This the concluding part of Colin Bennett’s Sleepless in Roswell, part one of which was published yesterday.
5. Weaponisation of the Narrative
In this sense meant by Errol Morris, can we deconstruct “fact”? Is the universe meant to work properly, or does the fabled “noise in the machine” function (like the UFO) as an anomalistic destabiliser? Does the slightest anomaly blossom out like the proverbial butterfly’s wing and throw any and every partially-stabilised system into chaos?
Certainly belief structures, from Jesus to UFOs, from Nazism to Capitalism, can be designed, managed and cultivated as crops in a cosmological nutrient. The symbiotic relationship of we might call a “soft” Lady GaGa mass-media system to the “hard” spines of rational belief structures appears to concern the somewhat political management of different degrees of counter-ritualization concerning metaphor structure. Story-lines dispute fact and fact does not like story lines in the sense that they tend to destabilize the inner dimensions of fact which propagandistically (and all culture is propaganda) would like to be seen as absolutes.
This leads to the somewhat postmodern thought that live consciousness is a manipulation of theatres managing a scaling of allowances rather than objectivities. Thus in our New Model Ufology here we may say that the “extraterrestrial alien” (for example) is permanently “under construction” rather than being either strictly factual or strictly fictional.
Thus the answer to Fermi’s question “where are they?” is that the alien is under construction…
Therefore (as is happening) bits and pieces of a whole thing may arrive before the main body. This is a good model for Darwinism and the 19th century Eugenics movement forming eventually into the main body of Nazism in the form of Adolf Hitler. In the same as Eugenics were under discussion…
For Steven Jobs and Stephen Wozniac
Who helped create the modern Imagination
“All Image Systems are Magical Systems.”
(Politics of the Imagination)
“If you think things could get worse, then at least you know that you’re not in Hell.”
(George Mensche, The Rumford Rogues)
“When we imagine we create a form of life”
(Looking for Orthon)
Introduction
The world needs to put UFOs and Ufology in a radically different perspective. As a culture it is at least as important as the drawings of Piranesi or Michelangelo, or the paintings of Dali or Chirico. What we get from such precious things we can get from the story-architecture of Ufology, which is now an essential part of our postmodern Imagination. Even in the kitchens of the most ardent sceptic there will be some item which owes its shape and character to the UFO, now a big prime-time star in the postmodern universe. As a Big Star, the UFO is as unavoidable as are Elvis Presley, Monroe, Michael Jackson, or the idea of quantum entanglement.
Ufology turns even downright imposture into a species of postmodern art form, showing that the mechanical truth of a story is something of a decoy.
What matters is that the tale is told complete with all its faults and deceptions and the supposed framework of its truths and lies. Any story bar-codes us forever. Despite our acceptances and rejections, we play with story games, we rehearse them, add new episodes even to absurd claims, and despite ourselves again, we continue and develop even the most dubious episodes, whether they are junk theatre or not.
With the on-going phone hacking scandal continuing to dominate headlines both in the United Kingdom and United States, personal privacy and how to protect it is an issue once again in the minds of many people.
Online privacy has always been something of an issue, with computer malware and trojans a constant threat to the safety of our passwords, bank details and everything else we need to keep secret while browsing the internet.
Discussion forums, like ours here at Reality Uncovered, are a meeting place for like-minded people to discuss and dissect a wide range of stories and information relating to a particular subject – in our case more often than not in the fields of Ufology, Reality and the Paranormal.
We take the online privacy of our members very seriously, as does no doubt many of the other thousands of discussion forums on the internet. Most forums have a private messaging feature which enables members to talk to each other in complete privacy, away from any staff members and out of the public eye. As an example, two people could meet in a public discussion forum posting back and forth on a public board viewable by whoever views the site. But if they want to exchange phone numbers or emails, they would use the private message function. This is normally very secure as not even the owner of the forum can view these messages. They are indeed private…..or so they should be!
MouseTrace: Dream or Nightmare?
Enter “MouseTrace”, a unique solution to help website owners, designers and Internet marketing professionals better understand how visitors are using their websites.
A single line of HTML code is all that is need to enable the website owner/designer to watch exactly what the visitors are doing on their website – see whether they are viewing the full page content, where they are clicking and how they are navigating through the website. This powerful information enables the website owner or designer to efficiently optimise the site which leads to increased sales and/or better viewer participation and response.
Elsewhere on the MouseTrace website we are told:
Within a couple of minutes you will be watching real-time replays of how your visitors are using your blog, watching every mouse movement, click and scroll – just like sitting next to your visitors watching their screen!
Not exactly the kind of software you would expect to see running on online discussion forum, after all, what would be the point?
The Open Minds Forum and MouseTrace
Enter The Open Minds Forum, Big Brother is watching you!
Most people who follow Reality Uncovered know we don’t have much time for the Open Minds forum. Ever since it opened, Open Minds has been a safe haven for hoaxers, scammers, conmen and liars. Enough evidence exists that shows how the owners and some staff of the forum have actively encouraged –and continue to do so – known hoaxes and outrageous claims. It is not a coincidence that many of these stories find their way to OM, it is by design. So no, it’s not the members we have a problem with, it never has been. It is the willingness to propagate myth and lies as fact and the jack-booted way they handle those who question them that we have always had a problem with.
The following account, then, should really come as no surprise for regular visitors to this site.
The MouseTrace software was discovered by an Open Minds member to be running on their forum. Naturally they were concerned about it so opened a thread on the subject, highlighting the sinister Watch replays showing exactly what your website visitors are doing and asking if the OM staff also used key loggers and snooped on private messages.
Other members also became concerned and asked questions, but a staff response was slow in coming. Five days slow to be exact. One member even asked Patrick Clinger, owner of the ProBoards software if this was something ProBoards had done, but he confirmed MouseTrace wasn’t used on any of their sites. Incidentally, the member who questioned Mr Clinger has now been banned from the OM forum.
In the meantime and before a staff response was forthcoming, John Hicks (JeddyHi), posted about this issue in the OM thread here at RU. John has plenty of first-hand experience of Open Minds, being a former administrator of the site. He was also one of the principal investigators into the Source A scam hosted at OM, so John knows a thing or two about a thing or two when it comes to OM.
Only after John had posted here, with serious concerns being raised by RU and OM members alike about the possible ability of the MouseTrace software being able to “view” members private messages, was a response from the owner of Open Minds, Brendan Burton, forthcoming.
Posting under the user account ‘Admin’, Mr Burton wrote:
Mousetrace is/was a promo plugin trial from Google as part of our Google Analytics package. From what it said in the promo it would be easier to access Google Analytics, and help make the site structure more accessible to users by providing a service ” to rapidly find faults and identify where improvements can be made.” But, as far i know it’s not possible to see any ‘private’ data like PM’s or even typed words, just navigation of visitors to the site, what boards they go to. And i’ve checked since this came to be a concern, and i can’t find any mention of it ever being able to see anything like passwords or the private pages of members actually logged into a site.
There would be no intention to, even if it was possible.
It was only ever active for just over a day. In fact i deactivated it when it came to my attention that it was causing unnecessary alarm.
There is absolutely no intention, desire or need to look at anyone’s private PM’s or anything like that. And there’s no ability to do so.
Let’s take a look at this reply in more detail, starting with the very first line: Mousetrace is/was a promo plugin trial from Google as part of our Google Analytics package.
This sentence is wrong in every single way. Mouse Trace is not a plugin, it has absolutely nothing to do with Google and it is not part of the Google Analytics package.
From the company website ‘About’ section, we can see that MouseTrace is a privately held company, founded in the United Kingdom by Dan Field in 2010. The company has no affiliation with Google and the Google Analytics software doesn’t include anything like the MouseTrace software.
From what it said in the promo it would be easier to access Google Analytics, and help make the site structure more accessible to users by providing a service ” to rapidly find faults and identify where improvements can be made.”
Google Analytics is accessible by going to http://www.google.com/analytics and entering your user details. Is that not easy enough!? As we have already seen, the MouseTrace software is (allegedly!) a tool to enable website owners better understand how visitors are using their websites – it has absolutely nothing to do with finding faults and identifying where improvements can be made.
But, as far i know it’s not possible to see any ‘private’ data like PM’s or even typed words, just navigation of visitors to the site, what boards they go to
As we will see further below, that is simply not true.
It was only ever active for just over a day. In fact i deactivated it when it came to my attention that it was causing unnecessary alarm.
As one can see from the posts in the OM thread, it was active for at least four days and why deactivate it in the first place if they’re only using it “to find faults”?
On July 26th, OM Moderator “Fore” posted the following in an attempt to further bolster the explanation offered by Bren:
The day after mouse trace was used, I brought it up in our mods board. I was told it was a plugin to “Google Analytics” and after I investigated personally, it seems it doesn’t have the features I feared it might have.
(Like a Keylogger or screen captures of text, stuff that was a real concern.)
One wonders how extensive this “investigation” was, bearing in mind it didn’t take us very long to discover that “screen captures of text” is exactly what it does! Fore’s very lengthy post then went on to explain what MouseTrace does and doesn’t do, and why our conclusions were wrong and couldn’t be trusted. Needless to say, almost every aspect of the post was full of inaccuracies and only served to confuse their, by this time, bewildered membership.
Finding the Truth
These denials and obvious misdirection attempts were beginning to look very suspicious indeed.
John Hicks (JeddyHi) decided to investigate this issue for himself in a way he knows best; thoroughly!
Wondering if Open Minds staff could actually be snooping on its members, he decided to do some testing of his own. John created a discussion forum at the ProBoards website – the same site used by OM – and as soon as it was completed he installed a free version of the MouseTrace software. The installation was pretty easy and straight forward; it only involved entering two to four lines of HTML code into the global header and footer files.
Once everything was up and running, RU member ‘Philliman’ and I both registered an account at John’s test site. Once activated, we sent PMs to one another with each of us receiving or sending a PM to the other. Meanwhile, MouseTrace is quietly running in the background and lo and behold….it recorded our activity perfectly. The traces John viewed allowed him to read the messages between the two of us. The ‘private’ in Private Messages was now a useless word.
The Proof
We were actually astonished at the fact that a discussion forum’s private messaging system had been fully compromised. More astonishing though, was the question of just why the owners of a discussion forum would install this program in the first place. Snooping on members, reading the occasional private message, and more or less just violating every member’s privacy?
The Open Minds forum still denies any wrong doing and continues to claim that MouseTrace does not have the capabilities to violate PM privacy.
We now know the truth.
Beware of Mouse Trace and especially beware of any discussion forum that installs it.
As is to be expected, those headlines and proclamations couldn’t be more wrong if they tried. The only truth revealed so far is that of one we’re used to in this field of research;
The truth doesn’t matter!
The FBI UFO memo in question, from March 1950 and written by Special Agent in Charge (SAC) Guy Hottel to the FBI Director at the time, J. Edgar Hoover, is available to view and download from the FBI website. The text contained therein is reproduced below:
The following information was furnished to SA [censored] by [censored]
An investigator for the Air Forces stated that three so-called flying saucers had been recovered in New Mexico. They were described as being circular in shape with raised centers, approximately 50 feet in diameter. Each one was occupied by three bodies of human shape but only 3 feet tall, dressed in metallic cloth of a very fine texture. Each body was bandaged in a manner similar to the blackout suits used by speed flyers and test pilots.
According to Mr. [censored] informant, the saucers were found in New Mexico due to the fact that the Government has a very high-powered radar set-up in that area and it is believed the radar interferes with the controlling mechanism of the saucers.
No further evaluation was attempted by SA [censored] concerning the above.
This author has to wonder if journalists of the tabloid variety have lost their basic reading capacity, surely one of the requisite skills needed for such a profession? The first line of the memo states in clear terms that the information was given to the Air Force investigator by someone else. “The following information was furnished to SA [censored] by [censored]”. Further down the memo, we see the person who told the Air Force investigator was also not a first-hand witness, having received the information from yet another source! “According to Mr. [censored] informant”.
Far from being proof of anything, the memo is nothing more sensational than Guy Hottel reporting information as told to him several times removed from the original source. The last line of the memo serves to ram home the insignificance of the information, when it states the AF investigator attempted no further evaluation. He clearly hadn’t been born the day before.
You will also note that despite headlines to the contrary, there is no mention of Roswell contained in the memo whatsoever. The incident the information refers to IS in New Mexico, but at Aztec, not Roswell.
The Reality Uncovered article Play it again, Scam from February 2009 deals specifically with the Aztec hoax, but in a nutshell the story refers to an elaborate con game perpetrated by Silas Newton and Leo GeBauer. Some people have also touted this memo to be new information, but once again this is flat wrong.
The same day the Aztec article named above was published, in February of 2009, Reality Uncovered administrator “Access Denied” refers to this exact same FBI memo in a post on the forum. Not only does his post prove the memo is far from new, it also shows how the information contained therein had already been debunked years earlier! (Emphasis added)
One particular aspect of the Aztec hoax I find interesting is this…
On May 31st and June 1st, 1998, on the nationally-syndicated radio programs Dreamland and The Art Bell Show, noted UFO researcher Linda Moulton Howe described a secret FBI memo from March 22nd, 1950, written to J. Edgar Hoover himself. Memo author Guy Hottel, of SAC, described an investigator’s report of a flying saucer recovery in New Mexico, with mention of three saucers, three-foot tall bodies, metallic cloth, and bandaged alien bodies. The crash was supposedly due to interference from high-powered radar. But all of these elements (saucers, aliens, cloth and tape, radar site) have been firmly traced to the yarns spun by our two swindlers! William Moore even traced how the story got from Silas Newton to J. Edgar Hoover: Newton told George Koehler (employed at radio station KMYR in Denver), who told Morley Davies, who told Ford dealers Murphy and van Horn, who told auto dealer Fick, who told the editor of the Kansas City Wyandotte Echo. By that time, Koehler had become “Coulter,” just like a game of “gossip” (or a game of “pi”)! This article was picked up in the news, where it caught the interest of the OSI. The OSI agent passed the story on to Guy Hottel of the FBI, and he gave the 8th-hand story to Hoover.
So, if you see any stories proclaiming proof that the aliens are here because the FBI said so, send them to Reality Uncovered for a history lesson!
There are a lot of people who frequent the RU forums and the RU blog due to some of the conversations and emails we’ve uncovered by Ufology’s “usual suspects” – individuals that Bill Moore termed “the aviary” in the 1980s and who remain very focused and active in the field.
Research Into Scammer’s Inc.
There is a lot of speculation as to the motives of many of these men. There are conspiracy theories ranging from vast government disinformation campaigns to psychological research or even mental illness. Here at RU, we continue to accumulate information about their past and present activities, but the history is so deep and vast that collecting and sorting it out is quite a task.
One thing that does make the task easier is when fellow researchers, also studying this particular thread within Ufology, publish their own findings. For example, journalist Gus Russo wrote an interesting essay in 2007 that covered the gamut, but even Gus found himself left with more questions than answers.
The Publication of Mirage Men
Another upcoming publication by Mark Pilkington, titled Mirage Men, promises a great deal of insight as Mark details his efforts, alongside that of John Lundberg’s, as they interview these shadowy individuals and seek out answers amidst a sea of deception and manipulation.
As part of their investigations leading up to the publication of Mirage Men, Mark and John interviewed a number of folks, including even RU’s very own Stephen Broadbent who was interviewed on film. Much of the focus of their investigations were upon Rick Doty – and his photo appears prominently among the promotional materials…he clearly figures as a central character in the findings.
The book is slated for publication on July 29th, 2010, click the amazon link above and pre-order your copy. The link above is not an affiliate link – it goes directly to Amazon’s order page, so get your copy today!
Mirage Men Launch on July 29th
Mark’s blog has some great information and updates from the author himself! Apparently there will be a launch event at the end of this month, on July 29th, near Russell Square tube in London. The event is open to the public and attendees will be treated to a “special preview of the [Mirage Men] film” – which, we are told, is a 10 minute clip from the interview with Rick Doty (of Serpo/MJ-12 hoax fame).
“As he crossed the US meeting intelligence agents, disinformation specialists and UFO hunters Pilkington was confronted with a dizzying array of ever more outrageous claims and counter claims. As a result he began to suspect that, instead of covering up stories of crashed flying saucers, alien contacts and secret underground bases, the US intelligence agencies had actually been promoting them all along. Meanwhile he has to deal with his own uncertainties, the suspicions of the UFO community and a partner who is starting to believe that conspiracy theorists might be right after all.”
The film should be interesting, but remember to take any conclusions with a grain of salt, unless of course there is solid evidence and supporting documentation to support it.
Best wishes and best of luck to our friend Mark Pilkington, and hopefully book sales will be brisk.
I realize the title sounds like the storyline of a fairy tale, but essentially this past weekend was the new phase of Pandolfi’s life, which he hopes will become his happily ever after. Why are we talking about a second marriage, when there are so many other issues and strange events ongoing?
I’ve decided to cover the story of this marriage, because I believe when you get down to the core of personalities, and understand both the motivations and perspectives of that individual – you can discern their agenda and the reasons for their actions, even if they refuse to tell you themselves.
The Royal FootMan, the Royal Scribe and the Princess
Late last week, during another late-night research session, I was pinged via Gtalk by Ron. I’ve become accustomed to this, as over time a week, a month or several months could pass until I’m presented with a chat request from the mysterious Mr. Pandolfi. Understanding how such communications with a CIA-associated personality can set any Ufologist as an outcast in this community – even among friends and colleagues – I’m always careful about these conversations. They are all recorded, so that no one can claim I did or said something that I didn’t.
This particular conversation was not a discussion starter – it was one line, followed by an email with an attachment.
“Please review and send back with any suggested changes.”
I checked my email and sitting there was a Word document titled as a “Scroll.” Ron had already explained to me a week earlier that during his upcoming wedding to a beautiful woman from Kashmir, he would be requesting that Dan Smith read the text of a scroll, while dressed in costume.
As a courtesy, and of course because I am in the running to become the “Royal Blogger,” willing to assist the Princess in gaining publicity for her effort related to the crisis in Kashmir – I took about 20 minutes to go through the text Ron had written, and did some editing. After a few punctuation corrections and word replacements, I forwarded the file back and wished Ron luck in his new marriage. His wedding was the very next day. Check out the final version of the scroll in PDF format.
True Love Strikes the Man of Shadows
Reading through the scroll text, I discovered the circumstances surrounding how Ron and his “Princess” met, their courtship and eventual decision to marry. There were two things that became clear as I was reading through this text (and when I learned he would be having Dan read it at the reception dressed like Robin Hood).
The first was that Ron has a strange and eccentric personality – of that there is absolutely no doubt. The second is that his new bride is either just as strange and eccentric, or she welcomes and embraces eccentricity.
I chatted with her briefly one night, and she came across as an intelligent, witty and very kind woman…more interested in helping the citizens of Kashmir than any of this Ufology stuff – however, she likes Dan and she appears to follow along with the storyline. How much more she knows about Ron and his past activities than the rest of us remains an unanswered question.
You get a sense for some of the background leading up to the marriage from the following paragraph.
“The Scribe acknowledges that the Kingdom is in disarray, that the Princess has been under siege of dark forces close to the King, that she and at times the King have been banished to a dark cave, that she has been bound, fingerprinted, and nearly jailed. Those dark times have come to pass. With this marriage, the Scribe also reveals that the Royal Footman is in fact the White Knight, come to free the Princess in order to restore and complete the white magic of the Kingdom.”
Manipulating Delusional Ufology Followers
The various small blogs and forums found throughout the Internet are often used as information warfare platforms between acting powers within the not-so-secret collection of individuals many know as the “Aviary” – some of whom we now call Scammer’s Inc. However, this particular diversion follows close on the heels of the tumbling of Gordon’s RAM project.
News has it that Gordon recently suffered from a heart attack and endured a triple bipass. We can only assume that he is still in recovery – and we hope for the best outcome for this colorful personality.
The real story here isn’t so much the wedding itself – the story is the relationship between popular figures within Ufology – like Dan Smith and Gordon Novel – and the folks in the shadows who do the manipulating and dissemination of information they want the public to see.
As you watch characters like Gordon Novel, Bob Collins, Laura “Eisenhower”, and Dan Smith distribute their stories and public pronouncements of the Alien presence, Alien abductions, Secret Mars Projects, Government secrecy and cover-up, and UFO artifacts offering humanity secret technologies – you must ask yourselves, where and why these delusions are being used and manipulated. To what end and for who’s ultimate agenda?
In examining the personalities of the manipulators, rather than the manipulated – the investigators at RU are inching ever closer to a dramatic conclusion that is best represented by my favorite T.S. Eliot poem, The Hollow Men.
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper.
My condolences to die-hard Ufology believers – you will be greatly disappointed. To the rest of you – you will likely nod, shake your head in disgust and think to yourselves, It’s what I suspected all along…
We would like to apologize to our loyal readers for the recent stretch of radio silence… There are periods of time when many threads of investigation take place, which consumes all of our time and resources. In addition to that, there are times when stealth and silence serves us best – when few words offer a strategic advantage.
RAM is Leaking Like a Sieve
Many of you who have been following along with our work know that we most recently were investigating the claims and efforts of Gordon Novel, his association with Ron Pandolfi, and the individuals who support Novel’s efforts from the shadows. Gordon’s recent eBook, which he published and has been trying to sell online, names a few of the individuals who have been supporting him along the way. A copy of that book was leaked to us that month, and we’ll be providing updates about what we’ve learned.
More importantly, last month we were also leaked the entire collection of business plans, documents, drawings and specifications related to the technological claims and efforts that Novel is trying to sell to various investors. The documents are eye opening, and even more shocking considering the names of the individuals listed as intricately involved in the “RAM” project, and the fictional technologies pulled out of Hollywood movies and integrated into the drawings.
Technologies such as the “flux capacitor” – a time travel engine developed by the character “Doc” in the popular 1980s film Back to the Future. You don’t need an electrical engineering degree to know that there’s no such thing as a flux capacitor. Well, okay, there’s the super-powerful integrated circuit capacitor developed by Stanford University researchers called a “flux capacitor,” which can store more charge than standard capacitors, but it’s still nothing more exotic than a standard electrical capacitor. The less said about the mysterious technology “antifire”, the better…
Whistleblower Laura Magdalene Eisenhower
Next up, we have the alleged “whistleblower” named Laura, allegedly Ike Eisenhower’s great-granddaughter, who claims she was approached for recruitment into a secret human survival colony as part of a Mars exploration project. Needless to say, the claim is extravagant. We’ve remained silent on the matter only to collect information and watch the game play out.
One thing we can say is that, once again, the usual suspects are involved. We’ve collected information, which we’re working to verify, that individuals we’ve been investigating previously here at RU were involved in contacting and exploiting Laura and attempting to use this particular new story to meet their own agendas. We’ll be revealing the true back-story in due time.
However, I would like to leave you on this note. Extraordinary claims should always require extraordinary evidence. The more extraordinary the claim – the more likely that the house of cards will crumble once you start poking. So the sooner you start poking (at the right spots), the sooner it will crumble, and you can move on to focus on more important (and real) matters.
We have decided that the involvement of the usual suspects requires the involvement of RU. We’ll be weighing in on this matter shortly, and the truth will finally come out. You can only find it here folks…in the safe haven of truth and evidence with a alligator-filled moat to keep away the nutters…you know us as RealityUncovered. Thank you for remaining a loyal reader of our blog.
As usually happens whenever we investigate any scam, and begin the process of moving aside the stones and revealing the bugs and worms underneath – the scammers attempt to hack us. In this case, an attempt was made to access my primary email account used in my communications with shady individuals.
However, since those making the attempts are old, homeless, penniless and stupid (no, they are not the non-existent MJ-12, Majic or NSA) – the attempt failed. Thanks to the security tools that I have set in place, I was alerted this morning to an attempted intrusion overnight.
The Value of an Intelligent Security System
My double-strong password blocked the attempts. Additionally, the benefit of having an avid interest in online technologies and IT security is that at this point I have a number of security apps processing this particular account. Upon any security intrusion, like this one, the applications log the IP, location, computer name and details and even the GPS coordinates (or at least the nearest cell tower or network hub.)
Obviously, setting your email account in this way converts your email into a virtual Venus Flytrap, where every idiot scammer attempting to hack into your account ends up giving up details about himself that he never wanted you to know. I’ve handed over all of that data to the RU tech experts to analyze. What this means is that RU now has even more information against a growing list of criminal scammers and fraudsters.
“What’s this!?” I hear you cry. Has Reality Uncovered turned into a celelbrity fan site and left its roots in the reality and ufology fields far behind? Actually, no, we haven’t.
The homepage on my browser is a heavily customised version of the iGoogle homepage, with links to this site, social networking and news sites, various gadgets and what not, along with the Google Trends gadget installed on the top right corner of the page. I’m a bit of a newsaholic so I like to know what’s hitting the search engines, because if something turns “volcanic”, it’s usually a big story and it will often be on there long before it hits the news media.
Imagine my shock, then, when the top story on Google Trends today turns out to be the search term “Johnny Depp Dead”. I almost spattered my brand new laptop with a mouthful of coffee, because I just happen to love Johnny Depp! Not in that kind of way you understand, but I find the guy hilarious and would be very sad if he was taken before his time. Most of you will know him from the Pirates of the Caribbean trilogy and Sweeny Todd. I personally thought he was great in Charlie and the Chocolate factory and especially so in his appearance on the UK hit show “The Fast Show” a number of years ago.
Yeah, ok then. Just what has this got to do with what we do at Reality Uncovered? Well, it’s simple really. Johnny Depp isn’t dead and it turns out the story is nothing more than yet another rumour of the celebrity death kind. There have been quite a few of these latelty and it appears that this particular genre is something that is growing and growing. Stories like this start on the internet, usually with the sole intent of generating traffic for the story and for the people that started it. That and the juvenile thrill some people seem to get out of making up stories on the fly. Remind you of something? Regardless of the true motive of stores like this, it does highlight the speed at which stories like this (i.e. fake) can spread on the internet. Some people will read headlines like that and think, “Oh, Johnny Depp has died, shame” more or less like other people will read about crashed flying saucers and think “Wow, dead aliens are being kept in storage in underground US bunkers, cool!“
Hmm, I wonder how many hits “Poisoned Strawberry Ice Cream to blame for Eben Death” will generate? I guess we’ll soon find out…
Over the past few years, the topic of Gordon Novel has come up surrounding the question of alleged government involvement in the field of Ufology. The question of government involvement usually focuses on the two issues of sociological study and/or the monitoring of advanced technological advancements. For anyone who has had any insight into the real man named Gordon Novel – neither subjects immediately come to mind. As of a few years ago, his name was never associated with Ufology either. The JFK assassination? Yes. UFOs? No. So why now? First, a little history.
The JFK Madness and Gordon’s Part
Instead of detailing the sordid past – there’s more than enough material on the web covering this aspect of Gordon’s activities – I’m going to quote from one of the best sources for learning about Gordon’s JFK association. That is an article titled, “Gordon Novel: CIA Agent or Con Artist?” by Dave Reitzes. If you’re curious about the accuracy of what Dave has written – just review the first part of that page where Gordon Novel has repeatedly threatened Dave to take down the page. Obviously there’s something there Gordon doesn’t want people to know.
Here’s a repost of some assorted notes on Novel, beginning with the subject that brought Novel his original notoriety — his claim that a munitions burglary he participated in had actually been a CIA operation.
This is, in fact, what lies at the heart of Gordon’s alleged JFK investigation involvement.
Contrary to later claims by participant Gordon Novel (a self-proclaimed electronics expert who was working with Garrison until Garrison decided that Novel’s associations were suspicious and subpoenaed him as a witness, whereupon Novel left the state), the heist appears to have been, in fact, a simple burglary, not the CIA “weapons transfer” alleged in many conspiracy books (cf. New Orleans States-Item, May 25, 1967; Grand Jury transcript of Rancier Blaise Ehlinger, March 30, 1967). Nevertheless, even Gus Russo reports the incident as a CIA weapons transfer (Russo, Live by the Sword [Baltimore: Bancroft, 1998], pp. 150-53).
This is only partially true – a few years ago I spoke with Gus on the phone when he was working on an article covering alleged CIA Ufology involvement for Dan Smith. During that phone conversation, he mentioned his past investigation and work on the JFK assassination, so I asked him for his opinion about Gordon Novel, because for a few years RU investigations have seen him poking his head around the fringes of the Ufology crowd. Russo’s opinion of him was swift and clear, he essentially reported that Gordon was pretty much just a phony.
The oddest part of the Dave Reitzes piece is that Gordon wrote to Dave denying his CIA claims, even though they are well documented in Dave’s article, throughout the Internet as well as throughout the many mailing lists that Gordon currently uses to distribute his “RAM” promotional diatribes. With that said – there are a number of scientists that do support and promote Gordon – we’ll get to them in future posts.
According to one account by Gordon Novel, “It was one of the most patriotic burglaries ever committed . . . the CIA virtually gave us the key to the bunker . . . my fellow burglar, Arcacha Smith, and I are still employed by the CIA” (A. J. Weberman Web site, Nodule 21).
RU investigators have been privy to Gordon’s claims in our own investigation of the “RAM Project,” an odd assortment of fringe scientists who have been collaborating with Gordon for years in attempting to extract risk capital investments from wealthy investors. What’s the project? It’s a reverse-engineering effort to, put simply, reverse-engineer a UFO “craft” using the most “advanced” propulsion technology available to mankind.
The fact that the alleged propulsion technology proposed by these scientists currently can’t even lift a balloon into the sky, let alone a heavy craft, completely flies over the head of many investors. They have more money than they know what to do with (they really don’t care if they lose it – that’s the nature of risk capital), and not enough brains to differentiate between fact and fiction. As long as there’s a possibility that such technology could exist at some point makes some of them open up their pocketbooks to the snake oil salesmen.
We’ve also seen the claims Gordon has made in emails to potential investors – claims related to his alleged connection with CIA as late as July 2009. These claims stem from his contacts with the elusive and mysterious “RP.”
When potential investors confront “RP” directly about such claims, he will often write an obscure diatribe that hints at a deeper meaning – a metaphorical collection of words and potential clues. “Believer” investors think he’s hinting at authentic CIA involvement. RP bcc’s these emails to friends that he considers as “sane” as though it’s a joke. I asked him once how he can find a $200 million scam funny. His response was, “Because I know the $200 million scam will only turn into a $200 fraud.” The man has a strange, sick sense of humor. Is it possible it’s because he was slapped on the wrist and placed in the “back room” (weird-desk) after his episode in the Hughes/China fiasco in the late 1990s and he needed something to occupy his active mind and his private time? Maybe. One thing we do know is that he uses Gordon in the same way he uses Dan Smith.
Gordon Novel’s CIA Involvement
Imagine it’s 1998, and word gets back to the CIA that someone out there is claiming to be a CIA operative as part of the JFK assassination conspiracy madness.
The CIA Office of Security conducts a brief investigation, and as a result we have this declassified documentation – an internal memo/documentation contained in CIA security file record number: 104-10305-10000. Page four of the file states:
“Sergeant Haas was advised that a Gordon Novel, believed to be identical to the Gordon Novel of interest to Fort Lauderdale’s Organized Crime Division, is not now nor has he ever been an employee or employed in any capacity with the CIA. The undersigned added that since the late 60′s, Gordon Novel has periodically claimed employment with the CIA.”
Why was Gordon claiming CIA connections? The page 5 incident report lays it out nicely:
He is claiming to be affiliated with the Agency and under this guise has approached several companies specializing in electronic surveillance. It is for this reason that caller wishes to verify SUBJECT’s employment.
Another clue, from page 7:
Subject advised that he had an economic formula which would solve the world dollar dumping crisis – IR – 9 February 1973
Another clue, from page 10, dated 1980:
…and in the ensuing conversation Novel indicated that he was involved in a “commercial venture” and felt that the results might be of interest to “ONI”. He indicated, in essence, that his project involved outfitting a “fast patrol craft” with various means of testing defense systems (NFI).
In the conversation above, Gordon claimed, once again, an affiliation with the CIA. Page 16 reads:
Mr. Jameson also requested traces on two individuals who are alleged to have been involved in this matter — Larry Blanscett and Bridget Pfiffer. He was advised that the Office of Security had no record of either of these individuals.
Now – while it’s clear that this particular individual has a long history of attempting to “sell” his commercial ventures, what’s a little bit strange is the question of whether he works alone. The introduction of the two individuals above suggests one of two things. It may be possible that Gordon Novel was working alone and invented those identities of his own accord. However, it might also be possible that there are others, either faking Intel involvement, or misrepresenting their actual Intel status and position, in order to manipulate and use this figure from the organized crime community. While the knee-jerk reaction is to suggest that this is an official, covert action of a U.S. Intelligence agency – a more likely possibility is that it is part of an organized, private effort that actively exploits such “believers” for their own financial purposes.
In this sense meant by Errol Morris, can we deconstruct “fact”? Is the universe meant to work properly, or does the fabled “noise in the machine” function (like the UFO) as an anomalistic destabiliser? Does the slightest anomaly blossom out like the proverbial butterfly’s wing and throw any and every partially-stabilised system into chaos?
With the on-going phone hacking scandal continuing to dominate headlines both in the United Kingdom and United States, personal privacy and how to protect it is an issue once again in the minds of many people.
A so-called “new” UFO FBI memo has recently started doing the rounds, both in UFOlogical circles and even in the mainstream media.
“What’s this!?” I hear you cry. Has Reality Uncovered turned into a celelbrity fan site and left its roots in the reality and ufology fields far behind? Actually, no, we haven’t.
Over the past few years, the topic of Gordon Novel has come up surrounding the question of alleged government involvement in the field of Ufology. The question of government involvement usually focuses on the two issues of sociological study and/or the monitoring of advanced technological advancements. For anyone who has had any insight into the real man named Gordon Novel – neither subjects immediately come to mind. As of a few years ago, his name was never associated with Ufology either. The JFK assassination? Yes. UFOs? No. So why now? First, a little history.
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