On November 14, 1996, Farsight founder Courtney Brown was interviewed on Coast to Coast AM with Art Bell. In that show Courtney recounted that his team of three remote viewers viewed an alien craft “four times the size of Earth” near the comet Hale-Bopp based solely upon one astronomical photo that showed a dot of light next to the comet. I’ll begin this partial transcript with Courtney describing the accuracy of the viewer:
The person’s mind was extended is an extremely accurate remote viewer, basically has never failed us with a session, this person is extremely accurate in describing physically what’s going on.”
Keep those claims of “extremely accurate” and “never failed us” in mind.
After describing the craft, the conversation turned to disclosure in general, and Art asked Courtney re: the timeline of Disclosure. Here are snippets from the exchange, or you can listen to the conversation:
Courtney: “What we can do is identify the [unintelligible] and people. And what we do see is Clinton making this announcement.”
Art: “We know constitutionally he’s only gonna be there for four more years.”
Courtney: “It’s gotta be within the four years… the only other small caveat, I don’t think it applies in our situation, is that it is possible to change a timeline… I don’t see how it’s possible to avoid at this point. We’re on this timeline and President Clinton is involved in this timeline and I don’t see it… I don’t think we can get away [unintelligible]”
Art: “What do you expect him to do?”
Courtney: “Well, what we’re seeing in Remote Viewing, and this is something we’re going to maintain… in the near term… what we’re expecting is that there are gonna be two major ET events—besides the one we’re talking about now—there’s gonna be some volcano that’s gonna go off in the southern hemisphere… they are survivors from an ancient Martian civilization… there’s gonna be a rescue effort. ET ships are gonna show up overhead, and it’s gonna be a beautiful, spectacular display that everyone will see… ET ships will actually rescue people from the lava… and what’s gonna happen soon after that is a major flyover, perhaps hundreds of thousands of ships… flown mostly by the grey… and they’re flying everywhere to completely alert everybody… those are the two announcements we put out.”
Art: “It sounds like it all begins tonight.”
Courtney: “Yes”
This story’s just getting started…
On January 15, 1997, Dr. D. Tholen showed the photo to be fraudulent. Dr. Tholen’s site shows his own original, unaltered photo, taken by him at the Mauna Kea Observatory; he noted the photo is too high resolution to have been taken by an amateur astronomer, as Courtney had claimed. 1, 2, 3, 4
Prudence Calabrese was implicated: “They supposedly received it through Ms. Prudence Calabrese and Dr. Courtney Brown from a “mysterious astrophysicist” who “preferred to remain anonymous.” 2
Prudence subsequently apologized, not just for her involvement in Hale-Bopp, but for any and all involvement in Farsight at all:
What I participated in over the course of a year and a half was nothing less than the manipulation of the public’s mind, not by outright lying, but by the selective representation, improper analysis, and overblown presentation style of remote viewing data.
I failed in my moral responsibility to let the public know exactly what was occurring with the data on esoteric targets publicly presented by The Farsight Institute (under the direction of Dr. Courtney Brown).”
Prudence Calabrese Prudence Calabrese Makes Startling “Confession”
Rather than apologize and acknowledge the sessions were garbage, Courtney instead doubled down on his position:
Just because someone has created a fraudulent picture doesn’t mean the actual thing doesn’t exist.”
That’s some nuclear-grade bullshit right there. I know, polite folk don’t like to call people that. Here’s the thing, if spotting someone’s bullshit was easy, that just means they’re bad at it. The best ones, bullshitters like Courtney Brown, you gotta pay close attention.
With that level of unscientific hubris, you can see why Prudence parted ways with Farsight.
Keep in mind this is the same professor who, for a mere $3,000, will teach students enrolled at his “Institute” to communicate with extraterrestrials.
Art Bell, Coast to Coast AM Radio. 5
Courtney used the fraudulent photo as an RV target, and with that he predicted imminent mass alien flyovers.
We didn’t use that picture for targeting”
Excuse me, he did not use a fraudulent photo as a target. So what did he use, you might ask?
When we got some indications that there was such a thing, we targeted the thing.”
He “targeted the thing,” and by thing, I’m pretty sure he’s referring to the fraudulent dot in the photo.
Try to reconcile those two quotes.
I asked remote viewer and former Farsight affiliate Daz Smith if a viewer can tell the difference between a lie and the truth, even when the tasker can’t:
No they can’t. I was a participant in a hrvg [Hawaii Remote Viewers’ Guild] project where the true target was hidden behind a mask and the mask target was one that only existed within imagination yet all the viewers described it as a real target.”
Daz put together a presentation on the topic.
Project Stargate Member and professional Remote Viewer Paul H. Smith Ph.D. wrote a piece on the dangers of taskers with agendas: Beware the Unknown Tasker.
But that fiasco was over two decades ago. You might wonder, has Courtney learned his lesson since then? The answer would be no because that quote from Daz was regarding Courtney’s 2014 Giza project.
And in 2019, Courtney posted a video of an RV session where an offscreen assistant could clearly be heard prompting the RVer. Consistent with his prior gaslighting patterns, he insisted his sessions are not re-enactments; he even pinned a contrived justification to the youtube video. If a viewer has forgotten her line, and a production assistant has to feed her the line, how is that not a reenactment? Perhaps it’s not a reenactment in the same way that targeting a non-existent “thing” is not targeting a fraudulent photo. And given that all of his “viewers” use pseudonyms, making them impossible to contact, it’s not unreasonable to ask: are they actors?
But I digress. Back to Hale-Bopp. Courtney deflected Lindemann’s suggestion that his remote viewing was flawed:
Somebody is trying to discredit the remote viewing stuff.”
No, they were just trying to discredit Courtney Brown. His entire Art Bell interview was pure, unadulterated, and unapologetic bullshit, fueling end-of-millennium comet hysteria.
On March 26, 1997, 39 members of the cult Heaven’s Gate were found to have committed mass suicide, in order to reach what they believed was an extraterrestrial spacecraft following Comet Hale–Bopp. 6
On June 27, 1997, Alex Heard, writing for the New York Times, mentioned Courtney “has been denounced as a scam artist, ‘definitely deluded’ and a virtual accomplice to suicide.” He went on:
Brown helped spread the idea that the Hale-Bopp comet was accompanied by a mysterious spaceship, a notion that may have inspired 39 members of the Heaven’s Gate group to kill themselves in March. Brown became convinced of this thanks to the controversial practice of ‘remote viewing’ — mental imaging practiced at great distances, which the Federal Government once researched in a defunct program called Stargate. Brown was told by his own team of remote viewers that a ship lurked behind the comet, and he spread this news on the airwaves and the Internet.” 7
Remote Viewer Daz Smith has since spoken with survivors of Heaven’s Gate, and they told him that Brown’s radio show had no influence on their decision. Alas, these are the ones who didn’t die. We cannot know what different influences changed the minds of those who did. What we do know, however, thanks to Matt Drudge, is that the people in the Heaven’s Gate cult had listened to the show, and it affirmed their wrong beliefs.
Daz also shared with me a scientific article from that time period (I lost the link) suggesting a small object (smaller than the comet itself) was stuck orbiting the comet. One could use this as confirmation of Courtney’s session, except it was nowhere near 4x the size of the Earth, and there is no evidence it was an alien spaceship.
Courtney has since predicted worldwide devastation by 2012, falsely claimed in 2014 remote viewing is as good as being there, was caught prompting his viewers in 2019 (which I touched on above), and he’s been engaging in tax fraud for twenty years.
Farsight: Funded by White Supremacists
Rotella Capital Management has given $105,000 to neo-Nazi Richard Spencer’s National Policy Institute, $17,500 to the Federation for American Immigration Reform (designated a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center), $35,000 to the New Century Foundation, a foundation which advocates for white separatism, eugenics, and strict immigration restrictions, and $25,000 to Farsight. 8
White nationalism runs on conspiracies.
David Neiwert, author of Alt-America: The Rise of the Radical Right in the Age of Trump
I leave you with this image of Doctor Brown, from his own Vimeo service, to which you can subscribe for just $9.99/month or $99.99/year:
And famed narcissist Joe Exotic:
Learn more:
- Crazy Rulers of the World, Jon Ronson, The Psychic Footsoldiers, 2004, BBC Channel 4
- Art Bell Archive 11/28/96, Whitley Strieber – Prof. Courtney Brown – Dr. Prudence Calabrese
- Talk Radio’s Comet Caper, Ray LaFontaine, 2/23/97, The Washington Post
- Coast to Coast AM With Art Bell Hale Bopp Anomaly Saga, Archive.org
A 2023 NH Literary Awards Finalist for Outstanding Work of Young Adult Fiction, you can pick up Dan Pouliot’s debut novel, Super Human, hardcover edition for just $17.95 for a limited time. Learn more…
- 1997 announcement by Whitley Strieber[↩]
- Fraudulent use of an IfA/UH picture[↩][↩]
- The Saga of Comet Hale-Bopp and its Fugacious Companion, Part 2[↩]
- Hale-Bopp Comet Madness, by Alan Hale[↩]
- Art Bell, Heaven’s Gate, and
Journalistic Integrity, Thomas C. Genoni Jr., The Center for Inquiry[↩] - Families Learning of 39 Cultists Who Died Willingly[↩]
- Waaay Out, New York Times[↩]
- This Obscure Foundation Helped Fund The Alt-Right, Sarah Jones[↩]