Dear Mr. Marrs,

I'm sorry, but I'm not that familiar with your work. I was wondering if there's any big conspiracy theories accepted by a significant portion of the conspiracy community out there that you don't believe in?

If so, why?

Thanks,

djohnsto77

There are things that I believe and then there are things I know. I BELIEVE in a God but I KNOW that JFK was killed as the result of a conspiracy. Early in my career in journalism there were many conspiracy theories that I dismissed out of hand, such as the one about we never went to the moon, that JFK was killed to prevent him from revealing the reality of UFOs and that people were being abducted by aliens.

But as I got older and gained more experience, I came to understand that things are not as black and white as they seem when one is young and unaccustomed to the ways of the world. Most of my colleagues in journalism would never venture past the conventional worldview of the day but I was always inquisitive and curious about life.

Today, there is an abundance of evidence calling our initial moon landing into question, not the least of which is the question of how our astronauts managed to survive the Van Allen radiation belt without heavy shielding on their space capsule. Although I am still not absolutely convinced that we never went to the moon, I recognize that there are many hard questions which have not been satisfactorily answered. Likewise, there is now intriguing evidence that JFK was well aware of the UFO situation and, in fact, had demanded that the CIA turn over to his White House all its UFO files by February, 1964. I still doubt that this was the reason for his assassination but I am now ready to accept that it may have played a part in that decision. With the immense amount of data and narratives now available regarding people who claimed to have been abducted by aliens and considering the tremendous work of the late Dr. John Mack of Harvard, it is evident that something outside of normal reality is happening to these folks.

Today, I remain open to any conspiracy theory but I generally place them into one of three niches --- the “bogus” file which is for stories with only one source and which seem to be questionable or obviously some marketing ploy; my “Huh?” file which is for fascinating but unprovable stories; and my “real” files which are filled with unbelievable, yet well documented, accounts from separate sources on a wide variety of subjects.

One conspiracy theory to which I do not subscribe is the idea that JFK was shot by his driver. I have looked into this closely and I know the genesis of this story. A careful examination of the Zapruder film will show that the driver, William Greer, never takes his hands off the steering wheel of the Lincoln limousine. What appears to be a gun and a shot are illusions created by sun highlights reflecting off the greased hair of SS Agent Kellerman riding shotgun and a flash of sunlight off the metal frame of the car’s privacy window separating the driver from the rear of the car.

In my time as a journalist I have covered several strange stories which turned out to have a mundane explanation. I have never been hesitant to report fakery or mistaken conclusions when the evidence proves such.

Always keep an open mind but not so open that some BS can fall into it. Don’t believe everything you hear and certainly not everything you see in the corporate controlled mass media. Just absorb the information, file it away and wait to see if further developments confirm or deny the story. It’s called critical thinking and I think most Americans could do with a healthy dose of it.

Jim Marrs

PS: Watch for an Above Top Secret book due out next year which will address many of the greatest conspiracies and mysteries of today.

Jim, may I call you Jim? The question is which "big stories" do you consider to be without factual, or even subjective, basis that merit further consideration? And I'm not talking about just the "mainline" stories. your answers seem just a tad evasive, as if you fear putting your heart on your sleeve.

So let's try some more or less "local" questions:

How about the account here on ATS of the poster called "sleeper"?

How about the rather astonishing stories and ideas put forth by our own John Lear?

Then there are the "drone" sagas. Where do you weigh in there?

And the "Dark4knight" episode. Fairy tale or the real deal?

Surely you have read some of the bigger threads here; after all, that is the normal homework for someone in your position. What are your comments and positions on these threads?

Just trying to find where you stand on these things. There is no right or wrong position, just shades of acceptence and understanding. I am not trying to put you on the spot either, but you must have known that ATS was not a place for those without the fortitude to withstand hard questions, and the expectation of firm answers.

Thank you---John

Edit because when I hurry to express ideas, I can't spell.

[edit on 12-9-2007 by NGC2736]

And just a thought before I trundle off to bed, perchance to dream:

Mr Marrs, would you be so kind as to tell us what was the defining moment that led you to accept the reality of UFOs and when this happened? Was there a personal incident? Did your research lead you to think that UFOs were real?

And what, of all the conspiracies about 9/11 and Roswell, the two "biggies" of the alternative people's viewpoint, do you consider to be closest to the truth?

Howdy NGC2736,

Yes, you are trying to put me on the spot, but that’s okay. I too would like to know where certain people stand concerning certain issues.

It is simply very difficult to try and stake out a position on issues that are not easily understood or upon which the evidence is constantly shifting. This is why I don’t take a position on many issues pending further input and investigation, I advise everyone not to jump to conclusions and stake a claim on truth until all of the evidence is in. This is particularly true of material that you read or hear in the corporate mass media. They have been proven so wrong so much in the past, I would not believe anything to be true until the Government denies it.

You have ask for my opinion on a variety of subjects, including John Lear, “sleeper,” drones and “Dark4Knight.” I cannot offer any opinion on such subjects as I do not have all the information on them. And I decline to make a pro or con statement without feeling as though I have all the relevant information.

As to the top conspiracy stories on 9/11 and Roswell, I have formed some opinions, having carefully studied both cases in great detail.

9/11 = The evidence that at the highest levels of the U.S. Government there was foreknowledge of the attacks is overwhelming, from the Israeli message system emails and the suspicious short selling of stock to the war game exercises involving planes crashing into the World Trade Center and the capture of the “Bojinka” plans from al Qaeda in 1995. The best light that can be put on this is that certain top officials of the Federal Government of the U.S. knew the attacks would take place and allowed them to happen to further their political agenda. Next, considering the fact that 15 of the 19 named hijackers (know that half of these people are still alive in the Middle East which means half the names we were given are false) were Saudis. Bin Laden is a Saudi. The closest social and business friends to the Saudis, and the bin Ladens in particular, is the Bush family. Since al Qaeda was a creation of our CIA to form an Arab fighting force to combat the Soviets in Afghanistan back in the 1980s and President Bush’s father is a former head of the CIA, one can make a coherent case that 9/11 was a “false flag” operation, that is, an attack carried out in such a way so that it be blamed on someone else. Check out the 1962 plans for “Operation Northwoods, a plan to target America and blame it on Castro which was approved by the Joint Chiefs of Staff, to illustrate this point. A false flag operation or the attacks allowed to happen --- either way, 9/11 was an inside job.

Roswell = This “biggie” case is really pretty simple. It is strictly a matter of personal belief. One can choose to believe the U.S. Government’s official story, which has changed four times. First, an approved Army press release said they had captured a “flying saucer.” This was superceded by an official pronouncement that everyone was mistaken, it was really just a common weather balloon. Years later, this changed again to a Mogul balloon used to test the upper atmosphere for Soviet testing of nuclear devices. There was no explanation on why they had to send such a test balloon up from New Mexico rather than some closer location, say, Turkey or Europe. Finally, the official story became that what people saw in July, 1947, were actually crash dummies although the official Air Force report on the matter, entitled “Case Close” clearly noted that the very first crash dummy test was conducted in June, 1954. These official government pronouncements are supported by little or nothing.

On the other hand, one can choose to believe the more than 400 individuals now on the public record, both military and civilian, who state that a saucer-shaped object crashed near Roswell and that non-human bodies were found and taken into military custody.

Since by all accounts, whatever crashed was recovered by the U.S. Government and has not been made public, the Roswell issue has become an article of faith. Who do you believe? The official government story or the witnesses?

Jim Marrs

considering the fact that 15 of the 19 named hijackers (know that half of these people are still alive

Jim - the above statement is false and has already been debunked here...I suggest reviewing previous threads. If you are/where a reporter I'd expect you to be alittle more through....

suspicious short selling of stock

On ATS, it has been shown that many put options were placed through the year/years previous and that it is a standard in the market.

So far...........you are not very impressive........

[edit on 21-9-2007 by ferretman2]

Originally posted by ferretman2
So far...........you are not very impressive........
[edit on 21-9-2007 by ferretman2]

So far your not very impressive,
You come into the thread and claim Mr. Marrs is wrong. Then not have the decency or respect to bring the proof you claim is here on ATS.


[edit on 21/9/2007 by Sauron]

Sauron,

How many times have those issues been covered on ATS?

Here you have someone who says they are a reporter, then repeats falsehoods and when it is pointed out....I'm blamed?

If he is a reporter, why has he not invesitgated it himself and provided 'proof'. I am not going to repeat and waste my time showing him links when he should of already done it himself.

This is a great example of why the 9/11 forum and most CTs are a waste of time because when evidence is documented and factual it is still ignored.

ferretman2, it's just common courtesy to cite your sources. I for one did not know that the allegation that some of the named hi-jackers in the 911 incident were still alive had been debunked in these forums. Please give us a link to that.

Howdy NGC2736,

There was no defining moment when I began to believe in UFOs. It was a gradual knowingness. I have a clipping from the campus newspaper which I wrote while at the university in 1965. At that time, I simply argued that many reputable persons had claimed to have seen UFOs or Flying Saucers and that we should keep an open mind on the subject.

I kept an open mind throughout my journalism career. If someone ran in from off the street and told me and another newsman that a UFO had landed in the park down the street, the other newsman would laugh him off and never get out of his seat. I, at least, would go over to the window and take a look down the street to see if anything was in the park.

As the years rolled on, I continued to come into contact not only with good solid citizens (including my father-in-law who worked his entire life for an airline) who claimed to have seen or encountered UFOs but also police officers, pilots (both commercial and military), government officials and even astronauts who told me of their experiences. I even recall separately meeting three men during my career who told me they had been at Carswell AFB in Fort Worth in 1947 and had been aware of both UFO wreckage and non-human bodies being brought through there following the Roswell crash. After a time, I came to know --- not believe --- that something very strange was flying through the skies of Earth.

This was only confirmed after researching the remote viewing unit of the U.S. Army and learning that this psychic phenomenon is both real and effective. Every single one of the military-trained remote viewers had direct experience with the UFO issue and knew that it was real.

As far as the Roswell crash goes, it’s pretty simple. You can choose to believe the Government, which has changed its story four times and has little to nothing to back up its contention that nothing out of the ordinary happened at Roswell in 1947. Or you can choose to believe more than 400 individuals now on the public record who claim they saw or handled strange material and/or inhuman bodies. Me? I believe the people rather than a government which has been caught in lie after lie.

Another lie is the official conspiracy theory of 9/11 – that is, 19 crazed Arab hijackers with tiny blades were able to overcome a $40 billion defense system and capture four commercial airliners, turn off their transponders almost simultaneously and then skillfully guide them into prominent buildings at speeds exceeding than their design speed, all the while under the control of a Muslim cleric using a computer in a cave in Afghanistan. Add to this the fact that no modern steel building has ever collapsed due to fire, that the 47-story WTC 7 (The Salomon Brothers Building) dropped at free-fall speed but was not hit by airplanes and that a Boeing 757 with a 125-foot wing span could not possible have created the small 15X20-foot hole at the ground floor of the Pentagon as seen in photos before the west wall collapsed and the whole thing becomes unbelievable. By the way, how did the much-publicized 9/11 Commission explain the collapse of WTC 7? They didn’t bother to mention it in their omission-filled report!

Jim Marrs

The Roswell case is very interesting.

I don't think Roswell was a psy-op because of the extensive testimony of Roswell residents and just the whole way that the event started. A lot seems to have been left to chance. Suppose Jesse Marcel had never reported it?

As far as the official spin doctoring goes: Had the military asked people in Roswell to be on the lookout for a downed weather (or Project Mogul) balloon? Were there military search parties looking for it?

I think that doubters of the original press release announcing that a "flying saucer" had been recovered should stop and think for a moment, asking themselves how likely it would be for a military base to make such a statement to the press without being very sure about what they were saying.

To doubt the original press release is to say that the military didn't know what a weather balloon looked like, or that they were incapable of suspending judgement about a possible piece of unknown experimental technology. To do so is to underestimate the airforce officers involved.

I'm sure they thought of these things but faced with the wreckage they were looking at, most of which we probably have never seen, had to conclude that it was "not of this earth."

The national security aspects involving a find like that (space men!!!) would probably not even be considered (outside Washington) in 1947.



[edit on 3-4-2008 by ipsedixit]

Mr. Marrs

For me, people solve conspiracies in their own way and not necessarily
find hard evidence for any convincing resolution.

People around Roswell most likely had seen saucers for years
and assumed they were men made experimental craft.
The may have even heard leaks on how it was powered and
who had worked on the saucer.

Good luck on getting close to research on that data.

The necessity for Roswell to have aliens near a crash was to
take away the man made source in the nation wide papers.

I didn't solve anything, just settled the controversy to my resolution.

Interesting forum.