Why I'm Gullible

Hello ATS. I’ve been a lurker for a bit, finally decided to post an introduction. I’ll start by saying that part of what brings me to sites and forums like ATS is that I’ll give just about any weird idea an honest shot and the initial benefit of the doubt. Call me gullible, dumb, an idiot, I don’t mind. I’ve been called worse. That’s not to say that I’m not a skeptic or that I’m incapable of critical thought or even that I’ll take anything at a source’s word, just that my initial treatment of any strange story will be with the assumption that there’s a modicum of truth somewhere in there.

While my interests span a pretty wide range, for the sake of being focused I will touch on why specifically I am interested in termed “government conspiracies” of all kinds. My “story,” so to speak, is personal collection of anecdotes revolving around interactions and conversations I’ve had with many very interesting people. Needless to say I found them credible enough, my own personal reservations aside. That being said, this is offered at face value, that I have no solid proof of anything anyone has told me, and I’m not really concerned with anyone else believing me, nor am I interested in defending the veracity of the “stories.” I merely offer them up within the context of my introduction as personal experiences that contribute to my POV.

Warning: This is going to be long. Seriously.

I’ll start by saying that I grew up in Hawaii. My grandfather fought in the 442nd Regimental Combat Team in World War II. Like many of his comrades, he served honorably and after the war ended, he returned home a decorated veteran. After marrying my grandmother and buying a house, he was hired as a civilian to help operate the Officer’s Club on Kaneohe Marine Corps Air Base in the late 1940’s. In the early 1950’s he was made the manager of the Package Store attached to the Officer’s Club. He held that position, managing the Package Store, even after Kaneohe MCAB eliminated the Enlisted and NCO Package Stores, lumping all Package Store services into one place, incidentally that one location being attached to the Officer’s Club. My grandfather would retire from that position in the summer of 1987.

A note about my grandfather. He had what many might call “the gift of the gab.” Others might call him a “schmoozer.” But, to put it simply, the man liked to talk. More than that, he was easy to talk to. Everyone who ever knew him described him as friendly, funny and trustworthy. He was charming, he had the “X Factor” to his personality, and he rubbed shoulders very well with the Good Ole Boys.

For example, my grandfather had a system to keep himself in the good graces of Kaneohe MCAB staff and command officers. At the Package Store, officers of course got Officer’s Club prices on all items. Military pilots stopping over at Kaneohe MCAB on their way to Okinawa, Japan, Korea and later the Vietnam theatre, would drop in at the Package Store for any assortment of items, snacks, drinks, tobacco, etc. The pilots that made frequent stops and considered themselves friends of my grandfather would buy premium liquor at the Officer’s Club prices, then gift the liquor to my grandfather. My grandfather would then gift the pilots, out of his own pocket, the monetary equivalent of the liquor in soda for their flights. My grandfather would then take the premium liquor and make his rounds of the base, gifting them to base command and staff officers.

As a very young child, my grandfather and father would take me and my brother on fishing trips. They would mostly take us to a small set of piers that were no longer in use on Kaneohe MCAB. It was located on the Northwest side of the base looking out across Kaneohe Bay with a very clear line of sight to Coconut Island, which is situated in the middle of Kaneohe Bay. To give you an idea of how close Coconut Island was to Kaneohe MCAB, I’m fairly certain you could hit the island with a standard mortar from the piers where we fished.

We never caught much fish. I think it was more of a bonding experience than anything. I remember looking out across the water, seeing these large stone walls coming out of the water, slightly off shore. The stone walls were circular with a single gap, like a tank built directly into the water or a rudimentary fish farm with the gap acting as an access point to the bay. There were several of these large stone tanks that were visible in the water. I would sit there, looking out at those tanks and my imagination would run wild with what those could possibly be.

One day my grandfather, I think just out of curiosity, asked me what I was looking at out there all the time. So I said to him, I want to know what those things are coming out of the water. I was very young, so I just looked at my grandfather and waited for him to answer. He didn’t answer for a little while, just looking at the stone tanks in the bay. Then he turned to my father and my father said, “You can tell him.”

So my grandfather told me. He said right there, from the piers to Coconut Island, that entire stretch of water was used to train dolphins. I asked him if they were dolphins like the kind they had at Sea Life Park. He said, no, not really. He explained simplistically, because I was just a child, how Russia and America were enemies for a long time. And that Russia and America were always competing over who had the best weapons.

My grandfather then told me about how the Navy, the Marine Corps, CIA and the Hawaii Institute of Marine Biology used to train dolphins there, in that stretch of the water between Kaneohe MCAB and Coconut Island, and then keep them locked up in those stone tanks when they weren’t being trained. They trained the dolphins to track and bomb Russian submarines like “kamikaze fish.” He said not to tell anybody because no one was supposed to know that.

Another part of my childhood is being immersed in old stories of ETs, the paranormal and cryptids. Most of it were interests passed on to me from my father. Once I asked my father why he was so interested in UFOs and ETs. He told me a few stories he had heard from other people, he told me of strange things he had personally seen and was unable to explain. But he finished by telling me to ask my grandfather about the “Moon City” story. So I did.

As my grandfather told it, in 1969 he hired an enlisted Marine to help part time at the Package Store. This Young Marine was an airplane mechanic from a family of engineers, gear-heads, and grease rats on the Mainland. He served on Kaneohe MCAB from 1969 to 1976 before being redeployed.

One night he was helping my grandfather at the Package Store. A couple of pilots were shooting the # with my grandfather, and my grandfather was listening to them tell a story about weird lights and UFOs they would see on their Trans-Pacific flights. Nothing real noteworthy. But they finished their story and said their goodbyes.

To be Continued

After the pilots left, the Package Store was pretty much empty except for him and the Young Marine. So my grandfather was doing some inane busy-work and the Young Marine kind of strolls up to the counter, sets down his broom and leans against the counter, looking around the store. My grandfather said he asked the Young Marine if he was done. The Young Marine shook his head and leaned in close to my grandfather and asked him if he believed the stuff that the two pilots were talking about. My grandfather said he’s heard a lot of similar stories from a lot of people, but he’s never seen any UFOs or aliens personally, and for him the jury was still out but he definitely would not call the pilots liars.

The Young Marine then proceeded to tell him in a hushed voice about how he had an older brother who was an electronics engineer with NASA. The Young Marine said that his older brother told him once that he was retrieving photos of the dark side of the moon, recently taken on one of their missions, and that he could swear that there were noticeable and undeniable buildings on the dark side of the moon. He told my grandfather to take it or leave it, he never saw those images, all he had was his brother’s word on it, but he never knew his brother to tell tall tales.

My grandfather finished by saying that he didn’t know one way or another if any of the UFO and alien stories he heard on Kaneohe MCAB were true, but he heard enough supposed firsthand stories about them so that in his mind, “where there’s smoke, usually there’s fire.”

Jumping forward over a decade, my next anecdote comes from when I was in college. I attended college in California, more specifically at California State University at Hayward when it was still called that. It is now known as California State University East Bay. While enrolled, I made friends with a couple of former servicemen in college on their GI Bills. One of them was ex-Army. For the sake of the story, I’ll call him Ninja.

Ninja came from a military family. We became pretty good friends through college, and he eventually introduced me to his group of friends and some members of his family. One weekend I was hanging out with him and his roommates as they got their gamer on with Halo and Gears of War. One of Ninja’s cousins showed up Friday evening out of the blue. I’ll call Ninja’s cousin Dune Rat.

Dune Rat was older than Ninja by a little bit. Apparently he was an ex-Marine, had served in the first Gulf War then spent most of the 90’s stationed as Embassy Security overseas. His last posting was a couple year stint at the US Embassy in Moscow. After his service ended, he was apparently recruited into the NSA as an operator. At the time that I met him he was no longer employed by the NSA, instead working as a private security contractor that essentially traveled across the country teaching pistol marksmanship to state and federal law enforcement.

Personality wise, it was completely within Dune Rat’s character to show up uninvited to a party out of the blue, though that’s not to say he wasn’t welcome. He just had that kinda “Oo-rah” broheim personality that could be seen as stereotypical of elite military servicemen. That being said, I wasn’t going to pass up an opportunity to finagle some information out of him, to which I wasn’t entirely successful.

After shooting the # with Dune Rat and Ninja for most of the weekend, I took a stab at asking Dune Rat in what capacity he served in the NSA. He was predictably cagey with his answer which basically amounted to “I did some field work, some pencil pushing, this that and the other thing. You know.” I was fairly certain I wasn’t going to get anything really worthwhile out of him. I finished by asking him if he felt, having been an employee for the NSA, that the government was capable of monitoring and tracking anybody in the country. To which Dune Rat just smirked and said “You have no idea. In this day and age, with technology being what it is, if the US government really, truly wanted you, there is no place in the first world you could hide.”

I asked him how the government would track people. Dune Rat held up his cell phone and waggled it at me, saying “Beware the zombie cell phone towers.”

He told me that more than five years before the first media report came out about Unknown Interceptor Towers dotting our countryside.

Jumping forward a couple years, I’m out of college and trying to figure what I want to do with my life. I got a job at a Borders Books and Music in Northern California, shortly before the company went into its death throes. It wasn’t too long before I ended up in a low level supervisory position. In the years that I worked at Borders, there was one particular regular customer I worked with extensively.

I’ll call this customer the Major. At first, I had no idea that the Major was ex-military. I always assumed that he was just a well read, highly educated, older gentleman enjoying his retirement pursuing his eclectic academic interests.

A note about Borders. For a time Borders offered a service where the company would catalogue the inventories of participating used book stores. This inventory of used books was uploaded to the company database and any store in the company could access it. If a customer was willing to pay the shipping fees and the independent seller’s price, then Borders would order the book for them and have it shipped to a store of choice for payment and pick up.

The Major utilized this service more than most people in the country. He would call our store from a “secure” land line or come in personally with a list of out-of-print academic titles, running the gamut from sociology, political science, history, religious studies, basically anything that falls under the heading Social Science. And the Major would order a lot of books. Helping him search the database for his books often took the better part of an hour, sometimes as long as an hour and a half. Most of my co-workers didn’t have the patience for it. I enjoyed it, so I would volunteer to assist him every time he called or came into the store.

The Major would come in every two weeks to pick up the books he ordered. The total would come to anywhere between $1200 and $2400. Every two weeks. His used book orders alone kept our location in top 3 grossing stores in the country for used book sales.

I had been assisting him in that fashion for over a year while employed at Borders. One day we brought a seasonal employee on, she apparently did seasonal work for our location for several years running. She was also ex-Army, I’ll call her Sgt. Linda. Apparently, she was an engineer with the Army for several years and served in the first Gulf War. When she wasn’t doing seasonal work with Borders, she installed advanced electronic security systems in the homes of rich people.

To Be Continued

One day, the Major was in the store to place another order and to pick up his last order of books. I was helping him out at one of the computer terminals when Sgt. Linda walked exclaiming “Is that the Major?”

The Major did recognize her and we took a break while they chatted. I then learned the Major was indeed ex-Army and that he and Sgt. Linda were in the same base camp during the first Gulf War. When he was serving, he was in Army Intelligence and worked closely with (or in) the Army Special Activities Division. He had served from the late 60’s through the first Gulf War, retiring just a year or so after the conflict came to a close.

When Sgt. Linda and the Major were done catching up, the Major and I concluded our business and I promptly sought out Sgt. Linda for the scoop. She was in the back talking to the Stock Room Supervisor, with whom I had many conversations about conspiracy theories. I learned further that the Major utilized our company’s used book service because he refused to have an internet connection to his home. He did not own a cell phone, using instead his “secure” land line. Sgt. Linda and the Stock Room Supervisor informed me that the Major supposedly had knowledge of and was a consultant on military black ops from Latin America to the Middle East all through the 80’s.

So of course I couldn’t help myself. The next time the Major came into the store, I asked him about his experiences and his opinions. Being as discreet as I possibly could for both of our benefits, I asked him about his reasons for cutting himself off from internet and cell phone services. He told me that anything hooked up to internet cable, a satellite, or DSL line could be invaded by government surveillance.

I posed the question, with all the people that could possibly be monitored, where would the government find the manpower and time to monitor that many people? He admitted that it would be impossible to monitor everyone all at once. Which is why it’s good to know that reasons why the government would take those measures to monitor people.

The Major explained to me that the government’s last concern is for the safety of its citizens and soldiers. The government’s foremost concern is protecting and advancing the interests of “The Powers of Always. The Powers of Money and Legacy.” He told me there isn’t anything the government wouldn’t do to its own people to protect itself and the Powers of Always. Which is why he retired. He wouldn’t say anything of detail, but he said that what the government did during the Gulf War (whatever it was, I don’t know what he was talking about) was the straw that broke the camel’s back for him, and he just couldn’t do it anymore. “When you serve the government the way the military does, it does one of two things to you. You either double down on your patriotism to deal with the guilt of what you’ve done, or you get your patriotism bled right out of you.”

Jumping forward several years again. The work I do now has me interacting with a lot of military veterans. One in particular, I’ll call the Chemist. I met him through a friend of mine who served in the 82nd Airborne in the 80’s, I’ll call him Champ. The history and service record of the Chemist was vouched for by Champ as they served together for a time.

The Chemist was a Green Beret from the 70’s through the early 90’s.

The personal history of the Chemist reads similar to that of many operators in the US Military. He came from a broken home of physically abusive, addict parents. He was in trouble with the authorities from the time that he was very young, and by the time he was 14 he had, in his words, a rap sheet as long as his arm.

Shortly after he turned 16, he was arrested while driving a getaway vehicle in an armed robbery. The prosecutors and the judge wanted to try him as an adult, given his history of violence and his penchant for criminal activity. But, again in the words of the Chemist, because he was white the judge gave him a choice. He could go to prison as an adult or he could go to military boarding school. He chose military boarding school.

In military boarding school, his attitude didn’t change much. He was frequently the recipient of disciplinary action for everything from breaking curfew to physically fighting other cadets and his instructors. However, they noticed that when he was focused he had a brilliantly technical mind, his aim was dead on, he had a talent for violence, and he was one tough #. When he turned 18 and his stay at the military boarding school was coming to a close, the school commander called him into his office.

In a brutally honest fashion, the commander told the Chemist that he had nothing waiting for him on the outside. Where was he going to go? Back to his abusive addict parental figures? With a record like his, was he going to get a good job? Was he going to go to college? In all likelihood, he’d probably end up murdering someone and spending life in prison. So, why doesn’t he put his skills and talents to good use in the Army.

The Chemist agreed, the commander’s assessment was probably prophetic. So the Chemist joined the Army and was immediately placed in their Green Beret training program.

Upon completion of his training in the early 70’s, he was deployed to Vietnam and attached to MACV-SOG. He served in Vietnam until the conflict came to a close for the US. After Vietnam, he spent time as an operator in various black ops assignments until the Latin America conflicts of the 80’s.

The Chemist participated the Salvadoran Civil War, Grenada and Panama. He met Champ in Grenada, where Champ was a one of a small group of 82nd Airborne soldiers that were tapped for assignments by the Army Special Activities Division. They served together again in Panama. I learned that the Chemist did know the Major and they frequently interacted regarding assignments. Small world.

The Chemist finished his military service by spending the early 90’s training Army Special Forces recruits. He retired in the mid 90’s.

So one day I found myself hanging out with the Chemist and Champ as they were chatting and lamenting the state of the VA, which in turn led to them telling stories from the field, many of them having nothing to do with combat and were more humorous in nature.

As long as the mood was lighter, I decided that I’d ask some open ended questions about the operations that the Chemist may have been a part of as well as the nature of military non-disclosure and classified statuses. I asked him if it were possible for the military to cover up big things, like disasters, full on military engagements where we shouldn’t be, or even mass genocide.

To Be Continued

He responded with an “absolutely.” Even with large numbers of people involved in a potential cover up, he said to never underestimate the brainwashing of military personnel. Soldiers are trained not to ask questions like “Why?” and “What are we doing?”

I asked him if he still felt the need to keep the government’s and the military’s secrets about the things that they did during the 70’s and the 80’s.

He responded that he personally felt no loyalty to the US Government or military anymore. In fact, he never felt loyalty to the government or the military, even while he was serving. He was just doing a job, in his mind. He would tell more stories, except he wasn’t fond of the idea of the government going out of their way to mess with him over divulging secrets.

So I jokingly asked him if he ever had any black ops assignments that were weird. Like, X-Files weird.

He took a moment to respond. To me, it appeared as though he were sizing me up. Then he said he had a story for me, except he was going to give me the redacted version of it.

After Vietnam, he remained attached to SOG and served as an operator for them. Sometime in the late 70’s, shortly before the Salvadoran Civil War, he was called up while on leave. After he got the call, he immediately made his way to the closest military base to him, where he was put on a flight to an unknown military base.

At the base, within a few hours, two combat teams of operators assembled from the ranks of SOG. Once assembled, they caught another flight to a well-known military base in the Southwest United States. There they were outfitted for mountain and cave combat, and they were given massive amounts of para cord, flares, and batteries. Team leaders were selected and they met their Ground Contacts, an individual from the Pentagon and an individual from the Department of State.

Their Ground Contacts informed them that they would be conducting an op within the borders of the United States. They were going to explore a very large system of caves in the Southwest US.

The teams’ initial response to this assignment was “What the #? We’re killers not explorers.”

To which their Ground Contacts responded, “We know.”

After getting the details of their assignment and completely outfitted, they were airlifted to an isolated entrance leading to the system of caves. Their Ground Contacts waited top side with their transport while the teams descended into the cave system. The two teams split and used the para cords as a life line to the surface.

The Chemist described losing track of time as they went deeper, which isn’t uncommon and they were warned that it would happen. After a short period they lost radio contact with their Ground Contacts, which also was to be expected.

He said his team rounded a bend in the tunnel, and the last thing he remembers is seeing a trio of tall, slender human-like figures about 20 yards from their position. He could not make out any defining characteristics given the conditions. Then a high pitched whistling sound started and quickly became blinding.

He said he came to walking out the entrance of the cave with the rest of his team, the second combat team trailing them. Everyone was in a daze, and none of them could remember how they got back to the surface.

One of the Ground Contacts asked them what happened.

His team leader said “They told us never to come back.”

The Chemist then had a memory of a loud whisper saying those exact words to him, ‘Never come back.’ He looked around and saw the rest of the operators nodding in agreement.

“Who’s they?” Their Ground Contact asked them.

The team leader said he didn’t know.

They were immediately airlifted back to the base where they were separated and put under sequestered quarantine.

The Chemist said he wasn’t sure how long he was in quarantine, it took him a long time to get his sense of time back. But eventually his quarantine ended and he was visited by one of his Ground Contacts who told him that his team had encountered a pocket of noxious natural gasses and passed out.

The Ground Contact told him they were lucky to be alive. A rescue unit had been mobilized after losing contact with their operators. They were pulled out and airlifted back to base where they were treated for poisoning, and the assignment was deemed too dangerous to continue without further scientific analysis of the underground gas veins that may release into the cave system. He was then given a pat on the back and told “good job.”

The Chemist was released and transported back to where he had been enjoying his leave. But he had nightmares of the voice saying “Never come back.” Not long after having returned from the assignment, he managed to track down his team leader from the assignment. After speaking with his team leader, they decided they needed to get the rest of the team back together to talk about what happened.

They managed to get the rest of the operators to meet them discreetly where they all confirmed the series events as they remembered it. They all saw the tall slender figures. They all were hit by a blinding sound. They had a memory a voice saying “Never come back.” And they all had no idea how they made it back to the surface.

I asked him if that little post assignment meeting was technically against the rules.

The Chemist nodded and said “There are some unbreakable rules a man will bend to safeguard his own sanity. We all needed to hear each other say it.” He said he still has nightmares about that voice.

To Be Continued

I reiterate that it is not my goal to get anyone to believe these stories. There is no way for me to prove it, and I’m not even saying that I believe everything I’ve been told unequivocally. To paraphrase my grandfather, I’ve met enough people who’ve told me enough of their personal experiences so that I feel where there’s smoke, usually there’s fire. I personally find them credible, though I have no way of knowing for certain if they are telling the truth or spinning tales.

If you want to view all of this as pure fiction, you’re more than welcome to.

I do believe the government is capable of anything. I do believe that there are strange things out there that even mainstream science and the government doesn’t know what to do about. Nor do they even know how to explain it. I believe the government is a veritable closet full of skeletons of all kinds.

That’s why I believe in government conspiracies.

Oh, and a note, I’m fairly certain through my anecdotes that a dedicated individual would be able to find out who I am and who my grandfather was and possibly who my sources were. I’m nobody special. But all the same, if someone did find out who I am, please don’t share the information for privacy reasons, lol. Thanks.

Most epic intro ever.

Welcome.

I hope you are done and I am not breaking the flow.

Dude, awesome.

They are down there.....waiting.

I want to go down there. That would be worth the death.

Thanks for posting. You rock.

a reply to: Burnitalldown

I haven't finished reading but what year were you born and when were you in college. There is a disconnect for me.

Thanks and very interesting so far.

a reply to: liveandlearn

I was born in 1984 and I started attending college in 2002.

a reply to: Burnitalldown

Welcome! Your typing speed is impressive.

I think you outed yourself pretty thoroughly. Why not just talk to the mods and do an AMA or something?

Amazing stories - thanks for sharing.

It reminds me of some conversations I had with military guys in the Middle East in the 90s, so please bear that in mind. I like to keep up with technology, and keep myself informed.

Two things spring to mind - one time I was chatting to a guy about the Heads up displays for pilots, and he said that was old hat (pun intended) from years ago, but did not give me any information about what was newer. He worked on the planes there, but was not very forthcoming with details.

Another guy was a techie and he was talking to me about terabytes of data back in the early 90s, at that time my computer had a 700MB hard drive (yes, MB not GB). Also he was talking about T1 connections and the blistering speeds to transfer data from the Middle East to USA - at the time I was on dial up modem.

So yes, the military do have a lot of cool toys and stuff that has not yet been released for the populace.

Awesome intro. A really good read, thanks

Wow!

a reply to: Burnitalldown

Wait--if your grandfather had 'the gift of gab' then you must have . . .

Well, I'm not sure what, but you have it!

Welcome

a reply to: Burnitalldown

Looking at the 442 regiment, they were very impressive, maybe the most impressive of WWII

Welcome.
That's gotta be the best damn introduction thread I've read in......well, ever.
I hope you got more like that to share.

Thanks for the welcomes everyone

Here come replies with no quotes, lol.

I agree that military probably has a whole lot of tech that is not being shared with anybody.

As for my writing speed, lol, I'm not that fast of a writer. To be completely honest I drafted my introduction prior to creating the thread. This was for several reasons. One, I like to make sure that what I say flows. I'm actually still a little disappointed with it as I caught some missing words and improper tense shifts after I posted it, but oh well. The second is that it gave me an opportunity to contact some people who shared their stories with me, so I wasn't posting anything they weren't comfortable being shared. To this end, I actually removed a couple of stories from the post because I couldn't contact the people that told those stories to me.

I'm not too concerned with outing myself. I knew ahead of time that I had way more than enough information here for a smart person to figure out my identity. Believe me, I prefer if my personal stats weren't shared, but I don't feel I have anything to hide either. I have no proof of anything. At the end of the day, all these stories amount to is second-hand, word-of-mouth accounts. And I doubt anyone would really bother with me.

Thanks everyone!

Great post Now never come back. JK

Read a part of the intro, will have to return when I have more time to read the rest. Hello and welcome!

originally posted by: Night Star
Read a part of the intro, will have to return when I have more time to read the rest. Hello and welcome!

Ditto that for me...fascinating.

(I lived in a house on Kaneohe Bay in 1969 and used to roam Sand Island on my Honda 50, back in my more naive days)

Mahalo.