Why do people believe in conspiracy theories, or why does Tom exist...

[devilock76]

Flash drives or anything that plugs into the USB are strictly verboten around here. I can't even plug in my ipod

// It's a conspiracy!

Wow. Meanwhile the IT staff is in a major Starcraft II Battle...!

[jamesstew]

We should do a poll on the top ten conspiracy theories people on here either believe in or are skeptical about. Here's a cool rundown:
http://www.livescience.com/strangene...-theories.html

[sgreger1]

I have used portable apps, most often I use portable GIMP for graphics work on the go.

Ken

GIMP ftw! That's an oldschool program I havn't tried using it in forever. I bet it's a lot cooler now.

[devilock76]

GIMP ftw! That's an oldschool program I havn't tried using it in forever. I bet it's a lot cooler now.

We might not be talking about the same GIMP, here is what I am talking about:

http://www.gimp.org/

Ken

[truthwolf1]

Thanks for the UFO vid Sgreger.

A lot of these night time vids/cameras never really capture the actual experience, I am sure.
Will take your word on it's authenticity. If what your friend states is true then yes, that is a big glowing saucer like orb in the sky.

These seem to be very common all around the world. Some debunkers call them dying stars, even when they make a sudden turn and jet off into nowhere land.

[sgreger1]

We might not be talking about the same GIMP, here is what I am talking about:

http://www.gimp.org/

Ken

Yah the freeware graphics editing program? Like a freeware photoshop almost, right? Used to be really cool but I havn't used it since maybe 2000

[lxskllr]

That is a cool video. Looking at that, I have a bit of a problem with it. Why is it bright? If I were running a ship to different planets, I'd want it to be as inconspicuous as possible. That thing's a big floating target.

[sgreger1]

Thanks for the UFO vid Sgreger.

A lot of these night time vids/cameras never really capture the actual experience, I am sure.
Will take your word on it's authenticity. If what your friend states is true then yes, that is a big glowing saucer like orb in the sky.

These seem to be very common all around the world. Some debunkers call them dying stars, even when they make a sudden turn and jet off into nowhere land.

The only reason I give it credit is because it's from someone I know who is not stupid and who would have no bias or reason to videotape something and claim it was something other than what it is. He said it was there for the longest time and just kind hovered and banked left and right for a while. At the very beginning of the video you can see it bank and fly behind the trees, that at least gives some point of reference to show that it's in motion. Then he said it just shot up into space.

Even going just by what is in the video though, I doubt that could be explained away as being MARS or swamp gas or something, and it's definately not a regular aircraft a) because it's hovering and B because it is glowing like that, and it occassionally blinks on and off.

He said it was much clearer (obviously) when he was seeing it with his eyes and said that what caught his attention was the fact that the light was so bright. At first he though it could be something else but then realized that something that bright would have to have a huge battery source on it and had to be an airplane of some type, but it wasn't making any noise at all so it intrigued him. Then after watching it for a while he realized it might be a UFO and started taping it for about 10 minutes.


I don't know, I can't think of any easy explanation for what it is. I think I am going to submit the full video to the California MUFON people and see what they think.

[sgreger1]

That is a cool video. Looking at that, I have a bit of a problem with it. Why is it bright? If I were running a ship to different planets, I'd want it to be as inconspicuous as possible. That thing's a big floating target.

Yah,honestly I don't know. I tend to believe that the reason CA has so many UFO sightings is because of how many military bases we have out here in the desert. Especially where I used to live next to Edwards AirForce base in Palmdale. They used to do stuff for skunkworks down there so you would see all kinds of planes one would normally not get a chance to see. I don't know why it's so bright. I mean it shows that it's not a regular aircraft but it seems kind of odd to be just sitting there blaring like a giant floating star in the sky. Then it occasionally turns off and then back on a few times. I'm not sure what to make of it. Definately wierd but I would be hard pressed to call it aliens or something. But I can't think of what it is. He said it looked like a regular flying saucer but when the lights were on it was hard for him to see anything but the flood lights surrounding the thing.


What's odd is that when the lights turn off, it appears like there is just a little circular ball maybe 1/5 the size of the ship sitting in the middle, and then it turns back on and looks big again.

Not sure what to make of it.

[truthwolf1]

You should submit and tell your friend to make a report. It would be interesting to know if there were more witnesse's from other angles.

[tom502]

Post that vid on ATS. I think it's great footage.

[raptor]

Sgreger, did he get the shoot-off-into-space part on tape? That might be interesting to see too.

[sgreger1]

We should do a poll on the top ten conspiracy theories people on here either believe in or are skeptical about. Here's a cool rundown:
http://www.livescience.com/strangene...-theories.html

Let's do it here. I'll make the list, then everyone can dopy it and say either believe, skeptical, or don't believe for each one. I'll start:


Big Pharma:

"Almost everybody (except investors) loves to hate the drug companies. Drugs cost too much, drug company profits are obscene, and it seems that every few months some drug once claimed to be safe is yanked off the shelf after patients die. It's little wonder that the drug industry ("Big Pharma") is looked upon with suspicion. But some proponents of "alternative medicine" believe that drug companies actually conspire to keep people sick to reap profits. For example, Kevin Trudeau (bestselling author of "Natural Cures They Don't Want You To Know About") claims that important medical information is being kept hidden by a conspiracy between the medical establishment and big drug companies. "

Satanic Cults:

"Throughout the 1980s and early 1990s, a rash of child abuse cases horrified America. Children accused adults of ritual rapes, torture, and abuse, and the news media reported the sensational stories. Often the accusations included charges of Satanism. The pinnacle was Geraldo Rivera's infamous NBC special "Devil Worship: Exposing Satan's Underground," which aired on Oct. 28, 1988. Rivera relied on self-proclaimed "Satanism experts," misleading and inaccurate statistics, crimes with only tenuous links to Satanism, and sensationalized media reports. In what was the largest viewership for a documentary in television history, Rivera claimed that an organized, Satanic conspiracy was at work killing babies, murdering innocents, and conducting ghastly rituals. "There are over one million Satanists in this country," Rivera said, adding that "The odds are, [they] are in your town." Rivera presented no proof; the lack of evidence was seen as proof of how well organized and shrewd the Satanic conspiracy really was. Yet little evidence supports claims about Satanic cults or conspiracies. In a 1992 report on ritual crime, FBI agent Kenneth Lanning concluded that the rampant rumors of ritual murders, cannibalism, and kidnapping were unfounded. Phillips Stevens, Jr., associate professor of anthropology at the State University of New York at Buffalo, said that the widespread allegations of crimes by Satanists "constitute the greatest hoax perpetrated upon the American people in the twentieth century." "


Protocols of the Elders of Zion:


""The Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion" is a hoaxed book that purported to reveal a Jewish conspiracy to achieve world domination. It first appeared in Russia in 1905, and described how Christians' morality, finances, and health would be targeted by a small group of powerful Jews. The idea that there is a Jewish conspiracy is nothing new, of course, and has been repeated by many prominent people including Henry Ford and Mel Gibson. In 1920, Henry Ford paid to have half a million copies of "The Protocols of the Elders of Zion" published, and in the 1930s, the book was used by the Nazis as justification for its genocide against Jews (in fact, Adolph Hitler referred to the "Protocols" in his book "Mein Kampf"). Though the book has been completely discredited as a hoax and forgery, it is still in print and remains widely circulated around the world. "


The Roswell Crash Cover-Up:

"There is one fact that almost all skeptics and believers agree on: Something crashed on a remote ranch outside of Roswell, New Mexico in 1947. The government at first claimed it was some sort of saucer, then retracted the statement and claimed it was really a weather balloon. Yet the best evidence suggests that it was neither a flying saucer nor a weather balloon, but instead a high-altitude, top-secret military balloon dubbed Project Mogul. As it turns out, descriptions of the wreckage first reported by the original eyewitnesses very closely match photos of the Project Mogul balloons, down to the silvery finish and strange symbols on its side. The stories about crashed alien bodies did not surface until decades later and in fact no one considered the Roswell crash as anything extraterrestrial or unusual until thirty years later, when a book on the topic was published. There was indeed a cover-up, but it did not hide a crashed saucer, instead it hid a Cold War-era spying program. "

JFK's Assassination:

"John F. Kennedy was killed in 1963 in a Dallas motorcade. Who killed Kennedy? Most (though not all) conspiracy theorists acknowledge that Lee Harvey Oswald shot Kennedy from a book depository. Beyond this fact lies a vast area of conspiracy theory that has spawned endless speculation and hundreds of books, articles, and films. Was there a second assassin, perhaps one at a nearby "grassy knoll"? And if Oswald did act alone, who gave him the orders? Activists against Fidel Castro? Organized crime bosses? A jealous husband upset with Kennedy's philandering? Though the Warren Commission report concluded that Oswald acted alone, a 1979 report by The House Select Committee on Assassinations suggested that there was in fact a conspiracy, and likely more than one shooter. In such a complex and sensational case, the conspiracy theories will live on. "


^^^^^^^^^^^^^ <------ To Justintempler: This is what i'm talking about. People thought there was a conspiracy, and in the end the House Select Comittee on Assassinations did end up suggesting that a conspiracy did exist. To claim there has never been a conspiracy in the US is just denying the facts. Not all (in fact most) aren't true, but i'm saying that past conspiracies is what breeds some of the new ones we see.


Paul McCartney's Death:

"According to many stories and conspiracy theories that circulated in the late 1960s, Beatles guitarist Paul McCartney died in 1966. The remaining members of the Beatles--along with their manager and others--conspired to keep McCartney's death a secret, going so far as to hire a look-alike and sound-alike to take his place in the band. Well, kind of: In a case of seriously twisted logic (even by conspiracy theory standards) the conspirators in this case took great pains to keep the press and public from finding out about McCartney's demise--yet they also wanted fans to know about it, and placed clever clues in album covers and music giving details about McCartney's death. For example, on the cover of the Abbey Road album, all four Beatles are photographed striding across a zebra crossing, but only McCartney is barefoot, and out of step with the other three. This must mean something, right? Despite public denials by the band, fans couldn't just let it be, and came together to look for more clues. "


The Moon Landing Hoax:


"In the 1978 film Capricorn One, American astronauts and NASA faked a Mars landing. Though a mediocre film, it was an interesting idea, and one that would endure for decades. In 2001, Fox television aired the program "Conspiracy Theory: Did We Land on the Moon?," which rehashed many discredited "discrepancies" between the official version of the moon landing and photographs of the landing. (Curiously, they never explain why NASA would distribute photographs that would "prove" that they had faked the moon landing.) Web sites such as BadAstronomy.com have pages and pages of point-by-point, detailed refutations of the Fox claims. Of course, even if there was some credible evidence showing that the 1969 Apollo moon landing was a hoax, conspiracy theorists must also account for later moon missions, involving a dozen astronauts. And there's the issue of the hundreds of pounds of moon rocks that have been studied around the world and verified as of extraterrestrial origin... how did NASA get the rocks if not during a moon landing? Many astronauts have been offended by the implication that they faked their accomplishments. In fact in 2002, when conspiracy theorist Bart Sibrel confronted Buzz Aldrin and called him a "coward and a liar" for faking the moon landings, the 72-year-old punched Sibrel in the jaw. "


Subliminal Advertising:


"Ever been watching a movie and suddenly get the munchies? Or sitting on your sofa watching TV and suddenly get the irresistible urge to buy a new car? If so, you may be the victim of a subliminal advertising conspiracy! Proponents include Wilson Bryan Key (author of "Subliminal Seduction") and Vance Packard (author of "The Hidden Persuaders"), both of whom claimed that subliminal (subconscious) messages in advertising were rampant and damaging. Though the books caused a public outcry and led to FCC hearings, much of both books have since been discredited, and several key "studies" of the effects of subliminal advertising were revealed to have been faked. In the 1980s, concern over subliminal messages spread to bands such as Styx and Judas Priest, with the latter band even being sued in 1990 for allegedly causing a teen's suicide with subliminal messages (the case was dismissed). Subliminal mental processing does exist, and can be tested. But just because a person perceives something (a message or advertisement, for example) subconsciously means very little by itself. There is no inherent benefit of subliminal advertising over regular advertising, any more than there would be in seeing a flash of a commercial instead of the full twenty seconds. Getting a person to see something for a split-second is easy; filmmakers do it all the time (watch the last few frames in Hitchcock's classic "Psycho"). Getting a person to buy or do something based on that split-second is another matter entirely. (The conspiracy was parodied in the 1980s television show Max Headroom, in which viewers were exploding after seeing subliminal messages called "blipverts.") "

[sgreger1]

Princess Diana's Murder:


"Within hours of Princess Diana's death on Aug. 31, 1997, in a Paris highway tunnel, conspiracy theories swirled. As was the case with the death of John F. Kennedy, the idea that such a beloved and high-profile figure could be killed so suddenly was a shock. This was especially true of Princess Diana; royalty die of old age, political intrigue, or eating too much rich food; they don't get killed by a common drunk driver. Unlike many conspiracy theories, though, this one had a billionaire promoting it: Mohamed Al-Fayed, the father of Dodi Al-Fayed, who was killed along with Diana. Al-Fayed claims that the accident was in fact an assassination by British intelligence agencies, at the request of the Royal Family. Al-Fayed's claims were examined and dismissed as baseless by a 2006 inquiry; the following year, at Diana's inquest, the coroner stated that "The conspiracy theory advanced by Mohamed Al Fayed has been minutely examined and shown to be without any substance." On April 7 of this year, the coroner's jury concluded that Diana and Al-Fayed were unlawfully killed due to negligence by their drunken chauffer and pursuing paparazzi. "


The 9-11 Conspiracies:

"The evidence is overwhelming that the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, were indeed the result of a conspiracy. There's no doubt about it: A close (or even cursory) look at the evidence makes it clear that it was carefully planned and executed by conspirators. The question, of course, is who those conspirators were. Osama bin Laden and the crew of (mostly Saudi) hijackers were part of the conspiracy, but what about President Bush and Vice-President Dick Cheney? Did top Bush advisors, including Paul Wolfowitz and Donald Rumsfeld, either collaborate with bin Laden, or intentionally allow the attacks to happen? Put another way, was it an inside job? Conspiracy theorists believe so, and point to a catalog of supposed inconsistencies in the "official version" of the attacks. Many of the technical conspiracy claims were debunked by Popular Mechanics magazine in March 2005, while other claims are refuted by simple logic: If a hijacked airplane did not crash into the Pentagon, as is often claimed, then where is Flight 77 and its passengers? Are they with the Roswell aliens at Hangar 18? In many conspiracy theories, bureaucratic incompetence is often mistaken for conspiracy. Our government is so efficient, knowledgeable, and capable--so the reasoning goes--that it could not possibly have botched the job so badly in detecting the plot ahead of time or responding to the attacks. I find that hard to believe. "


The Holocaust: Lol, see Tom for reference to this one



Do you believe there was a conspiracy: (Label each conspiracy as: Real, Skeptical, Not Real)

Big Pharma: Real
The Roswell Crash Cover-Up: Real
Protocols of the Elders of Zion: Not Real
Satanic Cults: Not Real
JFK Assassination: Real
Princess Diana's Murder: Skeptical
Subliminal Advertising: Skeptical
The Moon Landing Hoax: Not Real
Paul McCartney's Death: Not Real
9-11: Skeptical
The Holocasut: Not real (As in holocaust did happen, no conspiracy)
Zionists Runs the World: Not Real
UFO's: Real


Now You go!

[sgreger1]

You should submit and tell your friend to make a report. It would be interesting to know if there were more witnesse's from other angles.

Truthwolf: Yah i'm goign to tell him to. I don't want to take credit for his video and do it myself, though I doubt he will be down to. He said there were other neighbors outside their houses too, so plenty of others saw it, i'm sure people in other surrounding areas couldn't have missed it if they were even barely paying attention, it was clearly pretty bright.

Raptor: No he didn't. He said it was sitting around for so long that he didn't catch it all. He felt he got the basic jist off the 10 minutes of footage he took, and he doesn't know how to edit videos or anything so sharing an hour long video would be difficult due to size. He said he watched the whole time though and eventually it just kind of jerked up and shot straight up leaving just a streak of blue light behind it like a motion blur. He said it definately wasn't an airplane because no airplane can just go straight up like that.

I REALLY wish he would have kept recording and got that on camera. This is the problem we have convincing people is that the footage always sucks. Like always, it looks so good in real life then when you look at the camera later you realized you zoomed in too much or the exposure wasn't right or something. If he would have gotten it shooting up into space that would have been the money shot and I don't think anyone could contest it at that point.