Did Anything Ever Actually Happen?

originally posted by: CJCrawley
a reply to: andy06shake

And we did indeed goto the Moon hence the laser light we are able to bounce of the reflector placed there by Man.

Not sure about the laser light thingy.

It's always touted as incontrovertible proof, but when you consider that so many QUADRILLION photons are in one laser beam, and yet they're lucky to get ONE photon reflected back....what's up with that?

If you shine a torch at a mirror, you get EXACTLY THE SAME amount of light reflected back!

Sounds like they are just aiming at the Moon's surface and a tiny, tiny bit is reflected back off it.

Otherwise where'd all those quadrillions of photons disappear to?

Good point they were firing lasers at the moon in 1962
www.amazon.com...

page 876

Four years ago, a ruby laser considerably smaller than those now available shot a series of pulses at the moon, 240,000 miles away. The beams illuminated a spot less than two miles in diameter and were reflected back to earth with enough strength to be measured by ultrasensitive electronic equipment.

originally posted by: CoriSCapnSkip
There seem to be so many Holocaust, moon landing, and Newtown/Sandy Hook massacre deniers, 9/11 conspiracy theorists, and Obama Kenya birthers, among many other topics, just on this site let alone other places, just wondered if there is any undisputed fact that anybody agrees on other than that there are enough crackpots to go around.

Where did I agree that there are enough crackpots to go round? That's not undisputed fact, you know.

As for the rest - I am coming round more and more to the belief that if it's not all theatre then the version of events that we are offered are slanted according to someone or other's agenda.

Pay your money and take your choice.

Here is a link to 33 conspiracies to turned out to be true:

True

According to you should we question or not?

a reply to: CoriSCapnSkip

There seem to be so many Holocaust, moon landing, and Newtown/Sandy Hook massacre deniers, 9/11 conspiracy theorists, and Obama Kenya birthers, among many other topics, just on this site let alone other places, just wondered if there is any undisputed fact that anybody agrees on other than

OP what you have highlighted is the problem that some conspiracy theorists have when a belief in conspiracies becomes akin to a religious belief. They believe everything is a conspiracy and that you are also somehow part of the conspiracy in some way if you try to argue with them that they are wrong.

When you have guys who even think that the guy sitting opposite them is part of the conspiracy then you really do have a problem because you are dealing with a individual who has lost all touch with reality.

Fortunately there really are only a handful of them on ATS, but they are a vocal minority.

Really all a conspiracy theory is when you boil it all down is a different view on how something happened that diverts from what is generally accepted as being the factual account of what happened. Now I believe in quite a few conspiracies, I do not think David Kelly committed suicide and I am convinced that there is something a little bit fishy about Pan am 103 and hell if you were to really push me I will also confess that I do believe in the little green men. But I think i speak for most of the member hear when i say that just because a person believes on or two conspiracies does not mean that they think there is a deeper secret meaning behind everything.

There are however, like I say, some people who believe everything is a conspiracy and for them there is no undisputed fact.

Because the world is actually flat and if you tell me any different you are working for "big globe"

a reply to: CJCrawley

There are plenty of threads here on ATS that cover the Apollo program and eventual moon landings. The general consensus is that we did indeed goto the moon. A better question is why we have never returned?

As to the laser experiment, possably that's not the best example to prove Man has indeed walked on our Moons surface, to be honest it was just the first thing that popped into my head. Probobly been watching to much of the big bang. LoL

originally posted by: nonspecific
How about chemtrails?

The RAF admitted spraying the uk population for decades with chemicals for research purposes including ecoli and cadmium.

link

This has nothing to do with chemtrails. These were germ warfare experiments which were conducted at or near ground level or from the sea,and were very real.Chemtrails on the other hand are an internet generated myth that is about as real as the tooth fairy,income tax returns or honest politicians.

originally posted by: Cancerwarrior
Coming to a conspiracy website and then asking people why they are on a conspiracy website is a little bit merry go round don't you think?

I certainly don't believe every official story, or that officials wouldn't lie--quite the opposite--but not only do some of these theories stagger belief, it staggers belief that anyone would believe such things!

originally posted by: andy06shake
a reply to: Pitou

The Nazi holocaust happened, the evidence and witness accounts speak for themselves in that regard. There is however reason to question the numbers involved considering that the logistics required to kill and dispose of so many people and bodies within the time period allowed was simply beyond there capability. Point of fact Stalin killed more people than Hitler ever did which takes nothing away from the tragedy or evil perpetrated by both nefarious individuals.

Yeah, I've seen the claim that the six million was arbitrarily chosen from a religious text and that the true number was more like 1.5 million. I've also seen the wall of a holocaust museum carved with the name of each country and number taken from that country, to add up to six million, so the figure literally is carved in stone.

originally posted by: nonspecific
I have to confess a very poor understanding of the history of ww2.

Did they deny the existence of the holocaust whilst others believed that it was happening?

In order for it to be a conspiracy surley something has to be covered up/hidden AND People need to suspect that it going on?

a reply to: andy06shake

During the war the full extent was not known* and when rumored was not believed, for good reasons. Absolutely horrible stories came out during WWI about atrocities supposedly committed in Germany, all of it propaganda and much of it untrue. There is a book in this and probably at least one person has written one. During WWII for whatever reason, the Germans decided to do everything they'd been accused of doing the first time and worse--much worse than anyone knew during the war. Check out the episode of The Waltons titled "The Unthinkable." A Jewish fellow soldier of Jason's breaks down on revealing information smuggled out of Europe about relatives being murdered. He is met by open disbelief and consoling statements of, "Let's hope that isn't true." Then a voiceover comes on stating that much later they learned it unfortunately was.

As the Allies liberated the camps, General Dwight David Eisenhower said, “Get it all on record now--get the films--get the witnesses--because somewhere down the road of history some bastard will get up and say that this never happened.” He didn't realize how true this was, that certain people would not believe the facts with tons of evidence! If you get a chance, check out the Leonard Nimoy film, Never Forget, about a holocaust survivor's successful court fight against deniers.

*By the way, big U. S. gas companies were selling the Nazis huge quantities of gas and never asking why they wanted it!

originally posted by: andy06shake
a reply to: nonspecific

Well i imagine when they put the poor people on the trains they did not tell them their final destination or fate. Otherwise pandemonium would have ensured. Communication mediums were somewhat different back then probably a hell of a lot easier to lead lambs to the slaughter.

You'd think they might have guessed something with bystanders drawing fingers across their throats! But yes, Auschwitz was labeled a work camp--they were told they were merely being sent there to be productive.

originally posted by: projectbane
The one I find hardest to believe after looking into it is the Holocaust!!! Since 1890 the number 6 millions jews has plagued the US newspapers for decades till the "holocaust" happened....6 million jews!!

The number was already predetermined...years in advance.

Yeah, I posted about that before seeing your post. It would be interesting to know who determined the official number and how they arrived at it. Did someone seriously collect names of everyone who went missing during that time, or did the Nazis keep exact records of how many were taken from each village and those were compared with how many survived? It does seem staggering.

originally posted by: NightSkyeB4Dawn
There is never going to be an accurate re-telling of an event.

All you can expect is your story, my story and "his story".

Rashomon to the ninth power!

A friend in the military told me that participants in events could scarcely recognize them as the same when written up. He told me they found the weapons of mass destruction, that he and others saw them. I had never heard that in the media. I came on here and found it was indeed being talked about and people agreed about something being found but not its nature and significance.

originally posted by: DJW001
ATS is a monument to the struggle to comprehend one's place in the world through the power of narrative. All too often, these struggles pit subjective belief against objective events, and the subjective, often irrational, belief triumphs.

"The Love of the Marvellous and the Disbelief of the True"--a phrase I've found myself using often--all too often since starting here. Check it: vantagepointtrading.com...

The most accurate answer to almost ANY question in the world that doesn't relate strictly to empirical data is: I DONT KNOW.

Even things that happened directly to YOU, perception is a funny thing, and every misses out a detail here or there, or embellishes something minor. So even experienced reality becomes a story over time.


The REAL truth of many things in history??? None of us will ever know, and it's a waste of time trying to get to the bottom of something when you don't have HD multi-angle video and audio documentation of what EXACTLY happened.


Ultimately it doesn't matter that much as long as we strive to live as good people and learn from our own mistakes and those of others too. Can't change the past.

You gotta stand for something, or you'll fall for anything.

a reply to: 8675309jenny

Future generation's will be rather hard pressed to learn from there mistakes without an accurate account of what happened previously aka history. So I would have to say history is indeed rather important.

originally posted by: andy06shake
a reply to: 8675309jenny

Future generation's will be rather hard pressed to learn from there mistakes without an accurate account of what happened previously aka history. So I would have to say history is indeed rather important.

I'm not implying history is not important; I'm a huge history buff myself, but sometimes I'm struck with a realization:

Things like the JFK assassination. Patton's death in Germany. The sinking of the Lusitania. The explosion of the USS Maine.... and in fact ALL history. They are all stories. We have nary a clue what REALLY happened. We have a pretty good idea in some cases, and in others we really have no clue at all.... but the majority of it has been propagandized in some form or another.

For events that we have close to an accurate version of the truth, that will suffice for purposes of learning from history, but consider espionage for a moment; it has always existed, yet in the last 100years it has become so widespread and advanced that there is almost zero truth in ANY official story about gov't or military actions, it's all strategized. That's just a fact, we are constantly playing the eternal game.

History in it's entirety is a narrative. It's what people WANT us to believe; it's Disney-story "happily ever-after" bullsh't in many cases. It's what we like to hear, because the average person can't be bothered with human complexities, and characters who don't fit molds (pure good vs. pure evil).

There were GOOD men in Imperial Japan. Lots of them. There were GOOD men Hitler's military. And there were bad men in the U.S. forces, British forces, etc. Of course the Allies had tons of Good men, and the Axis had plenty of evildoers. I mean these are the reasons for the Geneva Conventions and other rules of warfare in the first place. Because often people are fed bulsh't stories by their leaders and sent off to kill other men who are told equally bullsh't tall tales by their own leaders. All about territory or who has a bigger dick or something.... Remember, it's all just a story.


Yea, history... what do we know? I mean, did OJ kill Nicole?

We like the IDEA that we know what really happened for most of the history of the world, but what we actually have is documentation as recorded by certain individuals, and whoever commissioned the books to be made in the first place usually has a stake in the matter.

Personally I like hard facts too, right and wrong. etc I like KNOWING something was this or that... Principles and standing for something etc etc

But I'll give one more analogy that personally resonated with me. A few years back I started tracing my family history and I was very thorough. I've gotten it back many generations with hundreds of peoples stories telling the tale of my ancestry. Machinists, farmers, inventors, librarians, cops, underachievers, criminals, & orphans etc. One man falsely accused of murder and hanged in VA in the 1800's, another man who probably did murder someone and got away with it. One was even the Duke of York in the 1600's

All the maiden names are lost though, so in reality, I'm equal parts: Brown, Wolff, Clark, Dunlop, O'collins, King, Schumacher, Dean, Smith, Wallace, Sharp, Lehnert, Olson, Samuelson, Nilson, Eklund, and a million others..... and the deeper I dug the more I realized: It doesn't matter; NOTHING they did has any bearing on my life, whether they were Kings or paupers. I realized history does not define us, WE do. History is only a reference; a collection of stories of what to do, and more importantly what NOT to do.

Sorry for the long roundabout way of explaining my view!



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a reply to: 8675309jenny

I certainly agree we are never going to be privy to all the events that have taken place throughout recorded history. We are simply to devious a species to expect a true and unbiased account of what has transpired. We like to lie and distort reality to meet our own ends, thats just Humanity 101. That being said without the gist of the situation we are simply in the dark hence our need to record history i imagine.

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a reply to: MrMaybeNot

I think it'd be very dangerous if everyone agreed on everything and never questionned the statu quo

But that never happened and never will happen. Conspiracy theories are bunk — all of them.