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Richard C. Hoagland
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Richard C. Hoagland (born April 25, 1945) is the operator of www.enterprisemission.com. He appears on late-night talk radio to discuss his opinions on alleged US government cover-ups of alien civilizations and other space-related topics. At age 19, he was briefly the curator of a small science museum in Springfield Massachusetts, despite having no education or training for such a position.
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Richard C. Hoagland (born April 25, 1945) is the operator of www.enterprisemission.com. He appears on late-night talk radio to discuss his opinions on alleged US government cover-ups of alien civilizations and other space-related topics. At age 19, he was briefly the curator of a small science museum in Springfield Massachusetts, despite having no education or training for such a position. He was a former science advisor to CBS News during the Apollo Missions to the Moon, despite having no education or training in science.
His writings claim that advanced civilizations exist or once existed on the moon, Mars and on some of the moons of Jupiter and Saturn, and that NASA and the United States government have conspired to keep these facts secret. His opinions have never been published in peer-reviewed journals. He has published two books, several videotapes, lectures, documentaries and interviews, and press conferences.Gaithersburg, Maryland, 04/16/04 http://www.paradigmresearchgroup.org/X-Conference2004/press_releases.htm
Washington DC, 03/21/96 http://www.v-j-enterprises.com/hoagnews.html He has submitted material to a NASA-sponsored public interest outreach.
Career
Hoagland served as a curator of astronomy & space science at the Springfield Museum of Science, located at The Quadrangle in Springfield, Massachusetts, and was a consultant to CBS News during the Apollo program.
Hoagland also co-produced with WTIC (AM) a Peabody Award-nominated radio program, A Night of Encounter, covering the July 14, 1965, Mariner 4 flyby of the planet Mars. However, the official Peabody Awards entry form (51-65R) lists only Charles Renaud as the producer of the program. WTIC announcer Dick Bertel hosted the program and interviewed Hoagland, and the program also featured a conversation between Hoagland and astronomer Dr. Robert S. Richardson, associate director of the Griffith Observatory.
Hoagland has appeared often on Coast to Coast AM with George Noory as well as on CNN, the BBC, UFO Evidence & Conspiracy, and Mysteries in Space. Coast to Coast AM has given him the title of Science Adviser, despite his lack of science credentials.
In 1997, Hoagland received the Ig Nobel Award for Astronomy.
Claims
Hoagland has made numerous claims about the existence of intelligent extraterrestrial life which he supports with manipulated photographic evidence from planetary exploration.
Hoagland, along with Thomas E. Bearden, propose a form of physics that they call 'Hyperdimensional Physics', which they claim represents the full implementation of James Clerk Maxwell's equations, instead of the commonly understood versions of these equations as modified by Oliver Heaviside. A tenet of these views holds that vast amounts of energy originating from dimensions we cannot perceive are available at latitudes 19.5° both south and north on the sun and every planet in the solar system. Hoagland points to the colossal volcano, Olympus Mons, on Mars as the supreme example. The center of Olympus Mons is at 18.3°N 227°E.and the massive shield spans 16°N to 20°N, as shown in the photograph. Hyperdimensional physics is not taught in any recognized institution of learning anywhere in the world, and 19.5° energy on planet Earth has not yet been demonstrated.
During guest appearances on Coast to Coast AM With George Noory, Hoagland references longstanding friendships with scientists from NASA and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, managed by the California Institute of Technology, who according to Hoagland, provide him with inside information. However, on the radio show 21/22 August 2008, he clearly stated "we do not depend on sources."
Mars, Face on Mars, and Cydonia
Knowledge of conditions on Mars has improved immeasurably in the Space Age, starting with Mariner 4 in 1965 and continuing through 20 successful missions and three partial successes since then. (see the timeline of Mars exploration)
The consensus among professional planetary scientists on the question of life on Mars is that it is improbable. The question is open only to the extent that conditions in the distant past were more favorable to life, although the observed seasonal emissions of methane from below the surface of Mars are not inconsistent with some form of microbial life. The Viking biological experiments of 1976 were just sufficiently enigmatic to allow optimists to believe that, with better technology, Martian microbial life may yet be discovered. Macrobiology, in the form of city-building civilizations, is ruled out based on data from the resolution of the best orbital photography (0.3m, or about one foot, per pixel, from the HiRISE telescope on the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter), which has not revealed remnants of civilization, which at this resolution would be unmistakable. It is however, Hoagland's claim that this question remains open to debate until full disclosure can conclusively resolve apparent image anomolies.
Hoagland bases much of his argument on the image of the so-called Face on Mars that appears in a 1976 Viking Orbiter photograph taken of the Cydonia region on Mars.
He argues that this feature is an artificial structure built to resemble a face. According to Hoagland, this structure is part of a city built on Cydonia Planitia by extraterrestrial intelligences consisting of very large pyramids and mounds arranged in a geometrical pattern, with the ratios between measured angles roughly equaling mathematical constants like pi, e, the square root of 2, and most importantly the ratio between the surface area of a sphere and that of a tetrahedron inscribed within it, 2.720699.
To Hoagland, this is evidence that an advanced civilization existed on Mars and that NASA is suppressing the evidence for reasons explained in a Brookings Institution report entitled Proposed Studies on the Implications of Peaceful Space Activities for Human Affairs, specifically on page 216 of the report which raised the question of whether evidence of extraterrestrial life found in the solar system should be withheld from the public. It is a possibility that such information would destabilize society.
Hoagland also speculates that the ancient Martians may have escaped to Earth and genetically engineered certain human populations, referencing the Mesopotamian myths of the Annunaki and the fallen angels of the Old Testament. The inference he draws, like Zacharia Sitchin et al, is that these human populations may be the genetically engineered children of ancient Martians.
On April 5 1998, the Mars Global Surveyor probe sent back better images of the Cydonia region that indicated that the face was an irregularly shaped mountain. Hoagland contends these images were run through multiple filters that degraded the original image in quality, giving it a catbox appearance which obscures what is really on Mars.
When, on April 8 2001, enhanced images showed that the feature was not symmetrical, he wrote that the face is actually half hominid (left side) and half feline (right side).
On September 21 2006, several new 3D views derived from the high-resolution stereo camera on the European Space Agency's Mars Express orbiter. In response to their publication Hoagland remarked "Science is not about what you can see. It's about what you can measure,". Mike Bara, Hoagland's co-author, has accused the European Space Agency, which released that photo set, of fraud.
The image from the HiRISE camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, released in April 2007, was so detailed that even Hoagland appears to have abandoned his contention that the whole structure is a face. In the epilogue to his book released the following October, he analyzes instead the details of the face mesa within the MRO frame that he says are "obviously collapsed geometric ruins (with) parallel walls, multiple, 3-D planes, twisted beams, and thin girders."
Other claims:
- Rocks on Mars containing biological fossils were purposely destroyed by NASA's rover MER-B ("Opportunity").
- The true color of Mars is salmon red with patches of greenish plant life and a light blue sky.
- (Adapted with acknowledgment from the late Tom Van Flandern) Mars was once the moon of a larger planet, that then exploded, leaving Mars isolated.
- The advanced civilization on Mars had prior warning of the cataclysm and so escaped via migration to planet Earth, eventually adapting to the environment and becoming the present human race.
- Numerous objects surrounding the landing sites of the Mars Exploration Rovers are in fact pieces of Martian machinery.
Life on Europa
Hoagland claims the theory concerning the presence of oceans, and possibly life, under the surface of Jupiter's moon Europa, originated in an article he published in the January 1980 issue of Star & Sky magazine,. This claim is disputed by Ralph Greenberg, a professor of Mathematics at the University of Washington, who asserts that such theories were widely known in the 1970s, pointing out that Isaac Asimov, for example, promoted them in his 1979 book Extraterrestrial Civilizations. Hoagland himself references the work of "Cassen, Peale, and Reynolds" in the article. Their computer modeling work looked at the possibility that tidal heating could maintain an ocean beneath the icy surface. Other work on the subject, including speculation concerning life, had been published throughout the 1970s, going as far back as 1971.
The Moon
The consensus among scientists who study the moon is that it is, and has always been, lifeless. Although a certain quantity of water ice was detected by the Clementine mission of 1994 in high-latitude craters, selenologists are fairly certain that there is not sufficient water to support microbial life. Macrobiology, such as a technology-building civilization, is, by this widely accepted view, out of the question. No trace of biology has ever been detected in the moon rocks available for study on Earth.
Richard Hoagland rejects this entire body of work, and promotes the following alternative ideas:
- There are large semitransparent structures constructed of glass on the lunar surface, visible in some Apollo photography when the images are manipulated.
- NASA is suppressing knowledge of an ancient civilization on the Moon. The advanced technology of this civilization is lying around on the Moon's surface.
- The 12 moon-walkers, who would be well qualified to confirm the existence of lunar artifacts and glass structures, have had their memories selectively edited so that they no longer remember seeing evidence of a lunar civilization.
- A feature in an image of the lunar surface, mistakenly believed by professional planetary scientists to be a rock formation, is actually the severed head of a robot.
U.S. government conspiracy
- The United States government has covered up the presence of extraterrestrials. In this he has support from ex-Pentagon official Colonel Philip J. Corso, as detailed in his book The Day After Roswell
- The Space Agency murdered the Apollo 1 astronauts.
- NASA missions to Mars are a "well documented interest of the Bush family."
- There is a clandestine space program, using antigravity technology reverse-engineered from lunar artifacts and communicated by secret societies. The capabilities of this technology include causing comets to explode.
- President John F. Kennedy was assassinated by an agency or agencies bitterly opposed to his stated policy of inviting Khruschev to create a joint U.S.—Soviet manned lunar effort.
- Federal agencies such as FEMA and NASA are linked to Freemasonry.
Other claims
- Hoagland has asserted that he was the "co-creator" of the Pioneer 10 plaque along with Eric Burgess; however, according to accounts by Burgess and others, Hoagland was simply present when Burgess made the suggestion to Carl Sagan that Pioneer 10 carry some type of message to the stars. The design and execution of the message was done by Sagan and others.
- The Saturnian moon Iapetus is an artificial world. Hoagland speculated that Iapetus might be a fully or partially artificially constructed world by an ancient (and likely long-gone) extraterrestrial civilization. His conjecture relies on the moon's equatorial ridge, his perception of a geodesic shape (a moon of Iapetus's size ought to be compressed into an approximately spherical or ellipsoid form under pressures generated by its own gravity), and his claims of rectangular or linear structures in a close examination of surface features. (See JPEG Compression Artifacts) This was an expansion of the 1980 theory of Donald Goldsmith and Tobias Owen, who suggested that the striking bicoloration of Iapetus might be the result of alien modification of a natural object.
- The Galileo spacecraft, which burnt up in Jupiter's atmosphere, caused a mysterious black spot due to its nuclear payload
- The Arecibo message was intentionally altered by author Carl Sagan.
- The 9/11 attacks were part of a pseudo-Masonic conspiracy.
- On December 9, 2007, Hoagland wrote that the vexatious problems NASA was then having with the “ECO” low-fuel sensors in the space shuttle main fuel tank were due to what he called “Torsion Physics” and would never be resolved by conventional engineering. On February 7, 2008, STS-122 launched successfully. In the postlaunch press conference mission managers reported that the ECO sensors had performed flawlessly. The problem had been traced to an external tank feed-through connector—and corrected using perfectly conventional engineering. The mission ended, as planned, on February 20—and was called a complete success. Hoagland offered no apology for his error.
- Orbital parameters of spin-stabilized satellites are influenced by an anti-gravity field in addition to the energy imparted by their launch rockets. Despite the fact that many such satellites have been successfully launched into their planned orbits, the anti-gravity effect was kept secret for fifty years until revealed by Hoagland in August 2008.
Responses by scientists
- Astronomer Phil Plait described Hoagland as a "pseudoscientist" and his claims as "ridiculous."
- In 2002, Ralph Greenberg, Professor of Mathematics at University of Washington, Seattle, wrote a paper asserting that the logic of Hoagland's deductions from the geometry of Cydonia Mensae is flawed.
- In 1995 Malin Space Science Systems, NASA prime contractor for planetary imaging, published a paper critiquing claims that the 'city' at Cydonia is artificial, the claimed mathematical relationships, and — very specifically — denying any claims about concealing questionable data from the public.
- The claim that the Galileo Probe caused a "mysterious black spot" has since been disputed by both NASA and professional Astronomer Dr. Phil Plait. There is photographic evidence that a similar "black spot" was present in imagery of Jupiter taken in 1998. A second image referenced by Plait shows a dark ring which looks similar to the spot Hoagland cited.
Publications
External links
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