Time: Fri Mar 07 14:00:37 1997
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	Fri, 7 Mar 1997 06:05:38 -0700 (MST)
Date: Fri, 07 Mar 1997 13:54:25 -0800
To: (Recipient list suppressed)
From: Paul Andrew Mitchell [address in tool bar]
Subject: SLS: J. Orlin Grabbe

<snip>
>          Hero or crackpot, man
>          a star of Internet gossip
>
>          by Don Cox
>          Reno Gazette-Journal
>          March 6, 1997
>
>      J.  Orlin Grabbe sits in the Area
>51 Bar on East Fourth Street, sipping a
>beer and accepting congratulations from
>friends  for his Sunday performance  on
>national TV.
>
>     They shake Grabbe's hand and smile
>as  he  describes outwitting well-known
>"60 Minutes" correspondent Leslie Stahl
>during an interview in the Reno bar.
>
>      Grabbe,  a  Harvard graduate  who
>taught   at   the  Wharton  School   of
>Business,  is  a hero in  Area  51,  an
>alternative  music hangout.   He  won't
>reveal how he earns a living in Reno.
>
>      But  Grabbe's a hero despite  his
>portrayal  on  the  popular  CBS   news
>magazine  as a Reno computer  kook  who
>transmits   conspiracy   theories   and
>unbelievable information about national
>events   to   millions  of  people   in
>cyberspace.
>
>     "Stahl is not that bright when you
>get right down to it," Grabbe says.  "I
>could  have done a much better  job  at
>ripping myself apart."
>
>      Stahl wouldn't answer phone calls
>for  her  side of the story.   But  CBS
>figures it got its man.
>
>       The  network  calls  Grabbe  "an
>interesting example of some of the less
>credible  sources you can find  on  the
>Internet."
>
>     Grabbe was interviewed by Stahl at
>Area  51 in December for the 60 Minutes
>segment   broadcast   Sunday   on   the
>difference between fact and fiction  on
>the Internet.
>
>      CBS says it wanted Grabbe for one
>main reason--he says a missile fired by
>Middle   East  terrorists  caused   the
>explosion  and crash of TWA Flight  800
>off the coast of New York on July 17.
>
>      That's  the  kind  of  electronic
>gossip,  according to a local  Internet
>expert, that floats in cyberspace.
>
>      "You  have  people talking  about
>more  subjects than ever  before.   You
>have  a  Tower of Babel,"  says  Milton
>Wolf,  director  of library  collection
>development   at  the   University   of
>Nevada,   Reno,  who  studies  computer
>communication.
>
>      "People  are  talking.   Talk  is
>cheap."
>
>     Grabbe brags that he lured CBS and
>Stahl  to Area 51 after refusing to  be
>interviewed at the network's  New  York
>headquarters.
>
>      "Since I know I have them on  the
>hook, I insist on doing it at Area  51.
>It's hilarious," says Grabbe, a regular
>who knows the bar owners and employees.
>
>     "They come all the way out to Reno
>to interview some bar patron."
>
>      Area  51  is  named for  the  top
>secret   location  in  southern  Nevada
>where  the  Air  Force  conducts   test
>flights of experimental aircraft.
>
>      CBS  searched  the  net  to  find
>Grabbe, who says he tricked the network
>into   believing  he  is  Reno's   town
>crackpot.
>
>      "She  (Stahl) turned  around  and
>tried  to  portray me  as  entertaining
>myself  by making all this up,"  Grabbe
>says.
>
>      "I  said,  `I  don't  believe  in
>anything.' "
>
>      The  report on Flight 800  is  on
>Grabbe's  Internet  home  page,   where
>anyone  with  a computer can  read  it.
>The      web      page     site      is
>www.aci.net/kalliste/.
>
>     "That TWA Flight 800 was taken out
>by  a  ground-to-air missile was  known
>from  the  beginning by  U.S.  official
>agencies,"  Grabbe's  July  23   report
>says.
>
>      "The  flight path of the  missile
>was  captured  both  on  radar  and  by
>satellite.  The only question  was  the
>identity   of  the  missile   and   the
>identity of the group responsible."
>
>       Grabbe  identifies  both.    The
>missile, according to Grabbe's  report,
>is  a  Stinger,  possibly  one  of  200
>missing from U.S. military bases.   The
>group,  Grabbe  says, is  connected  to
>Syria.   Grabbe also reports that  more
>airplanes may be shot down.
>
>     "The group responsible, identified
>by  intelligence sources as working  on
>behalf  of Syria, says there  are  five
>more planes to go," Grabbe says on  the
>Internet.
>
>      "It was not something I made  up.
>It  was  not  information Leslie  Stahl
>would   have  gotten  in  her   wildest
>dreams,"   says  Grabbe,  whose   other
>Internet  reports include a claim  that
>60  Minutes  chief  correspondent  Mike
>Wallace received a $150,000 bribe  from
>the Democratic Party.
>
>      Grabbe  says  he gets  a  lot  of
>information  from  government  sources,
>including   a  report  that   President
>Clinton snorts cocaine.
>
>      "I  had  a  source in  the  White
>House," Grabbe says.
>
>       Grabbe  says  his  interest   in
>cyberspace  information  started   with
>computer research into world finance.
>
>       Harvard   University  identifies
>Grabbe  as  receiving  a  doctorate  in
>economics from the school in 1981.  The
>University  of  Pennsylvania   confirms
>Grabbe  was  on  the  faculty  of   its
>prestigious Wharton School of  Business
>from 1981 to 1986.
>
>      Grabbe  says he moved to Reno  in
>1995 to escape high local taxes on  the
>East   Coast   and  continue   computer
>research.
>
>     But Internet sources, according to
>Wolf,  can  be a couple of  people  who
>believe   the  same  theory  and   send
>electronic messages to each other.
>
>      "You  have to watch who  you  are
>talking to," Wolf says.
>
>     "It's one of the pitfalls."
>
>Posted here March 6, 1997
>Web Page: http://www.aci.net/kalliste/
>
>
>-> Send "subscribe   snetnews " to majordomo@world.std.com
>->  Posted by: kalliste@aci.net (J. Orlin Grabbe)
>
>

========================================================================
Paul Andrew, Mitchell, B.A., M.S.    : Counselor at Law, federal witness
email:       [address in tool bar]   : Eudora Pro 3.0.1 on Intel 586 CPU
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