not a lot of information just a passing refererence if memory serves. Maybe that's why I don't remember more of past lives. I can barely remember this one. :)
 
I say good guy.
I also say Skinwalker was a good read, with some truly nutty tales. But we live in a very strange world, so I can't possibly dismiss these out of hand, especially when seemingly level headed sciencey fellas were looking into it. Also the fact that no conclusions were jumped to, and there were no favourite pet theories (besides the multiverse thing), made this a very interesting read.

Are you naysayers naying because the accounts seem so outlandish they couldn't possibly be true?
 
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