Have your sources +credentials verified by ATS staff??

what the hell is it with people who always feel the need to say "oh i hope you verify your credentials + sources with ATS staff, it would make your story more beleivable."

let me point out a few glaring problems with this:

1) staff do not have top secret clearance in every aspect of every government around the globe or even just in USA. they are just some joe citizen reading & telling strange tales from behind a PC like you, me and everyone else.
so why act like they do by expecting everyone with a halfway realistic story to get "checked out" before posting anything else?

2) think + judge peoples stories or events for yourself.. dont be ats staff (or anyone elses) sheeple by expecting others to tell you if they are legit or not by their credentials or sources.

"oh ATS staff said its true, so it MUST be!! springer called the OP's old boss and he checked out ok....he did have Rhyolite clearance levels at Dulce"

as if you'd beleive that if they said it, so why act as if ATS staff are the ultimate in confirming sources.
im sure your old enough that you dont need to be spoon fed other peoples beleifs or opinions and can judge for yourself.

3) this is a conspiracy site, we are supposed to discuss strange and wacky stories.
people post everything from the most awesone, easily beleivable events down to the most weak, water thin BS filled stories. that is the nature of CT forums in general because it attracts hoaxers, pranksters and internet nutjobs.

who the hell are we to expect people to verify their sources and yet allow "my dog/brother/grandpa/neighbour/boyfriend is a reptillian' threads.

leave it up to the OP to decide what sources/evidence they give. obviously if they give lousy evidence (eg: nothing but a dodgy backyard pooTube video) then it'll be less beleivable. on the contrary, some well written and thought out threads give even more credibility to the story.

you dont need to be spoon fed so YOU be the judge of what you read and rate the thread accordingly with the flag n star system.


[edit on 25/7/08 by Obliv_au]

having just flagged this

i have to point out there ARE instances where staff verification of a persons BASIC identity is possible and usefull

i cannot find the thread - think its been deleted - but the thread where a person claiming to be a doctor @ a colarado ER who claimed to have treated an on the run govt asasin with psi power

now - that proved to be a hoax - but if it was real - how would the ` doc ` verify himself

post his open details on the public forum

or contact the mods and telll them to check the number for XXXXXXXXXX hospital in the phone book - ring recception and ask for doctor ZZZZZZZZ

thats one phone call - from a person who would be descrete

then the mod could confirm that a phonecall to the hospital asking to speak to a doctor DID put them in touch with the thread starter

but the majority of your points are valid none the less

also whe have had well know or notorious ` personalities ` from various feilds join ATS - or have hoaxers pretending to be them join ats

in these cases too - its best for a SINGLE contact from staff to be made to confirm that they are the person the claim to be - john lear is a case in point - as at one time several members believed that the ATS user john lear was not the son of william lear - but springer had talked to him off list - using phone and email contacts that a hoaxer could not spoof - and quashed the rumours

Originally posted by Obliv_au

1) staff do not have top secret clearance in every aspect of every government around the globe or even just in USA. they are just some joe citizen reading & telling strange tales from behind a PC like you, me and everyone else.
so why act like they do by expecting everyone with a halfway realistic story to get "checked out" before posting anything else?

Every staff member's PC is hooked up to the FBI, CIA, MRI, NSA, DoD, ABC, DDE, XYZ and IBM mainframes, thus it's easy for us to check up on something. Oh, and we have Google and Wikipedia, so that covers all our bases.

Originally posted by Obliv_au
2) think + judge peoples stories or events for yourself.. dont be ats staff (or anyone elses) sheeple by expecting others to tell you if they are legit or not by their credentials or sources.

"oh ATS staff said its true, so it MUST be!! springer called the OP's old boss and he checked out ok....he did have Rhyolite clearance levels at Dulce"

Well, if we're no longer going to do this, what is Springer going to do all day? His main purpose is to phone up everyone's old bosses...

Originally posted by Obliv_au
3) this is a conspiracy site, we are supposed to discuss strange and wacky stories.
people post everything from the most awesone, easily beleivable events down to the most weak, water thin BS filled stories. that is the nature of CT forums in general because it attracts hoaxers, pranksters and internet nutjobs.
[edit on 25/7/08 by Obliv_au]

Errr... Papa Bravo Seven, Papa Braco Seven come in! We've got a Chicken in the Soup. I repeat, we have a Chicken in the Soup. Activate procedure 29 immediately!




I'm just kidding.

I see where you're going with this, and in general I agree. Staff isn't here to do background checks on every person that posts an "out there" claim here, and frankly they don't. In extreme cases the Amigos will do some digging one way or the other, but I can recall perhaps a handful of times this was necessary.

From where I sit I see members doing already what you're saying. 99.9% of the time members take care of hoaxers. In 99.9% of the threads where you see the [hoax] tags, it's because a member revealed the truth, and not a staff member. I can recall once or twice where a staff member picked up on a detail and waited with the information to give a member the opportunity to discover the same information.

Just remember that every "hoaxer, prankster and nut job" is a possible “truther”. Remember the story about the boy who cried wolf? And that's basically the whole point of discussions - including those of personal experiences. What we see is an OP where some sort of story/personal experience is told. Immediately members start with a "Not another one!" or "I wish school will start again"... Responses like these are a deterrent for people who have real stories to tell. I'm not saying believe every word people are posting. I'm saying: Listen what people have to say - but with a critical ear. Hoaxers can be spotted within a few posts. But reveal them as such in a methodical, pedagogic and scholastic way. Give everyone a fair chance, but don't let go of your logic, reasoning and intelligence.

I'd like to point out that the staff has not verified Obliv_au's credentials and, as such, anything he says should be taken with the proverbial grain of salt.

I see this many times here. People trying to make themselves some self proclaimed expert or even better the government (dis-information) people getting in a pi**ing contest over who has what clearance and what it means.

I've forgotten more than most people here know. It's an age thing. More importantly, I find some of these threads very funny at times.

Yeah, I'd love to see some of the people vetted for their alleged education or alleged profession. People want their anonymity on many internet sites, and this is very understandable. But then, if someone make a claim, there are times we need to to just find a little truth from fiction.

Originally posted by hinky
Yeah, I'd love to see some of the people vetted for their alleged education or alleged profession. People want their anonymity on many Internet sites, and this is very understandable. But then, if someone makes a claim, there are times we need to to just find a little truth from fiction.

While understandable, another expert can often easily see if a poster is the expert they claim to be. If you work in a field your knowledge is more detailed than anyone's who might be using reference books. In general, the details are in the processes or production methods.

Having said that, we all know there are those, the pretenders, who are able to fool almost everyone.

Not only are they quick learners they are good at social engineering and in 'reality hacking'. They see the vulnerabilities of the verification systems and target those.

One we all know about is Ferdinand Demara, the Great Imposter. Tony Curtis played him.

Another is Frank Abagnale, who was played in a recent movie 'Catch Me If You Can' by Leo DiCaprio. Abagnale successfully impersonated a pilot, teacher, doctor and an attorney. He was more successful than many because he had trained himself to be an expert forger and could make his own documents.

One of the most successful was Carlos Castaneda. Most know a fair amount about him already.

Still, compared to real professionals, these people are amateurs.

Why do I say that? It's obvious, because we know about them; they were caught.

The very best probably put these folks to shame, and certainly the gubmint creates identities for 'deep cover' ops, which defy attempts to uncover.

Even more 'professional' than these are the female Ninjas of the Koga region in 15th century Japan. They would be such deep cover that they'd marry into the opposing dynasty, have children, and maybe even incorporate and secretly train their daughters who would then only 'activate' when or if needed. They essentially -were- the person they were pretending to be and often if things went without incident, they'd live their lives and pass on, their true secret initiatives never revealed.

Uh, sorry to go on about this, but it's one of my areas of interest. More than you wanted to know, perhaps.

At any rate the checking that ATS might do is really rather cursory and perfunctory, and they're just trying to do the minimum, I imagine, to assure a modicum of truth and accuracy for the purposes of discussion, I'm guessing.

Originally posted by Gemwolf

Originally posted by Obliv_au

1) staff do not have top secret clearance in every aspect of every government around the globe or even just in USA. they are just some joe citizen reading & telling strange tales from behind a PC like you, me and everyone else.
so why act like they do by expecting everyone with a halfway realistic story to get "checked out" before posting anything else?

Every staff member's PC is hooked up to the FBI, CIA, MRI, NSA, DoD, ABC, DDE, XYZ and IBM mainframes, thus it's easy for us to check up on something. Oh, and we have Google and Wikipedia, so that covers all our bases.

oohhh, so reality undiscovered is correct.. your a gub'mint phishing site? sorry but i forgot my bait

Originally posted by Gemwolf

Originally posted by Obliv_au
2) think + judge peoples stories or events for yourself.. dont be ats staff (or anyone elses) sheeple by expecting others to tell you if they are legit or not by their credentials or sources.

"oh ATS staff said its true, so it MUST be!! springer called the OP's old boss and he checked out ok....he did have Rhyolite clearance levels at Dulce"

Well, if we're no longer going to do this, what is Springer going to do all day? His main purpose is to phone up everyone's old bosses...

it would leave him more time to argue the point on all those anti-ATS sites, im sure he can send out a whole lot more litigation letters (i joke)

Originally posted by Crakeur
I'd like to point out that the staff has not verified Obliv_au's credentials and, as such, anything he says should be taken with the proverbial grain of salt.

salt hardens the arteries.. then again so does smoking and that never stopped me.... i aint no quitter

so why havent you called crakeur, you said you'd call me
my mobile # is less than half a dozen mouse clicks away if you look in the most obvious places

Originally posted by hinky
I see this many times here. People trying to make themselves some self proclaimed expert

I've forgotten more than most people here know.

I recall a story about a kettle and a pot....

The topic is important for all of us. For me, because at this very moment I am asking ATS mgt. to confirm my own real ID so my info can be "trusted"! This is by request of the ATS members after I was being attacked for the facts I wanted to report. I did contact the staff. So they have e-mailed me that it will take at least 48 hrs. for a decision? (It took me a few minutes to type this reply?)
But after my experiences with all this I agree with all the rest of you that there is more than one way to view this, so I'll weigh in when "they" explain things to me. But if America gets saved every TV season by CTU LA in 24 hrs......!!!...well, they can do better...Martyn Stubbs

Understand what you're saying.

Now, let me craft a hypothetical situation: I see a UFO, have my camera and take what I think is excellent, clear footage plus some stills. It's close, it's not fuzzy, it's amazing.

I would try to first submit them to ATS staff before posting. What I wouldn't do is post a narrative of the event before having my pixels in a row and quacking. Maybe I'm off-base about this -- Mods/staff can chime in here and let me know -- but I think that a pre-examination of the photo data would likely save a lot of time, possibly save a lot of bandwidth too by cutting down on the six pages of CGI/hoax/BS claims.

Another hypothetical situation: A person claims to have insider information, perhaps they're a government contractor or military. If there were credentials that could be verified by staff without that information being public, I would consider that credible EVIDENCE that supported the person's story. I'm reminded of Clifford Stone's thread. I think it probably saved a lot of time just to feel confident that Sgt. Stone really IS who he says he is. That still left it open for us to read, question and decide if we felt his story has veracity.

I'd Love for the ATS staff to be able to check my credentials and sources, but being that the governements, churches, nor anyone else on this planet are able to do so, I don't see what they'd be able to say about it.

Originally posted by argentus
Now, let me craft a hypothetical situation: I see a UFO, have my camera and take what I think is excellent, clear footage plus some stills. It's close, it's not fuzzy, it's amazing.

Well hypothetically speaking IF "It's close, it's not fuzzy, it's amazing." its 99.999% its a hoax...

Unless its one of ours... parked on the ground

I agree having some confirmation that the person posting is indeed who they say they are when posting here at ATS is important... BUT

IF they are who they say they are why hide behind an avatar? John Lear and Clifford Stone are not hiding behind an avatar... Type in John's name and city into google and you will get name phone number and a map to his house

James Oberg is here as JimO but it's pretty obvious who he is when you listen to him

Dr Mitchell is all over the news as himself...

The point is if your speaking out and claiming to be a specific person... why hide behind an avatar? Use your real name...

Good example right above is secretnasaman signing his post as Martyn Stubbs... then having to convince people he IS Martyn Stubbs

+++waves at Martyn++++

If he truly is MS then he is not hiding that fact so why not start with that name if your intent is to come here and reveal info?

Sure avatars are 'in' and yes I go as 'zorgon' but then I did not start out here with secrets to reveal... and 'zorgon' is more my real name anyway and even rcognized by gov departments (irrelevant) but anyone can get my real name by simply visiting my site


And now the crunch...

Once you know the person is real... the non believers still won't believe they will only attack the person all the more...

Lets say I had a contact that was ex (fill in your favorite alphabet club)... lets say he called the mods and proved he was ex (fill in your favorite alphabet club)... would anyone really believe him any more?

I am going to add a little snip from a contact... to put this in perspective... from my point of view...

There are some odd things going on here. People are contacting me who I have not heard from for years, including government people who I thought had retired! They want my opinion about the present UFO flap and anything I know about the situation in China. In a couple of cases I gained the impression that I was being interrogated in a very pleasant way, as when I mentioned past meetings in China they immediately asked for the names of my contacts, and the areas they were in. Needless to say they stay with me. Frankly I found it quite odd, and I sensed a certain urgency about it.

I will not discuss these matters outside my club, which prevents them from
taking notes, however I have good reason to believe one was wired. Some of
these people are not practiced at those things. I am declining all further
meetings, as why should I let them pick my brains?

[redacted]

The last one took a photo of me outside the club. I did not mind as I am
quite well known anyway. I guess they need a new pic for the front of my
file. I am wondering if either of you are encountering similar urgency in
the USA. It appears my [redacted] friends are being very keen at the moment.

The point is that many times a contact will share info to put you on the right track... expecting you to honor his confidence. While WE may know that the staff here would not let that info out... the contact has no way to know who he/she is giving his /her personal information to...

So the scenario... "Hey Joe I need you to contact the staff at ATS and prove who you are so I can post your info..."

Well WHO is the staff at ATS that receives the info? For me I have met Springer personally and I am sure the 3 amigos would be 'secure' but how does an outsider know this? And how does an outsider know that they are trustworthy? Only through lengthy time consuming contact... and why certain cases may be worth it, most contacts won't go through this

Like Mitchell said on Fox "I won't tell you any names" and when pushed " Well do you want to hear my story or not"


[edit on 26-7-2008 by zorgon]

Originally posted by Badge01

Originally posted by hinky
Yeah, I'd love to see some of the people vetted for their alleged education or alleged profession. People want their anonymity on many Internet sites, and this is very understandable. But then, if someone makes a claim, there are times we need to to just find a little truth from fiction.

While understandable, another expert can often easily see if a poster is the expert they claim to be. If you work in a field your knowledge is more detailed than anyone's who might be using reference books. In general, the details are in the processes or production methods.

Having said that, we all know there are those, the pretenders, who are able to fool almost everyone.

Not only are they quick learners they are good at social engineering and in 'reality hacking'. They see the vulnerabilities of the verification systems and target those.

One we all know about is Ferdinand Demara, the Great Imposter. Tony Curtis played him.

Another is Frank Abagnale, who was played in a recent movie 'Catch Me If You Can' by Leo DiCaprio. Abagnale successfully impersonated a pilot, teacher, doctor and an attorney. He was more successful than many because he had trained himself to be an expert forger and could make his own documents.

One of the most successful was Carlos Castaneda. Most know a fair amount about him already.

Still, compared to real professionals, these people are amateurs.

Why do I say that? It's obvious, because we know about them; they were caught.

The very best probably put these folks to shame, and certainly the gubmint creates identities for 'deep cover' ops, which defy attempts to uncover.

Even more 'professional' than these are the female Ninjas of the Koga region in 15th century Japan. They would be such deep cover that they'd marry into the opposing dynasty, have children, and maybe even incorporate and secretly train their daughters who would then only 'activate' when or if needed. They essentially -were- the person they were pretending to be and often if things went without incident, they'd live their lives and pass on, their true secret initiatives never revealed.

Uh, sorry to go on about this, but it's one of my areas of interest. More than you wanted to know, perhaps.

At any rate the checking that ATS might do is really rather cursory and perfunctory, and they're just trying to do the minimum, I imagine, to assure a modicum of truth and accuracy for the purposes of discussion, I'm guessing.

yeah, every time you see the case of a successful carreer criminal that pulled of tons of s$#@ and would have gotten away with it all if it werent for that one slip up that one day. and then everyone says they all slip up eventually. just imagine how many are just as good as the ones we hear about but never let that one little slip up happen. its only one thing, not much in the way of variables to change. i bet the world runs rampant with truly successful hucksters, hoaxsters, and ATS posters.

reply to post by secretnasaman


Hi Martyn,

While I don't know what you sent in (I've been in and out of the hospital for knee surgery the past three days) I can say that your IP resolves to Alberta, Canada and it's not a proxy.

I don't see what the big deal is here, if you have access to your own website, just put up something that indicates "secretnasaman" on AboveTopSecret.com is, in fact, you.

That should convince those who doubt you are "Martyn Stubbs" right?

Springer...

I see several websites which appear to be related to him.

Anyone have a link?

It shouldn't be difficult to look at the comments here and the posting style and the website commentary and see if it sounds like the same person, as well.

Martyn Stubbs dot com??

(just curious)

Originally posted by zorgon

Originally posted by hinky
I see this many times here. People trying to make themselves some self proclaimed expert

I've forgotten more than most people here know.

I recall a story about a kettle and a pot....

TOO SHAY!

I love word games and word play. You are the first to see this in some of my posts. Very, very good..... now take the pebble from my hand...

Can this site tell me my life story ?


Who am i ! Who is spy66.