Picture Background Source: US Coast Guard. Animation by me

Many people have asked me, what is About Facts Net about and how did I come to host it. Actually the idea goes back at least ten years. I did have another website before this one and it was up for about 2 1/2 years. There were some problems with it and I finally decided to take it down. When I announced that it would be no more, I received many emails asking me to reconsider and leave it up. The site was similar to this one, but I didn't like the layout and since I was inexperienced, at the time, I thought that some of the articles were too similar to what appears everyday on the internet. I thought that the only way to remedy this was to start over. I also had a problem with some of the illustrations and photos and that is why I now list where each one comes from. When you don't do that it is almost impossible to remember where you got a photo from. When I compare the two different sites, I feel that the present one is far superior to the previous one.

I used to work in an office where we would discuss everything and anything. Some of the other employees used to say to me that I should get a website. There would be discussions on politics, space travel, weapons and sorts of other topics. Most of the people that I worked with were very knowledgeable and well educated and these discussion would have made a nice podcast. There was one person that seemed to be an expert on World War II. No matter how trivial the event, he knew about it and why it happened. I remember one discussion we had about Russian planes that were used in the war. We got on the subject of the Shturmovik This was a Russian plane that was covered in steel that was about a 1/2 inch thick in places. When I brought up the subject, he knew everything about the plane, including its top speed, of course there was always at least one person that pretended he knew everything about anything and we had such a person. This guy would never stop. He was so bad that when we were told that we had to do something to retain our medical coverage or lose it on retirement, he said that this was baloney and by law they couldn't touch it. To make a long story short, he retired and lost his medical coverage. No matter what you were talking about, he would jump in with some of his "crazy facts" that were completely bogus. When I retired several years ago I felt that I wanted to start a site that would inform on some level, but also provoke thought and provide entertainment.

The problem was and I guess still is, that I am interested in a lot of different things. That is why About Facts Net is not a ufo site, or a weapons site or even a political site. The idea was to write about anything that interested me at the moment and if anyone else had an interest in that subject, they might want to read the article. The site has no advertisements and is run as a hobby, so therefore there is no advertising budget. As a retired person I can't afford to put much money into it, so I pay for the hosting and domain name registration and little else, even this gets pricey. It is amazing to me that so many of you have the same interests as me. My readership varies but as gone as high as over 2,000 per day. This has been quite a surprise to me. Sometimes I wonder if I could advertise and let people know that the site exists, what would the readership be? I also realize that not everyone agrees with me in all of my conclusions, but that is the fun in writing these types of articles, isn't it? They are meant to stimulate the thought process. I might write about something that you didn't know about or something that you know a lot about. Since the subject changes almost daily, there may be articles that you are interested in or articles that you don't even want to be bothered reading, not everyone is interested in the same things.

Some articles provoke email. I have a comments section at the top of each article, but people don't like to use it, they would rather email me and keep it private. That is ok with me. An instance of this was a time travel article that I wrote. It wasn't that the reader didn't agree with the fact that time travel might be possible some day, it had to do with the methodology. He was a Phd and had his own ideas on the subject. In this instance he was probably far more qualified to speak on the subject than me. We corresponded a few times about the subject and parted on friendly terms. He had his ideas, which is perfectly fine and I had mine. One paranormal article also led to a reader publishing his own article on my site about experiences that he had with what is commonly know as, ghosts. Just because I publish an article doesn't mean that I believe the same things as the author of that article. I publish articles because I think they are interesting and because I try and keep an open mind about things. I always enjoy when a reader sends me an article that he or she has written. I try and put them up on the site if they meet my criteria. Unfortunately some don't make the grade, but if the subject is interesting, I usually tell the writer that I will be glad to edit the article and keep their name on it when I publish it. There is no chance of ridicule if you send me an article.

Over the years I have covered some topics that I though were really interesting. There was all that stuff happening with the government, scientific discoveries, ufos and such. I decided it might be interesting for my readers if I did some interviews and Nick Pope, the British ufo expert, graciously agreed to do an interview and it was very interesting. Many of you seemed to enjoy it, so I will try and do more of these in the future. They will not only be on ufos, but many other topics, if I can get the interviews. When you do something for the first time, it is usually difficult. The Nick Pope interview was conducted over the phone between the US and England. I had no experience hooking up recorders and had purchased a micro recorder and a tape recorder. Where I made my mistake was that I used suction cup microphones that you stuck on the back of the handset of the phone. Well, when I reviewed the tape on the tape recorder, I had nothing. I panicked and then checked the micro recorder. That had the interview, but Mr. Pope's voice was low on it and not always clear. It was very hard to transcribe this interview, but somehow I got through it. I purchased new phone hookups that plug directly into the phone and recorders, this should solve the problem. Live and learn they say.

Yes I am still learning. My search skills have become much better. It is sometimes very hard to find a photo or picture that you can use with an article, because they are all copyrighted. I never take any chances such as using one and claiming "fair use". Fair use is a term under the copyright law that allows one to use a copyrighted work under certain strict circumstances. It is just too chancy for me and open to too much interpretation. I look for photos and graphics in sources like the the government, which are mostly not copyrighted or free photo services. Sometimes I find something where the copyright expired. It sometimes takes me longer to find a few graphics than to write the article. Occasionally I am able to use a photo that I have taken that just happens to fit the topic of the article.

I try new things now and then and if they don't work, for one reason or another, I drop them. This was the case with the ufo camera I had set up. The camera was set to take a photo, of the daylight sky, about every 10 seconds. The idea was that I would look through the photos each night and put up the photo of anything that looked like a ufo. On the surface this sounded like a good idea to me, but it didn't work. The camera took thousands of photos every day, It took hours to check all of them every night, so that feature had to go. Before that, I had something called short takes. I would put up one or two sentences about what was new that day. It didn't seem to generate enough interest, so I dropped that too. Interestingly, when I dropped short takes, some people sent me mail asking me to keep it, but there just wasn't enough of them.

Yeah, being a one person operation is tough and expensive. Why couldn't I have a hobby like collecting coins or stamps, like most other people? Well this is the way that it is and those are the reason for the site. I hope that this answers those questions of why and when.

I can be contacted at: Webmaster@aboutfacts.net