Of course. ;)
But I do... :p : Sherlock:
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Feel free to share tidbits. But don't spend too much time wading through the muck. I managed to avoid the drama of membership over there though I did follow Corey here. I left his drama behind and stayed here. I've never felt drawn to join another forum. At least, not yet.
As I recall, there was some situation — it may have been related to Christine leaving Bill Ryan, or to the "stepping down" of Christine, Claudia and Hazel from the Avalon mod team, but I don't remember the exact details — and EYES WIDE OPEN then posted something along the lines of: "Maybe this here has something to do with it?", with a link pointing at a post at Corey's blog where Corey was hanging Bill Ryan's dirty laundry out to dry.
Bill Ryan then contacted EYES WIDE OPEN to tell him they had soft-deleted his post, and they wanted him to "rewrite it". EYES WIDE OPEN refused — as I recall, he told Bill something along the lines of "Corey has already proved himself trustworthy to me, which is more than I can say of you." — and was then subsequently banned for "working against the forum".
:popc:
Spot on Aragorn! Good memory! I has also been previously banned about a year earlier because of my views of Judy Wood and 9/11 which Paul could not argue against so banned me under the guise of not following forum rules.
Yeah, it's a shame. The videos they did with the early Project Camelot was cutting edge at the time, serving a niche that needed to be filled. Whether the interviewees were "for real" or not, they brought up issues close to people who didn't have anyone else to relate to.
I was too late to the party to experience the early forum, coming in post-Charles, when Inelia Benz had just left. It seems that if he had kept (followed) up with the people they got on camera, studied their stories and situations with more depth, it could have been a substantive resource with more solid of backing.
As it were, it became a solid place to share personal experiences, with the moderation successfully keeping the space "safe" for most people...a lot of whom were uncomfortable to share elsewhere. The fact that they left their investigations* to such a surface level makes it feel in retrospect more like a "magazine" than serious research...an image further crystallized with the celebrity-creation train that followed. And for me, Bill's reluctance to share anything substantive about his relationships with all but a handful of the celeb experiencers, and so few of his colleagues in the "alt-media" personality sphere, and maybe his own wife/life makes it feel like he never was able to put the research (or service to others) in front of his ego.
And so my speculation is that instead of creating a platform for a true "alternative", it became a model for other ego-driven folks to try to create their own cult to their personalities and/or quasi-celebritydom. Instead of a new model, it was just new "data/information" following the same old media pattern. And the thing that chaps so many @sses is that sterling integrity personality he uses the platform to create, does not match up with the personality you discover dealing with him behind the scenes.
Which leads the conspiracy minded to speculate that it was all an op from the gate, or that at some point he/PA was captured. I was definitely of that mind, these days though I wonder how much really that matters. He's been pretty marginalized in the UFO-ology field and many in the community see the cultish characteristics of his echo chamber. The only minds he's manipulating these days (if he ever was actually trying or ordered to do so) is the peeps that learn discernment anyway...rather than any kind of threat, I see PA as a training ground these days. Just my opinion, of course
*to be fair, I think Kerry may have actually attempted to be more intellectually rigorous and do some of the stuff I feel she shoulda been, but what I found if her solo work seemed too non-objective, from my infrequent viewing it seemed she was (is) trying to validate her view of reality as much (or more) than tracking down data
Hi everyone, my first post here after joining yesterday.
I was at Avalon and before that Camelot, Open Minds, ATS but more recently over at Nexus and to be honest only found you by accident.
I was never involved in the Charles furore, having found the whole thing a massive distraction.
One look at the Avalon forum today shows it as a mere shadow of its former self but there were some great thinkers there and when the whole Ground Crew idea was being formulated I genuinely thought we could make a difference.
I always believed that, at heart, Bill Ryan was a good person, brought down by the very human frailties of ego and greed.
I took time away from it all but in recent months I have felt an undercurrent of something unsettling and have been drawn back to be among like minded people.
I look forward to being a contributing member here.
(welcome) at The One Truth, ArtyCarl. ;) :chrs:
Welcome...we call ourselves "The Shire" :fire:
Hey Carl pleasant surprise, I'll bet you clicked the button on the Nexus main forum page that shows what sites refer to there every day.
I didn't know you started out at ATS, that's where the subject of this thread had it's Genesis back in late '05. You by chance weren't there then were you? That's where/when Bill burst onto the Alt Media out of nowhere with the whole Serpo circus, and IIRC it was for quite some time the longest running thread in ATS history. 248 pages if I'm not mistaken. Today he mocks that site as nothing but alphabet soup disinfo (a bit of pot calling kettle black...), but back then he was more than happy to let it be his launch pad to Alt Media fame.
It's a fascinating look back, and rather reminiscent of the debut of yet another "deep insider" that would be coming down the pike a few years later, a super deep insider named "Charles". Like the old saying goes, those that don't learn their history are bound to repeat it...
http://www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/thread185069/pg1
Oh man, I was such a wet behind the ears newb then and fell for that s**t hook line and sinker. I wonder why that whole archive has long since been hidden away, even from members?
A former Project member came to visit here just about a year ago now, and one observation he noted during our many conversations I thought was quite astute. After the banning of 9eagle9 with her "Their Minds" topic of CONSIDERABLE discussion (2012/13 was it?), the whole quality of conversation was never to recover. And then we both agreed that the quality of intelligent discussion didn't just fail to recover, it was never *allowed* to recover.
Ah the ground crew, those were the days my friend. We lost our starry notions along the way, didn't we?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3un5f6qLi_k
Interesting, I feel that unsettling undercurrent as well.
Hi Fred, you are spot on, I followed you down the rabbit hole and this is where I came up.
I was not a regular visitor to ATS back in those days but that all changed when the Serpo material was posted and I lapped it up at the time.
I read every post several times and there was a fair amount of content...and I did notice that the content changed grammatically over time leading me to think that it was being added to or changed possibly before Bill posted it.
I still like to believe that the story had some truth to it.
I agree wholeheartedly that it is fascinating looking back at it...and also fascinating seeing so many familiar names in the forums.
It does make me wonder if we are all tuning in to something we cannot quite understand....yet.
Unsettling. That's a good word. That's probably what brought me into these waters. It's unsettling being unable to have rational, informed conversations with people who are supposed to be just that. And it's clear that what we get for news is mush.
I never joined PA but it did help me find this place.
Welcome ArtyCarl.
hmm ...
Bill Ryan and Kerry Cassidy
You Didn't Have To Be So Nice
Looking back it seems like there was a kind of social engineering going on, still is I suppose. ATS best part was an interview with John Lear and how he gave Batman the clap. Funniest interview I've ever heard.
Come on man...