Phil Imbrogno gone from field - he faked his educational credentials

For those of you who have followed Phil Imbrogno's work - looks like he completely fabricated his MIT degree and professional associations, and there is serious doubt about his other educational credentials. He was caught (by Lance Moody, someone I don't necessarily like, but who did the hard lifting and uncovered the scam), and instantly departed the field, leaving his Djinn book co-author in the lurch, as well as doing untold harm to the field of legitimate paranormal research. Another dishonest "researcher" turns out to be a charlatan, and drives the UFO field even further into the mud.

dB

reply to post by davidbiedny
To be blunt, I've considered him to be a BS merchant for a long time.

He's off flying to Saudi, meeting security chiefs and dining with Saudi Princes whilst they regale him with black-op US missions to capture frigging djinns and aliens from their stargate bases. He's got a 'top secret' clearance decades after leaving the military and has US generals casually telling him about all these interplanetary missions?! Big case of WTF.

All this as a teacher?

What bugged me the most is well-known names defending the BS.

Lance Moody has done a good thing by asking MIT for any evidence that he ever attended. Over on the Paracast forums, Ron Collins, Trained Observer and a couple of other guys have asked the questions since 2009/10 and Imbrogno has been protected by named-researchers avoiding the answers.

Yep, just heard about this also last Sunday of TheParacast. Really sucks. Not him, he deserves everything he gets for this BS, but sucks for the people who take this whole filed somewhat seriously. This kind of crap happens everywhere and in every field, but in Ufology the % of people who do this is huge it seems...

At this point, anyone looking to the Paracast as a source of reliable information best look elsewhere.

Indeed, many of Imbrogno's claims have really gone off the edge, and that latest book - the Djinn thing - was just terrible, but this kind of fraud is likely to have an effect on his teaching career, so he's proven himself to be a true moron.

As far as the idea that the ratio of charlatans is high in this sandbox - look no further than the vast majority of the people who show up as "celebrities" in the paranormal world, knowing that it's not likely that anyone will do the work of actual verification and corroboration as to their credentials - and when someone tries to do this - like what I did with Bassett, Horn, Greer, the time traveling dentist dickhead (name evades me, thank goodness), and the truly vile Bill Knell - derision from the "true believers" was usually the result.

Anyone who wants to know why I departed any significant public role in this sandbox can now have a good idea for the motivation behind my actions.

dB

reply to post by davidbiedny

At this point, anyone looking to the Paracast as a source of reliable information best look elsewhere.

There are some good guys on the Paracast forums who are posting intelligent, informed opinions. Your beef isn't with the posters, it's with the management.

It isn't about the Paracast, it's about Phil Imbrogno telling lies for years.

Every paranormal podcast, from the Paracast to Binnall of America, should on good faith dedicate at least one episode a year to addressing the problem of pathological liars, hoaxsters, and flim-flam men who permeate the paranormal field like flies on a hunk of rotten cheese.

The field seems to have no problem talking about the handful of known disinfo agents. We know the government does disinfo, Obama's miserable svengali Cass Sunstein openly called for it. Various ops have been doing it for years. What the field rarely addresses are the chronic liars and charlatans who outnumber legitimate researchers by several orders of magnitude.

It should not take great discernment or intelligence to pick out someone who is telling a Mark Twain style Tall Tale from someone who is advancing a speculative hypothesis based on the fringes of our perception.

Wow...that's weird. I was JUST considering him from a comment made on another thread--trying to figure out if he was a "big" enough name/influence in ufology to make a "top four" worst of list.

I guess lying about your credentials is pretty shifty, but anyone who has read any of his work and can't tell that he started making stuff up somewhere along the way should be somewhat ashamed of themselves no offense.

I say that and I've been leaning towards some form of the Interdimensional Hypothesis for the past 2-3 years. Couldn't stomach Imbrogno's sham research tho.

Something in the air lately: Hopkins, Jacobs, and now Imbrogno. Good thing as I see it.

reply to post by Kandinsky


You're absolutely right, I meant no slight to forum members, I have been banned from the Paracast forums since I left the show. I am referring to Steinberg and O'Brien.

dB

What an interesting thread!

I don't know anything about Phil Imbrogno's credentials but I was a teacher. To get the job I had to have my college send the school board directly my transcripts. There would have been no way to fake my credentials. Additionally there was a background check and criminal history pulled. Imbrogno was a high school science teacher and I would expect him to go through a similar vetting process before being hired. His credentials might be less impressive than a PhD in Chemistry from MIT but he must have some. Of course if he is lying about them than all of his work is suspect.

Originally posted by davidbiedny
to the field of legitimate paranormal research

does such a thing even exist?

Another dishonest "researcher" turns out to be a charlatan

nothing surprising there, they all are!

and drives the UFO field even further into the mud.

Can it get any lower?

reply to post by lancemoody
...with so few posts?!

Despite the history and associations made by Imbrogno, there's barely a mention by researchers as yet. Maybe they're waiting for more details or for an explanation from him?

Don Schmitt survived in similar circumstances and ufology extends credibility to the dishonest. He could get a book out it yet.

Imbrogno had stated, in his books and interviews, that he was (still is?) a middle-school science teacher. At the very least, he'd have to have a B.A. or B.S. with a teaching certificate.

I'm disappointed by all of this, if it's true. Actually I never noticed his post-graduate claims -- M.I.T. ect. I do know though, that here in the northeast, having a degree of any kind from M.I.T. is the ultimate in intellectual prestige. It far exceeds a degree from Harvard or Yale.

If he lied/embellished his educational credentials, did he lie in his books about his investigations? The late J. Allen Hynek seemed to rely on him a great deal for the Hudson Valley investigations (and later their collaborative book).

Phil Imbrogno has been my second favorite author on the subject of ufos/abductions, next to Ray Fowler (who retired a few years ago). Both appealed to me because they're from New England (like me) and know the seeming jam-packed weirdness [ufos/paranormal] that makes up this relatively small area of America.

I feel a trusted 'friend' lied about something very important, yet I have to remind myself that I don't know this man, only his words in books and in interviews. I hope somehow, it's all a misundertanding.

~ Susan

reply to post by davidbiedny


The Paracast has certainly gone to hell since you left. Thanks for everything you did while you were there. I hope you're doing well...

reply to post by lancemoody


Lance,

Gene/Chris leak your scoop in a very shady way and yet you still can't post on the Paracast until you personally reach out to Gene and promise not to school Chris. Pathetic!

Originally posted by lancemoody
What an interesting thread!

Hey, Lance! How about telling your story about PI here? The Paracast did steal your thunder, but they were light on details.

I feel like I'm a little late to the party, I haven't listened to the most recent episodes of the Paracast for a month or so now. If I am to understand this correctly we have yet another person in the Ufological 'field' who has been proven to have lied in some capacity or another? Unfortunately it seems to be just about par for the course for this 'field'. David I don't blame you for getting out, although I do sorely miss the old days of the Paracast. I don't like to dwell on the negative but suffice it to say the show has not been the same since you left.

Back to this whole Imbrogno thing, I too would like to hear the full details as this is really the first I have heard of this. It's sad that people feel the need to falsify their credentials and while it certainly doesn't help this 'field' it doesn't really hurt it much either. Ufology does a good enough job on its on destroying its credibility. Because no one can seem to have a reasonable discussion on the topic.

Sad to see someone I had some respect for turn out to be a liar to a degree. But the older I get the more I realize that you can't 100% trust anyone. (Also it's nice to hear from you again, in some capacity David!)

reply to post by countduckula24
I was asking questions about Imbrogno's credibility this time last year and got short shrift. I asked the same questions to Nick Redfern and was politely declined.

Lance Moody raised the game and asked MIT if a Philip J Imbrogno had studied there. The answer was no. In recent weeks a moderator from Paracast, Ron Collins, has asked other institutes cited by Imbrogno and has drawn blanks too. This *suggests* that he falsified his educational background and leads to questions of what else was untrue.

In the link, you can see that longevity and friendship go a long way towards becoming a de facto authenticity. The longer someone's around in the field, the more credibility they accrue.

In Night Siege by J Allen Hynek, Phil Imbrogno and Bob Pratt, Phil was the guy manning the hotline for sightings reports in Hudson Valley. This bothers me because Hudson Valley is one of the classics in ufology. I now wonder how many of the accounts were taped?

Lance has a website here and further details might appear there in the near future.

reply to post by Kandinsky


Cool thanks for filling in some of the missing details there for me! It sucks to think that someone who I had some respect for in this field could have made such a grievous mistake. But hey I guess we are all only human. We all make mistakes, the worst part is that this revelation will now taint all of his prior research and call it into question. I guess the lesson to learn here is to all ways be as honest and upfront as possible. And also maybe not falsify your credentials.

reply to post by countduckula24
True enough