Parallax Views w/ J.G. Michael
Society & Culture
On this edition of Parallax Views, fake news and the rise of conspiracy theories like QAnon have become political hot-takes since the 2016 election of President Donald Trump and events like the January 6th, 2021 "Stop the Steal" riots on Capitol Hill. But disinformation and conspiracy theories that stretch far beyond the limits of credulity didn't begin in the 21st century. Case in point with the strange case of UFO hobbyist Paul Bennewitz. and what has become know to UFO enthusiasts as "The Bennewitz Affair". It's a story that doesn't necessarily point towards beings from another world, but rather the mix of deliberate disinformation on one hand and flat-out kookery on the other hand that may play a role in phenomena of Pizzagate and QAnon.
Adam Gorightly, author Saucers, Spooks, and Kooks: UFO Disinformation in the Age of Aquarius, and David Perkins, who wrote the forward to said book, join us on this edition of the program join us to unravel how disinformation campaign involving a special agent of United States Air Force Office of Special Investigations (AFOSI) and others participated in a disinformation campaign against Bennewitz after the enthusiastic UFO hobbyist began attracting unwanted attention to Kirtland Air Force Base.
The saga of Paul Bennewitz, as you'll learn in this conversation, ended in tragedy. More precisely, Bennewitz was driven off a psychological cliff into madness that culminated in instiutionalization. But the story doesn't end there. As it turns out the fanciful stories fed to Bennewitz about malevolent extraterrestrial, government deals with an alien presence and it's cover-up, an underground base at Dulce, New Mexico, and more formed the foundation of modern UFO mythology, from cattle mutilations to Area 51, in its most conspiratorially-minded form (which, incidentally, often overlap a great deal with far-right wing "Patriot" and militia movements). Regardless of whether one believes in UFOs or not, what makes the Bennewitz Affair and the late 20th UFO Conspiracy subculture potentially interesting today is what it may be able to tell us about disinformation and the current crop of conspiracy theories like QAnon in the 21st century. All that and more on this edition of Parallax Views!
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Cultural Memory, Climate Change, and the Potential Catastrophe of a Digital Dark Age w/ Charles Henry
Media Representation, How AI Can Amplify Bias, and the Problem With The Little Mermaid w/ Marcus Ryder
Ukraine/Russia War Update + Wagner Group’s Chief Attacks Russian Military Elites w/ Anatol Lieven
The U.S. & Middle East in a Changing 21st Century Order & the Nation-States Vs. Civilizational States Conflict w/ James M. Dorsey
Ron DeSantis Accused of Campaign Finance Violation; Dark Money & Foreign Influence Lobbying w/ Taylor Giorno
Fred Olen Ray Returns to Discuss Collaborating With Ed Wood, Low-Budget Filmmaking, Wild Tales from 80s Hollywood, & More!
Heavy Radicals: The FBI’s Secret War on America’s Maoists w/ Aaron J. Leonard
I’ll Burn That Bridge When I Get To It! Heretical Thoughts on Identity Politics, Cancel Culture, and Academic Freedom w/ Norman Finkelstein
True Blue: White Unionists in the Deep South during the Civil War and Reconstruction w/ Clayton J. Butler
Spyfail: Foreign Spies, Moles, Saboteurs, and the Collapse of America’s Counterintelligence w/ James Bamford
The British Marxist Historians w/ Harvey J. Kaye
Amityville: An Origin Story w/ Jack Riccobono
We Don’t Know Ourselves: A Personal History of Modern Ireland w/ Fintan O’Toole
The Ethnic Cleansing of Armenians by Turkey-Supported Azerbaijan w/ Peter Bahlawanian
A Self-Fulfilling Prophecy: The Saudi Struggle for Iraq w/ Katherine Harvey
In Search of Monsters to Destroy: The Folly of American Empire and the Paths to Peace w/ Christopher J. Coyne
On the Brink: Jenin’s Rising Resistance (Armed Resistance in the Jenin Refugee Camp) w/ Yumna Patel
REPLAY: The Israel/Palestine Conflict and The Specter of Meir Kahane w/ Yossi Gurvitz
Pro-Israel & Right-Wing Groups Accused of Collaborating to Stifle Academic Freedom: The Case of Dr. Lara Sheehi w/ Dr. Lara Sheehi
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