Well, I’ve had my first truly “combative” interview with a reporter. In all the 10 years of media coverage I’ve never had an interview where the reporter assumed the most negative motive for any apparent error he uncovered in my book. Instead of telling me I had a made a mistake, Tom Mangold hurled the question: “Wasn’t that dishonest of you . . .? On page 48 of my book Into the Bermuda Triangle, I had written: “On September 6, 2002, while in contact with Nassau Control, the pilot of Pawnee N59684 was reporting himself en route from Fort Lauderdale to St. Croix. Suddenly, his voice stopped. The radarscope revealed that his “blip,” which had shown he was just 20 miles southeast, was now gone.”
September 2002 was just 2 months before Tris Coburn at McGraw-Hill accepted my manuscript. Apparently, I had relied on the Preliminary Report back before a full Factual Report was available. Sometimes data changes after the initial investigation by NTSB personnel. It turns out that the Pawnee was merely “signed off” from Nassau control at that point and continued south. Somewhere thereafter it vanished before it overflew Providenciales.
But Mangold’s implication was that any mistake I made was intentional dishonesty on my part. Questions were hurled at me asking me if I was aware that John Hutchison’s work was exposed; that Rudman’s work has been exposed (Human Growth Hormone & Quantum longevity). Heuvelmans believed in the Minnesota iceman. “Do you believe in sea serpents?” Dogma was also expressed on his part that the Pawnee was “an accident waiting to happen.” For Star Tiger and Star Ariel the logic to explain their disappearances was that metal sinks, sharks eat bodies. The prosaic guess appears to negate mystery.
Personally, I think Mangold’s combative stance was inspired by a desire to see if I was honest or not; and his initial doubt, I feel, was based on the belief that there was gold to be made in the Triangle. He had actually been surprised that this website costs me money (51 bucks per month) and that I had never made money on the topic, even when considering I had a book published. (He must assume all authors get great deals). Researching the Triangle costs heavily, not just in documents but in travel and time. Documents alone can cost, in one example, 500 bucks (The papers on the U.S.S. Cyclops), and travel to and within the Triangle can costs thousands each time.
But “gold” in the Triangle tells me one thing: the actual source of Mangold’s misapprehension. I have known about an article by Joe Nickell at CSICOP online in which he says I’m “mystery mongering.” It is the standard stance of the professional debunker to accuse others of profiteering or sensationalizing to hoodwink the unsuspecting, especially when they have no evidence to dispute your work. This in itself became an enormously profitable formula about 25 years ago. In fact, were it not for his reference to John Hutchison and me, there is nothing in Nickell’s article that does not suggest it is stuck in time. He uses my name, but ignores the entire body of my work. In his brief overview of the Triangle, Nickell merely lauds Larry Kusche’s old and error-filled 1975 book and uses it to counter Triangle cases the way Berlitz and Gaddis wrote about them 35 to 45 years ago. For instance:
“Take, for example, the case of a vanished tanker. In early February 1963, the S.S. Marine Sulphur Queen, a 523-foot [actually 504 foot] tanker on a voyage from Texas to Virginia, disappeared. Its last message was a routine one [incorrect: a crewman was speculating in stock options] on February 4 as it approached the Straits of Florida. Four days later, when it was a day overdue at Norfolk, officials launched a sea and air search but found neither the tanker nor any of its crew of thirty-nine. Two life preservers were all that were found, according to Charles Berlitz in his bestselling The Bermuda Triangle Mystery (1974, 56–57) [actual title The Bermuda Triangle: a saga of unexplained disappearances] , who adds that “the weather was good,” and a Coast Guard investigation offered “neither solution nor theory concerning this disaster.”
In fact, as the Coast Guard Board of Investigation report made clear, there were “rough seas” and the ship had structural flaws [this was considered; not made clear] caused by the removal of bulkheads to accommodate large storage vats. These held the ship’s cargo, some fifteen thousand tons of molten sulphur, either the fumes or steam from which offered the possibility of an explosion. This possibility is underscored by the fact that during prior voyages, tons of molten sulphur had leaked into the tanker’s bilges. Besides the life preservers, much “additional debris” [not much, a couple of life rings, life jackets, a fog horn, etc.] was recovered, including part of a name board bearing the letters “ARINE SULPH” between its shattered ends. Thus, as investigation demonstrated, the Marine Sulphur Queen’s fate was not a mysterious disappearance but obviously a tragic accident instead (Kusche 1975, 206–216, illustrations pp. 166–167).
Nickell’s spin is much different from the actual report. Page 26: Conclusion 1 “The Marine Sulphur Queen disappeared on a voyage which commenced on 2 February . . .” Conclusion 10. Although an explosion of the gases in one of the cargo tanks cannot be discounted, it would appear that such an explosion, if it occurred, would not be of sufficient destructive force to account for the complete loss of the vessel without the intervention of other causes, perhaps, resulting from the initial explosion. It seems to be a generally accepted fact that an explosion of these gases is, relatively speaking, and dependent upon other factors of quantity and space, not of a high order. This view is supported by the explosion which occurred on board a foreign flag T-2 type tanker converted to carry molten sulphur. In this case, despite a much larger air space, the explosion merely distorted the cargo tank without rupturing it. A consideration of other causes which may have been set in motion by a possible explosion of the gases is purely conjectural . . .
12. The Board has extensively considered the possibility that the casualty of the vessel was caused by a complete longitudinal failure of the vessel’s hull girder causing it to break in two. . . .13 As a result of the conversion, the center vertical keel of the Marine Sulphur Queen was cut down more than half its original height and deck centerline girder was cut down slightly less than half it original height in the way of he cargo tanks . . .14 On the other hand, the cutting down of the center vertical keel and the centerline deck girder was compensated for by adding substantial flange plates to these members and also by the construction of the cargo tank and its foundation. . . .It is also to be noted that during conversion all the longitudinal deck girders in the way of the center tanks and many of the girders in the way of the tanks were renewed. 24. . . .The inability to definitely establish the cause of these known fires in the void spaces very cogently demonstrates the lack of complete and reliable information concerning the properties of molten sulphur.
The MSQ might have blown up, might have split in two or something else may have happened. It vanished and did not leave enough evidence behind to say what happened. The life rings and jackets, curiously, showed no signs of fire or sulphur. That is the nature of mystery, and the MSQ remains such to this day. Disappearance does not preclude it being a terrible accident; but in fact the vessel vanished and the Marine Board of Investigation was very cautious in dealing with theories. And, yes, like the other disappearances, it remains a terrible tragedy.
But why does Nickell rely on snippets of Berlitz’s 1974 account of the MSQ? Nickell is trying to slam me, is he not? But he never touches on my accounts. He merely condemns my book as “credulous,” as though, like he, I merely feed on topics when they become popular. Although my book has added over 100 cases (with the appropriate documentation), Nickell’s article presents no disappearance in advance of the old books in the 1970s. For the disappearance of Flight 19 Nickell misrepresents even Kusche. In The Disappearance of Flight 19, Kusche questions whether Taylor’s compasses were indeed malfunctioning.
Nickell clearly didn’t do any research, and Triangle research as I said is very tedious, time consuming, and costly. Basically Nickell takes me on without taking me on at all. He denigrates the Hutchison Effect and then scoffs at the words I use to describe it. His expertise here is based on his very limited involvement with a National Geographic documentary (the Owen Palmquist he mentions was the associate producer, not sole producer as Nickell implies). That is why for 2 years I’ve basically ignored the article. It is so sloppy I thought there little merit in doing so. But now it appears it has almost motivated legitimate press. Thus one has to put in order a few facts, which Nickell avoids.
Many people are aware at the attempts to discredit Hutchison. One, there was the filming of that “UFO” toy flopping around in his lab with a wire attached. Hutchison was recreating the HE for the Discovery Channel by linking an electric wire to it and sending a charge. He was condemned for hoaxing despite the fact it was a reenactment. Since 1991 he has not been allowed to reproduce the HE in Canada in the conditions in which he lives, as he has stated.
Most people who have followed alternative energy are aware of the scrutiny given Hutchison’s series of effects in the 1980s by scientists and military personnel. Included among them was Dr. George Hathaway and Colonel John Alexander. For 4 months Hathaway and other Sandia Lab scientists stayed with Hutchison and observed the results of his tests. They could tell they were quite real, but did not know exactly how the force fields the machines produced were creating the effects of levitation, fusion of dissimilar objects, and cold melting of metals. When I contacted George Hathaway before going to print he even admitted to me that he felt some of the effect was psycho-kinetic. To me that is way out, but scientists often go “way out” in speculation. It is one of the healthiest things about the sciences.
Since then mainstream science has considered the Hutchison Effects, but so far little progress has been made in independently replicating them. Dr. John Napier, at one time the primatologist at the Smithsonian Institute, tried to explain the real reason why science as an institution does not tackle some of the most perplexing mysteries of our time. In his book Bigfoot (1972) he poignantly wrote:
“But the truth of it is that scientists are simply not interested in investigating problems for which there is not sufficient evidence to justify launching an expensive time and energy consuming research project. There is no shortage of problems to tackle, and it is hardly surprising that scientists prefer to investigate the probable rather than beat their heads heads against the wall of the faintly possible. Their reluctant to become actively involved in such matters has no sinister overtones, reflects no fear of ridicule from their peers, but expresses a wholly practical attitude of mind— an attitude which, incidentally, most scientist are paid to pursue. Sir Peter Medawar, F.R.S, has summed up the situation (in a separate context, let me hasten to add) in supremely simple terms: ‘Good scientists study the most important problems that they think they can solve. It is, after all, their professional business to solve problems, not merely to grapple with them.’ However, while admitting to the aptness of Medawar’s definition of research when matters at the showy end of the scientific scale like Bigfoot (or U.F.O.s, for that matter) are at issue, I am disturbed by its implications for research in general. It seems to me that the ‘art of the soluble’ is a cynical kind of philosophy and a stultifying directive. To establishment scientists obliged to toe the line drawn by the terms of a research grant or by the dictates of the teamwork of department policy it must provide comforting reassurance, but as a clarion call for the venturesome it sounds dismally flat. Solubility is surely not the principle by which great discoveries have been made. Newton, Harvey, Faraday, Darwin, Mendel and Einstein would have never tolerated the implied restrictions of such a definition and would scornfully have disassociated themselves from such an abysmal expression of low key ambition.”
Science had rallied in the best tradition of its venturesome elements when Hathaway and others staid with John Hutchison and tried to discover what was happening. And I am not ashamed of my venturesome speculation on what the tapping of such forces could do; nor am I ashamed of referring to others, such as Albert Budden, when their ambition for discovery led them to write positively of John Huchison’s effects.
But Nickell’s puerile article reveals no such science or ambition. Sadly, it reveals the market of debunkery. What could possibly motivate a professional debunker if not the “mongering” of which he accused me? Debunkers don’t offer information; they propose no theories; they never expand their minds with possibilities. How can they? “No” can never come first. It is not a proposition; it is an answer. Skeptics consider and do research to discover. At the very least they keep the idea (on whatever topic) in their mind and wait until more information comes in. But let’s call professional debunkers what they are. They are mere scoffers and mockers. There is no way Nickell is a skeptic. He is not even qualified in the fields into which he wanders; and the substance of his work does not indicate he does independent study.
Nickell first started getting attention in the 1980s, in that cynical Yuppiephile decade. He first wrote Inquest on the Shroud of Turin in 1987 and then expanded his skills to Secrets of the Supernatural in 1988 with Jon F. Fischer. In such a Yuppie era to tout a doctorate, even on a totally irrelevant (and for Secrets undisclosed) field meant an “in” to expertise status. Nickell’s only real qualifications, however, were the teaching of “technical writing at the University of Kentucky,” as his dust jacket for Secrets reads. “A former professional stage magician and private investigator, he . . .has written numerous articles for the Skeptical Inquirer and other popular and scholarly publications.”
From then on Nickell has banked the shadowy relevance of his PhD into universal expertise on topics ranging from ghosts, UFOs, any form of psychic phenomenon, and apparently a weak attempt at the Triangle. But his trite and dated overview of the Bermuda Triangle speaks of avoiding the facts. And thus it reveals Nickell as merely a scoffer catering to a certain kind of audience that is disposed to believe that events outside of their normal daily routine are not possible, and therefore those who report them, like me, must be credulous and “mongering” for a buck. This naive audience is fortunately dwindling judging by the Paypal logo on the CSICOP web page begging donations.
The reason for the commercial failure of professional nay-saying can be found in Nickell’s own edited approach to facts but more so in the reality that scoffing was merely the market of the 1980s. Twenty years on now it has become extremely old and obviously outdated.
I have so decried being called “the world expert” on the Bermuda Triangle, but it is a fact my research and opinions are well-known, frequently filmed and quoted. Nickell sorely misjudges me to be of his own ilk, opportunistically capitalizing on topics. After 19 years I am hardly credulous. I pulled the Triangle out of the deep freeze by documenting hundreds of disappearances. It certainly wasn’t profitable or popular. My website has held the top ranking since the week it debuted in March 1999. Since then the Coast Guard contacted me for my opinion on revamping their official opinion; my work helped inspire the Congressional Resolution on November 17, 2005, honoring the men of Flight 19. I’m not shouting my name; I’m shouting recent history. Nickell’s version of Flight 19 is based on Vincent Gaddis’ account in his 1965 book Invisible Horizons. Just how out-of-touch does Nickell think readers are? By so overtly avoiding the body of my work and the history behind Hutchison he reveals what little involvement he really has in the matters on which he tries to sound like a tempering expert. For a man who has ridden the wave of marketing, he sadly doesn’t realize his own outdated, shallow nay-saying is no longer marketable.
Read his article at CSICOP. It is so off base it can do me no harm. Here’s the link. http://www.csicop.org/sb/2007-09/nickell.html Let’s give him the traffic he must deeply want.
