The Next Roswell

I’ve been going through a very difficult situation at work these last few days and so have found it hard to concentrate, however I think that it’s very therapeutic to maintain an element of normality in ones’ life during a rough patch; it prevents one from losing touch with objective reality or falling into self-pity and becoming self-absorbed or self-obsessed. Therefore I have aimed my intellect at the usual targets and got writing.

I’ve been thinking back to about last December when I visited Rendlesham Forest in Suffolk for the 30th anniversary of the famous UFO incident there; see: http://hpanwo-tv.blogspot.com/2010/12/rendlesham-forest-incident-30th.html I was talking on the HPANWO Forum (see Links column) with Footie McGrew, an Australian member who recently visited the site of a close encounter and mass-sighting of a UFO at Westall in Melbourne in 1966, see: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bTqE805dhOE . He said in one of his posts: “The next time this happens, it’ll be Game Over” and that got me thinking. What happened with the world’s most famous UFO event, the Roswell Incident, was that there was a very long time period between the event itself and when research into it began; it was thirty years in fact! The moment Roswell entered the sphere of publicity can be traced very precisely: It was when Major Jesse Marcel Junior first contacted the UFOlogist Stanton Friedman to tell his story, in 1977. This was thirty years after that wreckage had come down on the Brazel Ranch and Glen Dennis had been to the airbase when those aliens were being stored there. It struck me that the time period between when a UFO had appeared in Rendlesham Forest and when I had attended that conference last year was also exactly thirty years, the same length of time. However the history of research into the two incidents couldn’t be more different. With Rendlesham Forest, a massive amount of hard evidence and contemporary eyewitness testimony was gathered which entered the public arena almost immediately. The Four Horsewomen of Rendlesham Forest: Jenny Randles, Brenda Butler, Dot Street and Georgina Bruni, were at the scene and on the scent from the start and it took just two years before the story appeared in the mainstream news headlines.

I imagined a scenario in which the same amount of released and discovered evidence with a similar timeline had occurred with Rendlesham Forest as did with Roswell: Firstly there would have been little mention of the event in the news at the time except a brief story in the local newspaper that would have been withdrawn the next day with a string of embarrassed mumblings about “weather balloons”. Then the whole event would have been almost completely forgotten and ignored until… well today! Suddenly, out of the blue, a middle-aged Boroughs, Penniston, Halt and Warren would approach the media with an amazing story to tell! They saw a UFO 30 years ago, way back in 1980! Unfortunately there’d be no evidence at all: No Halt Tape, no plastercasts of the landing sites, no Suffolk Police log, no Halt Memo, no Nick Pope talking about the incident on TV, nothing! You can imagine what the Skeptics would be saying; basically all the things they say about Roswell in the real world. There’d be no need for them to employ such obscure, abstract concepts as magic teleporting lighthouses and flying truckloads of manure. They could just say: “No evidence- end of!” It would help if the Government then suddenly declassified some top secret programme from those days, “Project Akbar” or something. A balloon to spy on the Russians and, apprently, that’s what those airmen really saw.

It makes you think doesn’t it? It’s therefore only a brief mental trip to imagine applying what happened in the real world at Rendlesham Forest to the Roswell Incident. Imagine that there’s been a Randles, Butler, Street and Bruni in Roswell New Mexico in July 1947!... I’ll leave the imaginary details to you, dear HPANWO-readers, but I think we’ll agree that the whole history of the Roswell UFO story, and indeed maybe even the history of the entire world since, would have been totally different to what it is now.

Just one more Roswell; that’ll be all it takes! Footie is right. Unlike with the Roswell Incident, and indeed Rendlesham Forest, nowadays there are hundreds of times more people who are aware of the UFO phenomenon and our governments’ suspected relationship to it. More and more people are watching the skies and more and more people will be on the lookout for anything related that occurs on the ground. When the next Roswell happens, we’ll be ready for it! Of course there’s no guarantee; the next Roswell could happen in a very remote area or under other circumstances in which the Government still succeeds in fastening the veil of secrecy in time, but the odds are stacked much, much less in their favour today. If anything remotely Roswellian takes place anywhere near Oxford I have a contingency plan in place with what I’m going to do; I advise all HPANWO-readers to form their own.

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Does God Exist?

Does God Exist? How long have learned men gathered together to ask this question? It’s easier to count the time in millennia than centuries. In all those ages the question still remains unanswered for certain. One day there might actually be a final solution to this perennial conundrum; if and when that day comes I want to be there to see it! I want to be able to tell my great-grandchildren that I was there on the day that we finally knew!

For this reason I attended the Does God Exist? debate in London, one of two events that I’m going to on this subject. The debate was between two men: a famous Christian theologian from California called William Lane Craig and the in the Atheists’ corner, Oxford philosophy professor Stephen Law, whom HPANWO has encountered recently before, see: http://hpanwo.blogspot.com/2011/07/skeptical-renaissance.html and: http://hpanwo.blogspot.com/2011/09/british-humanist-association-conspiracy.html Here’s the website all about Craig’s tour of Britain, of which tonight's event was a part: http://www.bethinking.org/the-reasonable-faith-tour-2011/who-is-william-lane-craig.htm . The event was held at the Central Methodist Hall in London, a squat and intimidating building in the heart of Westminster, right in the shadow of Big Ben. The ornate grandeur of the interior made me feel small; it looked like a cross between Oxford Town Hall and the Taj Mahal. I’m not able to enjoy that kind of Neoclassical-stroke-Victorian architecture any more; like so much else in London it reduced me to a tiny little human ant, a sick and tired Winston Smith, gazing up in awe at the edifice of the Ministry of Truth. From what I gathered from eavesdropping on their conversations, nearly all the people attending were Christians, on Craig’s side. There were a few Humanist/Skeptic types; indeed they had a stall, but the home fans were definitely dominant. I felt a little strange occupying a neutral position; not just neutral in the way most Theists and Atheists perceive and understand neutral on the issue: ie an Agnostic, but neutral beyond even that. There was an attractive stall displaying all of Craig’s 30 plus-books with titles like Reasonable Faith and The Case for Christ. See here for his website: http://www.reasonablefaith.org/site/PageServer . There was a book which caught my eye called Why God won’t Go Away by Alister McGrath. This was because I’d read another book with that same title by the neurologist Andrew Newburg. McGrath is one of Richard Dawkins most stringent critics, or “fleas” as Dawkins calls them; see: http://hpanwo.blogspot.com/2008/04/god-delusion-by-richard-dawkins.html . I settled into my seat under the stucco dome of the opulent conference hall and waited for the debate to begin. I sat next to a lady who was, almost paradoxically according to some, both a scientist and a Christian. We had a good long talk about religion and got along despite our differing viewpoints. Like many people who are firmly pro or con religion she seemed to find it hard to understand my own ideas. We nevertheless discussed the film The Robe very eagerly; it’s one of my favourites, one that I actually learned to enjoy when I was an Atheist myself, see: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0046247/

Craig took the stage first. He is a genial American with a middle-aged Hollywood look, perfect for dealing with the public in a way that Americans are superlative at. “My case is based on the truth I have discovered: that there is far more reason to believe in God than to not believe in Him” he began. “There are fewer reasons against God’s existence than for His existence.” The debate was structured into three rounds of rebuttals and counter-rebuttals followed by an armchair discussion with audience questions. Craig said that there were four main areas of study which reveal this supposed good sense to believe in God: philosophical, historical, scientific and moral. He then went on to explain various infinity paradoxes and problems with mainstream cosmology, but when he turned to the moral section he launched the rocket that became the core structure of the debate and the one which Stephen Law spent most of his time trying to shoot down. Law leapt eagerly up to the podium and explained how his main argument against God’s existence was that cruelty and suffering were intrinsically woven into the fabric of the universe. Sure, a lot of suffering is man-made, but just as much is natural: earthquakes, hurricanes etc; but the best evidence is in biology. Law sites the case of a nasty beast called the Komodo Dragon, a huge land-dwelling reptile that resembles a living dinosaur with a massive bulk and sharp teeth. It’s a predator and its hunting technique is not to risk attacking a fit, strong animal that might fight back, but to give it a quick bite in order to poison it with the lethal bacteria that it deliberately cultivates in its mouth. Then it follows its prey until its victim falls foul of toxic shock and collapses; then the Dragon eats it alive. Law also pointed out that throughout the hundreds of thousands of years of human existence between a third and half of all children have died before their fifth birthday; causing an incalculable amount of grief to their parents. “God knew about this!” Law emphatically proclaimed “And He let it happen… for thousands and millions of years! Why? For reasons that He decided upon!” The churches have come up with a whole series of very convoluted and vague explanations to explain the presence of evil in our world. These explanations impress Law so little that he has come up with a parody of them: The Evil God Hypothesis. This reverses all the metaphysical equations and states that God is really evil; it’s just that there is still good in the world because He gave us free will etc etc etc. Craig was ready for this, being obviously familiar with Law’s views. He said that the presence of evil in the world is not used by Christians to question their faith (Really? I know a few for whom the existence of evil enormously undermines their faith.) We live not for today but for Heaven! The Great Hereafter! At this point I thought Law was going to say something that would win him his MBA (See: http://hpanwo.blogspot.com/2011/02/deathbed-mbas.html), but unfortunately he just went back to his Evil God Hypothesis, an argument that he would repeat throughout the evening a little too much I think. However Craig made a pretty big gaff when he said that the suffering of animals didn’t matter so much because all animals, with the exception of higher primates like humans, have no self-awareness, due to their lack of a prefrontal cortex in their brains. The subject of animal consciousness is extremely controversial and there is research which contradicts Craig’s assertion. There’s the “spot test” in which animals have a spot painted on their faces and are shown a mirror to see if they recognize themselves by being aware of the spot, in other words: self-awareness. I think over a hundred species passed the test; not just the great apes, but dogs, horses, elephants and many others. These animals have no prefrontal cortex, but still have self-awareness. This not only calls into question the ethics of current animal rights, but also debunks Craig’s theories about how God made these animals.

I should mention that the audience was in general very much behind Craig as I expected. They were very well-behaved, but a few people called out during the speakers’ sessions and Law got a few “boo’s” every time he took the floor. The debate became a bit entrenched and frustrating towards the second half of the evening as the two speakers repeated similar points over and over and little progress beyond them was made. Both the speakers accused the other of failing to respond to each other’s arguments. There were a few breakaway parties though, one or two adventures beyond the heartland. Law used the word “onus” three times, so fulfilling an important Skeptical obligation, see: http://hpanwoforum.freeforums.org/the-hpanwo-guide-to-being-a-forum-skep-dick-t912.html . There was also a moment when the debaters both explored the idea that God was neither good nor bad, but neutral. They also asked whether there might be more than one God behind the universe, in so doing they dabbled with Gnosticism, the idea of Lucifer or the Demiurge working alongside Yahweh, the Biblical God. Craig also pointed out the Atheist philosophers who have questioned Atheism like Frederick Nietzsche, Jean-Paul Sartre and Bertrand Russell (I was a bit disappointed that they didn’t mention the greatest philosopher that the world has ever seen! Ludwig Wittgenstein!.. Oh alright, I’m biased of course, see: http://hpanwo.blogspot.com/2011/07/hospital-porters-who-changed-world.html) I spoke earlier of William Lane Craig’s gaff over animal suffering, but in fact the biggest clanger of the evening by far was dropped by Stephen Law. He related a story that he also mentions in his book about a UFO sighting over a nuclear power station in 1967 which was hyped up into a massive Close Encounter event. Policemen and other responsible witnesses described it as being an enormous saucer-shaped craft the size of a football field with little grey aliens inside etc, and then later it turned out to be just the planet Venus. Maybe Law was counting on there being no UFOlogists in the audience; in which case he counted wrong. I’ve not heard of this particular case, which is surprising if it was such a major UFO-related occurrence; but if it were true it was definitely not representative of the UFO phenomenon, the witnesses to it or the people involved in researching it. He does himself no favours by bringing this anecdote up.

So did we get a final answer, one to terminate the endless centuries of wrangling? No. It was a complete stalemate. As with Douglas Adams’ Deep Thought, see: http://hpanwo.blogspot.com/2010/11/meaning-of-life.html we were just left with our own “42!” The scope of the debate and the enterprise of the participants was slightly lacking and I came away feeling a bit disappointed. If anything I’d say that William Lane Craig may have slightly got the upper hand, but this doesn’t mean he proved Stephen Law wrong, nor does it mean I’m about to become a Christian from listening to him! Still, I’m going to see Craig live again at the Sheldonian Theatre here at home in Oxford next Tuesday where he’s supposed to be debating Richard Dawkins; if Dawkins turns up! In fact Craig’s supporters have satirized Dawkins indecisiveness and his unwillingness to step up to the table by putting adverts on Oxford’s buses saying: “THERE IS PROBABLY NO DAWKINS SO ENJOY A LECTURE INSTEAD”. This is a satire of the famous Atheist Bus Campaign of several years ago, see: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bSrSwRpBdHk The good news is: you can decide for yourself over what went on this evening because the entire Craig-Law debate will soon be available on the Unbelievable podcast: http://www.premier.org.uk/unbelievable

One thing I’ve learned from this event and others like it is that there’s a great deal of difference between proving somebody wrong and winning a debate. Debating is a skill in itself regardless of the content of what’s being debated. In the beginning I found this revelation rather shocking and distasteful. It sounded to me like people were employing sophistry when persuasive reason failed them, but I’ve come to accept it and even admire those who excel in this verbal art-form. The grandmaster has to be the great Christopher Hitchens. Here he is at work: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S6P1NQ7PkG4 Hitchens has made a niche so deep for himself in this field that he is almost the founder of his own genre, never mind the grandmaster. This leads me to question his sincerity. Does he really believe in everything that he’s preaching? Or is he just like a very smart lawyer? His opinions seem to be very convenient, tailor-made in order for him to disagree with virtually everybody! He’s a Leftist who supports the War on Terror, he’s an Atheist who opposes abortion; he truly is the universal contrarian. He’s also made some very contradictory statements on the status of the Armed Forces. However this is not really a criticism; as I said, I just enjoy this wonderful new spectator sport. As Deep Thought said in the original radio and TV show on Douglas Adams’ Hitch-Hikers’ Guide to the Galaxy: “The Neutron-Wrangler could talk all four legs off an Altairian mega-donkey, but only I could persuade it to go for a walk again afterwards!”

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UK Probe Conference October 2011

Here’s my HPANWO TV reportage of the UK Probe Conference October 2011 which contains a lot more details as well as exclusive Probe footage. As always at the present time I've not done a full-length written report on this event: http://hpanwo-tv.blogspot.com/2011/10/uk-probe-conference-2011.html

This October 2011 Probe Conference was unique in several ways. The conference is always held close to the Equinox and so tends to be in March and October. At that time of year the Lancashire coast tends to be either mildly sunny and warm or windy and wet. However this weekend the weather has been unprecedented for its heat and sunshine. Temperatures have risen up into the high 80’s all over southern Britain. It was as if Probe had been moved to the summer, and a very hot summer for that matter. I’ve never seen anything like it! Predictably the British public was quick to take advantage of the situation and the train from Preston to Blackpool was a cattle-truck. I was dismayed to see that the police had installed airport-style metal-detectors at the gates of Preston Station. If you look at my previous Probe report, see: http://hpanwo-tv.blogspot.com/2011/03/uk-probe-conference-march-2011.html , you’ll see that Preston Station holds a special place in my heart. Luckily on the way home these scanners were gone, clearly a temporary attribute to remind the people that we shouldn’t get too comfortable and relaxed. Don’t we realize how much in danger we are from terrorists under our deckchairs?

This conference was also unique in that Ustane was not with me. She’s busy at work and so couldn’t take the time off to come along. She’s been accompanying me to Probe since 2008 and I missed her a lot. However I met up with a lot of my old friends and made some new ones. I’ve had an offer from somebody to attend a skywatch at their friend’s estate where apparently there’s a Close Encounter of the First and Second Kind almost every night! I also met up with a lovely family who have a sweet, little 2 or 3 year old girl who reminds me of my own daughter when she was that age; rather than the hostile, rebellious, hefty 16-year old that she is today. They are regulars at the Sauniere Society Conference. I’ve realized that this is one I’ve yet to attend and should do so really, see: http://sauniere-society.org/

I feel a major change has come over the way I see the Probe Conference; not that I’m going off it, not at all. However there’s one major element of the Conference I’m going to have to break away from to prevent the event from being stripped of a lot of its enjoyment, that’s the Carlton Hotel. Along with breaking away from something I broke towards something else! I became an official cameraman for the last session of the Conference, Dex Dobie’s speech, see: http://www.dexdobie.com/ . Dex asked me to film his speech and gave me this very heavy and elaborate recording rig which he strapped to my torso ceremoniously. It had two separate cameras on it and a boom microphone. Unfortunately when Dex began his speech I realized that one of the cameras had plenty of film and a battery that was nearly flat and for the other it was vice versa! The cameras were different makes and so the two were incompatible. I tried putting one of my own film chips into the one with a full battery, but it prompted me to format the chip and so would erase all the film I’d taken myself. In the end when both Dex’ cameras were spent I switched to my own Sony. I don’t know how I managed it, but I was able to record the entire speech, minus a few moments here and there for panicked battery and film fiddling. The end of Dex' address came with about 2 minutes of battery left! It was recorded on 3 different cameras, on two chips and one disk using three different batteries. Half of it is with Dex and half with me; so in short it’s an editor’s nightmare! Good luck with it, Dex!

By the time I left the conference on Monday morning the weather had changed back to its usual rainy and damp autumnal ways, but when I descended from the train in Oxford Station the heat hit me as if I’d just got off a plane at a tropical airport. The more southern and eastern parts of Britain have been granted an extra day of this Indian Summer. Make the most of it! I’ve had a great time at Probe; thanks to Sam and all the other organizers. Unfortunately Jean couldn’t join us this time because she’s not been well. I ask all HPANWO-readers to sends her their best wishes and healing energy. Pray that she’ll make a swift recovery and be back in the driving seat at Probe soon.

One thing that disappointed me deeply was that on Saturday morning a mysterious alien appeared in the Conference auditorium and walked around trying to communicate with the people there… but I overslept and turned up late so I missed it!


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British Humanist Association Conspiracy Theory Conference

The British Humanist Association is rarely far from my thoughts, not since I awarded them a collective MBA very recently, see: http://hpanwo-tv.blogspot.com/2011/09/british-humanist-association-gets-its.html The other day, at very short notice, it was announced that none other than Ian R Crane (See HPANWO Links column) would be addressing them. This was curious, I thought. It turns out that the BHA were holding a “Conspiracy Theory Day”; I looked in my diary and saw I was off-duty so bought a ticket without hesitation, see http://www.humanism.org.uk/meet-up/events/view/154 . I’m glad I did because what I enjoyed when I attended yesterday was one of the most unusual and entertaining conferences I’ve ever been to.

The one-day conference was held in a comfortable and elegant old venue, Conway Hall in London, see: http://www.conwayhall.org.uk/ . The delegates were very different from the ones I usually see at conferences. These were mostly Humanists; Humanism is a form of organized Secularism or Atheism. Rather like the term “Conspiracy Theory” that the first speakers said later on was so hard to define, so is Humanism. It’s one of these terms that gives everybody a very strong and definite feeling about what it means, but it’s very hard to put it into words. I wouldn’t call myself a Humanist and very few other people would too, but when I took their quiz, see: http://hpanwoforum.freeforums.org/british-humanist-association-t1744-15.html (13th post down) as you can see I got “mostly D’s” so technically I could be a member myself! However the authors of this quiz are perhaps being a little dishonest. It could really have consisted of only one question: Number 2: “Is there an Afterlife”. If you answer “Yes” you cannot be a Humanist, even if you choose D for every other answer. The non-existence of Life-After-Death is the lifeblood, cornerstone and raison d’etre of Humanism, not a lack of religion, or God not existing or believing in being kind to others yadda yadda yadda, it’s the absolute self-conviction that when you die that’s it! You cease to exist for all eternity. It is for this reason that I feel such pride and such elation in decorating the British Humanist Association with the MBA Bronze! It’s obvious for this reason that Humanism shares a lot of common grounds with the Skeptic Movement. Most Humanists are Skeptics and vice-versa.

I looked around the room for familiar faces and experienced a strange feeling as I saw both the conspiratorially-aware people I meet at AV, Probe and other conferences, together with the Skeptics I bump into at the various Skeptics in The Pub events I go to, see for example: http://hpanwo.blogspot.com/2008/09/skeptic-in-pub-15908.html . It was a very peculiar feeling to see these two aspects of my social life coming together when up till now they’ve always been in strictly separate compartments. I saw two friends I went to Exopol with, see: http://hpanwo.blogspot.com/2011/08/exopolitics-leeds-2011.html , and I also met up with Ian R Crane and Alex G of AV and Nick Pope; but at the same time I saw SiTP-members I knew and a few “Skeptilebrities” (A compound word I’ve invented that means a Skeptic celebrity), like James O’Malley of The Pod Delusion radio show, see: http://poddelusion.co.uk/blog/ . I looked down the row of stalls and felt the hooks of cognitive dissonance tear my mental flesh as I saw Ian R Crane’s stall right next to the ones selling books by Richard Dawkins and Richard Wiseman.

I felt myself almost melt with awe and humility at the sight of Prof. Chris French coming onto the stage as the first speaker. When I think back now I can still hardly believe that I was truly in the presence of one of only two MBA Gold Laureates in the world! See: http://hpanwo-tv.blogspot.com/2009/09/prof-chris-french-mba-gold.html . When I finally collected my senses and recovered from the almost overwhelming emotion I was a bit disappointed to see that The Great Man was not alone on stage; he had to share it with a slim, gangly and very studious young man called Robert Brotherton. I was shocked to see that Brotherton did not kneel down and kiss the ground when addressing French, so breaking MBA protocol! It turns out that this is a colleague of Prof. French at the Anomalistic Psychology Unit at Goldsmith’s College. The two men did a double-act. At first they tried to define the term “Conspiracy Theory”. It’s one that is intuitively obvious, but hard to put into actual words. They took on the idea that David Ray Griffin always voices, that the official story of 9/11 is just another Conspiracy Theory, one in which Bin Laden conspired with Mohammed Atta et al to crash airliners into the World Trade Centre. They said that this was actually not a Conspiracy Theory because it made much more sense and had much more evidence supporting it. It didn’t rely on mantra of Conspiracy Theory, that 1: Everything is a lie, 2: Everything is intended, 3: Everything is significant. It was a "natrual collective consensus of opinion". However they, like the following speaker Karen Douglas, make the point that at the end of the day the whole issue does depend on evidence and rational inquiry. However French, Brotherton and Douglas all concentrated their speech around psychological profiling and indeed French stated in as many words: “I’m not going to debate the evidence for or against particular Conspiracy Theories; this is not the place for that.” So this event was about the psychological phenomenon of Conspiracy Theory, not any actual reason that it might exist. This was a very important admission on their part, but I don’t think they quite understood the significance of it. He repeated this rule again during his Q and A when members of the audience went up to angrily challenge him on his views. One of them was Belinda McKenzie who won lots of hearts, including my own, when she said indignantly : “I’m a conspiracy realist!", (see: http://www.wholetruthcoalition.org/author/belindamckenzie ) Ironically Chris French made the statement that afternoon that I most agreed with: “There’s a lot of pseudoscience in psychology you know.” He meant it as a criticism of something Ian R Crane said, but I think it could have applied to something entirely different!

Dr Karen Douglas (See: http://www.kent.ac.uk/psychology/people/douglask/ ) came onto stage next and spoke of her own psychological studies on Conspiracy Theorists. “Why is it that people believe in these things?” she asked. She said it had a lot to do with feeling powerless and full of despair. But she also said some strange things that made no sense to me. Firstly she told us that many Conspiracists hold two or more mutually contradictory beliefs, like Bin Laden being killed many years ago and also Bin Laden still being alive. I wonder who Dr Douglas was using as the subjects of her study. I’ve never met anybody who thinks that. I know a lot of people who believe Bin Laden is still alive, and many who think he died around 2001, including myself, but never the twain have met as far as I can see. During the Q and A I went up to ask a question: “Thank you for that very interesting profile into the psychology of Conspiracy Theorists. I want to make a suggestion for a new study; if my suggestion is taken up I’d be very interested in following its progress and results. It’s a study on the psychological profile of another group of people, one called by a name whose meaning is also very easy to understand intuitively, but hard to define in actual words. That name is: Skeptic!” (I then made a false exit and came back to the mic) “... with a K!” Unfortunatly Karen Douglas answered my question literally; my ironic sarcasm went right over her head! Just imagine though, hosting a conference and saying things like: “Why do people believe in the Skeptic Movement? What comfort to they derive from it? What kind of background do they have that leads them to follow Skeptical leaders? Etc.” Now that would be a good conference to attend!

The next two speakers were a pair of skinny young men with bushy hair and beards; they looked just like the 118-118 twins, see: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LZw87CSV-o4 (My friend Richard Wright also noted their similarity in appearance to Mark Pilkington, see: http://hpanwo-tv.blogspot.com/2011/09/assap-seriously-strange-conference.html . They have suffered a lot of abuse on the Internet for a scientific paper they wrote on Conspiracy Theorists. They work for DEMOS, an organization that has aroused much suspicion from people like Brian Gerrish for its links to Common Purpose and other “Fifth Column” organizations. Bartlett and Miller deny that DEMOS is anything sinister and is really a cuddly, friendly organization. I’m not convinced at all, but on the subject of abuse and hatred towards others who criticize us, I must agree. In fact I’m one of the voices that appealed for calm after the infamous U-turn by Charlie Veitch, see: http://hpanwo-voice.blogspot.com/2011/07/charlie-veitch-911-u-turn.html .

Stephen Law, whom I met at Oxford SiTP, see: http://hpanwo.blogspot.com/2011/07/skeptical-renaissance.html came out to introduce the last speaker Ian R Crane. He said that he was concerned when he found out that some Conspiracy Theorists had bought tickets. He thought that there could have been disruption. I actually went up and spoke to Law at the end and said jokingly: “You see, we ‘Conspiracy Theorists’ are not all disruptive are we?” In fact everybody behaved impeccably the whole day, and there were a lot of friendly interactions, as well as conflict, between the two factions in the audience. In the end this was a public conference and if anybody was that bothered they could have made it a private BHA function with tickets sold to members only. Anyway, I digress; Ian R Crane was there because Law thought it would be a good idea to have a pro-Conspiracy Theory speaker as well as all the anti ones. He was worried that the conference might become boring as the speakers “preached to the converted”. He was correct there! Ian came onto the stage and made what was arguably one of the best speeches I’ve ever seen him do. He must have been a bit nervous as this was the enemy’s lair, so to speak. However, come to think of it, he did address the Women’s Institute! See: http://hpanwo.blogspot.com/2009/04/emergency-swine-flu-meeting-with-ian.html . Ian had obviously tailor-made his speech for this specific audience. I had a feeling he’d pull some spectacular stunt and he didn’t disappoint. In the middle of his address he invited Tony Farrell up onto the stage, see: http://hpanwo-voice.blogspot.com/2011/09/tony-farrell.html . It was a very dramatic moment and we gave him a standing ovation as he walked up to the stage from the back of the hall. Karen Douglas had spoke of the “attraction” of holding belief in Conspiracy Theory, but what was the attraction for Tony? Losing his job? Losing his income? Losing his pension, his livelihood and reputation? If I didn’t know about the Skeptic mentality any better then I’d have thought that there’d be a few flushed cheeks and darting gazes, but no such luck. During the panel discussion at the end of the conference the Skeppers kept on rationalizing and reducing. However if Ian just made one member of the audience think again...

This was a superb conference and I’m very glad I went. Thanks to Stephen Law and all the other organizers. Also thanks to the speakers, especially Ian and Tony Farrell. This may well only be Part 1 of a two-part report because at the end of the day the challenge went out for a public debate on a specific Conspiracy Theoretical detail featuring Ian and one of the Skeps from the panel. Alex G has promised to televise it on EMTV, see: http://www.edgemediatv.com/about.html . I shall look forward to that very much!

A good postscript to this report is that I had a very pleasant conversation with Nick Pope and I’m pleased to relate that he bears me no ill will for my report into his Weird 11 speech, see: http://hpanwo.blogspot.com/2011/09/nick-pope-his-next-step.html If he had, however, I would not retract it.
(Edit: This event has been filmed eg: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Yx3E1G9IMc )

Latest HPANWO Voice article: http://hpanwo-voice.blogspot.com/2011/09/red-arrows-london-olympic-campaign.html
And: http://hpanwo-voice.blogspot.com/2011/09/my-interview-in-sun.html
And: http://hpanwo-voice.blogspot.com/2011/09/tony-farrell.html
And: http://hpanwo-voice.blogspot.com/2011/09/4-trapped-miners.html

Latest HPANWO TV films: http://hpanwo-tv.blogspot.com/2011/09/gateway-to-parallel-universe.html
And: http://hpanwo-tv.blogspot.com/2011/09/weird-11-conference.html
And: http://hpanwo-tv.blogspot.com/2011/09/assap-seriously-strange-conference.html
And: http://hpanwo-tv.blogspot.com/2011/09/british-humanist-association-gets-its.html

Latest HPWA article: http://hpanwo-hpwa.blogspot.com/2011/09/why-do-we-need-hpwa.html

Nick Pope- his Next Step

My review of Nick Pope’s speech at the Weird 11 Conference Lizards and Lies- the Truth about Conspiracy Theories; Saturday the 17th of September 2011. This is a follow-up article to one I wrote several months ago entitled What Next for Nick Pope?, see: http://hpanwo.blogspot.com/2011/06/what-next-for-nick-pope.html

See here for my HPANWO TV reportage of the Weird 11 Conference: http://hpanwo-tv.blogspot.com/2011/09/weird-11-conference.html

Nick knows that I’m planning to review his conference address. He seems to trust me to do a fair job, although he'll have guessed that I’m going to disagree with his conclusions. I hope I’ve honoured his trust; I try to respect all people and don’t like being hurtful to others. At the same time I have to be honest in my opinions. This world is full of fence-sitters and opportunistic scientific prostitutes; who was it who said: “a friend to all is a friend to none.”? That’s very true. Nick has taken a lot of stick over the years from his fellow researchers and I’m afraid it’s my duty to give him a little bit more. However I bear him no personal ill-will and I’d even go as far as to say that I like the man! I appreciate that he has done much to bring the subject of UFO’s into the public arena and, although he has not addressed the full scale of the subject, he’s been sincere in his beliefs. As I’ll explain below, I’m sure he’s not a “shill”. He’s also recently been a tower-of-strength for several UFO abductees and has acted as a conduit between them and Budd Hopkins, who was a very sympathetic researcher who took UFO contact extremely seriously (Hopkins passed away a few weeks ago RIP, Budd), see my report on the latest Leeds Exopolitics Conference, see: http://hpanwo.blogspot.com/2011/08/exopolitics-leeds-2011.html

This was a brand new speech for Nick on a subject he’s not yet delivered in a conference address. The title immediately gives it away that this is a Skeptical speech about Conspiracy Theories (I shall use the term “Conspiracy Theory” throughout this report with the same definition and meaning that Nick does, purely for my own convenience. I know that there are many issues regarding the use of this expression that I can’t really go into in this report; in other articles I do.), although Nick opened with a statement that he didn’t intend for his speech to be another “hatchet-job” and wanted it to be even-handed. He first told us why he thought he was especially qualified to talk about Conspiracy Theories. It came from his career at the Ministry of Defence and it is there that he first came up with the idea, and therefore I wonder why it’s taken him so long to speak openly about the subject. When he was head of AS-2, the MoD’s UFO Desk, he came to realize that Conspiracy Theories are the staple diet of many UFO-believers. Those who regularly reported seeing unknown phenomena in the sky also made claims about Government complicity and deception in the same statements. Another reason, and I suspect that this is the main one, is that Nick himself has been on the receiving end of many Conspiracy Theories and has been the target of the very accusations his witnesses made. According to some UFO-researchers Nick is a “shill”, a Government agent who seeds the UFOlogical community with false information and downplays genuine mysteries. I wonder if he has a bit of an axe to grind here! Who wouldn’t in his place? He also believes that his own experience of working in the heart of Government for so long means that he has a lot of knowledge and insight into how governments work and how politicians think; the kinds of things they say and do. He warns us that whenever we come across a Conspiracy Theory we should ask ourselves three key questions: Could they? Would they? And, does the science support it? He then told us his psychological views on Conspiracy Theorists. We are apparently ridden with unreasonable mistrust of Government; all Conspiracy Theories, with the exception of the Paul-is-Dead Theory (see: http://hpanwo.blogspot.com/2008/11/is-paul-mccartney-dead.html) involve Government deceit and/or violence of some kind. Usually the media is complicit by covering up the truth in some way. Nick reckons that this is a false view of how media and the Government really work; he sites as his example the Claudy Bomb Conspiracy, a real conspiracy that took place in Northern Ireland in 1972. On the 31st of July an IRA bomb exploded and killed 9 people. A man named Father James Chesney was quickly arrested and charged with the murders, but curiously the case was closed before Chesney was prosecuted. What had happened? It later turned out that the police, the Home Secretary at the time, Willie Whitelaw, and the Church authorities secretly granted Chesney immunity in some shady deal. This was because having a Catholic priest being exposed as an IRA bomber was too embarrassing, politically and socially, to be allowed to pass. It was feared that this would deepen the Troubles and cause further warfare and bloodshed. Nick’s point was that the media fought tooth-and-nail to reveal the truth about the Claudy Conspiracy, at great embarrassment to the Government, so how can the media try to expose the truth against Government suppression one moment and the next be part of covering up the truth in collusion with the Government? Isn’t that a contradiction? I don’t think so. For one thing, the Claudy revelation might not be as earth-shattering as you might think when you consider that accusations of Government misdeeds during the Troubles in Northern Ireland have been flying around the place for the entire period and since, and have as a result become a bit passe. In fact it’s worth watching Peter Taylor’s TV series' Provoes, Loyalists and Brits for far more information about this kind of thing, see EG: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1yDXbc9G1wk The British and Irish governments continuously carried out secret deals and negotiations with the paramilitary groups on both sides throughout the Troubles. Another problem with Nick’s assessment is that dallying around a few curves to quash a prosecution is hardly the crime of the century, although I’m sure it would seem that way for the loved-ones of the victims. It’s only the same sort of legal shut-down that was quite openly carried out more recently when IRA and Loyalist murderers were released early from prison as part of the Good Friday Agreement. For the media it’s not that much worse than Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinsky’s affair, surely! What if it was revealed, say, that the British Government was actually actively involved in the street-killings of the Troubles? What if they were actually running some of the IRA death-squads? Obviously the media would be onto that like a greyhound out of the trap... wouldn’t they? No. Why have they not followed up Paul Bruce’s accusations in his book The Nemesis File? In this book he accuses the Government of precisely that and what’s more confesses his own role therein, see: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Nemesis-File-Story-Execution-Squad/dp/185782167X . Where are the roving mainstream journalists here? They’re ignoring it; why? Because it’s a step too far down the ladder of immorality, a place where they will not go. Government lying about weapons of mass destruction, tape recordings in the Oval Office, ministers sleeping with prostitutes, even covering up somebody else’s murder at Claudy. That’s bad, but not too bad, and the media will love it; but if it involves the Government actively committing murder, it crosses the line. Remind you of anything else? Read on!

Nick next talked a bit about what he calls Conspiracy Theory “Tropes”. This means terminology like “Sheeple”, “Shill” and “New World Order”. He finds the word “sheeple”, meaning a non-Conspiracy Theorist, extremely patronizing and I must say I agree with him; it’s insulting and using it is counter-productive. It’s a word you’ll never hear coming from my lips. Nick is not a “Shill”, as I’ve said before. I don't question that Nick is saying what he truly thinks is true. As I’ve said in my review of Andy Roberts’ book UFO Down, see: http://hpanwo.blogspot.com/2011/01/ufo-down-by-andy-roberts.html , shills who know they are shills are a liability. Managing people like Nick is far more effective than employing shills because Nick doesn’t have to be briefed in on the secret, so preventing the conspiracy from becoming top-heavy. The conspirators don't have to worry that he might develop a conscience and spill the beans. He can’t swap benches as Fife Symington did with the Phoenix lights; in fact he can promote complete falsehoods and be totally sincere about it. I suspect somebody may be using Nick without his knowledge. There are those I think are shills, and I’m willing to name them (like Anjem Choudary, see: http://hpanwo.blogspot.com/2010/01/muslim-clerics-are-they-shills.html ), but Nick is not among them. The “New World Order” is another of Nick’s tropes. This is a term I do use, but I only use it because I think it’s true. The New World Order is real and it’s happening! How do I know? Well, look at the rest of my articles and films. Nick then puts a situation to us: A person dies in a car crash because the driver is drunk and speeding; should we be suspicious? The instinctive answer is “No”. Such tragedies sadly happen virtually every day. So why then, asks Nick, do we think Princess Diana was assassinated? The answer is that what happened to Diana is totally different to any other car crash I’ve ever heard about, especially in terms of the shady background of the driver, the behaviour of the ambulance and hospital personnel who treated her, the way the scene was not preserved by accident investigators... the list goes on and on. Here’s a good website with all the details by a Probe Conference-regular Jon King: http://www.consciousape.com/discussion-topics/political-assassinations/ . There’s also the testimony of the former MI6 agent David Tomlinson, “The other David Shayler”. Tomlinson has spoken of a plan to assassinate the Serbian tyrant Slobodan Milosevic by staging a car crash. Just before the car drove into a tunnel the assassins would shine a special flash-gun into the face of the driver, one so powerful that it can blind a man for up to four minutes. After that special forces or secret service agents hiding nearby would run down into the tunnel, and if Milosevic had survived the crash they’d kill him by a poisoned injection. The only difference in Diana’s case was that the secret agents were probably one of the medical staff. I’m convinced Diana was assassinated and I think Nick is wrong to dismiss it as an accident. The same goes for Dr David Kelly. Nick sites confidently the Hutton Enquiry, one which even Tony Blair had to speak at, as proof that nobody in Government is hiding anything. “Why were there no fingerprints on the knife?” he asks. “Surely if Kelly were assassinated then his killers would have forced the knife into his dead grip and made sure his dabs were all over it”. This logic I find perplexing: The absence of evidence of a suicide is evidence supporting that it was a suicide? I must have seriously lost Nick’s drift at this point! I also direct readers to the testimony of Dave Bartlett, a man I’m personally acquainted with, who was the paramedic attending the scene. In his 30 years in the Ambulance Service Dave has had the unenviable duty of attending many suicides using the methods Kelly is supposed to have used, but Kelly’s is unique in that there was no blood. Kelly hardly bled at all so how could he have bled to death? His body might have bled slightly if his wrists had been cut by somebody after he was dead. The book The Strange Death of Dr David Kelly by the Rt. Hon. Norman Baker MP is worth reading: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Strange-Death-David-Kelly/dp/1842752170 (Don't let the unimaginitive title put you off!), the author was a speaker at the AV3 Conference, see: http://hpanwo.blogspot.com/2009/11/alternative-view-3-part-1.html .

Next Nick addresses some of the more “far out” Conspiracy Theories like Chemtrails. Nick remembers seeing high-flying aircraft leaving long, thick trails as a child and sees nothing different today. This is just water vapour, he says, and is completely harmless. I can’t say I share Nick’s memory of aircraft trails in my childhood that match today’s in any way. Modern trails can be hundreds of miles long and a dozen or more miles wide; just a handful of them can cover a completely blue and clear sky with an opaque, milky fog in just a few hours. They can last all day, whereas natural clouds and jet trails evaporate. And to crown it all, the normal jet condensation trails, exactly like the ones we used to see as kids, still exist today, sometimes being released from aircraft right next to Chemtrail planes. Another of Nick’s doubts about Chemtrails comes from the contradictory statements researchers make about them. Nobody seems to be sure what they are or why they’re being made and Nick sees this as a reason to dispute their existence. I don’t; I see them simply as Nick did in his initial point: We don’t know what they are. Maybe they’re some kind of climate modification technique, maybe they’re to fill the biosphere with some non-natural agent; I’ve not made up my mind yet. Another reason Nick is sceptical that Chemtrails are real is that the aircraft which leave them fly so much higher than crop-dusting aircraft. The latter usually skim very low over the fields, as opposed to Chemtrail planes which usually release their loads at altitudes of many thousands of feet. Again, this is not a valid point unless we already have an answer to the question of what Chemtrails are. There may be reason why they need to be deposited so high up. See here for more information: http://hpanwo.blogspot.com/2007/10/chemtrails-and-tomorrows-world.html

The authorities never used to bother answering Conspiracy Theorists like me and they’d just ignore us, with contemptuous giggles no doubt. However that’s changed and there are official government policies which denounce the fake Moon Landings, 9/11 Truth and Chemtrails. I take heart from this; it means our voices are now too loud to block out, however Nick just sees this as sociologically interesting, a response to the rise of the Internet and the proliferation of information from dubious, as Nick sees them, sources. There is even a webpage by mainstream astronomers addressing fears of 2012 and Comet Elenin, see: http://www.armaghplanet.com/blog/10-facts-you-need-to-know-about-comet-elenin.html .

Nick then goes on to the subject he's most renowned for after UFO’s: Debunking 9/11 Truth. “It’s a real no-planer!” he put on his display screen; I hear Civil Service-types enjoy puns like this. Unfortunately he didn’t give the conference many details of why he thinks 9/11 was not an inside job, but here he is in a debate with Annie Machon: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jD-9cDigUN4 . I’ve also eavesdropped when he was in a pub once debating 9/11 with a well-known 9/11 Truth campaigner. As far as I can see Nick addresses the same cliche debunkers that these two appalling TV shows do: http://hpanwo-voice.blogspot.com/2011/09/911-conspiracy-road-trip.html and: http://hpanwo-voice.blogspot.com/2011/08/bbc-conspiracy-piles.html These theories have been addressed many times by 9/11 Truth researchers and activists over the last few years; the material in these programmes is just repeats of the old hat wheeled out by Popular Mechanics and other journals. As with the attempts to dismiss Roswell, they suspend disbelief way beyond the tensile strength of WTC steel!

Nick then leapt off a precipice and descended into the Dark Side of Conspiracy Theory, as he sees it, "The Jewish Question"! He voices his concern that “so many” 9/11 Truthers believe stories about how Mossad phoned up all the Jews working in the World Trade Centre and warned them to stay off work on 9/11. “So many”? I’ve never met a single serious 9/11 Truth activist who believes that. It’s sadly true that there are some proponents of the Far Right in the Conspiratorial Community who buy into the “It’s the Jews” line, but they are a small minority. Likewise, to respond to another of Nick’s worries, when I and most others talk about a cartel of international bankers we mean that literally: They are... well... bankers! And bankers come in all shapes, sizes and colours. They are as likely to be gentile as Jew and if they happen to be Jewish I don’t consider that relevant to why I oppose them. Nick mentions the delegate at Exopol who spoke out during Robbie Graham’s speech claiming that the BBC was all run by Jews and Nick claims that many of the delegates nodded in agreement. Well, not all of them, Nick! Some of us vehemently contradicted her, like me for instance, see Part 10 here: http://hpanwo-tv.blogspot.com/2011/08/leeds-exopolitics-expo-2011.html . There was something that bothered me greatly about Nick bringing up this subject: Even though I agree with him that we should be wary about pointing fingers at races, creeds and colours, and challenge those who do, the accusation of AntiSemitism is constantly used by anti-Conspiracy Skeptics, especially among the radical Liberal press and Far Left activists, to smear the character of completely innocent people. A classic case is how David Icke was treated in Canada, see: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-2912878405399014351# (Jon Ronson went on to make a rather good documentary and book: The Men who Stare at Goats, but this earlier film series is very poor). For every Conspiratorially-minded person justly accused of AntiSemitism there are 10 who are falsely accused of it. The problem is that this accusation is so emotive that once the AntiSemitism label is stuck on you it is very difficult to wash off, see: http://hpanwo.blogspot.com/2010/07/how-anti-semitic-are-you.html . The way we are accused of it when we mention Israel’s horrific acts of imperialism is another piece of hypersensitive hysteria that our critics have exploited. How many more times do we have to restate that opposition to Israel does not equal hatred of Jews!? Zionism is not Judaism! There are many very noble and intelligent Jews who are dedicated anti-Zionists like Noam Chomsky and Norman Finkelstein; there are also plenty of fanatically Zionistic gentiles, like... many US Presidents and British Prime Ministers. Nick ridicules the idea that the word “ZION” is encoded into the London Olympic logo and thinks that this is pareidolia, the perception of organized shapes where none exists, like seeing faces in clouds. He quipped that, for people whose minds work in a certain way, it also resembles Lisa Simpson performing fellatio! However when you look into the background of the Illuminati, especially their obsession with ritual and black magic, that encoding the Olympic symbol in this way would be perfectly normal behaviour, in fact we should expect it. The head of the London Olympic committee is the former athlete and politician Lord Coe, who is an outspoken defender of Israel; indeed when Matthew Delooze wrote to him voicing his concerns Coe did not reply, see: http://hpanwo.blogspot.com/2008/10/breaking-serpents-spell-matthew-delooze.html . Nick also pours scorn on the idea that the Powers-that-Be might try to stage a fake alien invasion at the Olympics; and on somebody whom he doesn’t name, but calls: “one of the major proponents of the theory”. I assume he means Ian R Crane. “Why do it during the Closing Ceremony?” demanded Nick “Who watches that? Wouldn’t it be better to do it at the Opening Ceremony? If it were me behind it I’d wait for the Men’s 100 Metres Finals and then bring on the aliens!” This misses the point that if this Fake Alien Invasion Theory is true then it will most likely be done at the Closing Ceremony for occult ritual reasons; the date is significant. Nick is thinking in purely utilitarian terms; he’s obviously not as obsessed with the occult as the Illuminati are! The Illuminati don’t think like that. If Nick’s going to prove our Conspiracy Theories wrong then he’s going to have to understand the data that we apply to them. Anyway I’m sure if aliens land at the Closing Ceremony of the London Olympics, fake or real, then the viewers will soon switch over; it will become the most watched Olympic Closing Ceremony in history!

Nick thinks that the biggest danger with Conspiracy Theories comes from distrust of the medical establishment. He cites the same cases that Ben Goldacre and others (See: http://hpanwo.blogspot.com/2009/03/bad-science-by-ben-goldacre_25.html ) constantly does that follow the basic plot: Child ill; parents are both “evil Woo-Woo’s” and so didn’t get child vaccinated/refuse valid medical treatment; child dies. Nick said that the Internet is not the place for getting medical advice; where is then? I wish that Nick had been given another hour on stage! Maybe he could have come back and replaced Robert Bauval for the spare hour; because I’d love to have heard why he thinks it’s wrong to distrust the medical establishment, given its track record. Think of this plot: Child ill; both parents have faith in the medical establishment and so give child vaccines/conventional medical treatment; child dies. With such a heart-rending and crucial subject we need a proper debate, not rhetoric! I hope that when Nick brings up this subject again it is during a proper discussion with somebody supporting the other side of the story. From what I can see, I’d never take any conventional medical treatment at all unless it was absolutely necessary, like I was having a heart attack etc.

“Despite their faults, the US and UK governments are not dictatorships” said Nick. “I’ve never seen in all my years in the Government anybody ever planning an assassination.” In fact Nick told us of how he’d spoken to an American Army General about what the Iraqi invasion was really for and the General replied: “Food, water and electric lights for the Iraqi people.” Nick believes that it’s correct to think critically of the authorities so long as we also subject Conspiracy Theories to an equal amount of scrutiny. We should, Nick says, remember that Conspiracy Theories can be flawed and involve deceit and delusion too; we should ask ourselves some of the very obvious questions that so many Conspiracy Theorists so often fail to ponder. It amazes me that Nick doesn’t ask himself just one very key question: If somebody were planning an assassination, would he necessarily know about it? Nick describes how he met the Saudi Royal Family last year when he attended a conference in Riyadh: “They don’t want to depopulate the world!” Nick asserted. “They want more people to buy more products! There’s no dark smoke-filled room where the Elite are plotting to wipe out three-quarters of humanity!” Really? Surely Nick doesn’t think that if such a room existed that the door would open as he was walking past and somebody would invite him in! “Come in, Nick. Shut the door behind you. Have a cigar! This is what’s really going on, but just don’t tell anyone eh?” Why should that General he spoke to be told that his job was actually to slaughter people so that the oil companies could make a billion dollar profit? Do I really have to explain compartmentalization and “Need-to-Know” to a former Civil Servant?

I’m not sure exactly why Nick has decided to make this change in his career; he was doing well with the UFO subject, in fact he’s got a popular column in UFO Matrix magazine and it seems he’s still an essential ingredient at any UFO conference. I’m not going to play amateur psychologist; that would insult both Nick and you, the reader. However if he has some agenda in mind, a goal that he wants to achieve, I can’t see that he’ll get very far with it. For one reason, as a fellow Weird 11 delegate I met said: “He’s preaching to the unconvertible!” Also he doesn’t go into detail about why he thinks that Conspiracy Theories are such nonsense. At the start of his speech he asked us to pose his three key questions: Could they? Would they? And, does the science support it? What I’ve found in many Conspiracy Theories, including all the ones Nick mentioned is that the answer is an unequivocal and resounding: “Yes!” “Yes!” and “Yes!”

(Addendum: The sound quality in the auditorium, especially on Saturday morning, was very poor. I spoke to some of the crew and they told me that they suspected that one of the audience was using a radio-jammer to block Nick Pope's wireless microphone. I hope not. As much as a differ with Nick he has a right to speak and to be heard.)

Latest HPANWO Voice article: http://hpanwo-voice.blogspot.com/2011/09/4-trapped-miners.html
And: http://hpanwo-voice.blogspot.com/2011/09/accident-at-french-nuclear-power.html
And: http://hpanwo-voice.blogspot.com/2011/09/911-conspiracy-road-trip.html
And: http://hpanwo-voice.blogspot.com/2011/09/another-climate-change-dineier.html

Latest HPANWO TV films: http://hpanwo-tv.blogspot.com/2011/09/weird-11-conference.html
And: http://hpanwo-tv.blogspot.com/2011/09/assap-seriously-strange-conference.html
And: http://hpanwo-tv.blogspot.com/2011/09/british-humanist-association-gets-its.html
And: http://hpanwo-tv.blogspot.com/2011/09/tavistock-institute.html

Knobs for Cox!

I’m back from the ASSAP Seriously Strange Conference and as I said before in my one for Exopol, (See: http://hpanwo.blogspot.com/2011/08/exopolitics-leeds-2011.html) I’m not going to do a full-length written report. Instead I’ve done my usual HPANWO TV Reportage, see: http://hpanwo-tv.blogspot.com/2011/09/assap-seriously-strange-conference.html The reportage is about more than just the conference and in some of the segments I branch off into other related or semi-related areas. For instance I discuss the 9/11 issue on Sunday because it was the 10th anniversary of this atrocity and it made Ustane and I wonder if we were in the right place. I was very glad to attend the conference and enjoyed it a lot, but perhaps we should have been at one of the many 9/11 Truth events that took place over the weekend. My concerns over Charlie Veitch were well-founded it seems! See: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i73ohlcRjAo The lady confronting Charlie is my friend Belinda, a great researcher and freedom-fighter. I also returned to experience the very powerful and poignant spectacle of the Roman Baths, the central tourist attraction in the city. I never cease to be effected by the story behind it and its implications for the past, present and ultimately, future.

Anyway, onto the principle new direction I’m taking as a result of the information I picked up at the conference, and I’m not talking about Bigfoot this time. This concerns not a 7 foot tall hairy unknown primate living in some remote forest; but a slightly smaller and less hairy specimen of Homo Sapiens Sapiens with a cheesy Mancunian grin, living and working in the CERN laboratory in Switzerland: Professor Brian Cox. I’ve written about him before, like here: http://hpanwo.blogspot.com/2008/03/large-hadron-collider.html As Richard Wright says in the reportage, we need to do something about him. He was on a BBC (Them again!) Radio 4 show a few days ago with the Skeptic Robin Ince, see: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0128mlk He and Robin were having a good chuckle about people who believe in ghosts, like me, and were obviously putting us all down big time as Skeptopaths tend to do. But I’m glad to say that the BBC was flooded by complaints! Cox was completely unrepentant and refused to apologize to the listeners. He said that people who believe in ghosts are all “nobbers”; I’m assuming this is a derogatory word from his native Manchester which means a fool or dupe. Now a little while ago a reporter from The Washington Post made a similar remark about people who believe in UFO’s, like me, calling us “cookies”. As a result the offices of the paper were inundated with deliveries of biscuits, cakes and cookies in an organized campaign of ridicule put out by the Exopolitics Movement. It was called “Cookies for Kelly” http://www.afterdisclosure.com/2010/10/cookies-for-kelly.html Now Richard suggests that we do something similar for Brian Cox: “Knobs for Cox”. What we do is all send Coxy a loose doorknob (without any sharp screws or anything in it of course) with a satirical message in it like “You yourself are a…” If it takes off we can even start a campaign website www.knobsforcox.com! Let’s do it! Who’s with us!?

Here’s his address:
Prof. Brian Cox
School of Physics and Astronomy
University of Manchester
Manchester
M13-9PL

Latest HPANWO Voice article: http://hpanwo-voice.blogspot.com/2011/09/911-conspiracy-road-trip.html
And: http://hpanwo-voice.blogspot.com/2011/09/another-climate-change-dineier.html
And: http://hpanwo-voice.blogspot.com/2011/09/have-i-got-morgellons.html
And: http://hpanwo-voice.blogspot.com/2011/08/bbc-conspiracy-piles.html

Latest HPANWO TV films: http://hpanwo-tv.blogspot.com/2011/09/assap-seriously-strange-conference.html
And: http://hpanwo-tv.blogspot.com/2011/09/british-humanist-association-gets-its.html
And: http://hpanwo-tv.blogspot.com/2011/09/tavistock-institute.html
And: http://hpanwo-tv.blogspot.com/2011/09/david-ickes-books-full-set.html
And: http://hpanwo-tv.blogspot.com/2011/08/lyall-watson.html
And: http://hpanwo-tv.blogspot.com/2011/08/bereavement-fee.html

The Skeptocrats Attack!

Background articles: http://hpanwo.blogspot.com/2008/04/god-delusion-by-richard-dawkins.html
And: http://hpanwo.blogspot.com/2011/04/paranormality-by-prof-richard-wiseman.html
And: http://hpanwo.blogspot.com/2010/10/tam-london-2010.html
And: http://hpanwo.blogspot.com/2010/07/at-least-you-can-trust-skeptics.html
(Apologies for yet another Skepticological article; hope you’re not getting bored of them, dear HPANWO-readers! I will have articles on other subjects coming soon.)

This is partly a follow-on article from one I wrote a couple of months ago called What if the Skeptics Had their Way? See: http://hpanwo.blogspot.com/2011/06/what-if-skeptics-had-their-way.html The themes I include therein have become more relevant because one of my favourite Youtube subscriptions, TreVelocita (http://www.youtube.com/user/TreVelocita?blend=2&ob=5) has thrown down the gauntlet! TreVelocita’s vids are mostly on Skepticistic, Atheistic and Humanistic issues. I occasionally comment of his or her videos, as I do on the JREF Forum, as I said in the What if The Skeptics… article. But now history has repeated itself! TreVelocita has posted this recording of the BBC’s Sunday Morning programme: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qj_Wd2Dm6W4 . The question being asked is the same one that got me involved on the JREF Forum thread. I invented the words “SkeptiNazi” and “Skeptocrat” to describe the Philadelphia City Council in this case; and I also use them to describe the person in the programme who wants to ban paying mediums and everybody who has commented in support of her. I apologize not.

It wasn’t long ago that Jack of Kent (See Links column) took on the case of Simon Singh, the famous science correspondent, when he was sued by the British Chiropractors Association for libel. Jack is currently campaigning for a reform of the Libel Laws. As I’ve said in my review of Ben Goldacre’s book, see: http://hpanwo.blogspot.com/2009/03/bad-science-by-ben-goldacre_25.html , I support Jack and Simon Singh 100%. It’s very destructive to use legal tyranny to shut down criticism by Skeptics. However I’m sad to say that with some Skeppers the cries for Freedom of Speech, Human Rights and Civil Liberties swiftly go silent when they move to the prosecutor’s bench. As you can see from the comments box on Part 2 of the video, most of the Skeptic commenters have no problem at all with the authorities stepping in to prevent mediums from charging customers for their trade. I’ve shoved my oar right in as you can see; I’m “benthejrporter”! The argument used by the pro-ban commenters is that psychics are all frauds who are unable to prove what they do and so contravene Trading Standards legislation. The most vocal in the box, “briansbannister”, contradicts my suggestion that this issue is related to Freedom of Speech and Freedom to Worship. I must admit he’s literally correct, but however this is still related to individual economic and social freedom, as opposed to Nanny State imposition. Briansbannister gives the analogy of dodgy builders and other conmen. I don’t think this analogy is a fair one; as I say, the same laws which protect Mediums from persecution allow the Skeptics to challenge everything they say. It’s rather like a dodgy builder being followed around by a Trading Standards officer countering every claim he makes to every customer. Here’s a list of my comments. Brian’s are inbetween; they’re transcriptions, I won’t reproduce them verbatim for copyright reasons:

(benthejrporter- 2 days ago) OK, technically this is not "Freedom of Speech" as it says in the US Consistution's First Amendment, but this is still a major intervention into our civil liberties by the Skeptic Movement. It means that I, a free British adult of sound mind, would be unable to consult a professional medium and pay her with MY OWN money, which I EARNED. I disagree with your statement that mediums are charlatans conning the vulnerable and why should this kind of rhetoric be translated into law?

(briansbannister- 2 days ago) There’s nothing that’s related to civil liberties in this issue. It’s just asking mediums to prove they can do what they say they can so that they can charge a customer for their wares.

(benthejrporter- today) But I think some Mediums HAVE proved their skill. The idea that they are all charlatans is not an established fact; it's just a viewpoint with many naysayers. What's more I don't have a problem with Skeptics putting their side of the argument across and countering that. Sometimes the Skepti-pundits are not necessary because Spiritualists themselves quickly blacklist anybody caught cheating.

(benthejrporter- 6 days ago) CSportmaria is right. This is not about whether psychics can or cannot prove what they do (I think they CAN, but that's not the point) This is about Freedom-of-Speech and Freedom-to-Worship. these are laws that exist in every civilized country. If you want to breach them then we descend into a Atheo-Skeptocratic Tyranny! If you're concerned about people "getting conned" then take comfort from the fact that the very same Freedom-of-Speech rights that I champion in this case to PROTECT the psychic industry, you can also use to put your side of the story across: that psychics are dishonest and delusional. Who will win? The truth. But the truth doesn't need censorship, only lies do.

(briansbannister- 6 days ago) I’m not advocating censorship. It’s not about Freedom of Speech or religious rights, it’s about quality of commercial standards.

(benthejrporter- 6 days ago) I differ. Firstly the idea that mediums are all cold-reading con-artists is simply an opinion of some scientists who've studied it. Not all scientists are agreed on that. The majority are, I concede, but there is a small but credible minority who are not. "Scientific opinion" in this case has never been translated into Parliamentary legislation. However Spiriualism IS legally recognized as a religion, so this is far more than just an issue you can call Trading Standards about. (I later retracted the point that this issue was literally one about Free Speech, as I said above)

(briansbannister – 6 days ago) It’s not about religion it’s about proving what you’re selling is real. And who are the members of this “credible minority” of scientists who think Spiritualism is real?

(benthejrporter- 1 week ago) If you equate mediums with dodgy builders and bent double-glazing salesmen then this is a false analogy. A more accurate one would be a TV studio with Alister McGrath on one side and Christopher Hitchens on the other. Or a dodgy builder who MIGHT be bent going round with a trading standards officer constantly at his side countering every claim he makes to a potential customer. Remember this is the economic freedom of sane adults. Contrary to Skeptic propaganda, most people who seek the services of psychics are NOT recently bereaved. They are on the whole no more vulnerable than a regular attendee of Skeptics-in-the-Pub! As for naming scientists who disagree with the prevailing view of science regarding psychics: there's Rupert Sheldrake, Gary Schwatz, Peter Fenwick...the list goes on!

(benthejrporter- 1 week ago) Remember that the Skeptic Movement is NOT science. It is a socio-political tendency that often lobbies authorities claiming to speak for all science, or to be the ultimate expression in pure science. This is a slogan, not a description! It would be an act of tyranny for the views of the Skeptic Movement to be enforced into law. If mediums could not charge it would decimate the entire industry, and I'm sure many Skeppers are aware of that!

I’m sure that this conversation will go on and on. Brian may well fall back on the old tactics of Skep-Debating, see: http://hpanwoforum.freeforums.org/the-hpanwo-guide-to-being-a-forum-skep-dick-t912.html I hope we can remain civil to each other; I’ve got every intention of doing so and I bear him no personal ill will.

As I said in the What if the Skeptics Had their Way? article, just look at what the world would be like under a Skeptocratic Atheocracy. I’ve summed up my feelings in this stand-alone comment in the box:
I'm a "Woo-Woo" so can I ask a question to all those who want paying psychics banned? If this law is passed then you can also ban religion, paranormal investigation, UFOlogy and many other things, a "Skeptocracy" if you wish. In this New Utopian Scientific Skeptical Atheist Republic what rights will I have? Will I be allowed on busses? Will I have to wear an armband with a "W" on it? Seeing as I'm going to be one of the have-nots in this new Randi-istic Dawkinsian Idyll I'd like to know. Thanks.

One issue that I’ve not yet raised in the comments box is that the heart of this matter might lie with the political concerns related to the Paranormal. As Barry Gervaise, the character from my novel Rockall, (See: http://hpanwo-bb.blogspot.com/2009/05/rockall-chapter-6-spanner-vs-works.html) says: "…there may be a deeper more fundamental reason. I’ve found, in my experience, that governments seem to have an almost knee-jerk aversion to all the things that you might describe as ‘paranormal’ or ‘out-of-the-ordinary.’ Things like ghosts or UFO’s, or events like this one, which rock the boat of conventional worldviews. They will attempt to deny, reject and suppress information on any phenomenon that could lead people to question the reality of the banal, three-up-two-down existence which we live in." I think Barry is oversimplifying the matter a bit (I should have made him shut up!), but this is the point: Why is it such a big deal politically whether we have an Afterlife or not? I asked this question in my review of Paranormality by Richard Wiseman (See links at the top) and I really need to address it in more detail. Conventional Illuminati-engineered society basically gives us The Two Choices: The conventional scientific view that when you die, that’s it! You’re nothing but an animated piece of meat and with death comes the end of that animation. The only alternative proposed to that is the conventional religious worldview that the universe has an external personal God who judges people and you have an Afterlife, yes, but it’s either in eternal Heaven or eternal Hell depending what kind of mood He’s in. Also it helps if you pay lots of cash to the priest and turn a blind eye when he rapes your children! It’s one or the other; you’re either for one and against the other, or vice versa. There is no inbetween, there is no Third Way. Richard Dawkins' book The God Delusion (See links at the top) is almost completely focused on countering the second choice in favour of the first. It is incredibly important to the Illuminati that you subscribe to one of The Two Choices; it doesn’t matter which one it is so long as you do it! You must subscribe to your choice wholeheartedly at the exclusion of all and any alternatives. It's very revealling to see how these so called "opposites", conventional science and conventional religion, will not hesitate to stand side-by-side in condemantion of anybody who rebels against The Two Choices. The Loomies extend an enormous amount of effort on preserving this social structure. Many people, when asked what the biggest secret those behind the New World Order keep from us is, will say: “Aliens”, “9/11”, “Free Energy”, “The Reptilians”. I’d say that the reality of Life-After-Death is the absolute biggest secret of all. If it became accepted as real in mainstream culture it seems that it would be disastrous for the New World Order. It would be far, far worse than Barack Obama making his hypothetical Disclosure speech, see: http://hpanwo-tv.blogspot.com/2011/08/disclosure-is-here-president-admits.html . We all know the level of deceit that the Illuminati-occupied governments have stooped to keep the truth about 9/11, UFO’s and the fake moon landings etc secret; are we to suppose for one second that they’d not take steps to ensure that the truth about Life-After-Death remains under wraps? The Loomies are well aware that Life-After-Death is real, but they just don’t want us to know! I’m still not sure why; that’s a subject for another article perhaps. I can speculate that this cover-up would include the flaming and debunking of Paranormal researchers, the destruction of the careers and the smearing of the characters of scientists who deviate from the official line. I can also imagine that those who take the Second Choice, religious believers who develop unorthodox viewpoints, would get the same treatment; like the former Bishop of Durham Dr David Jenkins did. I’m not accusing people like James Randi and Susan Blackmore of being part of this conspiracy; the chances are that they’re just “useful idiots” who think that they are being honest in their opinions. As I’ve said in my review of Andy Roberts’ book, see: http://hpanwo.blogspot.com/2011/01/ufo-down-by-andy-roberts.html, “useful idiots” are far more effective than knowing shills because they don’t have to be briefed into the secret, and so prevent the conspiracy from becoming too top-heavy. They can’t develop a conscience and swap benches at an inconvenient time, like Fyfe Symington did; they can talk complete bullshit and be 100% sincere! I’m wondering at the moment whether I should raise this point in my discussion with Brian. We'll see how it goes!

Latest HPANWO Voice article: http://hpanwo-voice.blogspot.com/2011/08/street-cleaning-computer-game.html
And: http://hpanwo-voice.blogspot.com/2011/08/bnp-youth-shop-window.html
And: http://hpanwo-voice.blogspot.com/2011/08/bbc-reporter-sees-ufo.html
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Latest HPANWO TV films: http://hpanwo-tv.blogspot.com/2011/08/mr-dream-crop-circle-comes-true.html
And: http://hpanwo-tv.blogspot.com/2011/08/disclosure-is-here-president-admits.html
And: http://hpanwo-tv.blogspot.com/2011/08/rioters-beware.html
And: http://hpanwo-tv.blogspot.com/2011/08/leeds-exopolitics-expo-2011.html