Jason Martell Threatens to Sue Me

Obviously, we can’t take the self-selected comments left on blogs as a representative sample of public opinion, but I’m getting tired of the repetitive complaints about how I’m not “open minded” and how asking alternative speculators to prove their claims is somehow “trashing” them for offering “possibilities” to explore. This happened again this morning when ancient astronaut writer Jason Martell accused me in an email of bringing “bad karma” onto myself with my “negative views” about him and his poor research. Martell suggested I was “INACCURATE” (his caps) in describing his claims, but he initially refused to say which of my references to material taken directly from his Knowledge Apocalypse do not appear in the book.

A follow-up email didn’t really explain what I got wrong, but I was able to discern that in writing my blog post the other day I apparently misread a paragraph where he discussed the number 60. I missed that he wants us to multiply sixty minutes in an hour by the sixty seconds in a minute to generate the 3,600 years of Nibiru’s orbit. Therefore, he does not believe that the orbit of Nibiru is 60 years but 3,600, which is the number I should have reported in the first place since it is listed elsewhere in the book. I apologized to Martell for the error, and I corrected my original blog post to reflect his belief that Nibiru’s orbit is symbolized in “seconds” that were not invented until Babylon, two millennia after Sumer. The Babylonians did not have 60-minute hours to multiply them by, of course, since they used 120-minute double hours.

He also was upset because he felt I had said he claimed to be a linguist, which I never said. Martell claims, however, to be an expert in Sumerian culture, as described in his press materials: “Jason Martell is a researcher and lecturer specializing in the ancient Sumerian culture, Sumer's advanced technology, and how it relates to Planet X.” As I noted, Martell does not appear to be able to distinguish what is and is not Sumerian based on his conflation of various Mesopotamian cultures in his Knowledge Apocalypse.

Then Jason Martell threatened to sue me: “I will not communicate with you further. But please be advised, I do have a nice team of legal advisors. Please watch your comments, as you now have my attention.” Misreporting a digit (60 vs. 3600) is not libel, as established by U.S. case law. I am publishing his threat so there is a public record of it.

Also this morning I received a somewhat ominous email telling me my “time is up” along with a video of an alternative type ranting about “false skeptics” over video of the World Trade Center collapse. Another message accused me of using my skepticism to make “lots of money” by denying the truth of aliens. I wish! The only people making money are those who get paid huge speaking fees to deliver lectures about their ancient astronaut claims. I also received more than a dozen emails and blog comments today criticizing me personally, some in very harsh terms. Do I think it is a coincidence that so many messages happened right after Jason Martell wrote to me? Answering that might be libelous, so I will do like Ancient Aliens does and say that it is an intriguing question.

UPDATE: It's not a coincidence. Martell mass emailed subscribers to his X-Facts mailing list to send me hate mail. I'll discuss Martell's classy tactics in a separate post.