Blue Collar Scientist

By way of Space Politics I learn that the upcoming 2008 Libertarian National Convention, at which the libertarian party will select a presidential candidate, was to include a presentation on the topic of “Inside NASA” by Dr. David Hoagland.

This, it turns out, was an error, and the actual talk is “Do We Still NEED NASA?” and will be given by Richard C. Hoagland. He’s going to talk about this:

Mr. Hoagland will … reveal –with official NASA imagery — startling scientific discoveries NASA, by law, has deliberately withheld from the American people for more than 40 years!

It is bad enough that every third Libertarian I meet is a credulous UFO nutjob, and now they are giving voice to this total whackjob¹.

This is a guy who believes that James Clerk Maxwell’s equations were misunderstood and can only make sense in terms of “Hyperdimensional physics,” which says that enormous energy is available at a latitude of 19.5° on the Sun and every planet in the solar system. The evidence? Olympus Mons. (Which isn’t at 19.5 °, but 18°, a degree and a half difference.) No word about all the free energy available on the Earth at this latitude as yet.

This is the guy who thinks there was an advanced extraterrestrial civilization on Mars in the past.

And that the Martians moved to Earth and became humans.

And there was a similar civilization on Europa.

And on the moon.

And on Iapetus, the moon of Saturn, which is in fact artificial, kinda like the Death Star except maybe without Darth Vader and the big planet-destroying laser beam.

And that the moon civilization built glass domes which have been retouched out of Apollo imagery.

And that the Apollo astronauts had their minds wiped to they forgot seeing these domes.

This is the guy who claims that the Galileo probe to Jupiter caused a black spot due to nuclear materials on board.

This is the guy who claims the 9-11 attacks were part of a Masonic conspiracy.

This is the guy who says the Apollo 1 astronauts were murdered by NASA.

This is the guy who claims there is a clandestine space program, using antigrav technology stolen from extraterrestrials, which causes comets to explode².

This is the guy that swore that the Space Shuttle main fuel tank could never work using conventional engineering, and something called “Torsion Physics” would have to be used to solve the problems.

This is the guy who repeatedly claims to have friends at JPL who provide him with inside information.³

This is the guy who claims to have designed the Pioneer 10 plaque that was actually designed by Carl Sagan.

And so on.

Now, if you believe anything in this lengthy list of Hoagland claims, congratulations. You are a nutjob. If you don’t believe it, you should understand why I view the libertarian party as the party of choice for cranks, lunatics, and other stout deniers of reality.

1. And yes, the taxonomy is valid - total whackjobs are far stranger than nutjobs. [↩]
2. Sounds like fun. But I’m pretty sure I’d notice if comets started exploding; you know, that’s the sort of research we do here at the observatory I’m currently visiting. [↩]
3. I have actual friends with real names at JPL who deny they provide Hoagland information, inside or otherwise. [↩]