I have always been skeptical of things that do not hold to tangible evidence like UFO’s and supernatural events. I do however keep an open mind to most things.
My dad was a part of the 209th bomber squadron stationed at Roswell in 1947 when the UFO landing was to supposedly have happened. I have asked him several times if he had heard about any of this when he was stationed there. He has always said no, not a word about it. The last time we discussed this was a few weeks ago when we were talking about one of my sons being stationed at Diego Garcia. A highly guarded and somewhat secret air force base on a tiny island in the middle of the Indian Ocean. This place is harder to get to and under more secrecy than area 51. My son is part of the air force security force there.
I did some research on the island and found some strange comments about it which included UFO sightings as well as it not being touch in the tsunami a year ago. I don’t put much credence in those types of claims but thought it interesting. When I mentioned it to my dad, he immediately told me to quit reading about such crap and remember what happened when the east coast of this country went a little crazy when H.G. Wells did his War of The Worlds radio program in 1938 (my dad was 9 years old at the time). He also went on to say how the world couldn’t handle it if UFO’s and alien encounters were true. He has never made those additional comments before.
My brother in law owns a small town newspaper in McMinnville Oregon. In 1950 his paper (then called The Telephone-Register now The News Register) published a photo taken by Paul Trent, a farmer living on the outskirts of town at the time. This photo is one of the most famous photos ever taken of a UFO and to this day has not been proven to be any kind of a hoax or has been retouched in anyway. I have had conversations with Phil Bladine, my brother in law’s father and the editor of the newspaper at the time of the photo being printed not only in their paper but in Life Magazine. Phil had told me about the many experts who examined both the photos and negatives and had declared them to be authentic and untouched or manipulated.
I had asked my brother in law if they still had the negative so that I could look at them myself. I have been a professional illustrator and photo retoucher for many years and wanted to examine them myself. With modern digital technology I know if I could look at the original negatives as well as scan them into my computer I could tell if they had been touched up in any way. Back in the 50’s negatives were touch up by hand and with the simplest magnifying tools the film manipulation would have been fairly obvious. By scanning them and trying to detect variations of gray tone and film grain inconsistencies changes would also be fairly obvious to me. He told me his dad sent the original negatives to a researcher years ago and he has not seen them since.
I would have loved to have seen the negatives. I have seen the prints and because of the somewhat primitive retouching capabilities of the time, it would have been extremely difficult to impossible to retouch the photos to manipulate them and retouch out the things the skeptics of the time say were taken out of the photos to create a hoax (wires, strings, car rear view mirrors etc.).
Even though I have had the chance to talk to two people who were involved with two of the most famous UFO incidences reported in the United States (my dad who was stationed at Roswell at the time and Phil Bladine the editor of the paper that first printed the famous Trent UFO photos) I remain an open-minded skeptic.
After all, at one time I believed in talking snakes and floating Zoos. Now I do not.
Dave
seven006
JoinedPosts by seven006
-
63
Aliens/UFO's...Do You Believe In Them?
by Legolas in.
after reading another thread it got me thinking...how many here believe in aliens?
have you ever seen a ufo?
-
-
seven006
-
10
A Demon Haunted World
by wednesday insomeone just recently posted the name of a book, i believe it was called 'a demon haunted world" .
i went to amazon, and the author they have is carl sagon.. is the correct book?
or is there a lesser known writer who wrote another book?
-
-
seven006
The correct title is “THE demon haunted world”
Not “A” demon haunted world
Dave -
36
Why do churches still make me panic ?
by Aiesha Harley ini'm really glad i've found this site a week ago.
reading some of the stories and comments on here has really helped.
there are so many out there who's lives have been ruined by the so-called truth.. i was brought up in the truth as an elders daughter, youngest of 5, a brother and sister had been disfellowshiped, other brother had left as a teenager and my other sister is still sitting on the fence aged 40 going on 15, if she'd made a decision instead of sitting on the fence i'm convinced she wouldn't be the alcoholic mess she is today!
-
-
seven006
Glad I could help.
If you want to read something that also might help and you do not want to wait for a book, this website page with articles written by Dr. Arthur J. Deikman is a very good one and you will find some answers about why you may have some psychological issues with religion and churches.
http://www.deikman.com/eval.html
Click on and read “Evaluating Spiritual and Utopian Groups” and “Treating Former Members of Cults.”
This will give you a little insight on why you feel the way you do as well as an understanding of how your thinking got there.
The answers you will get, will be answers you not only already know, but also may not recognize why. It will also let you exercise your ability to figure it out on your own and force you to think in a constructive manner using deductive reasoning.
Take care,
Dave -
36
Why do churches still make me panic ?
by Aiesha Harley ini'm really glad i've found this site a week ago.
reading some of the stories and comments on here has really helped.
there are so many out there who's lives have been ruined by the so-called truth.. i was brought up in the truth as an elders daughter, youngest of 5, a brother and sister had been disfellowshiped, other brother had left as a teenager and my other sister is still sitting on the fence aged 40 going on 15, if she'd made a decision instead of sitting on the fence i'm convinced she wouldn't be the alcoholic mess she is today!
-
-
seven006
The Subtle Power of Spiritual Abuse. David Johnson and Jeff VanVonderen
-
83
Toasting AuldSoul
by jst2laws inabout two minutes ago the announcement was made that auldsoul was "no longer one of jehovah's witnesses".
he and jst2laws one minute ago toasted to celebrate.
please join us.
-
-
seven006
I just saw this. It is very depressing. Not that Auldsoul is officially out, but that Steve wasted some good scotch on him.
This is not how I wanted the new year to start.
Good scotch is a terrible thing to waste. (Insert stupid smiley face flipping the bird to Steve and Auld)
Dave -
61
JWD WAS ABLE TO CONVINCE ME THE PARADISE WAS A MYTH BUT...
by stillAwitness inthe talk given today sounded pretty convincing.
facts were stated about how our body is designed to live forever (the brain, blood vessels etc) and how all these intricated details about the human body raises us to ask the question: "did not jehovah design us with the purpose of living forever?
now i've read the threads about how there just would not be enough room in the world for all those people.
-
-
seven006
***Facts were stated about how our body is designed to live forever***
What exactly were these facts and did he give any kind of visual documentation to back these facts up?
Did you just blindly accept what the speaker said as fact or did you ask him to prove it?
Just because someone stands on a stage and says something to a group of people doesn’t mean what he says is true or is based an actual scientific or biological fact. What he said may sound convincing but that is his job. To make it sound convincing.
Many other religions had meetings today and said things that were the opposite of what was said at your meeting and I’m sure the people who heard those sermons also thought it sounded convincing. Just because something sounds convincing doesn’t make it true or factual.
Don’t give the speaker in today’s talk more credit for intelligence or knowledge about things then you give yourself. Neither one of you are biologists, scientist or doctors. The watchtower makes sure of that by only letting their people know so much about the outside world and how it really works. That way, you accept what you are told as some kind of knowledgeable authority.
Use your own powers of reasoning and go outside of the watchtower cocoon of self-serving reality to find the truth about his statements.
Dave -
-
-
seven006
Donny,
As the old Eastern saying goes, a thousand words are said in silence. With that said, your first blank post says a lot.
Sorry for your loss and pain.
Take care my friend.
Dave -
69
PROGRAMED working out the dark side in art
by seven006 ini havent posted much lately becausewell just because.
in the past year i have tried .
to start my conversion from commercial art to fine art doing mostly nudes.
-
-
seven006
Lee,
The large majority of the time, in my fine art work, I pretty much put a piece of art together in my head with all the details long before I start the actual physical piece of art. Other times I have a strong concept in mind and it does get adjusted here and there as the piece is developing. More now since I am all digital than before when I used traditional paints, brushes and substrates.
My commercial art is a different process since it is done for other people and trying to illustrate their personal vision and priorities.
This piece as well as the rest that will come from this series I have worked out in my head many years ago. Details have been adjusted as the image has progressed in my mind through the years largely due to changing mediums and my understanding of advancing technology and it’s ability to help express concepts. This series has not only been pushed on me by some of my artist friends through the years but is also a personal thing that I have encouraged other young artists to do but have avoided doing myself. It’s a personal project meant for me to get it out of my head and in front of my eyes.
As far as how it all works from concept to art, I, like some who think like me have always seen things as pictures in their mind. I think in this imaging process manner so I can understand concepts better as a mental graphic and store them better in my mind. It’s easier for me to understand as well as make sense of things and then try to explain them using other forms of communication besides art.
I think it’s a brain glitch that I was born with.
Dave -
69
PROGRAMED working out the dark side in art
by seven006 ini havent posted much lately becausewell just because.
in the past year i have tried .
to start my conversion from commercial art to fine art doing mostly nudes.
-
-
seven006
Jgnat,
That is a great painting! I didn’t know you were so talented. Given your explanation of what came from, it is even more fascinating. Fantastic job.
The long drawn out explanation of the piece was more for Lady Lee to read. I think she has been trying to figure out how the squirrel cage rolling around in my head worked for quite a while. It’s easy to understand by most people on this board but it has raised a few eyes on the art related DB I post on. They think I’m very talented but also very dark. Go figure.
Dave -
69
PROGRAMED working out the dark side in art
by seven006 ini havent posted much lately becausewell just because.
in the past year i have tried .
to start my conversion from commercial art to fine art doing mostly nudes.
-
-
seven006
jgnat,
I clicked on your link and nothing showed up. Can you try again to load it here somehow? I know I can’t link work to this site. It tends to not like Mac’s.I'd really love to see it.
OK, here it goes, a brief glimpse into my head through this one particular piece of art. This image even though it looks to be an adult persons head has more to do with how I felt growing up but depicts how I now perceive it as an adult.
The programming of my brain began when I was around four years old when my mom became a JW and eventually divorced my dad when I was around five.
The programming began with weekly studying of that piece of shit big orange paradise book and regularly attending meetings. Even as a little kid things did not make sense to me between what I was being taught and how I really felt about things. I was being programmed with the thoughts and teachings of (at that time) a one hundred year old cult that their main claim to fame in my mother’s eyes was very different than the catholic religion she was brought up in. They used “the bible” in their meetings and bible studies and that impressed my mom because they barely cracked open a bible during the whole time she was a catholic. So to her, they must know what they were talking about.
Things slowly started to change. No birthdays, no Christmas and no more feeling right associating with the neighborhood kids. My concept of what was right and wrong were slowly being programmed into my mind and strongly conflicting with what I thought was normal and right.
The old style typewriter keys represent the watchtower cult leaders and their organization. Their 100 year old mentality as well as their mid 1800’s view on “kids should been seen and not heard” was putting me in my place with every twisted religious concept and male ego driven organizational power trip.
This crap, not only the religious doctrine but also the Victorian driven “recognize your place and just accept it” was being forced into my mind, personality, psychological makeup and depth of (or more the lack of depth of) character.
Even at a young age, I knew something was wrong and what I was being taught just didn’t seem right.
The mask shown by the clown type makeup around the eyes depicts the double life I was being forced to accept because of what I was being forced to think and feel and what I really thought and felt. I had to hide my true feeling and thoughts behind a mask of acceptance and compliance to do what every kid has a natural desire to do. Please their parents and do what ever it takes to gain their love and acceptance. For a kid growing up with JW parents, that means accepting the absurd desires and teachings of a money hungry printing company disguised as a religious cult. They disguised who they really are so it forced me to hide behind a mask and do the same thing just to try and find some balance in my life and feel a little normal.
The hands and polished fingernails depict several things. The hand on the right is more masculine, powerful and ominous looking. That depicts the male driven cult that is controlling the minds of their followers with fear and power. The hand on the left (or right hand) is more of a androgynous looking hand that is smaller but just as predominate when it comes to the programming of a child’s mind. This hand depicts my mom and how the watchtower changed her from a loving mother figure to a puppet like tool of their own agenda driven beliefs and interpretations on every aspect of life. This tool (who was once my mom) was used to program my mind as apposed to really getting to know me and help me grow or giving the kind of love a mother should. The androgynous aspect of the hand shows how it has taken on the characteristics of the more masculine power driven hand of the watchtower cult leaders.
The polished fingernails depict the true nature of the cult that cares more about how they look than how they really are. Constant changing of their views and interpretations without ever admitting they are wrong, but instead calling their mistakes and flat out wrong predictions “new light”. It has never been about who they are but more important and absolutely more essential, it has been how they look. The polished nails are a lame attempt to detract attention from the ominous looking and manipulative hands and divert it to the painted over dirty fingernails as an attempt to look like something they are not.
The eyes shown in a wide open manner and looking up depicts observing myself being manipulated but not fully understanding it at the time. They are looking up not completely seeing the hands manipulating them but in the direction of observing authority with the fear of obedience but with a questionable and watching eye. They are brown and glassed over because a glassed over look means a state of confusion and psychological intoxication. They are brown because…well, my eyes are brown.
The background means other things as well as the blur to the right side of the face. They are not as important as the things I have described above and I’m tired of typing and the Seahawks are down by 7 points so I gotta go.
That’s it. That’s what this piece means to the person who did it.
Dave