For Hire: Professional Charlatan

Anyone who's ever tuned into, say, Coast to Coast AM, knows that there's one hell of a lot of charlatans in the area of conspiracies, mainly UFO/alien stuff. Sometimes I wish I had no shame or conscience like some of those guys and could crap all over my good name for a book deal and speaking fee.

I think I could write a pretty convincing alien abduction account, I'd travel to the Pleiades, hook up with some smokin nordic alien babe, get into space battles and fight my way out of an underground military complex.. maybe even save the world.. twice.
I'd get on Coast to Coast and Noory would totally eat up my tale in a second. I'd get invited to conferences which I'd charge some absurd amount for and go on to co-author 3 sequels with Whitley Strieber and Bill Burns.

It would be so easy... if only I could sink that low. Clearly it's possible since so many people do it, I just don't know why you'd want to. Some extra cash would be nice though.

I've always wondered, how many of those guys actually go in with that attitude, knowing full well what they're doing, I think a lot.

I don't know how many of you watch Bull**** with Penn and Teller, but they expose a lot of this sort of thing and some of them do make real coin, regardless of what they claim. Like this couple that charges thousands of dollars for people to come to their house for a weekend retreat in which they would contact the spirits of dolphins to ask for advice and they'd click like dolphins and prance around the room as they "channelled" their consciousness and the room was packed with these idiots.

I need a new job, seriously.

Originally posted by ZombieOctopus
I just don't know why you'd want to. Some extra cash would be nice though.

That is exactly why they do it... Money.

PT Barnum had a saying: "There is a sucker born every minute"

Now where there is a sucker, there is money to be made... Fortunately for people such as the ones you talk about, the world is full of suckers...

People like this have always existed, pulling one scam or another, simply because they can and are to lazy to earn a legitimate days pay.

I have even been tricked before. I remember as a child of about 6 or 7 I was at the state fair of texas. There was an attraction. I could see the world's smallest horse. For only $5.00.

Looking up the steps you see no horse only a bunch of those little hay stacks pushed together to make a cage.... I figured it must be really small and paid my money to go see it..

What I did not realize is that there was more than meets the eye. You walk up these steps into this gazeebo like thing. The floor of the gazeebo is about 5- 6 ft off the ground... The horse is actually standing in a hole in the middle of the gazeebo...

I did not realize that there was room for a 5-6 ft tall horse in there! I saw the hay stacks and figured it couldn't be more than a couple feet tall!. I was tricked out of my money... I paid to go see a normal run of the mill horse...

The Moral of the story is, there is a sucker born every minute and as long as a sucker is exists a con artist will exist too...


[edit on 23-11-2009 by gimme_some_truth]

reply to post by gimme_some_truth


I guess it's surprising to me how little money some people will sell out for. Once you go ahead and sell your name like that, no one will ever genuinely respect you again and you can never do anything else, something like that follows you for life.

The all time master of professional charlatanism in this field has got to be Richard Hoagland, that guy is so practised at doing what he does, I think he even buys his own snake oil on occasion. In his case though, it's not so detrimental since he's already retired from the working world. He probably sits at home and just spins tales for hours, finding complex ways to connect disparate events and weave a compelling storyline around nonsense. He's the perfect charlatan, intelligent enough to form these intricate stories, defend them in argument and push himself as a brand using his overwhelming confidence; I think he's bordering on psychopathy, personally.

It's almost tempting to follow his method when I retire and have nothing else to do. Of course, by then, secret moon and Mars bases will be old hat, I'll write a book about the secret bases on planets orbiting Proxima Centari; watch for me in about 30-35 years. Buy my book!

George Adamski and Billy Meiers are two other examples... Even when they get CAUGHT in a lie, people still eat up their stories...

Amazing...

Some just want to believe that much....

Personally for me, there's enough info out there for me to believe just based on the evidence, but I'm fairly discerning in what I consider "good" evidence..

There are still only a handful of abduction cases that seem genuine....most seem pretty unsubstantiated and many are for ulterior motives.