There was a news story back in 2005 that ran several years and had a number of forums where the story was the prime topic.
Over several years it turned to a polarized internet subculture with board wars etc.
Within 2-3 days of the event 5 linked neo-con oriented forums became popular and single issued or came into existence. Numerous other forums came to be over the next two years.
The most popular was a blog for the first month that then went to a forum set-up. Virtually all my posts were deleted on the blog so when I joined the forum format I had a new screen name and pretended to be one of them.
There were various conspiracy theories that were actually started by early moderators (eg political and propaganda aspects of a seemingly non-geo-political event).
Several posters befriended me (actually the place was much more friendly than DU but most of the privately friendly people turned out to have agendas).
There was a members only Question and Complaints forum.
One poster taught me how to read site meters. I first learned to see when I logged on and off.
Another poster befriended me by PM after I made a post that indicated my knowledge of helicopters, data collection by remote sensing, and the like. I was a Fed USDA employee from 1969 to 1985 and had been involved in an obscure project where trials were done by USDA but funding and the project was DoD R&D. We started PMing and I mentioned the really obscure project from circa 1980 and we had a common interest. The project was developed for civilian use by USDA but had major military applications. He told me he was posting from his job computer on xxxx military base. So I watched the site meter to see when he came on and off. I was fascinated by all the .gov . .mil , and foreign government posters and lurkers.
There were other forums for Politics, Lounge, etc. for other than the main interest where there was a continuous discussion thread and topic threads. I had fun there doing things link posting verbatim groups of headlines from Drudge mocking one of the site "owners".
An "evil" moderator was banned.
A poster that was in the local media of the story PMed me and told me inside info but not to share and agreed on the theory in that the story was cover for a geo-political event(s). I thought it was cool as the individual was a regular on Faux, quoted in the NY Post, and appeared in other channels on the TV. We talked about her marital troubles a lot and the multitude of BushCo connections to the story too in email rather than PM at her request.
Then Katrina hit and a Katrina forum was initiated. My helicopter friend and I disagreed on the open forum and I PMed he should not be propagandizing on the job and from a military computer. He started harassing me the next several days wherever I posted.
Somewhat in retribution, I posted in the members only Questions and Complaints forum that sometimes over 50% of those signed on were .gov , .mil, or .foreign government and that the .gov and .mil posters should not be using their work computer nor time on job to catapult propaganda about Katrina and politics in general. Some of us had become open in the opinion that the story was used by media for geo-political cover and I also noted that the government presence among the posters supported this opinion.
Suddenly my account was apparently banned. I could not sign on nor post. Weirder yet, someone else someone else was operating my screen name and had a conversation with the poster that was Mrs. Site Owner about the forum-associated web site Café Press products and all my purchases and great enjoyment thereof.
About a week later I could sign on and post but most of the .mil and .gov ISPs were no longer on site meter. However, days later the forum crashed. We were all sent emails saying we had to rejoin and that 3 months of posts were irretrievably "lost". Many of us were not allowed to rejoin but conveniently two more liberal forums came into existence for the us "refugees", one that was heavy to the international posters.
When I joined the new more liberal forum, one of the moderators there PMed me with a welcome. This Mod had been a Mod at the forum where I could not rejoin. Boo Hoo. I mentioned the above event about my .mil friend and post in Questions and Complaints. The Mod said that the same poster was also the "evil" mod that had been earlier banned and he wasn't military at all but some loser in his mother's basement sexually harassing female posters on the forum and in real life. The Mod PMed various emails about the Mod / poster and the women he had harassed. I thought well OK but held my thought that the poster did post from xxx military base with a .mil ISP and I had watched/stalked for months on the site meter and we knew this obscure USDA/DoD project. I watched the site meter so much I had compiled a written list of the .mil and .gov posters.
I had made one real friend and we talked nearly every day on phone or email and often worked in tandem. RIP Fall 2008 Diane from breast cancer. She did not live to see the election but turned me on to POTUS Obama and was one of the indirect factors that brought me to DU. She lived in Manhattan and was already acquainted with a personality that was often on the counter side of the story on Faux. She and I and the local media person above fed this media head talking points and he actually outed her by real name on Faux in thanking her for our research. Only this media person and one other poster knew that Diane and I were close and no one knew just how close we were and could not know because we communicated by phone and email and not PM.
At the liberal "refugee" forum it became known there was a "hidden" forum for a select few that fed much of the "red meat" to the forum. When the "hidden" forum became known (probably by design), they went off to their own forum "clubhouse".
There was a personality in the first 5 days or so of the story back in May/June 2005 that appeared to orchestrate much of the events and was on Faux and also made some cryptic posts on the forums that were de-cyphered time and time again for several years. The personality abruptly departed and many thought he was a CIA agent. I thought he was critical. The local media poster emailed me and asked me to stop posting about the man because he was an innocent that had been drawn into the story. He lived in her neighborhood and had bought his retirement home from her parents. I complied on the public forum but told Diane.
A bunch of posters with similar opinions were PMed invitations to a new private forum of 20 posters. I thought it was a honey pot but went along as did Diane. The owner/founder and one of two Mods told us of the "hidden" forum with seven members that had gone on to their "clubhouse". She told me in private that she of the seven had gone rogue and that she was ex-military intelligence and a PI/skip tracer married to an auto dealer in St. Louis.
Other members of the "clubhouse" included the poster that had taught me to read site meters (also gone rogue to this new forum from the "clubhouse"
, my "friend" in the local media of the story, and a ubiquitous member but not very active on all the forums that happened to be the Chief Scientist at the public/private agency in The Netherlands that assigned ISP numbers for Europe and the Middle East. His avatar on the agency site was an animal but with glasses that closely resembled his picture of key personnel at the agency. I cannot find the site nor wiki for this agency today.
The 2nd Mod of the new forum PMed me and also gave me the same debunking emails of the military but really "evil" mod / poster from the initial forum I had joined and been banned.
Then the poster that taught me site meters and ex-member rogue of the clubhouse was banned by closing the new forum and forming a new private forum. We were not told why.
One day I went to the link of the closed forum to find an old post of mine and saw that it was active and I could still get in with my password. They were there building real life data sets on posters in a forum that had been private and invisible to the rest of us but was open now. Ooops. I told Diane who shared with several others privately. Next thing I know, Diane and another poster were been banned by Mod #2 of our private forum.
I confronted in the private forum Mod #2 and told the others that she had lied to us all about the circumstance for the ban and communications with Diane. The Owner (ex military intelligence and PI skip tracer) banned Mod #2 and asked me to be Mod. This was by email and telephone. I was using an AOL account and my ISP showed up in a city 400 plus miles away and essentially functioned as an anonymous proxy (I am not now nor then that internet savvy). I expressed my disinterest and realized they did not realize I was the one that stumbled into their data base or did not care.
Meanwhile back at the "refugee" forum there was a private members only "Fight" Forum and all of us in the private forum of like mind and rogue "clubhouse" posters were outed as sleuth's and collectors of private information on other posters. This was not true except for the owner and "banned" mod and "banned" site meter reader teacher of the private honey pot but we were all slimed. I sat quietly in both forums. My behavior was somewhat dodgy because I had made a habit of watching the opinion leaders based upon my initial supposition that the story was a cover for geo-political maneuvering and observation of all the .mil and .gov posters. Mostly they approached me. We all have a learning curve.
We began to recruit for our private forum / IMHO honey pot. A poster in other forums would be invited with 100% support. I sponsored a gay guy with AIDs whose Democratic Congresswomen in Baltimore was trying to get him a liver transplant. Several months later he turned a 180 in the private forum (got me banned) and became the biggest troll of the liberal "refugee forum.
Diane passed away right before the 2008 election and the story also essentially faded out in 2008 except a Lifetime movie and various other detritus.
If anyone has read this far, yes these are the ravings of a paranoid madman.
My conclusion was that the story was real but was used in a major media PsyOps and cover for geo-political activities.
Edit history
= new reply since forum marked as read
