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May 19, 1999 - Art Bell
18:07
Coast to Coast AM with Art Bell - Richard C. Hoagland - Miami Circle Update (hour 1)
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What is new with The Circle?
Update us on The Circle.
Well, last night there was a major event held at the very splendiferous Gussman Auditorium here in downtown Miami, sponsored by the Dade Heritage Trust, which we mentioned on the show several months ago.
This is one of the local preservation organizations of Dade County.
And Bob Carr was the featured speaker and he gave a very interesting overview of where we stand scientifically and politically with the circle.
Not the least of which is he gave a very nice acknowledgement of some of our work.
Particularly in the area of comparing it to Stonehenge.
Can you summarize, I'm sorry to interrupt, can you summarize where we do stand scientifically?
Well, scientifically, the radiocarbon dating of the material from the holes, the 30 rectangular basins that are arranged in this 38-foot perfect circle, dates it to, at a minimum, 2,000 years.
Now, you can't have new stuff or old, older stuff in those holes if they had been filled with something, so we know that if those holes held stones, like Stonehenge, that the minimum date where the stones were removed was 2,000 years ago, and that's when the junk flowed in, and that's the material that Bob at his laboratories has managed now to date to about the 2,000 year time horizon.
Fascinating.
Politically, as you know, the circle was in danger several months ago because of Michael Bauman and the plan to build a high-rise, twin high-rise on the 2.2 acre site.
Yeah, they had the machines to plow it down right there.
There were the bulldozers sitting there just waiting to go into action.
Right, yes.
And it was the mayor of Miami-Dade County, Alex Vanellis, in his courageous decision to go forward with a legal process called Eminent Domain, that of course put all that on hold, and the judge issued a stay, an injunction, and so no one has literally been on the site literally until the last couple, three days.
Not even all those of us who really wanted to be on the site.
What happened a couple, three weeks ago is that the judge held a hearing, And the hearing was to see whether or not there was just cause for the county to proceed with the eminent domain proceeding.
And the Bauman attorneys lost and the county won.
This now goes to trial.
A jury of 12 men and women, a jury of our peers, will ultimately decide here in Miami the fate of the Miami Circle, including how much money, if any, Mr. Bauman is going to receive from the county for the process of taking over the property.
In fairness, he should receive what he has expended, which is the $8 million for the land.
Yeah, that's what I was going to say, too.
It wouldn't be fair to just take it away from him.
I mean, there have been inflated estimates ranging up to $20, $30, $40 million that the Bowman camp has been claiming that they're owed, and that's what the trial will kind of shake out.
It promises to be a very interesting legal proceeding.
In fact, it might, at least for the Miami area here, hold as much interest as parts of the OJ trial, given the level of interest in this community now on something this old and this ancient and this interesting.
A more recent development is, in the last couple of days, we have learned that Senator Bob Graham, who is one of the two senators from Florida, has introduced about a month ago, a month and a half ago,
in Washington in the Interior Committee, a bill to make the circle part of the National Park System.
And next week, on Tuesday the 25th, that bill comes up before committee and there will be
hearings.
Every bill before Congress has to usually go through a hearing process where outside experts and the public and whatever are invited in for testimony.
And Bob told me last night that he has been invited to Washington next Tuesday To the committee hearings, that's where the posting on our website tonight, Miami Circle Reaches Washington, comes in.
And I talked with the Senator's office this afternoon, and they said very forthrightly that if people care about this all over the country, they need to express their concern to the Senators so that they can take the faxes and the emails to the floor when the vote comes.
How do they do that?
Well, I have two fax numbers for the Senators here from Florida.
Senator Bob Graham and Senator Connie Mack.
All right.
And we have those fax numbers also posted on the Enterprise website on the first item.
So if you don't get them here and you go to your computer, just click on Miami Circle Goes to Washington and you'll get them there.
All right.
But for everybody else?
All right.
Senator Graham's fax number, if you want to see the circle included as part of the National Park System, is 202.
2-2-4-2-2-3-7.
That's 2-0-2-2-2-4-2-2-3-7.
Right.
And Senator Connie Mack's fax number is 2-0-2-2-2-4-8-0-2-2.
224-2237. Right. And Senator Connie Mack's fax number is 202-224-8022.
202-224-8022.
And that's for Senator Mack.
Senator Mack.
Now, if people send faxes, and you can send any opinion you want, I mean, you don't have to agree to preserve the server.
You can say, you know, plow the damn thing under.
The point is that this is a democracy, and if you express your opinion, it's important that the people who care, the people who have an opinion, express it.
It's really, really, really simple.
I talked to the office this afternoon, and they said that the more encouragement they get, the easier it will be for Graham, who is the sponsor of the bill, to convince the other senators to make this as part of the National Park System.
And we're actually talking about Biscayne Bay National Park.
Actually, enough taxes, even though they're paper, actually finally create backbone.
We want a huge one, but we haven't won it yet.
What we've done is won a stay.
Right.
And what we now have is a two-pronged effort to put it over the top.
And if people care, and from the letters and cards that were sent to me... They care.
...during my convalescence, a lot of people care a lot.
It's really simple to take a couple of minutes and sit down and send them a note and say, we do care, this is a wonderful idea, please examine it carefully.
Alright, I will read the fax numbers toward the end of the hour for everybody, so get your paper and pencil.
What's going on with the Hubble Telescope?
Well, this is a switch, because From the sublime to the usually ridiculous.
Well, we have been told for years.
You and I talked about it, Richard, a million times.
The Hubble cannot take pictures of the moon.
Why?
Because the moon is too damn bright.
That's what they always said.
It became the NASA mantra ever since we found structures in the old Apollo and lunar orbiter images.
One of the things that I have been itching for to have NASA turn this exquisite, incredible instrument
upstairs, 250,000 miles away, and at certain key times, like a new moon, or during eclipses,
or certain phasings, look in certain portions of the lunar surface, and the...
Hubble telescope would be able to gather us unimpeachable confirmation of the presence
Sure.
of structures at least that was our model.
Sure.
And every time we tried to pursue it everybody up and down the line from headquarters to
the space telescope institute kept saying oh it's too damn bright you can't look at
the moon you'd break the telescope.
And you in fact had a couple of guys on you.
You had Don Savage and Ray Ward.
I sure did.
That's right.
And you asked them the key question, and they are on record as saying the Hubble could not look at the moon because it was too bright.
Well, guess what?
They've done it.
On April 16th, a few days before my 54th birthday, for some reason somebody forgot the mantra.
And they pointed the Hubble at the moon and took about a dozen images in a mosaic of the
Copernicus and Kepler crater region, which is kind of in the middle of a lunar disk,
at high noon on the moon, when the moon is as bright as it ever gets.
And they also took a series of images in an unseen instrument called the STIS, which is
the Space Imaging Spectrometer.
And they've shown us the visible light images and they haven't shown us the infrared images.
And we think that was the real reason why they did this.
Now, there's a whole posting on our web called another lie from NASA.
Because this really was a lie.
Even Sky and Telescope in their issue in April made notice of the fact that they were surprised
because according to all available information coming from the agency, they couldn't point
Hubble at the moon because it was too bright.
It would break the telescope.
It would, you know, blow out the detectors or whatever.
Surely they have some explanation for why they can now put it.
Zero.
Absolutely zero.
Zero.
It's like, well, this agency is unaccountable.
You put in questions, you try to find answers, and I mean, look at the whole Cassini thing.
I know. I know.
You've been following that?
Oh, of course.
huge controversy about 72 pounds of plutonium careening past the earth in August on the
Yes.
Cassini spacecraft. Yes. And yet when you ask NASA for the technical data as to how the little
plutonium canisters would survive if this thing were to re-enter the earth's atmosphere,
they give you arm waving, they give you assurances, and they give you not one engineering study.
So NASA has become incredibly arrogant even on something as profound as human safety.
So in terms of why they suddenly switch it on taking pictures of the moon, I mean, we have a theory.
Mike Bear and I have propounded a theory, which is kind of based on some of the work of Chris Carter.
Remember, I have been saying over the years that most of the system is honest.
Most of NASA is, you know, what everybody thinks it is.
There are people going to work and doing the best for God, country, and apple pie, and they really believe all the fine words that I used to believe back when I was working with Walter and covering the space program.
Then there is a dark contingent, a rogue element that has somehow taken control, and the honest guys don't even know these other guys exist.
Well, what I think may have happened, and this is speculation, is that there is a beginning perception on the part of the honest guys as to what the dishonest guys have been up to.
Right.
And the clearest way to blow the cover, to blow the lie of the dishonest side out of the water and expose it to the light of the moon, the light of day, was to simply take some pictures of the moon with Hubble and prove that that assertion was a lie.
It sure would be interesting to know what went on, what change went on to allow this to occur.
Well, this is a theory.
I mean, I can't prove it because no one's going to pick up the phone and say, OK, Hilton, this is what's going on.
I mean, the closest they come to it is to slip us images anonymously and things like that.
And people do call me anonymously and give me tips.
But as you know, we get into a lot of hot water when we, you know, pursue some of those.
Yeah, I know.
The EQ Pegasus example is one.
But in this case, you have a absolutely stated policy position, a technical position, that the moon was too bright to be photographed, and suddenly, there she is.
Now, there's no way around it.
They lied.
What about the possibility that on one of the recent space missions, they added something that allowed them to do what they couldn't previously do?
Is there that possibility?
Fine.
Tell us that.
But, technically, I know that's not possible.
So, they haven't said that?
No, they have not said that.
So, it really is a mystery.
Because, I mean, you're right.
I mean, for years now, they really have said, oh, it's impossible.
It is too bright.
It would destroy the telescope.
Well, J.J.
Mercier in Malta had an email from one of the officials at the Space Telescope Institute, no less than the head of public affairs?
Yes.
Who claimed, flatly, the moon is too bright, even the dark side of the moon.
I think he meant the earth-lit portion.
Meaning when you look at the moon, you see a bright crescent, there's the faint old moon and the new moon's arms.
Sure.
Well, that faint portion is shining by reflected light of the Earth.
NASA claimed that even the Earth-lit portion was too bright.
Officially, it's on the website.
Just go check.
Okay.
So this of course means that something has changed.
Now I am crossing my fingers and praying that the good guys, the honest guys, the
ones who really have believed all the stuff that's been said about NASA and what they
were supposed to be doing, are beginning to wake up to the fact that there's something
rotten in Denmark.
There's something weird going on.
There's a hidden, duplicitous agenda.
And if that's true, as we publish more things and we have some loo-loos waiting to be
published in the next couple of weeks, and we're going to need a lot more time to go
into them, and I want to bring on Mike to help me do this, we're going to basically
raise a lot of eyebrows.
We have received information, we have pursued leads, and part of my recovery here in Miami, because we do have phones and internet in Miami, has not been just recovery.
So in other words, you've been, uh, you've been working.
Well, working is a very good therapy, Art.
I mean, you know me, I'm like a, you know, a Dalmatian.
I hear the fire bell and I'm off the ladder in the truck and outside the door.
So it's been very therapeutic.
You know what they say, rest and rest, rest and rust.
Sure.
We have a very nice link right on the front of my website which says Richard Hoagland writes in my absence.
So if they go to my website and click on that they'll go right on over.
Well you know part of what we're looking at is to turn the tables on some of this political obfuscation.
I mean when I kind of went away because of a The heart problem, I would check into the web every once in a while and I found the most awful, astonishing bizarreness going on.
And it's distraction.
It is total distraction.
What is it trying to distract us from?
Distract us from the search.
We're trying to figure out who's doing what.
And why they're not leveling.
And someone is trying to change the conversation.
Well, they're not succeeding.
No, they're not.
I mean, awful things were said.
That you faked your heart attack.
And by the way, that is addressed in the... Well, this is the most incredible stupidity because all I had to do was pick up the phone and talk to umpteen doctors who were charging me close to $100,000 for this.
I know.
This experience.
Yes, I noticed you posted your bills.
I posted the bill.
Come on.
I mean, this is America, right?
It is.
If there's such idiocy out there that I fake my heart attack, the quickest, simplest way is to simply put the bills and, you know, challenge these people to put up or shut up.
If this is fake, fine, then you pay the bill.
Well, Richard, I guess the answer is, look, if you can't get them with fact, make stuff up, and personally attack you, and that's, you know, the way they think they can get it done well.
The public is a whole lot smarter than that.
Look at this on a curve.
You find that things were going along kind of the way they've always gone along until we touched some third rails, until we apparently triggered somebody's nervous system.
You bet.
And you have to go back and look at what were we talking about?
What were we looking at?
Well, one of the things we're looking at is this window of opportunity every June and November called the crossing of the Taurid meteor stream when we cross the orbit of Comet Encke.
And we have found out a great deal of, frankly, interesting and disturbing information about how deeply NASA quietly, unknown to anybody, has been pursuing this with our money.
On behalf of whom?
And the more of the attacks and the more of the shrillness and the more of the absurdities have been paraded, the more I am convinced that we are on the right track and it's the old, you know, Star Trek idiom, steady as she goes.
Steady as she goes.
And all the attacks really mean, these personal hard little attacks, all it really means is, you're getting close.
That's our assessment.
That's what it means.
That's my assessment too.
They don't waste the time or energy to do these kinds of attacks unless you are close to something.
Otherwise they just don't bother.
We have some pretty interesting surprises in the next couple of weeks.
Equal to the fact now that Hubble has photographed the moon when for half a decade we were told it was flatly impossible.
What else is going on that people say is impossible?
For instance, what's going on on Mars even as we speak tonight?
Remember, as of March, we are in the mapping orbit.
The first image that came down, remember the happy face?
I sure do.
Yes, I do.
Yes, I do.
Yeah, well, I talked at length with Tom Van Flandern the other night, and there's been a stunning new discovery on Mars from the magnetic instrument on board, which is this peculiar magnetic striping.
And what we need to do is to have Tom on some night to discuss how this magnetic striping beautifully fits his exploded planet theory with Mars as a former satellite of the missing big planet in the asteroid belt.
Well, listen, my friend, we'll do that and a lot more.
You just hurry up.
and get better. Well I'm practically better. One of the key things is I'm supposed to fly to Los Angeles
to talk to some television and film people about a couple other projects and I'm looking forward to
it because they pressurize airliners to 8,000 feet. That's right. So if I can walk them up and
down the aisles and run up and down the aisles and you know chase stewardesses maybe I can go home again.
Give it a shot Richard.
Okay.
You only live once.
Um, listen, my friend.
Good night, get some sleep, and we all look forward to your complete recovery.
Thank you, Art.
And thank everyone for all those extraordinary cards and letters.
They really meant a tremendous amount.
You bet.
Good night, my friend.
Good night.
That's Richard C. Hoagland.
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