Levitated Linda Sues Netflix over New Documentary!

Netflix has a new three-part documentary about the 1989 "Manhattan Alien Abduction" of Linda Napolitano. (Originally the incident was known as "The Brooklyn Bridge Abduction," but that brought up connotations of swindlers who reportedly would try to sell naive immigrants the Brooklyn Bridge.) "A woman claims to have been abducted from her bedroom in Manhattan. This docuseries explores whether it was an elaborate hoax — or proof of alien life."

I was going to write a review saying something like this: 

Here is a UFO documentary that is more honest than most of them. It examines the UFO abduction claims of Manhattan resident Linda Napolitano (who sometimes used the pseudonym "Cortile"). Her story is preposterous for many reasons, but famed UFO abductionist Budd Hopkins (1931-2011) was absolutely convinced it was genuine. This documentary series is better than most UFO-themed ones because it considers the evidence both for and against Linda's claims, even if it does lean somewhat toward accepting the bizarre claims as authentic.

But I put that idea out of my head when I saw that  the star, Linda, is suing Netflix! Holy Moley! 'UFO abductions' have been out of fashion for a number of years now; they peaked in the 1990s and are seldom discussed seriously today. If anything, Linda owes Netflix a debt of gratitude for breathing new life into her practically moribund case.

Netflix shows Linda being levitated out her apartment window and into the UFO.

 

 

Budd Hopkins was a recognized leader among UFO abductionists, In June, 1992, an invitation-only  "abduction study conference" was held at MIT, under the faculty sponsorship of physicist David E. Pritchard. I attended, along with a number of major UFOlogists: John Mack, David M. Jacobs, Bruce Maccabee, etc. The justification of the conference was, apparently, that those who "discover" supposed alien abductions using hypnosis had built up sufficient confidence that their collection of alien abduction evidence was now strong enough to convince the world. Even MIT!

So it was at this conference that Budd Hopkins first presented to the world what he called "the most important UFO abduction case that I've ever worked on." What is unique about the supposed abduction of Linda "Cortile" is the claim that it was independently witnessed by at least four other persons, including two detectives watching from the ground below. Supposedly they gazed in astonishment as the UFO, with Linda now on board, soared up above the rooftops of Manhattan, then plunged into the East River near the Brooklyn Bridge, on which it allegedly caused several automobiles to stall. Linda subsequently reported nose bleeds, and an X-ray seems to show an implant in her nose.

The following month Hopkins regaled the 1992 MUFON Symposium in Albuquerque with more about the case. This time Linda herself was there. There was the supposed corroboration of these two anonymous men - claimed to be New York City policemen working "under cover"  - who he admits he has never met.  When the story they gave about their supposed police assignment failed to check out, they sent a second letter, changing their story to claim that they were actually "security agents" guarding a very high-ranking diplomat (supposedly UN Secretary General Javier Perez de Cuellar, who wouldn't say anything about this.). Cortile claims that these two "agents" first visited her in her apartment, then later kidnapped her twice in broad daylight as she walked in the neighborhood. They allegedly drove her out to a supposed CIA safe house on the beach in Long Island. There "agent" Dan  supposedly dropped to his knees to worship Linda with religious fervor, calling her his "Lady of the Sands," but later attempted to kill her by holding her head under water at the beach. Fortunately, she was rescued in the nick of time by the other “agent,” Richard. Later Linda gave Hopkins love letters allegedly from Agent Dan, who promised to marry her if he could ever escape from the mental institution to which he said he had been committed. Some of these letters were studied by a graphologist, and determined to be in Linda's handwriting.

With the situation getting more bizarre each day, a private conclave of prominent UFOlogists was called in October, 1992 to discuss the case. Linda told them that she was a descendant of Joan of Arc, who was burned at the stake in 1431, at the age of nineteen. (There is no evidence that Joan of Arc ever gave birth.) Ufologist George Hansen wanted to request a formal federal investigation of the incidents in which Linda was allegedly  kidnapped, assaulted, battered, harassed, and nearly drowned by two supposed agents of the U.S. government. He charges that Budd Hopkins, along with Walt Andrus of MUFON and Jerome Clark of CUFOS, strongly objected to any investigation, on the grounds that it could be “politically damaging” to UFO research. Hence any attempt to ferret out the identities of the two mysterious agents would simply alarm the agency responsible, making it even more difficult to track down the supposed agents. Bottom line: there are no witnesses to this supposed abduction.

Budd Hopkins married Carol Rainey (1949-2023) in 1996. Carol was a documentary film maker specializing in science-related documentaries. (With the benefit of hindsight, that marriage was doomed from the start, as science and Budd Hopkins didn't mix).

A woman claims to have been abducted from her bedroom in Manhattan. This docuseries explores whether it was an elaborate hoax — or proof of alien life.

 As Shivangi Sinha explains in Cinemaholic,

Initially, Carol Rainey believed Linda Napolitano’s story and observed her husband, Budd Hopkins, as he guided Linda through hypnosis sessions to retrieve memories of her alleged alien abduction. However, over time, Carol’s doubts began to grow, and she increasingly questioned the validity of Linda’s account. She felt Linda’s story might be exaggerated and began scrutinizing the evidence more closely. Carol investigated witness accounts related to Linda’s experience but found them inconsistent and lacking in credibility. She also suspected that some of the letters Linda had provided as evidence were fabricated. This skepticism eventually extended to Budd’s approach, and Carol openly critiqued his investigative methods. She expressed concerns that Budd may have overlooked inconsistencies in Linda’s story, leading her to question his objectivity in documenting and publicizing the case. Her stance, which became increasingly vocal, led to tensions in their professional and personal relationship.

But it gets worse. Carol assisted Budd in editing his book about the case, Witnessed: The True Story of the Brooklyn Bridge Abduction (1997). This book is not generally available today, apart from a few very expensive used copies, but it can be read in the Internet Archive Library. It is 400 pages of a preposterous, meandering tale that anyone with half a brain will immediately recognize as fiction. As Carol wrote later,

It was highly dramatic, paced like a thriller— full of otherworldly treachery, forbidden love, UFOs over Manhattan, twenty-two witnesses, a heroine whose red blood cells were immortal, lusty and dangerous Secret Service agents, a Prince from afar, gifts of many fur coats, chases on foot, more forbidden love, an X-rayed alien implant, Linda’s abduction into a spacecraft accompanied by an important world leader, her abduction into a spacecraft with other members of Budd’s abductee support group, and her abduction into a spacecraft accompanied by a famous Mafia don. Then, later, as the story continued to unfold (long after the book’s publication), Linda’s presence in the lobby of the World Trade Center when the planes hit and her bloody, barefoot escape over shards of glass. Although…not all of those events reported above by Linda Cortile had been selected by Budd for inclusion in the book.  I knew about them, but they weren’t in the book.

Worse yet, Hopkins "continued to tout the major significance of the case long after he knew that Linda had lied to him on multiple occasions," according to Rainey.  Here is a good summary of the controversies surrounding this case. 

Carol also wrote in that same piece:

Leslie Kean had begun her exploration of UFO abduction by allegedly vetting the Linda Cortile case (from Hopkins’ book Witnessed). After doing her own review of source material and interviewing both Budd and Linda, she concluded that it was a sound, well-researched case.

Kean soon became a disciple at the feet of Budd Hopkins.

As the Dean of UFO Skeptics, Philip J. Klass, said to me (I wrote this down to share with with Carol Rainey), "Every time I saw Budd Hopkins he was surrounded by a group of beautiful abductee women. And the 'Queen Bee' of them all was Linda Napolitano. If I were to switch over to the 'other side,' maybe I could be surrounded by women the way that he is." Klass has a long discussion of Levitated Linda's case in his Skeptics' UFO Newsletter #22, July 1993, as well as in several other issues. My own observation, based on everything I have seen about this case: the erotic attraction between Budd and Linda was too obvious to ignore.

Budd and Carol

 "On Oct. 28, 2024, two days before the Netflix documentary’s planned release, Napolitano filed a complaint in New York against Netflix, as well as various individuals and production companies involved in the documentary, plus the estate of Carol Rainey.

Napolitano filed the complaint along with two other plaintiffs: Peter Robbins, a former colleague and friend of Hopkins, and the estate of Budd Hopkins. Robbins is also included in the documentary."

Having seen the many, many absurdities being promoted in this case, and given that the pro-Linda side is given at least as much promotion and respect as Carol's skepticism, on what grounds could Linda possibly sue Netflix over this?

"According to the complaint, Napolitano and Rainey are falsely pitted against each other.

“(Napolitano) was not remotely close to be like or appear as the person that is on screen, never had any bone to pick with Carol Rainey,” the complaint reads, “but was set up as such a villain for purposes of controversy and conflict, all of which was a patently and deliberately false portrayal to support the false narrative of the truth.”

Napolitano’s attorney, Robert Young, told TODAY.com in a phone call on Oct. 30 that she and Robbins feel they were “egregiously deceived” by the documentary’s producers.

“They would have never entered into any production or description of what happened to Linda that was going to be questioned and subject to such denigration and aspersions against their good names and character,” he said. “They’re not happy.”  "

If you can sue to stop the release of a documentary on the grounds that the parties portrayed in it are "not happy," then no documentaries on any controversial subject could ever be made!

On November 17, plaintiff Peter Robbins and his cat participated in a Zoom meeting sponsored by MUFON's San Diego chapter. That's me in the upper left corner. Next to me is Wil Wakely, head of MUFON San Diego. I like Wil, but I think he needs to be a bit more skeptical. 😏

Peter didn't mention the lawsuit. When I asked about it, he replied that as a litigant, he is not supposed to discuss the details of the case, which is true. He noted only that the lawsuit alleged unfair business practices, and would be heard next month in the Manhattan courtroom of the New York Supreme Court.

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Some of this material was taken from my book UFO Sightings. Also see my 2011 Blog posting, Abductology Implodes.                                                  

Guest Blog - Martin Kottmeyer's musings on Matthew Bowman’s "The Abduction of Betty and Barney Hill"

 VS.

 

“FAR MORE LOGICAL THAN A DREAM”

Some critical and personal musings on Matthew Bowman’s The Abduction of Betty and Barney Hill: Alien Encounters, Civil Rights and the New Age in America, Yale University Press, 2023, 278pp. 

Bowman’s new version of the Hill abduction is a mostly good book.  He provides considerable amounts of new biographical background about their lives prior to the ufo event that made them celebrities in the ufo culture.  He had access to the papers surrounding the investigation of the primary ufo event and this adds many details and nuances to what was witnessed.  We know from Bowman that Barney saw the ufo entities bathed in a “shadowless blue light,” a lovely evocative phrase that never made it into Interrupted Journey.  He pays more attention than most to Betty’s fears that they had been exposed to radioactivity from the craft, bringing information that five years after the event she was writing scientists about her concerns that her recurrent bouts with pneumonia and how sick Delsey, their dog, was and asking them about “certain radiation dangers connected with ufo sightings.”  She also indicated that the initial call to Pease AFB was prompted by wanting protection over what dangers they had been exposed to.  He considerably fleshes out the story of Betty’s later obsession with ufos and how she claimed to have hundreds of sightings into the 1970s and beyond.  Bowman indicates she also told ghost stories and embraced New Age beliefs which he excuses as valid reactions to their rejection by establishment science and the authorities.

Strange to say though, Bowman himself brackets the book with his own rejections – “I do not believe the Hills were abducted…” (11)  He is skeptical of the explanations given to the ufo event and “the story of the abduction seems to me to lack proof beyond the Hills own hypnotically recovered memories, a genre well known to be fraught and malleable.  And a story of medical examination and interstellar travel seems too simple for the realities the Hills claimed to glimpse.” (223) 

That expression “realities” seems to carry a New Age meaning and it is somewhat eye-opening that in the middle of the book just before recounting the dreams that Betty wrote down in the days after ufo sighting and her realization of possible radiation exposure, he describes them as “a comprehensive narrative, far more logical than a dream.”(89)

And I can only term that a disappointing development for Betty’s dreams very much seem like dreams to me, surreal and quite irrational.  She is thrust in the navel with a large needle and experiences pain.  Her examiner is surprised by this and is able to stop it simply by a wave of the hand.  The leader gives Betty a book, but his crew points out that he shouldn’t have done that and they take it back.  How could the leader forget such a significant policy point that they shouldn’t provide proof of their secret and criminal acts?  And what about the business with showing her the star map and asking Betty if she knew where Earth was on it.  Was this supposed to be sarcasm?  A rational person would make a gesture to show where Earth was on it and their home or simply tell her that they had a policy against that.  The story is not logical at all.

This brings me to a larger disappointment.  In looking through the notes, I saw that at one point he cites Brookesmith and Pflock’s Encounters at Indian Head, but I find it very hard to believe he read it.  His text does not engage with several important criticisms appearing in that book.  Brookesmith’s paper in particular demands attention for the analysis of what Bowman calls the ‘thumbnail arithmetic’ researchers indulged in two months after the drive that led to the claim that there was ‘missing time’ – the “two lost hours” emphasized in Fuller’s subtitle.   Brookesmith points out that their distance estimate was wrong – based on an “as the crow flies” number that ignores the route was extremely winding and even reverses direction at one point.  Let’s also reiterate that the Hills themselves did not notice the discrepancy at the time when they reached home, something that modern depictions almost invariably falsely portray.  Brookesmith’s paper makes other observations that one can hardly believe Bowman would ignore mentioning like the fact he, like others Bowman discusses, thought the interracial marriage was a matter for extended comment.  Brookesmith also points out the genital warts that Barney reported are a common STD.

I have a paper in the Indian Head book that spells out those illogical aspects of the dream I mentioned above.  Though I don’t object to Bowman referring to my earlier work as giving a bad science fiction interpretation to Betty’s dreams, I had expanded my analysis to include showing how some of the odd elements of the examination – the nail clippings (hardly a usual medical procedure), skin scrapings, and the so-called pregnancy test seem to specifically echo matters seen in the investigation of radioactive fallout.  This connects up to Betty’s concern of radiation exposure which lines up to how dreams typically reflect the ongoing anxieties a person is feeling.

That paper also includes my rebuttal to Jerry Clark’s sometimes hallucinated criticisms against “The Eyes That Spoke” which Bowman echoes in describing my rhetoric as having a supposedly triumphant quality.  It is Clark himself who places things in a warring frame – note point 4 in “The Eyes Still Speak” – my own attitude was the proper one of thrilled discovery.

Bowman also recycles Kathleen Marden’s more recent observation that “The Bellero Shield” does not actually have large slanting eyes; instead bony ridges around its eyes extend along the side of its head.”  How this gets rid of the resemblance seems somewhat nebulous to me.  Baker’s sketch includes bone structure around the eyes.   https://www.nicap.org/reports/hillartist2.htm ,
Junior also seems to have that bony ridge:
https://www.facebook.com/la.wan.353/posts/pfbid0ui45Qaf8mPj8g3AizWnj4iFYxfrhFX5SNxg3ZkvAf7UwfQFxdoXWU1WkY1PJSpMAl 

More directly to the point, though, there still remains that the wraparound appearance of the eyes evident in Barney’s sketch in Interrupted Journey and use of the wraparound eyes expression in talking to the Lorenzens are not abandoned.  It was that resemblance that led me to research the matter of the airing of “The Bellero Shield” to see if it was even possible for there to be an influence.

0Had Bowman read Encounters at Indian Head, he should have known that Clark’s remarks had been responded to. Though Bowman elsewhere seems to adhere to a form of journalistic objectivity and balance, not telling both sides here reinforces the sense he simply never read the book. (He never mentions Betty's appearance at this notably significant symposium directly spawned by the Hill's story.)  I feel Bowman also should have remarked on if he thought the radiation fears were as relevant to the dreams as I argued, both here and in Brookesmith & Pflock’s book:
https://ia801007.us.archive.org/.../Magonia_Supplement_No...
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MY BETTY HILL FILE:
Karl Pflock and Peter Brookesmith, eds., Encounters at Indian Head: The Betty and Barney Hill UFO Abduction Revisited,  Anomalist Books, 2007, 309pp.
“Betty Hill's Medical Nightmare,”  Magonia Monthly Supplement #12  February 1999  pp. 1-3.
https://ia801007.us.archive.org/.../Magonia_Supplement_No...
“The Eyes Still Speak,” The REALL News, 6, #5  June/July 1998   pp. 1, 6-9.
http://www.reall.org/newsletter/v06/n05/index.html
“Suppressing a Smile,” The REALL News 13, #1; January/February 2005, pp. 1, 3, 13-14.
http://www.reall.org/newsl.../v13/n01/reall-news-v13-n01.pdf
May 15, 2023: Betty Hill’s “Junior”
https://www.facebook.com/la.wan.353/posts/pfbid0ui45Qaf8mPj8g3AizWnj4iFYxfrhFX5SNxg3ZkvAf7UwfQFxdoXWU1WkY1PJSpMAl
August 10, 2020: Inka Dinka Clue
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=2666360483606199&set=a.1392021771040083&type=3&theater  
January 28, 2022: Five Errors Made by Betty Hill in a 1998 Interview
https://www.facebook.com/la.wan.3538/posts/3114687135440196
[Roughly the time Jerry asked Betty about “The Bellero Shield.” Her memory was demonstrable fallible.]
February 10, 2017: Betty Hill was not prescient about amniocentesis https://www.facebook.com/la.wan.3538/posts/1848923582016564
Bowman leaves her claim uncontested on page 160 that that big needle is "now in everyday use in big city hospitals."
“Probing Exosemination,” The REALL News, 10, #3, March 2002, pp. 1, 3-5, 7
http://www.reall.org/newsl.../v10/n03/reall-news-v10-n03.pdf
[Barney Hill made the first anal probe claim!  Curiously Bowman, though quoting Webb on the matter, doesn't celebrate his priority status.]
September 12, 2019: Why the Betty and Barney Hill Alien Abduction Experience Does NOT Involve Folie Á Deux
https://www.facebook.com/la.wan.3538/posts/2390097841232466
February 8, 2020: Hocus-Pocus and the Importance of Eye Contact
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=2519739104935005&set=a.1392021771040083&type=3&theater
Includes images of the Bellero Shield alien and Barney Hill’s sketch.
Doubtless there are others I am forgetting…

Dr. Bruce Maccabee (1942-2024)

Word has just come in of the passing of the optical physicist and UFO researcher Bruce Maccabee at the age of 82. Bruce was very well-known in UFOlogy for his detailed analysis of  many UFO cases, including the McMinnville UFO photos, Kenneth Arnold's sighting, the Phoenix Lights, the Gulf Breeze photos of Ed Walters, the New Zealand films, etc. He worked with all of the major UFO organizations: NICAP, MUFON, FUFOR. He also found time to hang out with, and argue with, the likes of Phil Klass and myself. You can read all about Bruce's investigations on his Website.

Dr. Bruce Maccabee

I knew Maccabee from the time when we both lived in Silver Spring, Maryland (about 1975-1980). He was a sincere fellow who was convinced, for reasons that are hard to understand, of the authenticity of certain very dubious UFO cases, and he would boldly set forth his arguments. We were both interested in astronomy, and sometimes we would drive outside the suburban sprawl to set up our telescopes under darker skies. 

Somehow Maccabee got his hands on the original negatives of the McMinnville UFO photos (apparently the news organization had them in its files from when they were first published, until Maccabee inquired about them - about 25 years later! The negatives have since been returned to a Trent family member.)  Bruce invited me to spend an afternoon with him in a rented photographic darkroom, where we ran print after print from the original negatives, at different magnifications, exposures, etc. I have made high-resolution scans from those prints, and made them available to researchers. Maccabee argued strongly that the object was large, and far from the camera, while skeptics like myself argue that it was a small object, suspended by strings from the telephone wires above it. The late Joel Carpenter made a convincing argument that Trent's UFO was in fact an old truck mirror, hanging from strings thrown over the overhead wires.

The Trent photos as a stereo pair, by "Blue Shift" on ATS. The "UFO" is seen to be small, and relatively close.

 

Maccabee's UFO photo analyses seemed fairly reasonable, up to a point. That point was passed when he got involved with Ed Walters, the perpetrator of a series of UFO photos from Gulf Breeze, Florida. These photos were so obviously bogus, and Ed's stories so preposterous, that no serious person could possibly believe them. But Bruce disagreed. The Tampa Bay Times wrote a review of the book by Ed Walters and his wife, The Gulf Breeze Sightings (Feb. 25, 1990):

One's first reaction to the pictures is that they must have been faked. (A colleague of mine commented, "I'd search the guy's house for Chinese lanterns.") [RS: you can't make this up. Exactly this has happened, and a 'Chinese Lantern' was indeed found!]. Yet they have been endorsed as authentic by Bruce S. Maccabee, a government research physicist, whose report is contained in the book. Maccabee, after investigating the sites and the cameras as well as the photos, concluded that there was no evidence of a hoax.

"Having studied these sightings "every which way' for more than a year," Maccabee writes, "I have concluded that they are proof of the existence of UFOs. But what is proof for one person is not necessarily proof for another. What would convince you? You have to make up your own mind.

"The investigation is not yet complete. Ed was abducted on Dec. 17, 1987, and again on May 1, 1988. The investigation into what happened during these and previous abductions is ongoing."

One of Ed Walters' UFO photos from Gulf Breeze, Florida.

 

 

 

I can't get into all of the details about the Gulf Breeze photos and sightings here. Tim Printy gives us an excellent overview of what is wrong with the Ed Walters story.  There has also been controversy over payments to Maccabee from Walters' publishers for his favorable photo analysis, suggesting to some that Maccabee's endorsement was 'bought.' I don't think this is the case, because first of all the amount was not exactly life-changing, and secondly, Maccabee gave every indication of being sincerely convinced of Mr. Ed's veracity.

Bruce's wife Jan Maccabee apparently had a "weird experience" of something like a 'predator' while hunting in the forest.

she became aware that a weird visual “effect” was moving rightward across her field of view at an apparent distance of maybe fifteen to twenty feet.  She described it as if looking through "saran wrap."  Perhaps a more apt comparison would be like looking at a mirage above a hot road.  She compared this distortion of the scene as being somewhat like the effect of the invisible creature in the PREDATOR movie! 

I never met Jan, because she and Bruce didn't get together until after I was already in California. This posting has since been removed from Bruce's website. It is discussed on Reddit here. 

Even more bizarre, in 2022 a video was posted (also since removed) of Bruce Maccabee (apparently assisted by his wife) offering to sell an original copy of the Patterson Bigfoot film. 

Daniel Perez reported in the March 2023 edition of Bigfoot Times that 80 year old Dr. Bruce Maccabee in Ohio is selling a first generation copy that he acquired from Eric Beckjord. In this article, Daniel says that according to Patricia Patterson, she lent Eric the film to make copies but he returned one of those copies to her instead of the original. Sounds like the ownership of it is going to be the subject of a legal dispute. Asking price, $16 million.

The film reportedly showed never-before-seen details at the end, apparently involving a "littlefoot". The voice of the man I heard on the video promoting it was nothing like the feisty Bruce Maccabee I used to know. He sounded hesitant and mentally confused, which is not uncommon for an 80-year-old man. Perhaps somebody saved a copy of the video so we can see it?  I knew Beckjord, who died in 2008. I am not aware of him  claiming to possess the original Patterson Bigfoot film (a film he studied to death and practically worshiped), but frankly this shenanigan does indeed sound like something that Beckjord would do. And I do remember Beckjord turning up in Silver Spring, talking with Bruce and Phil and I. So I don't know what the end of that story is, and who removed the video promoting it.

Disclosure Warriors Uncover a Vast UFO Coverup Conspiracy: Guerrilla Skeptics on Wikipedia!

We have just recently witnessed one of the funniest episodes of UFOlogical stupidity in recent memory: Some of UFO's top Disclosure Warriors dramatically announce they have uncovered a "secret cabal" manipulating Wikipedia articles about UFOs. Matt Ford of the Good Trouble Show posted this dramatic announcement on TwitX on January 21:

 

This was followed up the next day by the following:

TODAY 530pm Pacific. @RobHeatherly1
joins us as he exposes the Secret Cabal of debunker Wikipedia Editors run by a non-profit 501(c)3 targeting Wikipedia pages on UFOs with a written statement by @LueElizondo

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So there we have it - these Disclosure Warriors, including the esteemed Lue Elizondo himself, dramatically announce to official Washington, and  to the world, that they have uncovered a major "Cabal"  covering up UFO truth! So dramatic!!! Elizondo claims to have headed up the Pentagon's AATIP UFO investigation program, which unfortunately never had any budget. He later worked with Tom DeLonge, who promised to build spacecraft that would go "To The Stars." Here is what Lue had to say about GSoW:

Guerrilla Wikipedians must be good saucer pilots, since they are "wreckless."

The only problem is: this is a "Cabal" that was never "secret" in the first place! Guerrilla Skeptics on Wikipedia (GSoW), headed up by skeptic Susan Gerbic, has been around since 2010. I wrote about it in this Blog in 2012, and again in 2013. It was the subject of a major article in Wired magazine in 2018, among other places. So anyone who thinks they have uncovered a "Wikipedia secret cabal" has the investigative skills not of a Sherlock Holmes, but of a Mr. Magoo. Here is a video from 2020 of Susan explaining what GSoW is all about. 

 

Disclosure: Technically I am a member of GSoW, although I have not participated in it very much. I did add some info to a few pages, and I have uploaded a number of my photos to Wikimedia Commons that might have relevance to UFO history.

 

 

 

Susan Gerbic, with her camera as always, making friends with the Dinosaur in the Creation Museum in Santee, California in 2012.

 

These UFO warriors seem to think that the skeptical Wikipedians are just arbitrarily changing article texts, and creating misleading articles. What they don't seem to understand is that Wikipedia has rules. You need to have citations, you also need to avoid copyright infringements, self-promotion, etc:

To maintain the highest standards possible, Wikipedia has a strict inclusion policy that demands verifiability. This is best established by attributing each statement in Wikipedia to a reliable, published source (but see Rules 7 and 8 on excessive self-citing).... All articles in Wikipedia should be impartial in tone and content. When writing, do state facts and facts about notable opinions, but do not offer your opinion as fact. Many newcomers to Wikipedia gravitate to articles on controversial issues about which people hold strong opposing viewpoints.

There is a "talk" page for many articles, to discuss or debate the application of these rules to the contents of that page. These sometimes turn into big debates for controversial articles, so if you have a problem with something you read in a Wikipedia article and want to change it, you'd better be able to solidly back up your claim. Given many UFOlogists' propensity for making exciting but unfounded claims, it is frankly no surprise that the articles they write would run afoul of Wikipedia rules, and end up removed or re-written.

 

Meanwhile, for any UFOlogist who believes that GSoW has been inaccurate or unfair in what it wrote in a Wikipedia article - then challenge them on the article's Talk page. If you can make a good case that they are not correct, it will get changed, and the change will remain. Plus, you can brag to all your friends about how you defeated the nasty Debunkers on Wikipedia.  But I don't see this happening, and I think we can figure out why. 😉

 

 

The Strange Life and Death (?) of Al Seckel (Part 2)

(Continued from Part 1)

Seckel was enjoying a lot of success posturing as an “expert,” or at least as a “collector,” of illusions, primarily visual. He spoke before many audiences, wrote (or plagiarized) articles and books, and traveled across the globe to share his presentations. Many of the illusions Seckel presented were invented by the magician Jerry Andrus (1918 – 2007). Andrus was a well-known and well-loved figure in the skeptic community, as well as with magicians, and often spoke at skeptic conferences. I learned that, following Andrus' death, Seckel's Eye Wonder wanted to buy the rights to all of Andrus' illusions and other works. I recommended against it.

In 2004 Seckel was invited to give a TED talk on visual illusions. His Bio calls him an “expert on illusions.” It notes,

"A previous version of this biography described Seckel as a "cognitive neuroscientist," which was not accurate".

However, Seckel’s 2010 TEDxSCS talk “[Y]Our Mind's Eye” describes him as “Cognitive neuroscientist Al Seckel, formerly of the California Institute of Technology.”

Denice Lewis, 1988

 

 

After two divorces, in June, 2004 Seckel married Denice D. Lewis, who was reportedly "Europe's highest paid catwalk model" for over a decade. They move into a custom home in Malibu that rented for $13,500 a month. She files for divorce just four months later. (Probably he told her “I’m a scientist” and “I’m rich,” both of which were false.)     

Seckel successfully postures not only as an “expert” on illusions, but also as a futurist and visionary, giving many talks. His financial status was always rather dodgy, but he somehow managed to keep borrowing enough from Peter to pay Paul.  

 

Al Seckel and Isabel Maxwell speak at the
World Economic Forum (WEF), 2011

In 2007 Seckel married Isabel Maxwell, daughter of the late billionaire fraudster Robert Maxwell, and sister to Ghislaine Maxwell. She had many connections in the world of high tech.

In January, 2011 Seckel organized a “Mindshift Conference” on Jeffrey Epstein’s infamous private island. The participants were Murray Gell-Mann, Christof Koch, Catherine Mohr, Gerald Sussman, Frances Arnold, Leonard Mlodinow, Paul Kirkaas, Brock Pierce, Ron Reisman, Pablos Holman, Dan Dubno, and Reichart Von Wolfsheild. Isabel was there with him.

"Jeffrey Epstein and Al Seckel have assembled a diverse and eclectic intimate group of exceptional thinkers and achievers to discuss various topics...."

Sometime around 2010, Seckel and Isabel moved permanently to France, living for a while in a Chateau that was owned by a friend, and moving around to other places. Seckel and Isabel  repeatedly use the excuse that they are "destitute" to avoid traveling to the US for court depositions and hearings involving their bankruptcy filings and other ongoing court cases.

Al Seckel & family join Stephen Hawking
for a Zero-G flight.

Seckel had been suing skeptic Tom McIver for "libel," i.e., revealing some of Seckel's frauds and impostures. In 2013 McIver contacted journalist Mark Oppenheimer, who had interviewed Seckel a few times previously concerning atheism, humanism, etc., and had attended some of Seckel's parties. In 2000 the interview was for an article on atheist history. Seckel was one of the early officers of Atheists United in Los Angeles, which is still active today. Seckel was with that group when it broke off from the atheist group founded by Madelyn Murray O’Hair, who was very much a control freak.

McIver suggested that Oppenheimer interview Seckel again, to look into the many accusations of financial impropriety. Seckel apparently did not like the questions that Oppenhiemer was asking, and the article's October, 2014 publication was cancelled because of legal threats from Seckel. Seckel realized that Oppenheimer would not be writing a puff piece (like most journalists nowadays do), and cut off all contact with him.

The Article that Ended Seckel's Career as a Con-Man, and Perhaps his Life. (July 20, 2015)

Finally, On July 20, 2015: Tablet online magazine publishes Mark Oppenheimer's article on Seckel, "The Illusionist."  Tom McIver describes the significance of this article:

Article focuses on Seckel’s obsession with befriending, socializing with, and gaining the confidence of celebrities and powerful and influential people in science, academia, entertainment, media, and the entrepreneurial world, often hosting them at his eclectic parties.  Among his guests not mentioned elsewhere on this timeline: biologist David Baltimore (Nobelist, Caltech president), billionaire Elon Musk (PayPal, Tesla Motors, SpaceX), actress Sharon Stone, and musician Slash.  Mentions that Gell-Mann, Koch, and Shimojo no longer endorse Seckel, and that Pearce Williams' wife was pleased he has been exposed as owing money to them.  Also mentions that it is "remarkably easy to find people who believe Seckel took their money," naming several. Quotes Gerald Sussman as saying "I don't feel good about it" when asked if he'd given money to Seckel, implying he had.  Mentions that Seckel now trying to sell Robert Maxwell's papers, without success.  Includes quote from Denice Lewis that their divorce was never finalized (and Seckel denying they had been officially married). Notes that Seckel's attorney in Seckel v. McIver (Nicholas Hornberger) admitted that Seckel never paid his legal fees.

After publication of the Oppenheimer article, Seckel’s career as a wheeler and dealer among the rich and famous would be over. After reading this account of one person after another complaining that Seckel had cheated them of significant sums of money, no serious person would ever again enter into a business deal with Al Seckel.

The Oppenheimer article dropped an even bigger bombshell – Denice Lewis told him that she and Seckel were still legally married! Their divorce was never finalized. Therefore, Seckel’s marriage to Isabel Maxwell was never valid, a fact she apparently did not know until then. You can imagine how she reacted to this!

The world didn’t hear much about Seckel for a while after this. Then suddenly on Sept. 19, 2015, a memorial website appears for Seckel, saying

Al Paul Seckel, who died at the age of 57 near his home in France, is best known for helping to make optical illusions a household name throughout the world.

No time or place of death, or cause of death, is given in this anonymous announcement. Who wrote it? Isabel? Possibly even Seckel himself? Seckel’s alleged death was noted in various internet postings, but not in any actual news reports. As time passed, the paucity of details on the fate of Al Seckel became widely noted and remarked upon. No death certificate was ever presented, even to this day (and many people tried to find it). It was widely speculated that Seckel did not die but went into hiding, perhaps with the assistance of Epstein’s circle. But apart from rumors, there was no evidence whether Seckel was alive, or dead.

Then, finally on April 14, 2022 the Daily Mail headline blared,

EXCLUSIVE: 'A hand and a foot were missing, probably eaten by wild boars.' Mysterious death of Ghislaine Maxwell's con-man brother-in-law is finally declared a suicide SEVEN YEARS after he jumped to his death from a 100-ft. cliff in France
Al Seckel's disappearance in 2015 has finally been solved – he flung himself off a high cliff outside a picturesque French village
Seckel claimed to be the husband of Ghislaine Maxwell's older sister Isabel, but in fact he had not divorced his third wife
It was originally believed that he might have faked his own death when a major expose about how he conned buyers of rare books was about to be published
His body lay unnoticed for weeks before it was finally found on July 1, 2015
'It was the smell of putrefaction that eventually led to the corpse,' former deputy mayor Roland Garreau told DailyMail.com.
 'A hand and a foot were missing, probably eaten by wild boars or foxes,' Garreau told DailyMail.com
By RORY MULHOLLAND IN SAINT-CIRQ-LAPOPIE, FRANCE, FOR DAILYMAIL.COM

PUBLISHED: 10:52 EDT, 14 April 2022 | UPDATED: 10:52 EDT, 14 April 2022

Seckel eaten by pigs? Maybe I do believe in Karma.

 

But this is the only news source to offer any information about Seckel’s fate. The article contains what it calls Seckel’s “death certificate,” but it actually appears to be a statement from the Mayor’s office, partially handwritten, based on a police report. It is not a formal certificate as is found in vital records.

At present I would say that the “preponderance of evidence” suggests that Seckel probably did die in France in 2015, but I wouldn’t say that it is established “beyond a reasonable doubt.” On the one hand, it is entirely reasonable to think that a person who has just suffered a devastating , irreparable setback might become suicidal.On the other hand, remember that Seckel's reported death was inexplicably kept secret for two months, then reported anonymously. There is also the lack of a formal death certificate. When dealing with the likes of Jeffrey Epstein, Al Seckel, and the Maxwells, it is reasonable to believe that somebody might have gone to a lot of trouble to deceive you.

During the 2021 trial in New York City which found Ghislaine Maxwell guilty of sex trafficking and other charges, Ghislaine's sister Isabel was seen, faithfully attending every session and supporting her sister in every way.

I’m wondering when we will see a Netflix documentary series about Seckel, maybe “The Great Illusionist?”

Isabel Maxwell arrives at her sister's trial, 2021.

(End)

[Much of the material used in this report is drawn from Tom McIver’s exhaustive "Seckel" compendium]

The Strange Life and Death (?) of Al Seckel (Part 1)

This article veers just a bit from our usual dose of UFOlogy to talk about a man who was both a skeptical activist and a con-man, whose exploits sound like the script of an implausible movie – except it all really happened. Al Seckel was (or perhaps still is?) a very strange and interesting character. He founded the Southern California Skeptics in 1985, as a local affiliate of CSICOP (Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal, now just “CSI”). He claimed to be a “physicist,” sometimes a “cognitive neuroscientist,” but never completed even a year of college. He claimed to be a graduate student working on a PhD in physics (and History of Science) at Cal Tech in Pasadena, but had actually just been ‘hanging around’ there (during which time he became friends with the famous physicist Richard Feynman, and arranged lectures for the Southern California Skeptics at Cal Tech). Soon accusations of financial improprieties were swirling around Seckel, although CSICOP didn’t pay much attention, and reflexively defended ‘their guy’ from attacks. The attacks mostly came from critics of CSICOP - Erik Beckjord, James Moseley, George Hansen - but in this case the critics were correct. When Seckel’s deceptions finally led to the collapse of the Southern California Skeptics, he disappeared from sight (supposedly because he was dying of leukemia, or else cancer). Seckel did actually have leukemia, although his illness didn’t occur until after SCS had already collapsed. He later made a complete recovery.

Seckel surfaced again a few years later as a TED talker and a famous scholar of optical illusions, writing (and sometimes plagiarizing) books and articles, again claiming bogus degrees and affiliations. He rubbed shoulders with many famous people, and after two divorces Seckel (somehow!) married supermodel Denice D. Lewis, who previously had dated George Hamilton, Dodi Fayed, and Pierce Brosnan, among others. (The marriage only lasted a few months.) Later Seckel married Isabel Maxwell, the daughter of the billionaire media mogul (and disgraced fraudster) Robert Maxwell, who has a more famous sister named Ghislaine. Seckel became an associate of the notorious sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, in 2011 organizing a science-related conference on Epstein’s (in)famous private island (although no sexual improprieties have been alleged concerning this conference). About 2011 Seckel and Isabel moved from California to France, apparently to better escape creditors and avoid testifying for their pending bankruptcy. Then in September, 2015, Isabel publicly announces that her husband Al Seckel was dead, having fallen off a cliff in France two months earlier. (Why she would wait two months to announce his death has never been explained.) However, no documentary evidence of Seckel’s reported death was then produced – although we may have something like that now.

From Jeffrey Epstein's Website

And that, in a nutshell, is the crazy story of Al Seckel. Skeptic Tom McIver, who had been sued and harassed by Seckel’s lawyers for exposing Seckel’s frauds, maintains a complete chronology of Seckel-related events at https://undeceive.weebly.com/, from which much of this information is taken.

I first met Al Seckel at the 1984 CSICOP Conference, held at Stanford University. He was then an enthusiastic young man of twenty-six, claiming to be a graduate student in “physics” and “history of science” at Cal Tech. He sought me out because I had been a co-founder of the Bay Area Skeptics (along with magician Bob Steiner) just two years earlier. Seckel explained that he was in the process of founding a similar group in Southern California, and wanted to discuss our experiences, and get my advice. Soon afterward, he invited me to come down to Pasadena (I was then living in San Jose) to deliver the very first lecture for Southern California Skeptics, held at Baxter Auditorium on the Cal Tech campus in Pasadena. To motivate me, Seckel told me that his friend Richard Feynman was very interested in hearing what I had to say about UFOs! I certainly could not turn down such an opportunity. My talk was well-received, but there was no sign of Feynman. Oh, something came up, Feynman couldn’t make it, Seckel said.

The flyer Seckel made to promote my inaugural talk for the Southern California Skeptics

On a later trip that I made to Los Angeles, I visited Seckel in his home, in Pasadena or thereabouts. It looked ordinary from the outside. However, the inside was filled with a dazzling assortment of valuable antiques. Not 1920s furniture, or anything like that. Instead, furniture pieces that were apparently hundreds of years old, looking like they were imported from castles and estates in Europe. I had not seen anything like that before (or since!). Seckel explained that he was an antiques broker, buying and selling such pieces for clients. Of course I was impressed.  Later it turned out that Seckel was embroiled in many lawsuits concerning ownership of these valuable antiques.

I was among the many people plagiarized by Seckel. I wrote an account of a "clever dog" tested by the Bay Area Skeptics, published in their July, 1987 newsletter.  "Clever animals" - a horse, or a dog - can supposedly do arithmetic and answer questions far beyond the mental ability of any animal. But invariably, they can only perform when in sight of their trainer, as we found was the case with the Clever Dog Sunny. Seckel called me, saying he wanted to use that story in the newspaper column he was than writing for the Los Angeles Times. I agreed, but I had no idea that he was going to write me out of the story completely, presenting it as his own (which was impossible, since he was not there). Seckel also appears to have appropriated a story from James "The Amazing" Randi, published without attribution. I also understand that Seckel swindled Randi out of a sum of money, although I never inquired about the details.

One of Seckel's articles in CSICOP's Skeptical Inquirer. He claimed credit for organizing this statement of Nobel Laureates.

 

For several years Southern California Skeptics (SCS) seemed to be a big success story, and CSICOP gladly trumpeted Seckel’s apparent successes. Seckel publicly debated creationist Duane Gish, and claimed to have soundly boxed his ears. He claimed to be the inventor (later, claimed co-inventor) of the Darwin Fish (like the Christian fish symbol, but sprouting legs). But soon problems became evident. In December, 1987 the State of California revoked SCS’s nonprofit status because Seckel had failed to file the required financial forms. Nonetheless, Seckel continued to represent SCS as a “nonprofit” organization for years. SCS’s checks bounced, and money disappeared. Pat Linse (1947-2021) was a volunteer with SCS, later working as an artist and editor for Skeptic magazine. She warned CSICOP about Seckel’s shenanigans, but was largely ignored. After SCS had collapsed in 1990, two years later Michael Shermer founded the Skeptics Society, based at that time in Pasadena, and bringing in many of the same people who had been part of SCS, even continuing the monthly lectures in Baxter Hall originally organized by Seckel. However, by this time Seckel had moved on from skeptics’ organizations, finding bigger fish to fry. Seckel had nothing to do with Skeptic magazine or with Shermer, who has always run the Skeptics Society as a proper organization.

Soon, Seckel had re-branded himself as the “world’s leading authority on visual and other types of sensory illusions”, claiming, at various times, academic affiliations with Cal Tech, or Harvard. He founded IllusionWorks, and later EyeWonder publishing. During his career as an expert on visual illusions, Seckel wrote (or plagiarized) many articles and books, gave many lectures, and rubbed shoulders with the rich and famous, including Murray Gell-Mann, Marvin Minsky, Nathan Myhrvold, Larry Page, Arno Penzias, Steve Wozniak, Stephen Hawking, Matt Groening, Mike Farrell, Arianna Huffington, Paul MacCready, Burt Rutan, Craig Venter, Richard Branson, Robin Williams, Sergey Brin, Peter Diamandis, James Cameron, among others.

Famous guests at a party in Seckel's home

About this gathering in his home, Seckel wrote,

This was one of the great intellectual gatherings that I held in my home in Pasadena in the 80s. In the back row (starting from the left) was the distinguished microbiologist Dr. Elie Shneour, then Manny Delbruck (wife of Max Delbruck, the "father of molecular biology") and noted comedian and former late night television host Steve Allen. Bottom: Legendary engineer Paul Macready, myself, Nobel Laureate Francis Crick (co-discoverer of the structure of DNA) and my friend John Edwards.

I knew Elie Shneour (1925-2015) from skeptic meetings in San Diego and elsewhere. He was obviously a very brilliant man. Yet he defended Seckel’s reputation until his death. And he was not the only one – several other skeptics have somehow continued to defended Seckel’s reputation. The Dean of UFO skeptics, Philip J. Klass, defended Seckel almost reflexively, until finally admitting in 1994 that Seckel had lied about his academic background. Michael Shermer had written to Klass, "If I never hear from him or about him again it will be too soon. I have never met anyone who can evoke such venom from so many people. A week does not go by that someone doesn't tell me another horrible Seckel story."

Seckel leased a Ferrari (but ended up owing $70,000, which was never paid). He rented expensive houses in Pasadena, Malibu and elsewhere, and ending up owing $100,000 for the one in Malibu. The list of people suing Seckel for non-payment was quite long. One of Seckel’s biggest legal battles was with Ensign Consulting Ltd., in which an investment fund claims it was conned by a self-described "master illusionist" who persuaded it to invest in rare books and art—including a portrait of Sir Isaac Newton—and then absconded with more than $543,000 and a bunch of the loot.

[Continued in Part 2]