My Rebuttal to Carol Rainey, Paratopia and other attackers of Hopkins and Cortile

[Gene Steinberg]

That sounds a lot worse than noise. Even shouting is an understatement. That's why we have avoided such nonsense on The Paracast.

 

[mike]

Speaking of JV, he shows up in this clip at the 57 min mark hanging out with the Pickle bros

The pickles you may recall brought us Source A

 

[trainedobserver]

That a group of people felt compelled to sit down and RECORD the meaningless meanderings of two clodhopper bartenders shows clearly that there is no depth to which believers will not dive in their search for Saucer Jesus.

The "no planes" business has to ignore the fact that countless people saw planes crash into the buildings with their own eyes. It is an astounding thing that anyone doubts that physical planes struck those buildings, given the thousands of eye witnesses and independent videos available.

 

[Ron Collins]

The above video is (in a nutshell) the WHOLE and complete problem with paranormal belief.

That a group of people felt compelled to sit down and RECORD the meaningless meanderings of two clodhopper bartenders shows clearly that there is no depth to which believers will not dive in their search for Saucer Jesus.

Lance

The problem with paranormal issues is that there is no way to blanket explain them all in one theory. You have to go case by case. There are plenty of things that have escaped the trappings of mundane explanation. Tying to describe it all as the incessant ramblings of lunatics, liars, mischief makers, and simpletons is an absurd notion. I do agree that a significant number of the paranormal claims are contaminated by one of the afore mentioned 4 horsemen of the paranormal debunkery apocalypse but there are others that are truly anomalous. Those are the ones we need to identify and pursue. The trick is identifying them. They are often not as sexy as the floating crap cases but adding their detail to the mosaic may give us a better idea of what is going on.

 

[Ron Collins]

Ah, I agree with the above, Ron. But when the discipline has no intellectual bottom (as demonstrated above) it's hard to gain any traction (as demonstrated by the complete lack of respect for the entire field).

Lance

But what field actually does have an intellectual bottom? Medical research must content with the holistic healing crowd, nutricuiticals, and faith healers. Physicists must deal with the people that were convinced that the LHC would spawn a planet consuming black hole.

Personally, I think the field had respect as early as the 1960's. The Condon committee and a concerted effort from at very least the US Air Force helped to change that. Combine the absurd level of research the media engages in before filing an equally absurd report that only exacerbates the gap between good and bad research.

I think the lack of respect has little to do with bad investigative work or a true lack of informed scientific interest. Rather it is a reflection of a poorly researched and media fed popular culture.

 

[dyingsun]

Yet we are all here, discussing 'pigs flying'.

Odd, isn't it.

 

[Ron Collins]

Ron,

I hope you see that the ideas you portray above as poor quality for medicine and physics all come from outside the field. These are ideas that do not have traction inside the discipline. Surely you grasp the difference. With UFO's (for instance) you can take the top 10 UFO ALL-STARS and I can show you 10 different bad ideas, none of which have traction EVEN within the field.

I don't think you can blame the media for the pig sty so richly illustrated in the form of the Pickle brothers and the silly group of UFO morons gathered around to hear and film their hilariously stupid ideas.

Lance

I can concede the point that the main proponent to the LHC is a Biochemist and is not trained in physics. But he is still a repected scientist in his field. I will also concede that some holistic healers are credentialed medical doctors but are probably not engaged in medical research or pharmaceutical development. So yes, I do grasp that their is a difference. But, likewise I would not consider Stephen Greer a real UFO researcher. Nor would I consider Clifford Stone a good and trustworthy one. The UFO field has a bunch of noise partly because there is no real academic system of study applied to it. So the path to credibility is more difficult to find and more subjective in interpretation.

I guess part of my point is simply that this lack of academic study is perpetuated by the media grabbing the first goober with a tin foil hat. For instance, while at a MUFON conference I was standing with a group of people (5 in total) that looked and dressed normal. Slacks and button shirts. We all have name badges that clearly announced us as MUFON conference attendees. A television news crew arrived and after a lengthy setup process began searching for interviewees. They quickly located the jackasses dressed head to toe in loud, alien head laden T-shirts. One guy had actually covered his fedora in tin oil. They interviewed those 4 idiots for 15 minutes, took their camera on a 3 minute tour of the booths and left. The guy doing the interview was elated at capturing the "kooks" (His words) that they didn't even bother to attempt an interview with anyone else. It was obvious that he had no intention of taking any of it seriously. I never saw the piece but I can easily imagine how bad it was. The thing that sucks is that standing with me were 4 other professional well adjusted adults. Among us were a lawyer, two engineers, and a retired 17 year Army Sergeant Major.

There was no real interest in reporting honestly on the subject matter. Instead it was used as a bit of humor. Yet, as the Chicago O'hare incident has clearly shown (in the number of online views following the article), real interest in the phenomenon exists. But, it is incredibly hard to gain traction when people are constantly bombarded with pop-culture that says it is all just silly musings for the poor dolts that walk among us.

 

[Ron Collins]

I understand your point Ron but, from my perspective, you underline my own. Let's just say that the TV news crew you mentioned was more responsible and went and found the current MUFON president to interview.

After hearing Clift's interview on the Paracast, I was amazed at how uncritically he approached even the most dubious of topics in the field. No doubt drawing upon his background as a real estate agent, he showed an astounding amount of credulity and muddled thinking. All of this makes him almost as silly as the "kooks" to my eyes but perhaps ultimately more damaging to the credibility of the ideas you express above.

Lance

Well in regards to MUFON, I wholeheartedly agree. MUFON under Clift is a clear case of the inmates running the asylum. However, if you look, there are researchers and investigators out there that are neither a nutcase nor a glory whore sensationalists. Sure, they are more difficult to find, but even harder if you don't look.

There should be absolutely no issue with studying this phenomenon in academic circles. only after years of study can we truly begin to make sense of it all. Surely you must see the myriad of problems with how the Condon group investigated Blue Book, Right? It was a debacle.

I am going to open a different thread and we should take this discussion there. I think we have highjacked this one enough.

---------- Post added at 03:07 AM ---------- Previous post was at 03:02 AM ----------

New Thread: Does the Phenomenon deserve study

 

[Lauren Jones]

Enough madness for our Budd Hopkins supporters?

 

[mike]

I always find looking at their faces helps, and i have to say i didnt find linda very convincing in this clip.
If the other whacky claims such as meeting the pope etc are true then i would personally be inclined to dismiss this case.

 

[Sean Elifritz]

Wow, this case seemed like total fiction when I read it and watching these clips makes that all the more clear.

 

[The Pair of Cats]

It looks like the Carol Rainey inaccuracies continue.

 

[Lauren Jones]

Hi Lauren,

Thank you for letting us know about this new video.

A few problems I noticed immediately about this were:

* At 12:07 into the video Carol has the wrong two windows circled. Linda does not live on that floor or at that position in the Knickerbocker village complex.

* The phonecall that Budd received where afterwards he remarked to Carol that "that was Linda pretending to be her cousin Connie" was not shown on this film,
instead we have Carol telling us this in a voiceover while Budd is laying on the couch watching TV.

* At 7:19 into video the video appears to have been edited, jumping rather sharply from Linda speaking to Budd speaking. Budd offers a response immediately after the edit,
however given that the tape was edited at that point we do not know precisely what he was responding to.

* At 13:22 - 13:57 in the video regarding the claims Carol stated Linda made, not all of these are true, some examples.

1) "Dan" made the claim in his December 1991 that Linda had blood cells that did not die. (Page 219 Witnessed)
2) Linda's son Stephen made the claim to a disguised "Richard" on the bus one day that his mother's family descended from Joan of arc. (Page 120 Witnessed)

Carol offers no proof that Linda made some of these claims, furthermore the claims that Linda did make are deliberately presented out of context in a way that could only make Linda look like a lunatic.

* In the video Linda wanted Budd to meet her Cousin Connie, if Linda was pretending to be her cousin why would she urge Budd to meet her. The whole Cousin Connie and the 1996 incident with the
gentlemen and the van was a misunderstanding. It had nothing to do with "Richard" and "Dan". Carol's video offered no evidence that "Richard" and "Dan" were responsible for the 1996 incident nor did
it present Linda indicating that "Richard" and "Dan" had come back for her in 1996. It's up to Linda and Budd whether they wish to publicly relay what really happened in regards to that matter. It's of no
consequence to the legitimacy or illegitimacy her case.

* In her video Carol claims Linda and Budd were to share the profits equally.
According to the contract Carol shows Linda's percent of all movies profits was 20%
According to the contact Carol shows Linda's percent of the book profits was 15%

So according to Carol, Linda and Budd were to get half each yet the contract that Carol showed indicated this was not the case.

Peter Robbins in his article "Some thoughts on Budd Hopkins" already mentioned that Linda and Budd made a contract detailing the division of profits should Witnessed be made into a movie. Linda would
need money to begin with to perpetrate everything if it was hoax, $20 a week for 22 people over 21 years is roughly $480,000 she would need to begin with. At $1000 a week for 22 people over 21 years
she would have needed roughly $25000000. Furthermore Carol never indicates how much money Witnessed the book made. Depending on that figure what 15% of those profits are is entirely unknown.

On a personal note I find it offensive that Carol would publicly use footage of Linda's hypnotic regressions without her permission.I also find it suspect that in her article "The Priests of High Strangeness: co-creation of the alien abduction phenomenon" she claims that since her divorce she and Budd have moved on with their lives, yet all she is doing since her divorce is devoting her time to slamming her ex-husband's work and individuals from his work.

I do not place any stock in the validity of Carol's work, especially since she lied in her spectrumnetwork interview that Budd had never met the third man. I find it suspect that after ten years of marriage with him she did not know precisely how many years he was trained in the use of hypnosis before he himself practiced it. I find it suspect that her documentary began filming as early as 2004 and only now when Budd is sick is she releasing it. Outside appraisal's of Linda's mental health by Psychotherapists such as Gibbs Williams were unable to pick up on any kind of pathology in Linda's mental health, yet Carol indicates she easily picked up on these things despite having no training to do so. Carol again uses the Hansen/Stefula/Butler critique to back up some her statements, a house of glass structure if there ever was one.

If people wish to understand the Linda Cortile case, "Witnessed" by Budd Hopkins is a must, on top of that I recommended Greg Sandow's independent in depth appraisal of the Linda Cortile case. Instead of grinding axes, Sandow worked for his findings.

Thank you all for listening, apologies for the length of this email and apologies for dignifying Carol's latest video with a response.

Sincerely

Sean F. Meers

Greg Sandow? The same man who called David Jacobs' work "brave and necessary"?Your lengthy defenses remind me a lot of Michael Horn.

 

[Sean Elifritz]

Hi Wickeman1972,

Respectfully, Carol Rainey's clips are fiction the Linda Cortile case is not.

Lol...C'mon! I'm not willing to use Budd's mistakes as a means to dismiss every single word he says like some people are but this case is obvious fiction (Or at the very least a significant portion of it is). It's blatantly obvious. If it's real so is Stan Romanek, George Adamski, and Billy Meier.

 

[dyingsun]

How will this topic not die ? I guess being pro-Budd labels me now as an annoyed guy frigging sick off all of it..

I respect both sides, but I find it unwise to lay it out to all who care (which are a lot, it seems) , when it comes to family matters, as long as it is not abuse in any way, it should stay behind closed curtains. I know I am naive, that's my opinion though.

 

[dyingsun]

Also, New York might not be exactly the best place to examine.

 

[Sean Elifritz]

How will this topic not die ? I guess being pro-Budd labels me now as an annoyed guy frigging sick off all of it..

I respect both sides, but I find it unwise to lay it out to all who care (which are a lot, it seems) , when it comes to family matters, as long as it is not abuse in any way, it should stay behind closed curtains. I know I am naive, that's my opinion though.

Thing is I have nothing against David Jacobs and Budd Hopkins either. I recommended them for the UFOWatchdog Hall of Fame and wrote up their entries (Poorly, especially considering I had no idea Emma Woods even existed. Looking back I should have given that matter a great more deal of thought. But at the time I was unaware just how controversial many on forums like this one considered them. I've learned more about Hopkins and Jacobs and peoples' reactions to them in the last year than I did in the 15 before). So it's not like I have some kind of ax to grind. But a fake case is a fake case, simple as that. Budd makes mistakes sometimes. He's human. I can only guess that he might have been had by Linda because he was so anxious for a really big case that he didn't stop to think as much as he probably should have. And then there was Ed Walters. Budd, along with quite a few others in the UFO field, bought that one hook, line, and sinker. Yeah, he can be fooled. But that doesn't mean I'm going to join in with the Vaenis of the world and assume that means he is deliberately disingenuous, stupid, that he's a conman looking to make a buck, or that he's some kind of monster destroying peoples' lives. Actually, Linda, Ed, and Jim are pretty good examples of people taking advantage of him. Not the other way around.

 

[Sean Elifritz]

Hi Wickerman1972

Could you tell me why the case is, in your opinion, obvious fiction? I'm curious to hear why you think so.

Thanks

Sean

I would have to sit here and write a flippin' book and I ain't about to do it. It's been a few years since I read Witnessed. Had I read it more recently the points of contention would be more fresh in my mind. But anyway, just on the very surface, the entire story reads like Hollywood fiction. It's got intrigue, clock and dagger elements, romance, thrills, chills...the only thing missing is popcorn! If ever there has been a close encounter story that seems like it came right out of a B-movie it's this one. I know that doesn't make for a great argument (But it's not on me to disprove the case anyway) but like I said, I don't recall the precise details that well. I've read all of Budd's books (Except for his memoir) and while I was intrigued by the others this is the one that left me shaking my head with each and every page.

 

[trainedobserver]

The problem here is that were Linda to have faked the case, 22 people in collaboration over 21 years, she would need a significant amount of money to begin with to pay these people

What you propose is a false dilemma. There are motivators which have nothing to do with financial gain that could be in play.

 

[The Pair of Cats]

What you propose is a false dilemma. There are motivators which have nothing to do with financial gain that could be in play.

What would they be?