Tom
I am a FH squatter
- Joined
- Dec 22, 2003
- Messages
- 17,232
This is one of the most depressing and haunting things I've heard in years.
http://archive.org/details/ptc1978-11-18.flac16
The background is that in the 1970s, Jim Jones, an evangelical preacher, took a few hundred followers to Guyana to establish a socialist commune. The usual nonsense ensured, drugs, sex with his followers, various claims of abuse, etc. Then US congressman Leo Ryan took some interested people to see Jones. They were attacked and so left for the airport, where on Jones's orders, they were murdered. Only a few survived. There's footage of the attack here (some conspiracy video I haven't investigated):
View: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HULqx4SP46Y
Jones then told his followers that their only route to salvation was to kill themselves - and that's exactly what they did - over 900 of them, including children, killed by cyanide poisoning.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jonestown
There are plenty of photographs online showing the extent of the horror - but it's the tape that I found most disturbing. The recording lasts about 45 minutes, but it doesn't feel anywhere near that long. You can hear the desperation in their voices, the screams of frightened children (indistinguishable I think from their later screams, as cyanide is sprayed down their throats). There's slow-motion music audible on the recording, that's music from a previous recording that wasn't properly erased.
I listened to this last night. It took me a good hour or so longer than it usually does, for me to sleep.
http://archive.org/details/ptc1978-11-18.flac16
The background is that in the 1970s, Jim Jones, an evangelical preacher, took a few hundred followers to Guyana to establish a socialist commune. The usual nonsense ensured, drugs, sex with his followers, various claims of abuse, etc. Then US congressman Leo Ryan took some interested people to see Jones. They were attacked and so left for the airport, where on Jones's orders, they were murdered. Only a few survived. There's footage of the attack here (some conspiracy video I haven't investigated):
View: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HULqx4SP46Y
Jones then told his followers that their only route to salvation was to kill themselves - and that's exactly what they did - over 900 of them, including children, killed by cyanide poisoning.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jonestown
There are plenty of photographs online showing the extent of the horror - but it's the tape that I found most disturbing. The recording lasts about 45 minutes, but it doesn't feel anywhere near that long. You can hear the desperation in their voices, the screams of frightened children (indistinguishable I think from their later screams, as cyanide is sprayed down their throats). There's slow-motion music audible on the recording, that's music from a previous recording that wasn't properly erased.
I listened to this last night. It took me a good hour or so longer than it usually does, for me to sleep.