2012 and 2024

All this talk of entering a countdown will remind older hands of the exciting days more than a decade back, when we were heading towards the significant event of 21/12/2012. “But nothing happened on December the twenty-first 2012”. “Yes, that was the significant event”.

It’s worth remembering those days in order to bring additional perspective into the “What caused the decline of ATS?” argument. There is a case that the fiasco of December 2012 was an important long-term factor.

In those days, as we all remember, “mysterious stuff” was an important element in ATS discussions. But in 2012 nearly everybody who was interested in “mysterious stuff” was investing heavily into the drama of something big happening at the end of the year. When the big day finally arrived, we did not see the end of the age, but we surely saw the end of “New Age”. Once those hopes had been disappointed, those who had been fascinated by “mysterious stuff” began to lose interest and stop posting.

That is the implication of the gradual reduction in posting levels which began almost immediately in 2013. I can offer you two pieces of evidence (though, sadly, they depend on my memory).

Firstly, the “number of new topics per week” statistic. In those days I had already begun the routine of regular Friday night threads, so I observed this statistic indirectly, by noticing the interval between the weekly thread numbers. For example, my first two threads on Revelation, a week apart, had thread numbers ending in 60068 and 62314. That’s a number interval of more than 2000. But from 2013 onwards, the intervals were gradually dropping. The numbers of my first two threads on 1 Corinthians (September 2013) were 71068 and 72526. The number of new threads per week had already dropped by a quarter. A few years later, I could make the complacent calculation that my weekly threads were now 0.1 percent of the new thread content of ATS. That is, less than a thousand a week. Later on, the drop in weekly new topics must have become an embarrassment, because the statistic disappeared from the forum page, though it can still be guessed from the number of “new topics today”.

The other clue is harder to measure. I refer to the time taken for a new thread to drop from the top to the bottom of the first page in Recent Posts, if nobody responded. During my first ATS years, this time was longer in the GMT morning, when things were slow. During the afternoon, there was a noticeable increase in speed at the time when the Americans would be starting to wake up, and a neglected thread would be positively racing to the bottom in the evening. That is, a lot more people were coming online and posting new threads or replying to existing ones. I had an interest in this phenomenon as a poster of potentially neglected threads. Was it better to post during the slow period, when they would be visible onscreen for a longer time, or during the fast period when they were visible more briefly but seen by more people while they were there? But six months into 2013 it was already evident that the daily increase in speed was no longer happening, to anything like the same extent. The implication was that people were coming online and being active in much fewer numbers.

I think this disposes of the story that “mysterious stuff” has been pushed out by politics. The case is rather that “mysterious stuff” was already pulling out, in the sense that fewer people were coming forward to write about it, and politics merely expanded to take its place. In fact it did not really need to expand. Once other fields of interest were disappearing, the “politics” field of interest automatically became a larger proportion of whatever was left.

One more question. It seems possible that this time the countdown really will reach a climax. ATS might go to sleep, and we might wake up in another location, like the one mentioned in DTOM’s signature.

Would that count as Ascension?

a reply to: DISRAELI2

Agreed with some points there

1) The quality and mystery did die after 2012. Anybody who posted anything mysterious or paranormal got ridiculed after that as the main focus of ATS shifted to politics instead of Mayans. That's all fine but many of us came here for the strange, dark, and mysterious delivered in story format, not to hear about how much people hate Trump/ Biden. Granted, politics are rife with intrigue and coverup, it's just not my particular bag.

2) I still say something DID happen in 2012 that translated to "end of the world as you know it." I never thought I'd find myself in this weird ass clown world where lunacy rules the day. So if something did 'change,' it was slow-acting and delayed-release--you know we are talking about the subtle wheels of time after all--Maybe we can't see it close up individually, but history may have a perspective on how we've changed since 2012.


3) Ascension, no. I'm getting off this tractor pull. It's been great. Have fun and be well!

a reply to: DISRAELI2

I am bummed I missed out on the heyday of this site. I found it because I was looking for more info on the Guardian UFO and some page linked to the write up here on the unsolved mysteries episode by Mirageman. Which all of that person's write ups are SO GOOD! It is a true shame if this site goes down and we lose this stuff. I hope it will be saved on the internet archive I can't use that site for some reason I think it has to do with my browser idk.

Reading older UFO/Anomaly threads here it seems the discussion was much livelier and more participants in the past like pre 2010. I suppose I just always feel like everything went to crap in the 2010s and I can't figure out why. Maybe has something to do with web 2.0 or web 3.0 whatever version we are on now. Something went sideways circa 2010-ish and I dont know what it was.

I think too that like people don't want to have or don't have time for discussions anymore. Way back when people would have back and forth discussions and speculate for pages and pages on things like UFOs or paranormal/time travel now it seems like less people really want to have discussions and chit chat. I used to have online friends on forums that we would all chat about aliens or weird stuff going on and now its like those kind of people are just gone from the internet. I mean I'm on another forum that is like that but its only because it is a real nostalgia web 1.0 back to the 90s forum with like 100 members and we still have webrings and a kind of a community type thing only because we are all desperately clinging to what the internet used to be.

Mysterious topics were hot in the 90s and early 2000 hence one of my favorite shows Unsolved Mysteries or Alien Autopsy on Fox, Belgian UFO revelations, Crop Circles were huge in the 90s but I think the shift was hard into 9/11 and the politics of that which led into the economic problems and divisive politics following with Obama and so on.

a reply to: DISRAELI2

I think another aspect is just 'growing up'. I have been here since the beginning and for me personally, I learned critical thinking from Skeptic Overlord, Jim Oberg, Miragemen just to name a few. I was all about that woo when I got here. Glad I learned about ufo entertainment, versus real, evidence 👍. My original name was simply vance, but my DM to donttreadonme went unanswered.

a reply to: DISRAELI2

I was on ATS from 2009-2013 under a different name. There was so much interesting engagement during that time. A lot of cool people, even if I didn’t agree with them. It was definitely a left-leaning audience.
When I started lurking again a few years ago (2020), I was shocked at how much it had changed. Everything revolved around politics and it was vicious. The demographic had completely changed. The whole site had just been hijacked by political sparring it seemed. Many of the interesting characters that were ATS staples were gone. I just figured they left because the site became a completely different animal. The “community” vibe that it had during my active years here was gone.

I'm finally prepared for the 2012 disaster. But now, in 24, things are different, it will be another five years before I get prepared for 24. Things are changing too fast.

I do not know for sure what is going to happen to this site in the near future, I guess if I try to log on and the website cannot be found, then I will have to go post somewhere else. I will be posting till the end whenever and whatever that is.

originally posted by: rickymouse
I do not know for sure what is going to happen to this site in the near future, I guess if I try to log on and the website cannot be found, then I will have to go post somewhere else. I will be posting till the end whenever and whatever that is.

Fear not dear ATS friends.

We Will Always Be Here, Even If We're Not HERE.

It changed when Obama was elected President. Some here just couldn't seem to accept it.

It went all to politics.

Remember the FEMA CAMPS, barbed wire, the ton of plastic coffins, and how Obama was going to declare martial law, take everyone's guns, and put all his enemies in jail?

I do.

That's when the vitriol began and ATS changed forever.

Surprisingly, what I miss the most, is the breaking news, from literally anywhere in the world.

Back in the early days, and even up past when I finally joined, you could come here, and way before the news was reporting something, it was here.

And the amazing detective work by some of the members. Crazy good.

They say the one constant is change. While I don't like it, I'm learning to live with it.
So if ATS does disappear, at least I know where to go.
Not sure about ascension, but at least an evolution of the conspiracy world, I guess.

Unless they actually do start locking up conspiracy theorists. LOL

originally posted by: Disgusted123
It changed when Obama was elected President. Some here just couldn't seem to accept it.
....That's when the vitriol began and ATS changed forever.

I actually agree with you, to a point. It did change when Obama was elected President. Obama said he was going to "fundamentally change America." A lot of people couldn't accept that their country, one they'd known and loved for over 200 years, was going to be changed right out from under them. I wouldn't call that "vitriol." And neither should you.

a reply to: DISRAELI2

I think you are right, the 2012 (not) end of world may have affected some people, making them think that maybe it wasn't worth spending all that time in conspiracy theories.

But I think that politics also had a big impact.

Unfortunately, I only had the idea of gathering site statistics on October 2010, so I "only" have 3127 days of stats, but this is what they show:

Monthly new threads, from 2011-01-01 to 2023-12-31


We can see that there was a sharp decline from the record month of March 2011 (the month of the big Japan earthquake and the resulting Fukushima problem), things started to stabilize in 2014 and an increase in new threads in 2016, but in the same year there was also a decline almost equal to the previous increase.

The new posts per month show the same thing.


The interesting thing is that the new members per month show a slightly different story, with the increase starting in 2015, with a sharp increase at the end of 2015 and an even sharper decrease right before 2016 started.


PS: for almost one year, during 2020 and 2021, new membership was closed. We can also see the increase in new members that happened in October 2023, when everybody had to rejoin.

PPS: the post bans and warnings statistics support the information above, but as they are based on information not publicly available I prefer not to post them. Sorry.

originally posted by: Disgusted123
It changed when Obama was elected President. Some here just couldn't seem to accept it.

Wasn't he elected in 2009?

a reply to: ArMaP
I can't star on this subforum, of course, so please consider yourself starred.

a reply to: DISRAELI2

Wow. That is very interesting in observation. Its very sad to observe, because you are right. When I use the search function for topics that interest me, the threads and information that are the best and that I get into for hours are also much older ones, like almost all from around 2003-2013 range. After that, very few topics come up. After that its mostly stupid politics about how my guy good/yourguy bad nonsense I have little interest in. Whats weird as that for so many people, the discussion of weird and mysterious topics was no longer relevant after 2012 came and went, which was dumb in my opinion. Most paranormal and conspiracy topics had nothing to do with 2012 yet are very relevant! Ghosts, aliens, time oddities, secret government bases, government coverups and projects, psychic powers, and everything weird didnt stop existing. 2012 was just one conspiracy topic among many. One I personally didnt believe in, because it was just another doomsday date like y2k.

Its a shame I wasnt here for the good years though because many of those old threads and old members posts were goldmines of information and the discussions often really take me back in time and help me remember things back then from a back then perspective. This place looked alot more fun back then, and discussion was often quite open minded.

Well, if you need a replacement for the 2012 forum I would nominate the 2000th anniversary of the death of Jesus Christ date myself. April 3 2033. Why that date? Well, Something I figured out a while back.

Put very simply there is a 2000 year curse on the nation of Israel as predicted by the "day of Jezreel" prophecy in the book of Hosea. Followed by the thousand year day of Jezreel itself. This then means the Apocalypse of Revelation must occur before the day of Jezreel can happen. Then the math is simple. The 7 year Apocalypse must start no later than April of 2026. And the 3 1/2 years of the Antichrist should start in 2029.

It also appears that some major Apocalyptic events have already occurred. So all things considered it maybe time to set up a "Apocalypse 2033" forum.