James McCanney

{{pseudoastronomy|1}}{{cquote|[McCanney] has lots of theories, and he will talk about them endlessly. However, he says these things without the benefit of being right. I have run into a lot of pseudoscientists saying wrong things in my time, but McCanney is neck-and-neck with [[Richard Hoagland]] for being the wrongest. His theories are not just bad, they're truly awful, [[not even wrong|just as wrong as they could be]].|||Bad Astronomy<ref>Phil Plait, [http://www.badastronomy.com/bad/misc/mccanney/index.html James McCanney's Nonsense]. Bad Astronomy, 2008.</ref>}}
'''James McCanney''' is an [[astronomy]] [[crank]] and a [[conspiracy theorist]]. He's chiefly known for his "electric [[comet]]s" claims or, as he dubs it, "The Plasma Discharge Comet Model", but he's also a fair example of [[crank magnetism]] and appears to believe in all kind of fringe ideas. In addition to [[pseudoscience]], his website flogs [[survivalist]] supplies. He has an awful podcast, where he drones [[Argumentum ad nauseam|on and on and on]] about his kookbooks. The podcast occasionally appears on [[shortwave]] radio.<ref>Thursdays at 2300 UTC, 6.115 MHz, via WWCR in Nashville, [[Tennessee]], as of August 2022, per the [https://archive.ph/TMtDg WWCR Program Guide], 26 August 2022.</ref>

The radio show [[Coast to Coast AM]] styles McCanney "Professor" and drops the name ''Cornell'' in association with him. However, his academic qualification is M.S. in nuclear and solid-state [[physics]], and he has not taught at Cornell University since the 1980s.<ref>[http://www.jmccanneyscience.com/Bio.HTM McCanney's ''curriculum vitae'']</ref>

==Ideas==
'''The solar capacitor'''. The [[Sun]] is negatively charged, and the solar wind is positively charged &mdash; the two systems form a giant capacitor. This '''is wrong'''. The solar wind is neutral.<ref>[http://www.badastronomy.com/bad/misc/mccanney/solarwind.html ''James McCanney's Nonsense: the Solar Wind''] from [[Phil Plait]]'s Bad Astronomy</ref>

'''There is no ice in comets'''. Twelve comets have now been visited by spacecraft. All have been found to contain very substantial quantities of [[water]] ice.<ref>[http://blogs.esa.int/rosetta/2014/11/07/virtis-detects-water-and-carbon-dioxide-in-comets-coma/ VIRTIS detects water and carbon dioxide in comet’s coma] &mdash; ESA Rosetta blog</ref>

'''Comets are negatively charged'''. Ergo, they grow by attracting positively-charged cosmic dust. THIS IS WRONG. Comets reduce in mass over their lifetimes.<ref>[http://www.vanderbilt.edu/AnS/physics/astrocourses/AST101/readings/comets.html Halley loses 54,000 kg/second]</ref>

'''Venus was a comet and is tidally locked with Earth as the Moon is'''. The synodic period of [[Venus]] is 583.92 days. Its rotational period is 224.701 Earth days.<ref>{{wpa|Venus}}</ref> Therefore, it cannot be locked to Earth.<ref group=note>However, the Venus/Earth system does have the interesting property that Venus shows us almost exactly the same face when at closest approach. McCanney probably once heard that fact and misinterpreted it.</ref>

'''The Apollo Moon landings didn't happen. No human could have survived transition through the Van Allen radiation belts'''. They could and they did. Evidence includes the Laser Ranging Retro-Reflectors left on the Moon,<ref>[http://physics.ucsd.edu/~tmurphy/apollo/lrrr.html Lunar Retroreflectors, UCSD Physics Dept.]</ref> the Moon rocks, and the images of the landing sites returned from the narrow angle cameras of Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter. <ref>[http://astrobob.areavoices.com/files/2010/11/Apollo-11-site-LRO-400x309.jpg Apollo 11 landing site from LRO NAC]</ref>

==WING generator==
McCanney holds a patent on a distributed energy generator that uses wind power and can also extract water from the armosphere.<ref>[http://www.jmccanneyscience.com/McCanney%20Wing%20Generator%20eBook%20MASTER%20file.pdf WING generator eBook]</ref>

In 2018, the JMCC WING generator was a finalist in the [https://water.xprize.org/prizes/water-abundance Water Abundance X-Prize]. On [[Coast to Coast AM]] 26 May 2020, McCanney said that his device was the final winner.<ref>[https://www.coasttocoastam.com/show/2020-05-26-show/ Planet X & Technology Innovation / Para-Anthropology & Ghosts]. Coast to Coast AM, 26 May 2020.</ref> However, according to the X-Prize organization, The Skysource/Skywater Alliance was the winner.<ref>[https://water.xprize.org/prizes/water-abundance/articles/waxp-grand-prize-winner Grand Prize Winner in $1.75M Water Abundance X-Prize announced at X-Prize Visioneering 2018]</ref> The WING generator received a second-place consolation prize of $150,000.<ref>{{wpa|X_Prize_Foundation#2016%E2%80%932018_Water_Abundance_XPRIZE|2016–2018 Water Abundance XPRIZE}}</ref>

==Quotes==
{{cquote|If you realize that comets are not dirty snowballs, they’re a discharge of the electrical conditions in the solar system, the first question out of everybody’s mouth would be, ‘well, can we use this for power?’ and the answer is ‘Yes!’ So what does that do to the people in control of the world? We’re talking about the bankers, the people in charge; they control the world through energy: oil, nuclear power, and coal. Those are the big ones. … These are very controlling forces, and if you took that away, one of their biggest tools to control the public would go away.|||on Coast to Coast AM, 4 November 2010}}

{{cquote|[[Planet X]] is real, and it’s going to come to us with a bunch of comets, and people murmuring about Planet X being out there is NASA preparing us for it.|||on Coast to Coast AM, 16 February 2011}}

==See also==
*[[Moon landing hoax]]

==Books==
*{{cite book |last=McCanney |first=James |title=[[Planet X|Planet-X]], Comets and [[Earth changes|Earth Changes]] |publisher=J.M. McCanney Science Press |location= |pages= |year=2003 |isbn= 978-0972218603}}
*{{cite book |last=McCanney |first=James |title=[[Atlantis]] to [[Tesla]]: The [[Kolbrin]] Connection |publisher=J.M. McCanney Science Press |location= |pages= |year=2003 |isbn=978-0972218641}}
*{{cite book |last=McCanney |first=James |title=Principia Meteorlogia: The Physics of Sun Earth Weather |publisher=J.M. McCanney Science Press |location= |pages=288 |year=2004 |isbn=978-0972218658}}
*{{cite book |last=McCanney |first=James |title=Calculate Primes: Direct Propagation Of The Prime Numbers |publisher=J.M. McCanney Science Press |location= |pages= |year=2007 |isbn=978-0972218665}}
*{{cite book |last=McCanney |first=James |title=Surviving Planet-X Passage |publisher=J.M. McCanney Science Press |location= |pages=60 |year=2007 |isbn=978-0972218634}}
*{{cite book |last=McCanney |first=James |title=The Diamond Principle |publisher=J.M. McCanney Science Press |location= |pages=159 |year=2010 |isbn=978-0982852002}}

==See also==
*[[Moon landing hoax]]

==External links==
*[http://www.jmccanneyscience.com/ jmccanneyscience.com], his official website (contrary to the name, you won't find much science on it)
*[http://www.coasttocoastam.com/guest/mccanney-james/6143 McCanney's guest page] on the [[Coast to Coast AM]] website, listing all his appearances on the program (as of March 2014, more than 50)
*[http://www.badastronomy.com/bad/misc/mccanney/index.html James McCanney's Nonsense], the pages on McCanney at [[Phil Plait]]'s old ''Bad Astronomy'' website
*[http://podcast.sjrdesign.net/shownotes_120.php Episode 120 - James McCanney's Views on Comets, Part 1], the first of a two part series on McCanney's claims at the Exposing PseudoAstronomy podcast.
*[http://podcast.sjrdesign.net/shownotes_121.php Episode 121 - James McCanney's Views on Comets, Part 2], second of a two part series on McCanney's claims at the Exposing PseudoAstronomy podcast.

==Notes==
{{reflist|group=note}}

==References==
{{reflist|2|80%}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:McCanney, James}}
[[Category:Pseudoscience]]
[[Category:Living people]]

Categories: Pseudoscience, Living people