Things to Look for if Someone is Trying to Hoax the Forum

[Moon]

There are some people whose sole purpose is to sign up on forums like Legendary Times to try to troll or put one over us. From past experience on other boards and forums, I think there should be signs on what to look for:

They start telling a very compelling event that happened in their life that deals with working with aliens, contact or any other type of phenomena. The story is told in many parts with them getting upset and threatening to not go on if they keep getting harsh questions or feedback. This goes on and ultimately the story is never concluded as the person just goes away. One reason why is they get caught in a lie or someone fact checked what they put out.

A sample of this is from another board I belonged to. A person started to write about some signals coming in from Mars that were censored before he could read them. This person claimed to work for Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) and made a huge goof right at the beginning. In order for the signals to be censored, the black ops group had to get them first. The problem is the signals traveled at the speed of light so the OP claimed they had faster than light (FTL) communication abilities. Needless to say this claim alone is rather huge and many didn't care what would of been on the signals. The questions about FTL communications took over the board and the OP could not answer any of them.

Another thing to look out for is the stories have no proof or evidence to back them up. It is usually Top Secret stuff they are revealing and can't tell who they are or where they got the information. This is a double edged sword as we can understand why some people need to be anonymous about what they are saying. However, we also want proof of what happened and will never have it.

CSM Robert Dean (USA-Ret) ran into some problems with this himself. His claim to ufology fame is while working for NATO as a scheduler he was given access to a Top Secret report about alien life forms. So many people asked him to prove it he actually did come up with a picture of the book. Author Timothy Good stated it was fake and he is one to believe almost anything stated about UFOs. Was the original story true or false? Unfortunately, the bad judgment used to make a fake has most people thinking the event never happened.

Basically, anyone can come on here and tell a story. That is wonderful and in itself can be profound. However, we do need to be diligent when reading these stories while being professional when asking the tough questions about the subject at hand. One of the major problems is we all want to believe and suspend some realities in the meantime.

I do love this forum and like everyone else I want it to thrive. We can't let a few people from other sites come on to ruin it for us. All suggestions and ideas are welcome here as to make this a great forum even better.

[seeker1117]

Couldn't've said it any better....thanks!

[Augmented Ape]

Yep, there are a lot of them out there, a handfull are serial 'trolls' ( they go on forum after forum ) who use secondary and even tertiary characters or 'sock puppets' to elaborate on thier story and 'big it up' ( aka shills) .
It does seem that some of them have some military or technical background which is then elaborated upon, trying to use a bit of background knowledge to 'prove' that they were involved in all kinds of deep black stuff with aliens and time travel, assasinations etc etc.
There are a number of these story tellers who do the rounds of UFO and 'truther' conferences, the real shadow government must be splitting thier sides laughing at all the people who shell out thier hard earned wages to listen to these clowns.
I would love to list who I think are the worst of these, but its not my forum, suffice it to say ;- Less proof and more narrative = BS
One has to wonder if some of them aren't employed as 'Pied Pipers' to lead people away from the truth, and into silly beliefs ....

[Ace Rimmer]

I would also like to point out that we have our ways of checking on people, especially if we suspect we have people who could be working together or indeed are the same person using two different accounts. If we find this is happening you will be removed without warning. Other than this warning.

[siren13]

I think it is sad in this day and age when people like us try to take stuff like AA theories seriously to really try to get answers to questions answered in some way SCIENTIFICALLY at that. Most of us aren't shoegazers..so to speak. Then you run in to a bunch of hoaxers. Really gets on my nerves. I guess people will be creative in other ways if they didn't have these sites to run to to make a spectical.

Just gets my goat.

[Moon]

I think it is sad in this day and age when people like us try to take stuff like AA theories seriously to really try to get answers to questions answered in some way SCIENTIFICALLY at that. Most of us aren't shoegazers..so to speak. Then you run in to a bunch of hoaxers. Really gets on my nerves. I guess people will be creative in other ways if they didn't have these sites to run to to make a spectical.

Just gets my goat.

Many are encouraged to do so by skeptical leaning forums and boards. If any of the paranormal forums or boards did the same, they would all cry foul. We are fair game here and I want these people to realize they are on notice.

[siren13]

I have read some of the posts on some of those forums. Anyone with an open mind is immediately dubbed a nut case. I have learned to sort of except that people find my beliefs weird or unconventional. Yet I find it in bad taste when they can't get the message. I don't care if they are a hard core skeptic ...no place for them here that is for sure.

Maybe you could post a new rule ONLY OPEN MINDED MAY APPLY =0)

[Inquiring Mind]

"Minds are like parachutes – they only work when open"

--Ancient proverb

[Bob137]

I also noticed some of those people on other sites utilizing the sites to promote their religious beliefs, and trying to convey that the people on the site were devil worshippers, and such, which really is laughable. I have encountered some people on this site doing what was stated,a nd it is disheartening, though I must admit, from my back ground, some may be real. I myself was int he military and had experiences, but nothing of the kind with actual aliens and such, anyway not to my knowledge. I have read of the military manuals that stated of ET's though, and I know that at different times each of the military departments had manuals that described some and what to do in case we were ever attacked, or invaded, but for the ones from my department, they were destroyed as soon as the first Bush came into office, and of course I have no proof of this, but maybe if I was able to go to an Army Archive I might be able to find one.

[Moon]

Since the Great Wipe-Out of this forum, they would all have to re-register and start again. I do think many who make claims like the aliens are the devil are just there to flame on boards. It is true many people actually believe that stuff, but they tend to stay away from sites like this.

I also think it is good to check up on skeptic and debunking sites as they do encourage their members to do this sort of thing. Sometimes they have articles telling their members to do so like they did a few years ago and swamped a site I used to be on.

[Bob137]

I know the swamped a site I used to be on also, and someone at the site, made a new site that was similar, but one had to be asked to come to the site by a moderator, and I am glad I was asked. It did keep out the nuts for quite awhile, but there were still some that ended up on there a year later.

[Ace Rimmer]

My feelings about topic specific forums, which most are: it’s group of people with a common interest.
We are all here to bounce ideas off of each other and share anything of interest.

There is no proof of most of what we bring to the forum, but we all have ideas and theories that make sense to us individually and some collectively. But we are not a hive mind, of course we will disagree and we will think our ideas might be more valid than somebody else’s.
If somebody joins for the sole purpose of stirring the pot, they don’t seem to last long too long.