Seti/greer Follow Up from DR seth shostak

[idontunderstand]

Hi folks,

I contacted SETI via email about Steven greers comments regarding that he believed they had made contact and were not releasing the information.

I didnt expect to get any response, or perhaps just an statement by an office admin. I was very surprised to get a response from Dr Seth shostak, SETI Institute Senior Astronomer.

The emails I got back from him was as follows -:

1st EMAIL

Dear Hal,

I responded to Mr. Greer's nonsensical comments on the same radio show
that he made them, and within 48 hours. There's no truth to this, and
repeated requests to Greer to supply ANY confirming information were all
stonewalled. He's in it for the publicity.

Sincerely,
Seth Shostak

2nd EMAIL

Dear Hal,

Well, I've known of him (and occasionally debated him on the radio) for years, and he's always been bonkers. Two weeks after he claimed we had a "secret detection", he was telling radio audiences that when Neil Armstrong stepped out on the moon in 1969, he was surrounded by alien spacecraft!

Cheers,
Seth Shostak

It was very decent of him to reply to me personally, just thought you guys would like to see what he said. I asked his permission to use his comments so no problems there.

http://www.seti.org/site/pp.asp?c=ktJ2J9MMIsE&b=277807

 

[Aaron LeClair]

Hmm. Never thought I'd agree with Seth on something related to the field of ufos.

Not sure it was a publicity stunt though. Not much else it could be, but who knows with Greer.... Maybe he assumes SETI is covering things up and wants a sort of media riot against SETI. Maybe he made it up just out of spite. Or, maybe fed disinfo. Dunno.

Thanks for posting this.

Seth will go out of his way to make ufos and ufo researchers look bad. Too bad he doesn't spend as much time actually doing some investigating. He sure has enough time to promote SETI via media outlets and dump on ufology though.

 

[DVS]

Seth comes across as a stand up guy, who is not out to debunk anyone. I think they can make themselves look bad all on their own, especially Greer.

 

[Aaron LeClair]

Seth comes across as a stand up guy, who is not out to debunk anyone. I think they can make themselves look bad all on their own, especially Greer.

You aren't very familiar with Seth then. Heard any of his debates with Stanton Friedman?

Yes, they make themselves look bad on their own. That makes it more funny that Seth feels the need to point out the obvious in one way. In another, he probably does so because some people don't see the obvious. You know, like when someone doesn't see Seth's obvious debunking.

 

[Tom Levine]

Seth is absolutely right on his Greer take on things. When I heard Greer make that comment on C2CAM, BLATENTLY LYING ABOUT SETI for his own gain, basically relying on nothing but heresay from unknown sources...Highly explicative french words starting coming out of my foaming mouth....I don't even speak french.

That said, hey SETH: Turn the dial already! There's only static and classic music below 830AM...Everybody knows that all the aliens are broadcasting in Short-Wave! Perhaps you and Ellie can pop on over to CCRANE.COM and pick up one of those SangeanATS505P's for $129 bucks. I think they're offering FREE SHIPPING, buddy!!!

 

[hopeful skeptic]

I sent Shostak an e-mail right after that happened, and asked him to stop replying to Greer's inanity, since it did nothing but give Greer free publicity, and encouraged the nutty conspiracy crowd to believe what they already wanted to believe. I looked for his e-mail, and can't find it (though I can't imagine I deleted it on purpose), but he gave me a very thoughtful, reasoned, full-page reply. It was his opinion that folks like Greer had to be confronted for the good of SETI, no matter how objectionable the claims (or the forum on which they were rebutted - in this case, Coast to Coast) were.