Lure ‘em in with some truths, wind up, and hit’ just when they’re ready to hear anything, hit ‘em with the whoppers.

http://www.educatinghumanity.com/2011/05/area-51-roswell-photos-never-seen.html

BTW, “…they had been made to look like aliens a la Orson Welles’ War of the Worlds…”.
From what I remember, what little we were told by H.G. about his Martians were that they had octopus characteristics. I don’t think Orson strayed from this. No little people, no big eyes, etc.

Another sloppy “fact”?

Obviously, it’s highly unlikely that any of us will ever know exactly what took place at Roswell.

However, I do think it is reasonable to believe that:

1) We may not know the extent of aeronautic capabilities the military/intelligence community has at its disposal today

2) There is a chance that UFOs as black-project scare-the-masses hoaxes has validity

Dismissing crazy ideas as out of hand inherently because they are crazy strikes me as obtuse, when there are many, many, many examples of things that were once totally batshit crazy ideas that were easy to scoff at, that eventually turned out to be true (and laughably, we now take for granted).

I miss Art Bell…

Another thing about the interview which annoyed me was the repeated implication that experiments to test a theory which came back with a negative result had “failed”.

I’d like to 2nd that, in the Fresh Air interview, it was (with respect to any science) the clueless talking to the ignorant. (Sorry Terry.)

The Horten flying disk is rather well known, IIRC it appears in “Warplanes of the Third Reich” published in the 70′s. 5k mile range? Uh, no.

Jacobsen also appears in Snopes for her breathless racism on NW Flight 327. http://www.snopes.com/politics/crime/skyterror.asp

Fascinated as I am by Cold War black- (or just dark-)history, and a citizen hugely concerned with the cost of classification, I’m still going to AVOID this book. While I hope Ms. Jacobsen makes a lot of money off the rubes, I won’t be one of them.

And Maggie: I’m surprised. Really shocked that you give this person your credence.

But who knows, maybe Iron Sky is a docudrama.

Let me tell you (and posting anonymously obviously), there are lots of folks with weird ideas out there with clearances, especially in the engineering branches. I assume that the operations branches try to keep their people sane. Though there was that whole Angleton thing. And J. Edgar.

Just because someone has a Ph.D and a clearance doesn’t make them sane. Or more specifically, innoculate them from having crazy ideas. As long as you do your job and can keep a secret, it’s unlikely that you’ll get your clearance pulled because you believe in little green men. Or gray children, as the case may be. Especially if you happen to be really smart; people are willing to overlook a great deal if you have good ideas in the area you’re supposed to be working on.

I’ve spent hours listening to otherwise sane people with clearances tell me their latest conspiracy theory. Who cares, as long as the craziness doesn’t extend to the things they’re working on. But the other side of the coin is that they’re extremely smart and knowledgeable, and so if you’re a journalist who is a bit gullible and easily led anyway (see A. Jacobsen’s hysterical and largely discredited reporting of the terrorist dry runs) and not so sharp technically, you’re easy pickins.

I bet Stalin and Mengele had matching track suits, too, for that matter.

Remember The Rule: If it doesn’t violate the laws of nature then it’s possible, and if it’s possible then it’s only a matter of money. And the US had a lot of money in the 50s and a much greater percentage of our national intellectual capital applied to military stuff.