Date: Thu, 18 Nov 2004 09:42:34 -0800
To: Today@NBC.com
From: Merritt Clifton <anmlpepl@whidbey.com>
Subject: Attn. Matt Lauer
Dear Matt:
Re the <www.live-shot.com> item, I have been running down the many loose ends on this for about 24 hours, and suspect you, Ray Sasser of the Dallas Morning News, Jeff Franks of Reuters, Texas Parks & Wildlife, and the Humane Society of the U.S. and Fund for Animals all got suckered.
All any of you have done so far by way of verification is talk with one guy who claims to have developed this hunt-by-remote system.
No one has actually verified, as yet, that he even is who he claims to be, let alone that he has the land, has the animals, has the technology--hell, if he did, why is he working as a body shop estimator, instead of making six figures plus as a designer of advanced weapons systems?
The whole thing looks and smells to me remarkably like another of the many hoaxes perpetrated over the years by Joey Skaggs of Greenwich Village, including bogus reports amplified by many news media about an alleged brothel for dogs in New York City, and a Korean dog meat dealer buying dogs from U.S. pounds.
Skaggs teaches classes in how to pull off media hoaxes, and has several active imitators, whose most infamous hoax is something called "Bonsai kittens."
Skaggs also has a huge web site boasting about all the many dozens of times he has suckered mass media: www.joeyskaggs.com.
This stuff often uses bogus web sites.
Specific questions--
1) Did you verify the name and identity of the purported developer of this hunt--by-computer project? I notice that he went from being "John Lockwood" in Sasser's report to being "John Underwood" in the Reuters report by Jeff Franks. There is no listed "John Lockwood" in San Antonio, and neither of the two John Underwoods has acknowledged involvement, so far.
2) Did you verify that this fellow actually has some land somewhere with some animals on it? There is neither a John Lockwood nor a John Underwood in Rocksprings.
3) Did you verify the web site? According to <www.WhoIs.com>, the web address <www.live-shot.com> was still unassigned, as of yesterday afternoon. What you see when you "go" there may be some sort of mirror site, mounted from outside the U.S.
The claims that you, Sasser, and Jeff Franks have amplified, and that HSUS and the Fund for Animals have fallen for, are postulating that "a body shop estimator for a car dealership" has developed a remote-control computerized weapons system more advanced than anything the U.S. has in Fallujah, capable of sending and receiving signals across half of Texas in time for someone to verify target, aim, and fire before the target moves.
Think about this: if your computer signal travels at the speed of sound, 350 miles from the remote gun to the shooter, and back again to pull the trigger, how long does the target have to move?
One minute.
How far can a deer move in one minute?
Half a mile or more.
It would take extremely advanced fibre optics to make this even distantly possible.
(Photographing wildlife by remote works because the camera continuously records a scene. All the photographer actually does is select which frame he/she wants to retrieve from the continuous log.)
John Lockwood, if he really is who he says he is, is either pulling a hoax or pulling a scam.
The closest thing to what he claims to have that exists in the U.S. military arsenal involves a "smart" cruise missile tailed by a guide plane flying at approximately the same speed, only seconds behind the missile flight path. Cost: a few billion bucks. Development time: 20-odd years.
Check it out.
Cheers,
Merritt Clifton
Editor, ANIMAL PEOPLE
P.O. Box 960
Clinton, WA 98236
Telephone: 360-579-2505
Fax: 360-579-2575
E-mail: anmlpepl@whidbey.com
Web: www.animalpeoplenews.org
Printer-friendly format
Email this thread to a friend
Bookmark this thread
(1000+ posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
