Saturday night was spent talking with Jim Dilettoso a bit more, David and Jeremy interviewing him for their respective podcasts. During this time, we were joined by a man named Rob Simone. I had only heard of him peripherally, but he described himself as the "Art Bell of the UK" via his broadcast out of L.A.

Rob inquired about the current conversation and David informed him we were discussing the Billy Meier case and Jim's involvement in the photo analysis. David asked Simone if he was familiar with the case.

"I've studied it ex-stensively." Simone replied, crossing his legs and sitting back to tweak his beard ala Obi-Wan Kenobi. I know I heard Simone say one second he'd spoken with Billy Meier by phone--then in the next breath said he hadn't yet spoken with him, but had been invited to interview him at the FIGU home base - as soon as he could fund a ticket to Switzerland. Apparently being the Art Bell of the UK doesn't include the salary of Coast to Coast AM.

When queried about the case's U.S. Media Representative and his claims however, Simone said he wasn't familiar with him. Apparently, the "extensive" study of the case didn't include the major proponent of the case in the United States. Simone then began his glazing overview of the case, which just about everyone in the seated circle already knew...where he also touched upon the "Talmud Jmmanuel"--the alleged original source text of the Gospel of Matthew, which was allegedly found in 1963 by Rashid who selected guess who, Billy Meier for his coworker in it's publishing. It's apparently also considered a "late 20th century  Biblical Hoax". 

David immediately brought up the idea that Meier claims to be the reincarnation of Christ. "No" quipped Simone, who went on to inform us that Meier didn't claim that, but did claim to the the reincarnation of Moses and Mohammed and some others I can't recall. My thought at that point was "ok, well...thats supposed to be better, or somehow more believable...right?" Even though I didn't know Simone beforehand nor anything about his views, he was quickly losing ground. We went on to ask him about some other items when he suddenly and within David's mid-sentence, jumped off his chair and stated "I gotta go get a beer".

Simone never returned.

I guess he wasn't prepared to listen to the questions regarding his "extensively studied" Talmud finding, reincarnation of Moses, prophet, and UFO contactee. If it sounds far fetched and ridiculous when phrased like that...it is. Rob may be a nice guy, but we'll never know as he bolted too fast for us even to say "thank you for speaking with us".

Later, Jeremy and I were introduced to Aaron Clark, Director of the Cleveland UFOlogy Project by Karyn Dolan. Aaron teaches a college course in UFOs at Oberlin College, and is a really interesting guy. We chatted a bit about the paranormal aspects of UFOs and possible visitations/abductions. I wanted to mention to Karyn that I was sorry I didn't get to see Rich speak on Friday, as he apparently spoke a lot about the abduction phenomenon. Karyn has an internet radio show on www.paranormalradionetwork.com , go have a listen. I got news for ya, she ain't just the wife of Richard Dolan...she's got her own views and a lot to share. To boot, she's a really genuine and nice person (just like Rich).

As we looked over towards the bar we saw a lone man with jet black hair and mustache - George Norry. Jeremy was ripe to interview him for the Culture of Contact show to inquire about his angel fixation and other pressing issues of living the paranormal media dream. You'll have to listen to Jeremy's podcast...I'll not spoil that one for ya.

Jeremy and I headed out to drive to my place where he was staying over, and we drifted between incoherent conversation (ok Jeremy was coherent...I wasn't) and bleary-eyed driving. I felt fine when we left, but by the time we got to my house I was 2 seconds from falling over. Morning seemed to arrive instantly after my head hit the pillow, and post-pancakes and juice (Thanks Lisa) we rolled out expecting more interesting events at the last day of the conference.

It didn't dissapoint. Part 3 tomorrow.