# Date of Eight Miles High Column
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/date-of-eight-miles-high-column/225511
**Category:** Cecil's Columns/Staff Reports
**Created:** [January 21, 2004, 8:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/date-of-eight-miles-high-column/225511 "2004-01-21T20:59:31Z")
**Posts on this page:** 6
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)
#### Post date: [January 21, 2004, 8:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/date-of-eight-miles-high-column/225511/1 "2004-01-21T20:59:31Z")
Something is fishy about Cecil’s Eight Mile High Column [here](http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a1_319a.html) . The date of the column is given as May 1977, but Cecil mentions Roger McGuinn posting on alt.music.byrds. I’m not sure when this group started, but Iot very primitive newsreader software in about 1984, so I doubt very much this was done in 1977. When was this column really from, and when was it updated?
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### Author:  [@Rube\_E.Tewesday](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rube_E.Tewesday)
#### Post date: [January 21, 2004, 9:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/date-of-eight-miles-high-column/225511/2 "2004-01-21T21:09:09Z")
My best guess: the original column was indeed written in 1977, then was updated for the purposes of the AOL site in the late '90s. Certainly the usenet stuff was not in the version that appeared in book form in the '80s.
**Dex** , can you advise?
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### Author:  [@yabob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yabob)
#### Post date: [January 23, 2004, 4:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/date-of-eight-miles-high-column/225511/3 "2004-01-23T04:49:33Z")
Definitely edited after 1977. That’s a couple years before the generally acknowledged creation date of usenet (1979). Also, the “alt” groups did not come about until the late 1980’s at the time of “the great renaming”, 1987 according to this source:
[http://www.vrx.net/usenet/history/rename/](http://www.vrx.net/usenet/history/rename/)
“alt” groups sprang up like weeds, of course, but “alt.music.byrds” probably took a while to appear after that.
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### Author:  [@Running\_with\_Scissors](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Running_with_Scissors)
#### Post date: [January 23, 2004, 2:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/date-of-eight-miles-high-column/225511/4 "2004-01-23T14:08:17Z")
Roger’s appearance on alt.music.byrds appears to span about 4.5 years, from 3/3/95 to 11/10/99. Most likely the column was revised during that range.
The group was founded on or about 11/12/94.
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### Author:  [@TubaDiva](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TubaDiva)
#### Post date: [January 23, 2004, 2:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/date-of-eight-miles-high-column/225511/5 "2004-01-23T14:36:24Z")
> [@Running with Scissors](#):
>
> Roger’s appearance on alt.music.byrds appears to span about 4.5 years, from 3/3/95 to 11/10/99. Most likely the column was revised during that range.
>
> The group was founded on or about 11/12/94.
The column originally ran in the Reader in 1977 and was updated when it ran on AOL, probably circa 1996 or so.
Hope this clears it all up for you.
your humble TubaDiva
Administrator
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### Author:  [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)
#### Post date: [January 23, 2004, 10:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/date-of-eight-miles-high-column/225511/6 "2004-01-23T22:29:04Z")
Thanks, all. Maybe I should start a new game, Spot the Anachronisms?
I pine for the good old days of the net, before domain addressing, when there was one, low volume, alt.sex group.