by Norio Hayakawa
June 24, 2011
E-mail = noriohayakawa@gmail.com
There is a world of a difference between a conspiracy theorist and a conspiratologist.
It seems to me that the word "conspiratology" has never been officially recognized or defined correctly in the dictionary.
It is a word that was claimed to have been coined by several individuals over the last three decades or so.
As far as I know, one of the first persons to have coined that word (although in a wrong context) was Gary Schultz of Santa Monica, California, who was a former colleague of mine in the early 1990s when I was active in an informal group called the Civilian Intelligence Network.
What Gary Schultz actually meant was that he was a conspiracy theorist. Instead, he accidentally described himself as a conspiratologist.
A conspiracy theorist is a person who openly espouses (believes in) a conspiracy theory or conspiracy theories.
A conspiratologist is a person who simply studies about conspiracy theories.
Conspiratology is a comprehensive study on the origins, the role and effects of beliefs in conspiracy theories on society.
It is a general study on why beliefs in conspiracy theories or conspiratorial worldview are deeply ingrained in the psyche of a segment of human society.
(The Newsweek Magazine made a comment a few years ago that beliefs in conspiracy theories have become as American as apple pie.)
There are many conspiracy theorists but conspiratologists seem to be few in number.
Therefore it is important to bear in mind that a conspiratologist does not espouse any conspiracy theory at all.
(However, if he does, he will only give an impression to the public that he does not subscribe to conspiracy theories.)
A conspiratologist simply studies and evaluates the impact of beliefs in conspiracy theories on society and how people's beliefs in such theories could be manipulated or benefited by an individual or individuals (who may or may not represent an organized group, such as certain governmental agencies or the military), partly in order to bring about certain agendas, to conceal certain agendas, or to detract attention away from certain agendas, such as muddying the waters of certain agendas.
Creation and manipulation of certain "cover stories" play a vital role in such operations.
Many large defense contractors have someone who skillfully creates "cover stories" as a means to mislead curiosity seekers among the civilian public especially during certain technological testing phases for covert or innovative programs.
For example, a creation and manipulation of such "cover stories" may have taken place during the mid 1980s to the early 1990s when several sensitive projects such as stealth technology, hypersonic spy planes as well as remotely-controlled platforms such as UAV and UCAV programs were conducted at locations such as at Area 51.
Bringing about the "laughter curtain" to the public (for example, by creation of UFO stories or "alien" technology stories to the goings-on at the Groom Lake complexes in Nevada) seems to have been a strategy conceived by both the defense contractors and the Air Force).
Going back to the idea of manipulation of beliefs in conspiracy theories, it is said that on occasion, an individual or individuals (who may or may not represent an organized group such as certain governmental agencies or the miitary) , may even assume and play the role of a "conspiracy theorist", posing himself as one, i.e., implanting himself as a "mole" in a segment of society, such as among UFO organizations like MUFON, etc.) in order to gather information on what the public or a segment of the public knows about certain specific agenda.
Immediately after the end of World War II, when a large number of German scientists, engineers and former SS intelligence officers were brought to the U.S. to places such as Kirtland Army Air Base in Albuquerque, New Mexico (present-day Kirtland AFB) in 1945 (through the U.S. program called Operation Paperclip), the U.S. did benefit from acquisition of SS offcers' know-how in intelligence operations and techniques.
The German officers were skilled in the use of certain intelligence operations and strategies, such as the use and manipulation of misinformation along with the creation of disinformation, as well as intentional "staging" of certain events to deflect the enemy's espionage attempts to scrutinize sensitive projects being conducted.
By the way, many German scientists and engineers were transferred to places in New Mexico such as Los Alamos Laboratories. Others, especially those who specialties were in rocketry and various types of experimental aircraft were transferred to locations such as White Sands missiles ranges and adjacent areas where many tests of various types were apparently conducted in 1946, 1947 and 1948.
(Even until a few years ago, the presence of German pilots in air bases such as Holloman Air Force Base in New Mexico has been quite noticeable. Holloman Air Force Base seems to have had a special relationship with the German Air Force for many years.)
It is quite possible that "cover stories" along with disinformation tactics (and even "staged" incidents) were used by the U.S. military in order to conceal certain sensitive testings at locations such as Whites Sands and other nearby desert areas of New Mexico in 1946, 1947 and 1948.
When the CIA was established as a successor organization to OSS in 1947, the role of former German SS officers was quite significant.
The same can be said of NSA, which was also established in 1947.
The intentional creation of paranoia (as well as creation of conspiracy theories, to a great extent) may have been a minor but important element in the vast areas of intelligence operations that the CIA and other U.S. agencies have acquired all these years from the former SS intelligence agents.
P.S.
Please check the following item: (You will know right away where I am coming from):
WHERE I STAND ON "UFOs", "BELIEFS IN UFOs" AND OTHER TOPICS
http://noriohayakawa2012.blogspot.com
Friday, June 24, 2011
Monday, May 30, 2011
Anonymous source for Area 51 book revealed !! (Alfred O'Donnell of EG & G)
from Norio Hayakawa at Civilian Intelligence Central
May 30, 2011
by Norio Hayakawa
E-mail = noriohayakawa@gmail.com
Here is the latest on the controversy behind Annie Jacobsen's fascinating and provocative book.
But before you read the above item (which is located near the end of this blog), please read the following:
Was it counter disinformation over intended disinformation on the part of the anonymous interviewee?
Whatever the case may be, it had become (intentionally or not) a brilliant strategy for her book!!
Annie Jacobsen's book is well written, riveting and thought-provoking!!
The interesting question, however, is: Did she intentionally allow many gullible reviewers (even a few military aviation enthusiasts who fell into this strategy) to exclusively focus on the controversy (i.e., the last 8 pages which have little to do with the rest of her thick and rather straightforward book)?
Indeed it seems that most reviewers (including a New York Times reviewer, and even L.A. Times itself) were sidetracked by this provocative item and unwittingly played a role in sensationalizing her book.
Her 'anonymous' interviewee (no longer anonymous....Alfred O'Donnell of EG &G) may also have fallen for the trap by agreeing to throw in an obvious piece of disinfo* (which he may well have been aware of, as well as Jacobsen herself....as disinfo*) for her book.
The strategy seemed to have worked and the book became a top-seller.
It was quite brilliant.
* The book definitely brings up a very important topic, i.e., the significance of Operation Paperclip that played a major role in the subsequent development of America's Black Budget programs.
It has always been my understanding that in 1945, immediately after the end of World War II, the U.S. brought in many German scientists and engineers (as well as some former SS intelligence officers) to New Mexico through that program.
After arriving at Wright Patterson Army Air Field in Ohio, it is said that many were then transferred and initially stationed at Albuquerque's Kirtland Army Air Field (present Kirtland AFB). Some of the scientists and engineers were then relocated to Los Alamos.
Others were transferred to White Sands Missile Ranges.
Many of the German engineers played some significant roles in the development and testing of U.S. rocketry (as well as other military projects) in the late 1940's.
It has always been my understanding that the U.S. military also secretly began to test-fly several prototypes of unconventional, flying wing aircraft (some with Ramjet engines) which the Germans developed in the early 1940's, including a few of the Horten brothers' flying wings.
(All this, in addition to possibly other even more 'unconventional' German aircraft.)
It is said that one of the Horten brothers' fying wing aircraft may even have reached speeds of up to 500 miles per hour when tested in Germany in 1943, even though it had a limited range of less than 1000 miles.
With the help of these scientists and engineers, it is my conjecture that the U.S. military secretly conducted these flight tests over the deserts of southern New Mexico in 1946 and 1947.
Other flight tests may also have been conducted in wide areas in the Western states, extending from Washington all the way to Texas.
Some of these prototypes of flying wing aircraft were crescent-shaped. Some others were delta-shaped or manta ray-shaped.
It is very possible that accidental crashes of some of these craft may have necessitated the creation (and even "staging") of convenient "cover stories".
Therefore it is my personal belief that it was the U.S., and not Stalin and the Soviets, that acquired several of the most technologically significant flying wing prototypes (and information pertaining to that technology).
Stalin and the Soviets, no doubt, also got hold of many German scientists and engineers through their own "version" of Paperclip but it is my conjecture that what may have crashed in New Mexico was not from Soviet Russia. It was most likely of German origin, acquired, modified and developed further by the U.S. and test-flown by the U.S. within New Mexico.
And this, I believe is the crux of the so-called 'disinformation' (the Stalin and Soviet Russia's role) intentionally thrown in by the 'anonymous' interviewee (Alfred O'Donnell of EG & G) in Annie Jacobsen's book.
So here it is:
Anonymous source for Area 51 book revealed!!
http://bragalia.blogspot.com/2011/05/area-51-book-exposed-source-for-roswell.html
P.S.
By the way, it is obvious by now that this book has become a very sensitive and emotional issue and has created an awkward situation especially among some of those who were directly involved at Area 51 and had sacrificed so much in fulfilling their patriotic assignments.
Here is what T.D. Barnes, president of the Roadrunners Internationale (association of former Area 51 employees), said of Annie Jacobsen's book on AREA 51:
"Instead of enjoying a great book that the DOD and DOE families can be proud of and share with their families, the aging Roadrunners are having to show up at Jacobsen's book signings, not to promote her book, but to set the record straight and clear their names and legacy. However, take away the final chapter, Area 51: An Uncensored History of America's Top Secret Military Base is a great book that Annie Jacobsen put her heart and soul into and is CERTAINLY ONE THAT SHOULD BE READ".
T.D. Barnes
President, Roadrunners Internationale
http://www.roadrunnersinternationale.com
The CIVILIAN INTELLIGENCE CENTRAL on Facebook
May 30, 2011
by Norio Hayakawa
E-mail = noriohayakawa@gmail.com
Here is the latest on the controversy behind Annie Jacobsen's fascinating and provocative book.
But before you read the above item (which is located near the end of this blog), please read the following:
Was it counter disinformation over intended disinformation on the part of the anonymous interviewee?
Whatever the case may be, it had become (intentionally or not) a brilliant strategy for her book!!
Annie Jacobsen's book is well written, riveting and thought-provoking!!
The interesting question, however, is: Did she intentionally allow many gullible reviewers (even a few military aviation enthusiasts who fell into this strategy) to exclusively focus on the controversy (i.e., the last 8 pages which have little to do with the rest of her thick and rather straightforward book)?
Indeed it seems that most reviewers (including a New York Times reviewer, and even L.A. Times itself) were sidetracked by this provocative item and unwittingly played a role in sensationalizing her book.
Her 'anonymous' interviewee (no longer anonymous....Alfred O'Donnell of EG &G) may also have fallen for the trap by agreeing to throw in an obvious piece of disinfo* (which he may well have been aware of, as well as Jacobsen herself....as disinfo*) for her book.
The strategy seemed to have worked and the book became a top-seller.
It was quite brilliant.
* The book definitely brings up a very important topic, i.e., the significance of Operation Paperclip that played a major role in the subsequent development of America's Black Budget programs.
It has always been my understanding that in 1945, immediately after the end of World War II, the U.S. brought in many German scientists and engineers (as well as some former SS intelligence officers) to New Mexico through that program.
After arriving at Wright Patterson Army Air Field in Ohio, it is said that many were then transferred and initially stationed at Albuquerque's Kirtland Army Air Field (present Kirtland AFB). Some of the scientists and engineers were then relocated to Los Alamos.
Others were transferred to White Sands Missile Ranges.
Many of the German engineers played some significant roles in the development and testing of U.S. rocketry (as well as other military projects) in the late 1940's.
It has always been my understanding that the U.S. military also secretly began to test-fly several prototypes of unconventional, flying wing aircraft (some with Ramjet engines) which the Germans developed in the early 1940's, including a few of the Horten brothers' flying wings.
(All this, in addition to possibly other even more 'unconventional' German aircraft.)
It is said that one of the Horten brothers' fying wing aircraft may even have reached speeds of up to 500 miles per hour when tested in Germany in 1943, even though it had a limited range of less than 1000 miles.
With the help of these scientists and engineers, it is my conjecture that the U.S. military secretly conducted these flight tests over the deserts of southern New Mexico in 1946 and 1947.
Other flight tests may also have been conducted in wide areas in the Western states, extending from Washington all the way to Texas.
Some of these prototypes of flying wing aircraft were crescent-shaped. Some others were delta-shaped or manta ray-shaped.
It is very possible that accidental crashes of some of these craft may have necessitated the creation (and even "staging") of convenient "cover stories".
Therefore it is my personal belief that it was the U.S., and not Stalin and the Soviets, that acquired several of the most technologically significant flying wing prototypes (and information pertaining to that technology).
Stalin and the Soviets, no doubt, also got hold of many German scientists and engineers through their own "version" of Paperclip but it is my conjecture that what may have crashed in New Mexico was not from Soviet Russia. It was most likely of German origin, acquired, modified and developed further by the U.S. and test-flown by the U.S. within New Mexico.
And this, I believe is the crux of the so-called 'disinformation' (the Stalin and Soviet Russia's role) intentionally thrown in by the 'anonymous' interviewee (Alfred O'Donnell of EG & G) in Annie Jacobsen's book.
So here it is:
Anonymous source for Area 51 book revealed!!
http://bragalia.blogspot.com/2011/05/area-51-book-exposed-source-for-roswell.html
P.S.
By the way, it is obvious by now that this book has become a very sensitive and emotional issue and has created an awkward situation especially among some of those who were directly involved at Area 51 and had sacrificed so much in fulfilling their patriotic assignments.
Here is what T.D. Barnes, president of the Roadrunners Internationale (association of former Area 51 employees), said of Annie Jacobsen's book on AREA 51:
"Instead of enjoying a great book that the DOD and DOE families can be proud of and share with their families, the aging Roadrunners are having to show up at Jacobsen's book signings, not to promote her book, but to set the record straight and clear their names and legacy. However, take away the final chapter, Area 51: An Uncensored History of America's Top Secret Military Base is a great book that Annie Jacobsen put her heart and soul into and is CERTAINLY ONE THAT SHOULD BE READ".
T.D. Barnes
President, Roadrunners Internationale
http://www.roadrunnersinternationale.com
The CIVILIAN INTELLIGENCE CENTRAL on Facebook
Saturday, May 28, 2011
Bob Lazar appears on PBS News Hour!!..."How Tough Is It To Build A Dirty Bomb?"
from Norio Hayakawa at Civilian Intelligence Central
May 27, 2011
by Norio Hayakawa
Bob Lazar appears on PBS News Hour on 02/08/2011:
How Tough Is It To Build A Dirty Bomb?
http://unitednuclear.com/index.php?main_page=page&id=61
Norio Hayakawa
http://noriohayakwa2012.blogspot.com
May 27, 2011
by Norio Hayakawa
Bob Lazar appears on PBS News Hour on 02/08/2011:
How Tough Is It To Build A Dirty Bomb?
http://unitednuclear.com/index.php?main_page=page&id=61
Norio Hayakawa
http://noriohayakwa2012.blogspot.com
Wednesday, April 27, 2011
Albuquerque, New Mexico and UFO subculture
from Norio Hayakawa at Civilian Intelligence Central
http://www.dukecityfix.com/forum/topics/albuquerque-new-mexico-and-ufo
by Norio Hayakawa
E-mail = noriohayakawa@gmail.com
April 27, 2011
New Mexico is officially the Land of Enchantment.
However, it seems that there are some who take this state motto almost literally and even believe that it is indeed the Land of Enchantment in more ways than one.
Some even seem to regard New Mexico as a state that has always been (and continues to be) filled with unexplained mysteries, especially when it comes to UFOs and paranormal phenomena.
Of course New Mexico has Roswell, world famous for its alleged 1947 "crash" incident.
What really took place in July of 1947 outside of Roswell no one knows for sure.
Perhaps there may be prosaic explanations to that incident.
But, again, no one knows for sure.
We have also heard about alleged crashes near Corona, also near Magdalena and in the Plains of San Agustin, all in New Mexico.
The bottom line to me is that whether it really took place or not ( i.e., the alleged crash of an "extraterrestrial" spacecraft, as had been so claimed and described by witnesses at that time) is really not what matters the most.
Besides, it seems that we do not have a single publicly acknowledged solid, tangible, physical, irrefutable documentary evidence that we have ever been (or are being) visited by physical extraterrstrial aliens in physical extraterrestrial spacecraft.
But this does not mean at all that the UFO phenomenon does not exist.
In fact, the UFO phenomenon seems to remain a great mystery, even from time immemorial.
It's just that we cannot come to any hasty conclusions equating this phenomenon with physical extraterrestrial visitations.
That's the bottom line.
But what is more important than all this is the indelible psychological imprint this type of alleged incidents has left in the "psyche" of a segment of the population and created a subculture of its own.
Besides Roswell we also have Socorro, site of a well-known April, 1964 alleged landing incident, allegedly witnessed by a Highway Patrol officer by the name of Lonnie Zamora.
(Speaking of April of 1964, some "ufologists" even seem to claim that a contact/landing incident had also taken place at Holloman Air Force Base at White Sands Missile Range.)
And, just east of Socorro and next to the northern limits of White Sands Missile Range is a small town called San Antonio where rumors have existed of a crash of what was then described as a mysterious object in the summer of 1945.
(By the way, it is said that in 1945, immediately after the conclusion of World War II, hundreds of German scientists, engineers and even some former SS intelligence officers were brought to the U.S. through a program called Operation Paperclip. Many were said to have arrived from Ohio's Wright Patterson Army Air Base and temporarily housed at Albuquerque's Kirtland Army Air Base - Kirtland AFB today. Some of these German scientists were then transferred to Los Alamos National Laboratory. Some were transferred to White Sands Missile Ranges for various testing projects such as rocketry and other military technological projects. So, they say....)
And if we look towards the Four Corners area we have Farmington (site of an alleged mass sightings of UFOs in March of 1950), Aztec (site of an alleged 1948 "crash" outside the town) and Dulce (site of an alleged underground base and bio-lab, as well as being the site of numerous "cattle mutilations" that took place especially between the mid 1970s and the 1980s) and many other places filled with UFO lore.
In northern New Mexico we also have Taos, site of the many claims of strange "hums" reportedly heard by many residents in the early 1980s.
In northeastern New Mexico we have a small town of Cimarron where, in 1979, a lady by the name of Myrna Hansen claimed to have experienced an alien abduction, the first of its kind in New Mexico.
This case had received quite an attention, especially since an Albuquerque scientist and defense contractor, the late Paul Bennewitz of Thunder Scientific Corporation (that still does business with Kirtland AFB), investigated this case and led him to theorize that she may have been temporarily taken into an underground facilty in Dulce.
(Or was this all part of Psychological Operations program created and manipulated by the OSI at Kirtland AFB?)
Yes, this all sounded too bizarre (and continues to be so) to most people who are in the mainstream of society.
Everything discussed so far has been brought up with the important qualifer, "alleged".
But from here on, let me give you some facts, not allegations.
New Mexico is home to Los Alamos National Laboratories, probably the nation's most advanced conglomerate research community, even in the field of DNA/genetics research.
(By the way, here is an interesting fact. Most people today haven't the slightest knowledge that in December of 1967, the U.S. government had exploded a nuclear device in northern New Mexico, a mile and a half underground, just southwest of Dulce, purportedly to ease the flow of natural gas thought to have been entrapped beneath beneath layers and layers of hard rocks. That experiment was called Project Gasbuggy. The Ground Zero site of this 1967 experiment is open to the public today. There is a government plaque there that marks the exact spot. A few years ago I had a privilege of visiting this site, guided by a Jicarilla Apache person from Dulce.)
In Southern New Mexico, there is the White Sands Missile Range where America's most advanced directed energy weapons (laser/microwave) systems are being tested.
But there is more to it.
Albuquerque itself is the site of Kirtland Air Force Base, Manzano Underground Nuclear Storage Facility, as well as Sandia Labs and Phillips/Air Force Research Labs, probably two of America's most advanced military technological research labs.
Yes, there is a large presence of defense contractors, engineers and scientists who live in the Albuquerque area.
They say that in New Mexico there are more scientists and engineers per population than in any other state.
(Despite the ironical fact that when it comes to public education, New Mexico ranks about 48th nationally).
Whether one is a believer or a skeptic in all this, it is nevertheless fascinating to observe how a segment of the population's beliefs have impacted the society, culture and subculture, especially here in the Land of Enchantment.
This is all about beliefs.
It is similar to religious beliefs.
It is human nature to have religious beliefs and it has little to do with educational levels of the person.
Even a nuclear physicist may have no qualms about believing in God or in angels or demons.
What is "reality" to one person may not be the same as another person's view of "reality".
The study of various levels of "reality' as well as "dimensions and time" is a very important aspect of quantum physics today.
The bottom line to all this is that we still do not know for sure what "reality" is.
Norio Hayakawa
http://noriohayakawa2012.blogspot.com
http://www.dukecityfix.com/forum/topics/albuquerque-new-mexico-and-ufo
by Norio Hayakawa
E-mail = noriohayakawa@gmail.com
April 27, 2011
New Mexico is officially the Land of Enchantment.
However, it seems that there are some who take this state motto almost literally and even believe that it is indeed the Land of Enchantment in more ways than one.
Some even seem to regard New Mexico as a state that has always been (and continues to be) filled with unexplained mysteries, especially when it comes to UFOs and paranormal phenomena.
Of course New Mexico has Roswell, world famous for its alleged 1947 "crash" incident.
What really took place in July of 1947 outside of Roswell no one knows for sure.
Perhaps there may be prosaic explanations to that incident.
But, again, no one knows for sure.
We have also heard about alleged crashes near Corona, also near Magdalena and in the Plains of San Agustin, all in New Mexico.
The bottom line to me is that whether it really took place or not ( i.e., the alleged crash of an "extraterrestrial" spacecraft, as had been so claimed and described by witnesses at that time) is really not what matters the most.
Besides, it seems that we do not have a single publicly acknowledged solid, tangible, physical, irrefutable documentary evidence that we have ever been (or are being) visited by physical extraterrstrial aliens in physical extraterrestrial spacecraft.
But this does not mean at all that the UFO phenomenon does not exist.
In fact, the UFO phenomenon seems to remain a great mystery, even from time immemorial.
It's just that we cannot come to any hasty conclusions equating this phenomenon with physical extraterrestrial visitations.
That's the bottom line.
But what is more important than all this is the indelible psychological imprint this type of alleged incidents has left in the "psyche" of a segment of the population and created a subculture of its own.
Besides Roswell we also have Socorro, site of a well-known April, 1964 alleged landing incident, allegedly witnessed by a Highway Patrol officer by the name of Lonnie Zamora.
(Speaking of April of 1964, some "ufologists" even seem to claim that a contact/landing incident had also taken place at Holloman Air Force Base at White Sands Missile Range.)
And, just east of Socorro and next to the northern limits of White Sands Missile Range is a small town called San Antonio where rumors have existed of a crash of what was then described as a mysterious object in the summer of 1945.
(By the way, it is said that in 1945, immediately after the conclusion of World War II, hundreds of German scientists, engineers and even some former SS intelligence officers were brought to the U.S. through a program called Operation Paperclip. Many were said to have arrived from Ohio's Wright Patterson Army Air Base and temporarily housed at Albuquerque's Kirtland Army Air Base - Kirtland AFB today. Some of these German scientists were then transferred to Los Alamos National Laboratory. Some were transferred to White Sands Missile Ranges for various testing projects such as rocketry and other military technological projects. So, they say....)
And if we look towards the Four Corners area we have Farmington (site of an alleged mass sightings of UFOs in March of 1950), Aztec (site of an alleged 1948 "crash" outside the town) and Dulce (site of an alleged underground base and bio-lab, as well as being the site of numerous "cattle mutilations" that took place especially between the mid 1970s and the 1980s) and many other places filled with UFO lore.
In northern New Mexico we also have Taos, site of the many claims of strange "hums" reportedly heard by many residents in the early 1980s.
In northeastern New Mexico we have a small town of Cimarron where, in 1979, a lady by the name of Myrna Hansen claimed to have experienced an alien abduction, the first of its kind in New Mexico.
This case had received quite an attention, especially since an Albuquerque scientist and defense contractor, the late Paul Bennewitz of Thunder Scientific Corporation (that still does business with Kirtland AFB), investigated this case and led him to theorize that she may have been temporarily taken into an underground facilty in Dulce.
(Or was this all part of Psychological Operations program created and manipulated by the OSI at Kirtland AFB?)
Yes, this all sounded too bizarre (and continues to be so) to most people who are in the mainstream of society.
Everything discussed so far has been brought up with the important qualifer, "alleged".
But from here on, let me give you some facts, not allegations.
New Mexico is home to Los Alamos National Laboratories, probably the nation's most advanced conglomerate research community, even in the field of DNA/genetics research.
(By the way, here is an interesting fact. Most people today haven't the slightest knowledge that in December of 1967, the U.S. government had exploded a nuclear device in northern New Mexico, a mile and a half underground, just southwest of Dulce, purportedly to ease the flow of natural gas thought to have been entrapped beneath beneath layers and layers of hard rocks. That experiment was called Project Gasbuggy. The Ground Zero site of this 1967 experiment is open to the public today. There is a government plaque there that marks the exact spot. A few years ago I had a privilege of visiting this site, guided by a Jicarilla Apache person from Dulce.)
In Southern New Mexico, there is the White Sands Missile Range where America's most advanced directed energy weapons (laser/microwave) systems are being tested.
But there is more to it.
Albuquerque itself is the site of Kirtland Air Force Base, Manzano Underground Nuclear Storage Facility, as well as Sandia Labs and Phillips/Air Force Research Labs, probably two of America's most advanced military technological research labs.
Yes, there is a large presence of defense contractors, engineers and scientists who live in the Albuquerque area.
They say that in New Mexico there are more scientists and engineers per population than in any other state.
(Despite the ironical fact that when it comes to public education, New Mexico ranks about 48th nationally).
Whether one is a believer or a skeptic in all this, it is nevertheless fascinating to observe how a segment of the population's beliefs have impacted the society, culture and subculture, especially here in the Land of Enchantment.
This is all about beliefs.
It is similar to religious beliefs.
It is human nature to have religious beliefs and it has little to do with educational levels of the person.
Even a nuclear physicist may have no qualms about believing in God or in angels or demons.
What is "reality" to one person may not be the same as another person's view of "reality".
The study of various levels of "reality' as well as "dimensions and time" is a very important aspect of quantum physics today.
The bottom line to all this is that we still do not know for sure what "reality" is.
Norio Hayakawa
http://noriohayakawa2012.blogspot.com
Wednesday, April 13, 2011
Why old hoaxes make Cosmic Preachers happy - - a commentary by Tomas Solarici
E-mail = noriohayakawa@gmail.com
Here is a commentary by Tomas Solarici (a.k.a. James Black)
(QUOTE):
Why? just because there is nothing else to say-write.
The UFO=Extraterrestrial hypothesis is dead. In 60 years, the same old pulp-fiction kind of fantasies are repeated again and again showing either a total lack of imagination, or the Nothing Happens Syndrome in action.
Obviously, the comment about the "three small ufonauts in metal clothes " was enough to show the trivialscience fiction of the 50's.
I believe that some or the EXOfantasists themselves also saw the bad joke, but... they needed desperately to give some hope to the UFO_ET true believers.
Tomorrow, or the next week they will be back talking about same old things, Adamsky and the lovely white Venusians, Basiago time travels, Eisenhower's grandaughter in our colony of mars and things like these.
The alternative is to spend some time into the rarefied world of Conspiracy Theories that doesn't require any kind of evidence.
(UNQUOTE)
THOSE WHO WANT TO KNOW THE TRUTH:
The real problem here is not if Unidentified Aerial Phenomena exist. Of course UAP (UFO) exist.
The authentic dilemma is what these UAP are.
Now if you want to know the truth, you must do research. On the contrary, if you want to sell books of promote yourself; then you must go into some kind of new religion, because religion doesn’t work with evidences, but with Faith.
If you are into this, you only need a charismatic individual who will teach you what was revealed to him/her by gods, angels, ghosts or extraterrestrials.
Consequently, all those who ask for evidences are ipso facto condemned because they don’t have Faith.
It’s simple like that.
If you believe that UFO are extraterrestrial crafts, and you recognize that this is hypothetic, that is fine. You will work with your hypothesis and try to find evidences.
Personally, after 40 years of research, I think that the entities responsible for the unidentified phenomenon are not extraterrestrials. I think also that we have historical evidences that the UFO phenomenon is with us from the beginning of times. (See UFO in art and historical narrative.)
Now, I don’t know who these entities are, but they behave as Time Travelers. Perhaps they just come from our distant future. Apparently any direct contact would be impossible if they do not want to disrupt the time continuum. (Think in the paradox of not killing your grandparents if you want to exist.)
Possible I am wrong. Mine is nothing but a hypothesis, and if I begin to talk about the messages of the time travelers, this means that I am insane. There are not such messages.
Perhaps the Entities are not time travelers, but something else, something that I cannot understand at all; something so complex that nobody can understand.
What I cannot do is to talk about what I ignore. Those who do this are either charlatans or crazy.
Tomas Scolarici
--------
Norio Hayakawa
Here is a commentary by Tomas Solarici (a.k.a. James Black)
(QUOTE):
Why? just because there is nothing else to say-write.
The UFO=Extraterrestrial hypothesis is dead. In 60 years, the same old pulp-fiction kind of fantasies are repeated again and again showing either a total lack of imagination, or the Nothing Happens Syndrome in action.
Obviously, the comment about the "three small ufonauts in metal clothes " was enough to show the trivialscience fiction of the 50's.
I believe that some or the EXOfantasists themselves also saw the bad joke, but... they needed desperately to give some hope to the UFO_ET true believers.
Tomorrow, or the next week they will be back talking about same old things, Adamsky and the lovely white Venusians, Basiago time travels, Eisenhower's grandaughter in our colony of mars and things like these.
The alternative is to spend some time into the rarefied world of Conspiracy Theories that doesn't require any kind of evidence.
(UNQUOTE)
THOSE WHO WANT TO KNOW THE TRUTH:
The real problem here is not if Unidentified Aerial Phenomena exist. Of course UAP (UFO) exist.
The authentic dilemma is what these UAP are.
Now if you want to know the truth, you must do research. On the contrary, if you want to sell books of promote yourself; then you must go into some kind of new religion, because religion doesn’t work with evidences, but with Faith.
If you are into this, you only need a charismatic individual who will teach you what was revealed to him/her by gods, angels, ghosts or extraterrestrials.
Consequently, all those who ask for evidences are ipso facto condemned because they don’t have Faith.
It’s simple like that.
If you believe that UFO are extraterrestrial crafts, and you recognize that this is hypothetic, that is fine. You will work with your hypothesis and try to find evidences.
Personally, after 40 years of research, I think that the entities responsible for the unidentified phenomenon are not extraterrestrials. I think also that we have historical evidences that the UFO phenomenon is with us from the beginning of times. (See UFO in art and historical narrative.)
Now, I don’t know who these entities are, but they behave as Time Travelers. Perhaps they just come from our distant future. Apparently any direct contact would be impossible if they do not want to disrupt the time continuum. (Think in the paradox of not killing your grandparents if you want to exist.)
Possible I am wrong. Mine is nothing but a hypothesis, and if I begin to talk about the messages of the time travelers, this means that I am insane. There are not such messages.
Perhaps the Entities are not time travelers, but something else, something that I cannot understand at all; something so complex that nobody can understand.
What I cannot do is to talk about what I ignore. Those who do this are either charlatans or crazy.
Tomas Scolarici
--------
Norio Hayakawa
Wednesday, March 23, 2011
Tomas Scolarici's excellent article: LEGAL FALLACIES IN CONSPIRACY THEORY
The CIVILIAN INTELLIGENCE CENTRAL on Facebook
Here is an excellent article written by Tomas Scolarici on Conspiracy Theories:
(by Tomas Scolarici/James Black)
March 14, 2011
(QUOTE):
Most conspiracy theories don't make sense nor withstand any scrutiny. They usually involve operations so immense that it's basically impossible for them to be kept secret, and all the proof given by conspiracy theorists usually have a very simple explanation (usually much simpler than the explanation given by the theorists).
Yet conspiracy theories are very popular and appealing. Even when they don't make sense and there's just no proof, many people still believe them. Why?
One big reason for this is that some conspiracy theorists are clever. They use psychology to make their theories sound more plausible. They appeal to certain psychological phenomena which make people to tend to believe them. However, these psychological tricks are nothing more than logical fallacies. They are simply so well disguised that many people can't see them for what they are.
Here are some typical logical fallacies used by conspiracy theorists:
Appeal to the "bandwagon effect"
The so-called "bandwagon effect" is a psychological phenomenon where people are eager to believe things if most of the people around them believe that too. Sometimes that thing is true and there's no harm, but sometimes it's a misconception, urban legend or, in this case, an unfounded conspiracy theory, in which case the "bandwagon effect" bypasses logical thinking for the worse.
The most typical form of appealing to the bandwagon effect is to say something along the lines of "30% of Americans doubt that..." or "30% of Americans don't believe the official story". This is also called an argumentum ad populum, which is a logical fallacy.
Of course that kind of sentence in the beginning of a conspiracy theory doesn't make any sense. It doesn't prove anything relevant. It's not like the theory becomes more true if more people believe in it.
Also the percentage itself is always very dubious. It may be completely fabricated or exaggerated by interpreting the poll results conveniently (eg. one easy way for bumping up the percentage is to interpret all people who didn't answer or who didn't know what to say as "doubting the official story"). Even if it was a completely genuine number, it would still not be proof of anything else than that there's a certain amount of gullible people in the world.
That kind of sentence is not proof of anything, yet it's one of the most used sentences in conspiracy theories. It tries to appeal to the bandwagon effect. It's effectively saying: "Already this many people doubt the official story, and the numbers are increasing. Are you going to be left alone believing the official story?"
Appeal to rebellion
Conspiracy theories in general, and the "n% of people doubt the story" claims in particular, also appeal to a sense of rebellion in people.
As Wikipedia puts it, "a rebellion is, in the most general sense, a refusal to accept authority."
People don't want to be sheep who are patronized by authority and told what they have to do and how they have to think. People usually distrust authorities and many believe that authorities are selfish and abuse people for their own benefit. This is an extremely fertile ground for conspiracy theories.
This is so ingrained in people that a sentence like "the official story" has basically become a synonym for "a coverup/lie". Whenever "the official story" is mentioned, it immediately makes people think that it's some kind of coverup, something not true.
Conspiracy theorists are masters at abusing this psyhcological phenomenon for their advantage. They basically insinuate that "if you believe the official story then you are gullible because you are being lied to". They want to make it feel that doubting the original story is a sign of intelligence and logical thinking. However, believing a conspiracy theory usually shows, quite ironically, a great lack of logical thinking.
This is an actual quote from a JFK assassination conspiracy theory website. It's almost as hilarious as it is contradictory:
In the end, you have to decide for yourself what to believe. But don't just believe what the U.S. Government tells you!
(In other words, believe anything you want except the official story!)
Shotgun argumentation
"Shotgun argumentation" is a metaphor from real life: It's much easier to hunt a rabbit with a shotgun than with a rifle. This is because a rifle only fires one bullet and there's a high probability of a miss. A shotgun, however, fires tens or even hundreds of small pellets, and the probability of at least one of them hitting the rabbit is quite high.
Shotgun argumentation has the same basic idea: The more small arguments or "evidence" you present in favor of some claim, the higher the probability that someone will believe you regardless of how ridiculous those arguments are. There are two reasons for this:
Firstly, just the sheer amount of arguments or "evidence" may be enough to convince someone that something strange is going on. The idea is basically: "There is this much evidence against the official story, there must be something wrong with it." One or two pieces of "evidence" may not be enough to convince anyone, but collect a set of a couple of hundreds of pieces of "evidence" and it immediately starts being more believable.
Of course the fallacy here is that the amount of "evidence" is in no way proof of anything. The vast majority, and usually all of this "evidence" is easily explainable and just patently false. There may be a few points which may be more difficult to explain, but they alone wouldn't be so convincing.
Secondly, and more closely related to the shotgun metaphor : The more arguments or individual pieces of "evidence" you have, the higher the probability that at least some of them will convince someone. Someone might not get convinced by most of the arguments, but among them there may be one or a few which sounds so plausible to him that he is then convinced. Thus one or a few of the "pellets" hit the "rabbit" and killed it: Mission accomplished.
I have a concrete example of this:
I had a friend who is academically educated, a MSc, and doing research work (relating to computer science) at a university. He is rational, intelligent and well-educated.
Yet still this person, at least some years ago, completely believed the Moon hoax theory. Why? He said to me quite explicitly that there was one thing that convinced him: The flag moving after it had been planted on the ground.
One of the pellets had hit the rabbit and killed it. The shotgun argumentation had been successful.
If even highly-educated academic people can fall for such "evidence" (which is easily explained), how more easily are more "regular" people going to believe the sheer amount of them? Sadly, quite a lot more easily.
Most conspiracy theorists continue to present the same old tired arguments which are very easy to prove wrong. They need all those arguments, no matter how ridiculous, for their shotgun argumentation tactics to work.
Straw man argumentation
A "straw man argument" is the process of taking an argument of the opponent, distorting it or taking it out of context so that it basically changes meaning, and then ridiculing it in order to make the opponent look bad.
For example, a conspiracy theorist may say something like: "Sceptics argue that stars are too faint to see in space (which is why there are no stars in photographs), yet astronauts said that they could see stars."
This is a perfect example of a straw man argument. That's taking an argument completely out of context and changing its meaning.
It's actually a bit unfortunate that many debunking sites use the sentence "the stars are too faint to be seen" when explaining the lack of stars in photographs. That sentence, while in its context not false, is confusing and misleading. It's trying to put in simple words a more technical explanation (which usually follows). Unfortunately, it's too simplistic and good material for straw man arguments. I wish debunkers stopped using simplistic sentences like that one.
(The real explanation for the lacking stars is, of course, related to the exposure time and shutter aperture of the cameras, which were set to photograph the Moon surface illuminated by direct sunlight. The stars are not bright enough for such short exposure times. If the cameras had been set up to photograph the stars, the lunar surface would have been completely overexposed. This is basic photography.)
Another straw man, still related to stars, which I have seen is simply "they claim that you can't see stars in space" (referring to some kind of notion that stars are too small and far away to be seen directly, and that they are visible from Earth only because the atmosphere scatters their light making them look bigger). This is simply a lie. I don't think any debunker has ever said that a person cannot see stars in space. (Even if someone has, he is obviously wrong. However, that's irrelevant to whether the explanation for the lack of stars is wrong or not.)
Citing inexistent sources
There's a very common bad habit among the majority of people: They believe that credible sources have said/written whatever someone claims they have said or written. Even worse, most people believe that a source is credible or even exists just because someone claims that it is credible and exists. People almost never check that the source exists, that it's a credible source and that it has indeed said what was claimed.
Conspiracy theorists know this and thus abuse it to the maximum. Sometimes they fabricate sources or stories, and sometimes they just cite nameless sources (using expressions like "experts in the field", "most astronomers", etc).
This is an actual quote from the same JFK assassination conspiracy theory website as earlier:
Scientists examined the Zapruder film. They found that, while most of it looks completely genuine, some of the images are impossible. They violate the laws of physics. They could not have come from Zapruder's home movie camera.
Needless to say, the web page does not give any references or sources, or any other indication of who these unnamed "scientists" might be or what their credentials are. (My personal guess is that whenever the website uses the word "scientist" or "researcher", it refers to other conspiracy theorists who have no actual education and competence on the required fields of science, and who are, like all such conspiracy theorists, just seeing what they want to see.)
Citing sources which are wrong
A common tactic of conspiracy theorists is to take statements by credible persons or newspaper articles which support the conspiracy theory and present these statements or articles as if they were the truth. If a later article in the same newspaper corrects the mistake in the earlier article or if the person who made the statement later says that he was wrong or quoted out of context (ie. he didn't mean what people thought he was meaning), conspiracy theorists happily ignore them.
Since people seldom check the sources, they will believe that the statement or newspaper article is the only thing that person or newspaper has said about the subject.
This is closely related to (and often overlaps with) the concept of quote mining (which is the practice of carefully selecting small quotes, which are often taken completely out of context, from a vast selection of material, in such a way that these individual quotes seem to support the conspiracy theory).
Sometimes that source is not credible (because it's just another conspiracy theorist) but people have little means of knowing this.
Cherry-picking
Cherry-picking is more a deliberate act of deception than a logical fallacy, but nevertheless an extremely common tactic.
Cherry-picking happens when someone deliberately selects from a wide variety of material only those items which support the conspiracy theory, while ignoring and discarding those which don't. When this carefully chosen selection of material is then presented as a whole, it easily misleads people into thinking that the conspiracy theory is supported by evidence.
This is an especially popular tactic for the 9/11 conspiracy theorists: They will only choose those published photographs which support their claims, while outright ignoring those which don't. The Loose Change "documentary" is quite infamous for doing this, and pulling it out rather convincingly.
The major problem with this is, of course, that it's pure deception: The viewer is intentionally given only carefully selected material, while leaving out the parts which would contradict the conspiracy theory. This is a deliberate act. The conspiracy theorists cannot claim honesty while doing clear cherry-picking.
Just one example: There's a big electrical transformer box outside the Pentagon which was badly damaged by the plane before it hit the building. It's impossible for that box to get that damage if the building was hit by a missile, as claimed by conspiracy theorists (the missile would have exploded when hitting the box, several tens of meters away from the building). Conspiracy theorists will usually avoid using any photographs which show the damaged transformer box because it contradicts their theory. They are doing this deliberately. They cannot claim honesty while doing this.
Argument from authority
Scientists are human, and thus imperfect and fallible. Individual scientists can be dead wrong, make the wrong claims and even be deceived into believing falsities. Being a scientist does not give a human being some kind of magic power to resist all deceptions and delusions, to see through all tricks and fallacies and to always know the truth and discard what is false.
But science does not stand on individual scientists, for this exact reason. This is precisely why the scientific process requires so-called peer reviews. One scientist can be wrong, ten scientists can be wrong, and even a hundred scientists can be wrong, but when their claims are peer-reviewed and studied by the whole scientific community, the likelihood of the falsities not being caught decreases dramatically.
It's very likely that someone somewhere is going to object and to raise questions if there's something wrong with a claim, and this will raise the consciousness of the whole community. Either the objections are dealt with and explained, or the credibility of the claim gets compromised. A claim does not become accepted by the scientific community unless it passes the peer reviewing test. And this is why science works. It does not rely on individuals, but on the whole.
Sometimes some individual scientists can be deceived into believing a conspiracy theory. As said, scientists do not have any magical force that keeps them from being deceived. Due to their education the likelihood might be slightly lower than with the average person, but in no way is it completely removed. Scientists can and do get deceived by falsities.
Thus sometimes the conspiracy theorists will convince some PhD or other such person of high education and/or high authority, and if this person becomes vocal enough, the conspiracy theorists will then use him as an argument pro the conspiracy. It can be rather convincing if conspiracy theorists can say "numerous scientists agree that the official explanation cannot be true, including (insert some names here)".
However, this is a fallacy named argument from authority. Just because a PhD makes a claim doesn't make it true. Even if a hundred PhD's make that claim. It doesn't even make it any more credible.
As said, individual scientists can get deceived and deluded. However, as long as their claims do not pass the peer review process, their claims are worth nothing from a scientific point of view.
Argument from ignorance
In this fallacy the word "ignorance" is not an insult, but refers to the meaning of "not knowing something".
Simply put, argument from ignorance happens when something with no apparent explanation is pointed out (for example in a photograph), and since there's no explanation, it's presented as evidence of foul play (eg. that the photograph has been manipulated).
This can be seen as somewhat related to cherry-picking: The conspiracy theorist will point out something in the source material or the accounts of the original event which is not easy to immediately explain. A viewer with no experience nor expertise on the subject matter might be unable to come up with an explanation, or to identify the artifact/phenomenon. The conspiracy theorist then abuses this to claim that the unexplained artifact or phenomenon is evidence of fakery or deception.
Of course this is a fallacy. Nothing can be deduced from an unexplained phenomenon or artifact. As long as you don't know what it is, you can't take it as evidence of anything.
(In most cases such things have a quite simple and logical explanation; it's just that in order to figure it out, you need to have the proper experience on the subject, or alternatively to have someone with experience explain it to you. After that it becomes quite self-evident. It's a bit like a magic trick: When you see it, you can't explain how it works, but when someone explains it to you, it often is outright disappointingly simple.)
It might sound rather self-evident when explained like this, but people still get fooled in an actual situation.
Argument from (personal) incredulity
In its most basic and bare-bones from, argument from incredulity takes the form of "I can't even begin to imagine how this can work / be possible, hence it must be fake". This is a variation or subset of the argument from ignorance. Of course conspiracy theorists don't state the argument so blatantly, but use much subtler expressions.
Example: Some (although not all) Moon Landing Hoax conspiracy theorists state that the Moon Lander could have not taken off from the surface of the Moon, because a rocket on its bottom side would have made it rotate wildly and randomly.
In essence what the conspiracy theorist is saying is "I don't understand how rocketry can work, hence this must be fake", and trying to convince the reader of the same.
The problem of basic rocketry (ie. how a rocket with a propulsion system at its back end can maintain stability and fly straight) is indeed quite a complex and difficult one (which is where the colloquial term "rocket science", meaning something extremely complicated and difficult, comes from), but it was solved in the 1920's and 30's. This isn't even something you have to understand or even take on faith: It's something you can see with your own eyes (unless you believe all the videos you have ever seen of missiles and rockets are fake).
Pareidolia
Pareidolia is also not a logical fallacy per se, but more a fallacy of perception.
Pareidolia is, basically, the phenomenon which happens when we perceive recognizable patterns in randomness, even though the patterns really aren't there. For example, random blotches of paint might look like a face, or random noise might sound like a spoken word (or even a full sentence).
Pareidolia is a side effect of pattern recognition in our brain. Our visual and auditory perception is heavily based on pattern recognition. It's what helps us understanding spoken languages, even if it's spoken by different people with different voices, at different speeds and with different accents. It's what helps us recognizing objects even if they have a slightly different shape or coloring which we have never seen before. It's what helps us recognize people and differentiate them from each other. It's what helps us reading written text at amazing speeds by simply scanning the written lines visually (you are doing precisely that right now). In fact, we could probably not even survive without pattern recognition.
This pattern recognition is also heavily based on experience: We tend to recognize things like shapes and sounds when we have previous experience from similar shapes and sounds. Also the context helps us in this pattern recognition, often very significantly. When we recognize the context, we tend to expect certain things, which in turn helps us making the pattern recognition more easily and faster. For example, if you open a book, you already expect to see text inside, and you are already prepared to recognize it. In a context which is completely unrelated to written text (for a completely random example, if you are examining your fingernails) you are not expecting to see text, and thus you don't recognize it as easily.
Pareidolia happens when our brain recognizes, or thinks it recognizes, patterns where there may be only randomness, or in places which are not random per se, but completely unrelated to this purported "pattern".
As noted, pareidolia is greatly helped if we are expecting to see a certain pattern. This predisposes our brain to try to recognize that exact thing, making it easier.
This is the very idea in so-called backmasking: Playing a sound, for example a song, backwards and then recognizing something in the garbled sounds that result from this. When we are not expecting anything in particular, we usually only hear garbled noises. However, if someone tells us what we should expect, we immediately "recognize" it.
However, we are just fooling our own pattern recognition system into perceiving something which isn't really there. If someone else is told to expect a slightly similar-sounding, but different message, that other person is very probably going to hear that. You and that other person are both being mislead by playing with the pattern recognition capabilities of your brain.
Conspiracy theorists love abusing pareidolia. They will make people see patterns where there are none, and people will be fooled into believing that the patterns really are there, and thus are proof of something.
Posted by James Black/Tomas Scolarici
(UNQUOTE)
--------
Here is an excellent article written by Tomas Scolarici on Conspiracy Theories:
(by Tomas Scolarici/James Black)
March 14, 2011
(QUOTE):
Most conspiracy theories don't make sense nor withstand any scrutiny. They usually involve operations so immense that it's basically impossible for them to be kept secret, and all the proof given by conspiracy theorists usually have a very simple explanation (usually much simpler than the explanation given by the theorists).
Yet conspiracy theories are very popular and appealing. Even when they don't make sense and there's just no proof, many people still believe them. Why?
One big reason for this is that some conspiracy theorists are clever. They use psychology to make their theories sound more plausible. They appeal to certain psychological phenomena which make people to tend to believe them. However, these psychological tricks are nothing more than logical fallacies. They are simply so well disguised that many people can't see them for what they are.
Here are some typical logical fallacies used by conspiracy theorists:
Appeal to the "bandwagon effect"
The so-called "bandwagon effect" is a psychological phenomenon where people are eager to believe things if most of the people around them believe that too. Sometimes that thing is true and there's no harm, but sometimes it's a misconception, urban legend or, in this case, an unfounded conspiracy theory, in which case the "bandwagon effect" bypasses logical thinking for the worse.
The most typical form of appealing to the bandwagon effect is to say something along the lines of "30% of Americans doubt that..." or "30% of Americans don't believe the official story". This is also called an argumentum ad populum, which is a logical fallacy.
Of course that kind of sentence in the beginning of a conspiracy theory doesn't make any sense. It doesn't prove anything relevant. It's not like the theory becomes more true if more people believe in it.
Also the percentage itself is always very dubious. It may be completely fabricated or exaggerated by interpreting the poll results conveniently (eg. one easy way for bumping up the percentage is to interpret all people who didn't answer or who didn't know what to say as "doubting the official story"). Even if it was a completely genuine number, it would still not be proof of anything else than that there's a certain amount of gullible people in the world.
That kind of sentence is not proof of anything, yet it's one of the most used sentences in conspiracy theories. It tries to appeal to the bandwagon effect. It's effectively saying: "Already this many people doubt the official story, and the numbers are increasing. Are you going to be left alone believing the official story?"
Appeal to rebellion
Conspiracy theories in general, and the "n% of people doubt the story" claims in particular, also appeal to a sense of rebellion in people.
As Wikipedia puts it, "a rebellion is, in the most general sense, a refusal to accept authority."
People don't want to be sheep who are patronized by authority and told what they have to do and how they have to think. People usually distrust authorities and many believe that authorities are selfish and abuse people for their own benefit. This is an extremely fertile ground for conspiracy theories.
This is so ingrained in people that a sentence like "the official story" has basically become a synonym for "a coverup/lie". Whenever "the official story" is mentioned, it immediately makes people think that it's some kind of coverup, something not true.
Conspiracy theorists are masters at abusing this psyhcological phenomenon for their advantage. They basically insinuate that "if you believe the official story then you are gullible because you are being lied to". They want to make it feel that doubting the original story is a sign of intelligence and logical thinking. However, believing a conspiracy theory usually shows, quite ironically, a great lack of logical thinking.
This is an actual quote from a JFK assassination conspiracy theory website. It's almost as hilarious as it is contradictory:
In the end, you have to decide for yourself what to believe. But don't just believe what the U.S. Government tells you!
(In other words, believe anything you want except the official story!)
Shotgun argumentation
"Shotgun argumentation" is a metaphor from real life: It's much easier to hunt a rabbit with a shotgun than with a rifle. This is because a rifle only fires one bullet and there's a high probability of a miss. A shotgun, however, fires tens or even hundreds of small pellets, and the probability of at least one of them hitting the rabbit is quite high.
Shotgun argumentation has the same basic idea: The more small arguments or "evidence" you present in favor of some claim, the higher the probability that someone will believe you regardless of how ridiculous those arguments are. There are two reasons for this:
Firstly, just the sheer amount of arguments or "evidence" may be enough to convince someone that something strange is going on. The idea is basically: "There is this much evidence against the official story, there must be something wrong with it." One or two pieces of "evidence" may not be enough to convince anyone, but collect a set of a couple of hundreds of pieces of "evidence" and it immediately starts being more believable.
Of course the fallacy here is that the amount of "evidence" is in no way proof of anything. The vast majority, and usually all of this "evidence" is easily explainable and just patently false. There may be a few points which may be more difficult to explain, but they alone wouldn't be so convincing.
Secondly, and more closely related to the shotgun metaphor : The more arguments or individual pieces of "evidence" you have, the higher the probability that at least some of them will convince someone. Someone might not get convinced by most of the arguments, but among them there may be one or a few which sounds so plausible to him that he is then convinced. Thus one or a few of the "pellets" hit the "rabbit" and killed it: Mission accomplished.
I have a concrete example of this:
I had a friend who is academically educated, a MSc, and doing research work (relating to computer science) at a university. He is rational, intelligent and well-educated.
Yet still this person, at least some years ago, completely believed the Moon hoax theory. Why? He said to me quite explicitly that there was one thing that convinced him: The flag moving after it had been planted on the ground.
One of the pellets had hit the rabbit and killed it. The shotgun argumentation had been successful.
If even highly-educated academic people can fall for such "evidence" (which is easily explained), how more easily are more "regular" people going to believe the sheer amount of them? Sadly, quite a lot more easily.
Most conspiracy theorists continue to present the same old tired arguments which are very easy to prove wrong. They need all those arguments, no matter how ridiculous, for their shotgun argumentation tactics to work.
Straw man argumentation
A "straw man argument" is the process of taking an argument of the opponent, distorting it or taking it out of context so that it basically changes meaning, and then ridiculing it in order to make the opponent look bad.
For example, a conspiracy theorist may say something like: "Sceptics argue that stars are too faint to see in space (which is why there are no stars in photographs), yet astronauts said that they could see stars."
This is a perfect example of a straw man argument. That's taking an argument completely out of context and changing its meaning.
It's actually a bit unfortunate that many debunking sites use the sentence "the stars are too faint to be seen" when explaining the lack of stars in photographs. That sentence, while in its context not false, is confusing and misleading. It's trying to put in simple words a more technical explanation (which usually follows). Unfortunately, it's too simplistic and good material for straw man arguments. I wish debunkers stopped using simplistic sentences like that one.
(The real explanation for the lacking stars is, of course, related to the exposure time and shutter aperture of the cameras, which were set to photograph the Moon surface illuminated by direct sunlight. The stars are not bright enough for such short exposure times. If the cameras had been set up to photograph the stars, the lunar surface would have been completely overexposed. This is basic photography.)
Another straw man, still related to stars, which I have seen is simply "they claim that you can't see stars in space" (referring to some kind of notion that stars are too small and far away to be seen directly, and that they are visible from Earth only because the atmosphere scatters their light making them look bigger). This is simply a lie. I don't think any debunker has ever said that a person cannot see stars in space. (Even if someone has, he is obviously wrong. However, that's irrelevant to whether the explanation for the lack of stars is wrong or not.)
Citing inexistent sources
There's a very common bad habit among the majority of people: They believe that credible sources have said/written whatever someone claims they have said or written. Even worse, most people believe that a source is credible or even exists just because someone claims that it is credible and exists. People almost never check that the source exists, that it's a credible source and that it has indeed said what was claimed.
Conspiracy theorists know this and thus abuse it to the maximum. Sometimes they fabricate sources or stories, and sometimes they just cite nameless sources (using expressions like "experts in the field", "most astronomers", etc).
This is an actual quote from the same JFK assassination conspiracy theory website as earlier:
Scientists examined the Zapruder film. They found that, while most of it looks completely genuine, some of the images are impossible. They violate the laws of physics. They could not have come from Zapruder's home movie camera.
Needless to say, the web page does not give any references or sources, or any other indication of who these unnamed "scientists" might be or what their credentials are. (My personal guess is that whenever the website uses the word "scientist" or "researcher", it refers to other conspiracy theorists who have no actual education and competence on the required fields of science, and who are, like all such conspiracy theorists, just seeing what they want to see.)
Citing sources which are wrong
A common tactic of conspiracy theorists is to take statements by credible persons or newspaper articles which support the conspiracy theory and present these statements or articles as if they were the truth. If a later article in the same newspaper corrects the mistake in the earlier article or if the person who made the statement later says that he was wrong or quoted out of context (ie. he didn't mean what people thought he was meaning), conspiracy theorists happily ignore them.
Since people seldom check the sources, they will believe that the statement or newspaper article is the only thing that person or newspaper has said about the subject.
This is closely related to (and often overlaps with) the concept of quote mining (which is the practice of carefully selecting small quotes, which are often taken completely out of context, from a vast selection of material, in such a way that these individual quotes seem to support the conspiracy theory).
Sometimes that source is not credible (because it's just another conspiracy theorist) but people have little means of knowing this.
Cherry-picking
Cherry-picking is more a deliberate act of deception than a logical fallacy, but nevertheless an extremely common tactic.
Cherry-picking happens when someone deliberately selects from a wide variety of material only those items which support the conspiracy theory, while ignoring and discarding those which don't. When this carefully chosen selection of material is then presented as a whole, it easily misleads people into thinking that the conspiracy theory is supported by evidence.
This is an especially popular tactic for the 9/11 conspiracy theorists: They will only choose those published photographs which support their claims, while outright ignoring those which don't. The Loose Change "documentary" is quite infamous for doing this, and pulling it out rather convincingly.
The major problem with this is, of course, that it's pure deception: The viewer is intentionally given only carefully selected material, while leaving out the parts which would contradict the conspiracy theory. This is a deliberate act. The conspiracy theorists cannot claim honesty while doing clear cherry-picking.
Just one example: There's a big electrical transformer box outside the Pentagon which was badly damaged by the plane before it hit the building. It's impossible for that box to get that damage if the building was hit by a missile, as claimed by conspiracy theorists (the missile would have exploded when hitting the box, several tens of meters away from the building). Conspiracy theorists will usually avoid using any photographs which show the damaged transformer box because it contradicts their theory. They are doing this deliberately. They cannot claim honesty while doing this.
Argument from authority
Scientists are human, and thus imperfect and fallible. Individual scientists can be dead wrong, make the wrong claims and even be deceived into believing falsities. Being a scientist does not give a human being some kind of magic power to resist all deceptions and delusions, to see through all tricks and fallacies and to always know the truth and discard what is false.
But science does not stand on individual scientists, for this exact reason. This is precisely why the scientific process requires so-called peer reviews. One scientist can be wrong, ten scientists can be wrong, and even a hundred scientists can be wrong, but when their claims are peer-reviewed and studied by the whole scientific community, the likelihood of the falsities not being caught decreases dramatically.
It's very likely that someone somewhere is going to object and to raise questions if there's something wrong with a claim, and this will raise the consciousness of the whole community. Either the objections are dealt with and explained, or the credibility of the claim gets compromised. A claim does not become accepted by the scientific community unless it passes the peer reviewing test. And this is why science works. It does not rely on individuals, but on the whole.
Sometimes some individual scientists can be deceived into believing a conspiracy theory. As said, scientists do not have any magical force that keeps them from being deceived. Due to their education the likelihood might be slightly lower than with the average person, but in no way is it completely removed. Scientists can and do get deceived by falsities.
Thus sometimes the conspiracy theorists will convince some PhD or other such person of high education and/or high authority, and if this person becomes vocal enough, the conspiracy theorists will then use him as an argument pro the conspiracy. It can be rather convincing if conspiracy theorists can say "numerous scientists agree that the official explanation cannot be true, including (insert some names here)".
However, this is a fallacy named argument from authority. Just because a PhD makes a claim doesn't make it true. Even if a hundred PhD's make that claim. It doesn't even make it any more credible.
As said, individual scientists can get deceived and deluded. However, as long as their claims do not pass the peer review process, their claims are worth nothing from a scientific point of view.
Argument from ignorance
In this fallacy the word "ignorance" is not an insult, but refers to the meaning of "not knowing something".
Simply put, argument from ignorance happens when something with no apparent explanation is pointed out (for example in a photograph), and since there's no explanation, it's presented as evidence of foul play (eg. that the photograph has been manipulated).
This can be seen as somewhat related to cherry-picking: The conspiracy theorist will point out something in the source material or the accounts of the original event which is not easy to immediately explain. A viewer with no experience nor expertise on the subject matter might be unable to come up with an explanation, or to identify the artifact/phenomenon. The conspiracy theorist then abuses this to claim that the unexplained artifact or phenomenon is evidence of fakery or deception.
Of course this is a fallacy. Nothing can be deduced from an unexplained phenomenon or artifact. As long as you don't know what it is, you can't take it as evidence of anything.
(In most cases such things have a quite simple and logical explanation; it's just that in order to figure it out, you need to have the proper experience on the subject, or alternatively to have someone with experience explain it to you. After that it becomes quite self-evident. It's a bit like a magic trick: When you see it, you can't explain how it works, but when someone explains it to you, it often is outright disappointingly simple.)
It might sound rather self-evident when explained like this, but people still get fooled in an actual situation.
Argument from (personal) incredulity
In its most basic and bare-bones from, argument from incredulity takes the form of "I can't even begin to imagine how this can work / be possible, hence it must be fake". This is a variation or subset of the argument from ignorance. Of course conspiracy theorists don't state the argument so blatantly, but use much subtler expressions.
Example: Some (although not all) Moon Landing Hoax conspiracy theorists state that the Moon Lander could have not taken off from the surface of the Moon, because a rocket on its bottom side would have made it rotate wildly and randomly.
In essence what the conspiracy theorist is saying is "I don't understand how rocketry can work, hence this must be fake", and trying to convince the reader of the same.
The problem of basic rocketry (ie. how a rocket with a propulsion system at its back end can maintain stability and fly straight) is indeed quite a complex and difficult one (which is where the colloquial term "rocket science", meaning something extremely complicated and difficult, comes from), but it was solved in the 1920's and 30's. This isn't even something you have to understand or even take on faith: It's something you can see with your own eyes (unless you believe all the videos you have ever seen of missiles and rockets are fake).
Pareidolia
Pareidolia is also not a logical fallacy per se, but more a fallacy of perception.
Pareidolia is, basically, the phenomenon which happens when we perceive recognizable patterns in randomness, even though the patterns really aren't there. For example, random blotches of paint might look like a face, or random noise might sound like a spoken word (or even a full sentence).
Pareidolia is a side effect of pattern recognition in our brain. Our visual and auditory perception is heavily based on pattern recognition. It's what helps us understanding spoken languages, even if it's spoken by different people with different voices, at different speeds and with different accents. It's what helps us recognizing objects even if they have a slightly different shape or coloring which we have never seen before. It's what helps us recognize people and differentiate them from each other. It's what helps us reading written text at amazing speeds by simply scanning the written lines visually (you are doing precisely that right now). In fact, we could probably not even survive without pattern recognition.
This pattern recognition is also heavily based on experience: We tend to recognize things like shapes and sounds when we have previous experience from similar shapes and sounds. Also the context helps us in this pattern recognition, often very significantly. When we recognize the context, we tend to expect certain things, which in turn helps us making the pattern recognition more easily and faster. For example, if you open a book, you already expect to see text inside, and you are already prepared to recognize it. In a context which is completely unrelated to written text (for a completely random example, if you are examining your fingernails) you are not expecting to see text, and thus you don't recognize it as easily.
Pareidolia happens when our brain recognizes, or thinks it recognizes, patterns where there may be only randomness, or in places which are not random per se, but completely unrelated to this purported "pattern".
As noted, pareidolia is greatly helped if we are expecting to see a certain pattern. This predisposes our brain to try to recognize that exact thing, making it easier.
This is the very idea in so-called backmasking: Playing a sound, for example a song, backwards and then recognizing something in the garbled sounds that result from this. When we are not expecting anything in particular, we usually only hear garbled noises. However, if someone tells us what we should expect, we immediately "recognize" it.
However, we are just fooling our own pattern recognition system into perceiving something which isn't really there. If someone else is told to expect a slightly similar-sounding, but different message, that other person is very probably going to hear that. You and that other person are both being mislead by playing with the pattern recognition capabilities of your brain.
Conspiracy theorists love abusing pareidolia. They will make people see patterns where there are none, and people will be fooled into believing that the patterns really are there, and thus are proof of something.
Posted by James Black/Tomas Scolarici
(UNQUOTE)
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Thursday, January 13, 2011
Where I stand on "UFOs","beliefs in UFOs" and other topics
Norio Hayakawa
e-mail: noriohayakawa@gmail.com
May 4, 2011
The perception of UFOs as physical alien spacecraft piloted or maneuvered by physical alien entitites continues to dominate Ufology solely for the purpose of convenience.
It is important to take into consideration that UFO reports may not necessarily be caused by visits from space travelers.
Alternate realities co-exist with us, making it extremely difficult to define "reality" through our limited empirical understanding and our inability to detect them via the five senses.
Here are my additional thoughts on UFOs:
My perspective on the UFO phenomenon
HERE ARE SOME OF MY ARTICLES THAT I WROTE RECENTLY (most of them in 2010):
Some old but fascinating reports from Dulce, New Mexico
Enigmatic personalities behind the initial Dulce underground base rumors
Nevada Test Site gets new name (N2S2).....its impact on Area 51!!
Why "UFOs" will never become a top nightly TV news story
Beliefs in "UFOs" no different from "religious beliefs
Top priority U.S military report claims "Apocalyptic Christians" and the Second Coming of the Christ could pose a serious threat to world peace!!
The Roswell incident.....was it hastily "staged" to cover something else?
The most spectacular UFO sighting in U.S. history: 1950, Farmington, New Mexico!
UFOs, Area 51 and Dulce....the bottom line
UFOs, The Bottom Line: My Honest Answers
Dulce, New Mexico, Bio-warfare and Project Blue Beam
and
The historic Dulce base conference in Dulce, New Mexico, on March 29, 2009!!
HERE ARE SOME OF MY EARLIER ARTICLES:
Behind the mysterious crash of a helicopter near Area 51 in 1991
Death is only the beginning of life!!
The strange behavior of Bob Lazar (alleged former Area 51 "scientist")
William Cooper, a manipulated misinformant of the 90's?
Strange Behavior of Col. John Alexander in the early 1990s
Col. John Alexander, Robert Bigelow and the goal of NIDS?
My "connections" to Area 51
My visits with Lyndon LaRouche and Victor Marchetti in 1994
NORIO HAYAKAWA
http://noriohayakawa2012.blogspot.com
The CIVILIAN INTELLIGENCE CENTRAL on Facebook
e-mail: noriohayakawa@gmail.com
May 4, 2011
The perception of UFOs as physical alien spacecraft piloted or maneuvered by physical alien entitites continues to dominate Ufology solely for the purpose of convenience.
It is important to take into consideration that UFO reports may not necessarily be caused by visits from space travelers.
Alternate realities co-exist with us, making it extremely difficult to define "reality" through our limited empirical understanding and our inability to detect them via the five senses.
Here are my additional thoughts on UFOs:
My perspective on the UFO phenomenon
HERE ARE SOME OF MY ARTICLES THAT I WROTE RECENTLY (most of them in 2010):
Some old but fascinating reports from Dulce, New Mexico
Enigmatic personalities behind the initial Dulce underground base rumors
Nevada Test Site gets new name (N2S2).....its impact on Area 51!!
Why "UFOs" will never become a top nightly TV news story
Beliefs in "UFOs" no different from "religious beliefs
Top priority U.S military report claims "Apocalyptic Christians" and the Second Coming of the Christ could pose a serious threat to world peace!!
The Roswell incident.....was it hastily "staged" to cover something else?
The most spectacular UFO sighting in U.S. history: 1950, Farmington, New Mexico!
UFOs, Area 51 and Dulce....the bottom line
UFOs, The Bottom Line: My Honest Answers
Dulce, New Mexico, Bio-warfare and Project Blue Beam
and
The historic Dulce base conference in Dulce, New Mexico, on March 29, 2009!!
HERE ARE SOME OF MY EARLIER ARTICLES:
Behind the mysterious crash of a helicopter near Area 51 in 1991
Death is only the beginning of life!!
The strange behavior of Bob Lazar (alleged former Area 51 "scientist")
William Cooper, a manipulated misinformant of the 90's?
Strange Behavior of Col. John Alexander in the early 1990s
Col. John Alexander, Robert Bigelow and the goal of NIDS?
My "connections" to Area 51
My visits with Lyndon LaRouche and Victor Marchetti in 1994
NORIO HAYAKAWA
http://noriohayakawa2012.blogspot.com
The CIVILIAN INTELLIGENCE CENTRAL on Facebook
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