The noted pseudo-scientific skeptic, neurosurgeon Dr. Stephen Novella, recently tried his shaky hand at a snickering, sophomoric and defamatory attack on the Billy Meier case. His focus, if one can call anything about it focused, was primarily on the Wedding Cake UFO (WCUFO) and the Asket and Nera photo controversies.
In fact, Supercilious Steve failed to present any substantiation for his claims that: the Meier case is a โmany-decade UFO hoaxโ, of โterrible qualityโ, โabsurd on its faceโ, reveals a model supported by a tree and that โMeier has used this technique before.โย He simply repeated the already discredited critiques of others โ and relied on his own, non-expert visual perception โ further diminishing his own credibility, as if that was even possible.
Not content with displaying such ineptitude, he repeats the unsubstantiated arguments and stories about โgarbage can lidsโ and โChristmas tree ornamentsโ, using the term โstriking resemblanceโ to imply exact sameness. I wonder, would he similarly diagnose and treat a patient based on their bearing a โstriking resemblanceโ to someone elseโฆinstead of taking a bit more of a โcase historyโ?
His sarcastic observation, โBelow is another โbeam shipโ with an odd affection for foliage,โ merely reveals his complete failure to have reviewed the scientific testing done on such photographs. Obviously, he wants us to know that he doesnโt even take the matter seriously enough to research it, so far above it is he.
Novella โ again โ indicts himself as a mere, lazy re-teller of someone elseโs conjecture about a โpiece of the model having fallen offโ โ failing to even say โalleged/allegedlyโ as one would expect a more cautious, intelligent person would; only the pseudo-scientist jumps to conclusions about things he never personally investigated himself. Does he also base his medical knowledge on hearsay from unreliable parties?
Having failed to cite even one source, Novella is self-rebutting in all of the above.
However, note the following (which he obviously didnโt):
- Regarding the premise that the WCUFO is really a small model with a miniature tree, involving false or forced perspective, small objects only a few feet away from the camera would not only be CLEARER in the opening of theย videoย than they are, after the full five-second zoom in (:18 to :23) the camera would be so close up on them that theyโd appear much larger and every detail would be stunningly clear.
- In fact, only a little more detail can be seen on the WCUFO, the branches and trunk. And they are still not crystal clear, indicating large objects far from the camera. This would be IMPOSSIBLE in the case of small models. Then when Meier zooms back out from :45 to the end of the video, both the tree and the WCUFO are even blurrier than in the opening of theย video, further indicating a great distance between them and the camera, probably hundreds of feet.
Didnโt the good doctor bother to check this out for himself? Well, no, he relied on the thoroughy discredited, Derek Barholomaus who had himself already retracted the claim that Meier used model UFOs and miniature trees. Kinda makes you wonder if Novella keeps himself this well up to date on things in whatโs supposedly his main area of expertise, doesnโt it?
The Asket & Nera Controversy
The next case of sloppy imprecision โ exactly the kind of thing you donโt want in a surgeon โ is Novellaโs use of some other skepticโs inaccurate critique of the Asket and Nera photos. Referring to photographs of two obviously different people โ he claims that theyโre the same one. Again, is this the guy youโd want operating on you, โWell you look close enough to the woman whose gallbladder I removed, so I decided yours should be removed too.โ?
- How much trouble would it have been for the him to have actually read the freely available explanation of the entire matterโฆincluding the easily verified information that Meier was told about the two doubles in America โ some 15 years before the controversy ever arose? Many people have a hard copy and/or ebook version of the copyrighted, dated published Contact Notes that contain that information. And, regarding the photos of the two different women, may we also recommend that he gets his eyes checked?
Novella then closes out his article with one of those, โโฆmy 8 year old daughter tells more convincing โfibsโโ clinchers, apparently letting us in on whose medical advice he relies on for second opinions as well. Then of course there are the predictable โyuck, yuckโ comments from his minions; defamers used to be a dime a dozen but now you get a gross, and I do mean gross, for free.
Speaking of Case Histories
Why didnโt Novella read the Scientific Expertsโ Commentsย andย the Photo Analysis documents, along with all of the other scientific corroboration of the evidence and information in the Meier case? Why didnโt he comment on, and/or attempt to credibly refute, all of the work โ by experts in fields in which he has no expertise โ that has already authenticated Meierโs evidence?
The self-satisfied superficiality that such pseudo-scientific intellectual lightweights as Novella indulges in, is as shamelessly juvenile as his lack of embarrassment about his own ineptitude.
If youโre a potential patient of Dr. Nโs, are you perhaps thinking now of gettingโฆa second opinion?
NOTE: I stand corrected, one of the (anonymous) skeptics has pointed out that Steve isn’t a neurosurgeon, he’s a neurologist. ย And while that doesn’t seem to have any direct bearing on his abilities to do honest research, perhaps there are some who are breathing a sigh of relief nonetheless.
The argument about “back dating” is silly. If they are real scientists they should know to always look at the date when an article was published….
Somehow, only because it is “Mr. Meier”, and an obvious stubborn/persistent “opinion”, or a very “unscientific” rumour was put out since the 60’s or 80’s and “believed” among many, that Mr. Meier is a fraud, only the possibility that at least some things might be true, is rejected since the beginning….
Because lucky of being able to read German, I could see things come true after they had been published….
The problem is also the language….. Even they speak english among themselves, the sender A, speaks about something that she/he actually does not want to say, and the receiver B can understand something completely different from what the Sender A actually wanted to say…. this happens in daily life through the spoken language and through scientific papers…… That is why this stubborn “opinion” will never be eradicated, because it will be formed always differently going from mouth to mouth, and one will always find someone that “believes”…. Mr. Meier is still living… of course he cannot repeat “the experiments” anymore, but what the heck it never hurted me to go and talk to a scientist to know his opinion and a ticket to switzerland is “still” in a range of the affordable from the states ๐