Notes: Egypt Tour - March - Robert Schoch and Colette Dowell
Hello, these notes were written to explain some of the things that happened on the tour to Egypt in March. As said in the Identity Theft page, there may not be another tour planned due to all of the problems. Please understand time can change attitudes and maybe some of the weird problems will have sorted themselves out by next year. We do hope so.
Well, all that was planned for this last trip to Egypt kind of fell flat on its face due to many problems. I can see from the outside what happened, but, I do not know how to stop the vicious cycle unless the whole tour thing is revamped. Robert has said many times to me he is not going to be able to continue to take students from Boston University and civilian people to Egypt on his spring breaks any more. Why? This is partly discussed in the opening letter he posted about what happened to us with at least a few of the members on the tour. Also, there were many problems with the scheduling and tickets and they were actually being blamed on Mercury being in retrograde (some astrological theory) and we felt their could have been a better explanation to say it mildly. There were problems on board with both students and civilians. I myself have never seen any thing like it. Any tour I am going to do the people are going to have to be civilized and maintain some form of common courtesy to their fellow traveler and to the natives of any land we go to visit. The traveling guests were smoking cigarettes and throwing their filters everywhere near the Temples. Soha, (the Egyptian tour lady) had announced to please put their butts in their pocket, but, this continued to be a problem and one student even burned up part of her bed sheets in the hotel due to cigarettes and smoking the hookah. It was a total mess. Students were smuggling hash across Egypt on the inner flights as well as civilian guests and that jeopardized the rest of the traveling company. We did see some lovely territory, but, one would like to think the price they paid for the trip they would have at least a nice one, filled with joy, not one filled with havoc and characters involved with satanic rituals trying to evoke Satan at the Egyptian Temples because they are followers of a cult group that worships Alistair Crawley. Some guests that knew about the 2 lovers who were in this cult got afraid and even thought Schoch and I were involved with the Alistair Crawley group and were going to perform rituals inside the Great Pyramid to evoke Satan up just because we were seen eating lunch with these two people. It was an insane time and little rest as the schedules were such we would not get to bed until 12 at night and have wakeup calls at 4:30 or 5 in the morning to pack up our bags to leave for another hotel. Most of the time we were all sleep deprived and we think this was part of the problems.
Well, I could go on and on, but, I never have seen any free for all like it before in my life. I do not want to be part of something like that ever again. Robert told me he was not going to do another tour because he could not handle taking another crew of students to Egypt when they are out of control smuggling and acting out ( there were also problems with young people who were not students - and not all students were acting out, some of them were really great ). Well, it is all a shame because if people just used manners and used their heads and took some responsibility a lot of the problems that were created just would not have happened. Anyway, after the trip we still had more problems to deal with. The 2 Alistair Crawley lovers created a website stealing Robert's identity and making a myspace.com site with his name and then the other person writing fraudulent emails and placing Robert's name on them and making it look as if I were writing them. This person was trying to frame me, and yes, that is very upsetting. So, it was definitely nuts and not a good thing. The tours to Egypt will need to be revamped if they are to be a success for all of the travelers. I do not know what will happen next year, but I am shy too now after the many absurd problems. No one wants to get beat on or busted for drugs because a young person (both students and civilians) are smuggling drugs across the inner cities of Egypt on plane flights. Well........it was not what was planned at all. That is some of the background for the letter that Robert has written. These are things Robert and I have talked about and Robert wants to say, but, thinks it is better if I write them out. I do not like doing this, it does not make me feel good, but, some one needs to let people know what went on and why we are so upset right now and withdrawing as Robert puts it..........I would like to have nice tours to Egypt where people got along and are able to share the great moments with each other. Maybe next time things can be different. I will try to have an open mind and be positive. I know that all people are not alike and that situations vary. I am very sad that every thing has turned out the way it has.
Here are the original letters that were written by us.
A Warning: Impersonation, Fraud, and Fake Emails
I relate the following incident in brief as a warning. There is at least one person who has been circulating false stories about Colette and myself, and fabricating fake emails that appear to have been sent by me and signed with my name. I am currently considering the pursuit of legal action against this person. The story is as follows.
Colette and I had a very unpleasant (to put it mildly) experience following the last public tour we led (in this case, to Egypt). After our return to the United States, one of the attendees claimed to have sent me an email, an email which I never received, and furthermore claimed that he or she (I will not divulge the name, or even gender, of this person) received via email a very vulgar reply signed with my name and from my personal email account. I immediately responded that I had not received the original email, and that I had certainly neither written nor sent the vulgar reply (a reply to an email I never received). This person then accused Colette of breaking into my personal email account, intercepting email intended for me, and replying under my name. This is not something that Colette would do, and it was unclear how she would have gained access to my personal email anyway. I asked the accuser to send me documentation, such as message source and routing information, to back up the allegations being lodged against Colette. After many delays and sophomoric excuses, along the lines of “I have been overwhelmed with work,” “my computer crashed on me,” and “my former boss who has cancer was visiting” (these are not direct quotes, but simply rough paraphrases to give the sense of the excuses), I was finally sent supposed routing information, imbedded in the text of an email (so there was no way to verify it was genuine), for the fake email in question. On analysis, it was clear that the supposed routing information (which clearly did point to Colette) did not go with the email in question, but came from an email that Colette sent out to all passengers on the Egypt trip prior to our departure. This, and other evidence, has led me to conclude that the person who accused Colette of intercepting my email fabricated the entire affair. The accuser apparently falsely claimed to have sent me an email, then falsely claimed to have received a reply under my name and from my account, and when I pointed out that I had neither received the email nor replied, falsely accused Colette of intercepting my email and replying (with incredible vulgarities) using my name. To put it simply, the accuser was attempting to frame Colette for a crime she did not commit.
What is going on here? Why all the elaborate chicanery, deceit, impersonation, and fraud? This was from someone whom I had actually known on a casual basis for years and who claimed in the same emails to be my “friend.” My conclusion is that this person, who in other contexts has claimed to be “spiritual” and “psychic,” was, to put it simply, envious and jealous of Colette and her relationship to me, and wanted to create an incident that would tear Colette and me apart. In fact, this whole experience, although extremely hurtful (it certainly took an emotional toll on us), has in the end only served to bring us closer together and strengthen the bond between us. But it has also made us much more leery and distrustful of other people, even people whom we thought we knew and could trust, and who claimed to be our friends. For instance, someone I have known for years and worked on various projects with, a person who also knows the accuser of Colette but has never even met Colette in person, when faced with the evidence demonstrating that the whole fake email incident was fabricated by the person making the accusations, still elected to believe the accuser and judge Colette negatively on the basis of the word of the other person. To me this is irrational as I am a proponent of following the evidence, however inconvenient that may be, to wherever it may point.
If we are even more shy and private than we were previously, and more distrustful of people, maybe the incident recounted above will help explain why.
Sincerely,
Robert Schoch
“A very unpleasant (to put it mildly) experience following the last public tour we led.” ----Yes to say it mildly, but in all reality it was a nightmare.
The person who has committed these acts has placed all guests on the 2007 Egypt tour suspect of the multiple crimes that have been committed against Dr. Schoch and myself by means of using the template from my email concerning the “Reminders for Egypt.” Any entity thereof associated with any guests of the 2007 Egypt tour are also held suspect if they have had access to my business email communications pertaining to the above mentioned outgoing converse.
It is not surprising that the above listed individuals are of like minds as one owes money to the other and there is conflict of interest between all of concerning parties, so it is a “NO Brainer” pertaining to the alliance.
We have realized there is no allegiance or honour from those we entrusted our personal time with and gave of ourselves unconditionally trying to overcome the difficulties incurred during our Egypt 2007 expedition. We have made a decision to not do another tour open to the public of the likes again unless there is some way to screen individuals before we accept their reservation (a travel agency cannot legally request a questionnaire to overview a personal profile, however as solely directed entities, we are within our legal capacity to do such and then in turn, agree to acceptance of reservations over to the travel agency). I will not submit myself to the possibility of any more harassment, communicating threats and assaults by some one I do not know and have never had dealings with. Both Dr. Schoch and I are extremely upset by this whole affair. We are considering our choices, we are limiting our contact with any outsiders at this time and from those we have previously encountered.
We are sorry, but, it is for our well-being and no one is to take this personally if they are not directly involved with this matter, just please understand the magnitude of this affair and how it is so disheartening to us.
Thank you,
Colette Dowell
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