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Al Bielek de-bunked (cont.)

Part 6 -- Statements from the Principal Investigators (Barnes, Houpt, Schelm)

Marshall Barnes

My statement concerning the results of this investigation is rather threefold. First, this is no victory for skepticism. Those skeptics out there who want to stand up and shout to the believers "See, we told YOU SO!" should just sit down and shut-up. There was no "we" involved in any of this besides the investigators behind this website. Not one noted skeptic who has ever made a peep against the Philadelphia Experiment has been correct yet. And it took none of their previous pathetic "attempts" at debunking to solve this portion of the mystery.

Absolutely nothing that Robert Goerman, Loren Coleman, or Benjamin LeBlanc has said in public or in print contributed one iota of evidence against Al Bielek's claims. In fact, I can cite numerous times when so-called, self-proclaimed skeptics have lied (like Benjamin LeBlanc and Mack Shelton), obfuscated (like Robert Goerman), hidden evidence (like Robert Todd Carroll or the A&E network via Towers Productions), or just sat around on their fat backsides like "Dr. Postman" of the so-called "Skep-Ti-Cult" and called names from the sidelines or played armchair physicist when they knew absolutely nothing about what they were talking about, made any attempt to learn, nor could have understood it even if they had tried.

No, from my extensive 10 year exposure to the ilk of the skeptic community, I have found that instead of pursuing the path that used to define skeptical review -- which was to go out and investigate things (oh my gawd! Imagine that! No, it's too damn hard!) -- instead there has been a reliance on repeating and regurgitating the claims of disbelief that have come before, despite their lack of veracity or merit. Nor do skeptics seem to even check such statements for their veracity.

Michael Corbin of ParaNet comes to mind who leapt at the chance to run Jacques Vallee's debunking of the Philadelphia Experiment and called it "good research", when a simple check of the dates, places, and military history divulged by Vallee's so-called "witness" would have proven to Corbin early on that Vallee's witness was a phony. But no, he bought it "hook, line, and sinker" until it was later revealed to be the biggest pile of steaming hot disinfo ever plopped on the UFO community. Robert Todd Carroll also bought into it and -- when confronted with the lengthy evidence to the contrary -- saw fit to minimize it by saying that I was just "claiming" that the story was disinformation as if there was no real basis for that claim.

The fact is the U.S. Navy Time magazine accounts from a German Naval captain and the records of the hundreds of allied seamen lost in the North Sea are the ones claiming that Vallee's witness is a liar. I was only reporting their existence. But Robert Todd Carroll -- acting just like that which I've seen plenty skeptics behave -- ignored those obvious facts because they conflicted with his own belief system. Instead of dealing with it or admitting that perhaps the Vallee article was not what he thought it was at first, he treated the information that had sunk it elsewhere on the net, like it was simply a small speed bump. Then again, it wouldn't be the first time a skeptic didn't let the truth get in the way of his spreading a good lie.

I loathe what passes now for popular skepticism because it loathes the search for the truth. Instead, it worships doubt, denial, and denigration. Popular skepticism at best is no more interested in the 'truth' than their mirror opposites on the other extreme that will believe anything without the slightest reservation. The only difference is that one group will believe anything no matter how outlandish the claim. And the other -- the cult of popular skepticism -- will believe any reason to disbelieve a claim no matter how ridiculous. At worse, popular skepticism is hypocrisy at its height. Despite its claims of being "scientific", it is no more scientific than the Church was that sought to stymie the great minds of the Renaissance. In fact, popular skepticism is always fallible and yet always seeks to stand in the way of progress and innovation.

According to the skeptics in various ages, we shouldn't be flying, using submarines, seeing things on other planets, have ever ventured into space or landed on the Moon or Mars, or any other numerous things that we take for granted and are too numerous to mention. For every major invention and scientific breakthrough, there have been a bunch of pinheaded jerks saying that it couldn't be done. There is no telling how many breakthroughs have been squashed in their infancy because of the pompous, bombastic arrogance of so-called skeptics and their tendency to use their power and positions to defend and further their own ignorance to influence the World. In other words, the true spirit that inhabits popular skepticism is that same intolerant spirit that caused finger-pointing and cries of "Blasphemy!" except now it's Penn Jillette giving the finger and yelling "Bullsh*t!" on national cable TV.

No, this is no victory for skepticism. It's a backhanded slap to its face because for all of Robert Todd Carroll's, Robert Goerman's, Benjamin LeBlanc's, and Mack Shelton's, any one of them could have done what we have here. They just didn't have the brains, the guts, and yes! the balls to do it. Oh yeah, here's another one. None of what we've proved here disproves the Philadelphia Experiment story. Al Bielek didn't invent it and neither did Carl Allen (alias "Carlos Allende"). While not one skeptical claim against the legend stands up to scrutiny (Robert Todd Carroll's addition to it all in his Skeptic's Dictionary is farciful self-indictment if there ever was one), the evidence in favor of the U.S. Navy attempting to achieve optical and radar invisibility during WWII is mounted far past the point of reasonable doubt. And will be posted eventually on this site.

This includes the true identity of the infamous Dr. Franklin Reno ( aka "Dr. Rinehart" -- the physicist who had talked to Carl Allen and was interviewed by William Moore in his book The Philadelphia Experiment: Project Invisibility which is the most accurate source of information about the Philadelphia Experiment legend though it is far from perfect. Like other parts of the Bielek-PX/Montauk hybrid hoax, the 'Dr. Rinehart' mentioned in the Montauk books is not the one interviewed by William Moore. And it's not John von Neumann, either. While we are not sure of that man's identity, we are sure that we have found the real 'Dr. Rinehart'.

So despite the fall of your favorite whipping boy (me -- Marshall Barnes), you skeptics of the Philadelphia Experiment have gained nothing. In fact, you've lost your credibility, the battle … and soon the whole war.

Secondly, the reasons behind why Al Bielek -- and by association, Preston Nichols and Duncan Cameron -- have perpetrated this fraud I think are rather prosaic. It appears (though it is not confirmed) that Duncan's father -- Alexander Duncan Cameron -- may have known of the PX story because he was in the U.S. Coast Guard at the time and stationed near one of the early testing areas. We've already established Al Bielek's early knowledge of the PX. Preston Nichols' seems to be when he worked for Airborne Instrument Laboratories Eaton AIL) and was saw an old file on it when studying information on various ultra high and low radio frequencies (or so he claims).

The truth is that AIL has verified that he did in fact work for them at that time. And AIL turned up independently on my list of military contractors which the NDRC may have had involved with the Philadelphia Experiment's development. At that time, they were based in Columbia University. With each having their own background and exposure to the PX history, at some point after they first met -- and probably prompted by the release of "The Philadelphia Experiment" movie and no obvious follow-up to the Moore book -- they decided to extend the legend on their own. One only has to compare their accounts and the way they have presented themselves at lectures and in interviews with the exact same things that veteran "wannabes" have done. Those men who choose to stand-up and say "Yes, I was there at the Tet Offensive and you should be glad that you weren't. It began on a day like any other..." Men who seem as genuine and believable as anyone could imagine and yet are lying with every word.

Any number of people have remarked how "believable" Al and Preston seem despite the far-out and unverifiable nature of their claims. When reading an article in a veteran's magazine about these wartime wannabes, I was struck by the identical behavior between them and Bielek and Preston. The only difference was the subject matter. Absolutely nothing else.

My support of the Bielek version of the PX had always been based on the inability to prove either way whether he was telling the truth. Listeners to the Art Bell (C2C) show may remember that when Mike Siegel was the host and Bielek was a guest, Bielek got himself into a bind over some issues and I called up the program and bailed him out. However, as I found more-and-more evidence supporting the fact that the Philadelphia Experiment was a real event but found none that supported Bielek's version, I became suspicious. My suspicions actually had their origins from statements that he made that night to Siegel about having papers from a Navy doctor that treated the crew of the Eldridge. These papers had been mentioned to me before by Al. But when I asked him to send me copies, he quickly declined to do so, saying something to the effect that he wasn't ready for them to be released yet. I heard that night the same sudden hesitation in his voice when -- to his surprise -- Siegel asked to see copies of the letters and Al begrudgingly said he would send them. As far as I know, he never did. And I remember at one point Siegel saying that he had yet to get them.

Those letters were the beginning of the end for Bielek's credibility because when I did get a chance to see them -- thanks to a researcher named Alexandra "Chica" Bruce -- I saw on their face that they were fakes. Fakes designed by someone unknown to fool your typical, gullible PX fan. But not to anyone that possessed any real knowledge of the entire PX saga. Like trying to pass off a Susan B. Anthony dollar as an extremely rare and ancient coin to a professional coin collector.

The letters were supposed to have been given to Al by Phil Schneider, who claimed that they had been written by his father. Without going into details, the letters were so ludicrous because they weren't even supportive of the Bielek account. The dates were wrong, the ship names were wrong, ranks and service protocols were wrong. So wrong in fact that officers of the U.S. Navy that I consulted with -- on verifying the military aspects of the documents -- suggested that I go to their criminal investigation division because anyone passing those letters off as being real Navy communications was committing a fraud! But when Chica told Montauk book publisher Vince Barbarick (the real name of "Peter Moon") about this, he vehemently countered that I wasn't in the military so I didn't know what I was talking about. It wasn't until I did some research and dug up documents that proved I was right, that Chica believed me.

Even still, in her book "The Philadelphia Experiment Murder: The Physics of the Insane" (and now we're finally learning where the insanity really stems from), Barbarick (aka "Moon") interjects -- after stating the reasons why I feel the letters are a fraud -- that I'm not-nor-never was in the military, so I wouldn't know all the in's-and-out's of how military communications work. Barbarick's insistence on casting doubt on my ability to determine whether the letters were genuine or not -- when clearly they weren't -- made me realize that there was a new kind of cover-up afoot -- a cover-up to protect a "vulnerability" in the PX/Montauk hybrid story that Barbarick had now been turning into a successful cash cow.

If I began to doubt the party line, no one better than Barbarick knew what those implications could be: that I would start digging and find out the truth. After all, Barbarick had been there on the 50-yard line and front row for what my investigations made of Jacques Vallee's much-celebrated "Anatomy of a Hoax" debunking attempt. Al himself had participated in the coup de grace that destroyed the much ballyhooed PX survivor wannabe "Drue" when I ambushed him on a national radio program with the fact that I had discovered that nearly all of his claims were fakes and could be proven so in a court of law. "Boy, you really got him", Bielek exclaimed, overjoyed on my voice mail afterwards. Bielek had rightly sensed that Drue was a disinfo plant. But more to the point, he was competition for Bielek himself. And it was a sense of competition from me that I believe was sending Al to dig up as much "evidence" -- no matter how lame it was -- to support his claims because I was constantly finding evidence that neglected to verify his account of events.