What led you to Conspiracy Land?

a reply to: thirdcoast
I had that exact same feeling too when I came here in 2009 I think. I've been away for years but honestly this site is a good source for information you likely woildnt get else where and there seems to be lots of passionate people here with time and a mind for proper research.

I'm just naturally jaded about the world around me.

ATS fit like a glove.

I lurked around these parts for a few years, but it was the Japan quake and Fukushima disaster that gave me the final push to jump on board and join in on the conversation.



Oh, and the cookies aren't bad either.

originally posted by: CthulhuMythos
a reply to: Tucket

9-11 was the event that lead me out of my 'matrix' existence, and there are times I wished I had stayed there in blissful ignorance

I like the irony there.

The event that was supposed to send you deeper into the Matrix/system, ended-up liberating you

a reply to: grumpy64

Maybe slightly off topic here but I think the Paranoid album cover would be more suitable for an avatar for a site like this! Was listening to Master of Reality earlier aswell, first time in ages. Full circle.

a reply to: Tucket

I thought it was a porn site, ended up staying anyways.

I took a wrong turn one dark and rainy night and have never found my way out since .

help

Sort of made an account just to post my story.

I was always interested in UFOs, cryptozoology, whatever the standard stuff the "creepy" section of the library stocked. I was most interested when I was a little kid, about six or seven, even though it petrified me. I often found myself scared to death of whatever thing I had read about that day to the point where I'd stand frozen in the shower for hours, fearing the aliens or mothmen or men in black would catch me if I moved.

But when you're scared of something, you gotta educate yourself on it, right?

That wasn't my thinking but it happened anyway. I stumbled across this site (probably because of Harry Potter, to be honest) more than a couple years ago and was instantly scared away by some of the more descriptive stuff. But now that I'm older and wiser, I like to hear all the different sides of every story. I like to hear all the different stories. I'm a big believer in representing every facet of an issue. And these are important too.

It was reading the books of David Icke that started it with me. Once apon a long ago there was very little out there other than books and printed news letters. It was very limited but the growth of the internet made it more accesible.

After working through many sites I stuck with ATS as it had the best blend of freedom to speak and regulation of decorum.

originally posted by: glittertechnical
Sort of made an account just to post my story.

I was always interested in UFOs, cryptozoology, whatever the standard stuff the "creepy" section of the library stocked. I was most interested when I was a little kid, about six or seven, even though it petrified me. I often found myself scared to death of whatever thing I had read about that day to the point where I'd stand frozen in the shower for hours, fearing the aliens or mothmen or men in black would catch me if I moved.

But when you're scared of something, you gotta educate yourself on it, right?

That wasn't my thinking but it happened anyway. I stumbled across this site (probably because of Harry Potter, to be honest) more than a couple years ago and was instantly scared away by some of the more descriptive stuff. But now that I'm older and wiser, I like to hear all the different sides of every story. I like to hear all the different stories. I'm a big believer in representing every facet of an issue. And these are important too.

Cool. Good story, thanks for posting. I also used to spend hours in the "creepy" section of the library.

a reply to: Tucket

I saw a flying triangle hovering silently above my house one night and my quest to find out what the heck it was led me here.

My disbelief of the governments tale of what really happened on 9/11 and the JFK assassination led me here.

The diversity of the forums on ATS were just to tantalizing, I had to join after lurking a long time.

originally posted by: Elton
An internet search years ago... I don't remember what I was looking for though.

Same here I was googling Binaural beats, and found an ATS thread on it. Then I poked around, & I kept coming back as a lurker for a while. The site content kept sucking me back in time & again. Eventually, I signed up & stayed put.

I used to teach leadership through online games. One day I realized the latest crop of kids was woefully deficient in many areas. I started fighting back against the dumbing down.


My guild was ninja'd from me so I worked to legitimize conspiracy thinkers in the hope that someone would ninja a bunch of secrets from the intelligence community. I don't think Snowden would have jumped if he didn't sense that there was a thoughtful audience to listen to him. I consider that a victory of epic proportions.


The first thing I did on ATS back in 2008 was teach people to start agreeing with each other. The second thing in 2009 was fight trolls down to neutral so everyone else could actually have a conversation. And the third thing in 2010 was start educating the older members on what a troll was. Before the server reset in 2011, I began to notice all these things were propagating across the internet. Obviously ATS was the right choice.


Military Industrial Entertainment Complex dumbed down our kids, one kid exposes them and legitimizes the suspicion that many had about a secret surveillance state. Kids begin to worship Snowden as a hero. I make a thread calling Snowden the poster child of an unethical generation, and after pages of discussion one of the younger members finally concceeds my point. Which is good. Cause he did break his nondisclosure agreement. And this means the kids are not totally lost. Also, that the troll was wrong for ninja'ing my guild back in the day. Sense of Propriety people. Sense of Propriety.


But I was a conspiracy thinker from all the way back in the nineteen seventies. I just saw no point in fighting the system. Instead I played my online games and tried to teach the willing how to succeed. Until the system pissed me off. So now you know why politicians actually have to 'deal' with conspiracy thinkers instead of just 'laughing them out of the room.'



TLDR: I have a massive ego, I can teach people to have an ego, ego is a good and useful thing if you have morals/ethics and want to lead.

I'd always liked the idea of UFO's, Bigfoot, Nessie, ghosts, etc. since I was a kid. Then when I'd just started high school, I found my English teacher had some Daaniken stashed on her shelf. She loaned them to me a book at a time and I got sucked right into that world.

I then went on to learn about the OKC bombing when it happened, along with a wealth of other tragedies. I was interested in what made these people do the things they do. Of course, trying to learn why McVeigh would bomb a building led me to a fellow named Randy Weaver and his beliefs. (Let me stress that I don't necessarily believe these things, I was learning about why people would commit atrocities.)

Then in my senior year of high school/freshman year of college (yes, they happened at the same time) a little thing called 9/11 happened. That's pretty much when I "woke up."

As for ATS itself, I'd lurked here for a few years doing research. Learning about what to learn about. Only became a member when the Boston Bombing happened and wanted to help a few guys who were listening to police scanners in Watertown like I was, all posting what we'd heard to verify.

a reply to: Tucket
My story is very similar, Zeitgeist and so on...That's the conspiracy side. What led me to ATS in the first place was my interest in all kinds of ancient mysteries like the Great Pyramid and Stonehenge etc.
If my memory serves me I initially found my way here because of a site called world-mysteries.

When I was a little kid back in the 1970's I used to watch the show "In search of", with Lenord Nemoy. That certainly got me interested in ufos, megaliths, and the other conspiracy stuff. And now I am here.

a reply to: Tucket

Basically it would take becoming a willing idiot on purpose just to be able to swallow the load of crap being shoved into our brain. IMO its more strange for people NOT TO be a little conspiracy minded considering the world we live in. Its like living in a fishing town and not knowing what a boat is all about.

What first sparked my interest in conspiracy theory was the show Unsolved Mysteries specifically a story on a investigative reporter named Danny Casolaro. He was close to finishing his investigation when he was found in a hotel room bathtub with his wrists slashed 12 times deep enough to sever tendons. Police ruled suicide but things like bloody towels under the sink in the bathroom and a religious themed suicide note though he was an atheist, and all his files were missing. Also the body was embalmed before a autopsy was done and his was not notified about his death until two day later. So I began reading about this case and all the thing reportedly discovered opened my mind to maybe what we are told isn't the whole truth.

As for the paranormal my family has experiences some of which I have posted before Such as this