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Most of us remember where we were when Neil Armstrong gave his famous speech from the surface of the moon on July 20, 1969. Despite evidence to the contrary, it is estimated that between 6 and 20% of the American population believe that the moon landing was faked. In Russia, that figure rises to 28%.
There are no shortage of people who most of us would consider to be “conspiracy theorists” (or conspiracists). In addition to the moon landing, there are a number of other facts that this group simply doesn’t believe:
1) Many of them don’t believe the Warren Commission’s report on the JFK assassination.
2) There are STILL people who believe that Barack Obama was born in Kenya, and many of them also believe that his parents are alive today, and living in a refuge camp somewhere in Africa.
3) There are also a LOT of ideas about the TRUE cause of the collapse of the World Trade Center buildings on 9/11, and there is still some confusion about who REALLY shot J.R.
Before I was born, a man named John Robert Fish built a simple carburetor that could produce phenomenal gas mileage. Strangely, the Fish carburetor never went into widespread use. Even when Michael Brown revived the idea in 1982, it continued to remain a footnote in automotive history.
Through the magic of Facebook , I recently learned about ANOTHER individual who was able to achieve tremendous fuel economy in a motor vehicle, but was unable to put his invention to greater use.
In 1978, a Texas high school dropout named Tom Ogle developed a “black box” that allowed him to achieve fuel economy of 100 miles per gallon on a 1970 Ford Galaxie, a vehicle that normally got about 13 miles per gallon. He was issued a patent (#4,177,779) by the United States government, and for a very short period of time, he received a nice income from some investors. Unfortunately, the money was short-lived. As a matter of fact, so was he.
On April 14, 1981, he was shot on the street by an assailant who “got away”, but he survived the attack. On August 18th of the same year, he died from a combination of Darvon (a prescribed pain killer) and alcohol. His death was ruled accidental, but there are many people who believe it was a cover-up for murder.
Mr. Ogle was not the first to achieve remarkable fuel economy and then disappear from the scene, nor was he the last. However, if you ask the general public if they have ever heard of Charles Nelson Pogue or Stanley Allen Meyer, you’re likely to get a blank stare.
I’ve never been much of a believer in conspiracy theories, but if a smart detective was able to find out what REALLY happened to Tom Ogle, that would be one small step for man, and one giant leap for mankind.
Once THAT mystery is solved, we can then move on to other important issues, like (1) does Bigfoot really exist and (2) what REALLY happened at Roswell?
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Take a tour of the UFO Museum
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