Fact Checking Nelson's "Doors Of Death" light aircraft near death experience

[Doctor CamNC4Me]

by the way, kudos to IHAQ and many of the thread participants, your thread has now been elevated to the at least one of the 70’s ears by a brave soul:

https://www.reddit.com/r/exmormon/comme ... ast_night/

And then I piled on the examples of Russ Nelson's lies. I asked if he'd heard the airplane story, and he had. I said "It never happened, it is made up".

You did this. Well done, little by little the lies and deceit are being brought forth to the daylight.

- Doc

[Dr Moore]

It's too bad he said "it never happened, it is made up." I wish he had said "it didn't happen at all like Nelson claims." Big difference between an embellished experience and something that "never happened."

[Lem]

It's too bad he said "it never happened, it is made up." I wish he had said "it didn't happen at all like Nelson claims." Big difference between an embellished experience and something that "never happened."

Your point is well taken. How many excuses have been made by mopologists because the initial objection, real or imagined, was trumped up as too broad? (that's a DCP specialty.) Although in this case, the poster might have just been going fast with his story, because it sounds like he did get in quite a bit:

....And then I piled on the examples of Russ Nelson's lies. I asked if he'd heard the airplane story, and he had. I said "It never happened, it is made up". Again with the woman in the hat story. Again with Holland's whopper about the biker convert. Again with Cook's BS about the church loving native Americans and being persecuted for being abolitionists. He knew enough history to have to concede these were not truths.

At that point I summarized the history of dishonesty and then reminded him that members have to sustain these leaders as prophets, seers and revelators at least 5x every year, and that the leaders often remind the members that they "cannot" lead anyone astray....

In fact the whole post is pretty great. Here's what I think is one of its strongest elements, the fact that it was the lds leader asking to meet:

...An old friend is now a 70. He wanted to meet really badly and I told him I would but only if I could drop all BS and just shoot him straight, and that I wasn't going to be soft. I told him my goal was to help him understand the damage done to individuals by the church, and he agreed to listen.

It sounds almost too good to be true, given the arrogance lds leaders typically exhibit, but it would be great if it was.

[drumdude]

I can’t imagine a 70 believing anything except “if the prophet said that’s how it happened then that is how it happened.”

[DrW]

by the way, kudos to IHAQ and many of the thread participants, your thread has now been elevated to the at least one of the 70’s ears by a brave soul:

https://www.reddit.com/r/exmormon/comme ... ast_night/

Thanks for posting this, Doc. My father served as a Seventy before the Stake seventy quorums were disbanded by E.T. Benson in 1986.
Reading the reddit post made me think about whether or not my dad and I could have ever had a conversation like that before he died.

The answer was no - absolutely not. I would have never disrespected an honorable and beloved parent by inflicting that kind of emotional pain. He was a BRM-level Mormon who was taken advantage of financially by the Church, to the detriment of his family, more than anyone I know. But he stuck with it for most of his life.

While he urged me to become active again, he never asked why I had left, and I never felt like I could tell him. It was only near the end of his life, when he was unable to attend Church and began to live outside the bubble, that he and my mother began to doubt. My mother was out very soon after dad's death.

The reddit poster stated that he felt relief having unloaded on this elderly and apparently kindly individual. While many of us fantasize about such an encounter, I doubt that most would genuinely feel good about it. Leaders who need to hear these facts from people who they judge as peers, or near peers, are not honest but misled worker bees and middle management. Those who need to hear it are the high-ranking senior executives who lie for the lord for a living.

These individuals actively insulate themselves from historical and contemporary reality by fastidiously avoiding any situation in which these kinds of facts may be discussed. They only speak. They do not listen to anything outside their bubble. And the less they listen, the less relevant their speech, and the less relevant the Mormon Church they claim to lead.

[Gabriel]

In another thread (Tinker Tailor Soldier Russell) dealing with some of Russell's other adventures, I touched on Russell's miraculous flight in Argentina in 1974. Afterwards, I made the following remark:

...Russell, in his autobiography describes this particular plane trip as miraculous, as a highlight of the entire year, whereas the, by now, more famous Death-spiral in Delta story is described as a close brush with death, with nothing of the spiritual or miraculous elements which found their way into later tellings. It merits no mention in his summary of the Highlights of 1976

To which Dr. Moore commented:

This is absolutely devastating to subsequent hero/miracle-making of that "death spiral" flight. What an incredible omission. This is like having found Joseph Smith's personal journal for the year 1820 with no mention of confusion about sects, James 1:5, praying in a grove, or any heavenly visitation. I encourage you to cross post the details on the Doors of Death thread.

With the Good Doctor's imprimatur, I am copying and pasting the following:

When I first acquired Russell’s book, I posted all his explicit references to the Doors of Death flight here:
viewtopic.php?t=709&start=1030

At that time, however, I wasn’t familiar enough with his book to notice the “lacuna” in his narrative. I didn’t even think to follow down that path until Tom posted about Russell’s later adventure on the Concord flight to England here:
viewtopic.php?f=4&t=709&start=1050

Russell’s Concord story has many of the same tropes found in his Argentine adventure that I posted above. Although I posted Russell’s Argentina story in that thread, I don’t think I was able to get across the point that, at least in his autobiography, Russell devotes more ink and makes a lot more hay out of the miraculous nature of that flight in Argentina in 1974 than he does with his Delta landing in 1976, even to the degree that his summary of 1974 is devoted exclusively to his Argentine adventure.

In contrast, here is Russell’s account on November 12 from his chapter Highlights of 1976, pp. 376 – 377:

November 12 - Flew to St. George. When one of the small airplane's engines exploded, I expected to be killed. But after a precipitous dive in the disabled plane, the pilot made a safe emergency landing in Delta. I was going to St. George to give the opening prayer at the inaugural services at which Rolfe Kerr became president of Dixie College.

And this is his summary of the year from the same chapter on p. 377:

Note: I performed 163 open-heart operations in 1976. All but one of those patients survived, making the mortality rate for this year 0.6 percent.
Accompanying President Kimball and others to the area conferences in the South Pacific was a choice experience. There were so many lovely people we met there. To watch President Kimball respond to revelation and priesthood blessing was indescribably great.

Here’s a photo of that page:

1976 Summary.jpg (183.03 KiB) Viewed 1152 times

As I have mentioned a few times, Russell provides a relatively homogenous and readable narrative up until the time that he becomes General President of the Sunday School. After that, he breaks up his narrative thematically and then the burden becomes the reader’s to flip back and forth through his book to gather various details of the same event. This makes it somewhat difficult on my end because the burden is on me to establish some context from a book that is not widely available, and I wish to avoid being accused by reasonable people of “quote mining.” (Caesar's wife must be above suspicion, yada, yada, yada).

At any rate, I did notice yet another seeming discrepancy from Russell’s own book on our Doors of Death theme. Here is the, by now, famous quote from Russell’s Preface of From Heart to Heart on page ix (bolding for emphasis):

The original motivation to write this review seemed to spring simultaneously from my dear wife, Dantzel, and from President Spencer W. Kimball. Then a plea from President B. Lloyd Poelman provided additional prompting. Unifocal direction from three I loved so much could not be ignored. The final nudge came as I was a passenger in a small airplane plummeting earthward with one of its two engines exploded. I realized then that although both the spiritual and material needs for my family had been provided, I had not left for them a reasonable recapitulation of my life that they could review. The safe emergency landing of that disabled aircraft provided me with the chance I needed.

It is difficult to reconcile Russell’s assertion that his airplane plummeting earthward in 1976 was “The final nudge” with this quote (of an event that occurred some 9 months later) from his chapter Highlights of 1977 on page 381:

August 7 – Attended the sunset service at the Garden Park Ward, where President Spencer W. Kimball and President N. Eldon Tanner spoke. There I was inspired by President Kimball to begin the preparation of this personal history.

[kairos]

Well maybe there is another first hand account of Russell M. Nelson adventure in the sky. Below is a paragraph i copied from findagrave.com where i stumbled
onto Danztel's obit.

"Events in the extended Nelson family are chronicled monthly in a detailed and illustrated newsletter originated by Dantzel. In existence for more than twenty years, the Nelson News provides a solid bridge to family communications and relationships"

The key question is did Russell M. Nelson tell D about his death flight and did she write about it in the Nelson monthly newsletter? Second question is how to get access to the treasure trove of newsletters?

Any sleuths out there?

k

[tapirrider]

Ron White's version is much better than Nelson's.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HRJpRu2RsSs

[IHAQ]

At any rate, I did notice yet another seeming discrepancy from Russell’s own book on our Doors of Death theme. Here is the, by now, famous quote from Russell’s Preface of From Heart to Heart on page ix (bolding for emphasis):

The original motivation to write this review seemed to spring simultaneously from my dear wife, Dantzel, and from President Spencer W. Kimball. Then a plea from President B. Lloyd Poelman provided additional prompting. Unifocal direction from three I loved so much could not be ignored. The final nudge came as I was a passenger in a small airplane plummeting earthward with one of its two engines exploded. I realized then that although both the spiritual and material needs for my family had been provided, I had not left for them a reasonable recapitulation of my life that they could review. The safe emergency landing of that disabled aircraft provided me with the chance I needed.

It is difficult to reconcile Russell’s assertion that his airplane plummeting earthward in 1976 was “The final nudge” with this quote (of an event that occurred some 9 months later) from his chapter Highlights of 1977 on page 381:

August 7 – Attended the sunset service at the Garden Park Ward, where President Spencer W. Kimball and President N. Eldon Tanner spoke. There I was inspired by President Kimball to begin the preparation of this personal history.

Great work Gabriel

[Tator]

Ron White's version is much better than Nelson's.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HRJpRu2RsSs

The only thing that could help Nelson's story is an adult beverage, maybe, anyway it couldn't hurt.