Having developed a reputation for my investigations of the Bible Code, the Roswell UFO incident, and other fringe beliefs, Tech officials asked me to present an opposing view at the upcoming event. The debate was on. I started reviewing numerous articles on Gage’s Web site and scoured many other sources for more information. Soon, a picture emerged of a massive pseudoscientific movement based on faulty physics, cherry-picked data, and demonization of opponents as complicit in the “conspiracy.” I’d long been dubious of 9/11 “controlled demolition” claims, and my perusal of Gage’s site left me even more skeptical of “Truth Movement” arguments.

On October 24, about thirty people assembled in the student union building for the debate. Before things got started, Gage asked for a show of hands on these three questions: “Believe fires brought down buildings” (seventeen raised their hands), “Unsure” (eight), and “Believe in explosive controlled demolition” (six). Then, alumna McGrade made a short presentation that mentioned only things agreed upon by both points of view, such as the width of the Towers, timing between the jet impacts and the collapses, and so forth. Gage followed with his thirty-minute presentation, which focused primarily on World Trade Center building 7 (WTC 7), which collapsed at approximately 5:20 pm on the afternoon of September 11. Gage argued that there are ten reasons WTC 7, which was not hit by an airplane, was intentionally demolished:

1. Rapid onset of ‘collapse’
2. Sounds of explosions at ground floor—a full second prior to collapse
3. Symmetrical ‘collapse’—through the path of greatest resistance—at free-fall acceleration
4. Imploded, collapsing completely, and landed mostly in its own footprint
5. Massive volume of expanding pyroclastic dust clouds
6. Several tons of molten metal reported by numerous highly-qualified witnesses
7. Chemical signature of Thermite (high tech incendiary) found in solidified molten metal, and dust samples by physics professor Steven Jones, PhD
8. FEMA finds rapid oxidation and intergranular melting on structural steel samples
9. Expert corroboration from the top European Controlled Demolition professional
10. Foreknowledge of ‘collapse’ by media, NYPD, and FDNY

After Gage’s presentation, he asked for another show of hands. This time, the results were: “Fires brought down buildings” (seven hands), “Unsure” (twelve), and “Explosive controlled demolition” (nine). Then I spoke for about half an hour. I began by giving a Big Picture of the differences between science and pseudoscience with several examples that I’ve studied (Bible Codes, UFO conspiracies, Chemtrails, etc.).

None of the 9/11 “Truth” claims really hold up under scrutiny. For example, regarding the Twin Towers’ collapse “through the path of greatest resistance—at free-fall acceleration,” Gage often uses a demonstration using three cardboard boxes to make his point. He holds two small boxes in either hand, representing the topmost floors of either Twin Tower. He then drops both boxes; one is dropped on top of a thirty-inch-high strong cardboard box that represents the base of the towers (below where the planes struck), and the other is dropped onto empty air, whence it falls the thirty inches to the table top. In his online videos with this demonstration, Gage announces that “The one that had no resistance under it falls at freefall speed…. The one that has 80,000 tons of structural steel on it —it doesn’t even give. It resists. As met by an equal and opposite reaction known as the conservation of momentum. It doesn’t fall.” Gage then cites the supposed “freefall” speed as evidence that the towers were demolished with explosives. I mentioned this demonstration, citing it as an excellent example of pseudoscience. What’s actually relevant here is load vs. structure: the fact that dynamic loads are not the same as static loads. A plate can easily support the weight of a hammer carefully placed on it, but if the hammer is dropped on the plate, the dynamic load is more than it can bear, and it can crack. Once the top floors of the towers fell even one floor’s height, the horrifying “piledriver” collapse became inevitable.

I also showed simulations of why the towers fell, focusing on the interlocking structural components that reinforced the towers. I showed how WTC 7 had been severely damaged by debris from Tower 1 and showed evidence (routinely ignored by “Truthers”) of the severe fires that burned for many hours in Tower 7. I discussed the claims that thermite was used and showed a test filmed at Tech in which a large quantity of thermite failed to cut a large steel beam.

A twenty-minute question and answer period followed my talk. As the meeting was adjourned and everyone was poised to leave, I asked for one more show of hands. This time, the results were almost the same as when the afternoon began: “Fires brought down buildings” (sixteen hands), “Unsure” (eight), and “Explosive controlled demolition” (six).

A few days after the talks, Gage posted only the first two votes on his Web site, misreporting the second vote severely (making his 56–44 percent margin of victory into an 86–14 percent landslide). After I protested, Gage corrected his numbers and even included the third vote, while dismissing it as “useless” because of the brevity of the presentations and the fact that some audience members arrived late.

Gage wants to debate me again, on Denver public television station KBDI. While I normally prefer not to provide platforms for conspiracy theorists to push their cases, in this instance KBDI has already been running Gage’s 9/11 “Truth” documentaries during fundraising specials. No counter-programming has been offered during these showings (the NOVA episode on why the towers fell would have been an excellent antidote). Negotiations for a debate in the spring of 2010 are underway.

Finally, I offer this caution for readers: don’t smugly assume this conspiracy is confined to the lunatic fringe. After years of polishing and refinement, 9/11 “Truth” efforts have persuaded many citizens, including some of my relatives and close friends, to consider the attacks of 9/11 an “inside job.”

Chemtrails (CTs) look like contrails initially, but are much thicker, extend across the sky and are often laid down in varying patterns of Xs, tick-tack-toe grids, cross-hatched and parallel lines. Instead of quickly dissipating, chemtrails expand and drip feathers and mare’s tails. In 30 minutes or less, they open into wispy formations which join together, forming a thin white veil or a ‘fake cirrus-type cloud’ that persists for hours. . . . (Thayer 2000)

“Chemtrails” have been described as either a means of carrying out biological warfare upon the citizenry of the United States or as a method of weather modification, perhaps related to mitigation of global warming. The subject was popularized by late-night radio host Art Bell over a decade ago and is still hyped as a daring and dangerous conspiracy by numerous Web sites.

In 1999, the New Mexico Attorney General’s office contacted New Mexicans for Science and Reason (NMSR) member Kim Johnson to help answer questions from constituents regarding the alleged dangers of “chemtrails.” After his investigation, John­son told the Attorney General,

I have viewed a number of photos purporting to be of aircraft spraying the chemical or biological material into the atmosphere. I have also discussed these letters with another scientist familiar with upper atmospheric phenomena from Sandia National Laboratory and a retired general and fighter pilot who is an Air Force Hall of Fame Member. . . . In summary, there is no evidence that these “chemtrails” are other than expected, normal contrails from jet aircraft that vary in their shapes, duration, and general presentation based on prevailing weather conditions. That is not to say that there could not be an occasional, purposeful experimental release of, say, high altitude barium for standard wind tracking experiments. There could also be other related experiments that occur from time-to-time which release agents into the atmosphere. However, not one single picture that was presented as evidence indicates other than normal contrail formation. . . .

“Chemtrails” are said to last much longer than normal contrails from before 1995, but proponents are curiously oblivious of photographs of long-lasting contrails from as far back as World War II. The supposedly ominous “grid patterns” of contrails are easily explained as the expected effect of wind movement across frequently used east/west and north/south aircraft travel lanes. And one of the defining characteristics of “chemtrails”—gaps in the trails, supposedly caused by turning the “sprayers” on and off—is quite simply explained as normal humidity variations in the atmosphere. The sky often displays varying levels of humidity with spotty clouds, and the same conditions apply to the clouds condensing from jet trails. And, as far as attacking the populace with biotoxins, what dispersal vehicle could be less effective than a craft spraying indiscriminately at 35,000 feet? A low-altitude crop duster or a land truck spraying for mosquitoes would be far better at such a task.

One of the most strident promoters of “chemtrails” is Santa Fe’s Clifford Carni­com, who maintains the “Aerosol Operation Crimes and Cover-Up” Web site (Carni­com). His site is a frantic hodgepodge of pictures of alleged spray attacks, appeals to media and government officials to take the issue seriously, and detailed “analyses” of metals like barium in the “trails.” While Carnicom bemoans the fact that the media won’t give him his due, he turned down a 1999 invitation to speak to NMSR, which could have attracted some of the media attention he was demanding so shrilly. Incensed that NMSR had published a joke linking “chemtrails” to the threat of “Dihydrogen Monoxide” (i.e., H2O), Carn­icom refused to even acknowledge the invitation. Anyone who doesn’t buy into the conspiracy theory is treated as an active member of that conspiracy. Conversely, anyone who signs on to “chemtrails” is em­braced as a fellow traveler, no matter what their other beliefs. And so, Carnicom has formed a mutual admiration society with “Naturopathic Doctor” Gwen Scott, who writes on Carnicom’s site,

My interest is, primarily, finding natural medicines that can help ALL people mitigate the devastating effects of a multi-leveled assault on human health. Mr. Carni­com has provided immeasurable help in identifying contents so that I may design some natural medicine protocols around them . . . it is important that you understand one of the founding principles of natural medicine . . . Herring’s Law of Cure. This law presents that your body will rid itself of anything unwanted (diseases, etc.) from top to bottom, from the inside to the outside, and in the reverse order in which it entered your system. As you will see, much of the work on my own body follows this law exactly. . . . (Scott 2008)

(Whew! I’m glad she cleared that up for us!)

Since NMSR hosts some skeptical articles on chemtrails (Thomas), I often get e-mails from angered readers. One person demanded that I watch a YouTube video of a November 9, 2007, “Chemtrails” report by Louisiana station KSLA, in which investigative reporter Jeff Ferrell discussed tests the station had conducted on supposed “chemtrail residue” collected in a bowl by a farmer outside his house. Ferrell said, “KSLA News 12 had the sample tested at a lab. The results: A high level of barium, 6.8 parts per million, (ppm). That’s more than three times the toxic level set by the Environmental Protection Agency, or EPA.” I had to inform my angry correspondent of a problem—the actual video clearly shows 68.8 µg/L (micrograms per liter), or equivalently, 68.8 ppb (parts per billion). The reporter overestimated by a factor of one hundred, because he read the “68.8” as “6.8,” and also confused million with billion. The measured levels were far less than EPA limits. When I asked my correspondent why I should be convinced by such poor reporting, he just repeated his insistence that I take down my “stupid website.”

I’ve also been e-mailed photographs of the interior of planes filled with large containers connected by tubes, accompanied by the exclamation that “This is the spraying equipment!” But these photographs turned out to be pictures of ballast tanks used in flight testing of new airliner designs; the tubes simply allow water to be pumped from tank to tank, simulating passenger motion in the cabin for the aircraft test. Kennedy assassination and 9/11 conspiracy theorists are mere pikers compared to “chemtrail” buffs. You will rarely find a more virulently self-deluded group, anywhere.

References:

• Carnicom, Clifford. “Aerosol Operation Crimes and Cover-Up.” Available online at www.carnicom.com.
• Scott, Gwen. 2008. “Morgellons . . . A Natural Medi­cine Approach.” Available online at www.carnicom.com/natural2.htm.
• Thayer, Toni. 2000. “Chemtrails—Frequently Asked Questions.” Available online at www.rense.com/general4/fre.htm.
• Thomas, Dave. “Chemtrail Fears Thrive on Internet.” Available online at www.nmsr.org/chemtrls.htm.

The “twin paradox” is not a paradox in the sense of a logical contradiction that falsifies relativity but rather a very curious puzzle. Traditionally, the twin paradox is concerned with the strange result that if one of two twin brothers leaves the other and embarks on a high-speed journey to a remote point and back again, the twins will no longer be the same age. Let’s call these hypothetical twin brothers A and B. For this discussion, we’ll stipulate that A stays home while B travels away from his brother at a speed of 60 percent of the speed of light (0.6c, where c is the speed of light, nearly 300 million meters per second). B travels for fifteen years by A’s reckoning then quickly decelerates to a stop, turns around, and quickly accelerates back to 0.6c in the direction toward his brother, A. After another fifteen years (again, by A’s reckoning), B arrives home, decelerates, and rejoins his brother, who has aged thirty years since he last saw B. The “paradox” is that, even though A’s velocity relative to B is the same as B’s velocity relative to A, B will have experienced only twenty-four years of travel and find himself six years younger than his twin brother, A.

While this is indeed puzzling, it is not a logical flaw in relativity. The twins do not have similar experiences during B’s long journey, and that resolves the “paradox.” (While the fiction of very short deceleration/acceleration periods is useful to keep this discussion from getting into general relativity theory, it should be noted that such accelerations would almost certainly reduce twin B to a thin red puddle. It would take weeks to make the velocity changes at tolerable accelerations, say 5 to 10 g. See my accompanying sidebar “On Problems with Near-light-speed Travel” for more on this type of difficulty.) The journey of B, as viewed by twin A, is depicted in figure 1.

The workings of the “Twin Paradox” can be explained with the aid of space-time diagrams. A space-time diagram for the stay-at-home twin, A, appears in the left half of figure 2. The grid marks show years on the vertical axis and distance in light-years on the horizontal axis. The thick lines represent A’s and B’s positions over time, while the thin lines with arrows represent the paths of light beams sent between the twins. During the fifteen years (in A’s frame of reference) of outbound travel by twin B, B gets out to a distance of nine light-years (0.6c315 years) from twin A. However, signals or light rays sent from B’s turnaround point won’t even reach A for another nine years, or until twenty-four years (15+9) after B’s departure. That is, A will see his brother B recede for twenty-four years, and then approach for just six years, arriving thirty years after his initial departure.

This is in marked contrast to B’s observations: B will see his stay-home brother recede for twelve years. After B turns around, he will see A approaching for twelve years and will return a total of twenty-four years after his departure. However, the same interval is thirty years by A’s calendar. The difference is that, during the short but intense accelerations experienced by B, B’s velocity relative to the universe (and to A) is changing. Twin B effectively “loses synch” with the rest of the universe, including his twin brother, A. Twin B is not in an inertial reference frame over the entire trip—and his bouts with intense accelerations will certainly remind him of that fact. Of course, A won’t be aware of B’s velocity changes until many years later.

The space-time diagrams for B’s journey appear on the right of figure 2. These can’t be represented as a single diagram, because they are views of two different inertial frames (B outbound versus B inbound). The twin that undergoes acceleration will be the one who returns home younger than his stay-at-home brother. The loss of synchronization due to acceleration is the key and the reason it’s not a logical “paradox.”

Figure 2: Twin paradox space-time diagrams for stay-at-home twin A (left) and traveler B (right).

This point is crucial: the time discrepancies between the twins are absolutely real. Here is a quick example, presented with the “radar method”: since any radar beams sent from A meet the target (B) at only one point in space-time, those beams must spend equal times outbound and inbound with respect to the sender. Figure 2 shows that a radar beam emitted by twin A at his time of two years will be reflected from B at some unknown time, and received again by A when his (A’s) calendar reads eight years. Likewise, a beam emitted by twin A at four years will be reflected from B and received by A when his calendar reads sixteen years.

Twin A can calculate the time and distance (in A’s frame of reference) of reflections from B, knowing only his own sending and receiving times and that the signals propagate at the speed of light. Since A’s two-year pulse returns at eight years, the reflection occurred (by A’s calendar) at the midpoint of the send/receive times, (2+8)/2=5 years. Since A’s four-year pulse returns at sixteen years, the reflection occurred at (4+16)/2=10 years by A’s calendar. Therefore, A measures the interval between these reflections (at five years and ten years) as being five years long.

Because the twins are separating rapidly, there will be a delay in B’s receipt of A’s transmissions. In particular, while A’s transmissions were sent two years apart by his clock, they were received by B over an interval longer than two years, say, K*2 years, where K is a factor greater than 1. However, the same must hold true for B’s “transmissions” back to A: whatever period separates the reflections from B’s craft, A’s measurement of receiving times will be longer—in fact, precisely K times longer—since B is moving away from A exactly as fast as A recedes from B (“relativity”). So, A’s original pulses were sent two years apart; these were received by B at K*2 years apart and received again by A at K*K*2 years apart, or eight years. Clearly, K must equal 2, and B’s interval between receipt of A’s two signals must be 2*2=4 years, while A’s measurement of the time for the pulses to return from B is K*4=8 years, as required. This is how “Time Dilation” comes to be measured by twin A: the five-year interval that A experiences in his own frame of reference takes only four years in B’s frame of reference.

The question isn't “Did an alien spaceship crash at Roswell in 1947?” The question is, why do many prominent UFO authors persist in claiming the Roswell Incident is still UFOdom’s best case? In case there were still doubts, Phil Klass’s new book should help settle them. His case against the Roswell “alien” myth is devastating.

Klass’s previous books include UFOs: The Public Deceived and UFO Abductions: A Dangerous Game, both published by Prometheus books. He has spent over thirty years investigating famous UFO incidents, hoping to find credible, scientific evidence of extraterrestrial visitors. He currently publishes the Skeptics UFO Newsletter (SUN), and is a Fellow of CSICOP and chair of its UFO Subcommittee. Klass, in short, is well qualified to separate the truths from the myths about the alleged Roswell crashed saucer. Through impartial research and meticulous documentation, Phil Klass has written the definitive book on the Roswell myth.

Klass starts off with contemporary accounts from 1947 — cold, hard facts that are not subject to the whims of memory. He details the UFO “craze” that swept the country in the summer of 1947, the Army Air Force announcement of the capture of a “flying disk,” and the explanation of the find as weather balloons and radar targets. Nowadays, UFO promoters maintain that the announcement of the “flying disk” came from high up the command — Col. Blanchard himself. (And, of course, top brass wouldn't have been fooled by a “balloon.”) But original reports indicate that the “disk” claim came from the intelligence office at the Roswell Army Air Force base — namely, one man, Major Jesse A. Marcel.

After its correct identification as weather equipment, the Roswell event drew no attention for decades. Klass details how both leading UFO groups (NICAP and APRO) did not even mention Roswell in their lists of “most important UFO cases” submitted for the Condon Report in 1966.

Details of Marcel’s earliest Roswell interviews, in February 1978, are provided by Klass. Marcel did not save any news clippings from this “historic” encounter; he couldn't even remember what year the incident took place.

Klass describes, and demolishes, the accounts of the long string of witnesses who waited decades before coming forward to claim their 15 minutes of fame: Grady Barnett, Glenn Dennis, Walter Haut, Gerald Anderson, Jim Ragsdale, Frank Kaufmann, Frankie Rowe, Col. Thomas Dubose, and more. Page 105 lists the wildly different estimates of the numbers of alien bodies (three living; three dead; four dead/one living; three dead; one living; and, one dead). The search for mortician Glenn Dennis’s “missing nurse” (Naomi Marie Selff) is detailed, along with strong evidence that she never existed. Witness Anderson’s diary copying and phone-record tampering severely damage his credibility.

Klass takes on all of the major pro-Roswell authors as well: Stanton Friedman, William Moore, Kevin Randle, Donald Schmitt, and others. He clearly documents how Friedman, Randle, and Schmitt all have changed the day rancher Brazel brought the debris into Roswell from Monday, July 7 (the actual day), to Sunday, July 6. They did so because that’s the only way they could reconcile events with witness Dubose’s testimony that the famous photographs of the debris in General Ramey’s office were taken at least two days after the debris was supposedly flown from Roswell to Fort Worth. (In actuality, the pictures were taken the same afternoon as the flight). Original reports, and Brazel’s comments that he came to Roswell to sell wool, clearly show that he did not go into town on the last day of a (then) rare three-day weekend. Klass also describes how author Donald Schmitt was caught faking his credentials.

The book also turns to UFO researcher Robert Todd’s discovery of the connection of the debris to New York University experiments performed in support of secret project Mogul, and the further evidence for this explanation developed by physicist/balloonist Charles B. Moore, UFO author Karl Pflock, and by the United States Air Force. The General Accounting Office report was portrayed by New Mexico Congressman Steve Schiff as leaving unanswered questions regarding some missing message traffic. But, Klass points out that the bottom-line conclusion of the GAO report was completely missed by most of the media: there is not one shred of evidence in the archives of the federal government that lends any credence to the supposed alien crash at Roswell (or any other locale). He also relates how once pro-Roswell pilot Kent Jeffrey came to agree that the Roswell Incident was due entirely to misidentification of weather equipment.

A major theme of the book is the continuing coverup of the truth about Roswell — not by the government, but by producers and authors of television shows, movies, and books. Klass tells how he has repeatedly tried to get TV producers to show formerly secret documents that prove the US did not have any physical evidence of alien visitors, even after Roswell. And Klass tells how, time and again, the truth has ended up on the cutting-room floor.

Klass concludes the book by discussing his work at Aviation Week and Space Technology. Aviation Week has revealed so many sensitive aerospace secrets that many government employees disparagingly refer to it as “Aviation Leak.” Yet, this fiercely independent magazine has never uncovered even a trace of a sinister coverup of alien visitation.

This book is a very valuable addition to the shelf of anyone with an interest in Roswell, or in the UFO movement in general. It does seem to hop around from topic to topic at times, and there is some unnecessary duplication. For example, a story from the Fort Worth Morning-Star Telegram appears on pages 17 and 18, but again (in its entirety) on pages 85 and 86. The same goes for the McCoy briefing (page 175, and repeated on page 208). But the biggest flaw of the book is the material that’s missing, such as Klass’ resounding debunking of the supposed “Majestic 12” forgeries. (Klass’s MJ-12 exposës are nevertheless available in book form, reprinted in the 1997 SI anthology The UFO Invasion.)

When I give talks about Roswell, I always show how Klass found that President Truman’s alleged signature on an MJ-12 letter was really just photocopied from a different, legitimate letter (see Skeptical Inquirer, Vol. 14, No.2, Winter 1990). As transparencies of both signatures are overlaid, the audience always gasps in surprise as the different signatures blend into a single trace. Incredibly, Stanton Friedman still maintains the validity of MJ-12. When I confronted him on a radio show last year, he said Klass’s methods were shown false in his new book Top Secret/Majic. And what is Friedman’s new attack on the signature analysis? “The signatures are clearly not identical.” Simply outrageous!

Similarly, there was no mention of the supposed alien autopsy, or the Penthouse “photograph” of the alien’s body. I'm hoping that someday, some of these gaps will be filled, and that we'll be treated to a second edition of this excellent book. But even with its minor omissions, this book destroys the “Roswell” mythos once and for all.

There have been several interesting developments in the Bible-code saga since my report “Hidden Messages and the Bible Code” in the November/December 1997 Skeptical Inquirer.

I have derived a formula for how many occurrences of given words you would expect to find in a text of a given number of random letters. One must calculate the probability of selection for each letter, which depends on the particular text being examined. This is just the number of occurrences of the letter divided by the total number of letters. Typically, the probability for getting an E is above 0.1, while that for a Q can be just 0.005. For a given word like “Roswell,” you multiply the chances for an R with that for an O, then an S, and so on. The final product is multiplied by the total possible number of equidistant letter sequences for the word, which is roughly the square of the number of letters in the entire text divided by one less than the number of letters in the candidate hidden word.

This formula works quite well. I estimated that I would find 18.7 occurrences of “Clinton” in War and Peace, Book 1 (212,000 characters, 7.5 billion possible seven-letter equidistant sequences); the actual number was 21. I estimated I would find 128.1 matches for the name “Apollo” -- and got 129. With each additional letter in candidate words, the chances fall, because you must multiply your product by another number invariably less than one. And rare letters reduce the expected matches greatly.

At a reporter’s suggestion, I downloaded the chapter excerpt of Michael Drosnin’s book, The Bible Code, from Simon and Schuster’s Web site and began searching away. Even though the chapter was only about 4,000 characters in length, I was able to produce a number of hits. One puzzle held a lunar theme: “space,” “lunar,” “craft,” and several “moon’s,” all authentic hidden words. I found the ubiquitous “Hitler/Nazi,” even though the excerpt did not mention those words directly, talking instead mainly about the Rabin assassination. One puzzle has the hidden message “The code is a silly snake-oil hoax.” And I even found “The code is evil” hidden in Drosnin’s book (a mixed message he is sending us here).

Reporter Eric Zorn of the Chicago Tribune had me look for the name of a very recently disgraced Chicago alderman in Zorn’s old editorials. Sure enough -- the alderman’s demise had been predicted years before. The Zorn Code was announced on October 27, 1997, in the Tribune.

Drosnin has been stumping Australia and the world, flattering code-buster Brendan McKay with compliments such as “clown,” “liar,” “fraud"; and me with, “Thomas appears not to understand the Bible Code at all.” Drosnin accuses us of “counterfeiting” codes, even though McKay and I do not need to alter even one letter of various texts -- either the puzzles are there, or they're not. (And to Drosnin’s dismay, the puzzles continue to turn up everywhere). But Drosnin is also attacking us because our puzzles allegedly do not have “minimality.” Not only must hidden words appear close together in a puzzle, they must also be the shortest skip distances for the given word in a fair-sized portion of the text. Drosnin only mentions minimality in passing, buried in the chapter notes at the end of his book: “All of the Bible code print-outs displayed in this book have been confirmed by statistics to be encoded beyond chance. The word combinations are mathematically proven to be non-random. . . . The computer scores the matches between words, using two tests -- how closely they appear together, and whether the skips that spell out the search words are the shortest in the Bible. (For a more detailed explanation see Appendix.)”

Interestingly, some of Drosnin’s own puzzles are not “minimal.”

His match for “Clinton” has the largest step of all four “Clinton’s” found in the Hebrew Torah, and the other three occur entirely within the chosen match. Each of these three serves to give the chosen “Clinton” a “domain of minimality” of zero. (In contrast, the close matches of “Hitler” and “Nazi” I found in Drosnin’s own book are both minimal over the entire chapter, and the mention of “Roswell” I found in the King James Bible is minimal over the complete text of the Book of Genesis.)

I downloaded the Torah (Koren edition) from McKay’s Web site, and modified my program to handle the Hebrew characters via the Michigan-Claremont transliteration scheme (in which, for example, the Hebrew letter “Shin” is represented as “$”). I have since reproduced a number of Drosnin’s puzzles to the letter, including his nonminimal “Clinton/President” match. I also contrived a method for printing the puzzles out in the actual Hebrew characters. (Pretty good for someone who doesn't “understand the Bible Code at all.”)

Amazingly, Drosnin found “Shoemaker-Levy” (transliterated as $WMKRLWY, eight characters), not in the five books of the Torah, but in Isaiah. Eliyahu Rips used Isaiah as a control, an example of an ancient Hebrew text without the “code,” and found no unlikely codes therein. Drosnin also found “computer” in the book of Daniel. Perhaps he forgot that the code is supposed to occur only in the five books of Moses: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy.

McKay is vigorously pursuing a response to the 1994 Statistical Science article by Rips et al. that gave the “code” its first big boost. Rips studied the Genesis “code” by finding names of post-Biblical rabbis linked to birth/death years, appellations (titles), etc. But using the very same rules restricting choices of names, appellations, and so forth, McKay was able to find an “impossible by chance” result -- in the Hebrew text of War and Peace. Full details can be found on the Internet at cs.anu.edu.au.

A new book written by Jeffrey Satinover has appeared, published by William Morrow. The book, called Cracking the Bible Code, strongly supports the code phenomenon. Interestingly, most of the true-blue code promoters despise Drosnin as the proverbial bull in the china shop -- Satinover alludes to him, but won't even mention him by name.

In the September 1997 Notices of the AMS (American Mathematical Society), Harvard mathematics professor (and Orthodox rabbi) Shlomo Sternberg blasted the code phenomenon. In particular, he pointed out that the elaborate “codes” found by both Rips and Drosnin would collapse even if just a few letters were added to or dropped from the text they used.

And Sternberg notes, “but any serious student of the Talmud knows that there are many citations of the Hebrew Bible which indicate a differing text from the one we have. . . . One of the oldest complete texts of the Bible, the Leningrad codex (from 1009) (also available electronically) differs from the Koren version used by Rips and Witztum in forty-one places in Deuteronomy alone. In fact, the spelling in the Hebrew Bible did not become uniformized until the sixteenth century with the advent of a printed version that could provide an identical standard text available at diverse geographical locations.”

The search for the truth about equidistant letter sequences goes on. One thing I am looking at is how “clumpiness” of letters in real texts sometimes produces many more or fewer matches than would be expected for a purely randomized text. I found one 934-letter chunk of a book about science by Isaac Asimov that produced an amazing seven matches for the word “Nazi,” even though only one was expected. This result is apparently “beyond chance,” with odds of at least two thousand to one against. But it is not really that surprising -- the chunk of text happened to contain several instances of the word "generalization.” And inside every instance, at a step of three, lurks a Nazi: geNerAliZatIon.

It looks like we have to be more careful about what we write!

“Hidden messages” can be found anywhere, provided the seeker is willing and able to harvest the immense field of possibilities. But do they mean anything?

Bible Code: The Book

A new book entitled The Bible Code (Drosnin 1997) came out last June and has occupied the bestseller lists since then. It is written by journalist Michael Drosnin, who claims that the Hebrew Bible contains a very complex code that reveals events that took place thousands of years after the Bible was written. Drosnin contends that some foretold events later happened exactly as predicted.

The book has been reviewed widely and has stimulated pieces in Newsweek and Time. Drosnin has also been making the rounds of the talk-show circuit, including the Oprah Winfrey Show in June. Time said that Warner has reportedly bought the movie rights (Van Biema 1997).

Drosnin’s technique is heavily based on that of Eliyahu Rips of Hebrew University in Israel, who published an article entitled “Equidistant Letter Sequences in the Book of Genesis” in the journal Statistical Science (Witztum, Rips, and Rosenburg 1994). Like Rips, Drosnin arranges the 304,805 Hebrew letters of the Bible into a large array. Spaces and punctuation marks are omitted, and words are run together one after another. A computer looks for matches to selected names or words by stepping to every nth letter in the array. One can go forward or backward; and for each value of “step distance,” n, there are n different starting letters. Drosnin’s match for “Yitzhak Rabin” had a step value n equal to 4,772.

Both Rips and Drosnin work with the original Hebrew characters, which are said to have been given by God to Moses one character at a time, with no spaces or punctuation, just as they appear in “the code.” The code is considered to exist only in the Hebrew Bible and not in translations or any other books. The code concept, however, can be easily demonstrated with English characters. Consider the following verse from the King James Version (KJV) of the Book of Genesis:

31:28 And hast not suffered me to kiss my sons and my daughters? thou hast now done foolishly in so doing.

If you start at the R in “daughters,” and skip over three letters to the O in “thou,” and three more to the S in “hast,” and so on, the hidden message “Roswell” is revealed! This message has a step value of 4, as shown in Figure 1.

When Drosnin finds a name or word match for a given step value n, he then rearranges the letters into a huge matrix (which he calls a “crossword puzzle”). The matrix is n letters wide, and inside this puzzle, the letters for the “hidden message” line up together vertically. (Sometimes, a slightly different procedure is used to make the hidden word run diagonally, every other row, and so forth.) The analyst or the computer can then look for more keyword-related “hits” around the given hidden word. Secondary matches can be picked off vertically, horizontally, or diagonally. Drosnin found the word “Dallas” (connected with keywords “President Kennedy”) in one of his puzzles by starting at a D, and then picking the next letters by moving one space over to the right and three spaces down several times.

An example of such a matrix for the “Roswell” mention in KJV Genesis appears in Figure 2. The letters of “Roswell” now appear vertically at the center of the puzzle. The actual matrix of unique letters is only four characters wide here (dashed box), but I took the liberty of showing extra letters for context. A companion hidden message — “UFO” — is indicated within circle symbols. This “UFO” is itself a hidden message with a step value of 12. Drosnin accepts any such messages, even words running horizontally (i.e., the actual words of the Bible strung together). If either “Roswell” or “UFO” had been found encoded in the Hebrew Bible, Drosnin would not have hesitated to use words from the direct text as a “match” (for example, the words “thou hast now done foolishly.”)

The unusual pairing of “Roswell” and “UFO” is shown in linear form in Figure 3. This match is as stunning as any described in Drosnin’s book — yet none claim that the Bible code would have translated gracefully over to the KJV Genesis.

Drosnin claims mathematical proof that “no human could have encoded the Bible in this way” (Drosnin 1997, 50-51). He says, “I do not know if it is God,” but adds that the code proves “we are not alone.”

Hidden Messages

Most of the data cited in favor of the purported intelligent alien construction of the “Face on Mars” is based on mathematical relationships among various Martian structures and locations. For example, author Richard Hoagland finds the “Cydonian” ratio (the “face” lies on the Cydonia plains region of Mars), e/p, in the tangent of the face’s latitude of 40.868 degrees north, in the ratios of angles of the D&M; Pyramid, and in numerous other places (Hoagland 1992). Does that mean the “face” and “city” on Mars were “designed” for the express purpose of spreading that very message? Hoagland emphatically says, “Yes!” My inner skeptic says, “Not so fast!”

In my research into such phenomena, I have found numerous instances of Hoagland’s Martian ratios on objects we know were not designed or built by aliens, such as the U.S. Capitol rotunda (Figure 4). Does that prove that Martians built this structure? Or is this phenomenon related mainly to the determination and skill of the person looking for a special message? Any special message?

There are dozens of books about Nostradamus. In one (Hewitt and Lorie 1991), the authors find hidden predictions by scrambling the seer’s quatrains (in French, no less), and then decoding according to an extremely complicated and mysterious formula. The back cover prominently displays one such unscrambled prediction: “1992 — George Bush re-elected.” (Wrong.) The authors should have known that it’s much safer to find hidden predictions of events that have already happened.

Some critics of Drosnin say the journalist is just “data mining.” Mathematician Brendan McKay of Australian National University and his colleagues searched Hebrew texts besides the Bible. They found fifty-nine words related to Chanukah in the Hebrew translation of War and Peace. But McKay doesn't think someone engineered this remarkable feat for his or anyone’s benefit. Since then, McKay has responded to the following challenge Drosnin made in Newsweek:

< >“When my critics find a message about the assassination of a prime minister encrypted in Moby Dick, I'll believe them” (Begley 1997).

McKay found assassination “predictions” in Moby Dick for Indira Gandhi, Rene Moawad, Leon Trotsky, Rev. M. L. King, and Robert F. Kennedy (see http://cs.anu.edu.au/~bdm/dilugim/moby.html). Eliyahu Rips himself has denied Drosnin’s implication that they worked together, and has said, “I do not support the book as it is or the conclusions it derives” (Van Biema 1997).

Hidden Names in KJV Genesis and Edwards v. Aguillard

One would expect that special biblical messages hidden in the Hebrew Bible would simply not make it into the King James Version, much less into Edwards. And since the Hebrew alphabet doesn't include vowels, it should be much harder to find matches in the English texts, because an additional character match is required for each vowel.

Drosnin’s control was the Hebrew text of War and Peace. Drosnin claims that when they searched for words (such as “comet,” “Jupiter,” etc.) in the Bible, they often found them there, but not in War and Peace.

I picked a set of names carefully. The list contained five names of four letters, five of five letters, five of six letters, five of seven letters, and five of either eight or nine letters. I was more whimsical in my choice of subjects and chose talk show hosts, scientists, and just plain folks as well as political or historical figures. I found thousands of hidden occurrences of these names in both Genesis and Edwards. The results appear in Table 1.

It is striking that tens of thousands of hidden occurrences were found for the twenty-five names submitted, for both Genesis and Edwards. More matches were found in the former, but it does have 50,000 more letters to work with. Another important observation is immediately apparent in Table 1 — short names like “Leno” or “Reed” were found much more frequently than long names like “Gingrich” or “Matsumura.” ("Matsumura” is, of course, Molleen Matsumura of the National Center for Science Education, in Berkeley, and “Romero” is Albuquerque boxer Danny Romero). “Martin Gardner” was found hidden in Edwards, much as Gardner anticipated could happen in his discussion of gematria and the work of Rips and his colleagues (Gardner 1997).

The results are clear and compelling, and certainly not surprising. It is much easier to find short names than long names. There might be thousands of occurrences of the four-letter name “Rich,” for example. But matching “Gingrich” is much harder, since few or none of the thousands of instances of “Rich” will be preceded by “Ging” at exactly the right step locations. But there are 2,554 hidden occurrences of “Newt” in KJV Genesis, so one could imagine that the Speaker of the House is certainly mentioned copiously.

There is, of course, another factor in the success of hidden word searches. Simply put, some letters are more common than others. Figures 5a and 5b give the relative frequencies for the letters in Genesis and Edwards.

There is, of course, another factor in the success of hidden word searches. Simply put, some letters are more common than others. Figures 5a and 5b give the relative frequencies for the letters in Genesis and Edwards.

The charts show that certain letters (such as A, D, E, H, I, N, O, R, S, and T) appear more often than others. Obviously, words made with these “hot” letters (such as “Reed,” “Deer,” “Stalin,” or “Hitler”) have a better chance of being found than words containing any “cool” letters like J or Q. “Rosie” had 202 Genesis matches, more than the 49 for “Oprah” — but “Oprah” contains a cool P. (I also searched for “Harpo,” which is just “Oprah” backwards, and found 62 hits).

When I performed a separate search for “Roswell” in KJV Genesis, I only found one hidden match for this seven-letter word. But I found 5,812 matches for “UFO,” 187 for “disk,” 5 for “MOGUL,” 4,798 for “NYU,” 2 for “weather,” 1,552 for “gear,” 77 for “crash,” 4 for “dummy,” 295 for “alien,” and 2 for “saucer.” I couldn't find “Roswell” in Edwards at steps of 1,000 or less, but I did find most of the others, and in similar numbers.

How Unusual Are Paired Messages?

Drosnin and others sometimes admit that finding isolated hidden names or messages can be the product of random chance. But they claim that finding linked pairs or triples of names or words is so improbable that doing so proves the supernatural, divine, or alien origin of the "message.” In Drosnin’s words,

Consistently, the Bible code brings together interlocking words that reveal related information. With Bill Clinton, President. With the Moon landing, spaceship and Apollo 11. With Hitler, Nazi. With Kennedy, Dallas.

In experiment after experiment, the crossword puzzles were found only in the Bible. Not in War and Peace, not in any other book, and not in ten million computer-generated test cases. (Drosnin 1997, 26)

Perhaps there was a bug in Drosnin’s computer program. Or perhaps he didn't really want to find hidden message pairs outside of the Hebrew Bible. All I know is that I was able to easily produce complex hidden messages in all the texts I worked with.

I developed a computer program that takes various words already located as hidden codes (such as “Hitler” and “Nazi”) and plays them against each other to find the best-linked pairs. The starting letters and equidistant steps provide all the necessary information, provided one learns how to manipulate it.

I then used this approach to develop the puzzles shown in Figure 6a (Genesis, step = 500) and Figure 6b (Edwards, step = 157), both with direct coded linkages of “Hitler” and “Nazi.” These puzzles are striking counterexamples of Drosnin’s claims.

In response to Drosnin’s challenge, I decided to look for “Hitler” and “Nazi” linked in Tolstoy’s War and Peace as well. I found an English translation of the epic novel on the Internet, and downloaded the first twenty-four chapters of Book 1, giving me about 167,000 characters. By the time I got to steps of just 750, I already had found more than half a dozen excellent puzzle linkages of “Hitler” and “Nazi.” The best appears in Figure 7: this entire puzzle text spans just five paragraphs of Chapter 2 of Book 1 of Tolstoy’s novel.

Drosnin uses many methods to improve the odds of “impossible-by-chance” linkages. For one, he uses horizontal words taken directly from the original text. For example, when Drosnin found “Clinton” linked to “president,” the word “president” was just the Hebrew word for “chief,” taken from its actual context in the original Bible. Secondly, Drosnin found some hidden dates referring to the Hebrew calendar; for example, Gulf War activity on January 18, 1991, was found in the words “3rd Shevat.” But, he found other dates referring to the Gregorian calendar, such as that of the Oklahoma City bombing, which was linked in the Bible by the hidden date “Day 19,” and interpreted as a reference to both April 19, 1995, the date of the bombing, and April 19, 1993 (Waco). And finally, Drosnin takes full advantage of the eccentricities of the Hebrew language, in which words can be condensed and letters occasionally dropped.

My study generated several other examples that are just as spectacular, and just as unlikely (if not more so), than most of Drosnin’s matches. Now, Drosnin and his colleagues would probably say that the “Roswell/UFO” connection in KJV Genesis was just a lucky break and couldn't happen again. But I found 5,812 hidden “UFO’s” in Genesis, and dozens of these happen to be flying right around and through the hidden word “Roswell.” As the puzzle step is changed, linked matches appear and disappear with astonishing frequency. Three such examples appear in Figure 8, for steps of 88, 589, and 753. Hoagland claims multiple discoveries of the same hidden message are indicative of “redundancy” used by the code-maker to assure us the message is real (Hoagland 1992). But all that is really happening here is that codes can be engineered — made to happen. You just have to know how to harvest the field of possibilities.

Figure 9 is another striking linkage I found in KJV Genesis, 42:18 through 45:21. Here, the name “Regis” appears at a step distance of 808, but also at a step of 810, which makes a nice “X” pattern if the puzzle step is 809. (Perhaps someone should notify Regis Philbin and agents Mulder and Scully).

If you work at any given puzzle for a while, large numbers of unexpected names and words invariably turn up. Consider the puzzle of Figure 10. This text is a contiguous rendition of Genesis 41:38-46. This particular puzzle is easy for the reader to verify manually, since it has a relatively small step of 40. The puzzle itself is 41 characters wide, so the rightmost column is a repetition of the leftmost. I used the computer to find several diagonal messages here: “Deer,” “Regis,” “Nazi,” “Leno,” “Dole.” Many vertical messages were simple enough to be found just by poring over the puzzle: for example, “Oprah,” “here,” “Leia,” “Hale,” “sent,” “nude,” “pure,” “hate,” “data,” “Roe,” “Reed,” “Meg,” “hood,” “pins (snip),” “Deion,” and “lone.” “Newt” is in there too, but at an offbeat step that makes for a jilted arrangement. And then, there are all those horizontal words too!

I suspect that with diligence, one could find enough matches to make almost all of the characters in the puzzle parts of hidden words. The puzzle below is literally dripping with additional hidden surprises. Rips himself appears in “spirit” read backwards. “Pour,” “Alan,” and “sash” run vertically. And diagonal messages of varying complexity lurk everywhere. Can you find the “apes” swinging between “data” and “Reed"? “Love” intersecting with “nude"? How about “Ares,” “reel,” “deft,” “lion,” “dogs,” “pony,” “hard,” “diet,” “trace,” “card,” “Poe,” and “wart"? They are all in there — and more.

There are dozens of linked messages in the puzzle above. But how are we to know which words are linked by the secretive author? Is the “real” message “Nazi sent pure hate here,” or is it “Deion pins nude Oprah?” All of these hits are authentic, encoded names that have lurked inside the text of the King James Version of Genesis for hundreds of years. But the whimsical combinations they appear in show that these surprises are simply lucky breaks, and not authentic messages from above.

What Are the Odds, Really?

But their core conclusions are based on severely flawed probability arguments. Drosnin’s formulation of the improbability of the occurrence of linked pairs is implicitly based on the assumption that you have only one opportunity to get the match. But, with the help of the computer, Drosnin gets to take advantage of billions of opportunities.

Let’s look at Drosnin’s approach with a lottery analogy. The probability of winning a lottery with a single ticket is very small, and Drosnin says the probability of getting an improbable match (such as “Clinton” and “president”) is also very small. But what happens if you buy more than one ticket?

In the New Mexico “Daily Millions” lottery, the odds of winning the $1 million jackpot with just one ticket are about ten million to one against. With two tickets, the odds plummet, to about five million to one. If you buy one million tickets, your odds drop to only about ten to one against. And if you invest $10 million in tickets, the odds become approximately two to one in your favor! Most people can't afford to buy millions of tickets. Those who do have that kind of money usually don't dump it on the lottery, because you almost always end up losing.

But in Drosnin’s game, you don't have to win more than you lose. You don't even have to break even. All you need for success is to win every once in a while. And, you can have what amounts to millions of “free lottery tickets” simply by running a computer program, or poring over crossword-puzzle printouts. Drosnin routinely tests billions of letter sequences for matches to selected words or names, and goes to steps of many thousands. By using steps lower than 1,000 only, I limited myself to using only about 3 percent of the potential of Genesis or Edwards. Brendan McKay (in personal communication) showed me how to find hidden words much more efficiently, and a search of KJV Genesis at all possible steps for my list of twenty-five names came up with over one million additional matches. These include six hits for “Clinton,” fifteen for “Gardner,” three for “Hillary” and “Einstein,” and two for “Kennedy.”

Conclusion

The promoters of hidden-message claims say, “How could such amazing coincidences be the product of random chance?” I think the real question should be, “How could such coincidences not be the inevitable product of a huge sequence of trials on a large, essentially random database?”

Once I learned how to navigate in puzzle-space, finding “incredible” predictions became a routine affair. I found “comet,” “Hale,” and “Bopp” linked in KJV Genesis, along with “forty” and “died,” which could be interpreted as an obvious reference to Heaven’s Gate. I found “Trinity,” “Los Alamos,” “atom,” and “bomb” encoded together in Edwards, in a section containing references to “security,” “test,” and “anti-fascist.” And I found “Hitler” linked to “Nazi” dozens of times in several books. When I set out to engineer a “hidden code” link of “code” and “bogus” in KJV Genesis, I was able to produce sixty closely linked pairs. And every single one of these pairs could fit inside a reasonably sized puzzle.

The source of the mysterious “Bible code” has been revealed — it’s homo sapiens.

Now somebody go tell Oprah.

References

• Begley, Sharon. 1997. Seek and ye shall find. Newsweek, June 9, pp. 66-67.
• Drosnin, Michael. 1997. The Bible Code. New York: Simon and Schuster.
• Gardner, Martin. 1997. Farrakhan, Cabala, Baha'i, and 19. Skeptical Inquirer 21 (2): 16-18, 57.
• Hewitt, V. J., and Peter Lorie. 1991. Nostradamus: The End of the Millennium. New York: Simon and Schuster.
• Hoagland, Richard C., 1992. The Monuments of Mars: A City on the Edge of Forever. Berkeley, Calif.: North Atlantic Books.
• Van Biema, David. 1997. Deciphering God’s plan. Time, June 9, p. 56.
• Witztum, Doron, Eliyahu Rips, and Yoav Rosenburg. 1994. Equidistant letter sequences in the Book of Genesis. Statistical Science 9 (3).

The show did not include comments from even one token reputable scientist. Instead, Heston would state the conventional wisdom, and then let the scientists interviewed for the show present their fantastic claims unchallenged. The first such experts who testified were Michael Cremo and Dr. Richard Thompson, authors of Forbidden Archaeology. They claimed that Humans of modern anatomical type have been existing for many many millions of years into the past, denying the current consensus that modern man appeared less than a tenth of a million years ago. Anomalous cases, such as the alleged 55-million-year-old tools found in Table Mountain in the 1880s by J. D. Whitney, or the supposed 250,000-year-old artifacts found by Virginia Steen-McIntyre in Mexico a couple of decades ago, were discussed. Thompson then declared that the resistance of mainstream science to these findings is not a deliberate conspiracy, but an automatic rejection by almost all scientists of any evidence that doesn't conform to existing theories. He stated that this routine hiding of anomalous results prevents science from progressing. If the assertion that scientists ignore all unusual or contrary data is true, then indeed, science would not progress. My question is: if this is the case, how can Thompson explain the fact that science has progressed, especially in the last century? Many new ideas have come along to upset existing paradigms: relativity, quantum mechanics, continental drift, and punctuated equilibrium, to name a few. Thompson’s argument that scientists have ingrained antipathy to new or controversial ideas is clearly specious.

The next segment featured Carl Baugh, who talked about the supposed human footprints found alongside dinosaur tracks at the Paluxy River near Glen Rose, Texas. The voice-over introduced him as archaeologist Carl Baugh, but the on-screen title referred to him as anthropologist Carl Baugh. In real life, however, Baugh is best known as Reverend Carl Baugh. Baugh claimed some of the Paluxy trackways include 16-inch human footprints, 12 in a series, alternating left-right-left-right, the right distance apart... No mention was made of the painstaking research performed by Glen Kuban, Ronnie Hastings, Laurie Godfrey and others a decade ago, which showed conclusively that these trackways are made by dinosaurs. When mud fills in the toes of a fresh tridactyl dinosaur print, the resultant track can look similar to a human’s. Some of the alleged human prints belong in the same left-right series as obvious dinosaur tracks. Kuban and associates also found color indications of dinosaur toes in tracks which were supposedly human. At least these tracks are not obvious fakes, unlike Baugh’s next bit of supposedly most compelling evidence which was discussed: the Burdick Print. This and similar prints first appeared in the 1930s. They are clearly suspect: the features (toes, heel, etc.) are abnormally shaped, and much too well delineated. The Burdick print looks nothing like a real imprint of a foot in the mud, and bears little resemblance to human anatomy (even for a supposed giant). However, expert Dr. Dale Peterson, M.D. assured the audience that the print was clearly human. Geologist Don Patton pointed to subsurface contours in a cross-section through the print as evidence that the features were not carved. Next up was a supposed fossil finger, with smooth skin-covered flesh preserved intact, and with what resembles a fingernail. (While a very few fossilized patches of tough, scaly dinosaur skin have been found, preservation of soft human tissue would be extremely unlikely!) Peterson pointed to images of finger bones and joints in a CAT scan of the finger. However, the bones were not clearly distinct; rather, they simply looked like a progressive darkening of the scan in thicker portions of the specimen. Some grooved spherical nodules, from the pre-Cambrian (2.8 billion years old), were also touted as evidence of human artifacts.

Author David Hatcher Childress then claimed that geological time scales are wrong by several orders of magnitude, and that dinosaurs may still be alive today. He showed a photograph of a supposed plesiosaur carcass dredged up on a Japanese fishing boat; Heston condescendingly noted that Skeptics claim it’s the body of a decomposing shark. [It probably is.]

Heston’s next target was Charles Darwin himself. Richard Milton, author of Shattering the Myths of Darwinism, stated that not one missing link supporting the common ancestry of man and apes has ever been found. Milton stated that Lucy is just an ape; he made no mention of the fact that Lucy’s teeth are more human-like than ape-like in many respects. A cartoon of a tree, with Man on the top branches, and Apes below, was shown; as the animated branch broke, Heston declared So far, conclusive evidence of a missing link has not been found. Milton went on to say that the lack of an ape-human missing link was sufficient to topple the entire edifice of evolution. No consideration was given to the tremendous amount of data that support evolution in non-primate species (fossils, comparative anatomy, molecular structures, etc.).

In the last half of the show, Neil Steede argued that the perfect fit of stones in Incan monuments indicated a high culture, and that the present-day misalignment of solstice markers can only be explained if the monuments were built over 12 thousand years ago. Steede based this conjecture on a 41,000-year, half-degree wobble of the Earth’s axis (which turns out to be a real phenomenon). While recent-era astronomical solstice locations are not aligned with the rounded markers Steede interpreted as the real markers, the solstice locations do appear to be aligned with the sides of the tower walls where they cross the horizon. The fact that Steed can conjure up an alignment consistent only with his 12,000 year age hardly proves that this is what the actual builders intended. Graham Hancock, author of Fingerprints of the Gods, cited similarities in the megalithic cultures of Mexico, South America, and Egypt, and then claimed that these prove the common influence of a third, unidentified culture. Robert Banval employed more vague astronomical alignments to prove that the Sphinx was built 12,000 years ago. Hancock continued with a discussion of crustal displacement. Unlike continental drift, crustal displacement (developed by a Professor Hapgood) involves a radical motion of the Earth’s entire outer crust. Hancock and others put forth the idea that 12,500 years ago, Antarctica was not at the South Pole, but in a moderate latitude, and that Atlantis was located there. When too much ice built up on the poles of that era, the entire crust slid around, suddenly moving Atlantis/Antarctica to its present cold location. No evidence supporting this fantastic claim was presented, and no one bothered to mention that readily available data clearly refute this hypothesis. For example, most climatologists agree that the Antarctic ice shelf is a stable feature that has been around for 14 million years, and the Vostok ice core from Antarctica was carefully dated back to at least 150,000 years ago by a variety of independent methods. [Why this idea was refuted just a few minutes earlier in the same show, when we were told that 12,000 years ago, the Earth’s axis was tilted by just one half of a degree, not the 90 ° required for an Antarctic Atlantis.] Heston concluded the show by stating that It’s been said that man has made the climb from Stone Age to civilization more than once, and that our present time is just the latest in this cycle.

Ironically, scientists are not the only ones fuming over Origins. Arch-creationist Ken Ham slammed the production in the Feb. ‘96 Answers in Genesis newsletter. In a review entitled Hollywood’s ‘Moses’ Undermines Genesis, Ham attacked fellow creationist Carl Baugh’s ‘manprints,’ stating that “According to leading creationist researchers, this evidence is open to much debate and needs much more intensive research. One wonders how much of the information in the program can really be trusted!” Then Ham noted that the book Forbidden Archaeology “...is dedicated to ‘His Divine Grace: A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada.’ It appears the authors are Hare Krishna adherents!...Everything cycling continuously over millions of years fits well with Krishna philosophy! That seems to be what this program is all about!”

Ken Ham is right to note that the teachings of Hare Krishna are not a basis of good science. It seems quite unlikely that he will ever realize that his peculiar brand of fundamentalist Biblical inerrancy is similarly flawed. In the meantime, NBC has sunk to a new low in this latest promotion of pseudoscientific claptrap. I encourage anyone who doesn't appreciate NBC’s latest assault on science to respond by calling the complaint number (212-664-2333), or by writing Bob Wright at NBC New York, 30 Rockefeller Plaza, New York, NY 10112, or by writing the NBC staffer who actually purchased the show: Todd Schwartz, 3000 W. Alameda, Burbank, CA 91523. The company that produced the show can be contacted at: B. C. Video Inc., P.O. Box 97, Shelburne, VT 05482.

As reported in the January-February 1995 Skeptical Inquirer, a September 1994 Air Force report strongly supported the theory that the “UFO” debris found by rancher Mac Brazel in 1947 northwest of Roswell, New Mexico, was in fact a remnant of a balloon flight launched as part of a top-secret program called Project Mogul. The possible connection between the Roswell Incident and Mogul was first realized by researcher Robert G. Todd, and independently by Karl T. Pflock.

Recently, Charles B. Moore, one of three surviving Project Mogul scientists identified in and interviewed for the Air Force report, spoke to the New Mexicans for Science and Reason (NMSR) in Albuquerque. He discussed the background of the project, the New York University (NYU) balloon flights, and the Roswell connection. He provided new details that would appear to virtually clinch the idea that the debris Brazel found was indeed from one of the Project Mogul flights that Moore helped launch.

What follows is based on Moore’s presentation, his answers to audience questions, subsequent meetings and discussions with him, documents he provided, and a monograph he is preparing on these flights.

Moore, professor emeritus of physics at New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology in Socorro, was a graduate student working for NYU back in 1947. The Mogul project was so classified and compartmentalized that even Moore didn’t know the project’s name until Robert Todd informed him of it a couple of years ago. The unclassified purpose of the project was to develop constant-level balloons for meteorological purposes.

Its classified purpose was to try to develop a way to monitor possible Soviet nuclear detonations with the use of low-frequency acoustic microphones placed at high altitudes. No other means of monitoring the nuclear activities of a closed country like the USSR was yet available, and the project was given a high priority. One of the NYU tasks was the development of constant-level balloons for placing the acoustic microphones aloft. After some preliminary flights in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, in April 1947, which failed due to high winds, the project moved to New Mexico.

In June and early July 1947, numerous NYU balloon flights were launched from Alamogordo Army Air Field in New Mexico. Some of these flights consisted of very long trains containing up to two dozen neoprene sounding balloons, having a total length of more than 600 feet.

Figure 1 (larger)

Moore makes a strong case for the hypothesis that NYU Flight #4, which he helped launch on June 4, 1947, was the source of the debris Brazel found on the Foster ranch, and therefore the source of the “Roswell Incident” itself. Many of the materials used in Flight 4 bear striking similarities to pieces of the Roswell debris. A diagram of an earlier, similar flight, Flight #2 (launched April 18, 1947, from Bethlehem, Pennsylvania) shows the balloon train. No such diagram is available for Flight 4; since no altitude data were obtained for it, it was not included in formal NYU reports. However, Moore says the configuration for Flight 4 was quite similar to that shown. The large octahedral objects at top left and bottom middle are radar reflectors, which were used for tracking. Several small aluminum rings for handling the lines are indicated; the “payload” (a sonobuoy) was supported by slightly larger rings. The cluster of neoprene sounding balloons extended for hundreds of feet in flight.

The debris Brazel picked up—and which was later taken to Fort Worth, Texas, for inspection by Brigadier General Roger Ramey, the Air Force commander there—matches NYU Flight 4 in several different ways. Some of the debris consisted of patches of a smelly, smoky gray, rubber-like material, which is consistent with the neoprene balloons used in NYU Flight 4. Much of the Roswell debris—sticks, metallic paper, and strangely marked tape—is similar to material used for the radar reflectors. When Warrant Officer Irving Newton saw the debris in General Ramey’s office, he recognized it as pieces of a radar target. Moore points out that the Ramey photographs show parts of more than one reflector; Flight 4 contained three Signal Corps ML-307B RAWIN targets.

Figure 2

Many witnesses of the debris described tape with flower designs or hieroglyphics on it. Moore recalls that the reinforcing tape used on NYU targets had curious markings. “There were about four of us who were involved in this, and all remember that our targets had sort of a stylized, flowerlike design. I have prepared, in my life, probably more than a hundred of these targets for flight. And every time I have prepared one of these targets, I have always wondered what the purpose of that tape marking was. But . . . a major named John Peterson, laughed . . . and said ‘What do you expect when you get your targets made by a toy factory?'”

The radar targets contained small eyelets. Moore showed the NMSR audience a similar target with the eyelets. In an article in the Roswell Daily Record on July 9, 1947, rancher Brazel described the debris as having no strings or wire, but as having eyelets for some sort of attachment.

While many UFO proponents claim the wreckage shown in General Ramey’s office was just a weather balloon switched for the “real debris,” Moore pointed out that the radar targets used by NYU were unlike anything flown in New Mexico before and that “they were not available in Fort Worth to be substituted for the debris in General Ramey’s office.” Warrant Officer Newton was able to recognize the debris in General Ramey’s office because he happened to have used an early version of the same targets while serving as a weatherman in Okinawa. The earlier-model targets Newton used did not have the reinforcing tape with the pinkish-purple flower designs.

Brazel’s daughter, Bessie Brazel Schreiber, in a 1979 interview conducted by author William Moore (no relation to Charles B. Moore), described some aluminum ring-shaped objects in the debris that looked like pipe intake collars or the necks of balloons. (The mention of the rings appears in William Moore’s transcript of the interview, but was not included in his book The Roswell Incident.) She estimated that they were about 4 inches around, and said she could put her hand through them. Charles Moore points out that Flight 4 carried several 3-inch-diameter aluminum rings for assisting with the launching of the balloon train, as well as larger rings used to hold the sonobuoys. These were cut from cylindrical tubing stock, and then chamfered to prevent damage to the ropes.

Sheridan Cavitt, the CIC (Counter-Intelligence Corps) officer who accompanied Major Jesse Marcel to the debris field, described a black box in the wreckage. Moore says the NYU crew routinely packed batteries for the acoustic equipment in black boxes. There has been some speculation that the black box might have been a radiosonde, but Moore pointed out that radiosondes are usually white to prevent absorption of heat.

On June 4, 1947, Flight 4 was launched, and tracked as far as Arabela, New Mexico, only 17 miles from the location of the debris field on the Foster ranch. Flight 4 was still aloft when the batteries ran down, and contact was lost. Brazel reported that he found the debris on the ranch on June 14, 1947, although most UFO proponents put the time of this discovery as a few weeks later, in early July. Brazel didn’t take the debris into Roswell until July 7, 1947, by his own account; this date is disputed as well.

Recently, Charles Moore has developed a brand-new line of evidence even further supporting a link between the Roswell Incident and Project Mogul. UFO researcher Kevin Randle recently provided Moore with National Weather Service wind data for early June 1947. Moore, who has lived and breathed atmospheric physics most of his adult life, analyzed this data in detail. His analysis deals with three NYU flights : Flight 4 (June 4, 1947), Flight 5 (June 5), and Flight 6 (June 7). The Weather Service wind data are compatible with what is called a baroclinic weather system moving through the area. As this “trough aloft” slowly passes by, the winds aloft will shift from blowing toward the northeast, then toward the east, and then toward the southeast. At very high altitudes, however, this type of system produces high-level winds in the upper troposphere at cross directions to those at lower levels. Furthermore, the prevailing winds in the stratosphere during the summer months blow toward the west, while those in the transition region just above the tropopause blew toward the northwest during the early part of June 1947. For example, Flight 5 proceeded mainly east as it rose through the troposphere; when it entered the stratosphere, however, it was carried to the northwest. After some balloons burst and Flight 5 descended, it again headed in an easterly direction until it landed.

When Moore used the Weather Service wind data and NYU altitude information to simulate the probable paths of the flights with recorded ground tracks (Flights 5 and 6), his results agreed quite reasonably with the measured balloon paths—Flight 5 drifted mainly to the east, landing near Roswell, while Flight 6 took a more southwesterly route. Moore then extended his analysis to Flight 4, the Roswell candidate. He used the wind data for June 4, 1947, and assumed the flight reached altitudes comparable to those of the subsequent two flights (which were made with very similar balloon trains).

Moore’s analysis indicates that after Flight 4 lifted off from Alamogordo, it probably ascended while traveling northeast (toward Arabela), then turned toward the northwest during its passage through the stratosphere, and then descended back to earth in a generally northeast direction. Moore’s calculated balloon path is quite consistent with a landing at the Foster ranch, approximately 85 miles northeast of the Alamogordo launch site and 60 miles northwest of Roswell. Furthermore, the debris was strewn along the ground at a southwest-to-northeast angle (as reported by Major Jesse Marcel); this angle is entirely consistent with Moore’s analysis.

Charles B. Moore has been repeatedly criticized in the UFO literature for changing some of his earlier statements. He was interviewed for William Moore’s book on the Roswell Incident. After hearing Bill Moore’s description of the wreckage (including details of supposed 10-inch furrows running some 500 feet), Charlie Moore responded by saying: “Based on the description you gave me, I think that could not have been our balloon.” Balloon trains like Flight 4 were far too light to make large furrows in the ground. The issue is not that Charles Moore said the wreckage couldn’t have been a balloon—it’s that he said his flights couldn’t have plowed the alleged “furrows.” On another note, Moore and other Mogul participants originally thought the debris Brazel found must have been from one of NYU’s polyethylene balloon flights from early July 1947. He held this opinion until just a couple of years ago. These large, transparent polyethylene balloons were used for the first time ever in the summer of 1947 and would have looked strange even to experienced balloon watchers. However, after seeing the reports and photographs from 1947 for the first time, Charles Moore realized that Flight 4 was a much better candidate for the Foster ranch debris than a polyethylene balloon. So he has changed his opinions on the incident, but only because better data became available.

Figure 3a: Atmostpheric physicist Charles B. Moore displays a radar reflector similar to those carried aloft on trains of balloons in Project Mogul experiments he helped launch from Alamogordo Army Air Field in New Mexico in June and early July 1947. New York University Flight #4 carried three of these reflectors and before being lost was tracked to within 17 miles of the spot where rancher Mac Brazel later recovered debris that prompted the famous “Roswell Incident” case.

Moore’s presentation included fascinating details on the background of Project Mogul. He noted that the discovery of the acoustic “duct” between the troposphere and the stratosphere came about as a result of a World War II era analysis of globally propagated sound waves produced by the volcanic explosion of Krakatoa in 1883. In one of their flights, he said the NYU crew attempted (without success) to detect explosions from the British destruction of German installations on the island of Helgoland (off the north German coast) in April 1948. While UFO proponents allege a lack of contemporary references to “Project Mogul Balloon Flights,” Moore says the project was so compartmentalized that such references simply may not exist. Any mention of these flights will instead be labeled as NYU constant-level balloon research.

Several UFO authors claim that the wreckage, and possibly alien bodies as well, were secretly flown to Wright Field in Dayton, Ohio for analysis. By coincidence, Moore says he and the rest of the NYU balloon crew stayed over at Wright Field the evening of July 8, 1947, en route back to New Jersey, just as the Roswell story was breaking. Moore says they first learned of the incident while in Dayton, and figured that it was probably caused by one of their recent polyethylene balloon flights.

Figure 3b: Closeup

The September 1994 Air Force report indicates that the Brazel debris also made its way to Wright Field. During an Air Force interview of Mogul participant Colonel Albert C. Trakowski, he recalled a July 1947 telephone call from Colonel Marcellus Duffy, who was stationed at Wright Field and was intimately knowledgeable about both Project Mogul and military weather equipment. Duffy told Trakowski that a fellow from New Mexico came to Dayton, woke him up in the middle of the night, and showed him the debris. Colonel Duffy told the fellow, “It looks like some of the stuff you've been launching at Alamogordo.”

What is the bottom line on the Roswell Incident, NYU, and Project Mogul? In Moore’s words, “When the wind information is coupled with the similarities in the debris described by the eyewitnesses—the balsa sticks, the ‘tinfoil,’ the tape with pastel, pinkish-purple flowers, the smoky gray balloon rubber with a burnt odor, the eyelets, the tough paper, the four-inch-diameter aluminum pieces and the black box—to the materials used in our balloon flight trains, it appears to me that it would be difficult to exclude NYU Flight 4 as a likely source of the debris that W. W. Brazel found on the Foster ranch in 1947.”