Thankfully, after a blistering week of obnoxious heat, things have settled down here in Boston and the weather is rather mild and pleasant. I am happy to say that the wheels have begun turning on the pre-production stage of
BoA : Audio, Season Two and we are a few weeks away from the full on hype stage. It's gonna be killer.
This week in
the binnall report, we have so much to talk about. We look back on a controversial week of Coast to Coast that will forever be known as the
Greer / SETI fiasco. We look ahead to
Full Moon Open Lines and a former member of the PLO who is now on the other side of the fence. We dip into the mailbag to give voice to the
Coast listeners disgusted by Monday's debacle. We look back in Coast history at
Benjamin Creme and
Art Bell's love of technology. And, to wrap things up, we have a sneak peek at Richard Hoagland's stunning new ad campaign in
Hot Newz.
I've got a lot to say this week and it's a long one, so strap yourself in and let's get to venting.
The Week That Was
What a topsy turvy week in Coast-land. We left off last week with The Noor welcoming
Shelly Kaehr as the 1st hour pop-in to talk about "End Times". The usual
Friday into Saturday Open Lines followed.
Saturday on "
Ian", IP had
Capt. Kelly Sweeney on the show to talk about all sort of
sea faring stuffs. Much to the chagrin of the many "Ian" fans out there, I missed the show once again. Lesley's
C2C Rewind makes the call on Sweeney's appearance, "
I like Capt Sweeney, he is very entertaining! Really he is quite charismatic because I think a lot of his sea stories would bore me to death if told by someone else."
Saturday night,
Art Bell was full on back in the swing of things and his guest was
Michael Sunanda talking about global climate. For reasons I can't recall now, I skipped this episode. Lesley tried to catch it, but wasn't impressed, "
Michael Sunanda was suppose to be an "expert" on global warming, but turned out to really only be a Richard Hoagland devotee. I only listened to the first hour with him, but he didn't seem to really know very much and my understanding is that Art ditched him early in favor of open lines." Ouch.
Sunday night saw the beginning of a three day adventure that will live on in C2C infamy for quite some time. Luckily, I caught it all. It began with Art bringing on
Steven Greer to talk about the "SETI got signals" story that created a firestorm on the internet a few weeks ago. Greer pretty much fleshed out the story from the last time he was on with The Noor. The gist of it was that he had 3 insiders who claimed that SETI got ET signals. Art loved this and I dug it as well. Anytime someone craps on SETI, I'm all about it, veracity notwithstanding. Greer's appearance with Art segued into Monday's show, which you'll hear about in a moment.
The full show guest with Art on
Sunday was
John Hogue to talk about World War III and how we are dangling close to the edge of it all. You know the routine. I caught about half of this one and it was decent, albeit rather bland for doom and gloom type stuffs. Maybe I missed out on the wild stuff, I'm not sure.
Monday night, saw C2C welcome Apollo astronaut and American legend
Buzz Aldrin to the show. Strangely, Buzz appeared for only a half hour and it was at the top of the second hour, as opposed to the usual pop-in. (We'll still give Buzz Coastie consideration, don't worry.) Despite what could have been an esoteric goldmine, this one turned out to be rather blase. Buzz refuted claims that he saw a UFO on the Moon, though that entire story seems fraught with arguments over semantics and hidden messages, so I am still confused over it. For the record, Buzz fell into the "ETs exist, but can't come to Earth" camp. Sigh. I find it hard to believe he is that narrow minded, but whatever.
The full show guest was
Richard C. Hoagland, making his first solo full show appearance in over a year. He was on to talk about some missing Apollo films and plug his conference ad nauseum, but the real story was the first half hour of his interview, where he was really full of piss and vinegar. It contained an exchange between he and Noory that comprised night two of the Greer / SETI fiasco, as I've taken to calling it, and set off a massive firestorm in the C2C fanbase.
It broke down rather simply, as Noory asked RCH, in what sounded suspiciously like a set up question, what he thought about the Greer story from C2C on Sunday night. And then, all hell broke loose. Hoagland went on a rant about unnamed sources which turned into a self righteous soliloquy about how he provides evidence with his unnamed sources. It culminated with an exchange that was so repugnant, that I must simply transcribe it here instead of trying to put words to describe it.
Hoagland :: "
See the difference between what we do at Enterprise and what the UFO people do is that we have evidence that absolutely stands still."
Noory :: "
I was just gonna say that. Because sometimes as wild as your evidence is and as crazy as it may seem, at least you present data, pictures, events, things for us to look at, things for us to digest. You don't get that on the other end [ufology]."
Hoagland would go on to say that the government has so muddied ufology that "
only the most long lived diehards who are really, kind of, looking at the skies for salvation from things that are going on around the planet now, like what's going on the Middle East, that someone may come and 'save us' from outerspace. Only those people really cling to the extraordinarily complicated and completely disingenuous field of ufology."
Noory just let that one fly and didn't bother even defending all the fine Ufologists who have been on C2C throughout his tenure.
Sigh.
I don't even know where to begin. Let's get this out of the way first, my disgust is not with the handling of the Greer story. Greer is known to make grandiose claims and I think he made a tragic misstep by even "going there" with the SETI story without something sufficient to prop it up. I think, at it's core, the story is probably quite true. But it is like a diamond ring at the bottom of a septic tank. Do you really want to dive in and try and get it ?
No, no, I am more disappointed over that little exchange between Hoags and The Noor because it was just so fraught with retarded logic. I was angry as all hell, at first, but after a few days, I really just felt more sad than angry.
Here's a guy, Noory, who claims to be all about seeking the truth and all that esoteric mumbo jumbo we all know so well. He spends countless hours talking to some of the top names in the field of Ufology. The show he hosts, Coast to Coast AM, was built on a foundation of Ufology. So it goes without saying that without Ufology, he wouldn't have had his fancy pay-per-view special, his overhyped book, his impending basic cable TV show, or his six figure job. He'd just be some guy in St. Louis that no one had ever heard of.
But in one fell swoop, he undercuts the entire field, and in some ways the legacy of C2C, to put over a huckster like Hoagland. For Noory to say you don't get the kind of evidence from Ufology that you get from Hoagland is laughable. I'm not even going to go over how wrong that line of thinking is, because only a complete Hoagland sycophant or fan boy would possibly believe it. Which begs the question as to why Noory would say it. I'll leave the question hanging and you can fill the answer in yourself, but no matter how you slice it, it ain't good.
The sad part about it all is that I like George. He has an amazingly difficult job and does a pretty damn good job at it. And then moments like this come along and I feel used, duped, laughed at, and pretty much like crap. And I end up wondering, "Geez, who's side is Noory on ?"
Hoagland, on the other hand, squandered whatever little respect I had left for him with his self-serving diatribe. It's painfully obvious that he'll throw anyone under the bus to advance himself and, quite frankly, that's not cool. His arrogance is only exceeded by his foolishness and I, for one, am glad he doesn't "do ufos", because his wild theories would only hinder the field as a whole. He wants to be an island unto himself, not because Ufology is such an embarassment to him, but because that way all the money and "glory" can go directly to him without having to share it with his fellow researchers. It's really more pathetic than anything else.
At first I thought, hey, maybe I'm overthinking this, because I'm pretty tied into Ufology, myself. But then the buzz happened. You see, some C2C episodes get no response and some get a lot. This one got a ton. And it wasn't just "this episode sucked", it was passionate, angry responses. So much so, that in lieu of the usual letters in this week's mailbag, we've reprinted some of the posts found @ Streamlink and the BoA message board theusofe.com so you can see that I am not alone in my chagrin over Noory's endorsement of Hoagland over ufology.
Enough beating the dead horse, though, let's move on to the rest of the offerings from C2C. Hoagland spent the rest of the episode talking about
missing Apollo films and, more than that, plugging his
Joshua Tree conference, going so far as to tease startling information ... to be revealed as his conference. Ugh. Decent episode, for its newsworthiness, but otherwise it was pretty lame and rather mean spirited in a lot of ways.
Tuesday on Coast, we saw the third and final stage of the Greer / SETI fiasco, as Noory brought in
Seth Shostak, of
SETI, to refute the Greer story of ET signals coming to SETI. Shostak said all the "right things", including the hilarious claim that if SETI got a signal then they would tell everyone. Yeah, right, and I've got a bridge in Brooklyn to sell you. Noory, of course, went right along with it and raked Greer across the coals a few times and put SETI over like it was the sequel to "What Dreams May Come."
The full show guest was
Craig Webb, talking
dreams. I checked out some of this, but it was kind of bland, especially in light of all the drama of the past few days.
Wednesday, the lunacy and irony continued, as Noory had
Sean David Morton on the show. See, now I think he's just trying to annoy the C2C hardcore fans. Noory promised that they'd go over some of SDM's predictions from previous shows, but first SDM had to spend 45 plus minutes using the
Bible Code to predict something awful for the next day in the Middle East (which never happened, of course).
Then they spent about 10 minutes going over SDM's predictions from January. Luckily, for him, the predictions were for 2006 and they all had that loophole of "well, the year isn't over yet." No mention of SDM's 2003 and 2004 predictions for 2005 that can be easily verifiable as quite wrong. Silly me, what with the Greer / SETI fiasco, I thought Noory was all about calling fakers out on their schemes. It must be just Greer he expects to be culpable for his claims on the show and not his buddies like Sean Morton or Ed Dames. That said, it was nice of him to lay that double standard out there for us all to see without any question that it exists.
Thursday, the guest was
Michael Cremo to talk about
forbidden archaeology. This episode was pretty good, but I was kind of burned out on C2C by this point and hit the sack earlier than expected. The pop in was Stan Deyo, who was talking about earthquakes and that was mildly entertaining as well.
To put a final, hilarious, topper on the week, Noory had to spend the first few minutes of the show covering for SDM for the fact that nothing happened in the Middle East that day, despite his lengthy prediction the night before. Ah, karma is a bitch.
The Week That Is
Tonight, it's the usual kick off to the weekend, with
Noory's Friday into Saturday Open Lines. Noory said last night that the pop-in will be some woman who believes she is the
reincarnation of Marilyn Monroe and probably her shrink.
Leading off the weekend is "Ian" with guest
Dr. Steven Miles, talking about the "
ethics of torture". I've gotten a lot of feedback from binnall report readers who want more coverage of Ian and so I'll go out of my way to squeeze Ian into my schedule. Should be a great episode.
Saturday night sees
Art Bell welcome
Lauren Weinstein to talk about technology and privacy issues. Apparently, there will be a focus on
telephone technology, which sounds intriguing. Weinstein is a hardcore techie and, of course, so is Art. This should be a pretty good episode and given Art's plight in moving to the Philippines, it's right in his proverbial wheelhouse.
Sunday night on Coast, Art interviews
Howard Bloom about
aerospace. Usually, Bloom is on to talk about current events and the War on Terror. What he brings to the table regarding aerospace remains to be seen, but usually he brings a strong opinion, so this should be a good to great episode.
Monday on Coast,
The Noor takes to the helm once again and welcomes
Robert Sarmast to the show to talk about
Atlantis. One of those classic topics that depend on what the guest brings to the table. Could be good or it could be awful, we'll see how it shakes out.
Tuesday ... it's
TBA. Hopefully it will be someone good, but don't be surprised if it is someone like
Ed Dames.
Wednesday, Noory's mad with power once again and we see the result as it's a special
Full Moon Open Lines. For the Open Lines fans out there, I'm sure you are psyched. I'm just left wondering if we will be forced to endure two nights of OL next week.
Thursday, we're still talking about Middle East conflict as The Noor has
Walid Shoebat as the guest. Shoebat was once a member of the
PLO, but he switched sides and now is an advocate for Israel. Sounds fairly compelling, so I can't begrudge it. Could be very good.
Interesting week on tap. Will Bell respond to the Greer / SETI fiasco ? Who is TBA ? Are there going to be two nights of Open Lines ? Is there anything left to say about Atlantis ? All those questions will be answered and many more.
binnall report mailbag
As noted above, we are taking a special break this week from the usual wacky letters I get about BoA and this weekly column to give voice to all the frustrated listeners who were disgusted by Monday night Hoagland and Noory ufological bash-fest.
There's a chance their comments would have been missed or ignored by The Noor and company and have been lost to the sands of time. Now, at least, they will be highlighted and kept for the historical record when we look back on that sad half hour of C2C history.
These are posts found @ theusofe.com and the C2C streamlink board. And now, I'll step back and let the listening public do their talking ...
Post #1 :
I agree with a lot of what Richard said but the one thing that really got to me was Richard's remark about the "completely disingenuous" UFO field and that the only ones left in the UFO field are looking to the sky for the aliens to save the Mid-East situation among other things.
Pleasssseee Richard...are you totally detached from the actual situation of Ufology? There are many good hard working people that devote their lives to this research and do great work and are viscously attacked and receive very little in return. You have lost my 10+ years of support after tonight's show.
Regarding George, I have been seeing this trend in him to warm up to the current guest and be way to agreeable with them while putting down previous guests like he appeared to do with Richards statement above. Kind of back stabbing and adolescent behavior of him if you ask me and I hope George corrects this before it becomes a real character problem. I really like George and like many of the new guests that have been on and the newer format, just wish he would be a bit more objective with guests.
Streamlink member Atlantis
Post #2 :
I'm usually neutral on Hoagland, but how dare this jackass badmouth Ufology! He's the one seeing tanks and airplanes and the magical lion people in fuzzy pictures from Mars. Things that no one else can see but him. He'd be lucky if he ever got a 100th of the evidence collected by Ufologists over the last 60 years.
Noory goes along with everything. He completely changes his stand on things and depending on who the guest is. He'll even contradict himself.
usofe.com member DeSota
Post #3 :
I was hoping that this would be a fun show to listen to but the first segment with RCH almost had me screaming at my radio.
Where does RCH get off saying that Ufology is not something even worth following and that Ufologists have no evidence to back up there claims! Of all people in the paranormal field to even suggest that other researchers don't have real evidence RCH should be the LAST person on this earth to do so.
... to flatly state that what he does at 'enterprise' is hard facts and science is beyond ludicrous.
usofe.com & Streamlink member Saucalito
Post #4
I felt compelled to register tonight just to state how absolutely embarrassing I find it that George Noory and the C2C program at large allow this fraud such an opportunity to present his frivolous, unsubstantiated claims.
Clearly, one has to seriously question the motives involved in the decision to put this fool on the air night after night.
I have to say that I never had any real complaints about Noory until tonight. But the fact that he absolutely disingenuously criticizes Greer while oohing and ahhing after every second word out of Hoagland's mouth exposes him as a fraud himself. He ought to be ashamed of himself.
What insults me is that Noory talks out of two sides of his mouth. He forfeits all integrity, all honesty, and anything that can be considered a responsibility to his listeners in order to prop up a guy with an agenda that's so obvious it comes through my computer and punches me in the face.
Streamlink member andrewtx
Post #5
I noticed George's backpeddling during that last half-hour. It was like it suddenly dawned on him (perhaps due to FB's) that he had stepped in something smelly, and was trying desperately to clean it off his shoes. But it was way too little, way too late, IMO - this one is going to stick on George for a while, especially with staunch Art fans and those who dig the ufology scene.
usofe.com member Amon
Post #6
Well, I've always given Richard the benefit of the doubt in the past, but this seems like an all out snake oil sales act to me. What is not surprising is that George is going right along with it to boost his star factor. You heard him ask about the "red carpet". This is disgusting. It's like a bad dream with a money grubbing televangelist.
Streamlink member Wizard444
Post #7
i don't know what to say about noory tonight; he really let me down. i'm probably the biggest noory fan out there but...well, i don't know what to say. how can i defend him against that? i'm not even going to try. i'm sure there will be a lot of negative feedback heading his way. i turned off the show and i've been sitting here wondering wtf did i hear something that wasn't there?
usfoe.com & streamlink member theorist
Questions ? Comments ? Summertime news ? Send them to
tbinnall@hotmail.com
This Week in C2C History
8.4.2005 : The Noor's favorite potential spokesman for the Antichrist,
Benjamin Creme, returned to C2C. Creme mostly talked out of his derriere about the Maitreya, much to the astonishment of Noory, "
Maitreya, he said, can make himself visible in any form, using "familiars" who become vehicles for his consciousness. In fact, Creme said that it was Maitreya's consciousness that worked through Jesus during his final three years leading up to the crucifixion. Maitreya, he added, also gave advice and instructions to Yasser Arafat, whom Creme characterized as a "great man." " (c2c.com)
8.4.2003 : The Hall and Oates of predictions,
Paul Guercio and
George Hart, of the
Merlin Project, joined Noory to dole out some forecasts. For those of you unaware, the Merlin Project uses some kind of computer system to "see into the future". Here's what they predicted, "
A turnaround in the economy (already begun).
Cheney may leave office in 2006 and need to be replaced.
A terrorist attack or the intervention of one could occur next winter or early spring.
Bill Clinton will be back in the political arena by 2008, possibly vying to become the Secretary General of the U.N." (c2c.com)
8.4.1998 : The good old days, when
Art Bell was at the forefront of technology, "
Broadcast.com goes with Art's direct back-haul feed instead of the network feed. Art may send special messages to the Internet listeners, that don't need to follow normal broadcast network rules. Art has the Night-Vision Cam on tonight, check it out." (artbell.com cd rom)
Hot Newz
UFO buffs the world over were aghast at Richard C. Hoagland's appearance on Coast to Coast AM this past Monday night (7.31.6). On the show, he spent the first half hour ripping Ufology a new one and being very careful to distance himself from the world of the "sky watchers".
And while Hoagland tearing someone else down to build himself up is not really news, per se, what was news was that Monday night marked the beginning of a daring new marketing campaign from RCH's Enterprise Mission.
Coming soon to less reputable men's magazines throughout America, the new print ad from Hoagland attempts to "set the record straight" and throw the proverbial gauntlet down at the feet of all those loony UFO nuts.
Thankfully, even the editors at low rent skin magazines have standards and required a disclaimer for the RCH sponsored advertisement, lest any of their readers get their hopes up for real answers.
End Notes
Hopefully by the time you hear from me again next week, we will have ridded ourselves of the ugliness of this past week and be in a more upbeat mood. I'm not a big fan of being too negative here in the binnall report, but sometimes circumstances beyond my control make it necessary to do so. I'm sure by next week, we'll be back to our more lighthearted style.
Plugs : Tomorrow @ binnallofamerica.com, Wrath of Joe : Summer Series continues as Joe tackles the subject of alien abduction in an thorough and thought provoking piece. Lesley's C2C Rewind @ The Debris Field and smoker dave updated on Sunday. Monday, R.Lee's Trickster's Realm. Tuesday, Grey Matters. Wednesday, The K-Files. Thursday, Hot Newz. And, Friday, we do it all again in the binnall report.
binnallofamerica.com ... no evidence claimed nor provided.
With that, I'm left to salvage what is left of my Friday night. I hope you all have a great weekend and an awesome week. Until next week, this is binnall ... signing off.
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