The Hard Balance Of Trying To Be Balanced: Hoaxes, Frauds, And Truth

For me, I'd like one thing only as a "button" or option so to speak.

A simple header that says one of two things...

VERIFIED

UN-VERIFIED

VERIFIED meaning that there is an actual person, real person, that submitted the sighting or information that is willing to continue to talk about it, submit FULL untouched photos or video files, etc.

Un-verified meaning... Posted by a member that got it off You Tube, with NOTHING to go on, period.

That would about do it for me. I'm all for K.I.S.S. (Keep it simple stupid)

Some time ago, I raised the question of ATS/BTS being infiltrated by government agencies.

My reason? A serving police officer and myself whitnessed the so called doughnut contrails of the Aurora flying southwest over Gloucestershire.

Yet when I tried to post a thread about this, it failled to materialise anywhere within the ATS.

By way of reply, I received several messages via the U2U service and a couple from Mods who told me the same thing - basically it was my fault - I musy have done something wrong in posting my intended thread.

I let the matter drop but, like so many others on this site, I have been startled at some of the responses to fairly innocuous threads.

I have noticed that there is a trend towards slagging off Yanks and we Brits at best, or causing us to fight or use aggressive language amongst ourselves, of which I am guilty - 5 day ban, richly deserved.

Some people do come to ATS with a hidden agenda but I find that if somebody really does get up my nose and will not see reason, then I simply use the ignore button.

fritz:

I suggest reposting the incident, I would love to read it.

I assure you there is lots of representation of "Government Agencies" here by way of IP Addresses, but they can do no more or less than any other Visitor/Registered Member so it doesn't mean much.

The reality of the "interesting replies" to innocuous posts is a function of traffic growth. Millions of people are discovering ATS each month, many of them have little or no experience in "Internet Forum Decorum" and even less in the topics we discuss here. That will lead to a learning curve that can get a little messy now and then.

Springer...

Originally posted by fritz
Some time ago, I raised the question of ATS/BTS being infiltrated by government agencies.

My reason? A serving police officer and myself whitnessed the so called doughnut contrails of the Aurora flying southwest over Gloucestershire.

Yet when I tried to post a thread about this, it failled to materialise anywhere within the ATS.

You came to the conclusion that ATS had to be infiltrated because your thread did not garner much attention? Was it trashed by the staff? Closed? Or was it given an opportunity to breath, just as any other thread, but didn't take flight because members chose not to engage?

As Springer has said, I'd certainly love to read of your story. But the insinuation that ATS has been infiltrated, purely based on this notion that your thread didn't get the attention you feel it should have, well.. doesn't seem to make much sense to me.

The logical conclusion that I am coming to is the thread itself wasn't what members were looking for. But then again there are a lot of factors that come into play. I've noticed a trend over the years that ATS is a little quiet on weekends. (Sundays especially) I might be wrong, but it seems that way to me. So if I author a thread on a Saturday or a Sunday, it might not get the attention it deserves. Come Monday, it's resting in the ashes and nowhere to be found by members who might actually be interested.

Depending on other current threads, that could also dictate the attention your thread gets.

There are plenty of legitimate explanations for your thread not getting any attention, all that make much more sense that ATS being infiltrated.

When you can get an opportunity, could you u2u me a link?

Thanks.

What is the point in debating the extraordinary, or conspiracies if you open the flood gates to hoaxers who frankly belong in mental institutions.

At some point you cross a dividing line where the forum itself loses all credibility.

It becomes seen as a repository for nutcases and people with a flimsy grasp on reality. Once that is the wider perception, not even the most sincere poster with all their facts straight can get their voice heard.

Look at it from the point of conspiracy for a moment. Not saying this is true for a moment, but just consider it. If you were the US Government or CIA etc and tired of the damage being done by accurate disclosures, or effective criticism by ATS, how would you counter it ?

One weapon which the US Government has adopted is to set up a branch of the military called Psyops.

The aim of Psyops is to create confusion and disinformation. What better target for Psyops than ATS ?

If you flood ATS with nutcase hoax stories then eventually ATS itself will be discredited as a source for credible information. Enough said.

The Hard Balance Of Trying To Be Balanced: Hoaxes, Frauds, And Truth

Better late than never (almost) S.O.--

So now you know why I backed off posting to the Boards. Simply put-- I found the subject matter 60% senseless overall; sorry to say it, too. For this member, failure to draw conclusions over time regards Conspiracy Theory represents a fault. There can be no continuing Pro/Con Debate in connection with something like 9/11. 9/11 is NOT a "debate", it is an investigative pursuit in which the investigators involved, by the nature of what they do, do not form "opinions"--rather, they will eventually draw logical and non-speculative conclusions based on evidence. We are well beyond the time of "I don't believe it was a conspiracy", vs, "I do believe it." OF COURSE 9/11 was a Conspiracy-- and the question is "who's?", who is involved? Yet, I see most of us don't realize that--at least that is what the posts I see on it are telling me. Sort all the posts out since day one, remove the duplications, and you can reduce the volume by 2/3rds.

Just my own stupidity and attitudes, but it would appear to me that a site with as much intelligence as has otherwise been demonstrated by some few members up here on some topics, that we could at least have a few threads or even an entire Forum, where actual, logical and well founded conclusions could be drawn from Evidence, and solid plans laid to deal with it, and/or insure that such does not happen again.

I have doubts, anymore, that enough of us desire the sort of inter-intellect and inter-disciplinary networking that can take place on a site like ATS, and by such do some real good in the World. It would seem that everyone has an opinion--well thought out one's being the rarity. Opinions are NOT answers, Folks, and it is answers we, and the rest of the World, need.

Enough! Maybe I'm putting more stock into computer communications and networking than it deserves--and giving "at large" World Citizens more credit for good sense than they actually have. But--it is a hope. It may happen on ATS or elsewhere--but in NEEDS to happen somewhere. We have slept long enough, at it is time to wake the hell up.

Balance.

Its a terrible thing to try and achieve, especially on ATS

Think about it. Poster A says the moon is made of cheese. Poster B says thats dumb because people have been to the moon. Poster C says that Poster B is dumb because everyone knows that the moon landings were faked. Poster D says Poster C can't prove that. Poster E says that poster B can't prove his case either as only a certain amount of people have been to the moon and they've all be silenced by the government. Poster F chimes in and says that they were silenced because of what they saw on the moon. Poster G asks what they saw. Poster H chips in and says UFO's. Poster I says thats bunk because UFO's don't exist. Poster J puts up detailed accounts of major UFO sightings backed up with expert testimony of military pilots and radar tapes and Poster K says that can be explained as government secret projects. Poster L backs poster K up with details of several budgetary holes for black projects. Poster M asks poster A what type of cheese it was.....

Balance I do not envy the moderators and the amigos!!

I have had a lot of experiences in life that most would suspect as a hoax if I were to start talking. At what point do you dismiss the possibilities that exist because they do not meet within the boundaries of the accepted norm? To me life is a mosaic of the known the unknown and the unknowable.

Originally posted by antar
I have had a lot of experiences in life that most would suspect as a hoax if I were to start talking. At what point do you dismiss the possibilities that exist because they do not meet within the boundaries of the accepted norm? To me life is a mosaic of the known the unknown and the unknowable.

Thank you Antar,

I couldn't have said it better myself. Would you like to start a Thread regards this? I'm Game.

I think you nailed at least a major part of the "problem" up here. There are those who remain trapped in the Illusion, and those who have seen and chosen Reality. maybe such a thread can treat that issue?


[edit on 15-6-2007 by Ed Littlefox]

Hello,

I live not to far from "Simon Gray" and believe me I we are atched daily!

The rain here is very bad!

"NO NOT REIGN" rain...

"COME BACK IN 12 MONTHS"

"Tell me that you'll open your eyes"?

Vauxhall cars are crap:.(

TQ

Originally posted by tomquinn
Hello,

I live not to far from "Simon Gray" and believe me I we are atched daily!

Umm... I hate to kill the paranoia but I'm not watched (or at least can say with 99.999% certainty) in the sense you are implying.

I just don't know any more. I DO know the conspiracy of silence that settled round RAF Biggin Hill, Bromley South, London and the south-east coast in April 1976. I know, because I was an unwilling part of it - as I have posted on these Boards, several times.

I also know what I saw, and I believed in what I saw. More importantly, I disbelieved the people I spoke to, when they said I did not see what I know I saw.

I have always believed. And THAT surely is the point. It is whether or not you believe and, if you believe and understand that belief, you start to ask questions.

Billions of people across the world, believe in a God of one sort or another, or a mystical being with supernatural powers, perhaps from an ancient time, but whatever the case, they have never seen him or her.

Yet these people who so blindly believe in this diety, refuse to believe or countenance the existence of extraterrestrials or acknowledge the possibility that life may and does exist on another planet.

If you believe in an unseen God, and I must suppose that many of you do, why is it so hard for you to accept that perhaps, maybe, God could have been from another planet.

Remember, Ezekiel. He is said to have seen a flaming wheel within a wheel. He said that when Jesus ascended into Heaven, there was fire and brimstone and Jesus rose up on a flaming charriot.

If you accept the existance of God without hesitation or question and somebody tells you that they saw God walking down the street, why can't you accept that without question. Why do you need proof? Therein lies the second question, almost hidden in the back of our minds.

Just because we believe, we are also born skeptics and because we are skeptical, there are those amongst us who seek to destroy our beliefs for their own purposes.

Hi! All:
First of all, I wish to say I'm not a frequent visitor of this forum which I visit from time to time since some years ago. Also I do not intend to say nothing new neither something moderators and senior members have not already foreseen. Anyway, it is necessary to realize due to exceptional nature of this forum it always will be target for professional hoaxers, frauds aannnnnnndd Debunkers and Trolls; most dangerous these last. Because hoaxes and frauds can be quickly dismantled by means of efficient and informed members in order to help to new ones but D. & T. activities are devastating. In these last few years I've seen vanishing a few conspiracy forums (in Spanish). Last one was last year in Spain. It was a great growing chemtrail & cell towers forum. This forum also used to receive feedbacks from Germany and Italy. Several commercial pilots, planes techs, meteorologist and normal people started to share (some of them anonymously _javascript:icon('')
_javascript:icon('')) amazing info. till "someone" decided forum had gone too far. Webmaster + 3 collaborators closed the site after 3 or 4 months of attacks in all aspects in their personal lifes. Not physically. So right now we have just a couple of conspy forums infested with trolls.
In some forums membership is obtained through referrals of other members but I imagine this is not possible in such a huge forum as ATS. Also I wonder whether it wold be possible to create a blacklist of hoaxers, debunkers and trolls, ... though since you can easily get a public IP, it is not possible, I presume ...
Even, right now, who knows how many debunkers could be reading this post and replying as an 'affected' and sorry member!!
I have only lately developed a not full defined sense to detect D & T. And I think they follow a pattern but I must refine it ....
OK! Folks! I Wanted to share with you all these above lot of words. I hope you're not bored.
Thx
13th_Level
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Vi Veri Veniversum Vivus Vici

Solving the 9/11 Forum


Everyone has noticed that the 9/11 Forum is the most emotionally charged, confusing, member-ban-causing and overloaded.

Without taking any side whatsoever (which would immediatly result in loads of hostile attacks on me), the charged atmosphere in the Forum is so exaggerated that it has started to impede the advancement of facts and truth. Where there`s that much confusion its safe to say that someone is probably spreading disinformation deliberately.

My solution for this would be for the administration of the site or a neutral party to open a fixed thread for the 4 main theories, meaning 4 fixed threads with a strictly factual summary of the reasons proponents of that theory believe it to be true.

The four opening posts of each thread would be required reading before posting anything at 9/11. Should anyone open a thread or post any claim that contradicts what has been established in the four threads, in the four theories, he gets warned.

The real problem is that members have entirely different pre-suppostions of what reality is...so entirely different worlds collide.

For someone who pre-supposes that our government is wickedly smart and applies psy-ops and is generally disrespectful of the public, its not a real stretch to propose a "hologram theory". But for someone who pre-supposes that reality is what it looks like and what the news says it is, 9/11 conspiracy-theories are an outrage...not too mention the even deeper rabbit hole of hologram-theories. Any debate will have a long spectrum from the extremes of one side to the other side. Put 4 side by side and let people compare and decide for themselves.