Volume 23 Archive
THE JASON COLAVITO NEWSLETTER
• Vol. 23 • Issue 1 • July 2, 2023 •
It’s been a busy two weeks. Let’s see what’s new…
News
The frenzy over space aliens is reaching fever-pitch. Avi Loeb announced that he found tiny spheres that are pieces of advanced alien technology (or, he quietly added, maybe just interstellar metal—but, hush up, we don’t talk about the un-fun probability; in reality, the alloy is similar to one used in treating steel for a century). Sen. Marco Rubio set off a firestorm when he seemed to claim on NewsNation to have spoken with firsthand witnesses to crashed saucers in the government’s possession, only for it to come out that they only saw paperwork about alleged special access programs not properly registered with Congress, prompting New York magazine to quietly edit a story, ratcheting it down from claiming proof of aliens to merely noting Rubio’s UFO obsession. In unaired portions of his NewsNation interview, Rubio admitted that his real interest isn’t space aliens but in using UFO claims to combat “the Deep State” that he feels insufficiently respects him. His colleague on the House side, Mike Gallagher, claimed UFOs are either time travelers or representatives of a parallel civilization from the Hollow Earth (seriously), while the House had to delay a planned hearing into crashed saucers because most of their witnesses failed a basic background check. The only “credible” witness, David Grusch, claimed America has a secret treaty with murderous space monsters and that the U.S. and the Russians have been in a race to “master” crashed UFO technology. This, of course, led the New York Times to do a podcast wondering if all the many ways Lue Elizondo and his friends have seeded UFO lore into government means that aliens are really here. I guess it beats contemplating the Supreme Court’s program of eliminating civil rights as we pave the way for fascism. Oh, wait, Grusch says fascists captured UFOs, too.
In other news, HBO’s documentary about Rock Hudson contained a deceptive edit that this week sparked a flurry of articles in major media like the New York Post wrongly claiming Hudson hit on James Dean while filming Giant (the incident, which was closer to sexual harassment, happened four years earlier). Some of the reviews, including one from Fox News and one in the San Jose Mercury News, cited my 2021 Esquire piece about James Dean to compare him to Hudson and contrast their queer identities.
On the Blog
In case you missed them, here are my best blog posts and Substack articles for the weeks of June 19–July 2:
Until next week, keep watching the skies!
Jason Colavito
• JasonColavito@outlook.com • JasonColavito.com • @JasonColavito •
• Vol. 23 • Issue 1 • July 2, 2023 •
It’s been a busy two weeks. Let’s see what’s new…
News
The frenzy over space aliens is reaching fever-pitch. Avi Loeb announced that he found tiny spheres that are pieces of advanced alien technology (or, he quietly added, maybe just interstellar metal—but, hush up, we don’t talk about the un-fun probability; in reality, the alloy is similar to one used in treating steel for a century). Sen. Marco Rubio set off a firestorm when he seemed to claim on NewsNation to have spoken with firsthand witnesses to crashed saucers in the government’s possession, only for it to come out that they only saw paperwork about alleged special access programs not properly registered with Congress, prompting New York magazine to quietly edit a story, ratcheting it down from claiming proof of aliens to merely noting Rubio’s UFO obsession. In unaired portions of his NewsNation interview, Rubio admitted that his real interest isn’t space aliens but in using UFO claims to combat “the Deep State” that he feels insufficiently respects him. His colleague on the House side, Mike Gallagher, claimed UFOs are either time travelers or representatives of a parallel civilization from the Hollow Earth (seriously), while the House had to delay a planned hearing into crashed saucers because most of their witnesses failed a basic background check. The only “credible” witness, David Grusch, claimed America has a secret treaty with murderous space monsters and that the U.S. and the Russians have been in a race to “master” crashed UFO technology. This, of course, led the New York Times to do a podcast wondering if all the many ways Lue Elizondo and his friends have seeded UFO lore into government means that aliens are really here. I guess it beats contemplating the Supreme Court’s program of eliminating civil rights as we pave the way for fascism. Oh, wait, Grusch says fascists captured UFOs, too.
In other news, HBO’s documentary about Rock Hudson contained a deceptive edit that this week sparked a flurry of articles in major media like the New York Post wrongly claiming Hudson hit on James Dean while filming Giant (the incident, which was closer to sexual harassment, happened four years earlier). Some of the reviews, including one from Fox News and one in the San Jose Mercury News, cited my 2021 Esquire piece about James Dean to compare him to Hudson and contrast their queer identities.
On the Blog
In case you missed them, here are my best blog posts and Substack articles for the weeks of June 19–July 2:
- Stephen Kijak’s Magnificent Obsession (Review of All That Heaven Allowed)
- Review of Ancient Aliens S19E11 “The Top Ten Pyramid Sites”
- Review of Ascension by Nicholas Binge
- Senate Committee Passes Legislation to Root Out Concealed Alien Artifacts
Until next week, keep watching the skies!
Jason Colavito
• JasonColavito@outlook.com • JasonColavito.com • @JasonColavito •
THE JASON COLAVITO NEWSLETTER
• Vol. 23 • Issue 2 • July 9, 2023 •
It’s been a (not-so) busy week. Let’s see what’s new…
News
With the Independence Day holiday shortening this week, relatively little of note happened in the world of flying saucers, space monsters, and Congressional investigation of aliens. Lue Elizondo finally broke his silence in the wake of David Grusch’s claims, but mostly just to share vacation photos. Avi Loeb claimed some iron balls he found in the ocean are the melted remains of alien technology and implied some were miniature models of the Earth, but such microspherules are known to be naturally occurring results of meteor impacts. Meanwhile, a literary agent contacted me unsolicited with an offer to represent my book because he said publishers were looking for a James Dean book in advance of the 2025 70th anniversary of Dean’s death. However, he attached a condition—because he said publishers aren’t interested in queer themes, believing no audience will read about them, I would need to basically trash the book I wrote and write what they want, a celebratory review of Dean’s influence on pop culture, including fashion and movies. My feeling is that he described a completely separate book with no connection to what I wrote, substituting the posthumous cartoon character for the real person.
On the Blog
In case you missed them, here are my best blog posts and Substack articles for the week of July 3–9:
Until next week, keep watching the skies!
Jason Colavito
• JasonColavito@outlook.com • JasonColavito.com • @JasonColavito •
• Vol. 23 • Issue 2 • July 9, 2023 •
It’s been a (not-so) busy week. Let’s see what’s new…
News
With the Independence Day holiday shortening this week, relatively little of note happened in the world of flying saucers, space monsters, and Congressional investigation of aliens. Lue Elizondo finally broke his silence in the wake of David Grusch’s claims, but mostly just to share vacation photos. Avi Loeb claimed some iron balls he found in the ocean are the melted remains of alien technology and implied some were miniature models of the Earth, but such microspherules are known to be naturally occurring results of meteor impacts. Meanwhile, a literary agent contacted me unsolicited with an offer to represent my book because he said publishers were looking for a James Dean book in advance of the 2025 70th anniversary of Dean’s death. However, he attached a condition—because he said publishers aren’t interested in queer themes, believing no audience will read about them, I would need to basically trash the book I wrote and write what they want, a celebratory review of Dean’s influence on pop culture, including fashion and movies. My feeling is that he described a completely separate book with no connection to what I wrote, substituting the posthumous cartoon character for the real person.
On the Blog
In case you missed them, here are my best blog posts and Substack articles for the week of July 3–9:
- Review of Ancient Aliens S19E12: “The Top Ten Mysterious Devices”
- New York Times Praises Uri Geller for Profiting from “Benign” Post-Truth “Fraud”
Until next week, keep watching the skies!
Jason Colavito
• JasonColavito@outlook.com • JasonColavito.com • @JasonColavito •
THE JASON COLAVITO NEWSLETTER
• Vol. 23 • Issue 3 • July 16, 2023 •
It’s been a busy week. Let’s see what’s new…
News
“All of this [is] a very bizarre story,” NBC’s Gadi Schwartz said on Nightly News Friday night after reporting on dead aliens and crashed saucers. The network’s most pro-UFO reporter finally found a line too strange even for him to cross in discussing the latest efforts in Congress to hold hearings on secret treaties with murderous space monsters and clandestine programs to reverse-engineer their many, many crashed ships. Senate Democrats put out a statement announcing that, based on “stories” and “ideas” from “a vast web of individuals and groups,” “some in Congress” came to believe in flying saucer conspiracies. Majority leader Chuck Schumer, saying that he had been led to believe by his “mentor,” Harry Reid, announced that Americans had a “right” to learn about “non-human intelligence.” After Congress incorporated Lue Elizondo’s “five observables” verbatim into legislation and moved to nationalize imaginary dead alien bodies held in private hands, Air Mail’s Rich Cohen, whose publication’s audience is the super-rich, announced that he now believes aliens are real because government officials are taking them seriously—just like they do the menace of transgender bathroom rapists and pizza parlor underground Reptilian sex rings, or, from an earlier day, psychic warfare and Satanic child rapists. Marco Rubio of all people probably said it best when he noted that the alternative to aliens being real is that “crazy” people hold positions of power. So now you notice?
On the Blog
In case you missed them, here are my best blog posts and Substack articles for the week of July 10–16:
Until next week, keep watching the skies!
Jason Colavito
• JasonColavito@outlook.com • JasonColavito.com • @JasonColavito •
• Vol. 23 • Issue 3 • July 16, 2023 •
It’s been a busy week. Let’s see what’s new…
News
“All of this [is] a very bizarre story,” NBC’s Gadi Schwartz said on Nightly News Friday night after reporting on dead aliens and crashed saucers. The network’s most pro-UFO reporter finally found a line too strange even for him to cross in discussing the latest efforts in Congress to hold hearings on secret treaties with murderous space monsters and clandestine programs to reverse-engineer their many, many crashed ships. Senate Democrats put out a statement announcing that, based on “stories” and “ideas” from “a vast web of individuals and groups,” “some in Congress” came to believe in flying saucer conspiracies. Majority leader Chuck Schumer, saying that he had been led to believe by his “mentor,” Harry Reid, announced that Americans had a “right” to learn about “non-human intelligence.” After Congress incorporated Lue Elizondo’s “five observables” verbatim into legislation and moved to nationalize imaginary dead alien bodies held in private hands, Air Mail’s Rich Cohen, whose publication’s audience is the super-rich, announced that he now believes aliens are real because government officials are taking them seriously—just like they do the menace of transgender bathroom rapists and pizza parlor underground Reptilian sex rings, or, from an earlier day, psychic warfare and Satanic child rapists. Marco Rubio of all people probably said it best when he noted that the alternative to aliens being real is that “crazy” people hold positions of power. So now you notice?
On the Blog
In case you missed them, here are my best blog posts and Substack articles for the week of July 10–16:
- In Brief: House GOP Plans Late July Hearing on Space Aliens and Crashed Saucers
- Review of Ancient Aliens S19E13: “The Top Ten Mysterious Islands”
Until next week, keep watching the skies!
Jason Colavito
• JasonColavito@outlook.com • JasonColavito.com • @JasonColavito •
THE JASON COLAVITO NEWSLETTER
• Vol. 23 • Issue 4 • July 23, 2023 •
It’s been a busy week. Let’s see what’s new…
News
In the runup to this week’s GOP-led UFO hearing in the House of Representatives, the Republicans in charge of running it held a news conference offering a range of conspiracies, including the claim that the Pentagon denied them information during a tour of an Air Force base. Then it turned out that their conspiracy theories were lies. The GOP representatives had toured the base under false pretenses, pretending to be interested in intelligence issues before surprising the military with a request for UFO information, and had never sought nor received the necessary clearances for a UFO briefing, which the military nevertheless provided to the only member of their tour group who had the appropriate clearance. The head of the Pentagon’s UFO office, Sean Kirkpatrick went on ABC News to tamp down House UFO fever by explaining that there was no evidence of aliens and that no whistleblower, including the one set to testify to Congress this week, offered any verifiable evidence of a secret crashed saucer exploitation program.
In more personal news, I am now working with a new literary agent to represent my book. Thanks to his dogged efforts, as of this writing, twenty-one publishers in the U.S. have requested the manuscript for consideration. Four others outside the United States are considering it as well. I’d like to believe that at least one of the twenty-five will say yes!
On the Blog
In case you missed them, here are my best blog posts and Substack articles for the week of July 17–23:
Until next week, keep watching the skies!
Jason Colavito
• JasonColavito@outlook.com • JasonColavito.com • @JasonColavito •
• Vol. 23 • Issue 4 • July 23, 2023 •
It’s been a busy week. Let’s see what’s new…
News
In the runup to this week’s GOP-led UFO hearing in the House of Representatives, the Republicans in charge of running it held a news conference offering a range of conspiracies, including the claim that the Pentagon denied them information during a tour of an Air Force base. Then it turned out that their conspiracy theories were lies. The GOP representatives had toured the base under false pretenses, pretending to be interested in intelligence issues before surprising the military with a request for UFO information, and had never sought nor received the necessary clearances for a UFO briefing, which the military nevertheless provided to the only member of their tour group who had the appropriate clearance. The head of the Pentagon’s UFO office, Sean Kirkpatrick went on ABC News to tamp down House UFO fever by explaining that there was no evidence of aliens and that no whistleblower, including the one set to testify to Congress this week, offered any verifiable evidence of a secret crashed saucer exploitation program.
In more personal news, I am now working with a new literary agent to represent my book. Thanks to his dogged efforts, as of this writing, twenty-one publishers in the U.S. have requested the manuscript for consideration. Four others outside the United States are considering it as well. I’d like to believe that at least one of the twenty-five will say yes!
On the Blog
In case you missed them, here are my best blog posts and Substack articles for the week of July 17–23:
- Review of Ancient Aliens S19E14 “The Top Ten Alien Craft”
- Review of The Abduction of Betty and Barney Hill by Matthew Bowman
- Pentagon Says Whistleblowers Provided No Verifiable Crashed Saucer Information
Until next week, keep watching the skies!
Jason Colavito
• JasonColavito@outlook.com • JasonColavito.com • @JasonColavito •
THE JASON COLAVITO NEWSLETTER
• Vol. 23 • Issue 5 • July 30, 2023 •
It’s been a busy week. Let’s see what’s new…
News
The History Channel certainly blew a major opportunity this week. A subcommittee of the House Oversight Committee held a hearing with two regulars on the UFO circuit and David Grusch, the newly minted UFO celebrity who claimed to have heard stories about crashed saucers, dead aliens, and conspiracies involving the U.S. government, Mussolini, and the Vatican. With all the wild claims flying through Washington, it would have been the perfect time for Ancient Aliens to do a live roundtable panel discussion of the canonization of their paranoid worldview. The congressman who made it all happen, Bigfoot advocate and election denier Tim Burchett, has even been a guest on Ancient Aliens in the past. And yet History chose to air a four-hour compilation of Ancient Aliens rerun segments instead. In fact, none of the channels that produced primetime specials in 2021 when Congress held a much less interesting hearing on UFOs bothered to cover the one that actually claimed dead aliens and recovered ships. It’s almost like they didn’t believe it themselves. It’s one thing to speculate about ambiguous sightings, which most media treat as harmless fun since no specific claim is being made, and quite another to give credence to specific claims that an alien spaceship is locked in a particular hangar.
On the Blog
In case you missed them, here are my best blog posts and Substack articles for the week of July 24–30:
Until next week, keep watching the skies!
Jason Colavito
• JasonColavito@outlook.com • JasonColavito.com • @JasonColavito •
• Vol. 23 • Issue 5 • July 30, 2023 •
It’s been a busy week. Let’s see what’s new…
News
The History Channel certainly blew a major opportunity this week. A subcommittee of the House Oversight Committee held a hearing with two regulars on the UFO circuit and David Grusch, the newly minted UFO celebrity who claimed to have heard stories about crashed saucers, dead aliens, and conspiracies involving the U.S. government, Mussolini, and the Vatican. With all the wild claims flying through Washington, it would have been the perfect time for Ancient Aliens to do a live roundtable panel discussion of the canonization of their paranoid worldview. The congressman who made it all happen, Bigfoot advocate and election denier Tim Burchett, has even been a guest on Ancient Aliens in the past. And yet History chose to air a four-hour compilation of Ancient Aliens rerun segments instead. In fact, none of the channels that produced primetime specials in 2021 when Congress held a much less interesting hearing on UFOs bothered to cover the one that actually claimed dead aliens and recovered ships. It’s almost like they didn’t believe it themselves. It’s one thing to speculate about ambiguous sightings, which most media treat as harmless fun since no specific claim is being made, and quite another to give credence to specific claims that an alien spaceship is locked in a particular hangar.
On the Blog
In case you missed them, here are my best blog posts and Substack articles for the week of July 24–30:
- Read My CNN Piece about the UFO Hearing
- What’s Behind the Use of “Ontological Shock” Claims to Attack UFO Skeptics?
Until next week, keep watching the skies!
Jason Colavito
• JasonColavito@outlook.com • JasonColavito.com • @JasonColavito •
THE JASON COLAVITO NEWSLETTER
• Vol. 23 • Issue 6 • August 6, 2023 •
It’s been a busy week. Let’s see what’s new…
News
This week, David Grusch gave an interview to BBC Radio 4 where he repeated his NewsNation claims, including those he declined to state under oath before a House subcommittee last week. He discussed, for example, the alien bodies. But more interesting was his use of “ontological shock” in the interview, the newly popular term that burst onto the scene right at the time Grusch started making claims. As I pointed out last week, the term originates in philosophy in a somewhat different context and alien abduction researcher John Mack applied it to space alien encounters in the 1990s. It was quite rare in UFO circles until this summer, around the time Diana Pasulka began to use it in public, and Grusch using it now is still more evidence of how deeply embedded he is in the UFO community and how much he has absorbed its beliefs and values. Meanwhile, the New Yorker had a great piece on the complete lack of even a single unambiguous photograph of an alien spaceship that managed to get Leslie Kean to admit that the photographic evidence she provided in her 2010 UFO book widely cited by officials is not conclusive, and indeed may be misinterpreted. “I just don’t know who to believe sometimes, you know?” she said. All she has is stories, and the stories are 1940s sci-fi mythology imposed on ambiguous or bad data—which, ironically, is actually a real U.S. government conclusion, from the FBI in 1948.
On the Blog
In case you missed them, here are my best blog posts and Substack articles for the week of July 31–August 6:
Until next week, keep watching the skies!
Jason Colavito
• JasonColavito@outlook.com • JasonColavito.com • @JasonColavito •
• Vol. 23 • Issue 6 • August 6, 2023 •
It’s been a busy week. Let’s see what’s new…
News
This week, David Grusch gave an interview to BBC Radio 4 where he repeated his NewsNation claims, including those he declined to state under oath before a House subcommittee last week. He discussed, for example, the alien bodies. But more interesting was his use of “ontological shock” in the interview, the newly popular term that burst onto the scene right at the time Grusch started making claims. As I pointed out last week, the term originates in philosophy in a somewhat different context and alien abduction researcher John Mack applied it to space alien encounters in the 1990s. It was quite rare in UFO circles until this summer, around the time Diana Pasulka began to use it in public, and Grusch using it now is still more evidence of how deeply embedded he is in the UFO community and how much he has absorbed its beliefs and values. Meanwhile, the New Yorker had a great piece on the complete lack of even a single unambiguous photograph of an alien spaceship that managed to get Leslie Kean to admit that the photographic evidence she provided in her 2010 UFO book widely cited by officials is not conclusive, and indeed may be misinterpreted. “I just don’t know who to believe sometimes, you know?” she said. All she has is stories, and the stories are 1940s sci-fi mythology imposed on ambiguous or bad data—which, ironically, is actually a real U.S. government conclusion, from the FBI in 1948.
On the Blog
In case you missed them, here are my best blog posts and Substack articles for the week of July 31–August 6:
- David Grusch Works for Garry Nolan and Chris Mellon, New Document Shows
- Review of Ancient Aliens S19E15: “Edgar Cayce: The Sleeping Prophet”
Until next week, keep watching the skies!
Jason Colavito
• JasonColavito@outlook.com • JasonColavito.com • @JasonColavito •
THE JASON COLAVITO NEWSLETTER
• Vol. 23 • Issue 7 • August 13, 2023 •
It’s been a busy week. Let’s see what’s new…
News
The most important news in UFO land this week was The Intercept’s article reporting on UFO whistleblower David Grusch’s encounters with police in 2014 and 2018 due to ongoing issues with alcoholism and violence caused by PTSD that led to a psychiatric detention. Before the story ran, Grusch told Ross Coulthart that the intelligence community had “leaked” his “medical records” in an effort to discredit him, a claim Coulthart made on Chris Cuomo’s NewsNation show. However, it turned out that people in the Defense Department and the intelligence community had merely suggested in response to an open call for information that The Intercept check Grusch’s police records, which the publication obtained through the Freedom of Information Act. No medical records were involved, but Rep. Tim Burchett jumped on the false story, promising to punish the (non-existent) leaker for attacking Grusch. NewsNation issued a correction, only to falsely report that The Intercept had fired the reporter who “smeared” Grusch with facts. The Nexstar-owned cable news channel had fallen for an online prank. NewsNation and its sister Nexstar publication, The Hill, have gone all in on UFO coverage, running countless stories about alien visitation in a transparent effort to use an appeal to a fanatical minority to boost the second-tier operations’ ratings, much the way competitor NewsMax retooled to serve Donald Trump superfans.
On the Blog
In case you missed them, here are my best blog posts and Substack articles for the week of August 7–13:
Until next week, keep watching the skies!
Jason Colavito
• JasonColavito@outlook.com • JasonColavito.com • @JasonColavito •
• Vol. 23 • Issue 7 • August 13, 2023 •
It’s been a busy week. Let’s see what’s new…
News
The most important news in UFO land this week was The Intercept’s article reporting on UFO whistleblower David Grusch’s encounters with police in 2014 and 2018 due to ongoing issues with alcoholism and violence caused by PTSD that led to a psychiatric detention. Before the story ran, Grusch told Ross Coulthart that the intelligence community had “leaked” his “medical records” in an effort to discredit him, a claim Coulthart made on Chris Cuomo’s NewsNation show. However, it turned out that people in the Defense Department and the intelligence community had merely suggested in response to an open call for information that The Intercept check Grusch’s police records, which the publication obtained through the Freedom of Information Act. No medical records were involved, but Rep. Tim Burchett jumped on the false story, promising to punish the (non-existent) leaker for attacking Grusch. NewsNation issued a correction, only to falsely report that The Intercept had fired the reporter who “smeared” Grusch with facts. The Nexstar-owned cable news channel had fallen for an online prank. NewsNation and its sister Nexstar publication, The Hill, have gone all in on UFO coverage, running countless stories about alien visitation in a transparent effort to use an appeal to a fanatical minority to boost the second-tier operations’ ratings, much the way competitor NewsMax retooled to serve Donald Trump superfans.
On the Blog
In case you missed them, here are my best blog posts and Substack articles for the week of August 7–13:
- Review of Ancient Aliens S19E16: “The Gods of Greece”
- UFO Roundup: Gillibrand Hasn’t Seen Aliens, but on Fox News UFOs Are Demons
- New Paper Rebukes Claim That an Exploding Comet Destroyed Hopewell Culture
Until next week, keep watching the skies!
Jason Colavito
• JasonColavito@outlook.com • JasonColavito.com • @JasonColavito •
THE JASON COLAVITO NEWSLETTER
• Vol. 23 • Issue 8 • August 20, 2023 •
It’s been a busy week. Let’s see what’s new…
News
A not-so-shocking report in the Washington Post found that NewsNation has massively improved its ratings after going all-in on UFO coverage, making flying saucers a cornerstone of its strategy to become a major news channel. Its UFO specials have increased audiences for some timeslots by double digits, with at least one broadcast quadrupling the network’s average audience, even as NewsNation has been forced to retract false UFO conspiracy claims made on its air. NewsNation is owned by Nexstar, the local TV station behemoth whose other properties include the D.C. news service The Hill, which has also turned over significant real estate to UFO coverage, and George Knapp’s Mystery Wire, the UFO and paranormal news service. Knapp, of course, is a UFO power player, an Ancient Aliens guest, and claimed to have been scheduled to testify before Congress at one point. But even with its heavy UFO focus, NewsNation isn’t the top dog in the cable news UFO frenzy. Fox News Channel still mentions UFOs more often, the Post reports.
On the Blog
In case you missed them, here are my best blog posts and Substack articles for the week of August 14–20:
Until next week, keep watching the skies!
Jason Colavito
• JasonColavito@outlook.com • JasonColavito.com • @JasonColavito •
• Vol. 23 • Issue 8 • August 20, 2023 •
It’s been a busy week. Let’s see what’s new…
News
A not-so-shocking report in the Washington Post found that NewsNation has massively improved its ratings after going all-in on UFO coverage, making flying saucers a cornerstone of its strategy to become a major news channel. Its UFO specials have increased audiences for some timeslots by double digits, with at least one broadcast quadrupling the network’s average audience, even as NewsNation has been forced to retract false UFO conspiracy claims made on its air. NewsNation is owned by Nexstar, the local TV station behemoth whose other properties include the D.C. news service The Hill, which has also turned over significant real estate to UFO coverage, and George Knapp’s Mystery Wire, the UFO and paranormal news service. Knapp, of course, is a UFO power player, an Ancient Aliens guest, and claimed to have been scheduled to testify before Congress at one point. But even with its heavy UFO focus, NewsNation isn’t the top dog in the cable news UFO frenzy. Fox News Channel still mentions UFOs more often, the Post reports.
On the Blog
In case you missed them, here are my best blog posts and Substack articles for the week of August 14–20:
- Review of Ancient Aliens S19E17: “The New UFO Hunters”
- “Beatings, Boots, Belts and Bondage”: Kenneth Anger, James Dean, and BDSM
Until next week, keep watching the skies!
Jason Colavito
• JasonColavito@outlook.com • JasonColavito.com • @JasonColavito •
THE JASON COLAVITO NEWSLETTER
• Vol. 23 • Issue 9 • August 27, 2023 •
It’s been a busy week. Let’s see what’s new…
News
On Coast to Coast AM this week, erstwhile television personality Scott F. Wolter brought out some new claims to add to his growing repertoire of outré ideas. Wolter asserted that “hidden” books of the Bible are being covered up, that Native Americans recall interacting with ancient Egyptians when they emerged from an underground world beneath the Grand Canyon, and that the Founding Fathers weren’t just inspired by the Knights Templar but were secretly their biological descendants. Much of this is merely variations on old misunderstandings and hoaxes, though the notion of biological transmission of Wolter’s secret knowledge from Jesus to the Templars to the Freemasons along genetic lines of quasi-royal descent is rapidly growing into a bizarre obsession with pure holy bloodlines. This is all the weirder when Wolter alleges that he has “no choice” but to conclude that the government and the Vatican are hiding proof of ancient aliens. Then, two days later, Graham Phillips appeared on the show to continue his promotional tour for his new book about Doggerland, the sunken North Sea territory. He and host George Noory discussed claims that Doggerland was Atlantis, that Atlantis sank in Noah’s Flood, and that Stonehenge was the work of the survivors of Atlantis. Compared to Wolter, Phillips’s incorrect ideas seemed almost rational, since the final lines of Plato’s unfinished Critias connect Atlantis to the Near Eastern Flood myth. That’s more evidence than Wolter has.
On the Blog
In case you missed them, here are my best blog posts and Substack articles for the week of August 21–27:
Until next week, keep watching the skies!
Jason Colavito
• JasonColavito@outlook.com • JasonColavito.com • @JasonColavito •
• Vol. 23 • Issue 9 • August 27, 2023 •
It’s been a busy week. Let’s see what’s new…
News
On Coast to Coast AM this week, erstwhile television personality Scott F. Wolter brought out some new claims to add to his growing repertoire of outré ideas. Wolter asserted that “hidden” books of the Bible are being covered up, that Native Americans recall interacting with ancient Egyptians when they emerged from an underground world beneath the Grand Canyon, and that the Founding Fathers weren’t just inspired by the Knights Templar but were secretly their biological descendants. Much of this is merely variations on old misunderstandings and hoaxes, though the notion of biological transmission of Wolter’s secret knowledge from Jesus to the Templars to the Freemasons along genetic lines of quasi-royal descent is rapidly growing into a bizarre obsession with pure holy bloodlines. This is all the weirder when Wolter alleges that he has “no choice” but to conclude that the government and the Vatican are hiding proof of ancient aliens. Then, two days later, Graham Phillips appeared on the show to continue his promotional tour for his new book about Doggerland, the sunken North Sea territory. He and host George Noory discussed claims that Doggerland was Atlantis, that Atlantis sank in Noah’s Flood, and that Stonehenge was the work of the survivors of Atlantis. Compared to Wolter, Phillips’s incorrect ideas seemed almost rational, since the final lines of Plato’s unfinished Critias connect Atlantis to the Near Eastern Flood myth. That’s more evidence than Wolter has.
On the Blog
In case you missed them, here are my best blog posts and Substack articles for the week of August 21–27:
- “Permission to Wonder”: A Review of UFO by Garrett M. Graff
- Review of Ancient Aliens S19E18 “The Power of the Talisman”
Until next week, keep watching the skies!
Jason Colavito
• JasonColavito@outlook.com • JasonColavito.com • @JasonColavito •
THE JASON COLAVITO NEWSLETTER
• Vol. 23 • Issue 10 • September 3, 2023 •
It’s been a busy week. Let’s see what’s new…
News
This week, I was busy finalizing a project, and I expect that I will be making a formal announcement next week after the holiday once everything is in place. Meanwhile, we can marvel that Avi Loeb’s claim to have found extrasolar microspherules in the Pacific Ocean at a press conference this week suspiciously timed to coincide with the release of his new book Interstellar has already started to collapse as his colleagues point out major flaws in his science and one compared his pronouncements to those of a “religious zealot.” Meanwhile, I was taken aback when I saw an allegation I had missed earlier this year from the British biographer of Louis, 1st Earl Mountbatten of Burma (King Charles’s great-uncle) that the United States government recently destroyed World War II-era files reporting allegations that Mountbatten was a “homosexual” with a preference for young boys at the request of the British government. Andrew Lownie reported the contents of the files in 2019, and he now writes that a U.S. official told him that additional documents were destroyed “after you had asked for them” to whitewash history. (Multiple men have claimed Mountbatten, who was assassinated in 1979, abused them, and at least one is suing for compensation.)
On the Blog
In case you missed them, here are my best blog posts and Substack articles for the week of August 28–September 3:
Until next week, keep watching the skies!
Jason Colavito
• JasonColavito@outlook.com • JasonColavito.com • @JasonColavito •
• Vol. 23 • Issue 10 • September 3, 2023 •
It’s been a busy week. Let’s see what’s new…
News
This week, I was busy finalizing a project, and I expect that I will be making a formal announcement next week after the holiday once everything is in place. Meanwhile, we can marvel that Avi Loeb’s claim to have found extrasolar microspherules in the Pacific Ocean at a press conference this week suspiciously timed to coincide with the release of his new book Interstellar has already started to collapse as his colleagues point out major flaws in his science and one compared his pronouncements to those of a “religious zealot.” Meanwhile, I was taken aback when I saw an allegation I had missed earlier this year from the British biographer of Louis, 1st Earl Mountbatten of Burma (King Charles’s great-uncle) that the United States government recently destroyed World War II-era files reporting allegations that Mountbatten was a “homosexual” with a preference for young boys at the request of the British government. Andrew Lownie reported the contents of the files in 2019, and he now writes that a U.S. official told him that additional documents were destroyed “after you had asked for them” to whitewash history. (Multiple men have claimed Mountbatten, who was assassinated in 1979, abused them, and at least one is suing for compensation.)
On the Blog
In case you missed them, here are my best blog posts and Substack articles for the week of August 28–September 3:
- When James Dean Was Too Queer for Disney
- George Knapp Speculates That “God” Might Be an Evil Space Alien
Until next week, keep watching the skies!
Jason Colavito
• JasonColavito@outlook.com • JasonColavito.com • @JasonColavito •
THE JASON COLAVITO NEWSLETTER
• Vol. 23 • Issue 11 • September 10, 2023 •
It’s been a busy week. Let’s see what’s new…
News
I am delighted to announce that I have partnered with Applause Books to publish my biography of James Dean next year. I am deeply appreciative of the tireless work of my agent, Lee Sobel, in helping to find my book the best possible home, and for the support and enthusiasm of my editor at Applause, Chris Chappell. Publication of the book is the culmination of a years-long journey that began when I happened upon Rebel without a Cause on Turner Classic Movies one day during the pandemic lockdowns of 2020 and involved the largest and most comprehensive literature and archival research into James Dean’s life and legacy ever conducted. I am so thankful to have found a team that believes in my book and my work and wants to help me share with the world a story that needs to be told. You can read more of my announcement at the link below.
Now comes the hard part: I have to illustrate the book, secure permissions, and go through the editing process!
On the Blog
In case you missed them, here are my best blog posts and Substack articles for the week of September 4–10:
Until next week, keep watching the skies!
Jason Colavito
• JasonColavito@outlook.com • JasonColavito.com • @JasonColavito •
• Vol. 23 • Issue 11 • September 10, 2023 •
It’s been a busy week. Let’s see what’s new…
News
I am delighted to announce that I have partnered with Applause Books to publish my biography of James Dean next year. I am deeply appreciative of the tireless work of my agent, Lee Sobel, in helping to find my book the best possible home, and for the support and enthusiasm of my editor at Applause, Chris Chappell. Publication of the book is the culmination of a years-long journey that began when I happened upon Rebel without a Cause on Turner Classic Movies one day during the pandemic lockdowns of 2020 and involved the largest and most comprehensive literature and archival research into James Dean’s life and legacy ever conducted. I am so thankful to have found a team that believes in my book and my work and wants to help me share with the world a story that needs to be told. You can read more of my announcement at the link below.
Now comes the hard part: I have to illustrate the book, secure permissions, and go through the editing process!
On the Blog
In case you missed them, here are my best blog posts and Substack articles for the week of September 4–10:
- Applause Books to Publish My James Dean Biography Next Year
- Review of Ancient Aliens S19E19 “The Top Ten Mysteries of the Deep”
- The Return of the Stasis Tomb of the Red-Haired Giants
Until next week, keep watching the skies!
Jason Colavito
• JasonColavito@outlook.com • JasonColavito.com • @JasonColavito •
THE JASON COLAVITO NEWSLETTER
• Vol. 23 • Issue 12 • September 17, 2023 •
It’s been a busy week. Let’s see what’s new…
News
When David Grusch made his public accusations about a secret program to reverse engineer alien spaceships, supporters pointed to the complaint he filed with the Intelligence Community Inspector General as proof that Grusch’s stories were more than folklore. Leading ufologists alleged that the ICIG had spoken to dozens of witnesses and investigated saucer warehouses and other elements of the secret program, which was deemed an “urgent” and “credible” concern. This week we learned that this talking point was more propaganda, a willful distortion of reality to lend spurious credibility to Grusch’s familiar UFO fantasies. In response to a demand from several members of the House of Representatives for copies of the evidence, the ICIG informed Congress that the office “has not conducted any audit, inspection, evaluation, or review of alleged UAP programs.” In short, their only involvement was to evaluate Grusch’s claims of retaliation—just as the law firm representing Grusch tried to tell us when they distanced themselves from his crashed saucers stories earlier this summer.
On the Blog
In case you missed them, here are my best blog posts and Substack articles for the week of September 11–17:
Until next week, keep watching the skies!
Jason Colavito
• JasonColavito@outlook.com • JasonColavito.com • @JasonColavito •
• Vol. 23 • Issue 12 • September 17, 2023 •
It’s been a busy week. Let’s see what’s new…
News
When David Grusch made his public accusations about a secret program to reverse engineer alien spaceships, supporters pointed to the complaint he filed with the Intelligence Community Inspector General as proof that Grusch’s stories were more than folklore. Leading ufologists alleged that the ICIG had spoken to dozens of witnesses and investigated saucer warehouses and other elements of the secret program, which was deemed an “urgent” and “credible” concern. This week we learned that this talking point was more propaganda, a willful distortion of reality to lend spurious credibility to Grusch’s familiar UFO fantasies. In response to a demand from several members of the House of Representatives for copies of the evidence, the ICIG informed Congress that the office “has not conducted any audit, inspection, evaluation, or review of alleged UAP programs.” In short, their only involvement was to evaluate Grusch’s claims of retaliation—just as the law firm representing Grusch tried to tell us when they distanced themselves from his crashed saucers stories earlier this summer.
On the Blog
In case you missed them, here are my best blog posts and Substack articles for the week of September 11–17:
- Review of Ancient Aliens S19E20: “The Top Ten Alien Petroglyphs”
- Jaime Maussan Displays Fossilized “Aliens” at Mexican Congressional UFO Hearing
Until next week, keep watching the skies!
Jason Colavito
• JasonColavito@outlook.com • JasonColavito.com • @JasonColavito •
THE JASON COLAVITO NEWSLETTER
• Vol. 23 • Issue 13 • September 24, 2023 •
It’s been a busy week. Let’s see what’s new…
News
This week, the country—or, more specifically, American women—were captivated by a TikTok trend in which women asked the men in their lives how often they thought about the Roman Empire. The women making these videos professed shock that many men thought frequently about ancient history, or, really, that men had thoughts at all that didn’t revolve around money, sports, and sex. (As should be obvious, there is no statistical data backing up a self-selecting group of TikTok users.) The media coverage of the TikTok trend was worse than the original videos themselves, with innumerable writers, journalists, historians, and psychologists—mostly female—offering an odd mixture of claims that they themselves rarely have any thoughts beyond pop culture and condemnation of men for thinking about the past since (a) thinking is bad because it distracts from reacting to the present and (b) thinking about history in particular means you are racist and misogynistic. Certainly, there are right-wing abusers of ancient history who use antiquity as a cover for hate (similar to the right’s connect to UFOs and ancient astronauts), but the undercurrent of the discussion is less about the politics of the past than seeming upset at discovering that other people have thoughts that are not immediately known to us, and a defensiveness from those who seem proud about not thinking about much at all.
On the Blog
In case you missed them, here are my best blog posts and Substack articles for the week of September 18–24:
Until next week, keep watching the skies!
Jason Colavito
• JasonColavito@outlook.com • JasonColavito.com • @JasonColavito •
• Vol. 23 • Issue 13 • September 24, 2023 •
It’s been a busy week. Let’s see what’s new…
News
This week, the country—or, more specifically, American women—were captivated by a TikTok trend in which women asked the men in their lives how often they thought about the Roman Empire. The women making these videos professed shock that many men thought frequently about ancient history, or, really, that men had thoughts at all that didn’t revolve around money, sports, and sex. (As should be obvious, there is no statistical data backing up a self-selecting group of TikTok users.) The media coverage of the TikTok trend was worse than the original videos themselves, with innumerable writers, journalists, historians, and psychologists—mostly female—offering an odd mixture of claims that they themselves rarely have any thoughts beyond pop culture and condemnation of men for thinking about the past since (a) thinking is bad because it distracts from reacting to the present and (b) thinking about history in particular means you are racist and misogynistic. Certainly, there are right-wing abusers of ancient history who use antiquity as a cover for hate (similar to the right’s connect to UFOs and ancient astronauts), but the undercurrent of the discussion is less about the politics of the past than seeming upset at discovering that other people have thoughts that are not immediately known to us, and a defensiveness from those who seem proud about not thinking about much at all.
On the Blog
In case you missed them, here are my best blog posts and Substack articles for the week of September 18–24:
- Gillibrand on UFOs: “Some Look Like Drones, Some Look Like Balloons”
- Was Werner Muensterburger Really “James Dean's Analyst”?
Until next week, keep watching the skies!
Jason Colavito
• JasonColavito@outlook.com • JasonColavito.com • @JasonColavito •
