Annie Jacobsen, disinformation agent, to do a Reddit Ask Me Anything, Friday 2/14/2014

Ask me anything

Time listed is 1:30PM. No time zone given.

Hopefully ATS readers recall she wrote the awful "Area 51: An Uncensored History of America's Top Secret Military Base."But if you need a reminder:
Area 51 workers mega PO'd

Looking at the Reddit legal mumbo jumbo, it appears that you can't cut and paste out if it, so if you have comments you want to post on ATS, you should paraphrase the content.
Reddit legal stuff

Kind of ironic that the creator of the Creative Commons license, Aaron Schwartz, doesn't allow a website he founded to be under that license. I'll leave it up to the moderator to pull this post if they think there is a legal issue.

reply to post by gariac


Ill be looking into that thanks.

reply to post by PhoenixOD


Let's just say the Annie Jacobsen fan club was missing in action today.

So Jacobsen is trying to peddle a book about Operation Paperclip, but who can take her seriously after the Soviet flying saucer with surgically altered children story?

reply to post by gariac


Lol half of her comments have been down rated so you can't even see them.

reply to post by gariac


What on earth makes you think you can't copy & paste from reddit? The section about 'reddit content' is not relevant as it refers to the content produced by the site itself (not users like AnnieJacobsen).

This is simply an interview in written form. Reddit user AnnieJacobsen has verified her identity as author Annie Jacobsen, so you can feel free to quote any of her comments as long as they are properly attributed.

I'm no copyright lawyer, but I'm pretty certain that there are no legal issues with copyright here - and any discussion on ATS about statements she made on Reddit would constitute 'fair use'.

You're just quoting an interview here - and if we're talking about quoting somebody I'd say you're on shakier legal ground by paraphrasing than you would be by actually quoting directly.

Sorry to go off-topic, but I'm really curious how you got the impression that you can't copy & paste from a Reddit AMA.

gariac
Ask me anything

Time listed is 1:30PM. No time zone given.

Hopefully ATS readers recall she wrote the awful "Area 51: An Uncensored History of America's Top Secret Military Base."But if you need a reminder:
Area 51 workers mega PO'd

Looking at the Reddit legal mumbo jumbo, it appears that you can't cut and paste out if it, so if you have comments you want to post on ATS, you should paraphrase the content.
Reddit legal stuff

Kind of ironic that the creator of the Creative Commons license, Aaron Schwartz, doesn't allow a website he founded to be under that license. I'll leave it up to the moderator to pull this post if they think there is a legal issue.

Beat me to it.
Interesting that despite the "high reviews" (all 3) it is already on sale on Amazon. Maybe that's standard for hard covers. I note it is available for Kindle, wonder how long before it shows up on a torrent website.

I wonder how much she plagiarized from this Linda Hunt book from 1987:
wikispooks.com...

reply to post by FosterVS


Is that Linda Hunt the actress?

gariac
reply to post by FosterVS

 

Is that Linda Hunt the actress?

I don't believe so, but I know who you are referring to.
I am a big "Dune" fan, and just watched the 1984 movie version again; she plays Shadout Mapes.

This is the author Linda Hunt:
www.expertclick.com...

reply to post by FosterVS


I like the news clippings in her photo.

"Operation Paperclip" isn't exactly secret stuff these days. I suppose Jacobsen will include some sensational nonsense to sell her book.

PBS ran a series called "Pioneers of Aviation" a few years ago. It probably still lives as a bit torrent. They covered Operation Paper Clip".

The Germans made an aeronautical discovery that became the "area rule". This allowed faster than sound flight, though what they discovered is useful subsonic as well. The effect is the reason behind swept wings. Also the reason behind how jet engines are also mounted at what is not the best mechanical location. If you look at jets from the top, the engine sticks out beyond the wing. This is very evident on a B-52.

I read that book, I thought it was pretty interesting. Sure the child-UFO thing was kind of out there but the history and information in the book seemed factual to me. This is a subject shrouded in secrecy so it's nearly impossible to say if the SR-71 facts were accurate or not. I remember a newspaper article about one of the people quoted in her book being upset over the child UFO theories, but what's more interesting is that a former Area 51 worker is being picked up by the news at all while area 51 is still being denied by the government (or at least was for over sixty years, not sure if they admitted it yet or not).

filosophia
I read that book, I thought it was pretty interesting. Sure the child-UFO thing was kind of out there but the history and information in the book seemed factual to me. This is a subject shrouded in secrecy so it's nearly impossible to say if the SR-71 facts were accurate or not. I remember a newspaper article about one of the people quoted in her book being upset over the child UFO theories, but what's more interesting is that a former Area 51 worker is being picked up by the news at all while area 51 is still being denied by the government (or at least was for over sixty years, not sure if they admitted it yet or not).

We aren't discussing "that" book.
This is about a "new" book by the same author, about Project Paperclip.
Try reading the thread.

Hopefully ATS readers recall she wrote the awful "Area 51: An Uncensored History of America's Top Secret Military Base."But if you need a reminder: 

but who can take her seriously after the Soviet flying saucer with surgically altered children story?

So you're only allowed to talk about that book if you're ridiculing it? Just trying to understand the rules.

But anyways, thanks for letting me know she has a new book out, I'll have to check it out.

filosophia
So you're only allowed to talk about that book if you're ridiculing it? Just trying to understand the rules.

Yes, there is a strict one-book-ridicule policy in effect.
Just kidding - feel free to ridicule anything she has written.
Like the, was it Syrian?, musical group that she was convinced were terrorists.
You know you've made it as a journalist when one of your articles is quoted on Snopes.
www.snopes.com...

FosterVS

filosophia
So you're only allowed to talk about that book if you're ridiculing it? Just trying to understand the rules.

Yes, there is a strict one-book-ridicule policy in effect.
Just kidding - feel free to ridicule anything she has written.
Like the, was it Syrian?, musical group that she was convinced were terrorists.
You know you've made it as a journalist when one of your articles is quoted on Snopes.
www.snopes.com...

edit on 16-2-2014 by FosterVS because: (no reason given)

But I wasn't ridiculing it, I made it quite clear that I respected the book and look forward to reading her new book. I just now put a request at my local library for the book.

I think commenting about either book is OK, just specify which book. Technically the "ask me anything" was not about Jacoben's terrible Area 51 book, but about her probably equally terrible "Operation Paper Clip" book.

When you refer to a former Area 51 worker, that hopefully is not "Bob Lazar."

The damage done by Jacobsen is two fold. One, she wrote a book full of errors and some complete BS. But second, she had access to actual former base workers. She wasted their time. Given that they got burnt by this women, it is unlikely they will be spending their time with another author just to get screwed again. Having attended the Roadrunners convention, I can tell you that some of these former base workers are not in the best shape. They might not have a second chance to tell their story.

What we need is a project similar to the UNLV NTS Oral History project for Area 51 and the TTR.
NTS Oral history

Rather than have some whack job writing a book with nonsense present just to improve sales, UNLV would just let them tell their story.

Incidentally, I knew about the "terrorist" incident, but didn't know Jacobsen was one of the disinformation agents. She simply has no journalist standards.

gariac
What we need is a project similar to the UNLV NTS Oral History project for Area 51 and the TTR.
NTS Oral history

Excellent suggestion, gariac. They did interview the Roadrunners, there are a couple of interviews, but I know what you mean - far more in-depth and related to Area 51.

On a side note - I downloaded all the video interviews from the UNLV library, and have over time been trying to watch them all. You will notice one individual, a "Pauline Silvia". Her interviews are marked as "Temporarily Sealed Not Available Online" and have been every time I check the website. I am not sure if it is related, however her daughter (M.T. Silvia) made a documentary about her mother called "Atomic Mom", which I purchased a copy. Her UNLV interviews are the only ones sealed...

reply to post by FosterVS


They sure covered their bases. i couldn't find the documented archived anywhere. Well except for this punctuation challenged version>
Could use some line feeds

gariac
Incidentally, I knew about the "terrorist" incident, but didn't know Jacobsen was one of the disinformation agents. She simply has no journalist standards.

Since womenswallstreet.com no longer exists, I found a copy of her article archived here:
archive.frontpagemag.com...

Frankly, if I was in similar circumstances, I would have been freaked out a bit as well.
Most of what she reported is confirmed in this Homeland Security report:
message.snopes.com...