Was Dan Sherman ever debunked?

I know there was an interview done here a while ago and that people have been talking about him here on ATS before, but looking around on the internet I haven't found anything really damaging about his story. Well, aside from the lack of hard evidence.

As incredible as his claims are, his credentials sure seems trustworthy.

Could this guy really be nothing more than another crack pot?

I didn't make a fuss of it at the time (it seemed impolite to "diss" a guest like that), but yes, I found his claims to be lacking in proof and his evidence to be extremely flimsy.

I think a good search of the military records might turn up some evidence that he isn't what he said he was, and I'm pretty sure some of the procedures he describes aren't in use by the armed forces. I didn't make a study of it. However, yes, I agree -- I think he's another fraud who's selling a book. And I think that you could probably knock over rather easily his claim to be an "intuitive communicator."

I can think of a number of ways to do it.

[edit on 21-6-2004 by Byrd]

Hard to say. I, too, found nothing negative on him on the internet. He does not seem to have caught the eye of mainstream ufology.

His claims are like belief in God. They can't be proven or disproven. The lack of proof other than his claims makes disbelieving his story the more acceptable than the other option.

Part of the story is that Dan doesn't claim "proof". He simply tells his story and you make up your own mind. He has not set out to "prove" anything and he will be the first to tell you, he has no proof.

I think a good search of the military records might turn up some evidence that he isn't what he said he was, and I'm pretty sure some of the procedures he describes aren't in use by the armed forces.

I can say he was certainly AF and had some knowledge of the NSA. Now, I can't say anything about the remote communications stuff, but some NSA info he speaks of is true. I have a relative that confirmed this for me. Still, it's not proof as he could have just asked someone too, but...again he is not out to prove anything.

I've seen a couple of other interviews aside from the one made by ATS that seemed far more eager to punch holes through his claims. Though he handeled those really well.

When it comes to his naval background one would think it would be pretty easy to debunk him if he was a flat out lier, right? So why haven't anyone done so?

That he supposedly got discharged by saying he was gay certainly couldn't be a reason to make up a story like this to get back at his former employer. Sure, one could claim his interest in making money of the story would be the answer, but still...

[edit on 21-6-2004 by Durden]

Dan Sherman is not alone in his claims.

Francis Crick, the Nobel Prize winning scientist who decoded DNA, believes that DNA - the stuff of all life on our planet - was brought to earth in a space ship.

Go this link onealclan0.tripod.com...

Dan Sherman is not alone in his claims.

Francis Crick, the Nobel Prize winning scientist who decoded DNA, believes that DNA - the stuff of all life on our planet - was brought to earth in a space ship.

Go this link onealclan0.tripod.com...

Thanks for the link, posting it in one thread was probably enough though

I still can't believe I'm forgetting the name of the other claimant involved in the same program as Dan... I'm going to have to find some time to research this....

The reason I remember him existing, is that when I first read Dan's story, I remember thinking back to this other gentleman with a similar story to Dan's....

From my own research though, I can tell you that such claimants tend to be fed lies about their own importance to the projects, and how "special" they are. This accomplishes two things:

1) it makes it more likely the person will come off as a crackpot if they go public.

2) it makes it more likely they will stick with the project, and keep the secrecy, as they are one of the "chosen" ones.

From my own research though, I can tell you that such claimants tend to be fed lies about their own importance to the projects, and how "special" they are. This accomplishes two things:

1) it makes it more likely the person will come off as a crackpot if they go public.

2) it makes it more likely they will stick with the project, and keep the secrecy, as they are one of the "chosen" ones.

That does sound reasonable. But what do you think those lies could be covering for?

Hmm... I do not agree with this:

Let's say you witnessed a murder out on a deserted highway. You don't have a cell phone or anything to use to call for help. So, you have to drive into the nearest town to report it. You get to the police station finally. Do you go in and report it? Under the above logic, you really shouldn't prove it since you don't have any proof. Well, that's silly, right?

Um? So he thinks it is better to not try than to try nail the killer? I mean, I could give them a report of how the killer looked like, the police would most likely check if that person exist, the killed person's contacts, if he had any enemies etc.

Because, if I don't do this, won't anybody else?

Besides, he is contradicting himself with this one. He doesn't have any proof either, so why report the whole thing?

I knew my experience would be marketable and that I would most likely make some money by sharing it.

M-hmm... he thinks it is more important to make money than to let the truth out?

I had more control over the release of the content meaning I could stop printing it if I needed to.

Umm, I find it hard to believe that such an organization would let anyone with that knowledge to leave. Remember the TV series "Dark Skies"? Well, the guy who joins MJ-12 is told that "Once you're in, you're in for life". I think this would apply to real life too, don't you?

Okay, so let's say that he did get away. Still doesn't add up why they suddenly let go of the survelliance over him. No matter how secret he did his work, let alone this grand publishing thing (you don't think he made his own papers, the printing machine, the cover?), high-up organizations would have him under the eye.

Or, they already knew what he knew, they knew he had no evidence, so, they let him go. He can write down whatever he wants in that damn book, so long there is no evidence provided.

So, I'm sorry to say, I don't believe him. Get hard evidence, and get a reliable station to send it from. Send it to all.

If you want a skeptical analysis read no further. After Louttit's diatribe Dan duked it out with him in another thread found here.

As for my personal opinion of Dan? I don't think it's altogether too outlandish to say that a persons thoughts could be used to directly control a computer (IE/ Dan's ability to flatten lines and move points on a computer screen to a given position ).

For example in recent years there's been a lot of talk of technology that helps severely handicapped people interact with the world around them. The most commonly told story has to be that of the 25 y/o quadriplegic able to play Pong through a physical neural interface. What most people don't realize is that the technology has progressed to a point where it's no longer invasive.

Not only is the technology noninvasive there are consumer devices like OCZ's NIA Brain-Computer interface that are both simple in their physical design (OCZs device is just a headband) and operate using only three sensors. Perhaps somewhat similar to the headphone set that Dan wore during his training?

What's really interesting is listening to reviewers describe the learning process. It mimics Dan's story in a number of ways. For example,

We also felt that the NIA was quite tiring to use, especially at the beginning. When just starting, we had to make large exaggerated movements to trigger the NIA's sensors. This quickly tired us out and we felt fatigued after only 20 minutes of gameplay. However, with a few days of practice, we were able to easily handle longer stints with the NIA. With some practice we didn't need to make such large movements and after a week a casual observer was no longer able to tell we were moving at all. (source)

Compare that to Dan's comment from his book Above Black,

My instructor told me to mentally visualize two points in space, each representing separate tones that would be alternately played in the headphones. As I did this I was to force the two points together creating one point in space. He said they would resist one another like opposite poles of a magnet but that I had to visualize myself sapping the energy from each of them, bringing that energy towards myself, so that they would no longer be able to force themselves apart.

This exercise proved extremely difficult. My mind felt like it was weightlifting the whole time.

Also the reviewer's description of "brain fingers," a mechanism to map alpha and beta brain waves to certain computer actions, very closely parallels Dan's experience during his PPD training.

At the time of writing, we have learned to control several Brainfingers, however it is difficult to pin-point when we learned how to use them. We initially started trying to learn Brainfingers in the configuration utility by observing the real-time graph of the Brainfinger sensors. We found that we could make the Brainfingers all drop together by relaxing, breathing deeply and clearing our minds. This was easy to do consistently in the configuration utility but unfortunately you can't exactly count on it in a tense multiplayer deathmatch. We also found that working ourselves from a relaxed state to an excited state raised the Brainfingers, also quite consistently.

[edit on 25-7-2008 by Xtraeme]

Continuation of previous post

Using these observations, we modified the UT3 profile we had been using for daily practice with the addition of the Beta 2 Brainfinger. We chose it because it seemed to move with the most consistency and we set it to simply switch to the next weapon. This proved quite chaotic for this first day or two since a sudden tense moment in the game would cause the weapon to change unexpectedly. Over time, we eventually got a hang on controlling the Beta 2 Brainfinger. We were able to change weapons in the game at will, with only a slight bit of effort and concentration. Unfortunately we found that we were not actually just controlling Beta 2, but also Beta 3 and 4. We eventually learned how to separate Beta 2 from Beta 3 although Beta 4 still alludes us.

The NIA doesn't come with any documentation on how to learn to use the Brainfngers and we think we know why. There is simply no way to explain how it is done, you must simply learn it from experience. Overall, the best advice we have for learning how to use Brainfingers is to simply play with them in a game. (source)

It would be great if we could get Dan to try one of these devices to see how proficient he'd be at using it. When I have some extra time I think I'll pick one up and see if humming notes like Dan described in his book accelerates or eases the learning process.