on the cheap and sleazy side (www.cheapandsleazy.net)

By G.D. Warner

Dictation From a Step Further Out

Use Your VCR and a Cheap Cable to Record Dictation From Your Radio

 

'Tis the Season

No, not that season ...! I'm talking about Hallowe'en.

Who Dat?

"Who Dat?"

If you watch TV at this time of year, you see episodes of your favorite sitcoms (and the occasional drama) with a Hallowe'en theme.

If you're a court reporting student, your dictation ... well, your dictation will be the same as it was the week, the month, the semester before.

Q&A; Lit; Jury Charge ... come on now, say it with me: BORING!!!

How would you like to take down something ... different?

Well, if you're fortunate enough to be reading this before October 31st of 2009, then ... howzabout 4 hours of ghost stories?

"What?! Four Hours of Ghost Stories?! Where?"

Why, on Coast to Coast AM, of course ...! Or perhaps I should say, "Ghost to Ghost AM."

Every year on Hallowe'en, Art Bell, the creator of Coast to Coast AM, takes the scariest ghost stories he can ... um ... scare up from his e-mail In box. He then calls the person that e-mailed the story, and the person tells the story over the air (did I mention the stories are supposed to be true?).


Update (05NOV12)

This year, things looked good for Ghost to Ghost, in that George Noory had a notice up soliciting ghost stories for the show a few days before Hallowe'en:

Ghost to Ghost:  Call for Stories

Ghost to Ghost: Call for Stories

Unfortunately, this appears to have gone up on the 26th of October. When Art Bell was hosting, he put up a similar notice literally *months* before!

Uh-oh.

So I recorded this year's Ghost to Ghost, and listened to it live.

Alas, once again, George had a guest on during the first hour --

Ghost to Ghost AM Preview, 31OCT12

Ghost to Ghost AM Preview, 31OCT12

-- in the form of political scientist Joel Skousen.

I stopped my internet feed and turned off my recorder for that hour.

The rest of the show was ... okay, I guess; my only whine this time (besides the wasted first hour) was about fifteen minutes of the final hour being taken up by a narrative he read the year before.

(*Yaaawwwnnnn!!!*)

Hopefully he'll do better next year.

Politics From a Step Father Out

I don't know if you've noticed, but it's an election year.

In fact, it's one day before the vote as I write this, and you know what that means: Yes -- One More Day of political ads!

My "Different Dictation" sources are telling me that Obama is going to win. Sorry, Romney fans!

Richard C. Hoagland, a popular guest and Science Advisor on Coast made a bet with George Noory back in 2008 that Obama would win the last election.

He made that bet when Obama had about 18 percent popularity.

The stakes: If he won the bet, he would be given the opportunity to host Coast to Coast AM on a night of his choosing (he hasn't said when yet).

Well. You know what happened: Obama won.

Alas, I can't recall all of the details about exactly why RCH said he was going to win, but there was an incident where George Bush went to visit the Mayans sometime back, and when he left, they basically performed an exorcism of the stage he was speaking from.

When Obama went to the same stage, the Mayans blessed him.

Another item of interest.

We have a popular Dreamland guest living here in Seattle by the name of John Hogue, a Nostrodamus scholar.

John has been predicting the winner of the presidential elections since Nixon ... and has not been wrong once.

His prediction this year? Obama.

Finally ....

Back in 2005, I transcribed a snippet of a conversation between Jeff Rense, Brad Steiger, and psychic medium, Larry Kingston that you might find of interest. He's talking about the various ghosts hanging out in the White House and their reaction to then-current politics:

LARRY KINGSTON: I'll tell you who's ticked off, though: Truman.

BS: Harry?

LK: Ooh, yeah, and MacArthur. Boy, they're ticked off. They don't understand why we're in Iraq --

BS: (chuckles)

LK: -- and they also stated that they believe very strongly that there's going to be -- he called him -- he called the president the same definition that he called Nixon, if you remember. I won't mention the kind words that he said, but he said, "Who's that shifty-eyed --" and you know how he finished it.

BS: Yes.

LK: Anyway, Truman's very angry at Bush.

JR: Yeah.

LK: Also, he's pretty ticked off at, um, electing, ah ... Rice as our Secretary of State. He says that Schwartzkoff should've gotten the nomination.

JR: I don't think Schwartzkoff wanted any more to do with that game.

LK: Probaby not.

BS: No.

JR: Too smart.

LK: Don't you worry. There's going to be changes in the levels. There's going to be at least two presidents of the united states, and two vice presidents in the next four years.

BS: Hmmm.

JR: Now, that doesn't surprise me, Kenny, because you know that many things working, not the least of which includes T'cum's (sp) presidential curse, which Bush seems to have -- at least in the first term -- escaped. There are a lot of things going on here. Yeah; that wouldn't surprise me. Cheny's heart is bad news. He has a -- not a well man at all.

(Jeff Rense show, 28JAN05, with Brad Steiger and medium Larry Kingston)

Update (31OCT11)

I forgot to update this last year, but Art Bell hosted "Ghost-to-Ghost AM" that time, from his home in the Phillipines!

While it was good to hear him on the air, he was apparently forced to have ... a call screener.

Art hates call screeners.

It doesn't help that the call screener he had last year was less than effective ... which is the only reason I could find for those folks that got through and didn't have their ghost story at the ready ... and in fact, one caller called with a question about something that occurred during the previous night's show.

Rumor has it that Art was very irritated, and has pretty much severed any and all contact with the show -- though they still use his name and play reruns of his shows on Saturday nights, before the live show.

Those rumors were shown to be true when Art was not at the helm for his usual New Year's Eve show, where he reads the predictions made by listners on last year's show and gauges whether the prediction was a hit or a miss. That duty fell to Ian Punnet in January of 2011.

"Okay, so Who Will Run Ghost-to-Ghost This Year?"

Excellent question ... and one which I wondered about all last week ... and it turns out it's ... George Noory.

Worse than that, he has a guest on during the first hour ... one of the co-founders of Hollywood Ghost Hunters.

Well, I'll still listen -- at least to the first hour -- and then I'll check Art's Facebook page and see what, if anything, he has to say.


I've been listening to this show since 1995 or so, back when it used to be just Art Bell, doing five hours of live talk radio every night of the week, plus an additional four hours on Sundays on a show called Dreamland (which is now in the very capable hands of Whitley Streiber ... and about which, more later).

These days, George Noory, who usually does six nights a week (Monday through Friday and some Sundays), and Ian Punnett does the show on Saturdays, with George Knapp taking the reigns one or two Sundays a month.

Despite Art's absence during most of the year, I make it a point not to miss Ghost to Ghost AM. If you liked "The X-Files," you'll love Ghost to Ghost. Heck, you might even like the regular subjects this show covers -- about which, more later.

If you're intrigued by the possibility of four three hours worth of ghost stories but you've never heard of this radio show, you can see where it's playing by checking the map.

"I can't Listen to the Radio for Four Three Hours; I've Got a Party to go to ... Not to Mention a Life!"

What, no practicing?! Shame on you! (Just kidding ...!) Fortunately, I have a solution for those of you who will spend Hallowe'en away from your radio: Why not just record the entire show?

"Dude -- Four Three Hours ... One Audio Tape ... Do the Math --!"

Ah, a major detail ... but what if I were to tell you that you can use a radio, a simple cable, and a VCR to record at least 8 or 9 hours of audio?

"Well --"

Not to worry; I'll explain the appeal of all this later. But for now, you'll need three things:

An audio cable

Audio Cable

The Audio Cable: Headphone and RCA Plugs

An AM-FM radio with a headphone jack

CC Radio Plus

That's a CC Radio, by the way ...

A VCR with Audio In jacks

VCR's Audio In Jacks

VCR Numba One

The audio cable you can get at RadioShack. Alas, I can't remember what the cable is called exactly, but it's got two RCA plugs on one end, and a standard (or the smaller one) headphone plug at the other. It should cost somewhere between $10 and $20.00. If you've purchased a VCR recently, you might even have one already ...!

The radio pictured is a CC Radio, from the C Crane Company (they advertise on Coast to Coast all the time). I have purchased a number of items from this company, and I highly recommend them ... and for those of you living in an area all too familiar with hurricanes, you have got to have one of these ...!

Did I mention 250 hours on four D sized batteries?

The Nitty Gritty

First, if you haven't already done so, check the map to see which station carries the show in your area.

Tune the station in and make sure you have good reception (can you imagine listening to a riveting ghost story and getting to the Big Finish, and then have the signal fade on you? Don't let that happen to you!).

Once you've verified you have a good signal, turn the radio off for now and set it aside.

Next, turn on your TV, and put it on whichever channel it needs to be on for your VCR to be useable, and then turn on your VCR.

Change the VCR's tuner all the way down to channel 2 ... and use the channel down button (or whatever it's called) until your TV shows some indication that you're on an Audio In or Line In channel.

Once you get there, plug the appropriate end of the Audio In cable into your VCR (the end with the two heads), and the other end into the radio, and then turn the radio on. You should hear the radio playing through your TV!

Now, for a quick test: Push the Instant Record (or whatever your VCR calls it) button on your VCR or the equivalent button on your remote control. You want to record for about a minute, just to make sure your setup works.

After a moment or so, stop the tape, rewind it, and (of course) turn off your radio. Press Play on your VCR or remote. If all went correctly, you should hear the audio your radio was playing a few seconds ago! As Martha Stewart has been known to say from time to time, "This is a Good Thing."

Next, rewind the tape, and then program your VCR to start recording at whatever time Coast to Coast AM starts in your area on the 31st of October, leave your radio on, turn off the VCR (or whatever you have to do to get the thing to record on the timer) and you're done!

"Great --! Now What?"

Now you wait for the show to start and your VCR to start recording!

"I Meant After the Show has Recorded, Wise Guy ...!"

Well, now you connect your computer to the VCR, fire up Audacity, import the audio, and get rid of the commercials.

Yes, I know ... it's a bit of a daunting task ... but not to worry; editing sound is just like editing text in a word processor: Cut (Control-X, remember?), Copy (Control-C, remember?) and Paste (Control-V, remember?) all work the same way.

For those of you that don't "remember," take a look at the "Keyboard Commands" section in Got Fear?; all these (and more!) keyboard shortcuts are discussed therein.

The hard part is selecting just the commercials.

"Personally, I Would Think the Hardest Part Would be Importing the Audio From a VCR into my Ccomputer."

Well, I suppose you're right; there are a few pitfalls you'll need to watch for ... overdriving your input into Audacity being just one of those.

So, let's go through the importing process.

Importing Audio From the VCR

Attach the headphone plug end of the cable you used to get the audio from your radio into your VCR to the Line In jack on your laptop.

If your laptop doesn't have a Line In (microphone) jack, you'll need a Griffin iMic. This is a gadget about the size (and shape) of a hockey puck, with a short USB cable on one end, and on the puck, there's a switch, a speaker jack, and a microphone jack ... so even if your laptop doesn't do audio, this will allow it to do so. You can find one at your friendly neighborhood Apple Store, among other places.

Now, where was I ... ah, yes: Attaching the headphone plug to the Line In jack on your laptop.

Once you've done that, attach the RCA plugs to your television's RCA jacks, and turn on your TV set and VCR (um ... you *did* rewind the tape, right?).

Once you're all connected (and the tape is rewound and ready to go), start Audacity.

When it's running, hit the Record button on Audacity, and click the Play button on your VCR. You might see something like this:

Audacity, overdriven

Loud and Distorted Input

The good news is you're getting something into Audacity.

The bad news is if you were to stop the tape and play the file you've recorded, it would be distorted. You can tell because the red indicator in the top right corner is pegged, and the audio waveform is completely filling the screen.

That's not good.

Fortunately, all you have to do is turn your TV set down ... so click the X to the left of the waveform to make it go away, and rewind the tape. Once that's done, again, click Record in Audacity, and click Play on your VCR.

Once you see that waveform filling Audacity's screen, turn your TV set down, and watch the red meter. Ideally, you want to get it between 50 and 75 percent of the length of the meter.

Once it's there, your waveform should clean up considerably ... like so:

Audacity Waveform:  Just Right

"Just Right" Input

Naturally, you'll want to select everything immediately to the left of your perfect waveform and delete that silence and pulse you see in the above picture ... but you can do that during the editing process.

If you don't have four hours to sit and babysit Audacity while it records, feel free to run an errand or two -- if your hard drive's capacity is large enough to accept the input. You can check the remaining time on the screen, like so:

Audacity's recording time

Recording time (based on hard drive space) in Audacity

The commercials.

In Audacity, there is a minute timer, so you can guesstimate when the commercials are (every 30 minutes or thereabouts) ... so click the magnifying glass on the left-hand side of Audacity's screen, and find the 30 minute mark, and click there a couple times. You should get something like this:

Audacity, magnified waveform

Note the difference in the levels; this is a good indicator that you have found a commercial.

Once you've found a commercial, click the I beam icon (above the magnifying glass) and click where you believe it starts, and drag towards the right.

This selects a portion of the waveform. Hit your spacebar, and you should hear it play.

If your selection doesn't quite reach the end of the commercial, place your cursor over the end of the waveform. It should turn into a pointing hand. Click the end of your waveform and drag more to the right, until you are satisfied you have it all ... then hit the space bar again.

If you are satisfied, either do a cut (Control-X, remember?) or hit the Delete key, and it's gone!

Told you this was easy.

If you wish, continue until you have gotten all the commercials; once they're all gone, we get to export the file as an .mp3.

"Wait! My Recording has a Hiss!"

Ooh, that's not good.

Fortunately, someone on one of the CR forums I frequent posted this link:

http://www.deeplysimple.net/2006/10/removing-hiss-with-audacity.html

By the way ... if that hiss wasn't present when you did your initial testing to see if the connections were right, chances are you are the victim of a nocturnal atmospheric temperature change. That means the station that came in clear in the afternoon may be struggling to overcome another station from far away that is coming in much clearer than normal!

In order to avoid this, you should do the testing of your setup the night before, when the show is on (10:05 PM Pacific). This way, if any extraneous signals begin coming in when the sun goes down, you will not be surprised when you're checking your recording ... and hopefully, you'll be able to pick up another station that carries the show.

With my CC Radio, from my home here in Seattle, I can pick up the local station that carries the show (KIRO FM), a station out of Sacramento, CA, and another station out of Las Vegas. Nevada!

Of course, they don't come in too strongly (especially the LV station), but I can listen to the Sacramento station in a pinch -- like when the show is preempted for election coverage or sports, or something equally as useless (hate when that happens!).

Creating the .mp3

This part is embarrassingly easy ... simply go up to File, and select "Export as MP3..."

Saving as MP3

Saving as MP3

Note:

If, when you select the option "Export as MP3..." you get an alert, asking for the LAME MP3 Encoder, you'll need to go to Audacity's home page and search for the encoder. Once you find it, simply download it, and put it in the Audacity folder ... and point Audacity to the file when it asks. Easy-peasy!

"Great --! Now What do I do?"

Well, Howzabout put it on your iPod?

"But I Don't Know Anything About iPods."

Well, the most important thing to know is the iPod works with iTunes ... so you first load your songs into iTunes, create a playlist, connect your iPod, and drag that playlist to the iPod icon in iTunes, like so:

iPod playlist in iTunes

iPod Playlist in iTunes

As you can see, iTunes helpfully tells me how much space I have on my iPod:

How much stuff is in my iPod, anyway?

How Much Stuff is in my iPod, Anyway?

As you can see, I don't have a lot of stuff on my iPod; just a couple playlists containing The Police, Sting, some jazz (I named that one "Police and Jazz," as you can see), some reggae, and more jazz ("Sugar Mix; a gift for a woman hooked on the Cheap and Sleazy Mocha), and, of course, some "Different Dictation."

Lots of "Different Dictation:"

Slightly modified screenshot of an iPod playlist in iTunes.

A (slightly modified) screenshot of an iPod playlist in iTunes

Remember: This is the Different Dictation that iTunes is aware of! I use a once-upon-a-time competitor to iTunes to play stuff that iTunes doesn't necessarily need to know about called Audion ... and the playlists in Audion are ... well, check out the count on this older playlist:

Audion Playlist

Audion Playlist

In case you can't read that bottom number, it says 1,287 ... and that's just one of the playlists I have ...!

"Wait a Minute ... Why Audion?"

I found that, over time, iTunes tends to bog down my system if I leave it playing for too long. Audion does't do that.

My only whine about Audion is I can't burn a CD with it. It requires a certain type of CD-ROM drive which I don't have ... which is why things on those playlists eventually end up in iTunes.

There's more about the iPod and iTunes that can be said, but you have the basics ... but if you want more, get a copy of Scott Kelby's excellent book, "The iPod Book: Doing Cool Stuff With the iPod and the iTunes Music Store."

Heck, in looking through this book, I discovered (after having my iPod since June of 2005 ... and as I write this, it's October of 2005!) that my iPod has video games on it ...! Pretty cool ... though I haven't been playing them too often (have you ever heard of Halo? If you haven't yet at least played the demo, you should do so -- preferably when you don't have a lot of work to get done!).


Update (31OCT11)

I have since that time upgraded to an iPod Touch! Ahhhh ....


Not that I have anything against video games; God knows I spent more than enough time and money playing Defender, Joust, Robotron: 2084, Berserk, and Frenzy when I was younger ... but Solitaire is boring to me.

One more thing ... when you wish to disconnect your iPod from your computer, don't just unplug the cable; you may screw something up that way.

Instead, eject the iPod by either clicking the "Eject iPod" in the lower right-hand corner of iTunes, or the circled triangle to the right of the iPod in the iTunes playlist. Once it disappears from iTunes, THEN you can disconnect your iPod.

These things aren't cheap ... so why risk screwing it up by not disconnecting the cable properly?

But Wait -- There's More!

Coast to Coast AM isn't all ghost stories normally. Some of the subjects covered recently included abiotic oil, nanotechnology, and the occult history of the United States, just to cite a few.

Earlier I mentioned Art Bell's insane schedule: 7 days a week, 5 hours a day, and 9 hours on Sundays, when he did a different show. That "different" show on Sundays was called Dreamland. Since Art hurt his back and retired a few years ago, he handed the reins of that show over to his close friend Whitley Strieber, who does an admirable job. Alas, this show is not on the radio, but you can hear it over the internet ... and if you wish to record it like those 10 hours of ghost stories, simply connect the cable to your computer instead of the radio, and you're in for some interesting radio.

An interesting story covered by Dreamland a few years back was an abduction case which sounded just like the typical reports from the middle ages of people being taken by fairies -- except this time, one of the "fairies" left a couple strands of hair behind -- and thanks to shows like CSI, we all know what to do with unknown hairs. That's right: DNA analysis. There's a book that tells the tale if you're curious ... and it also includes the results of the DNA analysis for those of you who like medical-type dictation.

Hair of the Alien Illustration

Dan Augustine's Excellent "Hair of the Alien" Illustration (and Occasional Desktop Picture)

Another show I like to listen to every so often is the Jeff Rense Show. As these shows all cover the same types of topics, that means that Jeff Rense has to try harder to find interesting guests. One of the more interesting ones I've heard was a rather strange story of a woman from a small town somewhere in Australia, whose husband went out to investigate one night after they both witnessed what appeared to be a plane crashing (a bright light, heading towards the ground, anyway) ... and when he came back, he was somehow ... different.

Every couple of days, her "husband" would walk into their walkin closet, and when he emerged, he would be different: Nice and loving one day, cold and angry the next ... and sometimes, he was either shorter or taller than usual!

At the time Jeff Rense was talking to her (~2005 or so), this had been going on for about a year ... and she believes her husband is dead. She lives in the middle of a desert, so leaving isn't too feasible (think the car has some serious problems), so she's pretty much stuck there.

Another interesting guest was John Bedini, who has been experimenting with an early version of the telephone -- which was wireless, and conducted through both air and water.

Did I mention this was invented in 1902?

This year, Mr. Bedini has been working on resurrecting the work of Dr. Royal Raymond Rife, a multi-skilled man who invented a telescope which allowed one to see viruses live (can't do that on anything available now).

He also figured out how to kill all sorts of viruses -- and cure all sorts of diseases -- by introducing a radio frequency into the body of a sick person. Mr. Bedini was not able to replicate the telescope, but he was able to duplicate the killing -- no, check that; the disintegration -- of microscopic creatures ... and the website has movies of this.

A most promising technology.

Recent Discovery: Black-Eyed Kids

Black-Eyed Kid

"Hey, There, Creepy Girl ... Creepy Girl ... Don't Hold Your Breath Waiting for Me to Let you In ...."

Sometime back, I came across a guy by the name of Jason Offut. He was talking about an interesting ... um ... subject -- something called "The Black-Eyed Kids."

The typical BEK encounter has someone alone either at home or out and about, and two or three BEKs will approach the individual and ask for a ride home, or (at the person's house) to be allowed in.

From the stories of the folks that encounter these kids, they are described as wearing out of date clothing, and have eyes that are completely black -- like the Creepy Girl in the above picture.

The child that speaks to the witnesses are insistent that they be invited in ... and in some cases, the witness will find his or her hand moving towards the door to open it and admit them ... sort of a "Jedi mind-trick."

The witness usually comes to his or her senses, and denies them access, at which point they become even more insistent.

Speeding off in their car or calling the police is usually enough to cause these beings to disappear, which is probably a good thing -- because no one has ever heard from someone that allowed these kids to come into their home or car.

I searched Jason's blog

I also did a Google search and found the original encounter -- well, the first one published online, anyway. You can read that one here.

Between that pair of links you will find plenty of chilling stories!

Oh, here's my favorite Jason Offut quote: "I love the paranormal -- as long as it's happening to somebody else."

Not Entirely Free

Coast to Coast, Dreamland, and the Jeff Rense Show all offer monthly memberships, which gives you access to previous shows in both streaming audio format and downloadable (say ".mp3") formats.

At one time, I subscribed to all three of these shows for about $20 a month, total, plus Linda Howe's Earthfiles.com ($36/year).

Other Voices

They say imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, and Coast to Coast AM has many imitators ... and you can find most of them listed (and linked) here.

Binnal of America

This show has been on for about four years now, and is commercial-free, and he always has interesting guests.

One episode I found fascinating was his three part, six hour interview with author Bruce Rux. Bruce wrote a book entitled, "Hollywood vs. the Aliens," which discusses the relationship between intelligence agencies, Hollywood, and UFOs.

I have to admit, I resisted temptation and waited the full THREE WEEKS before I began downloading this six hour extravaganza ... and yes, it was worth the wait! Get it here:

http://www.binnallofamerica.com/audio4.html

.... and look for the name Bruce Rux.

Darkness on the Edge of Town

One of those that hasn't made it to that list yet is the Darkness at the Edge of Town show.


Update (19OCT09)

The Darkness at the Edge of Town radio show now has a new home:

http://www.ktlkfm.com/cc-common/podcast/single_podcast.html?podcast=darknessradio.xml

You can still grab their older shows, though.


The hosts, and Dave Schrader and Tim Dennis, take things a little light, (check out this ad from a couple years back) but, as I mentioned, they cover the same things Coast to Coast AM, Dreamland, and Jeff Rense cover ... but this was the first place I ran into researchers Pamela Rae Heath and John Klimo, the authors of a book on what happens after death to people who commit suicide, based on interviews conducted with them through mediums ... and yes, about a third of the book deals with suicide bombers.

The pair report that the suicide bombers said things weren't quite as they expected them to be. Yes, that's right: They didn't get their allotment of virgins ... and in general, reportedly feel really ripped off.

Paranormal Radio Network

For the past couple of years, I've been listening to a lot of shows on Joe Montaldo's Paranormal Radio Network.

There are a lot of shows on this network, and I listen to most of them. My favorites are Karyn Dolan's Through the Keyhole, and Joe Montaldo's UFO Undercover.

Karyn's claim to fame (aside from being the spouse of the author of the book, "UFOs and the National Security State," Richard Dolan, is her research into the media desensitizatoin of children to alien abduction ... by way of Boo-bah and the Teletubbies, among others.

Recently, one of her guests (a UFO researcher) was talking about how he saw a kid down at the big Roswell Festival. The kid's mom was trying to get him to play with the guy dressed in a Sponge Bob costume, but the kid was having none of it! He was crying, hiding behind his mom, etc.

When Sponge Bob moved off, the kid saw another guy dressed as a typical Gray alien ... and on approaching this costumed person, the kid was all smiles!

Maybe Ms. Dolan is on to something, here.

Joe Montaldo is an abduction researcher who runs a rather large abduction research organization of ... and has been known to hypnotize a frequent abductee to have the abductee wake up during their experience and try to glean information from their captors by firing questions at them, telepathically.

Joe reports that the aliens, out of habit, answer the questions automatically ... then refuse to respond to avoid giving away too much info!

Old Technology ...? (or, "What does George Lucas Know, and When Did He Know It?")

In his book, "Dark Mission," author Richard Hoagland talks about the picture below:

Wait a minute ... is that ... 3PO!?

"Wait ... is that ... 3PO?!?"

Does that image look ... familiar? If not, consider the image below:

C3PO's Head (under tow by R2D2)

C3PO's Head (under tow by R2D2)

The above image is a shot from one of the Star Wars movies, of the character known as C3PO.

The image above that is actually a set of shots of the same object, taken from different vantage points (and overlayed to increase the depth of the image) ... on the moon.

See any similarities between the two?

That is why -- well, one of the reasons why -- Richhard Hoagland asks the question, "What does George Lucas know, and when did he know it?"

And, Speaking of George ....

There are, I'm sure, very few people in the world today who won't recognize the weapon depicted below:

Aggressive Negotiations 1:  Mace and Jango Fett

Aggressive Negotiations 1: Mace and Jango Fett

Those of you that do might find this snippet from the UPRN radio show, "Eye to the Sky" of some interest:

GIORGIO TSOUKALOS: (Talking about Angkor Wat) ... and we recently reported in Legendary Times that this complex was built with the help of the gods, and that the people who descended from the sky had weapons similar to what we today can see in Star Wars.

They had these light swords, that were these, you know, these blue handles, these grips, these blue things they were carrying in their hands, and they could cut stone, they could cut trees with these blue rays of light. And what I've just said, I mean, all this is described in the old texts, that can be found in Cambodia. And, uh, more and more of these texts are being translated today, and each one of these texts is more fascinating, because it describes, in a very rudimentary form, but it describes technology that is absolutely similar to complete science fiction.

That's from the 04APR09 episode of Eye to the Sky, with guest Giorgio Tsoukalos, editor of Legendary Times magazine, at roughly ~85 minutes in.

Project Camelot

Bill Ryan and Kerry Cassidy of Project Camelot are relative new-comers on the scene ... except instead of doing a radio show or a podcast, they make videos (though they did have an internet radio show for a little while this year (2009); it was marred by crappy producers and all-too-frequent commercials! I have suggested to Joe Montaldo of UPRN that he pick up their radio show ... and he's looking into it).

Those videos include interviews with many different paranormal researchers, including Jim Marrs, Richard C. Hoagland, David Wilcock, Robert O. Dean, and a whole bunch of people that are well known in the UFO community.

If you want to do some sustained transcribing, download a couple of these videos. Most of the inerviews are about two hours in length.

There is one interview that's a bit shorter (about an hour). This particular interview will give you an idea of how a real deposition might go, with two attorneys who are less than pleased with something the deponent said ... in this case, the "attorneys" are Bill and Kerry, and the "deponent" is UFO researcher and author Dr. Steven Greer.

The point of contention for this interview was that Dr. Greer said in a presentation that "all aliens visiting here are friendly."

If you were looking into this field back in the early 90s, you would probably have run across a site called Alien Joes.com (relax, it's gone ... and the version on Web Archive.org has no pictures), which told about a case of a ... human mutilation (you can hear about this case in the Whitley Strieber interview on the show mentioned below).

I'll spare you the details, but they were pretty grisly ... and so were those pictures!

The Veritas Show

The Veritas Show is pretty new -- just started in January of this year (2009).

The host, Mel Fabregas, has the same guests on as everybody else ... and (unfortunately) is not free -- but there's a way around that, and I'll tell you what that is later.

Show length varies, from two to three hours ... and I am currently listening to guest Andrew Basiago discuss all sorts of interesting things, including how, when he was six years old, his father read a paper to him that he (Andrew) would later publish in 2008, about life on Mars.

This show was very fascinating. In it, Andrew talks about how he was part of a government project involving teleportation, time travel and Nicola Tesla, amongst other things, and at one point during his travels, he met a young Barrack Obama and a friend of his (Barrack's) from South Africa. This friend assured Andrew that Barrack was going to be president some day.

This was 20 years ago.

Even more interesting, Andrew's father told him (about 10 years before) who the next few presidents were going to be: George Bush, Bill Clinton, George "Dubya" Bush, and Barrack Obama -- but his father couldn't remember his name, and mispronounced it ... but the prnounciation was pretty close.

One thing he mentioned was that sometime in the future, "when my hair is totally gray," he said, the existence of teleportation technology will be revealed, and pressed into service so as to alleviate the use of vehicles (and, therefore, fuel), thereby reducing air pollution.

Sure wish I knew what company was going to be implmenting that technology!

Say, did I mention that he and I are about the same age?

"What was That FREE Thing you Mentioned Earlier ...?"

Oh, yeah ...!

If you want three months access to Mel's archives, all you have to do is transcribe one of the shows. I did that ... but the guest was Dr. Louis Turi, a famous astrologer, with a heavy French accent.

As you might guess, it was slow going, but I got through it ... so now, I have a three month subscription to the show's archives.

Different Dictation in Theory and Practice

If you like shows like The X Files, Paranormal State, or Ghost Hunters, all these radio shows will most likely give you ample audio to transcribe. Best of all, you're not likely to get bored with the subject matter! They're like Lits on steroids, in the form of Q&A; one day the subject is politics, the next day it's weird weather, and the next, it might be a really technical subject, like hyperdimensional physics -- so you're guaranteed to give your steno chops a good workout.

Sometimes, while I was in school, I would find myself behind in my transcripts ... so I'd fire up one of these shows I have on my hard drive and transcribe a few minutes of an interesting portion and turn it in for transcript credits. The last one I was working on (back in 2006) was one where the guest was talking about a surgeon who received a heart transplant. This poor surgeon kept having the same dream, night after night: He wakes up in strange surroundings, tries to find his way out, trips, falls down two flights of stairs, and breaks his neck.

You'll never guess how the donor became a donor ...!

Interestingly, the surgeon reported to his doctor (and the guest) that his neck started bothering him after surgery ....

The guest, Dr. Paul Pearsall, wrote a paper about it (though this particular case came up after the paper was written).

One of my (now former) fellow students was lucky enough to have Dr. Pearsal stop by her job as a guest speaker ...! Sure wish she had told me he was coming .... :o( That's a guy I'd love to talk to ...!

The one I did before that concerned a self-trained scientist named John Hutchison who lives in Vancouver, BC. He apparently built a replica of the Ark of the Covenant ... and he reported that there was about six hours of film of the Ark, showing a weird fog, weird glowing blobs of light ... and entities in the fog.

Remember that scene in Star Wars, where Princess Leia's holographic image was being projected by R2-D2? That's what the entities looked like.

This was supposed to air on The Learning Channel by now, but they've been dragging their feet ... and, in fact, the replica of the ark was destroyed, and the footage of the entities was totally cut out, leaving only the weird fog -- all shown in about a minute of screen time.

Needless to say, John was less than pleased ... so he is building another replica of the ark, and planning on making his own documentary.

If you're really brave, and pretty handy with tools, his website has the instructions anyone can follow to build their own ark.

You might want to read up on the ark's history before you try this ... and it can't hurt to take another look at the movie Raiders of the Lost Ark, too.

You can also wait until the documentary is finished (my plan), and buy the ark from him (he's planning on putting it on eBay(!!)).


Update (24JUN09)

This project is on hold! Seems the arc got wet, and caused some major problems. Read about them here.

Update (17OCT09)

I have re-transcribed the portion of the 04JUN05 episode of Coast to Coast AM dealing with the Ark of the Covenant ... and you can read that here:

http://www.cheapandsleazy.net/ark.html

There's even a link in there to the actual conversation!


If you're missing some transcript credits and want to have fun with your "too political" instructor, you should Google the following -- no, wait; Let me Google that for you:

"Peter Levenda" "Sinister Forces" ".mp3"

"Jim Marrs" "fourth reich" ".mp3"

(Please forgive the snarky "Was that so hard?" question, those of you who clicked the links ...!)

Hopefully, you will come up with something useful that will not only earn you some transcription points, but will also engage your instructor -- and hopefully get you some extra credit!

That's All, Folks ...!

Hope you enjoyed this version of Different Dictation! Look for another update in a year ... or two. I think Audacity has changed the way they do things, so I'll have to fix that section ... but we'll see.

-o0o-