Fr Iannuzzi’s curious statement about Admiral Byrd (continuing on from my previous post).
This post does not stand on its own. It is the second and final part of a discussion which begins here. To refresh the reader’s memory, I insert a quote from the previous post.
What, then, does Fr Iannuzzi believe? There are two possibilities to consider. Either Fr Iannuzzi believes in hollow Earth, or he does not.
Belief
If it turns out that he does believe it, then in my view we ought to ignore everything that he says that touches on the physical sciences. At the very least, we ought to treat his statements with a very high degree of suspicion, thoroughly fact-checking all his comments … I would even be wary of the theological statements of someone—even a trained theologian—who believes that the Earth is hollow. In my judgement, a belief of that sort … is often a sign that there is something seriously wrong with a man’s intellectual approach to the world, his way of reasoning about things …
According to his website, Fr Iannuzzi has a postgraduate degree in Medicine and a Bachelor of Philosophy (Ph.B.). In a more sane world, perhaps, it would be safe to assume that nobody in the developed world with these degrees … would ever come to believe, or even be inclined to believe, that the Earth is hollow. On the one hand, I find it very hard to believe that Fr Iannuzzi believes it. On the other hand, the whole situation with these interviews is so bizarre at times it’s hard to know what to think.
Non-Belief
What if it turns out that Fr Iannuzzi does not believe the Earth is hollow? If that’s the case, then it’s difficult to avoid the conclusion that Iannuzzi has deceived his audience. I don’t claim to have divine insight into Iannuzzi’s soul, however, so I limit my comments to how things look, and what fair and reasonable people would most likely think, on the assumption that Iannuzzi doesn’t think the Earth is hollow.
In the following, I trace a reasonable thought process toward its conclusion. My intention is not to demonstrate to the reader anything about Fr Iannuzzi’s intellectual competence or moral character. My intention, rather, is to show that it is neither unreasonable nor uncharitable for someone to arrive at the proposed conclusion.
First it should be noted that Iannuzzi holds up Admiral Byrd as an example of a “notable name” and “reputable person” who had an extraordinary encounter, by which I mean: an experience involving aliens or some other form of non-human embodied intelligence (“non-human earthlings”) and/or some type of non-human technology (e.g., flying saucers). He intentionally places Byrd alongside other “notable” / “reputable” men who worked for the government (in the U.S. or Canada) and had such encounters, namely: Paul Hellyer PC, Colonel Philip Corso and Sergeant Clifford Stone.
See Iannuzzi’s comment on Byrd in its context in Video 1 of the “Vatican and Aliens” series, 25:36-28:32. See also Video 3, 22:20-23:15 (see the transcript in the indented quotation after the next).
Speaking of the non-human earthlings living in hollow Earth, Michael Salla writes, “Strictly speaking, this sub-group is not extra-terrestrial in origin but simply a sub-terrestrial humanoid race that is genetically linked to humanity” (Exopolitics, 257). I coined the term “non-human earthlings” in my previous article. I do not believe there are non-human earthlings.
Iannuzzi’s Statement about Byrd
From Video 1 (premiered September 29, 2023):
Now at the time in ‘77 the pope was still Archbishop of Krakow but he dedicated Bruno Sammaciccia’s book to the Catholic Church. He [Sammaciccia] was visited by extraterrestrials and he wrote all about this but he did not want this to be revealed until after his death. [27:51] Much like Admiral Byrd. He [Byrd] also did not want until his death for his experience to be revealed of what he saw in the North Pole when he went there.
From Video 3 (premiered December 27, 2023):
[22:20] So to summarize these three parts of this theme of the Christian faith and the possibility of extraterrestrial life throughout the cosmos. In Part One we addressed the scientific and anthropological data as well as the declassified military and eyewitness reports supporting extraterrestrial life on other planets and its interaction with humans and even governments here on Earth. [22:52] The naval officer Admiral Richard Byrd, the Canadian minister of National Defence Paul Hellyer, Lieutenant Colonel Philip Corso, Sergeant Clifford Stone, a devout Catholic, another devout Catholic Charles Hall who is a nuclear physicist and US military worker. Also Monsignor Carrado Balducci [23:15].
This is much is clear:
Iannuzzi says to his audience in Video 1 (from 27:51) that the great Admiral Byrd had an encounter in the North Pole (the context tells us that Iannuzzi means an encounter with one or more aliens, non-human earthlings and/or UFOs; this is confirmed by the quote from Video 3) and that Byrd didn’t want to go public with this encounter in his lifetime. Let’s call this Iannuzzi’s Statement about Byrd.
Then in Video 3 (from 22:20) Iannuzzi includes the name of Admiral Byrd in his list of “declassified military and eyewitness reports supporting extraterrestrial life on other planets and its interaction with humans and even governments here on Earth.” Indeed, Admiral Byrd is the first name he mentions. Clearly, the comment he made about Byrd in Video 1 was not some inexplicable slip of the tongue. In this third video, published three months after the first, Iannuzzi is re-iterating the same claim, this time in a “summary of evidence”.
These are the only two instances in which Iannuzzi mentions Byrd in the three-part video series—or anywhere else, as far as I know.
So what does Iannuzzi means when he says “in the North Pole”? One reading is that he means at the North Pole (the geographic North Pole, where the Earth's axis of rotation intersects the surface in the Northern Hemisphere) or somewhere very near it—say, within half a degree of latitude, which makes for a surface area of roughly 9,700 km.
An alternative reading is that he means in the Earth at the North Pole, or more precisely: in some hollow space under the surface whose entrance is at or very near the North Pole. Let the phrase in italics be our definition of “under the North Pole”. For the sake of argument, we allow the proposed “hollow space” under the surface to be a hole or cavern or something along those lines. It need not be “hollow Earth”.
There’s no reason to think that Iannuzzi means the magnetic North Pole, which doesn’t have a fixed location. It is currently about 1,760 km from the geographic North Pole (85.762°N latitude and 139.298°E longitude) and has drifted roughly 2,000 km from its 1947 location. When it is said that Byrd was the first to reach the North Pole by plane, “North Pole” obviously signifies the geographic North Pole (this is the standard meaning of “North Pole”). None of the conspiracy theories about Admiral Byrd refers to a journey to magnetic North Pole either.
In reality, the surface of the Earth at or very near the North Pole has never been land—certainly not in the last 2000 years! The closest land to the North Pole is a rocky islet called Qeqertaq Avannarleq. Part of Greenland's archipelago, it is about 700 km (6.3 degrees of latitude) south of the North Pole.
How far south of the North Pole do we need to go before the surface is open water, rather than ice? In winter, the Arctic Ocean is almost completely frozen (on the surface), with open water not appearing until around 1500-2000 km (13.5 to 18 degrees of latitude) south of the North Pole. On average, the shortest distance from the North Pole to open water in summer is around 300-600 km (2.7 to 5.4 degrees of latitude). Lowest ice coverage is in September, and the lowest on record was in 2012 (we only have data from 1979, when continuous satellite observations began). The shortest distance from the North Pole to open water during the record low was at least 200 km (1.8 degrees of latitude). Even if we define “very near” the North Pole more generously, as anywhere less than a whole degree of latitude (around 111.7 km, here taking into account the fact that the Earth is an oblate spheroid, slightly flatter at the Poles) south of the North Pole, there was never open water in this region during the record low in 2012.
Clearly, then, the surface of the Earth at or very near the North Pole is ice all year round. The years in which Byrd lived (1888-1957) are no exception. We don’t have satellite data for this period, but we do have the reports of explorers, and we know that global temperatures in those years were cooler, with long-term averages of 0.5–0.8°C below preindustrial levels. From the 1990s onwards, by contrast, global temperatures have been 1.1–1.2°C warmer than preindustrial levels (from Chat GPT).
None of the conspiracy theories I’ve uncovered concerning Admiral Byrd’s flight to the North Pole postulates that he flew his plane into open water (see the “Secret Diary”; publications by Giannini; Palmer; Bernard; Trench; Salla; and the History Channel’s variation on the theory—all cited in the previous post). Flying into Hollow Earth is one thing, but flying a plane through ocean water into Hollow Earth? Don’t be ridiculous! (Even conspiracy theorists have standards.) Nor is there any mention of Byrd observing something (aliens, non-human earthlings or UFOs) in ocean waters, or something emerging from ocean waters, at or near the North Pole.
It is highly unlikely that Iannuzzi had in mind the idea that Byrd flew into the ocean at or near the North Pole and somehow managed to return! And it’s unlikely that Iannuzzi believes that Byrd observed something submerged in or emerging from the ocean at or near the North Pole. We return to this point later.
General comments on sincerity and negligence
Our task is to determine the conditions under which Iannuzzi’s Statement about Byrd would be a deceptive statement.
First, some general comments on deception. If someone says X (that X is true) even though he believes the opposite (that X is false) then he is being deceptive. Similarly, if by his statements someone deliberately implies that he believes X is true, when he believes X is false, then he is being deceptive. Another way of being deceptive is wording something in a particular way knowing that the audience—or many people in the audience—will likely understand him to mean that X is true (when in fact he doesn’t believe it) and taking advantage of this situation. What someone doesn’t say in these situations is just as important as what he does say.
It’s also possible to speak in an ambiguous and misleading way without being deceptive. In this case the statements are factually misleading, yet the speaker himself is not engaging in the deliberate action of misleading his audience. This can happen in different ways.
Someone might not be good with words, not good with the language in general, not good with the language in a particular domain (e.g., ethics), or not good at speaking on the spot. He might have been rushed or flustered when speaking. He might not have been given the chance to construct his sentences carefully, through no fault of his own. He might be experiencing a momentary lapse in cognitive ability, or something worse.
Alternatively, someone might be culpably inattentive—insufficiently careful with his words, insufficiently attentive to the effect his words might be having on his audience. This could be part of a general intention to deceive, but it need not be. Someone can be careless with his words without being deceptive, properly speaking.
In an ecclesial context, this sort of negligence is often rooted in a false belief that, for the audience of “mere laypersons”, an error here and there doesn’t matter so much, or that errors aren’t that important when it comes down to the specifics, or that all that matters in the end is whether someone is well-intentioned. I am thinking in particular of that sinister combination of (1) a modern clericalism of low expectations and (2) situation ethics. In this case there is still a type of deception at work, insofar as the theologian, by adhering to (1) and (2), is here mis-representing the teaching and attitude of the Church. To repeat, these are general comments; I am not pointing the finger at anyone in particular.
Another possibility is that someone lacks a nuanced understanding of the different theoretical positions that need to be distinguished in a certain domain. It’s often that case that substantially different positions branch out from statements that, to the untrained eye, look the same (one might be heretical, where the other is not).
If someone lacks a sufficiently nuanced understanding in a certain domain of enquiry, this may well be an example of negligence, especially for (a) the person who speaks on such matters from a validly inherited position of authority (e.g., a priest or bishop speaking on Catholic doctrine) and (b) for the person who presumes to speak on such matters from a position of authority (e.g. a gung-ho Catholic YouTuber speaking to a wide audience when his theological understanding of a certain matter is severely lacking in nuance.) If this person genuinely believes he has a good handle on the area, then he is deluded (a delusion often rooted in pride). If he is bluffing—deliberately giving the impression that, as someone who has a good handle on the issues, he can be trusted, when deep down he knows he probably does not—then then he is being negligent and deceptive.
Side note: I don’t have any objection in principle to people earning a living through their online Catholic commentary. There are instances of this which in my view ought to be supported and encouraged. But it certainly has its moral dangers. There is often a financial incentive to bluff in the way just described, and even to deceive oneself about (a) one’s intellectual ability and (b) the need to be more nuanced, more circumspect, more studious, more irenic, or more well-read. The incentive to bluff and self-deceive is especially tempting for strongly choleric characters. For they are more inclined to believe in themselves too readily, and others will be inclined to follow a confident leader. The temptation is there even if a person’s temperament has been supernaturally purified, since we all have our moments of weakness. It will be far worse, obviously, for the spiritually immature person with this sort of temperament. Of course, it would be a mistake to regret that there are cholerics at all in positions of leadership in the world or in the Church. They have strengths which are essential to the common good.
Under what conditions would Iannuzzi’s Statement about Byrd be a sincere statement?
Statements taken in the abstract, as intelligible propositions, are neither sincere nor deceptive. But a particular declarative utterance, in which someone affirms that something is the case or that something is not the case, can be sincere or deceptive, depending on what that person believes. Iannuzzi’s Statement about Byrd only has the property of being sincere or deceptive as a concrete utterance—it does not have that property when considered in the abstract, as an intelligible proposition.
We turn now to our particular case. Recall Iannuzzi’s Statement about Byrd: the great Admiral Byrd had an encounter in the North Pole and Byrd didn’t want to go public with this encounter in his lifetime.
Suppose now that Iannuzzi doesn’t believe that Byrd had any extraordinary encounter in the North Pole, whether that be (1) under the surface of the Earth, (2) above the surface of the Earth or (3) in some “complex” region that covers a region above the surface of the Earth and a region below the surface.
By “above the surface” I mean: on the surface and/or in the air above the surface.
In this scenario, Iannuzzi is being deceptive when he makes his Statement about Byrd. And this is true regardless of whether Iannuzzi means “at or very near the North Pole” or “under the North Pole” (as defined above) when he says “in the North Pole”.
On my understanding of terms, someone has an encounter in/at a certain place if and only if, during the encounter, both the person and the encountered object are physically present in/at that place. I included option (3) above to allow for the possibility of Byrd being above the surface while observing something beneath it, and the possibilty of Byrd being beneath the surface while observing something above it. (I am making extra sure to cover all bases! Admittedly, this comes at the cost of making our analysis a little more complex and our argument a little more involved).
Suppose instead that Iannuzzi doesn’t believe that the Admiral flew into a hole at or very near the North Pole, nor that he had some extraordinary encounter under the surface and/or inside the Earth. In this case, Iannuzzi’s Statement about Byrd (taken concretely) may or may not be deceptive:
(T1) In this situation (the part in bold above), if Iannuzzi doesn’t believe that Byrd had some extraordinary encounter above the surface either (when he was at or very near the North Pole)—and on top of that doesn’t believe that Byrd had an encounter “above and below” the surface near the North Pole (as per option (3))—then his Statement on Byrd is deceptive, regardless of which sense of “in the North Pole” is in play.
Consider the following:
(T2) If a putative encounter “in the North Pole” (i) did not occur above the surface and (ii) did not occur beneath the surface and (iii) did not occur in some “complex region” spanning one region above and one region beneath the surface, then it did not occur at all.
Now
T1 is true unless Iannuzzi does not believe T2. However, we are more than justified in assuming that Iannuzzi believes T2 (it would likely be an implicit belief). For it would be extremely irrational not to believe T2. (Where else could the putative encounter at or near the North Pole have occurred? All possibilites for the location of the encounter have been covered.)
(T3) In this situation of disbelief (see again the part in bold above), if Iannuzzi believes that Byrd did have some extraordinary encounter above the surface at or very near the North Pole and didn’t want to go public with this in his lifetime, then Iannuzzi’s Statement about Byrd (taken concretely) is sincere.
More precisely, if the antecedent (the part in italics) is true in T3, then we have no reason (as yet) to believe that Iannuzzi’s Statement about Byrd (taken concretely) is deceptive. That may change once other facts and considerations are brought into the equation, however.
(T4) In this situation of disbelief (the part in bold above), if Iannuzzi believes that Byrd did have some extraordinary encounter in some “complex” region that covers a region above the surface of the Earth (at or very near the North Pole) and a region “under the North Pole” (as defined above)—with Byrd observing from above the surface something beneath the surface, never going beneath the surface himself—and didn’t want to go public with this in his lifetime, then again, Iannuzzi’s Statement about Byrd (taken concretely) is sincere.
More precisely, if the antecedent (the part in italics) is true in T4, then we have no reason (as yet) to believe that Iannuzzi’s Statement about Byrd (taken concretely) is deceptive.
Building on the above considerations, we are now in a position to consider the situation in which Iannuzzi does not believe in hollow Earth. Recall again Iannuzzi’s Statement about Byrd: the great Admiral Byrd had an encounter in the North Pole and Byrd didn’t want to go public with this encounter in his lifetime. If Iannuzzi doesn’t believe in hollow Earth, then his Statement about Byrd (taken concretely) might be sincere—but only if he believes that Byrd had at least one of the following:
an Above-the-Surface Encounter—some extraordinary encounter (i) above the surface at or very near the North Pole (ii) which he didn’t want to publicize in his lifetime.
a Below-the-Surface Encounter—some extraordinary encounter (i) under the North Pole (i.e., in some hollow space under the surface whose entrance is at or very near the North Pole) but not in hollow Earth (ii) which he didn’t want to publicize in his lifetime.
an Above-and-Below-the-Surface Encounter—some extraordinary encounter (i) at or very near the North Pole, in some complex region that covers a region above the surface of the Earth and a region below the surface (not hollow Earth) (ii) which he didn’t want to publicize in his lifetime. [There are two possibilities here: Byrd was above the surface, observing something below the surface, or he was below the surface, observing something above the surface].
I will revise this claim slightly in a moment.
Now the “Secret Diary” indicates, against the observable facts of the matter, that there is land at or very near the North Pole—add that to our long list of reasons we know it is a hoax! It’s not clear whether the surface of the Earth in this region is supposed to be all land (plus rivers and lakes), or whether it is supposed to include land and the expected sheet of ice (I mean floating ice, not land-based ice like in Greenland and Antarctica).
Our three categories of Encounter (in bold above) are worded in such a way that the surface of the Earth very near the North Pole may be thought of as (i) entirely land, (ii) entirely floating ice or as (iii) both land and floating ice (only the second option is true, of course!). For example, the mentioned “hollow space under the surface” could be in ice, or it could be in rock.
Suppose Iannuzzi believes it was a Below-the-Surface Encounter. For reasons already explained, it is safe to assume that Iannuzzi doesn’t believe that the “surface” under which Byrd had an encounter was open water. However, it is part of my method not to leave any stone unturned. So let’s accommodate the idea stated in italics as follows:
we allow the “hollow space” under the surface to be dry or filled with water (fully or partially) and
we add another category, in which Byrd simply has an Underwater Encounter at or very near the North Pole—underwater but not in some submerged cave nor in some submerged opening in rock or ice or whatever—and does not want to publicize this encounter in his lifetime.
The definitions for Above-the-Surface Encounter and Above-and-Below-the-Surface Encounter can stay as they are. For neither definition excludes the possibility of the “surface” being open water.
Here, then, is our revised statement. If Iannuzzi doesn’t believe in hollow Earth, then his Statement about Byrd (taken concretely) might be sincere—but only if he believes that Byrd had at least one of the following (see their definitions above):
An Above-the-Surface Encounter
A Below-the-Surface Encounter
An Underwater-Encounter
An Above-and-Below-the-Surface Encounter
I define a Non-Hollow-Earth Encounter as an encounter that falls in one of these four categories.
A shorter but logically equivalent version of our statement can now be formulated:
If Iannuzzi doesn’t believe in hollow Earth, then his Statement about Byrd (taken concretely) might be sincere—but only if he believes that Byrd had a Non-Hollow Earth Encounter.
This proposition (in bold) outlines a necessary condition for Iannuzzi’s Statement about Byrd being sincere (when taken as a concrete utterance).
The conditions of belief
We turn now to the next phase of our argument.
(T5) If Iannuzzi genuinely believes that Byrd had an encounter at or very near the North Pole, then he must have in mind something—some account, document or testimony, for example—which he thinks counts as evidence (direct or indirect) that the encounter occurred.
If someone has X “in mind” then he has a concept of X and a cluster of beliefs about X which are retained in his memory, and upon reflection, or in response to someone’s question, he is able to bring X (and his beliefs about X) into his attention and into conversation.
(T6) To have X “in mind” as something that counts as evidence for a certain claim is (1) to be able*, in speech or writing, to offer X as evidence that the claim is true, where (2) one’s citing X as evidence for that claim counts as a sincere disclosure of one’s rational being—i.e., what one believes personally and the reason(s) one has believing it.
*If someone is physically unable to communicate, the ability to offer X as evidence could still exist as a cognitive capacity or intellectual disposition. In this case the person would be able, in principle, to actualise this capacity or disposition were he to (re-)gain his physical capacity to communicate.
(T7) It is possible to have X in mind as something that one might offer as evidence for a certain claim, even when one doesn’t believe that the claim is true, and even when one believes the claim is true but doesn’t believe that X counts as evidence in support of it.
If someone doesn’t believe that X counts as evidence in support of a certain claim, then either
he doesn’t believe that X is credible in itself (e.g., he believes X is a hoax, or that X is pseudo-scientific garbage, or that X is based on invalid research, or he doesn’t know enough about X)
he believes that X is credible, but doesn’t believe that it supports the claim in question (e.g., he accepts the Deep Sea Scrolls as true documents, but doesn’t believe that they support the claim that Jesus rose from the dead.)
Why would someone offer X as evidence for a certain claim when he doesn’t believe that the claim is true? There are different possibilities:
(1) He wants to deceive others—to persuade them (i) that the claim is true when he doesn’t believe that it is, and as a means to this (ii) to persuade them that he himself believes that the claim is true, when he does not.
(2) He is explicating the belief-system of someone else, presenting that belief-system not as his own belief-system (that would be deception) but as the belief-system of someone else. “As far as Aristotle is concerned, the movement of rocks toward the Earth is evidence that rocks have a teleological tendency toward the centre of the Earth.” It is not deceptive to “bracket out” one’s own beliefs about the cosmos in order to present and unpack the cosmological belief-system of someone else.
(3) He is explicating an hypothetical belief-system, which need not belong to anyone in particular. This is common in philosophical analysis. Again, there is nothing deceptive about this.
Why would someone offer X as evidence for a certain claim when he believes the claim is true but doesn’t believe that X counts as evidence in support of it? Again, there are different possibilities:
(1) He wants to convince others that his view is correct, and to this end—in order to make his position look as strong as possible—he is willing to bring in “evidence” that he doesn’t believe is valid evidence for the view he is arguing for (he intends to withhold this non-belief of his from the audience, of course). It might be that he secretly believes that this “evidence” is a hoax, or based on invalid research; it might be that he secretly understands that this “evidence”, while valid in itself, doesn’t support the view he is arguing for; or it might be that he hasn’t really looked into this “evidence” yet to see if it checks out.
(2) He is explicating the belief-system of someone else. For example, a philosophy lecturer believes that God exists and that it’s possible to prove it philosophically. He explicates Anselm’s ontological argument for his students, defending it from a number of objections for pedagogical reasons. Yet he doesn’t believe that Anselm’s argument is sound. The fact that he doesn’t let his students know this, does not mean that he is being deceptive.
(3) He is explicating an hypothetical belief-system.
In respect to point (1), generally speaking people who adopt this rhetorical strategy either don’t believe anyone in the audience would go to the effort to fact-check the offered “evidence”, or they don’t believe anyone in the audience is competent to do so. At least, they are willing to take their chances; they are confident they can “get away with it.”
A common strategy that such people use to minimise (in their mind at least) the chances of being exposed, is to bombard the audience with an overwhelming amount of “evidence”. The intended effect is to impress the audience so much that they simply accept, passively, that there is a lot of evidence for the view being argued for and that the person speaking must know what he is talking about. In this case the person speaking “goes all in” in order to “minimise” his chances of losing. But in many situations, the more someone bluffs, the more risk he takes. If in the audience of the bluffer there is someone who is willing and able to fact-check each of these supposed pieces of evidence, he (the bluffer) stands to lose everything (i.e., his reputation and his credibility).
As someone gains a wider following, his confidence increases, and he is more likely, by my reckoning, to engage in bluffing if he is that sort of person. He will believe more readily that he can “get away with it”, that people will simply take him at his word, and that none of his followers would call his bluff or fact-check his claims. He might even come to think of his “true followers” as a certain “buffer” or “layer of protection” against potential critics.
In the extreme case, he comes to think of himself as “untouchable”, as it were. Admittedly, sometimes this is true, or true enough. Sometimes people are virtually untouchable. There are many examples of people who have managed to keep their status and influence, even after objective criticism has exposed their incompetence and irrationality, and the extent of the deception for which they are responsible.
Recall T6:
To have X “in mind” as something that counts as evidence for a certain claim is (1) to be able, in speech or writing, to offer X as evidence that the claim is true, where (2) one’s citing X as evidence for that claim counts as a sincere disclosure of one’s rational being—i.e., what one personally believes and the reason(s) one has for believing it.
To repeat, if someone puts forward X as evidence for a certain claim, it’s possible that he doesn’t believe that X counts as evidence for that claim. (As explained above, he might be deceiving the audience about his beliefs. Alternatively, he might be explicating someone else’s belief-system, or an hypothetical belief-system.) That’s why it’s necessary to include point (2) in T6.
Suppose Alice is explicating the belief-system of someone else—Aquinas’ doctrine of the angels, for example—and in the process puts forward a piece of evidence (a premise in an argument) that Aquinas gives for a certain claim (e.g. the claim that every angel is its own genus). And suppose Alice completely agrees with Aquinas (1) that the premise is true, (2) that the claim being argued for is true and (3) that the premise supports the claim being argued for. It is entirely possible for Alice to explicate this belief-system for her students without disclosing her own rational being—i.e. what she believes about angels and the reasons she has for believing what she believes about angels. To be sure, she will be disclosing what she believes is the rational position of Aquinas (if she is a good teacher, of course, these beliefs will amount to knowledge of Aquinas.) But just because her own view on angels corresponds to that of Aquinas, it does not follow that, when as a teacher she cites X as evidence for the conclusion (every angel is its own genus), this in itself counts as a sincere disclosure of her own rational being (her own view about angels).
Now suppose someone (i) puts forward X as evidence for a certain claim, (ii) doesn’t believe that X counts as evidence for that claim and (iii) is lying (attempting to deceive his audience) by putting forward X as evidence for that claim. The person’s goal in this case is to make others think that the presented belief-system (the doxastic* connection between X and the claim it supposedly supports) is his own belief-system**—that it is part of his rational being (what he believes and the reason(s) he has for believing it)—when it is not. But this is not the goal when a person explicates someone else’s belief system or an hypothetical belief system.
*Doxastic = belief-related.
**A belief-system can be “one’s own” in this sense, even when there is nothing “original” about the belief-system.
This goal—to deceive others about what one believes—may be sought as a means toward convincing others that one’s “beliefs” are true. But there are cases in which someone attempts to deceive others about what he believes, without attempting to convince others that his “belief” (the belief which he doesn’t have) is true. It’s possible to have a strong incentive to deceive others about one’s own beliefs, but no incentive to convince others that these “beliefs” are true (there will still be an incentive in this case to convince others that he wants to convince others of the truth of these beliefs; this will be part of “the act” in which one deceives others about what one believes). An example of this situation: a non-communist attempting to infiltrate the communists by convincing them that he (the non-communist) is a true communist. Indeed, it is entirely possible for someone in a situation like this to have a strong incentive not to convince anyone of the truth of the “beliefs” he is posing as his own. Our hypothetical spy wants to pass as a communist, but he doesn’t want to convert anyone to communism in the process (to convert someone to communism might go against his moral principles or against the instructions he was given).
Recall T5 and T6:
(T5) If Iannuzzi genuinely believes that Byrd had an encounter at or very near the North Pole, then he must have in mind something—some account, document or testimony, for example—which he thinks counts as evidence (direct or indirect) that the encounter occurred.
(T6) To have X “in mind” as something that counts as evidence for a certain claim is (1) to be able, in speech or writing, to offer X as evidence that the claim is true, where (2) one’s citing X as evidence for that claim counts as a sincere disclosure of one’s rational being—i.e., what one personally believes and the reason(s) one has for believing it.
From T5 and T6 it follows that
(T8) If Iannuzzi genuinely believes that Byrd had an encounter at or very near the North Pole, then (1) he is able, in speech or writing, to offer X as evidence for this encounter, where (2) his citing X as evidence for that encounter counts as a sincere disclosure of his rational being—i.e., what he believes and the reason(s) he has for believing it.
X here stands for some account, document, artefact, testimony, etc.
Testing our proposition
In this section we ask whether there are any plausible exceptions to T8.
It’s theoretically possible for someone to have divinely infused knowledge about something or some other form of claivoyant insight (gained from demonic influence, for example). If this occurs, then the person who “just knows” something to be true by direct insight, might not have in mind (as yet) any evidence to support his belief—or at least, no evidence in mind apart from his testimony (and the experience it is based on) that he “just knows” or that God revealed it to him.
Is it possible for someone to believe that something is true, while having no reason at all for believing it to be true? No reason at all means: not trust in another person who assured him it is true, not trust in God or the Church, not weak or partial or inconclusive evidence, not an argument or thought-process which (as it turns out) is invalid or based on false premises—the list goes on.
One might think that “belief for no reason” is possible in the case of first principles, which are self-evident. Take, for example, the principle of non-contradiction: something cannot be A and not-A at the same time and in the same respect. However, it is not that we accept the principle of non-contradiction for no reason (not when we are in our right minds, anyway). The reason (or the primary reason) we accept it is that we intellectually see that it is self-evidently true.
Infused knowledge, clairvoyant insight and our intellectual perception of the truth of the principle of non-contradiction, are three examples of direct insight into an object. The light by which something is known by direct insight to be true might be (1) the divine light or a special infusion of grace, (2) demonic influence or (3) the natural light of the intellect or the natural “splendour” of the intelligible object (the object being some first principle or intelligible essence).
We can safely assume (1) that Iannuzzi does not have direct insight into any of the relevant facts about Byrd’s life, and that he never did and (2) that Iannuzzi does not believe that he does (or did). He has certainly never claimed that he does (or did)—it would be a worry if he had!
Philosophers might argue about whether direct acquaintance with Byrd—for example, being his co-pilot and observing Byrd’s actions in flight—would count as “direct insight” into some of the facts about Byrd’s life, or whether this mode of knowledge ought to be named differently and placed in a different category (I take the latter view). But this semantic disagreement is irrelevant here, because Iannuzzi did not know Byrd personally (Iannuzzi is too young, for starters), and has never been with him to the North Pole! Nor does he claim to have known Byrd personally.
To repeat: Is it possible for someone to believe that something is true, while having no reason at all for believing it to be true (not even an experience which he thinks is a direct insight into the object)? Either such a thing is impossible altogether, or it is impossible for anyone in their right mind.
We can safely assume, then, that Iannuzzi has in mind some reason for believing (if he does) that Byrd had an encounter at or near the North Pole. It might not be a good reason, objectively speaking. But there would have to be a reason (at least one), assuming Iannuzzi was neither out of his mind when he formed this belief, nor out of his mind each time he expresses or reflects on his belief and re-affirms it.
In some cases a truth is not self-evident, but can be demonstrated a priori. In this case, our justification of our belief and our knowledge that something is true do not essentially rest on our experience of things in the world. This is how mathematicians know that the Pythagorean Theorem (the sum of the squares of the sides of a right triangle adjacent to the right angle is equal to the square of the hypotenuse) is universally true. If knowing the truth of the theorem essentially depended on our experience of things in the world, it would be necessary to check every right-angled triangle to see if there are any exceptions to the proposed rule. But this is not the case.
We can safely assume that Iannuzzi does not believe on the basis of some a priori demonstration, that Byrd had an encounter at or near the North Pole. No valid a priori demonstration exists for any of the contingent facts about Byrd’s life, and only a completely unhinged person could believe, in all honesty, a contingent fact about someone’s life on the basis of some (supposed) a priori demonstration.
TYPES OF KNOWLEDGE
Let’s take stock. Recall T8:
(T8) If Iannuzzi genuinely believes that Byrd had an encounter at or very near the North Pole, then (1) he is able, in speech or writing, to offer X as evidence for this encounter, where (2) his citing X as evidence for that encounter counts as a sincere disclosure of his rational being—i.e., what he believes and the reason(s) he has for believing it.
X here stands for some account, document, artefact, testimony, etc.
Our question was whether there are any plausible exceptions to T8.
In the following we assume for argument’s sake that the antecedent in T8 is true: Iannuzzi genuinely believes that Byrd had an encounter at or very near the North Pole.
Even if it is possible to believe that something is true and to believe it for no reason at all, nobody in their right mind is able to. In any case, it’s safe to assume that Iannuzzi doesn’t believe what he believes (i.e., that Byrd had an encounter at or very near the North Pole) for no reason at all.
Note that Iannuzzi could hardly gain anything by objecting to my argument at this point!
What reason might Iannuzzi have for this belief of his, then? So far we have excluded the following modes of knowledge. We can be confident that Iannuzzi does not believe he has ever had
direct insight into the relevant facts about Byrd’s life (infused knowledge, clairvoyance, or intellectual intuition of a first principle or intelligible essence)
direct acquaintance with Admiral Byrd (especially the details of his flight to the North Pole) or
knowledge by a priori demonstration of Byrd’s encounter at the North Pole.
Can we exclude any other modes of knowledge? Let’s draw up a taxonomy (an exhaustive catalogue) of the different types of reasons one might have for believing something. Our taxonomy of reasons will have the same categories and divisions as a taxonomy of the different types of human knowledge.
First we divide human knowledge into natural, supernatural and praeternatural.
Natural knowledge divides into a priori knowledge and a posteriori knowledge.
A priori knowledge is either direct or indirect.
Direct a priori knowledge is intellectual intuition of something self-evident, such as a first principle (perhaps also the phenomenological intuition of an intelligible essence, though some might say that this is an a posteriori intuition—I’m actually not sure).
Indirect a priori knowledge is knowledge by way of demonstration from self-evident first principles.
Both these modes (direct and indirect) of a priori knowledge have already been excluded.
This leaves a posteriori knowledge, which divides into direct and indirect.
Direct a posteriori knowledge would be direct acquaintance with Admiral Byrd. Some might argue that there is a form of direct insight (not what I am calling “direct acquaintance”) that also belongs in this category. But we have already excluded direct insight (all types) along with direct acquaintance.
This leaves indirect a posteriori knowledge—this is the only type of natural knowledge that remains.
Someone might object that there are types of natural knowledge that do not fall neatly into either of these two categories (a priori and a posteriori). Here is a list of potential candidates of natural knowledge-types which (one might argue) are neither a priori nor a posteriori, strictly speaking:
Kant’s synthetic a priori
practical and procedural knowledge (“know-how”)
types of innate knowledge (e.g. linguistic structures, biological instinct)
scientific theories, which combine observation and theoretical assumptions
connatural knowledge (intuitive or affective grasp of things, a non-propositional “attunement” to things based on habit or disposition)
knowledge of values (moral, aesthetic, spiritual)
knowledge of universals (e.g. the intelligible logos of a horse)
paranormal forms of direct insight (e.g. psychic ability, clairvoyance)
The last category has already been excluded. None of the other ways of knowing could possibly give us (in isolation or in combination) knowledge of the historical facts of Byrd’s life. Knowledge of values in this case only builds on the historical knowledge that one already has by other means. While knowledge of universals is implicit in historical knowledge, it is never sufficient for historical knowledge, which deals in contingent facts. Scientific theories don’t give us historical knowledge of facts either, though they might come into play when an historian evaluates narratives and putative evidence for their credibility. The same can be said for any other theoretical or narrative framework that one might apply to available data or evidence. The general framework as such is blind to factual details.
We can safely assume that Fr Iannuzzi does not believe what he believes about Admiral Byrd on the basis of some (putative) evidence which in his mind he gained through one or more of these forms of knowledge (the 8 dot points above).
We can safely assume that Iannuzzi does not believe what he believes about Byrd on the basis of some (putative) evidence which he actually gained through one or more of these forms of knowledge (the 8 dot points above).
It would be difficult to prove that this list includes every type of natural knowledge that is strictly speaking neither a priori nor a posteriori. However, the list does take into account classical and contemporary theories of knowledge, and it is highly improbable that, our efforts notwithstanding, we’ve missed a type of natural knowledge that wouldn’t turn out to be irrelevant like all the others.
With confidence, then, we can move on to supernatural knowledge and praeternatural knowledge.
The ordinary sources of supernatural knowledge are sacred Scripture, sacred Tradition and the Magisterium of the Church. Sometimes other sources are added to the list: the sacraments, prayer and contemplation, creation viewed sacramentally, and the lives of the Saints. Extraordinary gifts of supernatural knowledge include infused knowledge, inner locutions and other forms of private revelation, mystical insight, and the charismatic gifts of prophecy, discernment and wisdom. Underlying all of this is the supernatural gift of faith. One might add charity here as a source of supernaturally connatural knowledge. (God the Trinity is the primary source of all supernatural gifts.)
We can safely assume that Iannuzzi does not believe he was given information about Admiral Byrd’s life and his (supposed) encounter at the North Pole through any of these supernatural means. If he were to claim that he did, I wouldn’t believe him!
Praeternatural knowledge is human knowledge that is above the natural powers of man but (unlike supernatural knowledge) not above the created order altogether. This includes:
1. An expansion of the capacities of the human mind through demonic influence
This is forbidden and extremely dangerous! See the Catechism of the Catholic Church, 2115-2117.
2. Information conveyed during communication (one-way or two-way) with angels, demons, the souls in hell, the souls in purgatory, or the saints in heaven.
While the Church acknowledges that certain mystics and saints have received knowledge in some of these ways (e.g. Joseph’s dreams in Matthew 1:20-25, 2:13-15, 2:19-21), one should never attempt to communicate with demons or the souls in hell (exorcisms performed by exorcists might be an exception, under strict conditions), and it is not good practice to seek out special knowledge in any of the other ways either (from angels, from the souls in purgatory, from the saints in heaven).
Caution, discernment and submission to Church teaching and authority are always necessary when it comes to received “special revelations”.
Actively seeking out visions, locutions and other supernatural experiences is never recommended. See, for example, St John of the Cross, Ascent of Mount Carmel, Chapters 21-22.
We can safely assume that Fr Iannuzzi did not gain knowledge or evidence of Byrd’s encounter at the North Pole through any of the means listed under the first and second types of praeternatural knowledge.
We can be confident that Iannuzzi does not believe that he did, either.
If a priest were to claim, very publically, that through demonic influence, or by communicating with a demon, an angel, or a departed soul, he gained special knowledge of Byrd’s encounter with non-human intelligence at the North Pole, that would be enough, potentially, to ruin his credibility and reputation as a priest. At the very least he would be required by his superior to seek mental help.
3. Sometimes “praeternatural” is understood in a third way, in reference to special assistance from God given to natural human powers for a specific purpose in accordance with God’s Will, where that assistance does not, in itself, elevate the human power in a supernatural way, properly speaking. Christians are not the only ones who receive praeternatural assistance. The Magi understood the signs in the heavens and found their way to the child Jesus in this way. Praeternatural assistance from God is often mediated by his angels and saints [this means there is some overlap with the second category of praeternatural knowledge]. Angels and saints influence our actions in hidden but positive ways—more so when we ask for their assistance or dedicate something to their patronage. God might give a political leader, or a team of doctors, or a married couple (to mention just three examples) special guidance and assistance for His own hidden purposes and in response to prayer. The recipients need not be aware of this assistance; in my view, they usually are not. I’ve already pointed out that the recipient of such assistance need not be Christian. As a matter of fact, he or she might not even be a morally good person. God is able to focus the mind and steady the hand of a brain surgeon (qua surgeon) in response to someone else’s prayer, regardless of the evil that might have taken root in the surgeon (qua man). Finally, it’s plausible that intellectual and artistic genius might be the effect of God’s praeternatural assistance—in this case a permanent gift rather than occasional assistance.
Praeternatural knowledge in the third sense does not represent a distinct category of human knowledge; it merely qualifies natural human knowledge. If the Holy Spirit (acting through an angel perhaps) subtly directs the course of someone’s thought or gives his mind a greater facility, so that he arrives at an important insight (or so that he does so more quickly), that person still has to go through a natural reasoning process in order to arrive at the conclusion. He does not have the insight without doing cognitive work.
To repeat, praeternatural knowledge in the third sense is not an independent source of knowledge in addition to the natural ones. So even if Fr Iannuzzi was praeternaturally assisted (third sense) in his research, this is irrelevant to our discussion.
This ends our exploration of the different types of human knowledge. Indirect a posteriori knowledge is the only type of human knowledge that was not excluded. This mode of knowledge alone can be plausibly applied to Iannuzzi’s beliefs about Byrd’s encounter. It follows that there are no plausible exceptions to T8. The significance of this result is explored below.
No discussion of empirical evidence is complete without a photo of someone looking down a microscope.
TYPES OF EVIDENCE
Let’s rehearse our argument from the beginning.
If Iannuzzi genuinely believes that Byrd had an encounter at or very near the North Pole, then he must have a reason for believing that Byrd had this encounter.
The only possible exception to this (if we limit ourselves to natural causes) is if his reason is severely incapacitated because of (say) mental illness, neurological disease or extreme stress. But there is no reason whatsoever to believe that this is the case. Fr Iannuzzi certainly doesn’t come across as mentally incapacitated in any of the video-recorded interviews I’ve watched so far, and somehow I doubt that Fr Iannuzzi is going to argue with me over this!
If Iannuzzi has a reason for believing that Byrd had an encounter at or very near the North Pole, then he must have in mind some X—some account, document or testimony, for example—which he thinks counts as evidence that the encounter occurred.
Therefore
If Iannuzzi genuinely believes that Byrd had an encounter at or very near the North Pole, then he must have in mind some X which he thinks counts as evidence that the encounter occurred.
Now
If Iannuzzi has in mind some X which he thinks counts as evidence that the encounter occurred, then (1) he is able, in speech or writing, to offer X as evidence for the encounter, where (2) his citing X as evidence for the encounter counts as a sincere disclosure of his rational being—i.e., what he believes and the reason(s) he has for believing it.
Therefore
If Iannuzzi genuinely believes that Byrd had an encounter at or very near the North Pole, then (1) he is able, in speech or writing, to offer X as evidence for the encounter, where (2) his citing X as evidence for the encounter counts as a sincere disclosure of his rational being—i.e., what he believes and the reason(s) he has for believing it.
Our task now is to specify what X might be.
The only mode of knowledge by which Iannuzzi might know something about Byrd’s encounter at the North Pole, is indirect a posteriori knowledge. Other modes of knowledge such as infused knowledge and demonic influence are theoretically possible for this object (Admiral Byrd’s encounter at the North Pole). But indirect a posteriori knowledge is the only mode of knowledge that is remotely plausible in this case—all other modes of knowledge are in this case either impossible or extremely unlikely.
We can safely assume that Iannuzzi himself doesn’t believe what he does about Byrd’s encounter on the basis of an insight or experience which he believes was a special revelation from God, or a direct insight into the historical facts of the case, or any of the other modes of knowledge we excluded above.
Now within this one mode of knowledge—indirect a posteriori—the categories of primary evidence that might convince someone that a subject (another person) had an encounter at a particular location include:
testimonial evidence from the subject him/herself, or from someone who was with the subject, or from someone who knows/knew the subject personally.
documentary evidence (e.g. photographs, videos, official government documents)
physical / real evidence (e.g. objects of unknown origin, samples of alleged alien DNA or tissue, artefacts of non-human technology)
forensic evidence (e.g. anomalous radiation levels, soil anomalies, inexplicable vegetation damage).
In the case of Admiral Byrd, the testimonial evidence would have to be a documented testimony of Byrd himself (in a secret diary, for example), the testimony of someone who was with Byrd at the time, or the testimony of someone who knew Byrd personally.
If there were a secret diary, this would be documentary evidence and testimonial evidence.
In respect to testimonial, documentary, physical and forensic evidence—and any other type of evidence that belongs in this list (categories of primary evidence within this one mode of knowledge)—one might know (or “know”) the primary evidence
directly (first-hand)
indirectly (second-hand), relying on secondary publications—(alleged) copies, reports or accounts of (alleged) primary evidence
indirectly (third-hand), relying on tertiary publications—publications referring (accurately or not) to one or more secondary publications
indirectly (even more distant), relying on the opinion or judgement of someone else who has done (or claims to have done) their own research. I call this vicarious research.
What should we call publications which are (a) neither secondary nor tertiary and (b) refer to a tertiary publication? Quarternary publications? What then should we call publications that are even further removed from the primary evidence they indirectly refer to? Let’s group all these together with tertiary publications, calling them higher-order publications.
Let these four groups—primary evidence, secondary publications, higher-order publications and vicarious research—be called classes of evidence.* Note that primary evidence (the foundational class of evidence) itself contains (at least) four categories of its own: testimonial, documentary, physical and forensic evidence.
*It would be more accurate to call them “classes of indirect a posteriori evidence”.
(T9) If Iannuzzi genuinely believes that Byrd had an encounter at or very near the North Pole, then (1) he is able, in speech or writing, to offer X as evidence for the encounter, and (2) his citing X as evidence for the encounter counts as a sincere disclosure of his rational being, where (3) X is one or more items from any of the four classes of evidence (primary evidence, secondary publications, higher-order publications and vicarious research).
Note that it is unreasonable to expect any piece of evidence, abstracted from its meaningful context, to have the evidential power to persuade, or even begin to persuade, a rational person of anything. There is no such thing as a piece of evidence whose strength does not rely upon an assumed background of established knowledge. In a legal setting, evaluating evidence requires that we distinguish between
established knowledge that needs to be demonstrated in court, such as the scientific consensus in respect to a rare disease,
established knowledged that can be presumed (the doctrine of judicial notice “provides that a court may take cognisance of facts which are generally known, without requiring them to be proved”), and
the facts in issue.
A simplified version of T9 is:
(T10) If Iannuzzi genuinely believes that Byrd had an encounter at or very near the North Pole, then (1) he must have in mind some X which he thinks counts as evidence that the encounter occurred, where (2) X is one or more items from any of the four classes of evidence.
It’s possible that Iannuzzi is mistaken in thinking that this “evidence” actually supports his claim that Byrd had an encounter at or very near the North Pole.
It’s possible that Iannuzzi is mistaken in thinking that the primary evidence he has in mind actually exists. He might have relied on non-primary evidence—secondary publications, higher-order publications and/or vicarious research—which presented false claims about primary evidence. Or he might have misinterpreted non-primary evidence. Or he might have a false or confused memory about the evidence he has looked into.
It’s possible that Iannuzzi is mistaken in thinking that the non-primary evidence he has in mind actually exists. He might have relied on false or misleading citations given in another publication, or he might have misinterpreted the citations. Or again, he might have a false or confused memory about the evidence he has looked into.
What’s not possible (assuming he believes that Byrd had an encounter at or very near the North Pole), is Iannuzzi not having in mind some X which in his mind counts as evidence for his belief.
At least, such a thing is impossible assuming
(A) that Iannuzzi is not having a moment of insanity
(B) that he does not have clairvoyant insight into Byrd’s movements at the North Pole, nor insight into these movements via any of the other modes of knowledge that we excluded above.
Four Scenarios
Now that we have established T9 and T10, there are four scenarios to consider in respect to the “evidence” that Fr Iannuzzi must have in mind if he truly believes that Byrd had a Non-Hollow-Earth Encounter. Either the “evidence” that Iannuzzi has in mind is the “Secret Diary” or it is not. If it is the “Secret Diary”, then either he has a good understanding of the contents of this document (first scenario) or he does not (second scenario). If it is not the “Secret Diary”, then either this “other evidence” exists (third scenario) or it does not (fourth scenario). The four scenarios are mutually exclusive and exhaustive (if they were not exhaustive, the argument below wouldn’t be valid).
Here is a sneak-preview of the conclusion of this section:
[I]f Fr Iannuzzi has in mind some X which he takes as evidence that Byrd had a Non-Hollow-Earth Encounter, then one of these four scenarios is true. But it is highly unlikely that any of the four scenarios is true. Therefore it is highly unlikely that Fr Iannuzzi has in mind some X which he takes as evidence that Byrd had a Non-Hollow-Earth Encounter.
In the following we do consider the possibility of Iannuzzi relying on what I have called “vicarious research”. In this section “evidence” refers to primary evidence, a secondary publication, or a higher-order publication.
First Scenario. Suppose the “evidence” that Iannuzzi has in mind is the “Secret Diary” and that he has a good understanding of the contents of this document. In this case, Iannuzzi believes the following:
(a) an alleged report of an extraordinary encounter taking place in Hollow Earth counts as evidence supporting Iannuzzi’s “more reasonable” belief in a Non-Hollow-Earth Encounter and
(b) a document whose main thesis (that the Earth is hollow) is risibly false is nonetheless a piece of evidence supporting Iannuzzi’s “more reasonable” belief.
If Iannuzzi honestly believes (a) and (b), then he hasn’t got the faintest clue what he is talking about; he lacks the intellectual competence to speak on these matters and be taken seriously.
However, it is difficult to believe that someone of Fr Iannuzzi’s stature would be stupid enough to believe (a) and (b). So the first scenario is highly unlikely.
Second Scenario. Suppose instead that the “evidence” that Iannuzzi has in mind is the “Secret Diary” and that Iannuzzi is mistaken about the contents of the document. In this case the connection that Iannuzzi makes between the (imagined) contents of the document, and his own belief, might be quite reasonable—it is just that he has a false concept or memory of the document.
In this case too, Iannuzzi doesn’t have a clue what he is talking about—intellectual disorganisation and/or incompetent research have led him to believe, and then publically affirm, that Byrd saw something extraordinary at the North Pole.
This is slightly more likely, perhaps, than the first scenario. Still, it is very unlikely that the fantastic contents of the “Secret Diary”, including its very loud affirmation of hollow Earth theory, would have slipped from Iannuzzi’s mind despite his interest in the topic and his willingness to bring the case of Byrd into his argument explicitly—and this before a worldwide audience of many thousands.
The video of the interview from September 2023 has 20k views (as of November 14 2025) and the channel currently has 17.1k subscribers.
Nor is it likely that Iannuzzi got a false impression of the “Secret Diary” by quickly reading a blurb of one of the books in which the “Diary” is published. For the blurbs and other summaries all mention Byrd’s descent into hollow Earth (see my previous post for images). Of course they do, for this is essentially what the “Secret Diary” is all about!
It’s theoretically possible that Iannuzzi depended entirely on someone else’s (Dr Michael James’s?) poor research or inaccurate description of the “Secret Diary”, honestly believed it was a reliable description, and did not check out the document for himself. This, of course, would count as incompetent research. But how likely is this? Consider the following situations (these are all hypothetical possibilities within the second scenario):
(1) Someone—either Fr Iannuzzi or a research assistant—looks into Admiral Byrd’s alleged encounter at the North Pole and somehow doesn’t notice the only relevant document in circulation, the only relevant document mentioned in the alternative literature and YouTube videos concerning Byrd and the North Pole, the only relevant document mentioned in respectable academic literature (in this case as a comic aside, before the author refutes the claim with eyes rolling), namely: the “Secret Diary” in which Byrd discovers hollow Earth, a discovery that is always presented front-and-centre in the narrative; the “Secret Diary” which stands out immediately in a Google search with the terms “Byrd”, “North Pole” and “aliens” (or “UFO” or “encounter”)—one simply cannot miss it. There just isn’t any other “rabbit hole” or alternative path that one might be drawn down instead, if the question on one’s mind is, what did Admiral Byrd encounter at the North Pole? If that is your research question, and you’re interested in aliens and UFOs and all that (as a believer or as a skeptic), then all roads lead immediately into Hollow Earth. So no—this hypothetical possibility is not plausible in the least.
(2) An assistant (let’s call him Jack) looks into Admiral Byrd’s alleged encounter at the North Pole and intentionally deceives Fr Iannuzzi about the evidence and narratives surrounding it, and as a result of this Iannuzzi remains in ignorance of the ubiquitous Hollow Earth narrative, believing instead that there is evidence in favour of a “more plausible” encounter at the North Pole, one that doesn’t involve Hollow Earth; though if Iannuzzi had known that the “Secret Diary” is actually about Hollow Earth, he wouldn’t have mentioned Admiral Byrd in his argument.
This far-fetched story is highly unlikely.
(i) Jack would know that he could be caught out with a very simple fact-check.
(ii) What would be his motivation?
(iii) Why didn’t Iannuzzi do a very quick fact-check himself (that would be enough) or ask Jack to provide a reference that he (Iannuzzi) could check himself? It is not plausible that Iannuzzi would be so blindly reliant on an assistant.
(3) Jack the assistant is supposed to look into Admiral Byrd’s alleged encounter at the North Pole, but he doesn’t do the work; John then deceives Fr Iannuzzi about the research he hasn’t done; as a result of this Iannuzzi remains in ignorance of the ubiquitous Hollow Earth narrative, etc.
This too is highly unlikely.
Jack would know that he could be caught out with a very simple fact-check.
There is no work involved in digging up a couple of facts about the alleged encounter compared to making up a couple of facts about it and then lying about it.
See (iii) above.
(4) Jack the assistant looks into Admiral Byrd’s alleged encounter at the North Pole and there is a failure in communication; as a result of this, Fr Iannuzzi remains in ignorance of the ubiquitous Hollow Earth narrative, etc.
Again this is highly unlikely.
It’s hard to see how something as fantastic and absurd as Hollow Earth could get missed in an email or conversation.
See (iii) above.
In situations (2), (3) and (4), Fr Iannuzzi doesn’t even do 3 minutes of simple fact-checking on the internet for himself, before being interviewed as a Catholic priest and esteemed academic scholar and making a claim about Admiral Byrd before an online audience of tens of thousands, as part of his argument for the existence of (respectable military and government reports of) aliens. And yet (the story goes), if Iannuzzi had only known that the “Secret Diary” is actually about Hollow Earth, he wouldn’t have mentioned Admiral Byrd at all. However plausible you might think this is, it does not put Fr Iannuzzi in a positive light.
In respect to the second scenario as a whole, if Iannuzzi was so confident that the “Secret Diary” supports his case (his “more reasonable belief”), and had no inkling that the document presents itself as evidence for a hollow Earth, then why did he not cite the document in support of his argument?
If the second scenario is true—and we have determined that this is highly unlikely—then Fr Iannuzzi doesn’t have a clue what he is talking about, and he acts incompetently, irresponsibly and possibly even dishonestly in presenting his so-called “research”.
A third scenario to consider is that the “evidence” that Iannuzzi has in mind is not the “Secret Diary” and this “other evidence” exists. The latter would have to be an extremely obscure piece of (putative) evidence. For it is neither included nor cited in the academically respectable literature on Admiral Byrd, and my extensive research into the “alternative” literature could not uncover it. If Fr Iannuzzi and his interviewer Dr Michael James want to claim, and have us believe, that this third scenario is what actually happened, the onus is on them to produce this mysterious “other evidence”. And why wasn’t this special evidence cited or produced in the first place?
This scenario is highly unlikely, for the reasons just given.
A fourth scenario is that is that the “evidence” that Iannuzzi has in mind is not the “Secret Diary” and this “other evidence” does not exist. In this case, Iannuzzi doesn’t know what he is talking about. (Unless the “other evidence” used to exist when Iannuzzi came across it, but no longer exists. Theoretically possible, but who would believe it?)
It is difficult to believe that Fr Iannuzzi would be so irrational, or so intellectually disorganised, that he honestly believes that a certain piece of (putative) evidence exists, even though it never did. In this case too, one wonders why Iannuzzi didn’t cite the “evidence” whose existence and validity he was so sure about. This scenario is just as unlikely as the first and third scenarios.
In summary: it is more than reasonable to conclude, on the basis of what we know, that each of these four scenarios is highly unlikely, with the second scenario being the least unlikely.
To repeat, if Fr Iannuzzi has in mind some X (from the four classes of evidence) which he takes as evidence that Byrd had a Non-Hollow-Earth Encounter, then one of these four scenarios is true. But it is highly unlikely that any of these four scenarios is true. Therefore it is highly unlikely that Fr Iannuzzi has in mind some X which he takes to be evidence that Byrd had a Non-Hollow-Earth Encounter.
Conclusion
Recall T10:
(T10) If Iannuzzi genuinely believes that Byrd had an encounter at or very near the North Pole, then (1) he must have in mind some X which he thinks counts as evidence that the encounter occurred, where (2) X is one or more items from any of the four classes of evidence.
It is appropriate now to specify the encounter as a Non-Hollow-Earth Encounter:
(T11) If Iannuzzi genuinely believes that Byrd had an Non-Hollow-Earth Encounter at or very near the North Pole, then (1) he has in mind some X which he thinks counts as evidence that this Encounter occurred, where (2) X is one or more items from any of the four classes of evidence.
Now suppose that
(T12) Iannuzzi does not have in mind (as evidence that a Non-Hollow-Earth Encounter occurred) any item from any of the four classes of evidence.
If that’s the case, then the consequent in T11 (the part in italics) is false. From this it follows that the antecedent in T11 (the underlined part) is also false (the logical rule applied here is called modus tollens). Therefore:
(T13) If T12 is true, then Iannuzzi does not genuinely believe that Byrd had a Non-Hollow-Earth Encounter at or very near the North Pole.
Now it is highly likely that T12 is true. We know this from the conclusion of the previous section (i.e., it is highly unlikely that Fr Iannuzzi has in mind some X which he takes as evidence that Byrd had a Non-Hollow-Earth Encounter). Therefore, from T13:
It is highly likely that Iannuzzi does not genuinely believe that Byrd had a Non-Hollow-Earth Encounter at or very near the North Pole.
*
Let’s zoom out now. There are exactly three possibilities to consider when it comes to the question of what Iannuzzi actually believes:
(1) Iannuzzi believes in hollow Earth, that Byrd had an extraordinary encounter in hollow Earth, and that Byrd did not want this encounter revealed until after his death.
(2) Iannuzzi does not believe in hollow Earth; he believes that Byrd had a Non-Hollow-Earth Encounter at or very near the North Pole and that and Byrd did not want this encounter revealed until after his death.
(3) Iannuzzi does not believe in hollow Earth; nor does he believe that Byrd had an encounter at or very near the North Pole.
The conclusion of Part One of this study was that (1) is highly unlikely. The conclusion at which we arrived in the previous section is that (2) is highly unlikely. From this perspective it is only rational to conclude that (3) is the most likely to be true.
The minor conclusion of the section above called “Under what conditions would Iannuzzi’s Statement about Byrd be a sincere statement?” was as follows:
If Iannuzzi doesn’t believe in hollow Earth, then his Statement about Byrd (taken concretely) might be sincere—but only if he believes that Byrd had a Non-Hollow Earth Encounter.
This proposition (in bold) outlines a necessary condition for Iannuzzi’s Statement about Byrd being sincere (when taken as a concrete utterance).
If we accept that option (3) is the most likely to be true and that options (1) and (2) are highly unlikely, it follows from the minor conclusion (in bold above) that it is highly unlikely that Iannuzzi was being sincere when he made his Statement about Byrd. To see the latter in context, see again the part in bold from this quote (from Video 1):
Now at the time in ‘77 the pope was still Archbishop of Krakow but he dedicated Bruno Sammaciccia’s book to the Catholic Church. He was visited by extraterrestrials and he wrote all about this but he did not want this to be revealed until after his death. [27:51] Much like Admiral Byrd. He [Byrd] also did not want until his death for his experience to be revealed of what he saw in the North Pole when he went there. But Bruno Sammaciccia again is a reputable individual, he's an academic, he published over a hundred books, he was a distinguished figure in academic circles. Basically in 1956 a group of ETS appeared to him according to his memoirs and they were good, and they shared to him things about how to be better in the world, improve the society in which we live and things like that.
[Watch from here until 28:32 to listen to the entire quote, or from here to listen just to the part in bold (from 27:51).]
*
Is there any rational way to get around the conclusion that Iannuzzi was being deceptive here? Indeed there is. Plausibility and probability aside, here are the options.
(A) Fr Iannuzzi believes in Hollow Earth.
(B) Fr Iannuzzi believes that Byrd had a Non-Hollow-Earth Encounter but he has no reason whatsoever for believing this—he doesn’t have in mind any (putative) evidence that might support his belief.
(C) Fr Iannuzzi believes that Byrd had a Non-Hollow-Earth Encounter and he believes this on the basis of
(i) the “Secret Diary”, and he has a good understanding of the contents of the latter.
(ii) the “Secret Diary”, and is quite mistaken about the contents of the latter.
(iii) some other published document, article or book (not the “Secret Diary”), and this putative evidence actually exists (it need not be objectively plausible).
(iv) some other published document, article or book (not the “Secret Diary”), and this putative evidence does not exist (Iannuzzi has a false memory, or his research is very poorly organised).
(v) someone else having told him that there is plausible evidence for the Encounter, and he didn’t do a simple fact-check.
(vi) a misunderstanding of something he read or something somebody said, and he didn’t do a simple fact-check.
(vii) (what he takes to be) an a priori demonstration.
(viii) a delusion—that he was there with Admiral Byrd when the Encounter happened.
(ix) (what he takes to be) infused knowledge or some other form of direct insight into Byrd’s movements at the North Pole.
(x) (what he claims is) knowledge gained by communicating with an angel, demon, or departed soul.
(xi) Scripture, Tradition or Magisterium, or some other supernatural source of knowledge.
(xii) occult knowledge or practices.
If I were Fr Iannuzzi’s PR assistant, and had to answer some difficult questions, I would certainly avoid inserting (A) or (B) into the narrative. They imply wild irrationality, if not a moment of insanity. [Option (A) also implies deception—why did Fr Iannuzzi withhold his belief in Hollow Earth, and the nature of the document on which he (secretly) bases his claim about Byrd?] For the same reason I’d definitely avoid options (vii) to (xi). For obvious reasons I’d steer way clear of (xii). This leaves the options written in blue.
I would avoid options (ii), (iv), (v) and (vi), because these entail that Iannuzzi doesn’t have a clue what he is talking about—that his “research” in this area is so incompetent it is embarrassing; this would be virtually impossible to recover from. It would be foolhardy to take seriously any of the other “research” of somebody who was this incompetent. This leaves options (i) and (iii).
What about option (i)? If this is true, then (as I said above) Fr Iannuzzi believes that
(a) an alleged report of an extraordinary encounter taking place in Hollow Earth counts as evidence supporting Iannuzzi’s “more reasonable” belief in a Non-Hollow-Earth Encounter and
(b) a document whose main thesis (that the Earth is hollow) is risibly false is nonetheless a piece of evidence supporting Iannuzzi’s “more reasonable” belief.
Would I go with this narrative, as a PR assistant? To be honest, this doesn’t look any better, in the end. The objective implication is the same—that Iannuzzi doesn’t have a clue what he’s talking about, and his “research” is so incompetent it’s embarrassing.
This leaves option (iii), which is underlined. This is the only possible scenario or “narrative” in which Fr Iannuzzi is able to save face, it would seem. Unfortunately, and as I’ve explained already, it is highly unlikely to be true. Until this “other evidence” is produced, it is more than reasonable to assume it doesn’t exist. (If it exists, why doesn’t it turn up anywhere in an extensive search? And why didn’t Iannuzzi cite it in the first place?).
*
If my argument is sound—and I’m open to being corrected on this score—then Fr Iannuzzi has put himself in a position that is unenviable, to say the least. In this particular case in which Fr Iannuzzi presented his “research” authoritatively before an audience of tens of thousands, it very much appears that he has acted incompetently and/or deceptively. I cannot see any way around this conclusion—though again, I’m happy to be corrected.
A Christian does not take pleasure in pointing out something of this nature. We need to be on guard against the vice of “vengeance” (Msgr Charles Pope has a good article on this topic). There is no need to claim high moral ground. But for the sake of Iannuzzi’s viewers and “followers”—especially those who are more vulnerable, less educated, or otherwise unable to get past Fr Iannuzzi’s “authority” to see through his rhetorical strategies—the truth has to be exposed (see my first post for more on this topic).
As far as I can see, there are four potentially face-saving strategies that someone in his position might adopt.
(1) He might produce the “other evidence”, assuming he has it. It is highly unlikely that this new “evidence” for Admiral Byrd’s encounter would be credible before a panel of world experts. But there’s no need to impose such a high standard here. The withheld “evidence” would merely have to be sufficiently credible and respectable that Iannuzzi is able to avoid the appearance of being deceptive, wildly irrational and/or grossly incompetent.
I am willing to present Iannuzzi’s “new evidence” on this site if it is ever produced and brought to my attention (contact details can be found in the “Contact” section up top).
(2) He might find and expose an error in my argument. For example, he might introduce new information or give more context, which my argument did not take into account. He might dispute one or more of the “facts” that my argument relies upon. Or he might point out a logical error.
I am willing to publish and engage with any response made in good faith (contact details can be found in the “Contact” section up top).
(3) He might admit his mistake publically, admitting that he made an error and acted incompetently and/or dishonestly.
(4) He might attempt to steer people’s attention away from the inconvenient facts.
One approach is to ignore the problem and hope it goes away.
Another is to “muddy the waters”, engaging with the argument only in a superficial way (not in good faith)—e.g. distracting the audience with finicky disputes which are ultimately irrelevant.
He might go on the attack, poisoning the well or using ad hominem for example.
He might flex his credentials, his expertise or his clerical status.
He might try to minimise the significance of the facts. “I only mentioned Admiral Byrd twice. My argument doesn’t depend solely on that particular claim. I gave so many other pieces of evidence—did you even consider the other evidence? You can’t dismiss all of it.” “This is one small mistake. Everyone makes mistakes.” “You’re making far too much of this.”
He might “double down”, simply re-asserting his view with more force.
I am not saying that Fr Iannuzzi is the sort of person who would be willing to engage in any of the “dirty” tactics listed under (4). I am simply mapping out the hypothetical possibilities.
*
What, then, is my final conclusion in respect to Fr Iannuzzi’s comments about Admiral Byrd (pasted again here for easy reference)?
From Video 1 (premiered September 29, 2023):
Now at the time in ‘77 the pope was still Archbishop of Krakow but he dedicated Bruno Sammaciccia’s book to the Catholic Church. He [Sammaciccia] was visited by extraterrestrials and he wrote all about this but he did not want this to be revealed until after his death. [27:51] Much like Admiral Byrd. He [Byrd] also did not want until his death for his experience to be revealed of what he saw in the North Pole when he went there.
From Video 3 (premiered December 27, 2023):
[22:20] So to summarize these three parts of this theme of the Christian faith and the possibility of extraterrestrial life throughout the cosmos. In Part One we addressed the scientific and anthropological data as well as the declassified military and eyewitness reports supporting extraterrestrial life on other planets and its interaction with humans and even governments here on Earth. [22:52] The naval officer Admiral Richard Byrd, the Canadian minister of National Defence Paul Hellyer, Lieutenant Colonel Philip Corso, Sergeant Clifford Stone, a devout Catholic, another devout Catholic Charles Hall who is a nuclear physicist and US military worker. Also Monsignor Carrado Balducci [23:15].
Have I proven that Fr Iannuzzi was being deceptive when he made his statement about Admiral Byrd? No, I have not. But unless there’s some crucial flaw in my argument, what I have shown is three-fold:
(1) It is entirely reasonable, and not at all uncharitable, for someone to come to that conclusion after (i) consulting the facts and (ii) carefully and impartially thinking things through.
(2) If Fr Iannuzzi’s Statement about Byrd is not deceptive, then it’s hard to avoid the conclusion that Iannuzzi doesn’t have the faintest clue what he is talking about, and that his “research” (in this case at least) is so incompetent and irrational in nature that it is embarrassing. We come to this particular conclusion on the assumption that Iannuzzi
(a) does not have in mind some existing “other evidence” on the basis of which he believes that Byrd had a Non-Hollow-Earth Encounter
(b) is neither insane nor has occasional moments of insanity when doing his research and/or presenting his results
(d) does not believe he has direct insight into the historical life of Byrd by infused knowledge or praeternatural means.
(3) Apart from public admission of his mistake, the only scenario under which Fr Iannuzzi might be able to “save face” (in an honest way) is if he produces the elusive “other evidence”.
Final Comments
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Dr Brendan Triffett
