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Lesley

Grey Matter

Lesley is also a columnist for UFO Magazine. Check it out !

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2.29.12

Hoax Fatigue

OK, I admit it - I am really getting sick of hoaxers. Unlike many, I don't really think they harm the credibility of UFOlogy, but it is annoying that they get so much attention when real researchers doing real research get almost none. That said, I guess it does somewhat harm UFOlogy in the sense that real people who have real stories to tell may not be believed.

Recently, I tuned into C2C to hear Ken Gerhart. I don't know if the lake monster video is a hoax, but I am 99.9% sure the Wooly Mammoth story is just a bear with a fish. Everything that Michael Cohen puts out is either a hoax or in some way very questionable and sensationalized. Yet, there was Ian taking it somewhat seriously and giving the story way more attention than it deserves as many news sites have throughout the week.

I am not the only person that feels that way about Cohen and his "All News Web." There are many sites on the internet that refuse to link to him. Loren Coleman has a very good post about Cohen and the Mammoth hoax at Cryptomundo

Cohen has been around for awhile, but, lately, there is a newer very questionable person. His name is Dave Masko and her writes for a blog site called Huliq and seems to be based in Oregon. For some reason, like All News Web, Huliq is picked up by google news and stories from it end up in my inbox.

Masko normally posts UFO-related stories like mass UFO sightings in Oregon and metal boxes then washing up on the beach afterwards that are too heavy to be moved and have some sort of noise coming from inside. So a very sensational story, but no real evidence that it ever happened. You can read more about Masko in this thread at AboveTopSecret.

There have always been hoaxers in UFOlogy and the paranormal, but not exactly the serial hoaxers we are seeing now. I am not sure what the motivation for this is, maybe advertising dollars by attracting a lot of people to these sites, but I really don't know. While I don't mind sites like Weekly World News and their fake stories because everyone knows they are fake and when they show up in my newsfeed from google they are marked "satire." You never see real news sites picking those up like they may be true, but they seem to love the sensational headlines provided by All News Web and Masko at Huliq even though there is very little evidence any of their stories are true and any videos and photos are always blurry.

Aside from Hoax sites, there is this other "news" site called "Before it's News." A few weeks back I linked to a story on their site on facebook. I knew that some of the story they had got from Scott Corrales' Journal of Hispanic Ufology because they did link to it way down in their article, but they made it seem as though only that small portion had come from there. Later, I find out from Scott that all of it was from his blog and they stole it and used it without permission.

I am not sure what can be done about this type of thing and I know the answer is probably nothing on a large scale. However, on my own very small scale - I will not be linking to any of those sites.

  • Check out Lesley's Blog HERE

    As well as her Beyond the Dial blog

  • Lesley is also a columnist for UFO Magazine. Check it out !