what event opened your eyes?

was it something you read, something you witnessed?

for me it was being young and dumb, swinging marijuana out of tucson arizona. a friend i supplied got busted and turned me into the dea. i was indicted and picked up, faced 33-41 months according to the manditory minimums at the time. dumped a truckload of cash into a lawyer, only to be told that there was very little he could do to help me if i didn't cooperate and turn in my suppliers. there was some real screwy things about my case, and i came to the realization that the government is willing to lie, cheat or steal to win or get a plea bargin at the very least. going up against the government was a lose, lose situation. while doing my 2 years in the federal pen, i sat at the only interracial table in the joint, got the crap beat out of me twice by the aryan brotherhood, i'm a white guy, this brought me to the realization that i was actually safer with others than my own kind. i studied and studied while locked up, i began to realize the new world order was real. i began to study conspiracy theories, realizing there was truth in just about all of them.
this was 25 years ago, and i have not stopped.
there are many topics that can be included here, i hope this was not to drug oriented for the rules here, and i searched the topic and didn't find anything.

I first woke up to the religion trap because it's nonsensical and contradictory. That started me down the path of trying to find what is true. 911 woke me up to the corruption and lies of government. Since then I have found very little that isn't a con.

It was when my brother came home beaten and bloody, in his early 20s.

We lived in a surfside tourist city in Australia. It attracted lots of US servicemen, who spent their R & R there, during the Viet Nam war.

My brother and a couple of his friends had been talking with the Americans, playing pool with them, etc. The more the servicemen drank, the more they talked. Then a couple of them began laughing about killing Viet children. They were laughing about the children's antics as they'd died, which the servicemen found hilarious -- in the same way people laugh at You Tube when people at weddings fall over, slip into swimming pools, trip, fall on top of others and so on. It was what the kids had done while they were dying -- the way they ran around or fell over, things they said, etc. -- that the servicemen found hysterically funny.

Up until then, most people in our city had treated the servicemen like heroes. People stood in line to buy them drinks and slap them on the back. People were offering free use of their homes, taking the servicemen in as members of their families, taking them out fishing, etc. The newspapers had photos of the servicemen on the front pages and featured them as in: 'Here's Joe from Idaho. He's looking forward to getting back to his family in the US and in the meantime is a splendid ambassador for his country. Here's a photo of Joe yesterday at X-school, surrounded by admiring children who presented him with a poster they made in his honour', etc.

So people were pretty shocked by the callousness of the US servicemen when it emerged. It ran contrary to everything people believed. People didn't want to believe it. But there it was, out in the open .. they were laughing and talking about killing kids and having sex with terrified women and girls overseas and we were all treating them like heroes.

My brother couldn't believe it when one US serviceman graphically described how he'd killed kids by offering them food first. The guy was roaring with laughter about how the kids had died with the food hanging out of their mouths. Some people left, shocked and sickened. My brother and one of his mates expressed their disgust but didn't run. They were beaten to pulp by the US servicemen who used pool cues on them and kicked them when they fell to the ground. A lot of my brother's teeth were smashed in. People witnessed what happened. The police were called, but it was hushed up. That venue banned US servicemen after that.

It changed things for a lot of us. Until then, like typical Sheep, we'd loved everything American and had believed the US was really the way it portrayed itself in tv-shows and movies. We could never believe it again. And some of us began questioning everything we'd been fed, by our own and other governments .. and haven't stopped questioning through all the years since.

thats crazy, now that i think back i don't really remember what the turning point/issue was.
i was just dinkin around the net one day and found myself a good website with articles on many subjects...i think i may have started with the denver international airport which then branched off from there.

i think it took something initially disturbing (like the murals and supposed intricate tunnel system) and then of course when you are looking up things like that you stumble on more and more and more...and now i'm eyebrow deep in "conspiracy theories"

zeitgeist was a good introduction when i first began, and of course freedom to fascism. alex jones. my ideas have changed a bit since i started out on my "truth journey" and i must admit, i don't care for alex now. i wouldn't be surprised to find out he is an insider and giving out some true, some false info...but definitely opened my eyes and started me out on issues....so i guess he can't be all bad....

Mines pretty boring.

Just after 9/11 I realised that whenever I was watching telly and I was flicking through the channels I automatically on the hour, if I was not watching something else, went straight to the news channels to get their headlines.

Then I thought to my self 'did I really care before?' - I could not remember, honestly!...

So from then I started taking an interest in who's point of view I was actually listening to.

Told you - boring.

St Vaast:

That post is heart-wrenching. Not much else I can say about it.

For me, it was 9-11. I was in the military for about a year before September the 11th and was set to turn 21 six days after.

This was a day I was looking forward to as I was going to 'come of age' stationed just outside of Honolulul, Hawaii. I really thought I was in good shape.

However, a couple of weeks BEFORE 9-11 a portion of my unit was sent to Bahrain (sp?), which is just off the coast of Afghanistan. This didn't cause much concern within the ranks during the time because this is just the sort of thing that happens when you are in the service.
However, it struck me odd almost immediately when that same portion of my unit found themselves on the front lines in Afghanistan immediately following the events in New York City.

So, with that in combination with the lack of appropriate Government response I pretty much knew that the Government at least KNEW that the attacks were to take place, and where they planned to counter-strike.

Much much later down the line I realized just HOW INVOLVED the Government actually was and lets just say that I no longer work for the US Army. They aren't a tool of the US anymore. They are a tool of the Global Elite and their goal is currently world domination... but at the price of the fall of the American way of life.

My oath is still to this day to protect our Constitution and I fight for it every day. But not like I used to. Now all I can do is tell people about it.

It is frustrating, though. Nobody cares enough to even listen.

I've always believed and been interested in ghosts and aliens, but the one event that really opened my eyes was the movie Zeitgeist. I knew everything in that movie could easily be false or exaggerated, but it was presented in a way that opened many doors to me, each of those opening even more. It was the first time I actually considered that some of the conspiracy theories out there could in fact be true.

reply to post by Now_Then


I don't find that boring at all.
In fact, I think it is fascinating.

Most people wouldn't be bothered to make that critical thinking leap. Their programming isn't fool-proof, so to speak.

They still aren't perfect.

What made me to lose my mind?

I lost my dreams, my friends, and my girl.

"Insane" that's what this society calls people who had opened their eyes.

reply to post by JayinAR
I really liked your post Jay.I too have to say 9/11 opened my eyes.I too believe the gov. knew the attacks were gonna happen.Your post has just added fuel to that belief.Thanks for your honesty.



St Vaast,that was the most heart wrenching post I,ve read in a long time.

For me it was the hypocrisy and lies of government media right after 9/11. Specifically, how the reason for going into iraq changed and basically nobody challenged it.
I believe religion is corrupted but also that something is trying to pervert/demonize it for a reason.
..not nearly as cool as your story but hey, not every gets ratted out, wow.

First, I awakened to the magnitude of evil in the USA's government with the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. (Yes, I am ancient and I'm still here). I do feel badly for U.S. Americans because they have been fed so many lies that have been repeated so often that they are at a loss when faced with the moral claims of the innocent victims of the USA. (Yes, other countries have horrible events and plenty of skeletons in the closet, but that fact does not exonerate the USA and give it Carte Blanche to kill, maim, and torture.)

President Kennedy's assassination was another wake up call. And in more recent years various events having to do with the Bush family in the States have made it abundantly clear that we are dealing with a deeply entrenched evil elite that mirrors the terrors of the Shining Darkness himself.

My first "grab you by the throat" experience was the JFK assassination. I was a second grader at the time.

My family kept me pretty well protected, so even though a lot was going down when I was very young and a teenager, I never saw or heard of most of it.

I did read the famous book about Hiroshima, which was a quite appalling story. Then I learned about the holocaust and other things done by the guys who were supposed to be the bad guys. Then, while I was in Berkeley, I found out about electroshock. And not much after that a book, and then a taped briefing, informed me about what psychiatry had been up to and who (in general terms) was behind it. After that I never turned back.

An interesting question and some interesting replies so far .

Now I'm sure some of you would say my eyes are still closed wide shut when it comes to certain topics but that doesn't bother me and its not what I'm going to talk about. I realised the truth about different things at different times and some of them slowly while others quickly.

The media for example but more specifically the news was first exposed to me as a money hungry lying dishonest beast back when, in the UK, there was the paedophile hunt. Everyday the papers ran stories about the paedophile menace and the threat. It caused much fear in the parents of our nation and lowered the liberties granted to our children in general. The sad part being that statistically the problem was no greater than it ever had been and that the real problem was that the news had no other stories to run so it cashed in on our fears. I realised this because of a man called Chris Morris, his satire on the media is genius and made me research further. Since watching and listening to his works I cannot see the news in the same light again. Unfortunately the same is happening today with knife crime among other things.

On a less specific note I'd have to say my reading of many great books (mostly modern classics) and the two years I spent studying philosophy formally really freed me from the shackles of convention. Philosophy taught me the power of critical thinking, reason and thorough analysis and as I like to say; a little critical thinking goes a long way.

It was during the Reagan Administration.

Being a kid then, I would often be shushed away from the adults and sent off to play outside. Being the little sneaky Houdini I was... listened in on their conversations and heard some stuff people didn't talk about openly.

It was then, having discovered why the older people, always told us to buy American. I remember hearing those words through out my childhood while growing up. I now know why, and wish more would have heard those words and remembered them.

I grew up in a time when the cold war was still a threat, and my elders made sure I wouldn't forget. I only wish more people listened to their elders, because they are or were respected by us then. They were our grandparents and parents, service man and woman back from Panama, Vietnam, Korea and other conflicts and wars.

I remember when our service members went to Panama, I was just getting into martial arts then.

People these days, almost seem to want to forget the times we come from.

Too bad, the rest of us never will.

Lessons learned or not, we have to realise that some thing you may not beleive in, is by some one else.

It is their truth, and ignoring such doesn't make that less so.

I was brought up knowing that maintaining an open mind, and awareness of my enviornment was important. Having said such, I proudly admit to being a product of such.

We all have a "need to know", and the more people who accept it, the easier denying ignorance will be.

The opportunity for all of us to have our "eyes opened" is all around us.
The factor varies depending on peoples perception, and their reception to such.

If they keep themselves locked away in their own private world, "sheltered" from reality, and refuse to have an open mind. We can not help one, who won't help them self.

We can choose, and that choice is the difference between trying and knowing we did.

And sitting by wondering what could have been, if we had only tried...



Let it be known, those who knew, tried.

When I was a kid the fed shot Sam as he ran away and Vicki while holding her baby up on Ruby Ridge. About the same time the fed burned a bunch of kids to death for their religion in Waco, Texas.

That' taught me the government had no issue with killing me.

As I got older and finance came into play I started to pay more attention to my tax burden and how it is all enforced at the barrel of a gun. The Browns showed us that nicely.

So we have an entity that answers to no one, is fine with if not happy with killing its own citizens for the most benign misdemeanor (a misdemeanor that this very entity has charged you with), that is funded and armed by the property it confiscates from its citizens under threat of death or imprisonment.

I can't say there was ever a period in my life when I did trust the gov. Maybe times when I wasnt paying attention or cared because I was 10 and had better things to do but from about 12 years old to today any and all authoritarians have had my distrust.

i first began waking up to reality at the age of 7 years.
it just seemed obvious to me at that young age that society was take take take from the environment, at 7 it just didnt seem to be a balanced way to live life.
now i am quite a bit older, i can look back at that moment & clearly see i was right, the sad thing about it is, humanity is still take take take & the overall destruction of many environments is taking place now much faster than back then,
now i am older i can also see that its much more complex, the games of deception, mis guidence, lies, conspiracy, denial of trueth, divide & rule, the pass the buck in a circle, & the huge number of hurdles put in the way to stop people from finding the trueth.
the elaborate scam society has built not only makes sure this self destruction continues, but it also stops people from opting out in most cases.
& if you try & find the trueth, you will some times find your self be-littled & persicuted by the many whome have yet to wake up.
but i have no regrets, ide much rather be awake & see whats coming than see life as some kind of wierd capitolist game where the biggest winner is he/her who lives far beond their means & accumilates the most.

reply to post by rubbertramp


As I suspect with many Americans, the events of 9/11 really opened my eyes. Sadly I was not aware of the real truth until late 2007. Still new to this reality that we are all dominated and pushes around like chess pawns by a corrupted corporate elite system.

Since then I have dived head first into this corruption, trying to learn all that I can as if there was some way to escape our ill fate. Watching day by day as the predicted coming events unfold before our very eyes. Unable to find comfort in rational conversation becuase my entire social circle pins me as the nutty conspirator. Sign and symbols all screaming out at me, illusions and subliminal's I would have never recognized had I not investigated them. I can't go to a parade without noticing the esoteric symbols of the 'shrine masons' on floats, hats and pins.

Some times I wounder if its worth it. If knowing the truth is better than being comfortably cloaked in the lie. While others are checking email and worrying about celebrity's, I'll be hear, effortlessly doing what I can to help, change or survive the upcoming events.

In my case I was shown how to open my eyes by another

A few years back I got a wonderful Science teacher in my last year at secondary school.

She got us to start questioning the validity of data and where it came from. She was unique in the fact she taught my class both sides of the Global Warming debate. She showed us first what we were meant to see and then showed us the Global Warming Swindle.

I started researching into it and realised that the facts can be twisted and that whole industries can be corrupted by money. In my searches I started coming across other Conspiracies and took an interest in Free Energy, Time Wave Zero, Middle East Issues and Religion. Finally six months ago I found ATS and my eyes have been opening further ever since.

The 'thing' that opened my eyes was nicola tesla .. and i took the path from there Ending up at ATS a 6 yr journey at least .. Ats has made me lazy in looking and researching for the unknown as many atser's put the work in ahead of Time .. thxs ( not sayin its a good thing ive become lazy but there u go )