computer recieved messages from a manwho claimed to be living in the 16th century?

Originally posted by RedDanDoc
KEY WORD here Forum etiquet !

Must remember to keep my manners and proper 'etiquet' in check. *Tsk Tsk*

-Mea

In 1989 my 15 year old nephew died of a brain tumor. He had been a SYSOP of his own BBS (yeah, back in the day). In the following year his father started trying to get the BBS up and running so that he could communicate with the online friends his son had made in case they did not know of his passing. I was in college at the time and he knew I had talked with Little Zack (my nephew) on his BBS from time to time so when he started trying to figure out how to get the BBS to work he would call me and have me get online (9800 baud rate dial-up modem - uggh) and I set for about an hour at an attempt watching nothing but ASCII code garble across the screen as he would make his nightly attempt.

One night I'm sitting staring at the gibberish when all of a sudden a single line of intelligent type comes across the screen

"I am here."

I start to type a response and more ASCII gibberish floods the screen and eventually my brother-in-law gives up for the night. When the BBS disconnected I called him and I said - Well you almost got it! And he says "Nah, still can't figure it out." I said, "Didn't you type "I am here"??? He said, "No, I didn't type anything to you, same thing as every night I'm just seeing garbage on the screen and trying to get it to go away." I asked him if he tried to type "I am here" and it just didn't show up as such when he tried it and he said no...he was too busy trying to get the garbage to go away to attempt conversation.

Originally posted by Valhall
In 1989 my 15 year old nephew died of a brain tumor. He had been a SYSOP of his own BBS (yeah, back in the day). In the following year his father started trying to get the BBS up and running so that he could communicate with the online friends his son had made in case they did not know of his passing. I was in college at the time and he knew I had talked with Little Zack (my nephew) on his BBS from time to time so when he started trying to figure out how to get the BBS to work he would call me and have me get online (9800 baud rate dial-up modem - uggh) and I set for about an hour at an attempt watching nothing but ASCII code garble across the screen as he would make his nightly attempt.

One night I'm sitting staring at the gibberish when all of a sudden a single line of intelligent type comes across the screen

"I am here."

I start to type a response and more ASCII gibberish floods the screen and eventually my brother-in-law gives up for the night. When the BBS disconnected I called him and I said - Well you almost got it! And he says "Nah, still can't figure it out." I said, "Didn't you type "I am here"??? He said, "No, I didn't type anything to you, same thing as every night I'm just seeing garbage on the screen and trying to get it to go away." I asked him if he tried to type "I am here" and it just didn't show up as such when he tried it and he said no...he was too busy trying to get the garbage to go away to attempt conversation.

Thats really interesting fred, did anything similar to this event happen again? I have been looking into this phenomena recently and I am very interested to hear any stories people might have, especially instances like this. For some reason this story reminds me of "serial experiments lain" very interesting show.

[edit on 23-6-2007 by captinofcats]

Originally posted by wigit
I remember that story. Wasn't it featured on Strange but True with Michael Aspel?

Possibly, I too saw this but am thinking it may have been that show that Carol Vorderman did, anyone remember?

found two shows that Carol Vorderman did in the 90's, one was called 'out of this world' and the other 'mysteries with carol vorderman'. It must be one of these shows i'm guessing? i'm going to try and get an episode guide for each to find the correct one, fingers crossed!

EDIT

Found this:

How about the 16th century?

Tomas' description of his box of coloured lights sounded very Beeb-like, IIRC.

Sam.

Wikipedia: BBC Micro - 18:16, 15 November 2006

In 1984–86, Ken Webster (a school teacher) in Dodleston, UK, purported to be in contact with someone called Tomas Harden from the 16th century, along with other characters including one of them being known as 2109 (or 2105 communications in Luxembourg). The messages are purported to have been left on a humble BBC Model B fitted with an Acorn DFS upgrade. They were found on the editing screen of the ROM-based word processor EDWORD and within EDWORD files created on disk (or appended to them). The Society for Psychical Research (SPR) took the computer away to be examined by an engineer but were unable to make the computer work until its return to Webster's home. The SPR came to no conclusion regarding the case and left mystified. Ken detailed the curious case in his now out-of-print book The Vertical Plane [1989 Grafton Books, ISBN 0-586-20476-8], two episodes of a BBC 1 documentary series presented by Carol Vorderman [Out Of This World, 20 August 1996 & 27 August 1996 and in a Fortean Times article, The Vertical Plane - FT108, also a short interview with Ken Webster.

Back to top

taken from:

www.stairwaytohell.com...

[edit on 24-6-2007 by mrbocci]

[edit on 24-6-2007 by mrbocci]


this is a good little article on it too:

www.worlditc.org...

I've tried to find a complete transcript of the messages but to no avail unfortunately, anyone had any luck?

[edit on 24-6-2007 by mrbocci]

I remember this case was televised in the 80´s when i was a kid...they contactd him through a BBC micro computer (which wasnt exactly what you´d call micro, it was the siza of a small dinner table )..It was really intresting..thanks for bringing it up..id never have remembered any of it if it wasnt for this thread...And yes i remember the experts saying that there was nothing dodgy about it...it seemed a genuine case, If i remeber rightly this bloke in the 16th century said someone who said he came from the future had contacted him and left him the BBC computer..and he had hid the BBC for fear they would burn him alive for witchcraft..



[edit on 24-6-2007 by andy1972]

reply to post by andy1972


He left him a computer the size of a dinner table in the 16th century?...
I sure hope this guy had friends to help carry the thing into his house.

Was this fella nice enough to leave a generator to run this piece of equipment as well?

I'd swallow computer conversations with people from another diminsion, sure, but not some guy in the 16th century when the technological facts just don't add up, even if they are gifts from future travelers he can't exactly plug the thing into the wall.

Interesting post though, and I'm speaking more so to the situation, andy1972, not directing this to you.

We're good.

It sounds kinda to me that there were even great trolls in the 80's.

But I'm open to anything, so if this really is EVP or something, I'm reading to learn more about it!

it happens all the time on ats... people from the past.. from the future... from outer space... inner earth... reptilians.. you name it.. aint no big deal..

While it is possible this could have been faked, its still possible this is more than ghostly activity. This could be a variant timeline communication as well, which makes it very interesting. After all, this is what many of our cosmic visitors are doing, joining our timeline.
This opens up some really fascinating ideas about evps. They are quite possibly communications with the living.

[edit on 9-10-2008 by mystiq]

This thread reminded me of the case too.

I seem to remember something about a child in the house ? Anyone remember anything about that ?

And messages drawn on the walls ?


But most of all, it reminded me of another much overlooked case .. that of Matthew Manning, in the 70's I think.

The Mannings were comfortable, financially. Father a professional. Never a hint of scandal in the family. And they didn't really welcome all the publicity and scrutiny, although they did their best.

Began with 'usual' poltergeist activity: objects moved, water spilled, flying objects, etc. Took a while for the family to accept that these things were happening.

Then it stepped up a pace. Violent and dramatic poltergeist activity at Matthew Manning's boarding school, which caused several sets of parents to remove their sons from the school. Manning (who by now had been decided as the focus of the activity) was almost expelled, although he hadn't consciously caused the disturbances.

Psychic phenomena experts began to study Manning and the phenomena.

It was suggested to Manning that he attempt automatic writing. Perhaps the poltergeist might utilize this form of contact to explain itself, it was suggested ?

Manning proved adept with automatic writing and received a wealth of information in various styles of handwriting.

He also began 'automatic drawing/painting'.

Although having no artistic ability beforehand, Manning began producing paintings and drawings in a staggering variety of styles .. within a very short space of time. A painting that would normally be expected to take days or weeks to complete, was completed by Manning (automatically) within minutes or hours. Many of the paitings/drawings were 'signed' (automatically) by well-known artitsts such as Picasso, Durer, Matisse, etc.
These can still be viewed online I think, on the Matthew Manning sites.
Manning made no pretence that these artistic renderings were his own. He simply sat before a sketch pad or easel with pen or brush held lightly in his hand. The artists (deceased) worked through him, apparently. Many were in highly individualistic and recognisable styles (Beardsly for example)

One of the most interesting elements of the Manning story, for me, were the 300-plus individual signatures (many accompanied by dates) which appeared on large wardrobe doors in Manning's sealed room.

The psychic investigators had advised Manning to seal his room after leaving a supply of pencils on his desk (hope my memory is reasonably correct about this). Then the investigators checked that the doors and windows were sealed and possibly attached seals and checks of their own to doubly ensure no human hand was involved. I think the windows and door were also physically watched by the investigators. In any event, no-one entered the room. Yet when the room was opened later, there were 300 and more individual signatures written on the wardrobe doors, many with dates accompanying. Many of the dates were for the 1700s and 1800s, from memory. And later, when Manning and his family researched the names in local records and cemeteries, they were discovered to be those of people who had lived in the area some hundreds of years earlier.

The writing of the names and dates occurred in response to a dispute between the teenaged Manning and the spirit/ghost of a man with whom Manning was in communication in and around his parents' home. The ghost was the previous owner of the house, according to him, and he was not happy about the Manning-family's presence or about renovations they'd conducted on the property (which was in a reasonably affluent area in the UK).

The ghost appeared fully-lifelike to Manning on a number of occasions and they held conversations. The ghost did not believe he was dead .. considered the suggestion (by Manning) to be ridiculous ! As far as the ghost was concerned, Manning and his parents and siblings had no right to be in the house.

Manning attempted several timest to convince the ghost that it was 1976, for example. The ghost implied Manning was a crazy person. When Manning attempted to explain vehicles, the ghost again regarded Manning as simple-minded, for as far as the ghost was concerned, there were still horses and carts. From this, we can deduce that the ghost believed he was still fully alive in the 1800th century .. and possibly was unable to 'see' all the accountrements of the 20th century.

In order to 'prove' to Manning that it was not the 20th century, the ghost informed Manning that he would muster others to substantiate his claim that it was still a couple of hundred years earlier. Hence the several hundred individual signatures and dates which came to be written on Manning's wardrobe door in his sealed room.

Manning received a number of apports from the spirit realm. These consisted of a number of bread rolls, numerous coins and other small objects .. and a book .. which was delivered a page at a time !

All these objects were delivered out of thin air and would float down from above Manning and land on the ground.

Interestingly, there used to be some video-footage on You Tube, in which Manning's mother .. some thirty and more years later .. retrieved from the family freezer several plastic bags containing some of the bread roll apports.

Manning wrote a couple of books about his experiences, one of which is entitled 'The Link'. I was interested to read in one of his books about how, one day as a teenager, he was walking through his family's home during the day time, on his way from one room to another. Suddenly, the house became different, right before his eyes, and he saw it as it must have been a hundred-plus years before. The flooring, some doors and windows and other elements were changed.

Manning was subjected to repeated and rigorous testing by scientists in the UK and US .. he really gave a lot of his time to science. As far as I'm aware, at no time was there any suggestion of fakery.

Once, when at a book signing (I think) in Japan, Manning was held responsible for the total blackout of the venue, which from memory was a large shopping centre.

Eventually, having dedicated considerable time to scientific research and exhausted by this and continual demands upon his time from the media and public, Manning walked away from phenomena which had basically taken over .. changed the direction of .. his life (and to lesser degree the lives of his family).

He eventually decided upon a career as a healer. Scientific research in which he'd been engaged in the US in particular, revealed he had the power to germinate seeds under laboratory conditions and also to arrest the growth of disease, etc.

So, Manning decided to put his strange talents to good, rather than become a showman ala Uri Geller. He works as a healer today and there are some videos of this on You Tube.

Oh .. another aspect of the oddities which occurred during his teenage years was contact from a 'spirit doctor' who communicated (I think) via the automatic writing which Manning was utilizing as a means of 'taming' the destructive poltergeist activity. In his book 'The Link', Manning didn't reveal the doctor's true name, although I think he later provided more information. In any event, the spirit doctor diagnosed the illnesses suffered by people known to Manning and also prescribed treatments which were successful as far as I can recollect.

Manning set out to remove himself from the public eye and he appears to have been very successful, because these days, not many people are familiar with his name, although he continues to work as a healer and is booked up years in advance.

Really interesting stuff. But you know someone from th sixteenth century or whenever wouldn't ever reveal that? One who was... anything really, out of the ordinary, would be most likely to hide that.

I have actually got transcripts of the messages in a book back at mine.

I'm in the hospital car park at the moment but will post it as soon as I get home.

I promise.

It's quite interesting because the case was looked at by linguists and if it was a hoax, they clearly understood a lot about the way English was used at the time because it was written spot on...

Leave it with me and give an hour and a half or so.

Peace,

MGGG

A 15th century guy in England in a barn.

You guys are aware that the chances of a person of that desciption is unlikely to have the ability to read or write.
Let alone type on a keyboard, something most 21'st century people have massive troubles with.

And as for the near perfect language, that linguist is full of crap. Its just because it was supposed to be near flawless that its more likely fake then real. As anyone knows, the language you normally use to write is completely different from the way you actually speak. And the way you talk isn't anywhere near the way your supposed to talk by the rules of the language.

reply to post by thematrix


Come on man,

don't start shooting it down until I've had a chance to get the stuff up there. If I could remember more off the top of my head I'd put it up now, but I can't so sit tight.

The book explains it all rather well.

Peace,

MGGG

The only problem with the whole story that bothers me is the fact (like stated before in other posts) that in those times few royals knew how to write and read , so how could a common person (excluding the possibility that he was some kind of a royal in disguise ) read and write ?

Well one explanation would be that whoever left him the device (computer?) taught him how to read and write , but for what purpose?

It would really be great if somebody could post the transcript of the whole conversations.

OK - Have got it -

Am about to type it up - it might take me a while.

Sit tight.

Peace,

MGGG

The following was communicated by someone calling himself Thomas Harden. The message was looked at by experts in archaic language and staff at the OED. None of them could detect a hoaxer at work...

Enjoy...

"Myne goodly friend, I muste needs say, how cometh this, that there are manye thyngs for whiche I hath no rekenyng. me thinketh it, that if thou cannot telle thee for what are in myne home, then I can namoor helpe yow than if myne witts had gone. I hath no kinfolk to fynd, myne wif was wreched with thy pestilence and the Lord didst take here soule and her unbore son (1517). Myne farme 'tis humble but it hath a pretty parcel o land, it hath redstoon footynges and cleen rushes on myne beteen floor. This season I hath much to do, I hath to sow myne barley for myne ale, 'tis that is myne craft and for whiche I am beste atte I fancy. Also I hath to go to Nantwhiche to myne cowthe freend Richard Wishal whois farme be so greet as as to turn a four yeer rotacion o fallow. I do envye him he hath much there, but nought that delits me moor than his cheese it cannot be equalled by any other for pleasantness of taste and wholsomness of digestion. I shall als calle atte Nantwyche Market 'tis not so great as Cestre market by thy crios but 'tis of som desport. I shall need to go to Cestre this season to get myne soes, myne goodly freend Tomas Aldersay, a tailor by craft, makes them sometymes, I als mayketh soes but non of myne swyne are reedy 'tis far costly unlest I need kil one. Do you knoweth the country of Cestre the Water Gate is a plas that bringeth many traders 'tis a shame the port doth shrink I can record greet shipps now they grow small by each tyde, but Cestre port is still greeter than that o Leverpoole I am oft to the east wall of Cestre. Cow Lane, 'tis not so tyresome than that bt the crios that it when myne fowl or swyne doth not trip up myne poore body I hear telle that thou art a teache in Hawardine doth yow meeneth Haodine cloth, thou still earn thy greetly sum of twenty pounds per yeer I recorde myne unfavourable dean Henry Mann, who is likened to a fissh "If any boy shal appear naturally avers to learning aft fair trial he shalt be expelled else wher lest lik a drone he should devour the bees honey."
Ney I cannot make merry on holy day for feer of myne lif myne freen was once a floytinge on a holy day did that hus ears pinned to thy wood bloc methinks when thou sayeth Dodleston yow meaneth Dudlestun. Myne Queen is of cource Katherine Parr."

Strange Encounters, Author Unknown, Paragon, Bath, 2000. pp. 193, 194


Although the author is not stated, I have feeling that it is Tom Slemen - am actually awaiting clarification on that. He writes a lot about paranormal events in this area.
Here's his website if you're interested.

Tom Slemen's website

So there you go - make of it what you will.

The book also says that the SPR investigated but backed off after being told that they could have the answer to a question they left, but only if the investigator was willing to lose his soul.

Hope you find this useful/interesting.

Peace,

MGGG

Took me ages to type that up correctly...

No one interested?

:-(

MGGG

reply to post by machinegun_go_go

still reading the link you provided. thanks for that, btw.