UFO projects, the potential end of ATS and priorities

a reply to: deanbaker

Word is +$25k/month

Hopefully this will continue, been here a long time and have abandoned this site for the last three years. It seems to have lost it’s way, it used to be balanced but seems a mirror image of glp with all the left, is that right? Leaning support of trump and his constant con game. I only came back to see if any sanity still exists here, apparently it does, but too late for whomever puts the stuff on front page as important in my world lost his way. I am old, 81, more conservative than liberal, yet very open minded and progressive. I know a city slicker con man when I see one, I was raised to honor my word, my contract was a handshake and still is. Honesty is everything, yet so many here claim to be conservative but are not, I am not in the ways of here, I am a spirit here to find my way, thus I abandoned this site. Oh yea, I am mostly deaf from eight years in the army, too much gun fire, so hold back on judging and this is not bragging, I have learned a few things along the way. I feel others have done as I have done, gave up here and elswhere.

Should get the FBI to kick in their fair share.

I would not try to start or finish anything here on ATS. It would be wasted effort. We "UFO people" need a new place to congregate. I know that you, Isaac, have been on The Paracast. Sadly, that isn't the place, which is on more of a shoestring than ATS and suffers from some other maladies as well. I'm interested in what other site can become the "go to place" for aficionados. I'm not sure there is a place that is not dominated by "experts" who tend to ruin collaborative efforts. I'm not optimistic.

a reply to: schuyler

Anywhere but GLP...
ANYWHERE!

a reply to: Macenroe82

I ve been on this ufo business since 1990? 1991, i can safely say that i have never found a forum that even comes close to ATS. Should this place go down it will be akin to a new dark ages as far as the ufo community goes. You will not find the quality of posts-posters anywhere else on the internet.

I'm an unabashed life-long UFO buff with "UFO experiences." I have done much observing and thinking about the "earth meets aliens" quandary and what various TPTB agendas have wrought upon us. --Anybody that thinks there is no powerful forces around this globe controlling the issue (locally and overhead) is simply ignorant across several fields of thought.

The UFO problem with ATS is that its job is done. The basic, simplistic denial stance of schooled members on ATS is no longer required by TPTB and a new phase is beginning. The flat denial response is no long tenable. It hasn't been working for a few years despite the persistence of the purveyors. But paradoxically, it has kept the topic from getting into honest and realist discussions and arguments about what we really need to be thinking and talking about. It is time for a brand new type of dialogue not even understood by most here. (I dare say the new term "woke" has a more broad meaning than assumed.) In keeping with the flood of coming changes, I also suggest that ATS perhaps is part of the kinder subterfuge, supported variously by programs of TPTB. And the withdrawal of that support one of the reasons it is finally failing. It is a relic of a former time. The general consensus today is, "Ho hum, another short, blurry, indistinct phone video of an alien UFO so what?" Who cares anymore? ATS documents a failing across the cratered field of ufology such that it hardly counts as anything other than a deterrent to a hidden truth sought by many. Very clever play there then.

I, you, we are cosmic citizens that need to heed our tortured state of affairs derived from the old thinking that we were the sole masters and owners of the entire Universe. You can best come to terms with where your head needs to be by imagining yourself as a super intelligent alien wheeling overhead and what it would have of us. It would have compiled our history either by our own works or via its own methods over eons. At any rate, it would know the human animal from start to finish and it would know that probable finish, without a doubt. I can't tell you what to make of this changing world that we are beginning to witness, but the supreme result is far beyond the physical, the material, out of sight to most and relates down to a very deeply buried question of humanity that directly concerns core values that tend to frequently creep forward to question the common world in all aspects. Pure consciousness is the medium of discourse for the major players in the Universe. And those that wheel above us have that capability.

Long live ATS. ...
ATS and common UFOs and their history are dead.
May they rest in peace as symbols of where we once stood in our ignorance.

a reply to: Macenroe82

Have to figure out a way to monetize ats beyond ad revenue to match that kinda bank book.

i don't really have anything useful to contribute here, just wanted to acknowledge the fine fine work Isaac has done over the years and to note that whatever forum they move to is the one i'll also go with. If they choose to make that information public, of course.

a reply to: IMSAM

Agreed.

a reply to: IsaacKoi

Hi Issac

Good suggestion. I'm willing to throw my hat in the ring but I'm not sure what I can pull together in terms of a thread UFO wise myself but I'm currently knee deep in the US, post-WW2 period and I keep bumping up against the subject so there's potential that I could contribute. 1952-53 seems an interesting point of no return, as it were.

a reply to: IsaacKoi

Thanks for sharing, I was literally shaken by SkepticOverlord's announcement since I always found this site to be among the very best sources of information regarding fringe topics (which is of course due to the many highly dedicated posters on here).

I'm almost certain that most of the ATS threads will somehow be archived and remain accessible in future, but one of the strong points of ATS is of course the community and interactivity among its members. It would be a shame to loose all that and I'm not so sure that there's another place out there that's just as suitable.

Although I'm mostly lurking right now, I hope to be able to contribute with some more threads soon. Let's keep our fingers crossed and hope that a solution will be found to secure the future of ATS...

a reply to: IsaacKoi

If it looks like archiving is necessary, I'm sure that (if ATS gives permission) I can sort out creating PDFs of the best threads in the UFO forum (if not all the threads in here). The number of flags could probably be used to find the best or most popular threads.

In terms of archiving, the wayback machine has most of the material. You can go here:wayback machine

Then put in: www.abovetopsecret.com...

It doesn't have the latest pages...but not all is lost.

a reply to: IsaacKoi

Don´t worry, a new and better forum will come up. ATS has lost its soul long ago anyway.

Keeping a forum like this alive, well, if well done you can do it for less than 40 bucks a month on digitalocean or some other vps hosting. It´s no big deal and there are plenty of tutorials on how to setup a forum invision, vbulletin, discourse or any other.

The problem with ATS is that the increasingly politically correct mr.G is de-funding this kind of sites so alternate sources have to be found.

I was going to post how archiving to an ftp site is far from a viable solution as you can no longer google search for information, and then I realised that when you search for terms like 9/11, ufo and ufo forum you can't even find this site. I mean even the NSA website on UFO's came up before ATS.

Given your experience in making databases or information searchable online, Isaackoi, is there anyway to make this website and the information in the forums searchable online so people will actually find their way here? With the trove of information on UFO's here, I just can't believe it is not coming up in the first page.

Edit: So my initial results were with google located in France; with duckduckgo I had more success when I searched for ufo forum.

It's so sad that all of the intellectual property on many topics will get lost, somehow it's probably always protected by ATS itself?
But losing it forever is a real B@tch ..

a reply to: Shere Khaan

Yes, you scrape it and import that database into a wordpress or some forum app deppending on what you want to make of it but there is the intellectual property issue, you should either have permission from ats admin, the mombers who posted or you can possibly wait until ats to die to make your database online.

realistically speaking this forum is not that big:
"new posts: Past 24 hours: 3,455 "
"New member accounts: Past 24 hours: 37 "

This is from the stats page.

This is about 140 posts per hour or 2.3 per minute. I tell you, on Digital Ocean hosting this is less than 40 bucks per month but you have to setup the server.

Making a living from these numbers without adsense is probably difficult so, if I had to do it I would probably try to sell stuff like mugs and t-shirts, pins and try to sell banners directly but I confess marketing is not my area.

Maybe some convention for members would be a cool idea, maybe some patreon income could work...

Even so, after being a member for 14 years and coming by to read the weird stuff for even longer I must say, and its easy to confirm by the amount of posts per category, this forum has became way off its original topic, specially with so much happening recently...