Micah Hanks is a writer, researcher, and podcaster. His interests include areas of history, science, archaeology, philosophy, and the study of anomalous phenomena in nature. He can be reached at info@micahhanks.com.
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13 Replies to “The Gralien Report Podcast for June 5, 2013”
cor, what kind young gentlemen ye be – posting this podcast so early to give an old woman a wee bit of comfort…… i’m out the door presently to go see the neurologist. On the (eight page long) intake form i requested a prostate test – we’ll let you know if anyone notices 😉 happy day all! keep on chucklin’ steph
What exactly is so ridiculous about the Bering Strait theory of human migration to America? How exactly is the notion that Siberian peoples crossed North America from Eurasia at the two continents’ closest points of contact (and indeed points that were actually joined for long periods in prehistory) more ridiculous than the the vague alternative proposed by Harold, for which the only evidence he provides is that “the Chinese teach it in their curriculum”? As far as I know, the Chinese don’t teach that the entire native American population is descended from them, rather they subscribe to the theory that a Chinese fleet made contact with EXISTING populations in the Americas. I grant that theories of pre-Columbian contact with Eurasian civilizations are interesting and within the realm of plausibility/possibility, but how they invalidate the Beringian hypothesis of prehistoric migration to Nth America is beyond me. Is Hubbard a creationist?
How exactly do anomalies such as giant hominid/humanoid skeletons challenge Darwinian evolution? Observations of variation within species (such as Darwin’s famous Finches) were central to the formulation of Darwin’s theories, so I hardly think that observations of historical variations within the human species pose any inherent problem for evolutionary theory whatsoever. In fact, evolutionary theory is probably in a better position to predict the emergence of such variations across time and space than alternative theories.
Is he suggesting that not only Alexander the Great, but the entire Ptolemaic Dynasty from the Ptolemy I to Cleopatra (and Antony) are buried in a cavern in Illinois, to which he admits he has no access?
And did he just suggest that scholars of ancient Italian languages haven’t seriously investigated the relationship between Etruscan and Latin? Pardon me, as I need to find a hard wooden surface against which to bang my head.
Indeed, I believe all those things stated are among the assertions Mr. Hubbard made on the show! Heh heh… which, at this time, reminds me of something worth mentioning at the present moment: The Gralien Report does not necessarily endorse the statements made by our guests, nor do those comments reflect on the views held by the host! Lol…
Now, his opinions are certainly “off the cuff,” and some of them are interesting… but without having access to the cavern in question, it does make it a bit more difficult for guys like us to “buy” all the claims being made… some of which are quite extraordinary.
My pleasure – I love the show, and realize that the material and interviews are going to venture into the outer edges (if not beyond) of the credible universe… that is, of course, part of the raison d’etre of the show and why its so fun to tune in. And of course you guys can’t press or interrogate your guests on every claim or assertion they make.
I hope I didn’t come off as too abrasive – particularly with the final comment about banging my head against wood. But I really thought that these fantastic or erroneous parts of his presentation detracted and distracted from the genuine mystery surrounding evidence of the extent of pre-Columbian contact between Nth America and Europe/Asia. I’ve no doubt that the perhaps unjustifiable resistance this evidence has met with in the academy has coloured his attitude to the ‘official’ scholarship on these and related subjects in general – which is problematic because this generalized distrust of mainstream history and science on the topic in general gives academics an excuse to dismiss what legitimate evidence he might have, because it is hidden within a forest of unsubstantiated speculation. He would better serve his cause if he focused his energies on disseminating the evidence that is most likely to be accepted by as wide a range of scholars as possible.
First – My dear Mr. Hanks, there is the occasional guest on your podcast, who manages to bring out the most delightfully charming aspect of your personality….between my love of the eccentric and your bashful demeanor, this was the most delicious podcast i’ve listened to in many a moon 🙂
Hi Clifford! as a person with college level studies in north american archaeology, i say you make excellent and quite reasonable points. Additionally, many respectable archaeologists shy away from such claims because of these claims’ association with racist, genocidal ideas and actions perpetrated by the scientific establishment in earlier times. Their caution is justified.
However, i do love a wild yarn, and this one seemed to be all in good fun, and so i took the time to read on a bit further. Unfortunately, i received the distinct impression that someone (most likely Russell Burrows) had been happily hoaxing various collectors and selling them bogus ‘artifacts’ and ‘documentation’ for a number of years when his trap caught a ‘live one’ – Harold Hubbard.
It makes me very sad to think of such an energetic, passionate, and dedicated person being taken advantage of – then again i have no intention of taking the time and trouble to attempt to prove any of my sheer speculations here. Which should leave Mr. Hubbard’s convictions firmly and happily in place.
A truly odd tale. And quintessentially American! thank you, steph
I’m curious about your comment regarding the connection between alternative theories regarding the settlement and discovery of America to racist/genocidal ideas – not in relation to Hubbard (whose intentions I have 0% reason to suspect), but in relation to Frank Joseph (formerly Frank Collin) who I’ve heard on other podcasts promoting alternative theories on American pre-history. When I decided to look him I found that he was once a prominent leader of America’s neo-Nazi movement. I wondered whether there was a connection between his fascist past and his current theories.
Hi Cliff! hooboy, i started looking in to Frank Joseph/Collin, what a can of worms!!! At this point i couldn’t say how his current ‘views’ evolved. However, since anthropology began as a scientific discipline there has been a correlation between ‘hyperdiffusionism’ (the idea that all ‘higher culture’ started in one place and time, then spread out from there – generally from white people to brown people) and racist ideas. Some early scientific attempts to compare ‘the races’ even resulted in outright murder for hire of non white peoples (specifically “Crania Americana”, sponsored by the Smithsonian). Other less murderous anthropological enterprises ‘simply’ provided the scientific justification for various forms of oppression.
So many current anthropologists understandably shy away from such theories. Also, the vast bulk of evidence argues against hyper-diffusionism. And, this is just my personal observation, the social sciences always want to appear more ‘hard science-y’. So, if you can come up with hard and fast ‘laws’, supposedly that’s more hard science-y than ‘well, it’s people and it’s complicated so sometimes this, sometimes that, it depends…’. Thus, it’s all ‘started in one place, then spread’ OR “popped up independently all over the place’. Not mostly one, some of the other.
Now, weirder connections for you all….turns out Cliff bringing up Frank Joseph/Colllins had more pertinence than we realized. According to this guy’s research:
” In what could be the oddest of coincidence, when Frank Collin was at Pontiac State Prison, he may have met a corrections officer named Russell Burrows, then of Olney, Illinois. Eighteen months after Burrows left Pontiac he claims he discovered a fantastic cave with gold, tombs, statuary, and dead bodies. A cache of more than two thousand inscribed stones comically suggests a confluence of nearly every Old World artistic style and alphabetic script known. The majority of the stones bear crude sketches of square-jawed faces, most resembling Chester Gould’s character Dick Tracy, but wearing an Egyptian uraeus instead of a felt fedora.
Most everyone believes “Burrows’ Cave” does not exist as described, however this hasn’t stopped Burrows from selling the many inscribed stones he supposedly removed from the cave. Shertz is president of B.C.C. ( the “Burrows Cave Committee”) and Collin serves as editor of The Ancient American, the only nationally distributed magazine to feature articles on Burrows’ Cave. When first told of the real identity of ‘Frank Joseph’, Burrows feigned surprise and indignation, and then later admitted to having “met him while at Pontiac.” Burrows has since changed his mind and denies ever meeting Collin at Pontiac and claims their current relationship is recent. ”
Well now!!! Be still my conspiracy-lovin’ little heart!! Further on in the same page: ” During the summer and into the fall of 1980 Frank Collin and Russell Burrows were both at the Pontiac Correctional Center in Illinois and could have met. Collin was a neo-Nazi without a cause (as the local neo-Nazis didn’t take kindly to finding out his father was Jewish) and serving time for being a homosexual pedophile. Burrows was a prison guard getting ready to quit because the drive was too far from his home and he didn’t care for the stress which came with the job. Now, all these years later, Collin has a new book out about Burrows’ Cave.” Goodness me! Quotes from this site: http://www.flavinscorner.com/collin.htm “Twisted History” by R.D. Flavin
Flavin’s site is filled with long articles documenting his research, with large sections on Frank Collin/Joseph. Flavin also goes in to the Mormon connection with alternative North American archaeology. Flavin suggests at one point that Mr. Hubbard is acquainted with Mr. Colin/Joseph, but i suggest the reader evaluate this evidence for themselves – the same as the rest of Flavin’s writings.
But this whole episode does show how carefully one needs to evaluate claims made from all parties when it comes to history and archaeology, because these ideas are political and have real life histories of how they are used, by who, and towards what ends. When Mr. Hubbard said, “The natives could never have created….(the caves and artifacts found there)” frankly i think he is just speaking out of ignorance. BUT that same statement/idea has been used for centuries by racists in order to justify the most appalling treatment of the first nations people here, and the results of that treatment tragically continue to this day.
As always, caveat emptor! And sniff around to see who is spouting certain ideas – and this goes three times as much for “mainstream” thought.
Whew! who would have thought there was even MORE to all this tangled web? Happy Sunday All! steph
by 
AuthorMicah Hanks 
cor, what kind young gentlemen ye be – posting this podcast so early to give an old woman a wee bit of comfort…… i’m out the door presently to go see the neurologist. On the (eight page long) intake form i requested a prostate test – we’ll let you know if anyone notices 😉 happy day all! keep on chucklin’ steph
What exactly is so ridiculous about the Bering Strait theory of human migration to America? How exactly is the notion that Siberian peoples crossed North America from Eurasia at the two continents’ closest points of contact (and indeed points that were actually joined for long periods in prehistory) more ridiculous than the the vague alternative proposed by Harold, for which the only evidence he provides is that “the Chinese teach it in their curriculum”? As far as I know, the Chinese don’t teach that the entire native American population is descended from them, rather they subscribe to the theory that a Chinese fleet made contact with EXISTING populations in the Americas. I grant that theories of pre-Columbian contact with Eurasian civilizations are interesting and within the realm of plausibility/possibility, but how they invalidate the Beringian hypothesis of prehistoric migration to Nth America is beyond me. Is Hubbard a creationist?
How exactly do anomalies such as giant hominid/humanoid skeletons challenge Darwinian evolution? Observations of variation within species (such as Darwin’s famous Finches) were central to the formulation of Darwin’s theories, so I hardly think that observations of historical variations within the human species pose any inherent problem for evolutionary theory whatsoever. In fact, evolutionary theory is probably in a better position to predict the emergence of such variations across time and space than alternative theories.
Is he suggesting that not only Alexander the Great, but the entire Ptolemaic Dynasty from the Ptolemy I to Cleopatra (and Antony) are buried in a cavern in Illinois, to which he admits he has no access?
And did he just suggest that scholars of ancient Italian languages haven’t seriously investigated the relationship between Etruscan and Latin? Pardon me, as I need to find a hard wooden surface against which to bang my head.
Hey Clifford,
Indeed, I believe all those things stated are among the assertions Mr. Hubbard made on the show! Heh heh… which, at this time, reminds me of something worth mentioning at the present moment: The Gralien Report does not necessarily endorse the statements made by our guests, nor do those comments reflect on the views held by the host! Lol…
Now, his opinions are certainly “off the cuff,” and some of them are interesting… but without having access to the cavern in question, it does make it a bit more difficult for guys like us to “buy” all the claims being made… some of which are quite extraordinary.
Thanks for tuning in, by the way…
Hey Micah,
My pleasure – I love the show, and realize that the material and interviews are going to venture into the outer edges (if not beyond) of the credible universe… that is, of course, part of the raison d’etre of the show and why its so fun to tune in. And of course you guys can’t press or interrogate your guests on every claim or assertion they make.
I hope I didn’t come off as too abrasive – particularly with the final comment about banging my head against wood. But I really thought that these fantastic or erroneous parts of his presentation detracted and distracted from the genuine mystery surrounding evidence of the extent of pre-Columbian contact between Nth America and Europe/Asia. I’ve no doubt that the perhaps unjustifiable resistance this evidence has met with in the academy has coloured his attitude to the ‘official’ scholarship on these and related subjects in general – which is problematic because this generalized distrust of mainstream history and science on the topic in general gives academics an excuse to dismiss what legitimate evidence he might have, because it is hidden within a forest of unsubstantiated speculation. He would better serve his cause if he focused his energies on disseminating the evidence that is most likely to be accepted by as wide a range of scholars as possible.
Regards,
Cliff
Well put 🙂
First – My dear Mr. Hanks, there is the occasional guest on your podcast, who manages to bring out the most delightfully charming aspect of your personality….between my love of the eccentric and your bashful demeanor, this was the most delicious podcast i’ve listened to in many a moon 🙂
Hi Clifford! as a person with college level studies in north american archaeology, i say you make excellent and quite reasonable points. Additionally, many respectable archaeologists shy away from such claims because of these claims’ association with racist, genocidal ideas and actions perpetrated by the scientific establishment in earlier times. Their caution is justified.
However, i do love a wild yarn, and this one seemed to be all in good fun, and so i took the time to read on a bit further. Unfortunately, i received the distinct impression that someone (most likely Russell Burrows) had been happily hoaxing various collectors and selling them bogus ‘artifacts’ and ‘documentation’ for a number of years when his trap caught a ‘live one’ – Harold Hubbard.
It makes me very sad to think of such an energetic, passionate, and dedicated person being taken advantage of – then again i have no intention of taking the time and trouble to attempt to prove any of my sheer speculations here. Which should leave Mr. Hubbard’s convictions firmly and happily in place.
A truly odd tale. And quintessentially American! thank you, steph
Hey Steph, thank you for the kind words!
I’m curious about your comment regarding the connection between alternative theories regarding the settlement and discovery of America to racist/genocidal ideas – not in relation to Hubbard (whose intentions I have 0% reason to suspect), but in relation to Frank Joseph (formerly Frank Collin) who I’ve heard on other podcasts promoting alternative theories on American pre-history. When I decided to look him I found that he was once a prominent leader of America’s neo-Nazi movement. I wondered whether there was a connection between his fascist past and his current theories.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_Collin
Hi Cliff! hooboy, i started looking in to Frank Joseph/Collin, what a can of worms!!! At this point i couldn’t say how his current ‘views’ evolved. However, since anthropology began as a scientific discipline there has been a correlation between ‘hyperdiffusionism’ (the idea that all ‘higher culture’ started in one place and time, then spread out from there – generally from white people to brown people) and racist ideas. Some early scientific attempts to compare ‘the races’ even resulted in outright murder for hire of non white peoples (specifically “Crania Americana”, sponsored by the Smithsonian). Other less murderous anthropological enterprises ‘simply’ provided the scientific justification for various forms of oppression.
So many current anthropologists understandably shy away from such theories. Also, the vast bulk of evidence argues against hyper-diffusionism. And, this is just my personal observation, the social sciences always want to appear more ‘hard science-y’. So, if you can come up with hard and fast ‘laws’, supposedly that’s more hard science-y than ‘well, it’s people and it’s complicated so sometimes this, sometimes that, it depends…’. Thus, it’s all ‘started in one place, then spread’ OR “popped up independently all over the place’. Not mostly one, some of the other.
Now, weirder connections for you all….turns out Cliff bringing up Frank Joseph/Colllins had more pertinence than we realized. According to this guy’s research:
” In what could be the oddest of coincidence, when Frank Collin was at Pontiac State Prison, he may have met a corrections officer named Russell Burrows, then of Olney, Illinois. Eighteen months after Burrows left Pontiac he claims he discovered a fantastic cave with gold, tombs, statuary, and dead bodies. A cache of more than two thousand inscribed stones comically suggests a confluence of nearly every Old World artistic style and alphabetic script known. The majority of the stones bear crude sketches of square-jawed faces, most resembling Chester Gould’s character Dick Tracy, but wearing an Egyptian uraeus instead of a felt fedora.
Most everyone believes “Burrows’ Cave” does not exist as described, however this hasn’t stopped Burrows from selling the many inscribed stones he supposedly removed from the cave. Shertz is president of B.C.C. ( the “Burrows Cave Committee”) and Collin serves as editor of The Ancient American, the only nationally distributed magazine to feature articles on Burrows’ Cave. When first told of the real identity of ‘Frank Joseph’, Burrows feigned surprise and indignation, and then later admitted to having “met him while at Pontiac.” Burrows has since changed his mind and denies ever meeting Collin at Pontiac and claims their current relationship is recent. ”
Well now!!! Be still my conspiracy-lovin’ little heart!! Further on in the same page: ” During the summer and into the fall of 1980 Frank Collin and Russell Burrows were both at the Pontiac Correctional Center in Illinois and could have met. Collin was a neo-Nazi without a cause (as the local neo-Nazis didn’t take kindly to finding out his father was Jewish) and serving time for being a homosexual pedophile. Burrows was a prison guard getting ready to quit because the drive was too far from his home and he didn’t care for the stress which came with the job. Now, all these years later, Collin has a new book out about Burrows’ Cave.” Goodness me! Quotes from this site:
http://www.flavinscorner.com/collin.htm “Twisted History” by R.D. Flavin
Flavin’s site is filled with long articles documenting his research, with large sections on Frank Collin/Joseph. Flavin also goes in to the Mormon connection with alternative North American archaeology. Flavin suggests at one point that Mr. Hubbard is acquainted with Mr. Colin/Joseph, but i suggest the reader evaluate this evidence for themselves – the same as the rest of Flavin’s writings.
But this whole episode does show how carefully one needs to evaluate claims made from all parties when it comes to history and archaeology, because these ideas are political and have real life histories of how they are used, by who, and towards what ends. When Mr. Hubbard said, “The natives could never have created….(the caves and artifacts found there)” frankly i think he is just speaking out of ignorance. BUT that same statement/idea has been used for centuries by racists in order to justify the most appalling treatment of the first nations people here, and the results of that treatment tragically continue to this day.
As always, caveat emptor! And sniff around to see who is spouting certain ideas – and this goes three times as much for “mainstream” thought.
Whew! who would have thought there was even MORE to all this tangled web? Happy Sunday All! steph
Interesting! And yet again, the plot thickens? o_O
Really! hmm, this Mr. Flavin could be an interesting guest………….?
Have a great day! My mom’s making me a birthday cake, so i am stoked! w00t! Have fun, stpeh
The plot thickens, indeed! Thanks for following up on that… I’ll definitely check out Flavin’s site. And happy birthday!