Some of my mis-givings were about the way the story was written. There seemed too much of an attempt to 'write well'. The sentence construction looked like a poor attempt at creative writing. But, if a person was trying to gain the respect and sympathy of people here, you might expect them to make an effort and you can't blame a person for not having a natural ability to write. I thought 'Sophie's posts showed more signs of this than 'Dan's'. That could be construed as 'Dan' making an even harder effort in an attempt to sound like someone else. Or it really could have been written by a stressed and nervous wife.

A lot was made of Sophie calling Dan 'my husband' but at least once she referred to him as Daniel.

Now, is he really Daniel and chose to call himself Dan Tanna on this forum as a 'pun' on his real name (sorry, not a good way to put that) or did he make a mistake whilst writing as his wife in having 'her' call him Daniel forgetting that it wasn't his real name? I really can't go back to see if 'my husband' was used after what could be the mistake or had been used before it.

I cannot find the picture of an ancient Babylonian or Sumerian god that looked incredibly like Dan's picture, I wish I could.

At the beginning of this Dan offered a lot of personal information, his name and his wife's and daughter's. He told everyone where he lived. Later, when asked to give his age and some details about his job he clammed up.

Was that just because he'd been mauled so badly here, or had he started to get worried about identifying himself or being exposed as a liar?

Honestly, he shouldn't be too hard to identify. He lives in a sparsely populated area and apparently runs 80 miles a week. That would draw attention from his neighbours. I thought the pictures of his back indicated a person who spent more time on their computer than running around, but all our metabolisms are different.

I've suffered 'night terrors' and would be prepared to believe that's what Dan suffered before I'd outright call him a liar.

I even read up on Selkies to see if that would give an indication of what might have happened, although they are seal-like not fish-like. I think a lot of the 'aliens' described sounded more like characters from folklore that ets. Especially as Dan is based in a remote area of Scotland - if we are to believe that is his location.

I've heard odd theories about Alisteir Crowley's doings at Loch Ness too. One of the first things that occured to me was that Dan, living in Inverness, might not be too far from Crowley's old house.

Another thing, if Dan had been attacked by a wild animal he probably would have gone for an anti-tetanus injection. He makes no mention of having had one after apparently being attacked by a vicious alien.

I've pondered this just as much as anyone else. And have added nothing to the discussion, so.....

Even if only to satisfy everyone's curiosity, will someone take up the gauntlet and go and have a look?

[edit on 11-7-2008 by berenike]

Originally posted by Heike
Were I in Dan's position and my husband in the wife's, trying to support me, I can see a very likely scenario in which Hubby would be asking me how to spell a word which would just happen to be one of the few words I sometimes misspell, and then he would spell it exactly as I told him to.

... in all fairness I am not comfortable with saying that a shared spelling error proves anything 100% either.

I agree with you, that's a realistic scenario that could explain any mis-spelling similarities. However, Dan's response to this was not "my wife told me how to spell it, so I gues she was wrong" or "it was a typo", but "we both agree that's how it's spelt". I awaited his response to this descrepency to see if he'd say his wife helped him. He didn't. He should've.

Originally posted by dizziedame
Edit to add:
I have never said this is not a hoax. I don't know if it is or not. Time will tell and I have more time than anything else. So I wait until the jury is in.

[edit on 11-7-2008 by dizziedame]

Time wont really tell though will it? Even if a mod closed this thread and said "Go home hoaxer" it would not prove this thread is even a hoax. There is no jury here aside from us.

All too often though on ATS I see someone say: "You cant prove it's a lie" and the counter argument is always "You cant prove it's not a lie" Really. This is a site for debate. I cant help wondering about the maturity of the people using this site when 50% of the thread replies are "You cant prove..." remarks.

Obviously nobody here can prove anything. All we can do is guess, like the old saying "If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck." It's not an exact science, but in cases as outlandish as this it doesn't need to be exact, it doesn't even need to be proof, probable is quite good enough I would think.

So the next time someone pops up and says "I'm sorry but that's not conclusive evidence" Just remember this, well this isn't a court room, it's a debate site. And if ATS posters only ever posted conclusive evidence, ATS would have 0 posts a day!

from the facts i've read on this thread and the answers to the questions, i'd say that i believe something happened. something that cannot be explained by simple conjecture but that requires a deeper look into the human psyche. if a total idiot recounted his totally true encounter (one would assume this would mean massive amounts of grammatical and spelling eccentricities) in a forum, you wouldn't say anything about the grammar or the spelling. sometimes a traumatizing event such as this can cause a basic human primal instinct to take dominance and one is not concerned with the composure that we take for truth-telling. composure, i submit, is the total antithesis of true terrifying encounters.

Interesting. It seems odd to me that this creature would not have knocked you out in the first place if it had those abilities, especially since you stabbed it repeatedly before the sleepiness washed over you. My guess is this mystery is a cooked up story, or a figment of your imagination. I’m not saying point blank you are a liar simply that if tiny things do not add up the conclusion that this tale is true doesn’t make sense.

Originally posted by dizziedame

Badge I want the truth just as much as you. If this is proven to be a hoax I will accept it and the punishment the mods bestow on the hoaxer.

While I agree with the feeling that we are on the same side, DD, how do you undo the damage that hoaxers incur?

It makes people live in fear, and limits those who would come out with true accounts. No, it's not those who would be skeptical - they just want the truth.

Hoaxers like this one should be ashamed of themselves. Their games are not without harm, and all for what? Attention? It's truly sad.

Originally posted by Malevolent_Aliens
running 80 miles a day

Just for clarity sake:

The time span on that was per week.

Originally posted by Malevolent_Aliens
I also was turned off when he started describing himself to be superman running 80 miles a day with karate etc. That really hurt his credibility with this story especially after looking at the picture of his back you can clearly see he is not in that kind of shape. The 100 knife stab wounds to this creature is also another turn off, I just don't see that happening.

I agree. Ya gotta figure that once lies are uncovered the chances of other parts being lies are greater. Any theories on why he would hurt his story by adding these improbable characterizations?

Maybe people have a need to confess and this was as close as he could come without making an outright confession it was a hoax?

For the love of all thats good. I come in to explain a bit about how my regressionist therapy went today.. But for the love of all thats good after seeing this.......

Its explodes with total malice.

I never said I was a superman, I never said I run 80 miles a day . . . .

I said i do aikido and bamboo forest and run 80 a week. People, do you realise how short a distance that actually is ?

Thats four hours a day. You know why i do that ? because I like it and as I need time out thats where i get it - I care for the kid and the wife works full time...

I have nothing to confess.

I don't have any thing other than a need for help with some thing that is so far outside my comprehension and was killing me inside.

It needed to be shared or I was going to go off the wall with anger. Sharing in RATS was like my own therapy.

Adding to ATS was my mistake and my mistake alone.

It is not a hoax, never has been a hoax .

My u2u box is full from people who i have since got in contact with via e-mail and telephone and have had alot of clear straightforward advice sent my way.

lol, and so I rest my case.

Im not going to appeal to people any more. I cannot get over the sheer amount of hatred, venom, lies about what I said in thread and the twisting of my words I have had to face because I was mistaken, and trusted the members of ATS to give me, my family, and my terrible stressed mind a fair deal.

Well, heres my final reply.







[edit on 12-7-2008 by Dan Tanna]

Originally posted by Dan Tanna

Im not going to appeal to people any more. I cannot get over the sheer amount of hatred, venom, lies about what I said in thread and the twisting of my words I have had to face because I was mistaken, and trusted the members of ATS to give me, my family, and my terrible stressed mind a fair deal.

Well, heres my final reply.

[edit on 12-7-2008 by Dan Tanna]

There we have it, its dramatic, resentful, and a passive request for sympathy. Malice...deciet....lmao. I wish you the best of luck, not in fabricating stories, but in overcoming whatever it is that makes you desire to do it, and I whole heartedly mean that sincerely. In the social world, the liar usually does demonstrate aggression when he realizes the audience has lost faith. If one can not control that shift, they exit. At the very least, people will remember this thread, you can count on that.

Now come the "look what you did to him" and the "we support you Dan" threads.

[edit on 12-7-2008 by BS_Slayer]