Psychology of a Hoax |
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Psychology of a Hoax |
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Chapter # |
Chapter Title |
I |
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II |
The Isaac Document |
III |
All Those Other Witnesses... |
IV |
Errors And Confusion |
V |
Experts, Freeloaders, Artists and Whistleblowers |
VI |
The Madness Grows |
VII |
The Heirs Of Isaac |
VIII |
The Eco-effect |
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Additional |
Critical Voices |
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Email
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Contact The Author |
Original Text |
Visit The Original Webpage/s at FortuneCity |
V. Experts, Freeloaders, Artists and WhistleblowersMany thanks for your efforts on our behalf.As sure as every idea will find a follower, this whole story was supported by some - usually anonymous - people, who usually claim some expertise. It must be mentioned, that Coast2Coast published a lot of opinions, very soon after the Chad story was out and these opinions are far away from being one-sidedly or even support the drones as a true case. They rather summarize what was written in many forums days and weeks after the first photos appeared. Coast2Coast is just guilty of bad archiving, since their website does not tell us any dates and so is kind of timeless, and obviously they added comments on the "events", that occurred later without any explanation, so we read about the Chad drone and suddenly see the Raj drone. But this is true for the discussion everywhere. We can record, that Coast2Coast even did not comment any comment. Outstanding is the first mail, where someone who calls himself just BJ offers a theory at first glance. "Based on some experimentation" he starts to explain, how the drones work, although he has no idea, why they are "here" nor what they are. He introduces the term, to make it easier speaking of the strange craft: "What really bothers me about the craft though is that it seems to be a drone, as I can find no place that a being would be able to operate the craft from the inside." He does not explain, why this bothers him, but from now on we have a short name for that thing. (In her report of May 9th 2008 Linda Moulton Howe explains: BJ also studied the writings and it looks like Tolkien's Elvish language to him, saying, this does not make it a hoax, because who knows, who helped Tolkien with this. With a logic such as this we surely can convince every tribunal. On June 8th 2007 Linda Moulton Howe received a very heavy weighing email from a "British Digital Professional". He has followed everything available from Earthfiles, Coast2Coast and Whitley Strieber and is a user of Adobe Photoshop from version 1 on. Meanwhile the drones have the name "dragonfly", as Linda calls them, because of their shape and the description of their movement by the witnesses. This expert explains us, why it is wrong to say the images are "photoshopped", namely because the rendering must have been done with some other software. This is all he has to say. He adds that he with his 20 years experience thinks, that the photos are real and that he always listens to Lindas reports and podcasts, praising her reports founded on science. This is all the anonymous expert has to say. When James Carrion of MUFON appeared at the Open Minds Forum in January 2008 to look for information and cooperation in this case, he wrote that he would be willing to contact any CGI expert, who thinks, that the pictures are real photos. One of the members of the DRT just copied and pasted the email of the above anonymous expert. When Carrion replied, that an anonymous expert is worth as much as an anonymous witness, a second DRT member wrote: "Boy, that is a quick dismissive answer." This very same person demanded from David Biedney an elaborate analyses at the ATS forum and the DRT still does not respect any opinion of experts, who say this is fake. But an anonymous email without any analyses at all, just a statement like "I have experience and I think it is real" is a presentable proof. |
On July 11th Linda Moulton Howe published two more emails with positive comments to the case. The first one was of Joe Schumacher, computer engineer, sent on July 1st. The retired engineer, too, could look back on 8 years of specializing in electronic countermeasures and 20 years as engineer and programmer for one of the "Big 3". He is fascinated by Isaac's description of the self executing language, when brought into a special field and sees some analogies to his work. Than he starts to explain the functions of different parts of the drone, as BJ did on Coast2Coast. Having done this broadly he adds some funny comments: "I imagined that there might be a Mr. Spock aboard who turned to Captain Kirk and said "sensors indicate the planet is class M with abundant resources." And even better: "The cage assembly hanging below looks ominous. It reminds me of the machines where kids deposit a quarter and try to pickup a toy with a grappling hook. I think I'll stay undercover while outside in the future." Mr. Schumacher maybe a real person, who just had fun to join the discussion, but as so many he never appeared anywhere else. If this story would really be the breakthrough and we all were witnesses of the most fantastic events in this field, it is intriguing that people look at it, comment on it and turn back to their daily life. His last sentence, "Many thanks for your efforts on our behalf", could be signed by a hoaxer as well. The second mail was written by Ph.D. Arthur A. Reyes on July 6th. His biography he included is outstanding and - different from other commentators - it easily can be verified, that he really is the expert, he says to be. To him Isaac's diagram is the most important aspect in this story. He clearly states "Isaac is credible"! Different from so many others, he finds Isaac's writing style and narrative to be consistent.
Remember, he is talking about a report of crafts, that are invisible, about holographic material, antigravity and self executing letters. Nothing that would indicate fiction. If you should plan a hoax, learn the four mentioned terms and think about the difference between software and hardware, so that you appear as correct, concise and insightful. After this he only talks about the "language", referring to Ray Kurzweil's book "The Singularity is Near: When Humans Transcend Biology" as if the one was proof for the other. Finally he even refers to an animation series, saying that the idea of such diagrams is finding it's way to the popular mind. As an expert for autonomous vehicles and a passionate model builder he does not spend one word on the drones themselves. But he has one important information for us: >>However I find it humorous that he picked the pseudonym "Isaac", which means "he will laugh".<< On July 3rd 2007, admin at OMF published a mail, he received from a person, who said, he was a subcontract manager for Northrup Grummon. This man, signing with Jack A. Sahakian, had written to George Noory of Coast2Coast to comment on the drones saga. Probably his mail did not get enough attention, so he sent it to OMF. He, too, explains:
He thought, that this story "may be the straw that breaks the camel's back" if it would make it's way into the mainstream media. Though he was sure, that the government would call it a hoax. (As we know now, it did not break any back at all, when the drones made it into the media.) He was so excited, that he finished his mail like this: "All I can say is WOW!" Having said this, he disappeared into real life, but his mail was quoted a few times. Although nobody ever could identify him, it was affirmed more than once, that he is who he says he is, namely Jack A. Sahakian, Subcontract Manager, Northrop-Grumman, Space Technology, Advanced-EHF. This was confirmed by Ivo, moderator of OMF. |
| There was another engineer, calling himself EngineeringType, who joined at ATS on July 24th. He wrote, that he "stumbled upon the Isaac/CARET/Drone controversy" just three days ago. In these three days he studied the Isaac document and familiarized himself with the online discussions. After having read about the CGI debate, he thinks that fake photos of drones would not necessarily mean, Isaac is fake, too.
He says, he does not know about CGI, but engineering, military projects and reports, and he disagrees with those, who say, the report is ridiculous:
He further assured the readers, that the descriptions are "exquisite" and made sense. To disproof that it is techno-babble he even starts to explain some descriptions in detail. He gives us a profile of a possible hoaxer, to show us how unlikely this would be:
He suggests that the discussion should include further directions, mathematics, especially fractals, advanced propulsion system, newest discussions of visual cloaking systems and the collapse of the Soviet Union. He had looked over the writing, seraching for some signature by a possible hoaxer, but the only thing, that looked like a name, was the word "Elfisss" in photo 3. He also refers to above mentioedn Jack A. Sahakian and says he reserves judgement. As he said, he studied the Isaac letter and document, tried to catch up with the forums and wrote down all his many thoughts (three posts at once) down in three days. In a fourth post he reacted to another user and said, he missed a discussion about the document. No wonder, discussions began, asking if he was Isaac. This upset EngineeringType so much, that he only posted one more time about 22 hours after his first posts. This time he says: "I had actually composed my post the day prior, but had talked myself out of posting it." This shortens the time he had even more. Although he comes to the conclusion, this is real, he says, he is "just participating in a discussion about little green men from Mars," since the documents had no classification marks. The fact that Springer of ATS had told the users, that he could only tell them that nobody else used the same IP like ET and so it was likely true, that he was a new member, was interpreted as "researching members", a true witness might think this site was run by the CIA. Looking at his posts, he started copying and pasting his text on tuesday, 24th of May, a few minutes after midnight in Central USA. Obviously he watched what would happen and answered to a member at 1:23 h. His last post was on 22:37 h, saying, he just was "a few hours at work". It would be better for his health, if he lived in California, so he would have more sleep and would not work so late. Intriguing that two experts find the paragraph numbering in the documents to be one of the points that make the story believable. And also intriguing, that one of the supporters leads us to the Elfish language and the other one points us to the word "Elfisss". There were other posters, like sp at OMF, who works on a language system similar to the CARET symbols. He expressed it rather careful, writing: "These kind of symbol-based systems ARE possible. Breakthroughs in quantum computing can make it reality." Having said this on July 30th 2007 he never posted again. Another example is someone signing as Dr. George Markis, who congratulated DrDil for his work collecting all the material - something I fully assent! - but comes to the conclusion: "The addition of the scientific explanations by a one-time insider who had worked in earlier reverse engineering projects, was very helpful and fully convincing as true on face." His greeting, "Om Shanti", rather sounds like an insider joke, since it was discussed, wether the lettering and the symbols are related to yoga. "Om" is often described as the sound of the universe, the infinity, the divine. "Shanti" just means peace. All the people mentioned could be just impressed and fascinated by the case. But it is notably that they all only appeared some time, telling the world how great these informations are and than disappeared like all those witnesses and did not join the discussion anymore - at least not in visible mode. The only one, who did not make a secret about his identity, was Arthur A. Reyes, who really started a research group at yahoo, but soon stopped all the activity. One of the goals in his research draft was:
The above mentioned experts would have been the right people, but they all preferred to stay in the background and disappeared as soon as they spoke out. On April 3 2008 another expert joined the OMF. He started a thread called
He explains, why the Rajman photos can't be CGI, stating that even a child can see the difference, and explains how he researched the photo with the power pole and even contacted the PIs to tell them about his findings. First doubts in his expertise came up, when he spoke of. "actual video images". Although he was welcomed and treated friendly, he stopped posting after he was reminded, that there are not videos at all. Ten days later there was more from him, but to the surprise of the readers, it was posted by a member of the DRT, This time Jim analyzed the Big Basin drone and explained, how it "might work", but does this so detailed, that he even can name the different parts and functions. Then he speculates in the same detailed way about the Aliens and their purpose. In the next part he compared the Katakana letters to Onthefence's analysis of the "alien" writing, and then again followed a more detailed analysis of the Rajman drone. He surely caused some frowns, when he connected this story extensively with the predictions of Edgar Cayce, before he continued his elaborated analysis. He earned some applause by those, who believe in the drone, and even answered to one members question, but again not directly, but through his medium of the DRT - despite the fact, that one of his graphical demonstrations shows the signature "created by knowhow, OMF member". The question, why he did not post himself was not answered yet. Instead the analyses continues with Isaac's website next day. But this time, he disappoints the drone fans, because he, too, points out many holes in Isaac's story, which have been mentioned by others and he doubts, that the "alien" writing has anything to do with programming. When the question was repeated, why Knowhow did not post these things by himself, Onthefence finally gave the answer:
In his final conclusions Knowhow shows himself convinced, that Isaac does not tell the truth and that " any contact with Isaac might not be a good idea for the people that originally took the photo." This could have been the beginning of a new version of that story, making the drones real, but putting Isaac's tale aside. But the thread stopped immediately and was not discussed anymore. |
Jumping on the bandwagonOnly a short time after Linda Moulton Howe had published the Isaac story on her website, two other sites were registered and showed the same content. The first one - isaaccaret.com - was registered by an attorney, Todd Schwartz, the second one by Tony Sova, president of SoftWired, both from Oregon. At least in the first time they were listed as partners. It was again Onthefence, member of the DRT, who took the initiative and asked Todd Schwartz on July 2nd by email, what it was about. He got an answer the very same day. Mr. Schwartz wrote: "I'm interested in getting the information out in an efficient and rapid manner. I was surprised Isaac used a fortunecity.com subdomain. I have registered the domain to ensure it will be put to good use." On the other hand he said, that he had been "on the road" and could not follow the story for some time. He also says, there was only one mail yet, asking him, if he was Isaac. Ivo of OMF invited him to a skype-cast, but again he was "on the road" for a family vacation and a birthday party. He was impressed by the discussions at OMF about his website and explained some points. He clarified that he is neither Isaac nor that he has any relation to him. He confessed, that he had hoped to make a little money with that, but he mainly was interested in supporting people to spread the news. He further explained, that he was waiting desperately for news by Linda Moulton Howe on this drone saga and that he probably was one of the first to see the Isaac documents. " I was surprised Isaac was using a subdomain and tool the “opportunity” to register the true isaaccaret.com website as a potential investment in moving this story forward." As an attorney he did not care too much for copyrights, but just published especially Linda Moulton Howe's reports. Different from the case of the music video, she seems to accept this kind of PR. As it seems, Tony Sova put his twin site offline meanwhile. In November 2007 Alienware used the strange letters in a campaign for their laptops. They started with a contest, "deciphering" the writing with very simple riddles and also used similar graphics as in the primer. A few thought, this was the solution of the whole riddle, but many looked closer and realized, that the interpretation of the symbols did not make any sense, when used on the primer or writings on the drones. As soon as November 16, OMF member Banzai published an email in which Alienware clearly states, they only used the saga for the campaign:
A rather unknown author, Marc Cater, also tried to get some attention by using Isaac's stuff, publishing another website at fortunecity, using the Isaaccaret name added with the number 1. His presentations in the world wide web show that he is desperately seeking for ideas and possibilities to promote his book and a document of a few pages, he offers for 29,99 $ even on his CARET-clone-site. Obviously he was intrigued by the acronym of his own page and had hoped for some attention, which I gave him now and here. |
Inspired ArtistsAlso in November, the forum members were irritated seeing a graphic of famous industrial designer Syd Mead, who obviously used the graphics from the Isaac document. SysConfig, respected member at ATS and inthese days also at OMF wrote an email to him, which was finally responded:
Very early in this story the German musician Drone was fascinated by this story, especially since he used this name as an artist. When he presented his music at OMF, using parts of Linda Moulton Howe's interviews in a very neutral way, Kris Avery was already busy with recreations and studies of the movement of the drones. Finally this "meeting" of two artists led to the great video, which was released by the end of September 2007. |
Playing the whistleJuly 1st 2007 somebody posted at godlikeproductions.com a warning, saying, he was an NSA insider and had knowledge of hostage aliens coming soon.
In a second post on July 3rd NSA insider creates a doomsday scenario and brings it in direct connection to the drones:
On July 6th followed a "last warning" this time by "NSA DOD insiders", giving the drones a new name:
These posts never made it into the main discussion and were not taken seriously by the posters at godlikeproductions.com at all. The posts showed two different IDs. Looking for other posts, which were done with that ID shows up posts like
The posts are so different, that maybe these are not the same people, who seem to be rather skeptical against other hoaxers, but than again one of them writes in one post. "Hoaxers come on GLP all the time and forget about the Advanced Search function." This advanced search includes the search for the ID. Under both IDs also users complained to be automatically banned for no reason. Since the Mod asks for the ID, this obviously leads to the person in question. So we can assume that this was just a game by otherwise rather skeptical persons. Another player appeared at the end of December 2007 at ATS, calling himself Doghead, especially interested in attacking John Lear and playing the insider of a secret project at Pine Gap in Australia. Like Isaac he wanted to stay anonymous, but gave too much information about himself away, saying he was a millionaire - offering one million Australian dollars for an alien, dead or alive, saying he was the author of 17 novels and two documentaries, saying he was investor for some Australian websites, which all led to Jonathan Nolan, an attorney, who also is in RPG and low budget films. In a thread discussing the CARET documents at ATS he first claimed, this was Scientology stuff, equaling it with CIA/Satanism, than suddenly saying, the graphics were done by a designer lady fro Melbourne with too much times on her hands. Again it was ATS member SysConfig, who made contacts to him and got the information, that this lady was now working for Doghead and that he would try to make her speak out over there at an Australian forum, where he is an investor and uses the name Eye of the blind. Indeed SysConfig got an answer over there from someone, using the name ConcentricSpirals, just writing that she would not like ATS and maybe would talk in the Australian forum. I myself was involved in the research of the background of these people and there were some suspicious connections to Lake Tahoe and California. Seeing that we were discovering more and more of their backgrounds, Jonathan Nolan decided to close the thread and called the whole CARET story a silly hoax, which was not worth any webspace at all. He lately appeared on OMF to promote his new book, but did not take further actions so far. Doghead himself, who could be easily identified as Eliott Parker James with his informations, was banned at ATS during this process. Probably this was due to the fact, that it became visible that he was just promoting the Australian sites, which is why I don't mention them here.
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