Wow, Dave...You Missed The X-Conference Grand Finale!

[valiens]

I'll write probably in UFO Mag a longer, detailed plea for divine intervention but until then let me just say that my first foray into "official" UFO Conferences was awesome. I mean just all around amazing. Not for the right reasons, mind you, but amazing nonetheless.

As it turns out the crazy-to-legit ratio of ufologists mirrors that of the it was Venus-to-legit ratio of UFO sightings: about 95% crazy.

It also turns out Nick Pope is my kind of guy.

It also turns out so is Jeff Ritzmann. Biedney I already knew I liked and Paul Kimball makes four.

In other news, Alfred Webre is criminally insane, Michael Salla, normally insane, and Steve Greer is a pathological liar. I mean I don't think he makes stuff up for a buck, I think he cannot help it.

LATE DISCLAIMER: These are just my opinions. Except for Webre - he's out of his mind. I hope he reads this and sues for defamation so I can win that in a court of law

Dave & Jeff, you left early and that's a shame because the final Q & A session with all the speakers who stuck around took a turn for the best when a paranoid, mentally ill Richard Farley loudly and forcefully accused half the panel of being agents for...whoever. This included Maccabee, Nick Pope, and Jaime Maussan. Maccabee walked out, Massan threatened to and Webre told us that the 9/11 attacks were an inside job that utilized alien beam-weapon technology to disintegrate the towers.

Poor Steve Bassett. Say goodbye to being taken seriously by the media. This is the result of allowing IIIINSAAAAANE speakers the floor because they attract paying crowds.

I'd like to publicly thank all involved for making me and my fellow abductee/experiencers look credible and competent. That's been a long time coming and we appreciate it.

Dave, I only wish you'd stuck around for the fireworks. I think you'd have thrown up a little in your mouth. Then you'd have convinced Gene to turn The Paracast into a slow jams radio program because this. is. FUTILE.

And as a PS: Paul, if you're reading this, I was going to poke fun for you pussying out of lobbing my softball question outta the park as discussed but...but...watching you squirm up there having to be associated with that cabal of halfway house members on a field trip was more than payback. I really am sorry you had to be associated with that mess.

It's time for a change, folks. It's time for the Biedneys, Kimballs, Ritzmanns, and Tonnies of the world to step forward and claim the helm of this subject or scrap the subject altogether.

One last thing: last Thursday I received the first of a number of emails from the producer of Coast To Coast regarding my having blogged about being kicked off the show 3 months ago. THREE MONTHS AGO AND THEY ARE JUST NOW EMAILING ME.

Why? Why do they care?

The bottom line of the ongoing exchange is that they've read my blog, read all of the feedback it's received and I think--though I don't know--that they are considering the fact that people like Strieber want to be associated with my Culture of Contact outfit. They're seeing this and are scared that they kicked off the wrong guy. That's the only way I can make sense of this.

Producer Tom is not afraid to reiterate that Coast isn't the number one show for nothing with the type of arrogance only a dying empire can achieve.

This field has always been full of ridiculous characters with ridiculous claims. It's also been quietly seeded with psychologically functional, coherent people with really odd experiences they cannot account for. Always been the case, right? Well I think if you read the signs, the quiet Truth is bubbling to the surface. Atlantis is rising, as it were, and the idiot crew must be sensing their own irrelevance. I'm going to sit back and enjoy the show. I like watching them eat their own.

More importantly, I'm confident that when the lights come up and the show is over, the unassuming people who are the real deal will have taken control of the quest for meaning in the madness, from the madness itself.

Welcome to Rome.

--j

 

[tommyball]

Poor Steve Bassett. Say goodbye to being taken seriously by the media. This is the result of allowing IIIINSAAAAANE speakers the floor because they attract paying crowds.

Wow.

Sorry I missed that one.

Unfortunately I was only able to go for one day, but my first UFO Conference was an eye-opening experience. I had the pleasure of meeting David, Jeff and Paul and of listening to some great (and not so great) speakers, which I'll post about later.

Valiens, sorry I missed out on meeting you but you hit it right on the head. The crazy speakers nearly ruin it for everyone. I almost left after Robert Miles' lunchtime show. Bassett even made a point later about how the public and media allow one bad witness to taint that of a number of others. To paraphrase, he used the analogy of one being at home while it's burning and receiving nine phone calls from neighbors telling you that your house is on fire. The you get one last phone call from the "crazy neighbor" telling you that everything's fine. That's the one you believe, and you burn to death.

Well, that analogy works for the conference itself.

-todd.

 

[valiens]

I actually passed a note to Nick Pope during Paola Harris' presentation asking, "What's the countdown to you walking out?" He laughed. We stayed. She showed the audience slides of humans from Italy that someone told her were aliens. Apparently she didn't get the memo that when someone gives you photos of Italians and tells you they're aliens they're joking.

Welcome to nuts-and-bolts research. More bolts, please.

 

[Poi]

Just promise you won't be interviewed by George again, Jeremy. Please.

 

[ondafritz]

This is sick. Just plain sick.

 

[valiens]

Just promise you won't be interviewed by George again, Jeremy. Please.

Funny you should mention it, Poi. Feast your eyes on this....

http://blog.valiens.com/2007/09/17/open-letter-to-coast-please-send-producer-tom-danheiser-to-a-training-seminar.aspx

 

[David Biedny]

Todd, it was great meeting you, and thanks again for the Muse recommendation!

There was someone else who came up to me, and thanked me for the show, and I'm afraid I was in a weird state of mind at that moment, and denied I was me. I want to offer an apology to that person, they were very kind and I was a jerk.

Jeremy, sorry we didn't get to hang out more, I was being a little less than sociable all weekend. I catch a mood sometimes when I'm too exposed to lots of people.

Jeremy, Jeff, Gene & I will be recording a conference wrap-up tomorrow evening, which will be broadcast this Sunday. It should be good.

dB

 

[Tommy Allison]

This would have been a great place to dispense Almond Joys and Prozac. After all, sometimes you feel like a nut, sometimes you don't.

 

[David Biedny]

After all, sometimes you feel like a nut, sometimes you don't.

LOLOL! That is seriously funny, Tommy.

 

[Tommy Allison]

Seriously, I think that's what I'm going to send to some of these douchebags. Almond Joys, and adverts for Prozac.

 

[valiens]

Thanks for commenting about Horn on my blog, Dave. I've been "debating" him all day only to finally google search some of the authentic Meiers crapola. God, if I'd just done that at the beginning my thread wouldn't have turned into the Michael Horn Show. My fault but you could have warned me.

I mean the dinosaur is one thing. Oh sure, the dinosaur. But feast your eyes on this series of gems Michael Horn himself has deemed authentic....

http://www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/thread277472/pg1

 

[Tommy Allison]

Michael Horn? Debating Michael Horn?

Why?

I think the worst thing anyone can do, is even talk to that guy, because by simply talking to him, you give him credibility and worth. If people would simply ignore the idiot, along with Billy Meier, they'd be selling a different brand of snake oil overnight.

They're frauds, and by giving these frauds the time of day, you've given them validation.

What someone needs to do, is send them Almond Joys and Prozac.

 

[auntiegrav]

Welcome to nuts-and-bolts research. More bolts, please.

You know, most bolts need a nut to hold things together. Without some kind of nut, even bolts turn out to be kinda useless. I'm just putting in a word for the 'nuts'. Sometimes you just have to wrench them a little to tighten them up.

 

[Paul Kimball]

It also turns out Nick Pope is my kind of guy.

Mine too.

It also turns out so is Jeff Ritzmann. Biedney I already knew I liked and Paul Kimball makes four.

Thanks. It was great to meet and chat with you too. Glad you liked the film - I've started reading your book, and will post a review at my blog when I'm done.

And as a PS: Paul, if you're reading this, I was going to poke fun for you pussying out of lobbing my softball question outta the park as discussed but...but...watching you squirm up there having to be associated with that cabal of halfway house members on a field trip was more than payback. I really am sorry you had to be associated with that mess.

So am I, sort of... on the other hand, it was kind of fun to watch in terms of pure entertainment value, which, as I said in my recent interview with you, is pretty much all that ufology is good for these days. Besides, Nick Pope and I tried to make some salient and reasonable points, so we took pride in our efforts to hold the thin line of common sense.

It's time for a change, folks. It's time for the Biedneys, Kimballs, Ritzmanns, and Tonnies of the world to step forward and claim the helm of this subject or scrap the subject altogether.

I would add guys like Greg Bishop and Nick Redfern to the list. Obviously Nick Pope as well, and the Paracast gang. There are others.

Paul

 

[valiens]

A review of my book? Now I'm scared.

 

[musictomyears]

Nick Pope... Hmmm.........

You guys are aware of his professional background - right?

"He had many different postings and had undertaken a series of jobs within the Department, including work in the Joint Operations Centre during the Gulf War, where he was a briefer in the Air Force Operations Room."

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

 

[Paul Kimball]

Nick Pope... Hmmm.........

You guys are aware of his professional background - right?

"He had many different postings and had undertaken a series of jobs within the Department, including work in the Joint Operations Centre during the Gulf War, where he was a briefer in the Air Force Operations Room."

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

Umm... so what does that have to do with the question of whether he is an informed and reasonable commentator on UFOs?

 

[Aaron LeClair]

Thanks for commenting about Horn on my blog, Dave. I've been "debating" him all day only to finally google search some of the authentic Meiers crapola. God, if I'd just done that at the beginning my thread wouldn't have turned into the Michael Horn Show. My fault but you could have warned me.

I mean the dinosaur is one thing. Oh sure, the dinosaur. But feast your eyes on this series of gems Michael Horn himself has deemed authentic....

http://www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/thread277472/pg1

Yes, total crap. Only thing that could make the pics worse, is if he drew a laser on the pic with a crayon.

 

[musictomyears]

Nick Pope... Hmmm.........

You guys are aware of his professional background - right?

"He had many different postings and had undertaken a series of jobs within the Department, including work in the Joint Operations Centre during the Gulf War, where he was a briefer in the Air Force Operations Room."

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

Umm... so what does that have to do with the question of whether he is an informed and reasonable commentator on UFOs?

That's a bit like asking "What has the fact that Dick Cheney used to be CEO of Halliburton have to do with Halliburton getting governmental non-bid contracts?"

Until 2006, Nick Pope was a full-time MoD employee. The nature of his work (see his bio at his own web site http://www.nickpope.net/faq.htm ) makes it abundantly clear that he made a career out of unquestioningly serving the political and military establishment. He talks about the horrors of war in a detached tone, as if they were a mere intellectual exercise:

"Prior to taking up my post on the UFO project I was working in a division called Secretariat(Air Staff) and had been seconded into the Air Force Operations Room in the Joint Operations Centre. I worked there in the run-up to the first Gulf War, during the war itself, and in the aftermath of the conflict. I was a briefer, preparing material for the key daily briefings to Ministers and the Service Chiefs. My job was to collect raw data about RAF operations, and pick out the key things that senior personnel needed to know: details of any casualties and losses, targets attacked, battle damage assessment, etc. It was an interesting and very high-tempo job."

He now presents himself as someone "who used to run the British Government's UFO Project and is now recognised as one of the world's leading experts on the unexplained." Talk about hyperbole.

When it comes to UFOs, he seems to propose several conflicting theories about governmental involvement:

"I believe that governments and the military, and indeed private researchers, politicians- whoever- should place everything in the public domain on this issue. Governments can't, I think, have it both ways. You cannot say on the one hand, as the party line often goes, that UFOs are of no defense significance, and then on the other keep back some of the data."
"To the best of my knowledge, there's no cover-up and no conspiracy. While the MoD has consistently tried to downplay the subject, they've never lied about it and have no evidence that would prove the existence of extraterrestrials. Where information is being withheld, it generally relates to details that if released would be detrimental to defence or national security. Examples include information relating to the capabilities of military radar systems, or to 'methods and sources'."

In a nutshell, his message is identical to what governments are saying around the world: UFOs don't exist, and if they do exist, they and any aliens are probably dangerous. Listening to Nick Pope tells us what the MoD wants the public to know about the subject: Next to nothing.

 

[valiens]

Musictomyears:

I might be in the same boat as you if I hadn't met the man both sober and not-so-much. I'm fairly decent at reading people and I had a full three days to read him. Nick Pope is a guarded diplomat, not a guarded keeper of great secrets. You're right that he is, in some ways, distanced from his emotions. Or lets say, he doesn't let them get in the way of his professionalism. Part of that is training; part of that is culture; mostly it's a personality trait, not a nefarious front.

Whether the MOD is hiding anything or not, I feel safe in assuming that Nick believes what he says he believes about them. That doesn't mean he's right, but a liar he ain't.