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Micah Hanks, Jim Marrs, and the 1897 Aurora UFO Crash

3/31/2015

72 Comments

 
This week self-described “mouth of the South” Micah Hanks published an article at Mysterious Universe covering the April 17, 1897 airship crash at Aurora, Texas widely cited as a UFO event. It has already been the subject of a 1973 MUFON investigation and several cable television documentaries. Hanks not only fails to add anything new to the story, he manages the neat trick of ignoring pretty much all the investigative work done after 1973 in the name of promoting a “mystery” that almost certainly never existed.
The story started when S. E. Haydon reported in the Dallas Morning News on April 19, 1897 that an airship crashed in to a certain Judge Proctor’s windmill in Aurora and exploded, killing its pilot. This inhabitant “was not of this world” and probably from Mars, locals concluded. (H. G. Wells’s War of the Worlds had just started its serialization in Cosmopolitan’s April issue, which had been on newsstands for a few weeks at this point.) According to Haydon, who was a local cotton merchant, the craft, destroyed when it crashed into a windmill on land owned by Judge Proctor, was built of an alloy of aluminum and silver and weighed “several tons.” The pilot was to be buried on April 20, but strangely no one reported on the funeral of earth’s first Martian visitor. Haydon had written hoax articles before, and there isn’t much reason to suspect this one was anything but, as we shall see.

But first, if you’re interested, here is the article:
Aurora, Wise Co., Tx., April 17—(To the News)--About 6 o'clock this morning the early risers of Aurora were astonished at the sudden appearance of the airship which has been sailing throughout the country.

It sailed directly over the public square, and when it reached the north part of town collided with the tower of Judge Proctor's windmill and went to pieces with a terrific explosion, scattering debris over several acres of ground, wrecking the windmill and water tank and destroying the judge's flower garden.

The pilot of the ship is supposed to have been the only one aboard, and while his remains are badly disfigured, enough of the original has been picked up to show that he was not an inhabitant of this world.

T.J. Weems, the U.S. Signal Service Officer at this place and an authority on astronomy, gave it as his opinion that (the pilot) was a native from the planet of Mars.

Papers found on his person—evidently the records of his travels—are written in some unknown hieroglyphics, and cannot be deciphered. The ship was too badly wrecked to form conclusions as to its construction or motive power.

The town is full of people today who are viewing the wreck and gathering specimens of strange metal from the debris. The pilot's funeral will take place tomorrow. 

S.E. Hayden
You’d think he’d have led with SPACE ALIEN LANDS ON EARTH, but who am I to question his priorities, or that of the Dallas Morning News, in not giving a SPACE ALIEN top billing? In fact, the News was silly enough to place this major news event on an interior page amidst fifteen other of the editors’ “favorite yarns” about outrageous aerial events, according to Skeptoid. One story told of an “aerial monster” piloted by New Yorkers, and another about an airship filled with Jews from the Lost Tribes who had been hiding at the North Pole. Hayden’s piece was one of the sixteen crazy airship stories. Obviously, it was intended as humor.

Hanks traveled to Aurora to view the grave of the supposed occupant of the airship. I’m not sure why he bothered traveling all the way to Aurora to take photographs of himself in the cemetery since his article betrays no original research. Instead, he summarizes the UFO case from Jim Marrs’s Alien Agenda (1997) and contributes exactly nothing to the story that others haven’t gone over a hundred times. In fact, he leaves out a very important and salient point: At least one person is on record telling anyone who would listen that the author of the original article reporting the crash of the airship made the whole thing up. “Hayden wrote it as a joke and to bring interest to Aurora,” an 86-year-old named Etta Pegues told Time magazine in 1979. “The railroad bypassed us, and the town was dying.” Pegues was a reporter for the Fort Worth Star Telegram and a local historian who wrote a book about the town of Aurora in 1975. In the 1890s the town of Aurora had suffered enormous catastrophe—a devastating fire, a boll weevil infestation, and epidemic disease outbreaks—that left the place a shell of its former self. Its decline cause the Burlington Northwestern Railroad to cancel plans to expand to Aurora.

Hanks does note that “others” claimed that the article was a hoax, but he doesn’t seem to know the source he pluralizes and summarizes. It is clearly Pegues because Hanks cites and criticizes her statement about the town windmill. Pegues had told Time in 1979 (and others in 1973) that there was no windmill in town, but recent investigations that uncovered the foundation of a windmill showed that she was wrong on this point, almost certainly because the windmill had long vanished—Pegues was four at the time of the supposed incident, and the windmill was likely gone before she was 10. We might well conclude that she simply had no memory that one ever existed, and by 1979 most who might have remembered it were already dead. (According to Marrs, Pegues asked the then-current owner of the site, who had lived there since 1945, if a windmill stood on the property, and the owner said no.) By pluralizing Pegues into “others” and generalizing her specific misstatement into a community-wide assertion, Hanks gives the impression of a cover-up that is unlikely to have actually occurred.

Marrs, as Hanks happily notes, alleged that “the government” cleansed the site of all traces of alien artifacts before Marrs showed up to investigate in 1973. Marrs also claimed that in 1973 he spoke with an 83-year-old named Charlie Stephens, who recalled seeing a UFO explode over the town in 1897 but wasn’t allowed to go investigate because his father said he had to finish his chores. On the other hand, Robbie Reynolds Hansen, who was 12 in 1897, told Marrs that her father had told a visitor that day that the owner of the land where this all occurred, a local judge, “outdid himself that time,” an odd an inconclusive statement Marrs does not explain.

This seems obscure until we consult a fuller version of the story given by Bill Potterfield in A Loose Herd of Texans in 1978. Hansen told him that her father, Constable J. D. Reynolds, was referring to a joke. The judge, J. S. Proctor, fancied himself a satirist and published humor pieces in the Aurora News. He wrote a humor piece about the airship event taking place on his own land. Reynolds read it and “roared with laughter.” According to Potterfield, Reynolds said, “The judge has really outdone himself this time.” Reynolds must have gotten a big laugh from the reference to T. J. Weems as an authority on astronomy. The real Weems was a blacksmith and farrier who knew nothing of the stars.

Few other survivors of the nineteenth century recalled anything of the event except what they knew from people who had read the newspaper back in 1897. According to Marrs, Mary Evans, who was 92 when he talked to her, said that she remembered the incident from when she was 15 years old, but despite have witnessed a spaceship from another world “forgot” about the incident until MUFON came to town in 1973! When asked what happened, she too said her parents wouldn’t let her go see the crash site. In describing what her parents told her of the event, she could recall no details that weren’t part of the 1897 news article or subsequent UFO lore.

What’s interesting is that Marrs presents these accounts in the opposite order, saving Stephens for last. Doing so lets him build up the impression that in sifting through the varying versions he was slowly getting to the truth. When placing the interviews in the order I have offered, they don’t seem to build toward a revelation but rather depict people who have folded half-memories of the attempted hoax into their own personal narratives, with a strong assist from the MUFON publicity. One approach isn’t necessarily better than the other, but it suggests that the author’s point of view heavily influences the reader’s impression, even when presenting facts from multiple points of view.

Hanks also places great weight on Marrs’s statements that mysterious non-magnetic iron was found at the crash site, tested in 1973, and baffled the researcher who studied it due to its strange properties. Both men omit the fact that the researcher involved, physicist Tom Gray, later concluded that the material was actually an iron-zinc alloy used in roofing material. Its particular processing made it non-magnetic. So well-known is this that you can even read about it in The Great Airship of 1897 (2010) by J. Allen Danelek—a fringe source published by David Childress which nonetheless debunks most of the claims about the Aurora “crash.” You can also read about it on Wise County’s official website.

The long and short of it is that Micah Hanks had available to him all the evidence he needed to produce a more comprehensive and useful article—this one took me a little more than an hour to put together—but despite being on location in Aurora and (presumably) having access to Google, he once again has misled his readers by relying primarily on one unreliable source (Marrs) and failing to engage in the kind of cursory review of evidence and literature that would produce a fuller picture of events. Even if he would eventually conclude that there was an alien involved, it’s somewhere between lazy and dishonest to actively ignore vast swaths of evidence just to fill column inches with a “mystery.” 

72 Comments
spookyparadigm
3/31/2015 05:46:42 am

Huh, I didn't know someone had actually made a site of ostension.org

http://www.ostension.org/index.html

Reply
EP
3/31/2015 06:18:48 am

Wait, what?

Reply
Scott Hamilton
3/31/2015 05:59:57 am

Not only to the UFO believers have to take the original article out of context of the paper where it published and War of the Worlds, but they have to ignore the line describing the craft as "THE airship which has been sailing throughout the country." (Emphasis mine) Clearly, the story was written in response to the mystery airship craze that started in November of 1896. So to accept the Aurora story as real you either have to accept that aliens really were flying a blimp around the Western US in 1896-97, or you have to accept the incredible coincidence that a real alien spacecraft just happened to crash at the same time newspapers were full of stories about unidentified blimps.

Reply
EP
3/31/2015 06:21:48 am

Isn't it obvious? The alien spacecraft must have crashed because of all the unidentified blimp traffic in the skies over America! :D

Reply
EP
3/31/2015 01:12:08 pm

Speaking of counting, just checking whether Weebly has remembered how to count to three :)

John Dunham
4/1/2015 03:10:25 am

Wow - I never really put two and two together. This happened in 1897, and Frank Baum wrote about it in 1900. This was the crash that brought the Wizard to Oz!

Shane Sullivan
3/31/2015 12:11:00 pm

Steampunk aliens? Count me in!

Reply
Sheriff Luger Axehandle
3/31/2015 08:58:53 am

Everything you know is wrong.

Reply
Hypatia
3/31/2015 10:00:21 am

Considering, was Orson Wells' apology a cover-up too?

Reply
Clete
3/31/2015 10:16:26 am

I remember watching the "investigation" of this by Jim Marrs. I found it interesting that the remains of the alien spaceship were not investigated. They were thrown into a well. I know that if something from outer space landed on my property and I wasn't sure what it was I would toss it into my drinking water.

Reply
EP
3/31/2015 01:16:19 pm

Indeed, if anything from anywhere landed on my property, chances are I wouldn't toss it into my drinking water. Unless it was an airdrop of water purification chemicals.

Reply
Only Me
3/31/2015 11:22:09 am

Who needs Hanks or Marrs, when we have The Aurora Encounter (1986)? :)

Reply
terry the censor
4/20/2015 08:19:40 pm

> Aurora Encounter (1986)

Whoa! I had not heard of that. I will be downloading it.

Reply
Bob Jase
3/31/2015 12:04:11 pm

Cohen's 'The Great Airship Mystery', the only book dedicated to the title subject as far as I know, covers the incident pretty well.

Reply
Shane Sullivan
3/31/2015 12:09:28 pm

Ah, Childress. His name turned up in the White Wolf book Secrets of the Ruined Temple from their Mage line. It recommends his Lost Cities books as inspiration for running a pulpy game about the remnants of Atlantis: "... Childress can pull a lost civilization out of two piled rocks and a couple of scratches." =P

Fortunately it also suggest Ken Feder and L. Sprague deCamp, so hopefully no unsuspecting readers will be indoctrinated in the cult of Maverick Archaeology.

Reply
EP
3/31/2015 01:10:55 pm

I think they meant to say "Childress can pull a lost civilization from between two greasy flabs of lard" :)

Reply
Shane Sullivan
3/31/2015 02:18:05 pm

Hey... I heard he lost a lot of weight after Seinfeld.

Shane Sullivan
3/31/2015 02:18:50 pm

Hey...I heard he lost a lot of weight after Seinfeld.

Reply
EP
3/31/2015 01:20:51 pm

Shane Sullivan said: "Steampunk aliens? Count me in!"

If Dead Space has taught us anything, it's that steampunk technology is perfectly sufficient for an interstellar civilization :)

Reply
Paul S.
3/31/2015 01:25:59 pm

I used to be big into UFO stuff and read about the alleged Aurora UFO in several places both in print and online. Funny how none of them ever mentioned that the original article was published as part of a collection of editors' "favorite yarns", not as a front-page serious news story! To their credit, at least one UFO-friendly source I read admitted that 19th century correspondents weren't above totally inventing stories for a variety of purposes.

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Clint Knapp
3/31/2015 03:01:58 pm

Kinda makes you wonder how many of those two-to-five inch giant articles are from similar Arts & Entertainment showcases, doesn't it?

Reply
Cliff D.
3/31/2015 03:34:17 pm

Wow, the author of this article has an axe to grind with Micah. He should do research for himself instead of constantly attacking Mr. Hanks. I guess if you can't write good articles write ones attacking others, anything to get the page views. What a loser!

Reply
Only Me
3/31/2015 03:42:44 pm

Well trolled, Mr. Troll. Well trolled.

Reply
Ghostly Tom Joad link
10/23/2015 12:57:25 am

I think the point the euthor here made was exactly that CLiff. Nothing was investigated. The logic used by people such as Micah Hanks is one that often resounds around "well if you cant prove that there weren't spaceship pieces on the bottom of the well then it must hold true that a spacecraft did actually crash there. This is the most blatant abuse of logic and the most common that is repeatedly abused by conspiracy theorists. if A then B. if you prove that the B statement is true(or false) IT DOES NOT MATTER. It proves nothing about the validity of statement A. Furthermore you cannot say something that you did, "well since you didn't go to the well and prove there isn't alien spacecraft pieces there, then the truth of this article is invalid." This is again, poor logic. He's simply disproving the bogus logic from authors and researchers(/emote giggles [funny that is obviously a self-given job title]).

If you choose to beLIEve this stuff then that's fine. But don't expect people with firm knowledge of logic and reasoning to not tear crappy conspiracies apart. As far as writing, poorly or not, I would rather read a poorly written article than a well written one that bends logic like it doesn't exist. Have at it Haus. You should join http://www.theflatearthsociety.org/ they are always looking for gullible people.

Apologies for the rant but I have to get back to watching the season finale of Finding Bigfoot. I ruined it for everyone when i told them I know how it ends...they don't find bigfoot. Same with every season finale =\ maybe they should talk about that on intrepidradio

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jeff adamson
3/31/2015 11:22:39 pm

I see the obsession is still raging.
Why dont you take him up on his offer and go on his show?

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Jason Colavito link
3/31/2015 11:29:33 pm

He's never made me an offer. If he had done so, I'd have been happy to.

Reply
Scotty Roberts link
4/1/2015 10:54:36 am

Jason,
I made you the offer to come on my radio program. I'm sure we could get Micah to come on, as well.

www.intrepidradio.com

My invitation to come and speak at the Paradigm Symposium this October is still open, as well.

www.paradigmsymposium.com

Cheers!
Scotty

J Adamson
4/1/2015 02:43:43 am

What's really scary about all of this.......

My name is Jeff Adamson too......

Not An April Fool's Day joke either...........

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Scotty Roberts link
4/1/2015 10:55:27 am

Jason,
I made you the offer to come on my radio program. I'm sure we could get Micah to come on, as well.

www.intrepidradio.com

My invitation to come and speak at the Paradigm Symposium this October is still open, as well.

www.paradigmsymposium.com

Cheers!
Scotty

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EP
4/1/2015 03:14:06 am

Man, Micah Hanks has the weirdest fanboys...

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jeff adamson
4/1/2015 05:15:19 am

What have I said that is weird? Not agreeing?

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EP
4/1/2015 06:31:55 am

Actually, you didn't even express disagreement. You just used a bunch of words like "obsession" and "raging" and referred to something that's apparently not the case.

EP
4/1/2015 06:32:48 am

@ jeff adamson [Weebly is still not working properly]

Actually, you didn't even express disagreement. You just used a bunch of words like "obsession" and "raging" and referred to something that's apparently not the case.

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jeff adamson
4/1/2015 12:19:55 pm

Apparent to you. As I initially said...just turn the damn channel. I do it all the time. An interviewee has a lisp..I stop listening. Someone is bashing conservativrs..same thing. Someone spouting antigin rhetoric...same thing. What I dontndo is start a blog.."That guy on TheGralienReport who was interviewed had such a damn lisp".
See ?

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jeff adamson
4/1/2015 12:21:29 pm

Please forgive my fatfingered spelling errors

Rlewis
4/1/2015 07:32:39 am

The weird thing is, this aircraft never appeared on radar. Must be another Smithsonian conspiracy.

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Clete
4/1/2015 08:30:33 am

Not really that strange. It was 1897, radar had yet to be invented. What was seen (if it was anything at all) was probably a meteor.

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Scotty Roberts link
4/1/2015 11:31:19 am

That is as much a speculation as anything else, Clete.

Only Me
4/1/2015 12:42:43 pm

@ jeff adamson

So, Jeff, you would prefer Jason ignored the likes of Micah Hanks? The kind of "personality" that contributes to the endless regurgitation of fantastic claims that, with even a modest effort, can be shown to be distortions, misrepresentations or even outright hoaxes? Why is it such a deplorable act for Jason to actually look into these claims (and those that keep them alive) and demonstrate why they are grounded more in speculation than fact?

Are you so enamored with Hanks that you accept wholesale the answer to many questions is "I don't know, I am too lazy and pig ignorant to do the necessary research to find the truth. Therefore, must be, can only be...extraterrestrials/giants/Nephilim/etc."? That's the message you're delivering by suggesting we change the channel.

When did the truth become such a low-value commodity?

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jeff Adamson
4/1/2015 01:24:30 pm

@only ke.
No...I am saying if something this small bothers you this much...so much that you have made it your life's work to attack this small thing...you really have issues.
Just...turn...the...damn...channel....
I admit Micah is longwinded and goes on tangents...but lazy and pig ignorant?
Dude...it is just entertainment.
You guys really need to lighten up. Go outside. Meet a girl. Let stuff go.
You take this stuff waaaay to seriously.
Just like the bigfoot and extra terrestrial true believers.
Jeesh.

Reply
Walt
4/1/2015 04:21:25 pm

Only Me, it does work for all the people in the rest of the world who have actual lives to live. Jason and a dozen of his "fans" just have a tough time learning, no matter how many people try to explain it. You're all completely obsessed, and it's very unhealthy. Get on with your lives and accomplish something useful. Start by not watching any TV or browsing the web for 90 days. Then do 180 days. There's a whole world out there away from your screens. I realize by now nobody here believes this, but nobody cares about this stuff you've all convinced yourselves is so important. Jason not getting a bump in traffic from his TV appearance should have proved it.

FWIW, I have no idea who Micah Hanks or Scotty Roberts is, nor do I have any idea what they've said or what they believe.

Scotty Roberts link
4/2/2015 04:23:25 am

Only Me,
Jason has referred to Micah as a "hillbilly with a website," aa well as many other epithets meant to cast sarcastic aspersion.

To top it off, he deeply insulted Micah's father.

To me, that kind of BS should be off limits. Stick to the critique.

V
4/2/2015 02:32:08 pm

"Micah spends a great deal of his time as a skeptic"

The rest of the time must be when he writes, then.

Only Me
4/8/2015 12:37:51 pm

Scotty, Jason did NOT refer to Hanks as a "hillbilly with a website". That was EP, who said:

"Micah Hanks lives his life desperately trying to hide the fact that he is basically a retarded hillbilly with a website."

Jason also did NOT "deeply insult" Hanks's father. He said the analysis of flood myths presented by Hanks's father was "limited because of his Christian faith, which requires him to endorse the Noachian deluge as the key element of the Bible, however he rationalizes it."

You should exercise more care before making accusations.

Only Me
4/8/2015 12:41:43 pm

Walt, do you know anything about me? No? Then stop making assumptions about me or offering advice on how to live.

EP
4/9/2015 08:32:53 am

Holy Red Herring, Batman! Walt's back!

EP
4/9/2015 08:35:14 am

Scotty Roberts, lecturing people about insulting epithets.

LOL

Only Me
4/1/2015 01:47:46 pm

"It is just entertainment...need to lighten up"

Yeah, that answer didn't work for Rev Phil Gotsch and it isn't working any better now that someone else is using it.

I would suggest following your own advice jeff; just go to another website if Jason's "obsession" troubles you so.

Reply
Scotty Roberts link
4/1/2015 02:30:09 pm

Only Me,
I know Micah pretty well, and he is no proponent of "extraterrestrials, giants nor Nephilim." If you think he is, then you could only have gleaned that from Jason's blog posts.

The "deplorable act" on Jason's part, is that he misrepresents via omission. He is what I refer to as an "alternative yellow journalist." Even worse, he is more of an "alternative critic."

Micah spends a great deal of his time as a skeptic of all the topics you mentioned. As for Jason, he misquotes and misdirects for the purpose of catering to his followers - precisely what he decries in people like Micah. And me.

Reply
Only Me
4/1/2015 03:12:22 pm

My problem, Scotty, is this: if Micah is a skeptic, why would he accuse Jason of hubris, based on a post Jason wrote addressing his (Jason's) research into the popular Smithsonian anti-giant conspiracy? That is the sole reason for their disagreement. Really, that's all it is. A disagreement.

Every post Jason has written about Micah's articles in Mysterious Universe has a link to those very articles. I've read them myself, and I haven't seen any omissions for the sake of scoring points.

Micah himself has insisted in those articles that giants were real, but those same giants still fall well within the range of human diversity. Giants exist today, but that isn't evidence of a separate race or culture anymore than the discovery of skeletal remains from giants in ages past.

I guess I just can't comprehend why hypotheses and themes can be introduced, but skepticism and criticism of such things is a bridge too far. If we stop asking questions and applying the scientific method, how are we to better ourselves?

Reply
EP
4/2/2015 03:30:38 am

jeff adamson said:

"if something this small bothers you this much...so much that you have made it your life's work to attack this small thing...you really have issues."

Tell us more about how Jason, who wrote several books on topics that have nothing to do with anything pertinent to Micah Hanks, has made it his life's work to attack Micah Hanks.

"I admit Micah is longwinded and goes on tangents...but lazy and pig ignorant?"

Yes.

"You guys really need to lighten up. Go outside. Meet a girl. Let stuff go."

You are so cool. I bet you have sex all the time. I want to be just like you. You are so cool.

Reply
Scotty Roberts link
4/2/2015 04:15:05 am

So, let's see... Micah takes a personal trip to Texas, and in the process writes a brief blog post - not an essay, thesis nor book - on an old story, while taking his picture at the gravesite.

And this becomes the topic of a Jason Colavito brouhaha?

This is where I hold and maintain that Jason Colavito is a pathological skeptic, engaging in nothing more than alternative yellow journalism - and I use the term "journalism" lightly.

Reply
Scott Hamilton
4/2/2015 05:17:27 am

Actually. Scotty, Micah wrote a blog post, and Jason wrote a blog post in response. The "brouhaha" is entirely in your head. The fact that people like you and Micah are so upset by minor factual criticism and have to pretend to be victims of a huge conspiracy doesn't speak well of you.

Reply
Scotty Roberts link
4/2/2015 05:35:54 am

Actually, Scott, you're wrong. Well, except for the blog-on-blog thing.

The brouhaha is evident on the copious pages of these blog threads. That's not in my head.

Your appraisal of Micah and me being "upset" is wholly inaccurate. We are not conspiratorialists. But we both DO examine and comment. You would be hard pressed to say either of us is a "giantologist, alienologist or Nephilimer. Research and examination of these topics does not make one a believer in "woo."

I am anything but a victim. If you are reading that into my words, then you should probably do a little more research on who I am and what I am about. Same would probably apply for your labeling Micah under that same moniker.

What I do glean from what you say is that Jason can undergo no criticism for what he writes, in either style, approach or underlying motivation. Whereas, I believe Jason can undergo a lot of scrutiny for the above.

You guys seem to think that because we write about weird topics, we do not have the capacity to think or understand human nature. You couldn't be more wrong.

And, as I have offered to anyone, in the past, feel free to contact me anytime. Jason and I have talked a couple of times, and you'll find nothing but a good conversation.

Ghostly Tom Joad
10/23/2015 01:03:28 am

"pathological skeptic" aka logical person

Reply
Hypatia
4/2/2015 05:06:48 am

The problem is, if everyone tuned off and did not debunk the supernatural lunacies to restore some common sense, sanity, critical thinking and education, and let others cash off on the ignorance, pretty soon there would be a restored Middle Ages culture, just like the one that ISIS wants to restore.

Reply
EP
4/2/2015 10:21:52 am

In all fairness, Medieval Muslims were a lot more cultured and humane than ISIS.

Reply
Scotty Roberts link
4/3/2015 04:22:29 am

Hypatia,
The "arrogance" I refer to is the one that states, "this is the only reality, and nothing else should even be considered. Its a waste of time."

I come from a seminarian/theologian background, and have never really been a "disbeliever" that are things beyond the realm of what we think we know; "veils that cannot be pierced."

However, I have much more skeptical of the "community" of people promoting the weird and the woo. That does not mean that I still find some of the material very intriguing.

As to the claiming the existence of things without evidence - that is the birth of science. I'm not talking about the sort of people who claim they are visited by reptilian aliens through a portal in the spare bedroom closet, but, rather, intelligent people who research the mythologies and do not write off every personal, anecdotal experience as the product of a "sick" mind.

Hypatia
4/2/2015 01:17:32 pm

True, true, certainly more cultured and tolerant than medieval Europe at the time. I meant that they want to restore their utopian caliphate as described in their selections of 6th century Koranic laws.

Reply
Scotty Roberts link
4/2/2015 04:09:31 pm

I would agree with you 100%, Hypatia. However - and its a big "however" - not all supernatural claimants are part of the lunatic fringe. There reasoned thinkers who entertain Carl Sagan's "sense of wonder" that cannot be extricated from the scientific method.

I recently saw a Muslim cleric expounding on why the world cannot possibly be round, as it says in the Qur'an. Hardly the stuff of holding to the possibility that modern science doesn't have all the answers and hasn't pierced every veil.

I side with you on being skeptical, but I believe that there exist "Big S" skeptics and "small s" skeptics. The latter would never capitalize on expounding ignorance. But the former would deny out of arrogance.

Reply
Hypatia
4/2/2015 08:35:28 pm

There is no arrogance in not being convinced when there is no evidence. It's just common sense.
It seems to me that there is arrogance in claiming the existence of things without evidence.

Reply
Hypatia
4/2/2015 07:25:53 am

What's 'antigin rhetoric'?

Reply
EP
4/2/2015 07:27:47 am

Judging by the content and the literacy level of the rest of the post, I bet it's supposed to be "anti-gun" :)

Reply
EP
4/2/2015 10:19:28 am

I really don't think that Micah Hanks is interesting enough to devote a lot of effort to examining him, but it is worth pointing out why it is so misleading (for Scotty Roberts, Micah Hanks himself, or whoever else) to describe him as a skeptic.

Consider this (thankfully rather short) interview with Hanks:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S7ZFBuZVpY4

Nevermind that he seems to think that "terra firma" means "planet Earth", or that he says things like "unfair to he", or that he generally sounds like an uneducated person desperately trying to come across as an intellectual. What I find much more objectionable is his insistence that he is a rational skeptic (as opposed to, I guess, "pathological" skeptics such as Jason) because he tries to stand on "middle ground" between, I suppose, mainstream and alternative hypotheses.

That, however, is no more rational than insisting on "teaching the controversy" between evolution and creationism. In fact, Hanks's rhetoric is nearly identical to that of many advocates of teaching creationism in public schools. However, there is no controversy between evolution and creationism, except in the minds of ignorant and/or deluded creationists. Similarly, there is no reasonable "middle ground" between between mainstream explanations of UFOs, bigfoot, chemtrails, ghosts, etc. and alternatives Hanks and his kind like to present as such. Even in those cases when no conclusive explanation is available, there is no virtue in devoting time and effort to outlandish, implausible, ad hoc hypotheses.

Similarly, trying to cover all the bases and being all things to all people, instead of openly and honestly expressing one's position, does not a skeptic make. Von Daniken, after all, isn't really a skeptic simply because he occasionally insists that he iz just asking ze questions.

Unlike Von Daniken, however, Micah Hanks doesn't even manage to convey his views, assuming he actually has any. In the words of the only non-redundant comment on that video, "lol what exactly is it that this guy brings to the table?"

Reply
Shane Sullivan
4/2/2015 03:02:56 pm

You know what, EP? I'm going to pull a reverse Reverend and not only agree with all of what you just said, but I'll add that Jason actually provides fringe theory with the valuable service of teaching/inspiring his readers to learn more about the subject.

After all, who among us can say that we've never come to this blog and learned some piece of pseudo-science or fringe history we'd never heard of, or read some article he's linked that we otherwise wouldn't have approached?

The fact that we all make fun of it doesn't matter. Bottom line, he's exposing a new audience to fringe material; these people should be thanking him! =P

Reply
Hypatia
4/2/2015 08:29:45 pm

I certainly had no idea how BIG this GIANTS thing had been and still is.

Reply
Stanley
4/27/2015 09:18:09 pm

As someone who's listened to the odd Micah Hanks podcast, I have to agree wholeheartedly about his odd turns of phrase making him sound like someone who, as Ben Folds might say, is trying to "cover his redneck past." One that especially strikes me is that he always, without fail, says "just as well", instead of well, just "as well." Very odd.

Reply
EP
4/3/2015 08:05:30 am

@ Shane Sullivan

"Reverse Reverend" should be a sex position! :D

Reply
Scotty Roberts link
4/3/2015 02:32:06 pm

Hypatia,
Sorry, like several others here, my responses are not posting, so I am posting down here, instead of responding to your direct comment above.

YOU SAID:
"There is no arrogance in not being convinced when there is no evidence. It's just common sense. It seems to me that there is arrogance in claiming the existence of things without evidence."

MY RESPONSE:
The arrogance I speak of is NOT regarding accepting, as truth, things for which there is no evidence. But, rather, the defaulted dismissal of anything that falls outside what we think we already know, scientifically.

There is a huge difference between an examination of ancient mythology, and claiming that reptilian overlords are having sex with me every Tuesday night after they emerge from a portal in my bedroom closet.

Reply
Hypatia
4/5/2015 06:11:01 am

Scotty,

I read your answer, thank you.
You'll be happy to know that there are scientists and mathematicians who are pondering on and researching the boundaries of science and the mathematics of the impossible. It does not involve ghosts, though. For example:
'Boundaries and Barriers: on the Limits to Scientific Knowledge', john L. Casti - Anders Karlqvist, Eds., 1996, Perseus books,
'The Limits of Mathematics', Gregory J. Chaitin, 1998, Springer.

Reply
terry the censor
4/29/2015 07:15:01 pm

> Hanks also places great weight on Marrs’s statements

This is terrible of itself, but I think it shows that Hanks is cherry-picking.

UFO proponent Kevin Randle, who thinks aliens crashed at Roswell, has investigated and denounced Aurora as a hoax (see his 2013 book Alien Mysteries, Conspiracies and Cover-Ups, which has extensive quotes from period documents). UFO historian Jerome Clark has also stated that Aurora is an "obvious" hoax (see the third edition of his book Unexplained!).

But even Marrs' book gives a long list of statements asserting it is a hoax. He also complains of "unreliable witnesses on all sides..."

So I have to agree with Jason that Hanks knowingly mislead his readers.

Reply
Andrew
2/26/2017 10:44:46 pm

This video does a pretty objective job looking at the case.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jw1wQZYHtvk

Reply

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      • Profiles in Ancient Astronautics >
        • Erich von Däniken
        • Robert Temple
        • Giorgio Tsoukalos
        • David Childress
      • Blunders in the Sky
      • The Case of the False Quotes
      • Alternative Authors' Quote Fraud
      • David Childress & the Aliens
      • Faking Ancient Art in Uzbekistan
      • Intimations of Persecution
      • Zecharia Sitchin's World
      • Jesus' Alien Ancestors?
      • Extraterrestrial Evolution?
    • Collection: Skeptic Magazine >
      • America Before Review
      • Native American Discovery of Europe
      • Interview: Scott Sigler
      • Golden Fleeced
      • Oh the Horror
      • Discovery of America
      • Supernatural Television
      • Review of Civilization One
      • Who Lost the Middle Ages
      • Charioteer of the Gods
    • Collection: Ancient History >
      • Prehistoric Nuclear War
      • The China Syndrome
      • Atlantis, Mu, and the Maya
      • Easter Island Exposed
      • Who Built the Sphinx?
      • Who Built the Great Pyramid?
      • Archaeological Cover Up?
    • Collection: The Lovecraft Legacy >
      • Pauwels, Bergier, and Lovecraft
      • Lovecraft in Bergier
      • Lovecraft and Scientology
    • Collection: UFOs >
      • Alien Abduction at the Outer Limits
      • Aliens and Anal Probes
      • Ultra-Terrestrials and UFOs
      • Rebels, Queers, and Aliens
    • Scholomance: The Devil's School
    • Prehistory of Chupacabra
    • The Templars, the Holy Grail, & Henry Sinclair
    • Magicians of the Gods Review
    • The Curse of the Pharaohs
    • The Antediluvian Pyramid Myth
    • Whitewashing American Prehistory
    • James Dean's Cursed Porsche
  • The Library
    • Ancient Mysteries >
      • Ancient Texts >
        • Mesopotamian Texts >
          • Atrahasis Epic
          • Epic of Gilgamesh
          • Kutha Creation Legend
          • Babylonian Creation Myth
          • Descent of Ishtar
          • Berossus
          • Comparison of Antediluvian Histories
        • Egyptian Texts >
          • The Shipwrecked Sailor
          • Dream Stela of Thutmose IV
          • The Papyrus of Ani
          • Classical Accounts of the Pyramids
          • Inventory Stela
          • Manetho
          • Eratosthenes' King List
          • The Story of Setna
          • Leon of Pella
          • Diodorus on Egyptian History
          • On Isis and Osiris
          • Famine Stela
          • Old Egyptian Chronicle
          • The Book of Sothis
          • Horapollo
          • Al-Maqrizi's King List
        • Teshub and the Dragon
        • Hermetica >
          • The Three Hermeses
          • Kore Kosmou
          • Corpus Hermeticum
          • The Asclepius
          • The Emerald Tablet
          • Hermetic Fragments
          • Prologue to the Kyranides
          • The Secret of Creation
          • Ancient Alphabets Explained
          • Prologue to Ibn Umayl's Silvery Water
          • Book of the 24 Philosophers
          • Aurora of the Philosophers
        • Hesiod's Theogony
        • Periplus of Hanno
        • Ctesias' Indica
        • Sanchuniathon
        • Sima Qian
        • Syncellus's Enoch Fragments
        • The Book of Enoch
        • Slavonic Enoch
        • Sepher Yetzirah
        • Tacitus' Germania
        • De Dea Syria
        • Aelian's Various Histories
        • Julius Africanus' Chronography
        • Eusebius' Chronicle
        • Chinese Accounts of Rome
        • Ancient Chinese Automaton
        • The Orphic Argonautica
        • Fragments of Panodorus
        • Annianus on the Watchers
        • The Watchers and Antediluvian Wisdom
      • Medieval Texts >
        • Medieval Legends of Ancient Egypt >
          • Medieval Pyramid Lore
          • John Malalas on Ancient Egypt
          • Fragments of Abenephius
          • Akhbar al-zaman
          • Ibrahim ibn Wasif Shah
          • Murtada ibn al-‘Afif
          • Al-Maqrizi on the Pyramids
          • Al-Suyuti on the Pyramids
        • The Hunt for Noah's Ark
        • Isidore of Seville
        • Book of Liang: Fusang
        • Agobard on Magonia
        • Book of Thousands
        • Voyage of Saint Brendan
        • Power of Art and of Nature
        • Travels of Sir John Mandeville
        • Yazidi Revelation and Black Book
        • Al-Biruni on the Great Flood
        • Voyage of the Zeno Brothers
        • The Kensington Runestone (Hoax)
        • Islamic Discovery of America
        • The Aztec Creation Myth
      • Lost Civilizations >
        • Atlantis >
          • Plato's Atlantis Dialogues >
            • Timaeus
            • Critias
          • Fragments on Atlantis
          • Panchaea: The Other Atlantis
          • Eumalos on Atlantis (Hoax)
          • Gómara on Atlantis
          • Sardinia and Atlantis
          • Santorini and Atlantis
          • The Mound Builders and Atlantis
          • Donnelly's Atlantis
          • Atlantis in Morocco
          • Atlantis and the Sea Peoples
          • W. Scott-Elliot >
            • The Story of Atlantis
            • The Lost Lemuria
          • The Lost Atlantis
          • Atlantis in Africa
          • How I Found Atlantis (Hoax)
          • Termier on Atlantis
          • The Critias and Minoan Crete
          • Rebuttal to Termier
          • Further Responses to Termier
          • Flinders Petrie on Atlantis
        • Lost Cities >
          • Miscellaneous Lost Cities
          • The Seven Cities
          • The Lost City of Paititi
          • Manuscript 512
          • The Idolatrous City of Iximaya (Hoax)
          • The 1885 Moberly Lost City Hoax
          • The Elephants of Paredon (Hoax)
        • OOPARTs
        • Oronteus Finaeus Antarctica Map
        • Caucasians in Panama
        • Jefferson's Excavation
        • Fictitious Discoveries in America
        • Against Diffusionism
        • Tunnels Under Peru
        • The Parahyba Inscription (Hoax)
        • Mound Builders
        • Gunung Padang
        • Tales of Enchanted Islands
        • The 1907 Ancient World Map Hoax
        • The 1909 Grand Canyon Hoax
        • The Interglacial Period
        • Solving Oak Island
      • Religious Conspiracies >
        • Pantera, Father of Jesus?
        • Toledot Yeshu
        • Peter of les Vaux-de-Cernay on Cathars
        • Testimony of Jean de Châlons
        • Rosslyn Chapel and the 'Prentice's Pillar
        • The Many Wives of Jesus
        • Templar Infiltration of Labor
        • Louis Martin & the Holy Bloodline
        • The Life of St. Issa (Hoax)
        • On the Person of Jesus Christ
      • Giants in the Earth >
        • Fossil Origins of Myths >
          • Fossil Teeth and Bones of Elephants
          • Fossil Elephants
          • Fossil Bones of Teutobochus
          • Fossil Mammoths and Giants
          • Giants' Bones Dug Out of the Earth
          • Fossils and the Supernatural
          • Fossils, Myth, and Pseudo-History
          • Man During the Stone Age
          • Fossil Bones and Giants
          • American Elephant Myths
          • The Mammoth and the Flood
          • Fossils and Myth
          • Fossil Origin of the Cyclops
          • Mastodon, Mammoth, and Man
        • Fragments on Giants
        • Manichaean Book of Giants
        • Geoffrey on British Giants
        • Alfonso X's Hermetic History of Giants
        • Boccaccio and the Fossil 'Giant'
        • Book of Howth
        • Purchas His Pilgrimage
        • Edmond Temple's 1827 Giant Investigation
        • The Giants of Sardinia
        • Giants and the Sons of God
        • The Magnetism of Evil
        • Tertiary Giants
        • Smithsonian Giant Reports
        • Early American Giants
        • The Giant of Coahuila
        • Jewish Encyclopedia on Giants
        • Index of Giants
        • Newspaper Accounts of Giants
        • Lanier's A Book of Giants
      • Science and History >
        • Halley on Noah's Comet
        • The Newport Tower
        • Iron: The Stone from Heaven
        • Ararat and the Ark
        • Pyramid Facts and Fancies
        • Argonauts before Homer
        • The Deluge
        • Crown Prince Rudolf on the Pyramids
        • Old Mythology in New Apparel
        • Blavatsky on Dinosaurs
        • Teddy Roosevelt on Bigfoot
        • Devil Worship in France
        • Maspero's Review of Akhbar al-zaman
        • The Holy Grail as Lucifer's Crown Jewel
        • The Mutinous Sea
        • The Rock Wall of Rockwall
        • Fabulous Zoology
        • The Origins of Talos
        • Mexican Mythology
        • Chinese Pyramids
        • Maqrizi's Names of the Pharaohs
      • Extreme History >
        • Roman Empire Hoax
        • American Antiquities
        • American Cataclysms
        • England, the Remnant of Judah
        • Historical Chronology of the Mexicans
        • Maspero on the Predynastic Sphinx
        • Vestiges of the Mayas
        • Ragnarok: The Age of Fire and Gravel
        • Origins of the Egyptian People
        • The Secret Doctrine >
          • Volume 1: Cosmogenesis
          • Volume 2: Anthropogenesis
        • Phoenicians in America
        • The Electric Ark
        • Traces of European Influence
        • Prince Henry Sinclair
        • Pyramid Prophecies
        • Templars of Ancient Mexico
        • Chronology and the "Riddle of the Sphinx"
        • The Faith of Ancient Egypt
        • Spirit of the Hour in Archaeology
        • Book of the Damned
        • Great Pyramid As Noah's Ark
        • Richard Shaver's Proofs
    • Alien Encounters >
      • US Government Ancient Astronaut Files >
        • Fortean Society and Columbus
        • Inquiry into Shaver and Palmer
        • The Skyfort Document
        • Whirling Wheels
        • Denver Ancient Astronaut Lecture
        • Soviet Search for Lemuria
        • Visitors from Outer Space
        • Unidentified Flying Objects (Abstract)
        • "Flying Saucers"? They're a Myth
        • UFO Hypothesis Survival Questions
        • Air Force Academy UFO Textbook
        • The Condon Report on Ancient Astronauts
        • Atlantis Discovery Telegrams
        • Ancient Astronaut Society Telegram
        • Noah's Ark Cables
        • The Von Daniken Letter
        • CIA Psychic Probe of Ancient Mars
        • Scott Wolter Lawsuit
        • UFOs in Ancient China
        • CIA Report on Noah's Ark
        • CIA Noah's Ark Memos
        • Congressional Ancient Aliens Testimony
        • Ancient Astronaut and Nibiru Email
        • Congressional Ancient Mars Hearing
        • House UFO Hearing
      • Ancient Extraterrestrials >
        • Premodern UFO Sightings
        • The Moon Hoax
        • Inhabitants of Other Planets
        • Blavatsky on Ancient Astronauts
        • The Stanzas of Dzyan (Hoax)
        • Aerolites and Religion
        • What Is Theosophy?
        • Plane of Ether
        • The Adepts from Venus
      • A Message from Mars
      • Saucer Mystery Solved?
      • Orville Wright on UFOs
      • Interdimensional Flying Saucers
      • Flying Saucers Are Real
      • Report on UFOs
    • The Supernatural >
      • The Devils of Loudun
      • Sublime and Beautiful
      • Voltaire on Vampires
      • Demonology and Witchcraft
      • Thaumaturgia
      • Bulgarian Vampires
      • Religion and Evolution
      • Transylvanian Superstitions
      • Defining a Zombie
      • Dread of the Supernatural
      • Vampires
      • Werewolves and Vampires and Ghouls
      • Science and Fairy Stories
      • The Cursed Car
    • Classic Fiction >
      • Lucian's True History
      • Some Words with a Mummy
      • The Coming Race
      • King Solomon's Mines
      • An Inhabitant of Carcosa
      • The Xipéhuz
      • Lot No. 249
      • The Novel of the Black Seal
      • The Island of Doctor Moreau
      • Pharaoh's Curse
      • Edison's Conquest of Mars
      • The Lost Continent
      • Count Magnus
      • The Mysterious Stranger
      • The Wendigo
      • Sredni Vashtar
      • The Lost World
      • The Red One
      • H. P. Lovecraft >
        • Dagon
        • The Call of Cthulhu
        • History of the Necronomicon
        • At the Mountains of Madness
        • Lovecraft's Library in 1932
      • The Skeptical Poltergeist
      • The Corpse on the Grating
      • The Second Satellite
      • Queen of the Black Coast
      • A Martian Odyssey
    • Classic Genre Movies
    • Miscellaneous Documents >
      • The Balloon-Hoax
      • A Problem in Greek Ethics
      • The Migration of Symbols
      • The Gospel of Intensity
      • De Profundis
      • The Life and Death of Crown Prince Rudolf
      • The Bathtub Hoax
      • Crown Prince Rudolf's Letters
      • Position of Viking Women
      • Employment of Homosexuals
      • James Dean's Love Letters
      • The Amazing James Dean Hoax!
    • Free Classic Pseudohistory eBooks
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