November 27, 2016 — Paul Kimball

[SRL+]

You have to admit it was a lot of fun to pick apart.

It was for me, anyway.

 

[Ron Away]

It is without a doubt the most fascinating "haunted" site I have visited to date. Some genuinely weird stuff went down. I hope to go back someday.

Once Goggs,Spectre and I have lost our virginity(so to speak) in Edinburgh,this could be the place for our next investigation.

 

[Randall]

I believe I mentioned my favourite ghost story / location in the episode, which was the old church in Shocklach, England, that Holly and I investigated back in May, 2009. Here's the episode.

So cameras and recording devices on scene, but no recordings of the phenomena itself, or did I miss it while skimming past the less relevant stuff?

 

[matthew1977]

I think that one falls under the "when hell freezes over category," because I think Dolan is a lousy historian.

when two people have different points of veiws that makes it even more interesting. i have been around Dolan in a relaxed atmosphere and found him very intelligent and interesting.



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[Randall]

when two people have different points of veiws that makes it even more interesting. i have been around Dolan in a relaxed atmosphere and found him very intelligent and interesting.

Yes, Dolan is one of those in the field who wears multiple hats, one as a reporter, another as a writer, and yet another as a publisher, and those roles aren't always compatible. So if he's covering some high profile thing, he may come across as an enthusiastic reporter who isn't all that analytical. But when he writes about stuff or talks about it later, it seems he tends to reflect more carefully. I think he's an interesting character who is just trying to make a living in the field, and given that I don't think he's out to intentionally deceive anyone, I think he deserves some credit for his efforts. Same goes for the other folks here who have put in time to document stuff in their own way.

 

[Paul Kimball]

when two people have different points of veiws that makes it even more interesting. i have been around Dolan in a relaxed atmosphere and found him very intelligent and interesting.



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Steven Greer is very charming in person, and comes across as quite intelligent. He and Dolan share those traits, as do most hucksters.

 

[Gene Steinberg]

Tell us more about your opinions on Dolan.

 

[Paul Kimball]

I've interviewed Dolan a couple of times, and spent time with him at various conferences over the years. I always thought his work as an historian was dodgy, as do any of my historian chums to whom I've showed Dolan's work. But I used to think he was at least a decent guy, mistaken and lacking objectivity, but at least honest. But as the years passed, and I saw him promote more and more known con men, and drift further and further into the "say anything to make a buck" world of ufology, I lost any respect I might have had for him. The Roswell slides fiasco really was the last straw. No matter how much he backpedalled after the fact, he was up to his neck in promoting the fraud event beforehand. That went far beyond making a mistake - it was part and parcel of a pattern of behaviour.

Here's a little bit of info that most people don't know - almost every serious ufologist I've ever talked to about Dolan's work lambastes him as a bad researcher in private (and I mean the big names here). Very few of them will do so publicly, because he's popular with the ufological masses, to whom he caters. Such is the power of the almighty dollar in a "field" where the people involved are desperate to maintain their place in the commercial pecking order.

 

[Gene Steinberg]

Without going into detail, I caught him on some errors in his history of early Ufology. I was there. I knew, but he seemed less interested when I brought it to his attention.

 

[Paul Kimball]

Without going into detail, I caught him on some errors in his history of early Ufology. I was there. I knew, but he seemed less interested when I brought it to his attention.

I've heard the same thing from the get-go from older researchers.

 

[Paul Kimball]

Anyway, I've said my piece about Dolan by way of explaining why I wouldn't appear on a show with him. That's the end of it from my point of view.

 

[Gene Steinberg]

It took a two-minute glance at a random page. That was troubling.

 

[Creepy Green Light]

There are two primary military airfields in Nova Scotia - CFB Greenwood, and CFB Shearwater. If you landed in a more rural area, it was Greenwood, which is in the Annapolis Valley; if it was in a large urban area, it was Shearwater, which is on the outskirts of Halifax.

If you saw Auroras, I suspect it was Greenwood.

Paul, thank you so much. As soon as I saw the word "Greenwood" the bells went off (I didn't even have to see what the other choice was). That's absolutely where we were. The mom & pop motel we stayed at was terrific. It totally reminded me of the motels we'd stay at as a child on our annual trip from NJ to FL. The interesting thing about this particular motel, was downstairs in the basement (under the office) was a full scale bar. I believe there was a pool table/darts - that type of thing as well. We spent many a night down there.

One other mildly interesting (if that) tid bit was; one of the differences between the Canadian armed forces vs the US armed forces (in this case, the U.S. Navy). When we would go on any type of mission (antisubmarine warfare or otherwise) - missions were typically 8 hrs or longer (up to 14 hrs). So if you didn't bring any of your own food/drink on board - guess what? You're not eating. So I always made sure to bring a cup of noodles, granola bars, sandwich - that type of thing.

So here I am in the pitch black in NS sitting underneath our P-3C fueling the plane - I see a truck pull up out of the darkness to our main ladder. Two guys get out and greet us and then start unloading these steel containers out of their truck and putting them by our ladder. I didn't bother questioning what it was because I figured they knew it needed to be on our plane so it's something for our mission. We made a chain of 4-5 guys and we got all of these steel containers up the ladder and into the plane. Once they were all up there we were told that it was food. We were like "Huh? What?" as this is foreign to us. So we start opening these containers and behold - there was everything and anything you could think of; sandwiches, salads, cold cuts, chips, cake, ketchup flavored potato chips, fruit, microwavable stuff like burritos, etc etc.

I found out that every Aurora crew gets that for every mission. Not in the U.S. Navy, lol. If I forgot to bring something to eat and drink; then I don't eat & drink. What a shame but kudos to the Canadian government for taking care of their own (and foreign visitors like me!)

 

[Randall]

@Paul Kimball: Is this quote from Wikipedia accurate?

"Kimball posits that the paranormal is actually our interaction with an advanced non-human intelligence who may be pulling things out of our own minds and presenting it back to us in ways that we will understand. This accounts for why tales of the paranormal have changed over various eras, from dragons to spaceships. Whoever is presenting these images is trying to appeal to a particular audience in a specific time frame. He theorizes that most paranormal phenomena is a kind of artistic creation by this non-human intelligence. It may be part of a teaching or preparation process, whereby humans are encouraged to move up to the next level of development or think about things in a broader way. He has drawn links between the paranormal and various strands of spiritualism and mysticism, including the experiences of Jakob Böhme, William Blake and Henry Alline." - Source​

 

[Paul Kimball]

I found out that every Aurora crew gets that for every mission. Not in the U.S. Navy, lol. If I forgot to bring something to eat and drink; then I don't eat & drink. What a shame but kudos to the Canadian government for taking care of their own (and foreign visitors like me!)

We aim to please!

 

[Han]

If I remember correctly dolan said that he had not seen the "slides" before the "event".................
Which would be a good indicator of his "research". (as in: if he had done his homework he would have not got involved in the first place)

Its our fault collectively, even an absolute novice like me saw straight through those stupid slides, yet I ended up wasting time and energy on them.

I actually learned some valuable lessons from the whole fiasco, especially about people, it felt almost as if they didn't mind being tricked, what really annoyed me was that if it was any other kind of "event" people would have asked for their money back, but somehow, maybe because the "paranormal" is a fringe subject this did not happen.

greer is still peddling his Atacama "alien" which demonstrates that the "paranormal" crowd are not "once bitten, twice shy".
Before anyone gets offended I am not including everyone, I am just giving my general impression.

I see a lot of parallels with the presidential election.
There was an awful lot of telling people what they wanted to hear, in order to get their vote.
I only hope the president elect has more substance than those "roswell slides" or dr greers "alien".

 

[SRL+]

There were many practical indicators the event was to be a radical failure, but this one name said it all.

…, Jaime Maussan.

 

[Paul Kimball]

@Paul Kimball: Is this quote from Wikipedia accurate?

"Kimball posits that the paranormal is actually our interaction with an advanced non-human intelligence who may be pulling things out of our own minds and presenting it back to us in ways that we will understand. This accounts for why tales of the paranormal have changed over various eras, from dragons to spaceships. Whoever is presenting these images is trying to appeal to a particular audience in a specific time frame. He theorizes that most paranormal phenomena is a kind of artistic creation by this non-human intelligence. It may be part of a teaching or preparation process, whereby humans are encouraged to move up to the next level of development or think about things in a broader way. He has drawn links between the paranormal and various strands of spiritualism and mysticism, including the experiences of Jakob Böhme, William Blake and Henry Alline." - Source​

A Forum user drew this to my attention, so I'll answer it. Yes, this is a reasonably accurate summation of the thought experiment (I wouldn't call it a "theory") that I put forward in my book The Other Side of Truth back in 2012, and which I've discussed on various radio programs (particularly Radio Misterioso) and at conferences since. But if I was a Wikipedia editor, I would amend the first sentence to read:

"Kimball posits that the paranormal may be our interaction with an advanced non-human intelligence who may be pulling things out of our own minds and presenting it back to us in ways that we will understand."

 

[Paul Kimball]

There were many practical indicators the event was to be a radical failure, but this one name said it all.

…, Jaime Maussan.

Anything with Don Schmitt's name attached should similarly raise giant red flags.

 

[Han]

A person who I won't name here, told me that he suspected that "Anthony Braglia" was a fictitious person, made up by the perpetrators of the Hoax.

Just out of interest had you been aware of "Anthony/Tony Braglia" before the slides fiasco?