Richard C. Hoagland

Richard Charles Hoagland
Born	(1945-04-25) April 25, 1945
Nationality	American
Known for	Theories about extraterrestrial civilizations; accusations of corruption of NASA and US Government
Partner	Robin Falkov
Website	http://www.enterprisemission.com http://www.darkmission.net

Richard Charles Hoagland, (born April 25, 1945) is an American author and a proponent of various conspiracy theories about NASA, lost alien civilizations on the Moon and on Mars and other related topics.

His writings claim that advanced civilizations exist or once existed on the Moon, Mars and on some of the moons of Jupiter and Saturn, and that NASA and the United States government have conspired to keep these facts secret. He has advocated his ideas in two published books, several videotapes, lectures, interviews, and press conferences. His views have never been published in peer-reviewed journals. Hoagland has been described by James Oberg of The Space Review and Phil Plait of Bad Astronomy as a conspiracy theorist and fringe thinker.

Background

Hoagland says that he served as a curator of astronomy & space science at the Springfield Science Museum, located at The Quadrangle in Springfield, Massachusetts, and that he was a consultant to CBS News during the Apollo program. Hoagland appears regularly as a Science Adviser on Coast to Coast AM with George Noory. Hoagland has also appeared on the BBC programs UFO Evidence & Conspiracy, and Mysteries in Space. Hoagland co-produced a radio program on WTIC (AM) of Hartford, Connecticut, The Night of the Encounter, which covered the July 14, 1965, Mariner 4 flyby of the planet Mars. Hoagland authored the book The Monuments of Mars: A City on the Edge of Forever, and co-authored the book Dark Mission: The Secret History of NASA, which was ranked 21st on the New York Times Best Seller list for Paperback Nonfiction for one week on November 18, 2007.

Hoagland formerly operated a website, The Enterprise Mission, which he termed "an independent NASA watchdog and research group attempting to figure out how much of what NASA has found in the solar system over the past 50 years has actually been silently filed out of sight as classified material". In late 2007, Hoagland released the recording of a National Press Club press conference held on October 30, 2007 in which Hoagland and Ken Johnston, a former NASA employee who worked in the Lunar Receiving Laboratory during the Apollo missions, announced that Johnston was ordered to destroy Apollo lunar images and data 40 years ago. Johnston states that he secretly preserved these Apollo images in a private album of "about 1000 old NASA photos and other memorabilia" from his time at NASA, and some of these images were printed and discussed along with Johnston's story in the Dark Mission book. In December 2007, Project Camelot released a 3-part ~3 hour interview with Hoagland where he talks about "the secret history of NASA", he shows lunar images and elaborates on his various claims about the moon, and he talks about a variety of topics such as "hyperdimensional physics", ancient monuments, the Vatican, consciousness, and the year 2012.

In 1997, Hoagland received the Ig Nobel Prize for Astronomy , a parody award given for outlandish or "trivial" contributions to science. In November 2006, Conscious Media Network interviewed Hoagland. Hoagland has made numerous claims about the existence of intelligent extraterrestrial life, supported by digitally reprocessed photographic evidence from planetary exploration and testimonials by former government and military officials. During guest appearances on Coast to Coast AM With George Noory, Hoagland references longstanding friendships with scientists from NASA and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory who, according to Hoagland, provide him with inside information. However, on the 21 and 22 August 2008 radio show he stated "we do not depend on sources, when I say so-and-so source told me, I have additional confirmation from another mechanism, usually the physics and terms of numbers that backs up with what our source or sources have told us."

Hyperdimensional physics

Hoagland has proposed a form of physics he calls 'hyperdimensional physics' which, supported by the work of pseudoscientific overunity claimant Thomas E. Bearden, he claims to represent the full implementation of James Clerk Maxwell's original 20 quaternion equations, instead of the reduced Maxwell's equations as amended by Oliver Heaviside commonly taught today. These ideas are rejected by the mainstream physics community as unfounded.

A tenet of these views holds that vast amounts of energy originating from dimensions we cannot perceive are available at latitudes 19.5° both south and north on the Sun and every planet in the solar system. Hoagland points to the colossal volcano, Olympus Mons, on Mars as the supreme example, in addition to Earth's biggest volcano, Mauna Loa on the island of Hawaiʻi, and the Anticyclonic storm on Jupiter. The center of Olympus Mons is at 18.3°N 227°E.and the massive shield spans 14°N to 24°N. Jupiter's Great Red Spot is centered at 22°S. According to Hoagland, an essential prediction of his theory is that a massive planet is yet to be discovered in the solar system. To date, no research conducted in mainstream astronomy would appear to substantiate these theories.

Mars, Face on Mars, and Cydonia

Hoagland claims "the Face on Mars" is part of a city built on Cydonia Planitia consisting of very large pyramids and mounds arranged in a geometric pattern, with the ratios between measured angles roughly equaling mathematical constants such as π (pi), e, and the square root of 2. He states that the ratio between the surface area of a sphere and the surface area of the tetrahedron inscribed within it, 2.720699 (π × square root of 3/2), is an approximation of e that Hoagland refers to as e'. Since e'/π (square root of 3 / 2) is −0.866, Hoagland speculates that the primary meaning of the geometry of Cydonia is to emphasize the ratio of the sphere and circumscribed tetrahedron. To Hoagland, this is evidence that an advanced civilization might once have existed on Mars, and that NASA is suppressing the evidence for reasons explained in a Brookings Institution report entitled Proposed Studies on the Implications of Peaceful Space Activities for Human Affairs. In fact, although the report did state that it is a possibility that such information would destabilize society, it did not itself even consider the question of withholding information from the public. The report recommended that the question ought to be studied.

On April 5, 1998, the Mars Global Surveyor probe sent back better images of the Cydonia region that indicated that the face was an irregularly shaped mountain. Hoagland contends these images were run through multiple filters that degraded the original image in quality, giving it a catbox appearance which obscures what is really on Mars. On September 21, 2006, several new 3D views were released, derived from the high-resolution stereo camera on the European Space Agency's Mars Express orbiter. In response to their publication Hoagland remarked "Science is not about what you can see. It's about what you can measure,", and Hoagland's co-author Mike Bara has accused the European Space Agency, which released that photo set, of fraud. The image from the HiRISE camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, released in April 2007, was so detailed that even Hoagland appears to have abandoned his contention that the whole structure is a face. In the epilogue to his book released the following October, he analyzes instead the details of the face mesa within the MRO frame that he says are "obviously collapsed geometric ruins [with] parallel walls, multiple 3-D planes, twisted beams, and thin girders."

In March 2010 the European Space Agency's Mars Express returned radar and visual data from Mars' larger moon, Phobos, showing the moon in unprecedented detail. Hoagland wrote that Phobos was revealed to be artificial, a "manufactured" satellite. He added that ESA itself would announce this finding at the European Planetary Science Congress [1] in Rome, in September 2010. The Phobos session at EPSC in fact announced that Phobos is probably formed from re-accretion of orbiting debris.

Hoagland also claims that the true color of Mars is salmon red with patches of greenish plant life and a light blue sky, that Mars was once the moon of a larger planet which exploded, leaving Mars isolated, that the advanced civilization on Mars had prior warning of the cataclysm and so escaped via migration to planet Earth, eventually adapting to the environment and becoming the present human race, and that the numerous objects surrounding the landing sites of the Mars Exploration Rovers are in fact pieces of Martian machinery.

Life on Europa

Hoagland claims the theory concerning the presence of oceans, and possibly life, under the surface of Jupiter's moon Europa, originated in an article he published in the January 1980 issue of Star & Sky magazine. This claim is disputed by Ralph Greenberg, a professor of Mathematics at the University of Washington, who asserts that such theories were widely known in the 1970s, pointing out that Isaac Asimov, for example, promoted them in his 1979 book Extraterrestrial Civilizations. Hoagland himself references the work of "Cassen, Peale, and Reynolds" in the article. Their computer modeling work looked at the possibility that tidal heating could maintain an ocean beneath the icy surface.

The Moon

Hoagland rejects the entire body of knowledge represented by professional selenology and asserts that there are large semitransparent structures constructed of glass on the lunar surface, visible in some Apollo photography when the images are digitally manipulated. He goes on to say that NASA is suppressing knowledge of an ancient civilization on the Moon, and that the advanced technology of this civilization is lying around on the Moon's surface. He has repeatedly alleged that the 12 moon-walkers, who would be well qualified to confirm the existence of lunar artifacts and glass structures, have had their memories selectively edited via hypnosis so that they no longer remember seeing evidence of a lunar civilization. He has stated that a feature in an image of the lunar surface, mistakenly believed by professional planetary scientists to be a rock, is actually the severed head of a robot, and that NASA is the originator of the "...we didn't go to the moon" hoax..

On Coast to Coast AM on September 24/25 2009 Hoagland stated that the extremely thin film of water that had been detected on the Moon was obviously leaking from buried cities.

On October 6/7 2009 he opined that the upcoming LCROSS lunar impact was targeted on a manned lunar base, set up by "The Secret Space Program," and that the impact would reveal some secrets. He also said that the impact would be recorded by ALSEP seismometers — the idea that ALSEP was turned off in September 1977 was "just another NASA lie." 18 days after the LCROSS lunar impacts, Hoagland released a digitally manipulated copy of the plume image released by NASA. Hoagland wrote that the rectilinear pixellation pattern emphasized by his manipulation of the photograph is in fact a ruined city.

U.S. government conspiracy

Hoagland claims The United States government has covered up the presence of extraterrestrials, that the Space Agency murdered the Apollo 1 astronauts, that NASA missions to Mars are a "well documented interest of the Bush family", and that there is a clandestine space program which uses antigravity technology reverse-engineered from lunar artifacts and communicated by secret societies.

Hoagland further claims that President John F. Kennedy was assassinated by an agency or agencies opposed to his stated policy of inviting Nikita Khrushchev to create a joint U.S.–Soviet manned lunar effort. He asserts that Federal agencies such as the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and NASA are linked to Freemasonry.

NASA and the Egyptian Gods

Hoagland has written and spoken often about what he sees as NASA's "fanatical, relentless" drive to pay homage to the Egyptian Gods Isis, Osiris, and Horus. Citing work by Robert Bauval and Graham Hancock on the symbolism of the Great Pyramid at Giza, he explains that these Gods are honored via their proxies, the stars Sirius (Isis), the "belt" stars of Orion (Osiris), and Regulus (Horus). He has theorized that NASA preferentially arranges for key space mission events to occur when these five stars are at any of five elevations (−33°, −19.5°, 0, 19.5° and 33°) as seen from a significant place related to that space mission event.

As an example, he cites the fact that, at the exact time of the Lunar Orbit Insertion burn of Apollo 8, on 24 December 1968, the Orion belt star Mintaka was exactly on the horizon of the site in the Sea of Tranquility where the Apollo 11 Lunar Module would land seven months later.

He traces the origin of this obsession on the part of NASA to the geologist Farouk El-Baz, who is Egyptian by birth. He has written that Dr. El-Baz was "the most powerful single individual in the American space program" because of his influence over Apollo landing site selection. One of the six Apollo landing sites satisfies Hoagland's Egyptian criteria (Mintaka at 19.5° at the moment of landing of Apollo 12.)

The Norwegian spiral

Main article: 2009 Norwegian spiral anomaly

Hoagland has commented at great length on the so-called Norway Spiral, an extraordinary display of light seen over much of northern Norway on 9 December 2009, caused by the partial failure of a Russian SLBM test flight. Hoagland draws special attention to the fact that this event occurred close to President Barack Obama's arrival in Norway to accept the Nobel Peace Prize.

On 2–3 February 2010, on the Coast to Coast AM radio show, Hoagland announced that the Russian SLBM had in fact been captured by Dark Forces intent on preventing mankind's exploration of outer space. These Dark Forces, he explained, were probably headed by Nazi officers who had escaped into space after World War II. To Hoagland, this was a sufficient explanation of President Obama's desire to cancel Project Constellation, since Obama had clearly accepted that any attempt to return to the Moon would be thwarted by the superior technology of the Nazis in space.

Elenin and YU55

During the summer and fall of 2011 Hoagland spoke and wrote extravagantly about comet C/2010 X1, also known as Elenin after its discoverer, and asteroid 2005 YU55. At a June teleconference sponsored by Project Camelot he gave the correct dates for closest approach to Earth for both bodies. He said that YU₅₅ would come dangerously close to both Earth and Moon while we were all distracted by Elenin.

At the Exopolitics conference in Leeds, and again at the Awake & Aware conference in Irvine, California, he expounded a complex pseudo-statistical theory which he said proved that Elenin was not a comet but a spaceship, sent by a prior Earthly civilization 13,000 years ago with a message for contemporary humanity. When, in late August, professional cometary astronomers announced that Elenin had begun to break up, Hoagland denied this and showed an image which he said proved that the spaceship had a tetrahedral shield protecting it from coronal mass ejections.

On Coast to Coast AM, 21 October, he stated that two things persuaded him that the asteroid YU₅₅ was also under intelligent control. First, its rotation period was 19.5 hours. Second, it was perfectly spherical. Both factors later turned out to be false, when better ephemerides and radar images became available. In a further appearance on the radio show, and on his Facebook page, he developed a theory that Elenin and YU₅₅ had had coincident perihelions and that the trajectory of YU₅₅ had then been perturbed such that it would now impact the Moon. He said that he had "numbers" to prove this but did not reveal what those numbers were. He advised his followers to store food, water and cash because the lunar impact would be so spectacular that some public panic would ensue.

On Coast to Coast AM, 7 November, he stated that two separate "sources" had informed him that an Atlas-Centaur was being launched from Vandenberg AFB that very night, on a mission to either observe or, more probably, to deflect, the asteroid.

In the event, neither of these two bodies diverged from predicted paths. Elenin disintegrated completely into a dust cloud. If there was a message for humanity it was not made public.

Other claims

In late 2003 on the Coast to Coast AM radio show with Art Bell, Richard claims to have attended a presidential fund raiser for then President George W Bush, who was up for re-election. At this fund raiser, Richard claims to have met with Vice President Dick Cheney, and had a discussion on the US cover-up on aliens. The Vice President advised Richard that if he was re-elected, he would get to the bottom of the alien situation and release all the information to the American people. Richard then began to campaign heavily on Coast to Coast AM, appearing every few days, advising listeners to vote for President Bush, so Vice President could make the life changing announcement of the proof of alien life beyond our planet. President Bush was re-elected, however the US government made no announcement such announcement. Richard was questioned on this matter at the 2009, 2010, & 2011 Exopolitics Leeds conference in the UK, all three years, Richard refused to comment on the matter. In early 2011, live on the Coast to Coast AM, Richard was once again questioned on the matter, Richard also refused to comment, and the shows George Noory did not follow up as to why his guest would not answer this question.

Hoagland has asserted that he was the "co-creator" of the Pioneer 10 plaque along with Eric Burgess, that the Saturnian moon Iapetus is an artificial world, that Galileo, which burned up in Jupiter's atmosphere, caused a mysterious black spot due to its nuclear power source, that the 9/11 attacks were part of a pseudo-Masonic conspiracy, and that The Arecibo message was intentionally altered by author Carl Sagan.

On December 9, 2007, Hoagland wrote that the vexatious problems NASA was then having with the “ECO” low-fuel sensors in the space shuttle main fuel tank were due to what he called “Torsion Physics”, which he claimed would never be resolved by conventional engineering. On February 7, 2008, STS-122 launched successfully. In the postlaunch press conference mission managers reported that the ECO sensors had performed flawlessly. The problem had been traced to an external tank feed-through connector—and corrected using perfectly conventional engineering STS-122#ECO sensor troubleshooting and recovery. The mission ended, as planned, on February 20—and was called a complete success. He also asserts that the orbital parameters of spin-stabilized satellites are influenced by an anti-gravity field in addition to the energy imparted by their launch rockets, which has been kept secret for fifty years until revealed by himself in August 2008. The February 2009 collision between Iridium 33 and Kosmos 2251 was "...deliberate, it was an act of violence.", with the intent to make low earth orbit "uninhabitable", and to permit termination of the Space Shuttle program and the Hubble space telescope. He stated on March 16 and 17, 2009 during the Coast to Coast AM show that the Hubble repair mission STS-125, scheduled for May 2009, will be canceled in line with a policy allowing NASA to devote resources to more inspiring programs (it was not). In addition, NASA statements about two space-junk alerts in March 2009 were "lies." During the Coast to Coast AM programs on June 10 and 11, 2009, Hoagland stated that NASA is destroying evidence of life on Mars through the heating of soil samples to high temperatures by the various rovers and landers, which has killed "Martians". During the Coast to Coast AM on May 21 and 22, 2009 he claimed that the Obama Administration could announce in the next few months that we have found life on Mars, and that Interplanetary warfare is being waged right now in Earth orbit, conducted by factions of a secret supra-national World Government.

On October 16/17, 2009, he stated that the new Ares I-X rocket, scheduled for rollout on October 19 for launch on October 27, would never reach the launch pad. In fact, Ares arrived at pad 39B on October 20, 2009.

On December 2/3, 2010, he said that the Shuttle Discovery mission STS-133, then on the launch pad, would be the first post-Newtonian mission. He explained that the spacecraft would be powered to orbit by hyperdimensional torsion, although he did not explain what he meant by that and was not pressed by host George Noory. STS-133 was delayed by needed repairs to the external tank, but launched successfully, and conventionally, on 24 February 2011.

Hoagland is a proponent of the theory that all the planets in the solar system are warming, and rejects man-made climate change. In 2004 he co-authored a report with David Wilcock to this effect.

Responses by scientists

Many scientists have responded to Hoagland's claims and assertions. Professional astronomer Phil Plait described Hoagland as a pseudoscientist and his claims as ridiculous. In 2002, Ralph Greenberg, Professor of Mathematics at University of Washington, Seattle, wrote a paper asserting that the logic of Hoagland's deductions from the geometry of Cydonia Mensae is flawed and says that Hoagland is not a trained scientist in any sense. The claim that the crashing of the Galileo Probe into Jupiter caused a "mysterious black spot" on the planet has since been disputed by both NASA and Dr. Plait. There is photographic evidence that a similar "black spot" was present in imagery of Jupiter taken in 1998. A second image referenced by Dr. Plait shows a dark ring which looks similar to the spot Hoagland cited. In 1995 Malin Space Science Systems, NASA prime contractor for planetary imaging, published a paper critiquing claims that the 'city' at Cydonia is artificial, the claimed mathematical relationships, and — very specifically — denying any claims about concealing questionable data from the public.

Publications

• Hoagland, Richard C. (2002). The Monuments of Mars: A City on the Edge of Forever. Frog, Ltd. 5th ed. ISBN 978-1-583940-54-9.
• Hoagland, Richard C. (2007). Dark Mission – The Secret History of NASA. Feral House. ISBN 978-1-932595-26-0. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
• Hoagland, Richard C. (October 2009). Dark Mission – The Secret History of NASA, Revised and Expanded Edition. Feral House. ISBN 978-1-932595-48-2. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)

External links

• Official website
• Richard Hoagland at Coast-to-Coast AM