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The Problem With Coast To Coast AM and George Noory

30 Jun

June 30, 2016

I make fun of Coast to Coast AM with George Noory a lot. A LOT. In case you don’t know the show, here is their own description:

Coast to Coast AM airs on more than 600 stations in the U.S., as well as Canada, Mexico and Guam, and is heard by nearly three million weekly listeners. With hosts George Noory, George Knapp (weekend), and guest weekend hosts, it is the most listened to overnight radio program in North America. A media phenomenon, Coast to Coast AM deals with UFOs, strange occurrences, life after death, and other unexplained (and often inexplicable) phenomena. Coast to Coast AM is overnight talk radio with daytime ratings.

What that leaves out is that it is not nearly as popular or respected as it was under Art Bell, who created it. It also leaves out that under George Noory the show has become a joke. You’ll see why soon.

Art Bell was a critical questioner and listener. He had as guests experts in major scientific fields as well as those involved in fringe paranormal research. But no matter who he had on, he asked probing and intelligent questions and did not let anyone who made outrageous claims go unchallenged. George is just the opposite. Not only is he himself ill-informed  about most of the topics he addresses, he rarely asks follow up questions and never, ever challenges a guest about anything said. Even callers with ridiculous claims are given a “gosh, wow!” by George. Ghost of Hitler got off a UFO and had a picnic with Bigfoot on your front lawn while you danced with pixies and made sandwiches? “That sounds like some afternoon. Do you think they chose you intentionally or do you live in a UFO hot spot?”

The big issue is that George is totally uncritical and unquestioning. He is open to anything and will never, ever say a negative word about anything or anyone.

I debunked a UFO claim on their Facebook page the other day.

C2C crap

I’m not an expert on UFOs. I’m just a guy with an interest in things who has read some books. Surely the host of Coast to Coast AM with George Noory, a “media phenomemon” who has been delving into the mysteries of the paranormal for 13 years, would be more knowledgeable than me. Surely someone on his staff would do some research on an alleged UFO photo before posting it on their website. Surely they wouldn’t be powned by a noob like me, right?

Nah, that’s giving them too much credit. No one checks anything. No one bothers. They put anything out there no matter how fake or stupid. (And you should really see some of the stupid stuff on their page.) I saw that photo and immediately knew it was fake. I recognized that UFO from one of the most famous pictures in all of UFOlogy. It is lifted from one of the McMinnville, Oregon photos from 1950.

mcminnville01

Not just a similar object, but the same exact photo. Same lighting. Same silhouette. Same everything except that the doctored photo is so badly done it is a lot blurrier. (To be fair, some of that blurriness came when I enlarged it. Go to their page for the original.) I saw their post, recognized the photo, googled “UFO over farm house” and found that picture in under 20 seconds. The giveaway that it is the exact image is the way the light- and possibly the grain of the photo- makes the left top edge of the object appear to be pointed. Look closely in the Facebook post, it’s there too. I didn’t need any computer skills, I used my own two eyes!

And if you think that it looks like something hanging from a wire, that’s the common claim of debunkers.

That picture dates back to 1950. It is over 65 years old and has been reprinted in books all over the world since then, not to mention the internet. But did the “media phenomenon” recognize it? Nope, no one even bothered to look into it for a second.  It took me to discover that it was a doctored picture? Way to go George Noory.

 

 

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“Your Honor, I Don’t Recall.”

21 Jun

June 21, 2016

I watch a lot of TV court shows. I TiVo The People’s Court every day, because there is nothing better than watching people sue over things like old coffee cans and hurt feelings. And while I’ve gotten a little tired of Judge Judy (who is getting just a bit soft and yelling just a bit less this season), I’ve gotten into her new production, Hot Bench, which I also record. That show, unlike literally every other court show out there (I’m looking at you, Judge Ross), is actually interesting. That show has three judges listening to the cases at once, and they sometimes argue among themselves about the outcome.

hot bench

But what drives me nuts about the shows are the litigants, not the judges. They all think that since they are in a court room they have to sound smart. For example:

“Your Honorable, me and my boo was operating the moving vehicle, AKA my car, for which I had been owning a drivers license…” etc etc etc….

They can’t just say “I was driving my car.”

But the worst thing is when they think they are being slick by saying “I don’t recall.”

“I don’t recall signing my life insurance away to my gold-digging wife.”

So did you do it or didn’t you? If you mean to say you didn’t do it, say “I didn’t do it.” Saying you don’t recall means that yes, maybe you did it, it is possible, but you just don’t have a memory of it. It isn’t a denial, it leaves open the possibility that whatever it was really happened, and it sounds to me like shiesty way of trying to lie without really having to tell a lie.

I can believe that you don’t remember if you had two waffles or three for breakfast on June 3rd, 2011, but I damn well know you remember if you hit a deer with your car last week.

 

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