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Wingate Responds to Pope Death

4.6.5

Fr. Andrew Wingate, his reputation tarnished perhaps beyond all repair, reappeared on Coast to Coast AM on Tuesday night to discuss the death of the Pope. (See the article posted @ binnallofamerica.com on Sunday (4.3.5) discussing Wingate's ill-fated appearance on C2C the previous Friday where he asserted that the Pope would not die as a result of his ailments and actually be cured and then go into exile.) Monday night, after probably being bombarded with e-mails by listeners re: Wingate, Noory said he would be having Wingate on the first hour of Tuesday's show and that Wingate was "sticking by his story".

Wingate's appearance consisted of a few minutes (less than 10) where he totally passed the buck on his wrong prediction re: the Pope and blamed his "sources" for the wrong prediction. He claimed his sources were "other mystics" who were previously correct on numerous occastions (occassions he did not cite). We are working on getting direct quotations from the appearance and expect them later in the day. He also spun the original "sticking by his story" quip to a miscommunication with C2C's producers. He acknolwedged that the Pope was, in fact, dead.

That said, give Wingate credit for not pulling a Nancy Leider and outright denying that it happened or claiming he got the wrong date. He admitted he was wrong and that the Pope was indeed dead. That's better than I can say for the Sean David Morton's and Sylvia Browne's who pollute the show with their spin. Wingate sounded genuinely befuddled that he was wrong. Somehow I cannot chalk that up to simply being a bad con man. A bad con victim perhaps, but Wingate is not smooth enough to be the typical psychic con. Any psychic worth their salt would not paint themselves into a corner as Wingate did. I suspect there is more to this than Wingate just being an awful psychic, though it's far too early and much too esoteric to even get a good guess on how this happened.

Why anyone even acts outraged when someone comes on C2C and makes a wrong prediction is beyond me. C2C's track record for producing quality, consistent prognosticators is beyond awful. Simon Apsinall's website is the best record we have of C2C guests and I'm sure that those who know of it must rue it every day. No psychic covered there has risen above the mire to even a respectable hit rate. Kudos to Aspinall and people like UFOwatchdog.com who actually expect accountability from guests and also act as educators to those "new to the game".

I've found it more entertaining to see the guests dig holes for themselves and then try and backpeddle their way out of it. Ed Dames appearing last January after having not produced the gold for Art Bell and trying to explain why it didn't happen was beyond priceless and one of my favorite moments of 2005 so far. Richard C. Hoagland ran with his wrong prediction about the date of "life on Mars" and turned it in into the "missing Formasano" story, the genius. I may never forgive Noory for at least not having Nancy Lieder on to explain herself to us after hyping May 15th for so long and not delivering.

I also give credit to George Noory for his response to the caller, something to the effect of "I will not lay into a Catholic priest." (Get your minds of the gutter, folks) It showed Noory had some class and didn't outright rip into Wingate. That said, notice his blowoff "keep in touch with us" to Wingate when he was leaving, the proverbial "don't call us, we'll call you". Also notice that Wingate was given a scant handful of minutes, not the "1st Half Hour" as billed by C2C, who quickly brought John Hogue in after sending Wingate on his way.

I expect Wingate to return, but not until 2006, sadly. I am a fan, admittedly, of his wild dire apocalyptic story and his rants about random stuff he finds immoral. He is, IMO, better than just about any psychic they have on, who are schills for themselves and their products, instead of Wingate who is a schill for his religion, which is at least moderately respectable.

Off topic somewhat, let me take this opportunity to take Noory to task for the lackluster episode on Friday while the Pope was now, in retrospect, on death's doorstep. He claimed he had "Kathleen Keating and John Hogue on stand-by". George, you've got to pull the trigger on these, man ! That episode would have been one for the books. I can understand the sentiment that he did not want to overcover it, but it was almost a foregone conclusion at that point, considering they'd already accidentally announced the Pope dead earlier in the day.

I would have even dug a 3-4 hour pre-show prior to the Bell show on Saturday when the news broke, ala the Columbia Crash story that Noory covered like a champ. I actually checked the site a few times, figuring that The Noor would demand to take the airwaves and cover this story, because it was monumental. No, one hour of Wingate making a wrong prediction (which was admittedly awesome, but I'm a small audience who thought so) and an hour of John Hogue badly discussing Malachai's prophecy (Joe Vee did a better and more credible job @ binnallofamerica.com) For shame, Noory, for shame. That thing on the ground ? That's the ball you dropped.

When the history books of C2C are written, the Wingate story of 2005 may rank up there with the Sister Lucia debacle of 2004. An episode where the episode itself is more newsworthy than its topic. Surreal esoterica.


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