Sunday, December 30, 2012

Shades of Gray Barker


My friend Eric Blair bought me the following documentary as a Christmas gift:  Shades of Gray directed by Bob Wilkinson and co-written by Wilkinson and Robert Tinnell.  This obscure 2009 documentary details the important life and work of Gray Barker, author of such classic works of UFOlogy as They Knew Too Much About Flying Saucers (1956) and The Silver Bridge (1970).  Barker was instrumental in popularizing such legendary examples of modern folklore (and folk truth) as the Men in Black, the Philadelphia Experiment, Mothman, and numerous other paranormal enigmas.  Barker’s They Knew Too Much About Flying Saucers, which introduced the Men in Black to the world, was one of the first full-length books I read about UFOs and stimulated an insatiable thirst for similar information.  It’s an essential tool for understanding 1950s Cold War American culture.  In my learned estimation, it sits on a very high tier within the Alternate Pantheon of American literature, among the key New Gospels of post-WWII America.  Fortunately, reasonably priced copies of the first edition hardcover can still be found with relative ease (via ABEBOOKS, for example). 

The recently deceased James Moseley, Barker’s close friend and partner in crime, is featured prominently in this well-rounded documentary, which doesn’t shy away from showing all the various contradictory aspects of Barker’s persona.  He was a serious and dedicated journalist, a puckish hoaxster, a wide-eyed dreamer, a bitter skeptic, a frustrated fiction writer, an inventive independent publisher, a successful self-promoter, and a master of self-sabotage all rolled into one.  Information about purchasing Shades of Gray on DVD can be found HERE

Shades Of Gray

Saturday, December 29, 2012

The Cryptocracy Is Watching You


Please read this brief excerpt from a 12-28-12 article entitled "Congress Disgracefully Approves the FISA Warrantless Spying Bill for Five More Years, Rejects All Privacy Amendments" by Trevor Timm of the Electronic Frontier Foundation:

Today, after just one day of rushed debate, the Senate shamefully voted on a five-year extension to the FISA Amendments Act, an unconsitutional law that openly allows for warrantless surveillance of Americans' overseas communications.

Incredibly, the Senate rejected all the proposed amendments that would have brought a modicum of transparency and oversight to the government's activities, despite previous refusals by the Executive branch to even estimate how many Americans are surveilled by this program or reveal critical secret court rulings interpreting it.

The common-sense amendments the Senate hastily rejected were modest in scope and written with the utmost deference to national security concerns. The Senate had months to consider them, but waited until four days before the law was to expire to bring them to the floor, and then used the contrived time crunch to stifle any chances of them passing.

Sen. Ron Wyden's amendment would not have taken away any of the NSA's powers, it just would have forced intelligence agencies to send Congress a report every year detailing how their surveillance was affecting ordinary Americans. Yet Congress voted to be purposely kept in the dark about a general estimate of how many Americans have been spied on.

Read the entire article HERE.

Monday, December 24, 2012

The Simple Art of Distraction


While the nation's collective psyche remains paralyzed due to a series of ostensibly random mass murders, draconian bills like the FISA Amendments Act are once again slithering their way through Congress with very little substantial deliberation.  Please read Matt Sledge's 12-20-12 Huffington Post article entitled "FISA Warrantless Wiretapping Bill Poised For Renewal Despite Unanswered Questions."  Here's a brief excerpt:

With Senate poised to act as early as Thursday night to renew the foreign surveillance bill that authorized the Bush administration's secret warrantless wiretapping program, civil liberties advocates are getting deja vu.

With only the Senate's vote standing in the way of renewal, the debate over the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act Amendments Act in 2012 is looking strikingly similar over to the debate over the bill in 2008. The White House is pushing for a quick, "clean" reauthorization without any amendments before the bill's Dec. 31 expiration date. Congress seems to be showing little inclination to press for more. And civil liberties advocates, along with a few Senate allies, are criticizing the measure, arguing that basic details of the warrantless wiretapping program remain unknown.

Or, as Michelle Richardson, legislative counsel with the ACLU's Washington office, put it, "I bet [Bush] is laughing his ass off."

Ah, yes, the simple art of distraction continues apace....

Read the rest of Matt Sledge's article HERE.

Sunday, December 23, 2012

Santa Was a Mushroom!


In case you ever suspected that Santa Claus might be a clever, phantasmagoric metaphor for the psychedelic Amanita muscaria mushroom, here’s your chance to prove your instincts correct. 

The following is an excerpt from a 2007 documentary entitled The Pharmacratic Inquisition directed by Jan Irvin and Andrew Rutajit.  This brief nine minute clip comes to you courtesy of YouTube and is highly recommended for your Yuletide viewing pleasure:  “Come one, come all, girls and boys; please click HERE for Christmas joy!”

Merry X-Mas everybody!  HO HO HO!

Saturday, December 22, 2012

University of Washington Scientists Explore the Theory That We're Living in a Simulated Reality


From Ray Villard's 12-16-12 Discovery.com article entitled "Are We Living Inside a Computer Simulation?":

In 2003, British philosopher Nick Bostrom published a paper that proposed the universe we live in might in fact really be a numerical computer simulation. To give this a bizarre Twilight Zone twist, he suggested that our far-evolved distant descendants might construct such a program to simulate the past and recreate how their remote ancestors lived.

He felt that such an experiment was inevitable for a supercivilization. If it didn't happen by now, then in meant that humanity never evolved that far and we're doomed to a short lifespan as a species, he argued.

To extrapolate further, I'd suggest that artificial intelligent entities descended from us would be curious about looking back in time by simulating the universe of their biological ancestors.

As off-the-wall as this sounds, a team of physicists at the University of Washington (UW) recently announced that there is a potential test to seen if we actually live in The Lattice. Ironically, it would be the first such observation for scientifically hypothesized evidence of intelligent design behind the cosmos.

Villard's article can be seen in its entirety HERE.

Katherine Long's 12-15-12 Seattle Times article, "Living in a Simulated World," reports on the very same study in a somewhat more concise manner and can be read HERE

Friday, December 21, 2012

Newtown-Clackamas-Aurora Synchronicities


Loren Coleman has been uncovering some fascinating and disturbing synchronicities among the recent Newtown massacre, the Clackamas mall shooting, and the Aurora theatre murders on his Twilight Language blog.  Just one example: 

Intriguingly, a new sync popped up, as mentioned in the following comment left on the Daily Mail's site:

2 Mass Shootings Connected To Libor Scandal.  The father of Newtown Connecticut school shooter Adam Lanza is Peter Lanza who is a VP and Tax Director at GE Financial.  The father of [the alleged] Aurora, Colorado movie theater shooter James Holmes is Robert Holmes, the lead scientist for the credit score company FICO.  Both men were to testify before the US Sentate in the ongoing LIBOR scandal. The dots are connecting. - Abbs, Dublin, 16/12/2012 22:15

The London Interbank Offered Rate, known as Libor, is the average interest rate at which banks can borrow from each other. Sixteen international banks have been implicated in this ongoing scandal, accused of rigging contracts worth trillions of dollars. HSBC has already been fined $1.9 billion and three of their low level traders arrested.

All of this is well worth checking out, but see these posts in particular:

Clackamas-Aurora Syncs and Links


Shootings: Mayan Theater, Macy's, Newtown, Aurora, Media Madness, and Connecting the Dots


What's Next? Beyond Newtown and the Mayan Calendar



Saturday, December 1, 2012

Cryptoscatology in Loren Coleman's Top Ten!

Loren Coleman, famed cryptozoologist (author of such excellent Fortean books as Mysterious America, Mothman and Other Curious Encounters, Tom Slick and the Search for the Yeti, True Giants, Creatures of the Outer Edge, etc.) just selected Cryptoscatology: Conspiracy Theory as Art Form for his annual Top Ten list.  If you want to see the full list, click HERE!

Thursday, November 29, 2012

James Moseley R.I.P.

I just learned this sad news earlier today.  One of the last icons of the Golden Age of UFOlogy, James W. Moseley, passed away thirteen days ago on the 16th of November at the age of 81.  Moseley, editor of Jim Moseley's Book of Saucer News (Saucerian Books, 1967) and co-author of the entertaining and informative memoir Shockingly Close to the Truth! (Prometheus Books, 2002), remained an active UFOlogist for six decades while wearing many different hats along the way:  publisher, editor, journalist, skeptic, believer, hoaxer, even pre-Columbian treasure hunter. 

Moseley's long-lived newsletter Saucer News (which, in more recent decades, morphed into Saucer Smear) published touchstone articles over the years by such UFOlogists as John A. Keel, Gray Barker, Allen H. Greenfield and Timothy Green Beckley.  It was through Saucer News that Keel's field reports about the now infamous West Virginia "Mothman" sightings first reached the general public.  (See, for example, pp. 24-25 of Saucers News #68, published in the Summer 1967 when the Mothman sightings in Point Pleasant were still in full swing.)

Perhaps most important of all, however, is the fact that Moseley was the first writer to study the people who investigated UFOs rather than the UFOs themselves.  One could say that this metacontextual approach to UFOlogy, combined with his puckish sense of humor and trickster-like sensibilities, made Moseley the first consciously postmodern UFO investigator. 

Rest in Peace, James Moseley (1931-2012)....

For further information about Moseley and his work, read Loren Coleman's obituary HERE.







Sunday, November 18, 2012

"Less Sex Scandals, More War!"

"Less Sex Scandals, More War!"
--Official Tea Party Slogan (Reportedly Spotted on a Bumper Sticker on the 405 Freeway)

Ah, yes!  More war, indeed.  Far more disturbing than yet another tepid, extramarital sexual escapade committed by a high-ranking U.S. government official is General David Howell Petraeus' love of robot-controlled mass murder as reported recently by Tom Junod of Esquire Magazine.  Here's how Junod's article begins:

“I hear that Petraeus likes it,” a source told me. “I hear he likes to be in the room when it happens.”
He wasn’t talking about sex. He was talking to me a good six months before the revelation of the affair between General David Petraeus and Paula Broadwell, and so he wasn’t commenting on Petraeus’s bedroom enthusiasms. He was talking, instead, about killing. He was talking about drones.

Read more: David Petraeus Scandal - CIA Drone Attacks - Esquire 

Wednesday, November 7, 2012

Letters to the President

For nostalgic purposes, here’s a letter I wrote to President Obama on 3-29-09 (only 88 days after he took office)….


Barack H. Obama
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Ave.
Washington, D.C.


Dear President Obama:

Before being elected President you pledged to repeal the Patriot Act and the Bush Administration’s official policy of illegal wiretapping, renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trades (GATT), and bring the troops home from Iraq on your first day in office.  Within your first 60 days in office you have instead announced that you might bring some of the troops home within 23 months, you’ve sent 30,000 Marines to Afghanistan, you’ve decided to move more missile systems into Eastern Europe to encircle Russia, you’ve voted for the reauthorization of the Patriot Act, you’ve legalized unconstitutional wiretapping, and your campaign has gone on record as saying that, in truth, you support NAFTA and GATT. 

Allow me to share a poem with you from one of my favorite mathematicians:

“’Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
            Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:
All mimsy were the borogoves,
            And the mome raths outgrabe.”
--Lewis Carroll, Through the Looking Glass, 1871

Translated into English, this poem literally means:  What the fuck is up with you, Jim-Jim?  I’ve included a self-addressed stamped envelope for a response.  Thank you very much for your time. 

Lewis Carroll’s memory is kept alive by perpetual endowment of a cot in the Children’s Hospital, Great Ormond Street, London.



Sincerely yours,


Robert Guffey

"The Wedding Photographer" in POSTSCRIPTS

I just sold my 17,300-word novelette “The Wedding Photographer" to Peter Crowther and Nick Gevers at Postscripts Magazine.  The novelette will be appearing in a future volume, the exact issue still to be decided.  I'll post further details when I have them! 

The next issue of Postscripts (Postscripts #30/31:  Memoryville Blues) will include my short story "Selections From The Expectant Mother Disinformation Handbook" (5,800 words).  For more information about Postscripts--one of the very best magazines specializing in cutting-edge science fiction, fantasy and horror--click HERE.

Tuesday, October 9, 2012

Phantom Drift Has Been Unleashed!

The second issue of Phantom Drift has just been published (and it couldn't be a more appropriate month for it).  My short story "Cryptopolis" is included in this issue alongside new works by the likes of Lance Olsen, Bruce Holland Rogers, Leslie What, etc.  Also included in this issue is my analysis of the Fortean subtext of Steve Erickson's 2007 novel, Zeroville.  Two doses of Robert Guffey--both fiction and non-fiction--in a single magazine?  What the hell more could any carbon-based lifeform want from this weird-shaped universe?  If you're interested in getting a hold of a copy of Phantom Drift #2, you can visit the Phantom Drift website HERE.  You can also purchase a copy from Amazon HERE.



"Keep the mystery alive."
--David Memmott, Managing Editor of Phantom Drift

Monday, October 1, 2012

"The Couch" in Pearl #46

My new short story, "The Couch," has just been published in the latest issue of PEARL MAGAZINE (#46) alongside new stories by the likes of Michael Hemmingson, Gerald Locklin, etc.  If you'd like to know how to get a hold of a copy, simply click HERE

Wednesday, September 12, 2012

A BRIEF HISTORY OF CRYPTOSCATOLOGY

I first dreamed up the word “cryptoscatology” in the Spring of 1996.  I chose it as the title of an essay written specifically for a Comparative Literature class on Surrealism taught by Dr. Roland Bush at CSU Long Beach.  That Surrealism course was—without a doubt—one of the best classes I ever took as an undergraduate at CSULB.  Without that class, certain aspects of my life probably would not be the same today.  In fact, that class inspired my soon-to-be-published short story “The Advertising Man” (see previous post). 

Upon studying various surrealist works, including Marcel Duchamp’s infamous 1917 readymade Fountain, it seemed clear that the artists who called themselves surrealists were scatologists at heart, but scatologists of a special order—an exclusive society obsessed with dreams, telepathy, synchronicities, the ancient art of alchemy, etc., preoccupations considered to be worthless (i.e., “shit”) by the gentle folk who subscribe to consensus reality.  Here’s a synchronicity for you:  At that time I just so happened to be immersing myself in various books about the much-maligned field of cryptozoology, including Tony “Doc” Shiels’ obscure (and highly recommended) autobiography entitled Monstrum! in which the author identifies himself as both a cryptozoologist and a surrealist.  That’s when it struck me:  The surrealists weren’t just interested in normal everyday shit, but in secret shit, hence my invention of the word “cryptoscatology,” which simply means the study of cultural trends and phenomena considered to be valueless by consensus reality. 

And, thus, a LEGEND was born!

My intention at that time was to publish my “Cryptoscatology” essay in the pages of Paranoia, but that magazine went on hiatus for a time roundabout 1999, and the article apparently got lost in the shuffle.  Several years later it was supposed to appear in an early issue of Mysteries Magazine, but the editor (“nameless here for evermore”—“The Raven,” Edgar Allan Poe) mangled the piece so thoroughly that I can state with all honestly that it was no longer the article I had originally composed.  The editor altered the title to something uninteresting and mundane, and the word “cryptoscatology” was removed from the text.

In 2002 I toyed with the idea of making Cryptoscatology an ongoing comic strip à la the old one-page Ripley’s Believe It Or Not comic.  Its main purpose would have been to spotlight a different conspiracy theory each week.  A cartoonist who worked for Paranoia Magazine agreed to draw the first strip.  A few days after he received the script, however, he accidentally stabbed his own eye with the sharpened edge of a plastic nametag he was forced to wear at the video store where he worked part-time.  As a result, he could no longer see well enough to doodle much less draw a complete script.  (Believe it or not!) 

A couple of years ago a student in my Literature of Science Fiction class at CSULB named Matthew Fuller asked if he could take a crack at resurrecting the abandoned script.  Curious to see if Matthew’s eye would split open while drawing it, I said, “Sure, feel free!”  Fortunately, this time no serious injuries occurred, and this was the final result:



I was amazed that Matthew was able to fit so many damn words into panel 6.  (Maybe that was the real reason the other artist plucked his own eye out—he was just trying to avoid drawing that particular panel!)

At last, my original “Cryptoscatology” article appeared—unexpurgated—in the pages of Fortean Times #286 in April of this year and the full-length book, Cryptoscatology:  Conspiracy Theory as Art Form, followed about a month later.  My next goal, of course, is to get the word into the Oxford English Dictionary. 

Next week:  A Brief History of Radium!

The Advertising Man

I just sold my short story “The Advertising Man” to Nameless Magazine edited by Jason Brock and H.P. Lovecraft biographer extraordinaire S.T. Joshi.  The story will be appearing in a future issue, to be decided shortly.  Updates forthcoming!  In the meantime, if you want to know more about Nameless, go HERE. 


Saturday, September 8, 2012

New Dawn Magazine Reviews Cryptoscatology

A few days ago the September/October issue of New Dawn Magazine (#134) hit the stands.  The magazine includes a review of Cryptoscatology written by Robert Black, editor of Living Traditions Magazine.  The review's also posted on the New Dawn website.  You can read the full review HERE.

Monday, July 30, 2012

Alexander Cockburn R.I.P. (1941-2012)

Alexander Cockburn, muckraking journalist and co-editor of COUNTERPUNCH, passed away on July 21.  He was the author (or co-author) of several important books, including WHITEOUT:  THE CIA, DRUGS AND THE PRESS (Verso, 1997).  I quote from Cockburn extensively in Chapter Three of CRYPTOSCATOLOGY.  Earlier today The Washington Times published an excellent article about the late journalist and his legacy.  Please read "Remembering Alexander Cockburn" HERE.

A member of my elite corp of roving Cryptoscatology reporters managed to bring back exclusive photos of the funeral.  If you look closely (yes, the time stamp is wrong) you'll be able to see pictures of Cockburn's dog, Cadillac, and typewriter engraved into the side of his coffin.  Yes, indeed, he took them with him....



He (and his typewriter) will be missed....

Thursday, July 26, 2012

CRYPTOSCATOLOGY ON THE BILL FRANK RADIO SHOW

Last Sunday (July 22) radio host Bill Frank interviewed me about CRYPTOSCATOLOGY on his morning show, which airs simultaneously on KVTA and KKZZ.  The entire interview is archived HERE.

Feel free to listen away!

Saturday, July 21, 2012

EVEN 4-YEAR-OLDS ENDORSE CRYPTOSCATOLOGY!


"Oh, hello there!  This book?  Why, it's CRYPTOSCATOLOGY by Robert Guffey, and it's great!"


"This page is pretty great, but it should be pink."

 "I love the indicia page!"

"Dang, I never knew the CIA dealt LSD... they probably think there is a MONSTER at the end of this book... it's only GROVER, people!  Sheesh!"


Yes, it's true, 4-year-olds coast-to-coast are saying, "Click HERE to buy Cryptoscatology: Conspiracy Theory as Art Form!"


Friday, July 20, 2012

Twilight Language in Colorado

Loren Coleman, author of MYSTERIOUS AMERICA and other fine books of cryptoscatological importance, predicted the Aurora, Colorado shootings a day before they occurred.  How did he accomplish this?  Why, through the elementary study of Twilight Language, of course.

"Twilight Language" was a phrase first coined by James Shelby Downard, author of a very peculiar memoir entitled THE CARNIVALS OF LIFE AND DEATH and the classic Kennedy assassination article "King-Kill/33."  According to Coleman, the study of Twilight Language involves the exploration of "hidden meanings and synchromystic connections via onomatology (study of names) and toponomy (study of place names)."  Read Coleman's rather eerie 7/19/12 prediction right HERE.

Thursday, July 12, 2012

JIM MARRS ENDORSES CRYPTOSCATOLOGY

"Whether you believe or disbelieve in deep and hidden conspiracies, Robert Guffey's droll yet thought-provoking book Cryptoscatology (the study of secret shit) should be required reading. From the valid to the invalid, from the provable to the possible, from real life to art, Guffey shuffles the most prominent names and topics in conspiracyland. They are all laid on the vivisection table with often surprising results. Don't miss this ride."


--Jim Marrs, author of The New York Times Best Sellers Crossfire: The Plot That Killed Kennedy, Rule by Secrecy, and The Trillion-Dollar Conspiracy

Tuesday, July 10, 2012

Roving Drones and Porno Scanners (OR)

All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace:  A Trilogy (Part 1):  


From "Drone trade group adopts guidelines for flying in 

U.S. airspace" by W.J. Hennigan (Los Angeles Times 7-5-12): 



An expected proliferation of unmanned aircraft in U.S. skies over the next few years is generating concern among civil libertarians and citizens about safety and privacy, and the nation's drone makers are taking heed.



The Assn. for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International in Arlington, Va., has published a code of conduct for manufacturers and operators of the thousands of drone aircraft that are expected to be flying in U.S. airspace by 2015.

  

"We want everybody to know that this technology will be handled safely and with the utmost respect to individuals' privacy," said Ben Gielow, the association's general counsel and government relations manager. "Ultimately, public confidence is needed in fielding these systems."
But critics are unimpressed. Unresolved, they say, are worries about how commercial planes and small, low-flying drones can safely share the same airspace. Also, there are privacy concerns about the drones' use of high-powered cameras as they fly above backyard pool parties and other private activities.
The San Francisco digital legal advocacy group Electronic Frontier Foundation shares those concerns. Jennifer Lynch, attorney with the foundation, said the code is ambitious but limited.
It "does not go far enough to recognize the very real threat to privacy posed by surveillance drones flying in the U.S. and makes no actual and enforceable commitments to protect individuals' civil liberties and privacy rights," she said.
For the rest of the article, go HERE.
All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace:  A Trilogy (Part 2):  

 

From Disinfo.com (7-8-12):
"Anti-Obama Journalist Claims Drones Are Following Him"

Journalist Joseph Farah says the aircraft he saw hover above his rural Northern Virginia home recently was a government surveillance drone, and he believes the unwelcome visit was just a step in the Obama administration’s war against liberty.
“I’m taking my dog for a walk and guess what I see right over the tree line right above my head is a drone,” Farah, the editor of World Net Daily, tells radio host Alex Jones this week.
“I don’t live in the city, I don’t live in a populated area, I live in one of the most rural places you could possibly live in Northern Virginia and there could only be one thing that this drone was spying on and that would be me, that would be my property because there’s just nothing else around except woods and deer,” he adds.
Farah implies in the interview that the drone could have been dispatched by US President Barack Obama, whom he insists is out to attack his critics. It just so happens that Farah is perhaps one of the most famous opponents of the current administration, and has been such since before the commander-in-chief ever took the oath of office. In a 2008 op-ed, Farah was one of the first well-known journalists to take jabs at the authenticity of President Obama’s birth certificate.

All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace:  A Trilogy (Part 3):  

  

Posted by Cory Doctorow on boingboing.net (7-2-12):

Cops in USA to drive around in pornoscannerwagons, covertly irradiating people and looking through their cars and clothes


These pornoscannerwagons will look like regular anonymous vans, and will cruise America's streets, indiscriminately peering through the cars (and clothes) of anyone in range of its mighty isotope-cannon. But don't worry, it's not a violation of privacy. As AS&E's vice president of marketing Joe Reiss sez, "From a privacy standpoint, I’m hard-pressed to see what the concern or objection could be."

For the entire post, go HERE.


"I like to think (and
the sooner the better!)
of a cybernetic meadow
where mammals and computers
live together in mutually
programming harmony
like pure water
touching clear sky."

--Richard Brautigan, "All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace," 1967

Wednesday, June 20, 2012

Jon Rappoport Endorses Cryptoscatology

Earlier today I was gratified to receive this endorsement from investigative journalist Jon Rappoport (who, like Dr. Alan Cantwell, influenced me very early on).  Rappoport is the author of such books as The Secret Behind Secret Societies, Oklahoma City Bombing:  The Suppressed Truth, U.S. Government Mind Control Experiments On Children, AIDS INC., and so many others.  
 
I first heard Rappoport, completely by chance, on an episode of Mike Hodel's late, lamented Hour 25 radio show on KPFK in Los Angeles.  Rappoport was talking at length about Grace Halsell's excellent book Prophecy & Politics.  As a result, I went out immediately and bought Halsell's book and read it.  From there I followed Rappoport's work over to Roy Tuckman's Something's Happening late night radio show (still on the air to this day) where I heard the groundbreaking AIDS INC. radio series unfold in which Rappoport blew apart the various myths surrounding AIDS long before mainstream media could even comprehend what he was talking about--and they still can't quite comprehend it.  Roundabout 1990, when I was entering college, I bought his first book AIDS INC. and consumed it pretty rapidly.  It's a miletone in genuine investigative journalism.  I remember being impressed that he had interviewed William S. Burroughs for the book (coincidentally, there's a chapter about Burroughs in Cryptoscatology). 

I particularly love Rappoport's book The Secret Behind Secret Societies.  Its odd mixture of memoir and journalism was something I really respected and gravitated toward when I read it upon its publication back in 1998, as my favorite writing has always been that which combines many different forms into one.  The Secret Behind Secret Societies is probably one of the best memoirs I've ever read. 
 
Here's Rappoport's endorsement in full:
 
"Robert Guffey's book, CRYPTOSCATOLOGY: CONSPIRACY THEORY AS ART FORM, takes the reader on a fast-moving ride through some of the prominent conspiracy theories of our time. It also hopefully gives birth to a new way of thinking about all arcane knowledge and speculation. The author asserts that myth is at least as important as fact, if we would only realize it, especially since we are inventing the myths that sustain our world view, our strength, and our endless curiosity about what lies beyond the cartoon called Reality."
--Jon Rappoport, author and editor of THE MATRIX REVEALED
www.nomorefakenews.com

Wednesday, June 13, 2012

64 Drone Bases On American Soil

From a new article entitled "Revealed:  64 Drone Bases on American Soil" by Lorenzo Franceschi-Bicchierai of Wired Magazine:


We like to think of the drone war as something far away, fought in the deserts of Yemen or the mountains of Afghanistan. But we now know it’s closer than we thought. There are 64 drone bases on American soil. That includes 12 locations housing Predator and Reaper unmanned aerial vehicles, which can be armed.
Public Intelligence, a non-profit that advocates for free access to information, released a map of military UAV activities in the United States on Tuesday. Assembled from military sources — especially this little-known June 2011 Air Force presentation (.pdf) – it is arguably the most comprehensive map so far of the spread of the Pentagon’s unmanned fleet. What exact missions are performed at those locations, however, is not clear. Some bases might be used as remote cockpits to control the robotic aircraft overseas, some for drone pilot training. Others may also serve as imagery analysis depots.
[...]
The possibility of military drones (as well as those controlled by police departments and universities) flying over American skies have raised concerns among privacy activists. As the American Civil Liberties Union explained in its December 2011 report, the machines potentially could be used to spy on American citizens. The drones’ presence in our skies “threatens to eradicate existing practical limits on aerial monitoring and allow for pervasive surveillance, police fishing expeditions, and abusive use of these tools in a way that could eventually eliminate the privacy Americans have traditionally enjoyed in their movements and activities.”
Read more HERE.

Tuesday, May 22, 2012

Dr. Alan Cantwell Endorses Cryptoscatology


The first reviews are coming in.  I was very pleased to receive this endorsement from Dr. Alan Cantwell (who influenced my research very early on):

"A sane and penetrating analysis into the murky realm of contemporary conspiracy theory.  Guffey is sure to inform and entertain you with Cryptoscatology."

— Alan Cantwell, M.D., author of AIDS & the Doctors of Death. 

Cantwell's book, AIDS & the Doctors of Death, was one of the first guideposts leading me down this strange and wonderful path of questioning consensus reality at every turn.  You can learn more about Dr. Cantwell and his work here.  

Thursday, May 17, 2012

DHS Won't Explain Its Order of 450 Million Hollow Point Bullets

A recent (and delightfully cheery) article from rt.com:

Department of Homeland Security Won't Explain Its Order of 450 Million Hollow Point Bullets

After 9/11, the United States government created the Department of Homeland Security to prevent future acts of terrorism and deal with other domestic issues. Now in order to keep doing such, the agency is asking for 450 million hollow point bullets.
The DHS has signed off on an "indefinite delivery" from defense contractors ATK that will include, for some reason, nearly 500 million high-power ammunition for .40 caliber firearms. The department has yet to discuss why they are ordering such a massive bevy of bullets for an agency that has limited need domestically for doing harm, but they say they expect to continue receiving shipments from the manufacturer for the next five years, during which they plan to blow through enough ammunition to execute more people than there are in the entire United States....
Read the rest of the article here
*****
The following Letter to the Editor from TimesReporter.com (posted on 5/4/12) offers an intriguing viewpoint on the above article:
De-industrializing of this once-great country, with free trade and shipping of jobs overseas, contributes to more national debt plus a trade deficit which is mathematically impossible to pay.
This race war now looming is being instigated to divide the American people, funded and fueled by this government.
An order of 450 million rounds of 40-caliber ammunition has been made by Homeland Security, now infiltrated by Muslim brotherhood.
A biological warfare facility located one mile off New York’s east coast is now being or has been moved to Manhattan, Kan., right in the middle of our heartland and what is called tornado alley. Diseases have escaped from the facility such as Lyme disease and others, but because the wind blows west to east, most of these biological weapons getting loose don’t affect the United States. But now with this move to Kansas, what do you think will happen to our food supply when something gets loose?
Professor Bill Kaufman has testified before Congress on how the University of Michigan is teaching all of our technology, missile guidance, rocket reentry, everything to the Chinese and even to Chinese military, and we the taxpayers are subsidizing this education.  
Do you actually believe that these Republicrats care about you in this country?
FRED BORY, DOVER

Monday, May 14, 2012

Missing FBI Agent Armed and Suicidal

For those of you who've read Chapter 22 of Cryptoscatology ("Collaborating With the Dead"), you might find this recent L.A. Times news story a tad intriguing.  Titled "Missing FBI Agent Armed and Suicidal, Police Believe," the article offers a suggestive parallel to the Steve Semon story related at the end of Cryptoscatology.  I wonder what specific case this "national security" specialist was working on when he suddenly went missing....

CRYPTOBOX



Yes, Cryptoscatology: Conspiracy Theory as Art Form is now available!  Right now the book can be ordered through TrineDay's website, and pretty soon it will be available through Amazon as well.  If you're off the grid, and choose to avoid Amazon, within the next few weeks you will also be able to walk into a Barnes & Noble--and other brick and mortar stores (those that are still in existence, at least)--and buy a copy off the bookshelf.

Monday, April 2, 2012

Cryptoscatology Featured On Fortean Times Website

David Sutton, the editor of Fortean Times, has decided to feature my recent article ("Cryptoscatology: Andre Breton and Fortean Phenomena," published in the April issue of Fortean Times, on stands now) on the magazine's website.  You can read the full article (extracted from Chapter 21 of Cryptoscatology, which the publisher informs me is on its way to the printers even as I write this) right here.

Tuesday, March 27, 2012

Camouflage Through Limited Disclosure

In the October 2007 issue of Fortean Times, I published a review of Randy Koppang’s book, Camouflage Through Limited Disclosure:  Deconstructing a Cover-up of the Extraterrestrial Presence (Book Tree, 2006).  Due to space restrictions, the review had to be edited severely.  I’ve always wanted to see the complete review in print, so I decided to post it here.

On February 10, 2007, at the Conscious Life Expo (held annually at the LAX Hilton Hotel), I met Richard Hoagland, author of The Monuments of Mars and Dark Mission:  The Secret History of NASA, and heard him tell the standing-room-only audience that Camouflage Through Limited Disclosure was (and this is an exact quote) “the most important exopolitical critique of the UFO subject to date I’ve read in decades.” 

Months later, the book was praised by no less an authority than Richard Dolan, author of the excellent book UFOs and the National Security State.  Dolan said, in part, “Koppang takes on issues most UFO researchers avoid... going beyond simple black and white arguments.”

I happen to know that Koppang is hard at work on a follow-up book (a voluminous tome) that’s going to blow quite a few minds when it’s published.  It will definitely turn your conception of UFOlogy upside down and inside-out.  Keep your eyes peeled for it.

Here’s what I wrote about Koppang’s first book back in 2007: 

CAMOUFLAGE THROUGH LIMITED DISCLOSURE:
DECONSTRUCTING A COVER-UP OF THE EXTRATERRESTRIAL PRESENCE

Author:  Randy Koppang
Publisher:  Book Tree
Price:  $15.95 (US)/£8.95 (UK)
Isbn:  978-1-58509-110-2

Since the birth of the UFO phenomenon sixty years ago when pilot Kenneth Arnold first coined the phrase “flying saucer” upon witnessing strange aerial craft hovering over Mt. Rainier in Washington State way back in 1947, numerous authors have published books that attempt to peel back the lid of secrecy on this taboo subject and reveal the inner workings of the government cover-up.  Randy Koppang’s new book, Camouflage Through Limited Disclosure, differs from almost all of them in one crucial respect:  it does not miss the main point.  There is no government cover-up of the UFO phenomenon.

Is Koppang’s book written from a skeptical point of view, like one of those many pseudo-academic tomes published by Prometheus Books’ stable of Skeptical Inquirer authors that attempt to explain away every anomalous phenomenon that has ever occurred as mass hysteria or errant swamp gas?  No, it’s not.  It’s written from the point of view of somebody who has studied the most basic tools of behavioral psychology and Madison Avenue mind-manipulation techniques to understand that the most effective cover-up is the one that doesn’t exist.

Consider the lesson of Edgar Allan Poe.  In 1841 Poe created the very first literary detective, Monsieur C. Auguste Dupin, in his celebrated short story “The Murders in the Rue Morgue.”  Fifty years later this story will inspire Arthur Conan Doyle to create the most famous literary detective of all time, Sherlock Holmes.  In 1844 Poe writes a sequel to “The Murders in the Rue Morgue” titled “The Purloined Letter” in which Dupin outsmarts the Prefect of the Parisian Police by doing what the Prefect cannot:  retrieve a most incriminating letter that has been stolen from a member of the royal family.  The entire police department has searched the room of the thief and come up empty-handed.  It takes Dupin to point out the obvious to the Prefect:  this entire time the envelope they’re searching for has been sitting safely in the letter holder perched on the mantle piece, hidden in plain view.

In Philip J. Corso’s 1997 book, The Day After Roswell, a memoir detailing his involvement with the aftermath of the infamous UFO crash at Roswell, the retired Army Colonel discusses the method his superiors decided to employ in order to most effectively distract public attention away from the UFO topic (a topic that consistently appeared emblazoned in the headlines in almost every major newspaper, almost every single day, during the late 1940s and early 1950s).  It’s a method still used to this day—to this very second, in fact—and Corso sums it up in a single sentence:  “The cover-up is the disclosure and the disclosure is the cover-up.” 

Back in 2001 and 2002 I published a two-part article in the pages of Paranoia Magazine (Issues 28 and 29) titled “Science Fiction As Manipulation:  SF’s Intersection with the Intelligence Community” in which I delineated the intimate link between various intelligence agencies and the field of science fiction going all the way back to the 1890s.  In the second part of that article I briefly mentioned the vast number of documented military and intelligence agents who were involved in the flood of science fiction B-films that poured out of Hollywood beginning in 1951.  In his book Corso claims that his military team influenced from behind the scenes the production of such films as The Man From Planet X (United Artists, 1951), the first movie to feature the alien-from-outer-space meme.  “This was called camouflage through limited disclosure,” Corso writes, “and it worked.  If people could enjoy it as entertainment, get duly frightened, and follow trails to nowhere that the working group had planted, then they’d be less likely to stumble over what we were really doing.” 

Koppang takes his cue from Corso and applies this principle to the various “limited disclosures” we’ve seen leak out of the military and the media (is there a difference?) over the past six decades.  The book is divided into three sections.  Part One, simply titled “Overview,” is among the most dense and keenly observed analyses of the current state of the UFO field I’ve ever read.  Koppang demonstrates that the UFO issue is the missing piece of the puzzle in any mainstream analysis of world affairs.  For sixty years the UFO subject has been the proverbial elephant in the room, and the purpose of this book is not only to admit that the elephant exists, but to explain how it got there in the first place and where it’s headed from here.  After all, an elephant can’t just stand there unseen in the middle of the room forever, can it?  In only 66 pages Koppang illustrates in this “Overview” how politics, psychology, media studies, and the transgressive UFO subject are all converging to form a post-postmodern field of exopolitics, a proscenium arch under which the entire theatre of geopolitics is now being enacted. 

After the neophyte student of UFOlogy has managed to plow through a curriculum of increasingly more in-depth fare like Timothy Good’s Above Top Secret, Richard Dolan’s UFOs and the National Security State, and Paul Hill’s Unconventional Flying Objects (in that order), Koppang’s “Overview” is the perfect post-graduate text to be assigned to the most dedicated student of the UFO conundrum.

In Part Two of this book, Koppang offers a brief but illuminating interview with Melinda Leslie, one of the best kept secrets in the UFO field.  Leslie claims to be an alien abductee who, following her various close encounters, has been repeatedly reabducted by military-style commandos and interrogated by them with cavalier interrogation techniques that sound suspiciously similar to those used by private corporations such as Blackwater, the company responsible for the illegal interrogation of suspected terrorists in Abu Ghraib and other concentration-camp-style prisons in the Middle East.  After reading Leslie’s highly convincing testimony, which does not lack corroborating evidence, one wonders if Blackwater has been contracted to handle interrogations of a different kind on top of their rather lucrative deal in the Middle East.

Part Three, titled “Ace in the Hole,” is devoted to Koppang’s transcription of testimony far more obscure than even Melinda Leslie’s:  that of a former Marine Corps fighter pilot named Bill Uhouse who claims to have played a formative role in perfecting anti-gravity technology back-engineered from recovered extraterrestrial spacecraft.  Uhouse’s plain spoken, non-sensational reportage gives his testimony a ring of truth lacking in those who claim to be insiders while actively seeking the spotlight of media attention.  Uhouse’s disclosure of this Unacknowledged Special Access Project was so “limited” as to be almost nonexistent.  If not for Koppang going out of his way to hunt down this information and transcribe it, the public wouldn’t even know it existed.

In this relatively short but comprehensive analysis of the cover-up that doesn’t exist, Koppang never once takes his eye off the envelope sitting on the mantle for everybody to see, if only they were willing to open their eyes. 

To order Camouflage Through Limited Disclosure, visit the publisher’s website.

 http://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0231/1817/products/Camouflage_through_limited_Disclosure_large.jpg?3060

Friday, March 16, 2012

PALEO POP

To my surprise, I recently received a rather thoughtful letter from Stephen R. Bissette praising my Video Watchdog article “Charles Darwin and the Suppressed Science of Dr. Mirakle.”  He has asked for permission to reprint the entire article in a book called PALEO POP:  S.R. BISSETTE'S TYRANT® MEDIA GUIDE, VOL. 1, which he intends on publishing sometime next year.  The book will be a collection of essays about what Bissette calls “prehistoric media.” 

In case you don’t know about Bissette’s career (and if not, you definitely should), he was the artist of Alan Moore’s Swamp Thing, the co-creator of the subtly subversive retro comic book 1963, the editor of the groundbreaking anthology Taboo, and the writer/artist of Tyrant, an ambitious graphic-novel-in-progress documenting the life of a Tyrannosaurus Rex from birth to death. 

Synchronicities abound in my life, and this incident is no exception.  Twenty-four hours before I received Bissette’s letter, my wife was glancing through Video Watchdog #166 (the issue that contains my article).  She was commenting favorably on the overall quality of the layout and photo reproductions.  I said, “Here, let me show you where I first saw Tim Lucas’ name.”  (Lucas, of course, is the editor of Video Watchdog.)  From my bookshelf I pulled out all ten volumes of Taboo, something I hadn’t done in many, many years.  (Lucas’ multi-part story “Throat Sprockets” was serialized throughout Taboo's run.)  “These books spun my brain around when I was sixteen years old,” I told my wife, handing her the first couple of volumes.  I then started telling her about Bissette at great length—a subject that had never come up between us before.  Only a few days prior to that, I stumbled across Tyrant #1-4 at a local bookstore and brought them home.  Then, only a day later, Bissette’s letter dropped out of the sky and landed in my inbox.  Weirdness!

By the way, at the moment Bissette is running a series of very perceptive articles analyzing Jack Kirby and Stan Lee’s respective relationships with Marvel Entertainment (or “Godcorp,” as Steve Gerber once called the corporation in his and Jack Kirby’s satirical Destroyer Duck series).  They are the best and most insightful articles I’ve ever read on the subject.  The articles rise above being mere gossipy speculation about the ins and out of a fifty-year-old collaboration between two comic book creators and become instead, on a macroscopic scale, an analysis of the destructively symbiotic relationship between artists and the corporations that often control their destinies.  I urge you to check out Bissette’s website.