Philip Hoag, author of No Such Thing as Doomsday, warns Y2K could trigger cascading failures—like food distribution systems relying on computerized inventory—while governments exploit crises to enforce hoarding laws (e.g., 1994 Crime Act) or seize supplies, citing martial law risks and U.N. disarmament agendas. He advises stockpiling legal meds, portable water filters ($60 Marine-grade units), and decentralized heating (propane over gas) to survive infrastructure collapse, stressing self-sufficiency over dependency. Callers report eerie police orders and military drills in cities, while Hoag counters nuclear doom myths, arguing EMP attacks would target command centers—not entire populations—leaving radiation decaying fast. Survival hinges on preparedness, not paranoia, but history shows crises can hand governments unchecked power. [Automatically generated summary]
Philip Hoag has written a book called No Such Thing as Doomsday.
Subtitle, I guess, ought to be How to Prepare for Y2K: Earth Changes, War, Terrorism, and Other Threats.
Doomsday, perhaps not, but some problems and bumps in the road ahead?
Oh, yes.
We'll talk to Philip Hogue about that.
And I'll tell you more about him in a moment.
All right.
Now comes...
Now comes Philip Hoag.
He is the author of the recently published book, No Such Thing as Doomsday.
How to Prepare for Y2K, Earth Changes, War, Terrorism, and Other Threats.
Now, Philip's message is not doom and gloom, but rather practical, experienced how-to information.
His book, No Such Thing as Doomsday, shows people how to turn their concern into constructive action.
Some people worry, others prepare.
Philip does that.
He lives in the state of Montana with his wife, Arlene, and five children.
Hmm, they've been very productive.
Over the past 10 years, Philip has been involved in the design, organization, and construction of numerous large underground shelter projects.
Philip is one of a few civilians in the U.S. with experience in the areas of shelter life support systems, including power generation, air filtration, and so forth.
Philip is involved in emergency services.
He runs the local volunteer ambulance service with an associate who started the local volunteer fire department.
So you see, he's a doer.
Philip gives lectures, gives radio interviews on general preparedness, preparing for Y2K, civil defense, dealing with the natural and man-made disasters.
I'm not sure which we have more of these days, natural or man-made disasters.
He is a featured speaker at the preparedness shows, has written articles, has appeared in the American Survival Guide, Preparedness Journal, does numerous national radio talk interviews like this one, consulting in the area of shelter and system design.
In order to help people in their preparation for survival, Philip also has an affiliate company, Yellowstone River Trading.
It makes available preparedness, supplies, and equipment, including long-term storage, food, diesel generators, deep cycle batteries, food, grain mills, radios, water filters, and so forth.
In other words, if you don't make it through a particular situation, it has become your own personal doomsday, whatever else has happened around the world, right?
Well, I think as long as we don't let ourselves go into a state of denial, I think if we do everything that we can do in terms of being alert, in terms of being responsible for ourselves and our family, I think that I always believe that life brings to us everything we need to do what we need to do.
I remember, you know, the movie Independence Day was a prime example of it.
If you watch the first half of that movie, there's no way in hell Earth could have won.
I mean, they were going to wipe us out absolutely.
And we had sort of a heroic, wonderful ending to it that in real life I would not expect.
Now, I'm not saying there's going to be an alien invasion, but if there were, you know, the first half of that movie should have ended with the end of everything.
But instead, you know, we had this fantastic ending at Area 51 and people flying up in this captured saucer to destroy the mothership.
Well, in real life, it probably would not have worked out that way, the way I saw the forces arrayed with the aliens' intent the way it was.
Well, it's purported to be the 9999 is the computer shutdown code.
And, you know, there are a lot of rumors flying around, including rumors about people having gone into print shops and seeing military officials in there printing coupon cards for martial law and, you know, commissioning.
Again, I don't profess to be a crystal ball reader, but I think that we can look at what's going on around us.
We can look at the trends of history and politics in this country, and we can kind of project into the future and get a relative feeling as to what potentially we could be having to deal with.
Well, I know that you know a lot about bunkers and shelters and that sort of thing.
And there's more than just a little bit of rumor out there right now, Philip, about Y2K bunkers.
Now, they quickly changed that to control center, but the news stories first came out as bunkers in Los Angeles, in Washington, D.C., in major urban areas, and they called them bunkers.
I thought that was a little bit interesting, not to say that anything is going to happen, but why would they be spending millions of dollars on these underground, whatever you want to call them, if nothing is ahead?
Well, that's a good point, and we'll talk a little more about the Russians and why are the Russians spending such extravagant amounts of money when they're bankrupt on their programs.
It's kind of an interesting parallel.
But getting to that, if we look at the national FEMA command post, which is Mount Weather, most people know nothing about Mount Weather, and it's only recently that in the last couple of years that articles have kind of squeaked through about its existence.
Well, Mount Weather is in Virginia, and it's a facility with a capacity purported to be about 250, which includes a facility for the Postal Service and also, quote, the Federal Reserve.
And there are representatives there who stand in and would replace every member of Congress, excuse me, every member of the President's cabinet in the event that they got deceased due to a nuclear attack on the United States.
But nonetheless, that's the National FEMA command post.
And not only, and they're always in this facility, it's always staffed.
And ideally, the president and the cabinet would be whisked away by helicopter in the event of any national crisis, and they would try and get him in there.
So we go up to this control center and we say, there's this guy in there, and he's balding, and he's got these real thick glasses, and he's wearing a guard uniform, you know, and he's obviously on the verge of retirement.
And he's got all of these security monitors up around him behind the bulletproof glass.
And we're looking at him, and we can see these culvert tunnels running out with people walking up and down them.
And it's really neat.
You can see parts of the place that, you know, through his camera monitors that we couldn't see otherwise.
We're saying, well, hello, we would like some civil defense literature.
And this guy looks at us and he starts, duh, duh, how did you get in here?
We just want some civil defense literature.
And this guy's wetting his pants.
You know, he's picking up the phone and calling different extensions.
And he's trying to get somebody to come out and get rid of us.
In the meantime, we're scoping this place out, looking at his security monitors and looking at the hinges on his blast door and scoping things out.
And it took him about 10 minutes to get somebody to come out in a nice suit and tie.
And he brings us out an application for literature.
And he said, take this back to your state FEMA director, and if he signs an authorization, then we can give you some literature.
Well, I think the point we were getting at when we were talking was that while everybody else is on the surface here dancing and playing, and life's going to go on forever, and Hollywood's so great, and, you know, we're so far isolated from all these disasters that happen everywhere in the world, the guys that are running the show, the guys that we're supposed to idolize, are quietly building themselves shelters and making all sorts of contingencies for the worst case scenario.
But yet everybody's fed the line, everything's fine, don't worry, you know, have confidence in us.
You know, there seems to be some sort of conflict here.
Well, you know, at one level, you know, I want to, you know, give them credit.
I mean, I can understand from an economic point of view that everybody that's in any position in government is always paranoid about upsetting the economy.
And you don't want to give investors the jitters.
But nonetheless, I think that we need to be realistic.
We need to look at what people in other parts of the world are doing.
And we really need to go on a path which is going to ensure the viability of our children, our family.
And my solution that I've gone to is the most effective way that I can apply myself is to do something that will really affect change, and that is to take care of my family, my friends, and my relatives.
Because, you know, that's the control of my resources that I can expend.
And I think it's important we kind of touch on the psychology here, because some people will say, well, you know, you just got a bad attitude.
You know, when we see dark clouds on the horizon in the distance, you know, there's two responses, very two typical responses.
One is the chicken little syndrome.
And that is where, you know, the sky is falling down, you know, and every new date that comes around the corner, you know, the end is right there, you know.
And it's where people get so emotionally imperiled and involved in potential disasters that they actually help bring them into manifestation.
He says, in recent months, the eyes of the world have rightly focused on the threat of American interests and the values in the Balkans.
At the same time, we cannot afford a national case of far-sightedness that precludes us from focusing on threats closer to home, such as the potential danger of chemical or biological attack on the United States, on the U.S. The United States now faces something of a superpower paradox.
Our supremacy in the conventional arena is prompting adversaries to seek unconventional and unconventional means to strike our Achilles heel.
At least 25 countries, including Iraq, North Korea, and so on, have developed the weapons of mass destruction.
Then he goes on to say, also looming is the chance that these terror weapons will find their way into the hands of individuals and independent groups, fanatical terrorists and religious zealots and so on, within our borders.
And he goes on to say, what would the day look like?
A biological agent would sink into the respiratory and nervous systems of the afflicted.
The speed and scope of modern air travel would carry this highly contagious virus across the hemisphere and hours.
Indeed, the invisible contagion would be neither geographically nor numerically limited, infecting unsuspecting thousands, with many, in turn, communicating the virus to whomever they touch.
And they actually had these in Cuba during the Cuban Missile Crisis, the early generations of these devices.
And the Speznovs, Russian troops there, were authorized in the event of a conflict.
The whole plan is that they would take these devices and go behind the lines and try and destroy essential command and control facilities.
Like, for instance, you could stick one of these in a van, as someone suggested, and you could park it outside the Pentagon, clear out of the place, detonate it.
Then it would take out the Pentagon and that portion of Washington, D.C. You know, so it's pretty serious stuff.
Well, We need to really take a good close look at this and we need to qualify.
In other words, when we start talking about the Russians and deception and the art of war of Sun Tzu, a lot of this information we have in these estimates about bin Laden having nuclear weapons, it actually comes from the Russians.
But nonetheless, you know, we get this image of mass chaos over there in Russia and the Soviet Union.
But I'll guarantee you, I find it a little uncredible to think that the Russians would allow nuclear weapons to float away in such a fashion unless they wanted it to go somewhere.
See, if you understand the art of war in Sun Tzu, it's more effective to initiate an attack through a surrogate or at least to initiate an attack with a plausible denial.
But if we left the paper trail a year before saying that bin Laden did it and it was some Arab extremist and say we're white Russians anyhow and we can't stand the Arabs anyhow because they're a major threat to our territorial integrity, well, we get two birds of one stone.
In other words, I don't know.
I can't tell you whether or not bin Laden has these purported 20 nuclear devices.
It is possible that he has them, and it may be that he has them by blessing and intent.
Nonetheless, there are a lot of third world countries which hate the United States for very good reasons.
I mean, that's the mad theory, mutual assured destruction.
Or even worse, if they use one or two devices and it's a state that does it, then we obliterate them.
There's no question about that.
So you don't attack that way.
You get a third party.
But gee, thank God, Philip, our borders are sealed tighter than a drum, and nobody with a suitcase could possibly get into the borders of this country.
Well, it's kind of interesting because there's been a number of defectors, Stanislav Leuven, and various other people who have confirmed the existence of these suitcase nuclear devices.
In fact, they actually said that they were privy to the fact that part of the plan was, in the event of war, that the Russians would enter the United States in the same way that everybody else does want to get here.
Right, and they would come in in a small boat, or they get deployed by a submarine or something.
They come ashore, and they would deposit these things around strategic command and control facilities like our satellite uplinks for our intelligence.
I mean, you could almost print on the side of a suitcase, suitcase nuke, and somebody'd be waiting across the Rio Grande, and in all likelihood, he'd make it here just fine and find a motel.
And, you know.
Listen, hold on.
We're at the top of the hour, so we'll be right back.
The United States and at least five other countries do not expect to finish their year 2000 computer bugs until just weeks before the new year.
A new international survey reports on Thursday.
Two other countries, Slovakia and Bolivia, do not believe they'll make it until next year.
And so forth and so on.
So we are one of five countries that either will not be ready in time or will be ready if we're lucky weeks before the deadline.
And this is kind of interesting.
This is from a police sergeant.
It says, all right, I have just received information from the chief, a reference to Y2K and our planned response to all potential problems.
As of today, there's going to be no leave for any one of you during the New Year holiday weekend.
All officers will be on duty during this time period.
We'll be working 12-hour shifts, and the Times will be announced as the time approaches.
This is not open for negotiation.
There will be no exceptions.
And this comes from the Denver metropolitan area.
One more little item that relates, in a way, to what Peter was talking about.
Very interesting, too.
WLS in Chicago, my affiliate in Chicago, the Monster LS on 890, mentioned apparently in their midnight news break that there is a meteorite that has now been found containing water.
Oh, now let us think about that one.
A meteorite containing water was recovered in Texas.
This is the first time that water not of this earth has been recovered.
Remember in high school when you used to look into pond water and all the little crawly things under the microscope?
Well, you can bet they're looking at that water now.
and I wonder what's crawling.
Would you like...
And then this.
And this will be of interest to Philip Hogue, I think, Associated Press.
I read this to you the other night.
Bankers are asking your local clergy to help reassure people their money is going to be safe when the year 2000 rolls about.
The American Bankers Association is distributing a very folksy sample sermon to clergy, asking them to debunk fears that a Y2K meltdown would cripple the banking system.
So that's kind of interesting, Philip.
The bankers are distributing this sample sermon that should be delivered in the churches to the people.
I ask all my guests this, because Y2K could be everything from nothing at all and everybody going, oh, man, what a total non-event to a crippling event at the other end.
Let's just step back and look at the last 20 years.
And let me ask you, have you ever seen a bad situation, be it intentional or by accident, that we haven't seen some sort of capitalization whereby we see more and more power drawn away from the people and concentrated more and more in the hands of the few and distant?
Of course, nobody believes that everybody believes that all this stuff is just natural and that all the changes we're seeing in society are a matter of natural social evolution.
But there are a few wackos out there that believe that there are really financial interests which control our political system and steer the trend of events.
But nonetheless, just say hypothetically that you're one of these people, because I've thought about this.
Now, if I really wanted to consolidate power and set up a more dictatorial, authoritarian type structure that would be more to my suiting for a monopoly market, and I saw Y2K coming, I mean, it looks to me like a situation for a kid stealing candy.
I mean, it's just so too good to be true.
I mean, let's just take a situation.
Let's say, for instance, we have problems in the major cities.
And this is very conceivable.
If we just look at the food supply in the major cities, all right, we've got about a three to five day food supply.
Part of the reason, and it's not all bad, is that we've got major food distribution chains and they've got computerized inventory systems.
And these computerized inventory systems allow them to tell how much they're selling of any given item in a day.
So therefore, they can keep the cost of food down lower by only stocking one day's supply of food.
The downside of this problem is that if anything goes wrong, if they have a legitimate virus bug, or if you've got some high-level hackers out there in some highly financed facility that goes out there and starts sabotaging their computer systems, all of a sudden we'll start getting disruptions to food deliveries into the major cities.
Now, what's going to happen?
I mean, and there's other things that could disrupt food deliveries to the major cities.
Yes, and if you talk to any of the people in law enforcement, there also are programs about containing the exodus of people from cities and major disaster-type situations.
And I might add, and a lot of people may or may not be aware of this, but a lot of small towns have contingency plans to prevent the influx of people from big cities.
Well, nonetheless, you know, it could be computer problems, which could create a problem like this.
It could be disruption of our transportation system, the inavailability of fuel.
It could be power shortages that could create the same problems that computer failure problems could cause.
But nonetheless, if there were food shortages, what's going to happen in the major cities?
Well, I mean, people aren't going to sit home and stay hungry.
No.
We kind of degrade to primal type nature when things like that happen.
But nonetheless, what would happen would you have disorder in the major cities, and the governors would be screaming to the president, you've got to do something, comrade.
But nonetheless, it's a dream come true for an opportunity to push aside the U.S. Constitution, not that it isn't already gone.
And if we look at what's been going on over the last two or three years with executive orders and the precedence of executive orders, you know, it's just an opportunity for kids that want to steal candy, and that's my major concern.
I think Y2K in itself, if that's all we had to deal with, we could deal with it.
I mean, look at what we did in World War II when we mobilized the country.
And, you know, it just smells a little bit to me like the dialectic process.
I mean, you've got a problem and you implement, you get a reaction and you implement your solution.
And what I see in this trend, you know, concerns me, especially as we see a trend toward trying to disarm the American public, which is a major agenda of the United Nations.
The people that have been trampled all over the world, example after example after example, just mowed down or macheted down, are people who have had their weapons taken away.
So, you know, I don't want to sound like a paranoid right-wing extremist, but I think that we kind of have to go back to basics here a little bit and put our eyes open.
One of my big concerns is a lot of people have hash around this problem, that it's a real difficult situation to try and disarm the American public.
Number one, you're not going to get National Guard guys.
I mean, half to one-third of those guys are red-blooded Americans.
And, you know, they're not so young and punkish that they're just going to take straight orders and say, you know, fire on or shoot at American citizens.
But the trend we're seeing where our military is being gutted and the trend toward U.N. peacekeepers, you know, it wouldn't surprise me in a martial law scenario to see foreign troops here helping to maintain order in the major cities.
Now, people say, well, this is far-fetched.
It couldn't happen in the United States.
But people don't understand.
We signed a thing called the Partnership for Peace, and they don't realize that that was a revolving door.
It wasn't just a one-way thing where we would send our troops over to Eastern Bloc countries and help maintain order.
Yes, in fact, you know, we've had January 18th through 22nd of this year, we had something called Partner Challenge 1999, and it was held in Grayling, Michigan.
Well, and I think that, you know, there's this little media-orchestrated game that tries to put out this idea that if you decide you're going to put away some food reserves, if you're going to expend some of your personal money that could otherwise be spent down in Las Vegas or on some fancy vacation and decide to be a little self-sufficient and self-reliant, that that is supposed to be called hoarding.
But let's take a look at this word hoarding.
Hoarding assumes, number one, that there's a shortage.
Well, if you buy the line that in fact the government has a right to private property, that's called Marxism and Communism.
But the point is, is if people prepare, and this is something that I really try to emphasize, if people prepare now, not only are you going to be self-sufficient and self-reliant and less apt to have to surrender your rights because you've got to line up for a food ration coupon, But also, you're in a position to help other people.
And not only that, you're actually helping the overall situation because you're not out there competing for the few resources that are available.
And so you are helping the situation, and the government should be encouraging everybody to prepare.
We used to have national food reserves, grain reserves.
And when we look at what I, I've got a chapter in here under medical considerations.
You know, I talk about a lot of different things, both allopathic and homeopathic.
Basically, when we start looking at medical considerations, and you talked about medications, I've got a few advices in here about how people can stockpile medications, and I think this is an important thing.
There's a lot of people that are very dependent on their medications.
Personally, I'm an emergency medical technician, and I have to deal with this a little bit.
You know, one of the good options is just go to your doctor and say, you know, I'm a little concerned about Y2K.
Most doctors know about it.
And you say, I want to have one or two months cushion of medications.
For a lot of people, this is going to be a big financial expenditure.
You know, for somebody who wrote a book called No Such Thing as a Doomsday, why some people might consider there to be a slight gap here between the title of the book and your actions.
I go into great details about medical considerations.
Like, for instance, you know, we've stockpiled antibiotics.
There's certain things you're not going to be able to stockpile unless you've got a prescription to it.
Obviously, I do not advise anyone trying to stockpile painkillers.
I mean, you can invest a lot into a nice facility and lose the whole property if somebody kicks down your door and finds you've got illegal meds in there.
So you've got to keep within the parameters of a law.
But nonetheless, you can go talk to your doctor, and I'm sure he'll work with you in putting aside medications.
A lot of your medications have shelf lives, but I discussed this in the book.
Medications are a lot like food.
You take antibiotics, for instance.
The best thing you can do is store those in a freezer.
You can check with the people at your Pharmacy, and there's usually numbers that you can contact to find out, you know, if freezing will damage the product.
Usually, it won't.
But when you look at the shelf life on a product, in most cases, and you need to check in every situation, when that shelf life expires, it doesn't mean that the product became toxic.
It just means under the worst case scenario, the potency is not going to be what they profess it to be after this date.
So you could have 10-year-old antibiotics that might work just fine as long as they've been kept at a cool and constant temperature.
But if, for instance, you took those same antibiotics and you stored them for five years in the freezer, they're going to be in real good shape when they come out.
So what the hell do all the people, I mean, they're listening to you now in Chicago and Los Angeles, New York, and every major city in the U.S. And if the water goes off and you're 30 floors up in an apartment building in a high-rise and the water goes off, what do you do?
I mean, there's a lot of people out there selling these water barrels and whatnot.
And I'm not too hyped up on the idea of storing water because water doesn't generally store that well or taste that good after it's been stored in plastic containers for a year.
And it's hard to find space to store it.
But generally, if you're in Chicago, there's water all over the place.
Now, let's just think about the scenario.
Say that the governor of Chicago comes out and he says, we've got evidence that there's been a biological attack against the municipal water system.
They're going to end up trying to drink surface water because the National Guard isn't going to be able to pull in water fast enough to deal with them.
Or somebody detonates a device on the municipal water plant and knocks it out of function.
The beauty of this country, the reason that we don't experience the ravages of diseases that they experience in the third world countries, is the fantastic sanitation system we've got in this country.
And they've already shown that there's some major problems with Y2K and embedded processors in the water purification plant.
So my advice to people is everybody, everybody should own a portable means of purifying water.
And it's not expensive.
I mean, we sell them on our website.
You can get them in any outdoor supply store in the United States, any Army, Navy store, any backpacking store.
They're portable operated water filtration devices.
You know, and to me, I tell everybody that's your first investment.
It isn't going to cost you that much.
And if you can't afford that, you can go out and you can get iodine drops.
You can get iodine tablets.
You can get chlorine tablets.
You go to any one of your outdoor supply stores.
This is immediately available.
You can get this anywhere, and it's cheap.
It's the most important thing because, like, when Saddam Hussein ran the Kurds up into the mountains, when they had to flee to these refugee camps with tents, they lost a third of their children to bad water.
And this is another reason we're talking about medications and antibiotics.
Boy, you know, and I talk about places you can get antibiotics legally, whether, you know, you go down and buy it in Mexico or you contact a veterinary supply and stockpile some for your horsey.
But there's also some real good books I recommend in there that show you conversion charts between, you know, what the comparable...
Until the show is over and the FDA gets uptight about it.
But, you know, there's mail order, Jeffers Veterinary Supply.
I've got the phone number in my book.
You can call up and you can order antibiotics for your livestock.
Now, you have to be careful, and you need to know what you're doing.
And like I say, I've got the references in my book.
There are certain veterinary antibiotics that you don't want to use on humans.
But they're not, they're different.
They don't use them on humans.
In other words, like for instance, I've got goats, and there's certain antibiotics that you wouldn't use on people that use on goats because they damage human auditory nerves.
There's a book out there called Where There Is No Doctor, and it's a third world, it's a health worker's guide to third world country medical services.
And excellent book, and it gives you all the antibiotic conversion charts, and it gives you the dosages per body weight and things like that.
This stuff could be absolutely priceless in the face of a natural disaster or some situation that created a shortage of medications.
I mean, you know, so it's important consideration.
The other thing is we have to start looking at and being realistic.
You know, you start looking at a large-scale natural disaster, be it war or something else, and we kind of start falling into the triage scenario that, you know, we can only do what we can do.
If you think you're going to rely on natural gas, there's some radiant natural gas heaters.
But the problem is, is that your natural gas pipelines have compressor stations that have embedded chips.
And I don't know, but there's a good possibility that you're going to have some failures there.
So a lot of people I recommend to them, if they're looking at heating, the ideal form is wood heating.
Of course, if you live in a major city, you're not going to be able to do that.
Your next best option is going to be propane.
Again, a propane furnace is not going to work without electricity, but there are propane-radiant heaters, and there are certain precautions you need to take to use them.
So, you know, that's basically the drift on heating.
If you're in a situation where you need air conditioning, well, Art, have you ever thought of an evaporative cooler?
And becoming realistic, it's a pretty frightening process when you realize what it actually takes to power the average home, either with air conditioning or with heat requirements or whatever, is a lot of power.
For those that, I know there's a lot of people out there that might not stay up all night, and maybe I could give out my phone number if they want to order our book.
Not only that, this is the only book in existence which really, in a hands-on fashion, covers how you can protect yourself from the nuclear and biological threat.
And I asked him, and I said, well, how do they recharge the generators?
He said, well, of course, they use power to do that.
I said, well, what would happen if there was power outages for a substantial amount of time?
They said, well, usually when the power goes out, everybody wants to get on the phone and call.
And that's a problem because it drains from the generators.
And he said, if it happens for a substantial amount of time, they have to cut off the phones completely and go to emergency service lines only because those are the important lines that they must maintain.
You're saying if the power goes out, he said, yeah, if the power goes out and a bunch of people get on the phone and call, you might not be able to call 911 anyway because they're going to have to save the power that they have for the EMS lines.
I know they've got back up because power has gone out here.
You know, we're out in the boondocks here, and it goes out, and the phone is still working.
So I know that is true.
But for a protracted period of time, I wonder how long they are prepared to go before they would have to begin cutting the phones off.
unidentified
He said that all depends on how much power goes out, how far the grid is, and how many people are affected, and how many people get on the phone at once.
For instance, if a good portion of the state of California was to lose power and a lot of people got on the phone, they would almost have to immediately shut down and go to EML lines only.
Like I do a lot of reading in major disasters with EMS and fire and whatnot.
And typically the first thing that happens in a disaster is the frequencies get totally overloaded.
You know, you get a plane crash or a train wreck or something like that.
And the same thing is going to happen in a disaster where civilians are involved.
I am familiar a little bit with the phone company backup systems.
They have some kind of sophisticated batteries that they've been using for years, and they have a float charger system on them.
And so I'm sure at some of their facilities they actually have backup generators.
They're probably most of them run by natural gas, some cases diesel.
But the bulk of their backup systems, as I understand, are a battery system because I have friends that buy them now and then that on a scheduled basis they retire these batteries and put new batteries in place.
And so yes, there is a battery system.
So I've heard say that most of your phone system is harder against electromagnetic pulse damage also, which is refreshing knowledge.
We'll find out for sure after such an event.
But yeah, there's a potential problem there.
I have a whole chapter in my book on disaster communications.
And I actually have a picture of the Sea Crane Beijing Radio, an excellent product.
And there's a very important psychological factor to be able to know what's going on.
The unknown is a great fear to most people.
And to have a radio or something that's going to work when the power is out, and you can turn it on, and you can hear from an emergency broadcast what's going on could be, you know, the value could be just phenomenal.
You know, obviously, you know, you're an expert in communication.
You understand ham radios and things like that.
All of this depends on, number one, who you want to be able to communicate with, whether you want to just listen to them or you want to actually talk to them, and how deep you want to get into it.
Of course, the guys that have really got it together are the ham radio operators.
And I recommend, I talk about ham radio in my book and all the other options, whether it's commercial or family-band radio.
First, you need to start out and decide who you want to talk to.
If it's your neighbor down the block, you know, it may be family-band radio, which you can buy inexpensively.
That, you know, this is their life, and they just love to teach you, you know, antennas and how they've got courses, crash courses on to pass your tests.
I just wanted to make y'all aware that in roll call about two weeks ago, we were asked to keep our eyes open for people that are stocking up things for the Y2K.
So we were asked to look for these things and then write a memo.
And when we asked who wants to know this information, all we were told is that our administration had an interest in it and they wouldn't tell us anything else.
I have a gentleman that I did some consulting for up in Montreal, and his parents, during the ice storms up there, when the power was out for so long, they had a generator.
And, you know, they had the generator running and they were powering up their house.
And the authorities came along and confiscated it.
They said they needed it for an emergency shelter.
And, you know, this friend of mine, it really made him sober.
And, you know, he was planning some Y2K preparedness projects.
And he's extremely paranoid about being confidential because of the fact his parents, you know, it was cold out and they came and they just took the generator.
And if you want an autographed copy, you dial 1-800-327-7656, and that number is available right now.
I think Philip's wife is answering it in the background.
All right, East of the Rockies, you're on the air with Philip Hogue.
Once again, thank you for waiting.
unidentified
Yes, Art, thank you.
Philip, my question was, as far as your family and how you're preparing them, and you probably alluded to this in your book, and I'm going to try to get it, but as far as protocol, you know, our lifestyles are pretty lavish in, you know, as far as other countries and everything is what we're used to having.
Have you prepared your family in any way?
And, you know, is there, what have you set up, you know, or what have you told them as far as if things were to get a little bit sketchy?
Well, number one, I intentionally positioned myself out in a rural area.
And, you know, I don't want to discourage people in the cities.
And we can talk about that another time or later.
You know, what can people do in the cities?
But obviously, if you're standing on the railroad track and you see a train coming, what's the best thing to do?
Get off the tracks.
Get out of the way.
And there's a lot more odds against you in the metropolitan area.
I live in the country.
I've got, you know, elk herds back up in the hills behind me.
I've got deer all around me.
I can grow a garden here.
I have dairy goats.
You know, I've got a couple of horses.
And so, and I'm kind of integrated with the local community.
I'm part of emergency services here.
And that's an ideal situation.
Not everybody can do it.
But, you know, my suggestion to people is, number one, you need to, as much as possible, put yourself in a position of self-sufficiency and self-reliance.
Self-reliance could be as simple as having a water filtration device and a long-term food storage program stored underneath your double bed in your apartment.
Philip, a little more to my point was, have you told your children, you know, you're not going to have TV, maybe.
You're not going to have some of these things, and you maybe need to start thinking about, you know, maybe our existence, maybe for a short time, like Art says, or who knows?
My situation is a little different because I don't allow a TV in my house.
I mean, we have video, we have TV sets with video, but I don't get any TV reception in my house because quite frankly, I just think it's A form of natural mind control.
And you don't realize that until you get away from it.
unidentified
Yep, and I agree with that somewhat.
But you see what I'm saying?
I'm talking about all the things that we're used to.
There may be a time, like Art said, maybe short or maybe longer, that we're going to be out without these things.
You caught me off guard because I've been going back and forth.
I see.
But anyway, I'm an employee here at Harris, Las Vegas.
Yes.
And, you know, one of my concerns is primarily the federal government is already in our house, and now they're almost getting ready to step into our shoes.
And I'm not anti-government, but I do believe that the states should belong to the hands of the people.
And have you considered, is that, I'm going to get your book, but have you considered anything, or is there anything in your book that mentions about order, like after the fall, after the fact, if the reality does come that there's going to be martial law or the worst case scenario, is there any way that we can rebuild our cities?
Well, the worst case scenario and what comes after, I know what I would like to see what comes after.
I mean, we're looking at a situation, if we look at the worst case scenario, where we get thrown back in the horse and buggy age without the horse and buggy.
There's some serious problems when we look at the whole basis of our infrastructures.
Everything's based on power.
Everything's based on fossil fuels.
And we could have some real serious problems potentially, especially with the fact that if we even put aside the U.S. and say we fix everything here, you know, the third world countries, you know, they've got a long ways to go, especially in our foreign oil that we're importing and the drilling rigs and everything that's involved with the embedded processors.
They're going to be a long time redoing that.
So, number one, the ideal would be that we turned into some sort of a more decentralized infrastructure where we went back to basics.
My major concern is that there's other people that have other plans.
So I just hope things move in our direction and we have a chance to get more back to our basics of our founding fathers and things like that.
And hopefully we don't move away from it to a more authoritarian, centralized, totalitarian system.
And, you know, I've done a lot of work with groups, and I found some major pitfalls with authoritarian structures, you know, where you get somebody that turns themselves into some sort of junior potentate.
And I really advocate, and I have some hands-on information in there about group management structures and how you can work in group dynamics.
And I really recommend that people look into these things because you can do so much more with a group.
Because not every one of us is a diesel mechanic, a brain surgeon, you know, and a guy that can make bread.
You know, we've all got individual geniuses and talents, and we all have our blind spots.
Today, well yesterday's paper, the front page said that there was 800 Marines from Camp Lejeune in about the second week of November going to practice here in our city.
This really worries me and makes me wonder about how we should prepare or whatever.
If one of those suitcase bag nuclear explosives went off, how much would I bet the government would probably cover it up and say that I'll make already cut the person instead of putting the government in panic?
You know, there's population reduction, there's the creation of debt.
There's a lot of economic reasons for war.
And, you know, if we look through the history of World War II, we'll see that it's quite plain what happened there in World War I. We got the Federal Reserve, and as soon as we got it, we needed a national debt, so they created a war.
So the government could borrow money from the private bank called the Federal Reserve.
And here, we just on May of 25th of this year, there was a historic vote in the United States Senate, it was 52 to 47, that shifted the blame off the commanders of Pearl Harbor to the commander-in-chief of the nation for the surprise attack by the Japanese on Pearl Harbor.
You didn't see this in CNN.
But nonetheless, there was an official statement there that the commander-in-chief, they didn't name him, but it was Roosevelt, knew about the impending attack on Pearl Harbor, and he allowed it to happen.
And we intervene, and in most recent years, we have decided to become the police prisons of the world, or at least the enforcement arm of the UN, which has decided it's going to be the police organization of the world.
Well, I read a lot of fiction, and one writer seems to think that perhaps maybe an alien could go into the future and stop those nuclear suitcases from going off and then return to the past, et cetera, et cetera.
That's what you have involved in the Area 51 with those artificial aliens.
Well, I don't necessarily believe, I don't know that we're going to go back to a feudal society.
We talked about the worst case scenario.
And I can't tell you what the scenario is, but under the worst case scenario, potentially something like that could happen.
You know, we are looking at, you know, we have such marvelous infrastructures, centralized infrastructures in this country, whether it's power, fuel, food distribution.
And what we're saying is that Y2K threatens the stability of these infrastructures.
There's other things that could threaten that stability, nuclear war, biological terrorism.
There's a lot of things that could disrupt it.
And what we're saying is there's a lot of vulnerability.
We're addicted to these things, like the junkie down in downtown New York is addicted to heroin.
And if it goes away, we're going to have major withdrawal symptoms.
The more, you know, if all you listen to is on the TV about the UN and how great it is and all these things, you know, it would sound, well, this is a positive thing.
You know, this is our solution.
But when you start looking into the nuts and bolts of what the U.N. stands for, it's I think I'd rather deal with nuclear war.
I'll tell you another answer, and this is a plug, of course, but really these LED array lights are incredible because of the very, very tiny amount of current consumption they require to produce a fair amount of light.
Yeah, in fact, in my chapter in the book on lighting, I talk about those LED.
I got a picture of those LED lights in there.
And then I get more sophisticated.
I talk about, you know, I've got an extensive chapter on power generation systems And how you can do DC and efficiency and efficient AC lighting in your home.
And, you know, I really move toward this idea of trying to develop some energy self-sufficiency because most of our technology and everything that we experience in our culture is based on power.
Right, and the beauty of an inverter, an inverter is a little high-tech device which takes DC voltage out of a battery system and converts it into AC voltage, which we're all used to and we need for a lot of our equipment.
And the problem with AC is you can't store it.
And that's where batteries are so important.
And I've got a very extensive chapter in my book about batteries and what's involved in a battery storage system.
But the beauty of DC is we can store it in batteries.
And we can pull it out and use it when we need it with an inverter or with direct DC type appliances like they use in RVs.
Okay, besides the light on the Bajan preplay, what good would it do to have the radio if the power is out and the radio stations are not receiving power?
Well, most radio stations, I would say a majority, have emergency power.
And there are designated EBS, what used to be called EBS and something else now, stations that absolutely are required to be hardened and have emergency power.
Basically, what I'm really, really worried about lately has been the Second Amendment.
And I think to create a UN type of government, you would have to, have to disarm the United States.
So the United States is the key to the whole world government deal, or a UN-type government.
And to do this, wouldn't you want some certain agencies or maybe someone to create certain instances where you hit people with their emotions and scare them to where you'd want to take their guns away and then have a big event where you can collect them under a martial law type situation?
And I want to ask Philip, does he kind of wonder sometimes what's going on lately with all these attacks and the Second Amendment?
In fact, there's if you go down to your local ASC office, Agricultural, the Forest Service, and what do they call it?
It's the ASCS office.
It's a federal agency under the Department of Interior.
One of their duties under FEMA, I understand, is not only issuing ration coupons, but it's also gun collection centers.
And you see, we see what happened in the Ukraine where the Russians, the Soviets created an artificial famine and starved out the Ukrainians that were resisting subjugation.
And you understand, if you can control food, you can control people.
Anyway, if you were in Russia, you'd have no problem.
Really?
unidentified
My first question, in constructing an underground concrete shelter, would copper screening act as a sufficient EMP shield when covering the entire interior of the shelter?
My understanding, everybody I've talked to, and the rebar in the steel reinforced concrete wouldn't give any effective shielding, nor does the earth overcover.
What we did is we have a steel reinforced concrete barrel vault.
And what we did is adjacent to the main structure, we Put in two steel tanks.
One contains the engine room and one contains the radio room.
And that was for a Faraday cage shielding.
It was a complete steel tank.
Now, the easiest and most cost-effective protection from electromagnetic pulse is redundancy.
And the cheapest form of a Faraday cage is a galvanized steel garbage can with a tight-fitting lid.
You take your spare radios, you put them in that garbage can, and you keep the lid on it tight.
One, electromagnetic pulse, it looks for an antenna.
So that antenna could be an extension cord from your computer that is not even plugged into the wall.
It could be the antenna off your radio.
So if you have any extension cords or things like that and your item is not in a steel container, you should coil them up.
You should try and minimize the antenna, disconnect the antenna.
Also be aware that even though you have your computer turned off, your radio turned off, if an electromagnetic pulse spike collects on the telephone lines, the power distribution grid, it will jump across open switches.
And it's the first thing we would see in the event of a nuclear attack on this country because one of the advantages we have over the rest of the world, over the Russians and over the Red Chinese, is our computerized coordination and military control of our assault forces.
They also have pictures in my book, illustrations from the Defense Department of their satellite kill weapons.
And the first thing they'll do is go after our reconnaissance satellites.
And, you know, and I've got a scenario in my book, a chapter on an attack on the U.S., a nuclear attack on the U.S., how, you know, I speculate that Yeltsin would call up and said, oh, there's been a terrible disaster in space.
This space station has exploded.
Please bear with us.
And that's after they detonate a device over the North American continent about 100 to 200 miles up, and it blankets the entire North American continent with electromagnetic pulse.
It burns out all unprotected electronics, creates mass confusion.
Wildcard line, you're on the air with Philip No Doomsday Hoag.
unidentified
Yeah, hi, I'm Colin from Nevada.
Art, a couple of times you mentioned a book called Lucifer's Hammer about when a comet strikes the earth and the effect that it has and how realistic it is.
You haven't mentioned the rest of the book is about just the same thing as the total disaster of Y2K.
Yeah, and another thing is when next year sometime in the future, someone's going to come up and say, you know, the worst thing about it is that we didn't appreciate what we had.
And so what everyone should do now is give thanks like on Thanksgiving.
You can go down and buy an ice cream when you want.
You can get gasoline when you want at a decent price.
You can turn a flick a switch and you got electricity, everything.
Appreciate everything that we have right now so that next year sometime someone's going to say, oh yeah, I listened to Art Bell Show and this man said, hey, appreciate it now.
And so we are appreciating it while we have it.
And the other thing is the first battle of the American Revolution was fought when the British came after the Americans' guns and ammunition at Lexington and Concord.
And that is what's going to happen here, that I and a whole lot of other people are going to fight if they come after my guns and ammo.
Philip, there are a lot of people out there, you know, who, you know, I remember the old days of the Cold War and we were all contemplating the possibility of the planet destroying itself.
And a lot of people said, look, I wouldn't want to live through that.
You know, if I knew it was coming, I'd go outside, make peace with myself, throw my arms into the air and say, here I am, kaboom.
Well, I think, number one, we need to have a will to be.
It's the basic instinct of life, and it's the true sign of a disintegrating society when people lose the will to be.
I think the other thing, too, is if we look at bad experiences in our own personal lives, I know in my own personal experience, in the long run, most of these bad experiences turned out to be some of the most spiritually benefiting experiences in my life.
That, you know, it happened in situations when I was going in the wrong direction, and it stopped me and turned me around and put me in a positive course.
And I think we need to look at our country in the same way.
You know, we're definitely going in the wrong track in the wrong direction.
You just look at the crime rate.
You look at teen suicide.
You look at abortion.
We've got enough problems that the natural course of spiritual Evolution is going to run us into some rough water here.
That's, in my personal belief and experience, life is going to bring us to the point that we're going to have to confront our problems.
And it may not be comfortable.
But, you know, I have children.
I see a lot of beautiful people out there, people that have really beautiful children.
And it's not that I fear death.
There are some people that are into a survival mentality, like they're out to save their skin.
My attitude comes more from a sense of mission.
I think we have a responsibility to life, to our children, to give them an opportunity and a chance to life.
You know, I think life is a precious commodity.
And getting back to the old nuclear, you know, everybody's been programmed to this idea that nuclear war is unsurvivable.
It just ain't true, period.
They mix the whole idea of Chernobyl with nuclear war, and people think that if we have nuclear war, the planet's going to be sterilized for years.
For thousands of years, it just is not true.
Radiation decays very quickly.
You just need to have a little radiation shielding over your head and be able to protect yourself for about two weeks.
We have all of this horrendously poisonous, high-level radiation that would get dispersed even if nothing else happened.
Well, you know what, they're telling us here in Nevada at Yocha Mountain, they're telling us we will have to safely store the waste materials that are now scattered about for tens of thousands of years.
But you have to understand also that from the point of view of the Russians and the Chinese and their strategy of warfighting, they're not looking to completely decimate, destroy the United States and make the country uninhabitable.
And the whole beauty of the submarine triad of our defensive or offensive system was even if they took out our silos, our fixed silos, those subs would be cruising around out there.