Frauds, Liars, Cons, and Impersonations There have been some pretty strange claims by people over the years. Some have said they were time travelers, Jesus and extraterrestrials, to mention just a few. Patients at the Creedmoor Mental Hospital used to have a hearing by a New York State Supreme Court judge when an application was made for release when the hospital refused. The patients sat in a waiting area until their case was called. One day there were two patients who thought they were Jesus. This type of problem had never been thought about by the staff. As it turned out there was no problem because they both believed they were men of peace. Sometimes people’s ideas change, even the very weird ones. There was a time when every once in a while one would see a person wearing a tin foil hat. When they were asked what was going on, the answer was always the same. They would reply they were stopping the alien waves from interfering with their brain. I remember when I talked to a very old retired judge and that came up in conversation and he said the tin hat was his idea. I couldn’t believe he said that, so I asked him for more context. He said he was doing a mental health hearing and the respondent said he was receiving radio waves in his head from aliens. The judge said he told the person he should get some tin foil and wrap it around his head. When I thought about what he told me, I had to wonder if he was putting me on and having a laugh at my expense. There are a lot of people on this planet who make claims that are not true. I would have to say one of the biggest groups are politicians. Not only do they say they were responsible for this and that, but they also say things are different and are hoping to gas light us into thinking we maybe we are wrong about things. There have been several of then in the last couple of years who tried to take credit for being in Vietnam and when it was found out they were lying, nothing was done about it. Some even got reelected. What I think about that is it is despicable. The dead from that war must be turning over in their graves. Some politicians even said when they got there, they were under machine gun fire. One of the false claims has contributed to the saying if you believe what was said, I have a bridge to sell you in Brooklyn. George C. Parker is responsible for that saying. He would take advantage of immigrants and sell them property. Unfortunately for them he never owned the property he sold. One day he pulled off the greatest scam of his career when he sold the Brooklyn Bridge. He was constantly being arrested and even escaped once. He would produce forged documents to prove ownership. There are so many people claiming to be time travelers that if we ever met a real one, no one would believe him or her. One of the things I don’t understand is why anyone would take them seriously. It would take a heck of a lot of proof to get me to believe anyone making this claim. The only one I know which has not been disproved has to do not with a person not claiming to be a time traveler, but who said he touched a time traveling ship and received a lot of digital information. This occurred in Rendlesham Forest when Air Force personnel investigated a UFO which had landed and one touched it. He said he felt a sensation and later began to write pages of o’s and 1’s which turned out to be binary code. When the military got someone who could read it and interpret all these pages, it talked about the ship coming to earth from the future. In the 1960s there were more people, usually in silver suits, who claimed to be from other planets. They would always show up at UFO festivals and such. Not very many, if any, took them seriously. I always wondered why a silver suit was equated with an alien traveler? History is littered with people who claimed to be profits. Most of us know about the truly famous ones, but there are still thousands of them around today who will be glad to take your money to tell you your future. Truly, this is mostly just a con. A con is a way for a criminal to get you to believe something so you will pay some way for something. I talked about this years ago, but it is worth repeating. A lady went to a fortune teller to find out what her future holds because she was having a lot of what she considered bad luck. The fortune teller sized her up and felt she was perfect to be scammed. She was told her money was cursed and had to be burned and to bring it with her next time. She did, and the fortune teller burned the money, or did she? The device she used had a false bottom and the fortune teller had stolen all the money. Another rotten trick used for ill-gotten gains is used by some people who claim to have the cure for cancer, causing desperate people to flock to them with false hope. Many of them seem to be in Mexico and you hear of famous people going there sometimes. If I remember correctly Steve McQueen the actor went there for a last-ditch effort of curing his cancer and I am sad to say it was just all bunk. Then there are the worthless schools. One school had a six-lesson course on how to be a cashier. Give me a break. One could learn this in 5 minutes or less with on-the-job training. Especially now when all one has to do is run the item over a scanner. In all honesty I don’t know if the scanners wiped out these courses or not. Another type of school are the small private ones which you go to, to get a belated high school diploma. I won’t mention the name, but I know of one which played a game on the students. No matter how many courses you took you always needed to pay for more. They made a fortune on people. The last thing I want to talk about are people who claim to be who they are not in professional positions. There are not many, but over the years there have been those who posed as doctors, lawyers and dentists. I have to feel very sorry for those that were fooled by them. I remember one supposed doctor who was chief surgeon in a hospital and was only found out to not be a doctor because he was investigated because so many of his patients died. I believe this was in South Africa, but I could be wrong.
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