Online pictorals make people buy antiquated newspapers?

That's weird. Why buy what you can get for free?

Why use North American symbols for a paper sold in London? Isn't that a bit far afield? I mean, I have no intention of buying a london paper, when there isn't a darn thing in it that I can't get elsewhere, closer, and usually free.

Though I agree that nothing gets in by accident.

I wouldn't doubt that it is a viral marketing thing. It is about as unethical and lacking in sense as booze-for-breakfast-journalists generally are. Appeal to a world wide audience to try and sell more local pieces of paper.

Qualifies for the hammering a nail with a nuclear weapon for marketing.

Originally posted by mmiichael
Mike F

[edit on 2009/2/2 by Aeons]

Hi, I'm a long time reader of ATS but new to it's forums. I posted one of the anonymous posts earlier that didn't show up on the thread. The only reason I posted anonymously was because it seemed faster than registering, no offense, and I figured a little extra security never hurts. It is very nice of ATS to offer that option. But I can't figure out why it never showed up, my post was similiar to all the others in this thread. I was simply offering my observations and interpretations of the Blackjack pics. If I made some kind of faux pas I apologize, but I can't think of what it was. If a moderator wants to chime in or send me an email I'd be happy to take their advice.

My basic point was that the aerial pics of London, I think pic 19, show the bomb originating from a place called Vincent Square. Another post earlier seems to back this up. I figured it out by comparing Google Earth to the aerial shots. On Google Earth there is a 'place of interest' marker that reads "Vincent Street (sight to park)". This just seemed odd to me for a few reasons. 1) Is this marker indicating a public parking area for visitors? If so could it be the hypothetical place where the white van is supposed to stop? 2) Why 'sight' not 'site'? Maybe that's the proper British spelling, I was schooled in the rebel colonies but I know my lorries and lifts, etc. Could it also refer to the London Eye, a reoccuring symbol in the Blackjack story? 3) Vincent Square and the adjacent Westminster School are historic locations but do not have their own place of interest markers. No big deal, many historic places haven't been marked and every block in London probably has historic locations. But why would someone go out of their way to mark a more generic spot when those two places are only a skip away?

I had a couple other ideas I'll save for later posts. I was just hoping a Londoner could have a look and give their opinion. I think ATS is a great sight, I mean, umm, site. The tone here is much more scholarly than on some other forums. Thanks.

Thanks for clearing up at least one of the anonymous postings. Why it should have been deleted I don't know. Maybe anonymous postings are being phased out but they haven't sorted out all the tweaks needed to the site.

Speaking of which, no, there's no difference between US and UK spellings of those words afaik. People do confuse them, though, so maybe whoever added that caption to Google Earth just made a mistake.

I'm not close enough to London to go check the area for myself, sorry.

And if this is viral marketing what the hell is it supposed to be selling, because it's not the Hellograph.

Andy/Essan - I know you must be busy, what with us actually having some weather at the moment... are you still here? Should I U2U you to get you to update? Justin's a mate, is he? Does this say anything for your character?

Originally posted by rich23

Andy/Essan - I know you must be busy, what with us actually having some weather at the moment... are you still here? Should I U2U you to get you to update? Justin's a mate, is he? Does this say anything for your character?

Sorry, been away and as you say, the weather is now more of a priority. Not heard from Justin but he's someone I know from a UK weather forum (and have known since 2002 when he was just a sub editor on the Daily Mail). I'll try and chase him up although I rather suspect he's deliberately lying low and having a good laugh at all the fuss.

Thanks Andy - I look forward to whatever you can find out.

UpAllNight - much as I appreciate diligence I really doubt the reflection's been photoshopped. When you look at the photos showing the bomb and damage, the work isn't of a terribly high standard. I doubt that whoever did it would go to all that trouble. There's a large Victorian brick pile in the area which might make that reflection - I can't remember what it is offhand.

As for the bioweapons stuff - if it's a nuke attack, I'd say there's not much point as there'd be enough damage already.

Originally posted by TheWayISeeIt
I'm not trying to be snide, but I am curious is this a new concept to those on this thread?

It's certainly a new concept to me, but that's fine: new concepts are part of why I'm here.

The only thing is, though, how are people supposed to particupate in this particular example? From what I can glean, Justin doesn't seem terribly keen to be associated with his creation.

I don't know how much "conspiracy theory" (how I detest that phrase, but let it ride) you've been exposed to, but one of the themes that continually recurs is the idea that the conspirators behind events like to put things "in plain sight" before the event.

The classic example of this would be the reference to "a galvanising event, like a new Pearl Harbor" in Rebuilding America's Defenses, published by The Project For The New American Century - the people behind 9/11.

Frankly, i doubt that even our duplicitious and murderous security services would go as far as nuking London, but I don't like what I see in BlackJack one little bit nonetheless. At the least, it's scaremongering.

I did contemplate the idea of it being some sort of ARG or online role-playing game. As I said above it seems to be designed more as a puzzle. There are many "facts" in the slide show that just don't seem to fit together, like the introduction which states that the attacks are the work of a coalition of homegrown extremists, Islamicists, and christian doomsday cultists. Doesn't seem too likely those groups would connect up and work together in harmony without someone blowing the whistle. Even if that was disinformation to scare people, how legitimate would it seem to the average person, especially after multiple nukes go off in cities around the world.

But the more troubling question is why would the Telegraph allow someone to host this on their site? They have gotten enough attention that they must know it's there, and the story is expanding into it's third chapter. Is their only ethical responsibility to have a simple 'work of fiction' type disclaimer?

In the meantime I find it rather fascinating. Your ARG theory would explain someone planting info on Google Earth.

Brilliant Like the way the UK is part of UNA but not Europe

Still not heard anything from Justin ...... Rumour is he's out of the country

I'm willing to wager 2000 points that this turns out to an ARG. Anyone care to take the bet? If I am right it will be interesting to see what the 'prize' is or who is funding it and to what end. Maybe it is the Telegraph showing a new way to advertise.

I have to say being able to launch and run it out of a major intl. newspaper certianly gives the creator an edge. The hardest part about these things is getting people involved while believing it is 'real', so they are functioning from a place of extreme curiousity.

At a certain point in the jig is always up, meaning the participants realize they are playing a game but, if successfuly executed, at that point they are so immersed in it they keep going to see what is at the end.

Anyway, if anyone wants a piece post here AND u2u me.



[edit on 4-2-2009 by TheWayISeeIt]

The Telegraph is now promoting Blackjack pt 3 on its site. They are linking to it from the home page, I don't believe they did that for the first 2 parts. The disclaimer now says all events and characters are fictional, a little more specific than the previous disclaimer. And the artwork is much more sophisticated (still not anything amazing), taking on a multi-panel comic book format. So it would seem the powers that be at the Telegraph have been listening to feedback and have adjusted their approach to comfort people and make the whole thing less creepy. Maybe this was the plan all along. We actually get something of a narrative this time, instead of the disjointed images and brief captions. The story still doesn't make much sense, either as a viable conspiracy or as entertainment. So I'm guessing this is the end of our fun, and it turns out to be a promo for a TV show or video game.

If this is the case, I still can't fathom that someone thought this was a good idea. What would happen if the print edition of a major newspaper, a paper like the New York Times perhaps, published three or four pages of images like these without any other explanation, and just ran a line at the bottom declaring it fictional? That would make a lot of people very uncomfortable, even if many of them had dismissed the story as fictional nonsense. And if some 16 year old started his own web site and posted this, I wouldn't care. But it makes me a little uneasy.

Originally posted by Up All Night
The disclaimer now says all events and characters are fictional, a little more specific than the previous disclaimer.

It seems Justin made himself head of the NAU, what a mong.

Oh and the work done on its still crap, very basic, cant the telegraph afford to employ a professional to do it. Surely they got web designers with a bit more skill.

Sorry but the first set is still more visually interesting. There is far more going on in each picture, more visual luring, and even things that aren't apparent the slides.

This is just not the case with the other two.

Too bad.

Originally posted by orgyofthedead
It seems Justin made himself head of the NAU, what a mong.

I laughed so hard I almost did a little wee.

And, yes, what a disappointment. Terrible artwork.

And yup, it's all there - martial law, the amero, FEMA camps.

The three guys looking over the reports don't look like a coalition of fundamentalist Christians and Muslims, though this is hardly a surprise. And they just had to make the new captial Denver, didn't they? Whoever did this is certainly steeped in CT lore. (If you don't know why I say this, Google "new Denver airport" and see what comes up.)

For some reason I can't get that episode of The Lone Gunmen out of my head - the one where the guy who looks like Garth out of Wayne's World is trapped on a plane that's going to crash into a skyscraper. Only he has the technical savvy to save the day by turning off the hidden remote pilot controls.

So Andy... Justin's out of the country, is he? Hmm, going to hang out with his Illuminati brethren, perform satanic rituals, drink the blood of small children perhaps?

Do let us know if he tells you to leave the country!

Who is this Justin? Is this Justin Oldham the guy from Alaska? Or someone else?

Anyway it's interesting... And you talk about Denver... I thought that the new NAU capital would be Atlanta?

what I'd like to know is where they got the pictures of all the cars leaving, and then of the buildings and what they looked like after being bombed..I know of photoshop..but those looked really realistic...way out there..way way out there...but my first thoughts? were what if these were pictures from the future? I watch toooooo much scifi