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Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand's Incoherent New Statement on UFOs

8/27/2022

Yesterday, Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand gave a statement to UFO podcaster Osvaldo Franco after a public event in which she provided an incoherent account of the latest developments in the saga of Congress’s interest in UFOs. The statement makes plain that Gillibrand is deep into UFO conspiracy theories but also highlights, in its contradictory assertions, that Gillibrand has not seen any definitive evidence of what UFOs are, or else there would be no need to hunt down additional evidence that she believes, based on UFO conspiracy culture claims, is hidden in the private sector. After all, if Congress already has “everything” from “video” to “materials,” why is it impossible to draw any conclusions?

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Review of Ancient Aliens S18E18 "Journey to Immortality"

8/26/2022

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Interest in space aliens and UFOs is inexorably intertwined with spiritualist ideas, in large measure because many of the first ufologists were either Theosophists themselves or heavily influenced by Theosophy. As ufology became enmeshed in the New Age, its connections to spiritualist ideas about reincarnation and eternal life became more prominent. It’s no surprise that a parallel track has tied space aliens to life-extension, from TV producer Allan Landsburg suggesting in the 1970s that aliens used cryogenic chambers to extend their lives across interstellar distances to conservative billionaire Peter Thiel studying UFOs as part of a quest for technology to extend his own lifespan closer to immortality. Ancient Aliens isn’t immortal—yet—but it certainly feels interminable.

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Garry Nolan's Kindergarten Alien Encounter

8/26/2022

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Immunologist and UFO researcher Garry Nolan told Australian journalist Ross Coulthart that he had encountered alien-like creatures in his childhood bedroom, confirming under his own name a story Diana Pasulka reported about "James," a pseudonym in American Cosmic (2019) that Pasulka indicated she used for Nolan. The two versions of the story agree in some details and differ markedly in important details. This shows exactly the kind of slips and distortions of memory that skeptics have long argued make witness memories an unreliable guide to events without corroborating details.

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Garry Nolan Alleges Imminent End to UFO Coverup in Ross Coulthart UFO Special

8/21/2022

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On Sunday night, Australian journalist Ross Coulthart presented a documentary on Australia’s 7 Network covering UFOs—again. In the newest documentary, Coulthart relied heavily on Garry Nolan for insight, with Nolan telling Coulthart that he believes that witnesses to UFO crash retrieval programs are about to come forward and spill the beans on seventy years of alien cover-ups. Coulthart provided a companion article laying out Nolan’s allegations:

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Review of Ancient Aliens S18E17: "The Shining Ones"

8/19/2022

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After weeks of clip shows masquerading as new episodes, Ancient Aliens returns with original material—or what passes for originality in the world of the ancient astronaut theory. This episode revolves around the idea of the “Shining Ones,” specifically in an Irish context. The “Shining Ones” appear a few times in fringe pseudohistory. Helena Blavatsky mentions them in her hoax Book of Dzyan, but they appear most often in the work of Philip Gardiner, who picked up on occasional references to the Shining Ones among various fringe figures to propose a global cult of Shining Ones tied to elves, fairies, and Fallen Angels. I discussed it briefly a decade ago, and went into detail about his many errors in my review of his book about the Shining Ones, Secret Societies (Part 1, Part 2, Part 3). Ancient Aliens itself has mentioned the Shining Ones from time to time in passing, though the only reference I wrote down occurred in 2012, when the show endorsed Philip Gardner’s ideas. The current episode negates the 2012 version and goes with alien fairies instead of a cult.

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Capsule Review of Ancient Aliens S18E16: "Evidence of Alien Life"

8/12/2022

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Another week, another clip show. This episode’s theme is even looser than usual: “Evidence of Alien Life,” which after all is everything Ancient Aliens talks about. The repeats are as follows: 1. The first segment was the fourth of a 2017 episode on “The Alien Hunters,” covering SETI. 2. The second segment was originally the third of a 2019 episode, “The Alien Infection,” covering a Canadian ice cave. 3. The third segment was the third segment also of its original episode, “The Alien Protocols,” from 2018, on panspermia. 4. The fourth segment contains pieces of a 2017 episode, “The Science Wars,” about tests conducted on an elongated skull. The bits were originally strung out across the original episode as a runner. 5. The fifth segment was originally the second segment of a 2019 episode, “They Came from the Sea,” covering meteorites. 6. The last segment is, I think, from a 2019 episode, “Return to Mars,” in which Travis Taylor talks about Martian methane. However, I didn’t find it interesting enough to write about the first time, or now.

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Why Did a Vice Cop Report Crashed Saucers and Dead Aliens to the FBI in 1950?

8/8/2022

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John Greenwalde, Jr. of The Black Vault published an unredacted copy of a March 22, 1950 FBI memo about space aliens revealing for the first time how the head of the Washington, D.C. FBI bureau, Guy Hottel, came to write to J. Edgar Hoover that the Air Force had recovered a crashed flying saucer with three dead bodies. However, the unredacted version makes it much clearer than ever how this information came to the FBI and why it is false.

The unredacted text makes for rather humorous reading:

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Capsule Review of Ancient Aliens S18E15: "Mysterious Artifacts"

8/5/2022

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Another episode of Ancient Aliens, another clip show. This episode is about artifacts, but we can’t even pretend that the show is doing anything unique with its clip selection since this same topic showed up in the last two cycles of clip shows, which in turn used some of the exact same clips. These segments are barely worth recounting: (1) The Wedge of Aiut, from 2012 and previously recycled in 2021. (2) Copan’s Maya carvings, from 2020; (3) carved Nomoli figures from Sierra Leone, from 2019; (4) Polynesian carvings from the Marquesas, from 2019, a segment from the same show recycled two weeks ago; (5) crystal skulls, from a 2013 episode previously recycled in 2021; (6) the Fuente Magna bowl, from 2012 (with follow-up). There is nothing else to say; it is repeats of repeats all the way down.

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Garry Nolan Talks UFOs, Aliens, and Conspiracies on "Tucker Carlson Today"

8/3/2022

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Yesterday, Stanford immunologist and UFO investigator Garry Nolan appeared on Tucker Carlson’s Fox Nations streaming morning show Tucker Carlson Today to offer his thoughts on space aliens and the government’s efforts to investigate UFOs. Nolan offered nothing that would pass for convincing evidence, but he did make a number of eyebrow-raising claims, which, if true, shed unfortunate light on the depth of delusion and lunacy permeating the Congressional efforts to legislate UFO conspiracy theories into law.

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Hal Puthoff Publishes Pitiful Paper Proposing Plans to Probe Ultraterrestrials

8/1/2022

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This weekend paranormal investigator Hal Puthoff, late of To the Stars Academy of Arts and Science, and later of Robert Bigelow’s UFO and afterlife research initiatives, published a paper on ultraterrestrials in the Journal of Cosmology, a low-quality paranormal journal designed to ape more prominent scholarly publications like the Journal of Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics. The journal’s poor reputation and mid-1990s online aesthetic are beyond our concern here. Instead, let’s take a look at Puthoff’s ideas about how to hunt and track antediluvian supernormal humanoids, such as Atlanteans and djinn.

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Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand's Incoherent New Statement on UFOs

Review of Ancient Aliens S18E18 "Journey to Immortality"

Garry Nolan's Kindergarten Alien Encounter

Garry Nolan Alleges Imminent End to UFO Coverup in Ross Coulthart UFO Special

Review of Ancient Aliens S18E17: "The Shining Ones"

Capsule Review of Ancient Aliens S18E16: "Evidence of Alien Life"

Why Did a Vice Cop Report Crashed Saucers and Dead Aliens to the FBI in 1950?

Capsule Review of Ancient Aliens S18E15: "Mysterious Artifacts"

Garry Nolan Talks UFOs, Aliens, and Conspiracies on "Tucker Carlson Today"

Hal Puthoff Publishes Pitiful Paper Proposing Plans to Probe Ultraterrestrials

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