WOW! What are these "Skeptics" guys SMOKING over there in Hollywood?!
WOW! What are these "Skeptics" guys SMOKING over there in Hollywood?!
Talk about the "Dream Factory"!
Please scroll down for more updates plus a thought-provoking comment from Professor Emeritus James W. Deardorff
For Immediate Release
March 25th, 2004
UFO Believer Refuses To Back His Claim!
His failure may cost him over One Million Dollars!
Los Angeles, CA and Fort Lauderdale, FL On February 27, 2004, the Center for Inquiry-West (CFI-West) and the Independent Investigations Group (IIG) challenged Michael Horn, the self-described Authorized American Representative of the Billy Meier Contacts, to produce a piece of metal that he claims is of manufactured, extraterrestrial origin to be eligible for the IIG's Five Thousand Dollar Paranormal Challenge. Mr. Horn refused.
On March 15, 2004, the James Randi Educational Foundation (JREF) challenged Mr. Horn to present the aforementioned chunk of metal through any agency or person he chose to be eligible for the JREF One Million Dollar Paranormal Challenge. Again, Mr. Horn refused. Despite the vast amount of 'evidence' Mr. Horn claims to possess, he flatly refuses to submit any of it for testing, or to have Mr. Meier produce new evidence under controlled scientific conditions. Why does Michael Horn repeatedly refuse the opportunity for alleged UFO contactee Billy Meier to prove that what he has been saying for the past forty years is true, and in the process collect over one million dollars? And why does he decline to provide this evidence while still constantly and consistently demanding the prize?
A great deal of correspondence has passed between CFI-West, IIG, JREF, and Michael Horn. Mr. Horns responses have shown both a lack of understanding as to how the scientific process works, and a disregard for the clearly stated rules of the paranormal challenges that he claims to have already won. Instead, he has resorted to circular arguments and ad hominem attacks on our organization. To read the unedited correspondence with Michael Horn, go to www.iigwest.com/horn.letters.html.
CFI-West, IIG, and JREF are keeping track of how long Michael Horn refuses to step up to the challenge and produce tangible evidence of extraterrestrial visitation. The IIG website's (www.iigwest.com) "Investigations" page provides a summary of paranormal investigations that the IIG has been involved in. At the top of the page you will see the "Michael Horn Clock" which will count the number of days that have elapsed since March 15, 2004.
The Center for Inquiry-West is the west coast home to the Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal (CSICOP), publisher of Skeptical Inquirer magazine. Visit our website at www.cfiwest.org, or call (323) 666-9797 The James Randi Educational Foundation (JREF) is a 501(c)3 group dedicated to supplying reliable data and expertise on paranormal, supernatural, and occult subjects -- from a critical and skeptical viewpoint. At www.randi.org our weekly web-page and archives can be seen. Mr. Randi can be reached at randi@randi.org.
For more information contact James Underdown, Executive Director Center for Inquiry-West (323) 666-9797, ext 101
James Randi James Randi Educational Foundation (954) 467-1112
Michael Horn responds (yet again!)
Date Thu, 25 Mar 2004
Subject Re 03-24-04 CFI-West/IIG/JREF Joint Press Release
Dear Mssrs. Randi, Underdown, Bartholomaus, Rees, Shermer, et al, Oh fellows, yoo hoo! Do you remember where we started? Well, we're not finished with that yet.
Now, in case your panic has gotten the best of you, let's remember that, first, you accepted the challenge to duplicate a photo and a film segment of Meier's UFOs.
If you can all up your meds enough to calm down, allow me to point out that there are actually, dare I mention the word, scientific criteria that you have to meet, that Meier's photos and films have already met.
And the work wasn't done by a bunch of mail-order Dr. Frankenstein's running around debunking little old ladies who see ghosts in their attics.
While you want to do anything but belly up to the bar, you're still going to have to meet the first level of challenge...first. Then we'll talk about other evidence and you can let me know what professional (read real) scientists you would like to have examine it.
Now, you've been offered the photo analysis repeatedly and, repeatedly, turned down the offer. It's a good idea for you to know just what kind of briar patch you've gotten yourselves stuck to. Therefore, in the interest of keeping all of this nice and clean, I am going have the photo analysis posted on my website (www.theyfly.com) by the beginning of the week. That gives all of you geniuses time to figure out where you want to make like magicians and disappear to.
By the way, for Jimmie Randi, property with a real value in and of itself, and/or sufficient to fulfill the cash amount difference, of your $1,000,000 is accepted. And for you guys at CFI-West, if you haven't already spent it on disguises and airplane tickets to get out of the country, your $5,000 is also preferred in straight cash.
Since we're dealing with calendars and dates here, expect appropriate interest to apply starting on the date that the proof was first available (roughly 24 years ago). I think you'll need a calculator.
Of course, I will proceed to publicize all of this further (you knew that, didn't you) and help make you guys even more famoooser, like I've always promised. To that end, I have several more radio appearances and live lectures, among other things.
A side note to you all Please, don't attempt to surrender and turn yourself in to me, I am not in a position to offer you either safe refuge, qualified medical care nor can I direct you to foreign safe houses. You got yourselves into this mess and you'll have to figure out how to get out of it. Remember, honesty is the best policy. And, honestly, you guys is whupped!
Regards,
Michael Horn
Authorized American Media Representative
The Billy Meier Contacts
www.theyfly.com
From: Derek Bartholomaus <derek@iigwest.com>
Date: Sat Mar 27, 2004 7:11:03 AM US/Pacific
Michael,
It is comments like this that display your lack of understanding as to how the
scientific process actually works.
Scientists routinely perform tests on previous claims to see if the original
claim is justified.
When a scientist makes a fantastic claim that claim is examined by many other
scientists in order to make sure that the claim is verifiable. It is this
repeatable testing process that confirms a claim.
Sometimes a fantastic claim is proven to be correct, like the discovery of
darmstatdium - Element 110 on the Periodic Table of the Elements. You can read
about the original claim and the ten years of subsequent testing that occurred
before the claim was validated on the Los Alamos National Laboratory website
at http://pearl1.lanl.gov/periodic/elements/110.html.
Sometimes a fantastic claim is proven to be incorrect, like the
"cold fusion"
experiments of Pons and Fleischmann in 1989. You can read a summary of the
events at http://www.encyclopedia.com/html/c1/coldfusio.asp.
According to you, only Marcel Vogel and a "metallurgist friend" have examined
the piece of metal you claim is of a manufactured extraterrestrial origin.
This means that this is still only a claim. It is not proven because no other
scientists have examined the metal to either confirm or deny the original
claim's validity.
Present the piece of metal for analysis and then once it has been examined and
the findings published all of us can stop this debate once and for all. Why do
you continue to refuse Billy Meier the possibility to finally prove his claim?
Sincerely,
Derek Bartholomaus
IIG - Treasurer
Lead Investigator - Michael Horn/Billy Meier Response
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Derek,
Oh yeah, how thoughtless of me to overlook this when it obviously got you up early in the morning to write about it. And thanks for pointing out how I'm preventing Billy from proving his claim. Why didn't I think about that before?
Okay, how's about this? Regarding how the scientific process works, examination of the evidence in the Meier case was done by renowned scientific experts from
IBM
JPL
USGS
NASA
Nippon TV
Village Labs
INTERREPO
Micor Electric
SCHORI REPROS
McDonnell Douglas
Excalibur Sound Studios
Photo Color Studio of Zurich
Naval Undersea Sound Center
Director of Special Effects, Canadian Film Board
Design Technology (holds contracts with NASA, Jet Propulsion Laboratory and the U. S. Navy, also do subcontracted work for General Dynamics Engineering)
Some of the equipment used in the analysis included
Hamamatsu Systems
De Anza Systems
COMTAL
HELL Chromograph DC 300
Zeiss Microscope
YOOL Laser System
Simmons Gamma/Alpha Emission Tube
Grinnel Computer Graphics Terminal GMR-37
Tektronix Computer System 4081=peripherals
Fairchild CCD-2 Digital Camera
Singer zx-2 Digital Camera
CMX-700 & 340; Computer Video Graphics
Now you're going to do what, have someone from a One-Hour Photo place examine your stuff? You want to lecture on scientific process and the scientific method and you don't have a CLUE as to what's already taken place here?
Do the words "bozos on the bus" mean anything to you and the rest of them? Do you know just what you're standing knee deep in? Be careful, incompetence can, and often does, lead to incontinence.
MH
(Michael Horn) Ladies & Gentlemen, I rest my case. Please read the following response from the (soon to be institutionalized) Mr. Amazing himself
Looks like quantity makes up for ONE good quality reference, here. And we all know how Nippon TV wouldnt ever misrepresent facts, dont we?
James Randi
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Subject Multiple choice
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Dear skeptics,
It's time that you answered just ONE multiple choice question from me
A.) Billy Meier possesses above-genius level abilities in photography, film making, videography, model making, juggling, special effect, digital effects, ventriloquism, sound recording and engineering, metallurgy, physics, space propulsion technologies, astronomy, history, mathematics, geology, environmental sciences, clairvoyance, mass hypnosis, etc. and also possesses the single-handed ability (no pun intended?) to accomplish all of the aforementioned without financial or material assistance or collaborators.
Or
B.) He's a genuine UFO contactee.
Rules Multiple choice means that you must choose one of the possibilities presented. Failure to do so results in the choice automatically being registered, and reported, as B.)
Take your time, this is a toughie.
MH
(Dimwitted reply from Mr Amazing)
Michael, you forgot one other choice, "C"
C.) He's a man with nothing going for him except that he managed to attract some media attention with fuzzy photos, and he got a crowd of disciples hooked, too, because they didn't know any better.
James Randi
(Response to above by Michael Horn)
Randi,
You're WAY ahead of yourself, I didn't post the multiple choice question about YOU ("Who is James Randi and why what has he and CFI West produced?") and yet here you go and give the answer!
WOW!
You must be...psychic!
MH
(The below is are some interesting and erudite observations from Professor Emeritus James W. Deardorff)
Inform yourself about the most important political issue on the planet for two thousand years!
Hello Michael,
There are some things you just can't tell these skeptics, especially those
who are unfamiliar with the realities of the UFO phenomenon. It starts with
the aliens (or ETs) being more experienced and smarter than us and
therefore having a strategy for dealing with us. These skeptics don't want
to hear of any such talk, no matter that they might acknowledge that
various different ET groups could have had up to a billion-year
evolutionary headstart over us. Late 20th-century science is still supposed
to be the most advanced science around in our corner of the galaxy, from
which they infer that: They just can't get here from there, the
interstellar distances involved are just too vast. Surely no alien
civilization's science could be so far ahead of ours (perhaps only a few
thousand years?) so as to be able to circumvent the limitations in space
travel we're aware of associated with rocketry and special relativity.
However, these are not true skeptics. True skeptics are supposed to be open
to both sides of an issue. So these are negative skeptics, who have no
intention of discussing with us what anyone can deduce from the UFO
phenomenon as a whole, including Meier's contacts: that the aliens appear
to have been employing a strategy of not leaving sufficient evidence behind
that would force scientists to believe what they're just not mentally and
psychologically prepared to believe. Rather than discuss it, these skeptics
prefer to think of such reasoning as a cop-out on our part. We can only
conclude from the alien strategy of making their presence known to those
who can accept it, while leaving crumbs of uncertainty behind to protect
the sanity of negative skeptics, that the aliens in charge possess a
neutrally benevolent ethical code with a long-range outlook.
As a result of Art Bell's prodding when you were on his show some three
weeks ago, do you think you'll be able to get any evidence from Meier on
your next visit, such as a remaining alloy specimen, to commence a testing
program on? If Tim and others would read up on what happened to the alloy
specimens Billy was given and loaned out for study back around 1976-79, he
would learn that there may not be any similar specimens left for testing.
He would learn how they tend to disappear from the hands of the individuals
and labs who do the testing, and this includes presently non-understood
disappearance of one or more samples (i.e., by paranormal means). However,
these negative skeptics have never looked into the possibility that ETs
thousands of years in advance of us could actually perform what would seem
like magic (real magic, not James Randi magic) to us, which is where
"paranormal" has to enter into the discussion. I don't think you will find
that these negative skeptics are prepared to take an open look at
paranormal UFO events.
But good luck anyway on trying to bring Tim and others up to speed.
Regards,
Jim
Michael Horn replies to Professor Deardorff:
Thanks Jim, there may well be additional metal alloy samples available but you can be sure of two things. One, these wannabe bozos will have to either meet the standards of the photo analysis or give up, publicly, and pay Meier. That's not negotiable. They accepted the challenge, ill-prepared and ill-qualified as they are, so there's no excuses, diversions or backing out now. I am taking, and will continue to this to ever-larger arenas.
Secondly, once the photo analysis issue is resolved, the sound challenge must be addressed within the same context and standards. Then, once that's resolved, we'll see about another metal test - one conducted by qualified scientists NOT these scatter brained high school juniors trying to make a name for themselves at Meier's expense.
MH