Trump's "Alien DNA" Doctor; Plus: NY Times Reporters Get Defensive Over UFOs

7/29/2020

Yesterday was certainly one for the angels. Donald Trump’s new favorite COVID-19 doctor, who recently lobbied Congress, turned out to be a paranormal believer with ancient astronaut and occult ideas. According to the Daily Beast, Dr. Stella Immanuel is a believer in David Icke’s Reptilians, among other things:

She alleges alien DNA is currently used in medical treatments, and that scientists are cooking up a vaccine to prevent people from being religious. And, despite appearing in Washington, D.C. to lobby Congress on Monday, she has said that the government is run in part not by humans but by “reptilians” and other aliens.

She’s also pretty hot on the idea that demons are mating with humans, presumably to produce more End Times Nephilim. Anyway, Donald Trump retweeted a video of Immanuel making unscientific claims about COVID-19, and Twitter restricted Donald Trump Jr.’s access after he praised the video and spread false claims about COVID based on it. The president was asked about alien DNA at a press conference yesterday, reiterated that he found Immanuel “impressive,” and then ended the press conference.

Meanwhile, the New York Times doubled down on its endorsement of the idea that the U.S. government possesses crashed flying saucers. In a personal essay published on page 2 of the A section yesterday (!), crackpot reporters Ralph Blumenthal and Leslie Kean, the coauthors of the Times’ UFO stories for the past three years, repeated their belief in crashed saucers and expressed annoyance and anger that their personal and financial connections to the UFO propaganda industry are being questioned.

We’re often asked by well-meaning associates and readers, “Do you believe in U.F.O.s?” The question sets us aback as being inappropriately personal. Times reporters are particularly averse to revealing opinions that could imply possible reporting bias.

But, say, running a UFO advocacy group that lobbies the government for “UFO disclosure,” as Ms. Kean has done for decades, certainly isn’t biased.

More importantly, the two slipped in hearsay that a friend-of-a-friend heard it said that there may be a crashed saucer somewhere in a government facility. You, know, facts:

Numerous associates of the Pentagon program, with high security clearances and decades of involvement with official U.F.O. investigations, told us they were convinced such crashes have occurred, based on their access to classified information. But the retrieved materials themselves, and any data about them, are completely off-limits to anyone without clearances and a need to know.

The pair also provided what they claimed was an “unclassified” slide from a Pentagon briefing on the extraterrestrial vehicle threat. They use the passive voice to avoid explaining who gave them the slides. The slide might have been viewed in the Pentagon, but it doesn’t use the standard DOD PowerPoint template, and it’s also identical to the slideshow Hal Puthoff gave at a remote viewing conference a couple of years ago. In other words, the obvious conclusion is that the slides were from a presentation that Puthoff and/or To the Stars gave to the Pentagon, not one that the Pentagon prepared for government officials.

Hal Puthoff's remote viewing conference slide, claimed to be a Pentagon briefing slide.

The whole thing is an embarrassment, and the Times should just go whole-hog and hire Stella Immanuel as their new health correspondent so we can have Nephilim and crashed saucers side by side in the paper of record.

28 Comments

AMHC

7/29/2020 11:21:19 am

I was JUST ABOUT to email you this link....

Peter Kirchmeir

7/29/2020 01:16:18 pm

Thank you for clearing up so many 'mysteries. Now we know where much misinformation is distributed and endorsed!

David Evans

7/29/2020 04:49:30 pm

Why is #2 listed as a future threat? There have been UFO crash reports from the Soviet Union since 1969 or earlier, so if you believe any of this the threat is already there.

Jim

7/29/2020 07:44:31 pm

"she has said that the government is run in part not by humans but by “reptilians” and other aliens."

"Meanwhile, the New York Times doubled down on its endorsement of the idea that the U.S. government possesses crashed flying saucers."

https://images.fineartamerica.com/images/artworkimages/mediumlarge/1/roswell-nm-1947-pat-byrnes.jpg

Crash55

7/30/2020 07:18:35 pm

Yeah that slide is definitely not from anyone in the DoD. Not only is it not have any logos, it also doesn’t have any distribution statements.

Bezalel

7/30/2020 10:17:09 pm

This is what happens when basic science and research are not properly or adequately federally funded.
Result? The public is not vested in science and gradually learns to distrust science; be skeptical of science even, which is so painfully ironic, because fact is: Science is the only discipline that enshrines pure skepticism, doubt, rigorous method and new facts.

Going downhill fast now.

Kent

7/31/2020 11:26:33 am

Newsflash: any graduate student in the sciences can tell you that a lot of basic research is federally funded and the NIH's current annual budget is $41.68 billion.

"Not properly or adequately" means "not according to my own [unknown] standards."

Don't see how AAATIP has to do with basic research.

7/31/2020 06:57:41 pm

The DoD RDT&E budget for 2021 is 106 billion. Basic is usually around 5 - 10% of that.

I really don’t know what flavor of research AATIP would qualify for. I don’t think it would be 6.1, maybe 6.2 or 6.3. Though I have been told those designations are changing

Anita fixx

7/31/2020 06:59:15 pm

Any graduate student can tell you that annual NIH funding is chump change compared to the annual core defense budget. Funding for research on drug abuse and treatment is a very small portion of the budget even though more people currently die from drug and alcohol abuse every year than died in Vietnam. Adequacy certainly is in the eye of the beholder.

8/1/2020 08:38:51 am

Actually for basic research you are wrong. NIH makes up almost half of all government basic research at present. DoD has more total R&D money (RDT&E) but a lot less designated for basic.

I was surprised by that myself when I wet looking at the number yesterday. There is a 2005 MIT report that lays out all basic research funding from the government if you wish to see how the different pots compare. For current number you will have to dig through the budget

8/1/2020 08:41:00 am

It would be simpler to make a list of "Things that are larger than the defense budget".

Quod scripsi scripsi.

Anita Fixx

8/1/2020 08:23:08 pm

I was referring to the core of the overall defense budget. However, as you noted, the combined R&D and basic research alone are far in excess of the total budget for the NIH. The government invests over eleven billion dollars per week to play world hall monitor, while investing less than one billion a week to fund the NIH.

I have served as a grant reviewer for several RO1 proposals submitted to the NIH. On occasion my committee gave a proposal a high score only to be encouraged to reconsider our scoring to the detriment of the applicant. Only about 18 percent of applications are funded because of budgetary constraints so artificially high standards are imposed. As a result a number of proposals that targeted opioid abuse did not receive funding during the period when the death rate from drug abuse, especially heroin and prescription opiates, was in the process of quadrupling.

Adequacy is in the eye of the beholder and some eyes are more knowledgeable and experienced than others. Professionals tend to fall in the category of agreeing with Bezazel on the matter of funding of research. Non-professionals represent a wide range of perspectives. Those suffering from serious health problems tend to sympathize with the professional perspective and are less cavalier about $640 toilet seats written into defense budgets.

8/2/2020 08:53:55 am

Funding limitations and occasional meddling are nor limited to NIH proposals. I author and review SBIR topics. Just to get the topic out I have to go through many wickets and in a couple of cases those steps have severely weakened the topic. In one case it no longer met the original need.

On the review end I have had no one tell me to alter scores. There are at most three reviewers per topic - 1 or 2 technical and the team chief. If everything goes well you get the two technical being largely in agreement and then the teams chief just takes their reviews to create his own and the summary. However I have had a few cases where what the technical reviewers submitted and what got funded didn’t line up at all. Also we can’t compare notes until after submission so the reviews are independent.

As for funding we always get one and usually two Phase I awards per topic. This year I was shocked to get three awards for one topic. Phase I is only $100k and six months. No matter how many are awarded at Phase I you are only authorized one Phase II follow on. If extra money is available you may get a second but highly unlikely. They are generally $750k for two years

8/2/2020 12:31:21 am

Just finished listening to a replay of the Art Bell show from 1998 where he talks to John Holland, PhD in Biophysics about PEAR, remote viewing and a lot of gibberish. Throwing more federal (a.k.a. "other people's") money at it would not solve that problem

Rosemary Clooney

8/2/2020 01:52:16 pm

The Feds threw a lot of money at remote viewing and associated scams over the decades. The movie Men Who Stare at Goats is a popularization of this.

Sid

8/2/2020 10:32:16 pm

Federal spending on remote viewing, etc., research was overwhelmingly disbursed through the military and intelligence services. PEAR was housed at a private university and funded via private donations.

8/3/2020 10:29:19 am

Federal dollars came to PEAR by way of donations by James McDonnell whose company benefited tremendously from the trillions spent on the defense budget.

By the way, PEAR was a small marginalized research center. Not only did they not receive federal grant money but I don't believe that any of the resulting research was published in legitimate peer reviewed scientific journals. Perhaps a few papers found their way into gray literature publications, though.

4,000 pounds of heavy metal and rock ‘n roll

7/31/2020 12:23:17 pm

I think that it’s important to point out that, although criticism of the NYT for endorsing this idiocy is clearly justified, they are really only attempting to appeal to crazy woo believers who are sadly now a fixture in mainstream culture. In a larger sense, this type of story represents the sad decline of critical thinking in American society where things have devolved to such an alarming extent that the venerable Gray Lady is now pandering to uneducated flat-earthers who readily believe in the most asinine ideas.

Doc Rock

7/31/2020 02:13:16 pm

It's like fighting Japanese in 1947 all over again.

7/31/2020 07:05:10 pm

It's worse than you portray it.
Until Hiroo Onoda finally surrendered in 1974 you never knew when a Japanese soldier might spring out of the jungle and bushwack you.

8/1/2020 10:25:22 am

It's never boring when people who have lost badly repeatedly can't quite come to that realization.

8/1/2020 12:59:04 pm

Ain't that the truth !
You don't have to look far to see that in the comments here.

8/2/2020 12:32:53 am

Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?

8/2/2020 10:51:01 am

The same people who investigate the investigators.

8/4/2020 09:45:37 am

I have to admit that I find Immamuel impressive too, albeit not in a good way. After reading thru a bit more background I suddenly have a raging thirst for a QBM. On that note and
On the topic of most commonly used Latin expressions to try to impress undergrad chicks here is mine: Veni vidi vici vodka= I came, I saw, I knocked out a fifth of Grey Goose. It loses a little in translation.

Charles Verrastro link

8/2/2020 02:11:23 pm

What so many including the media overlook is what these frauds are trying to get across, to wit being "Frontline Doctors" on the cutting edge of fighting the pandemic. Most are not even practicing medical professionals (A Bitcoin Investor?) . The African spokesperson is probably considered somewhat mainstream in Africa for still holding to a belief in demonic influences on health (hopefully less so on the Reptilian Aliens and experimental injections to eliminate Republicans and other conservatives), but everyone misses the point she is an evangelical minister and longtime conservative lobbyist who only obtained her medical certificate (as a Pediatrician, no less) a few months ago. Hardly the true medical heroes who have vast experience treating Covid patients or researching treatments.
I won't go into the true background of this production as it has been well reported this is a sad attempt by the Tea Party folks to duplicate the Lincoln Project's devastating media campaign with talking points from Trump's tired disinformation tactics.

8/3/2020 01:45:28 pm

Who ya gonna believe, Dr Fauci or Tic Toc Trump's African witch doctor ?

RICHARD SCHRUM

8/5/2020 10:31:38 pm

I really am surprised that the Area 51 conspiracy theorists are not all over this! Here's a President (and I use the term loosely) who cofirms by his support of this "doctor" that there really are reptilians running the government (I suppose he's one too) and Alien DNA is being used on people.