order to AIDS. "Consumers of SBGA report that they have much more physical energy throughout the day without extreme highs or lows," one distributor posted to Usenet. "They report improved memory, mental clarity and focus; improved digestion, control of appetite and cravings, and heightened immune functions. They report relief from fatigue, hypoglycemia, PMS, anxiety and depression." At HealthWatch, I learned that Carmichael had written an article in Scientific American in 1995 noting that "toxic blooms" of harmful algae often occurred in the same places where Aphanizomenon flos-aquae flourished -- and that screening methods to separate good and bad algae were inadequate. And perhaps most damagingly, a Usenet-published synopsis of an article in the March Self magazine quoted none other than alternative-medicine guru Andrew Weil declaring that there wasn't "a shred of evidence to support the health claims" of Cell Tech distributors. But Cell Tech's response to "misinformation" dealt with none of these issues. Sure, through Cell Tech's "fax on demand" service, one could obtain voluminous responses to critical articles in Self, Consumer Reports, the Vegetarian Times and the National Council Against Health Fraud. But on its home page, it chose to address two particular claims at a level of detail somewhat forbidding to the layman's eyes. First, it denied the charge that Super Blue Green Algae potentially contained a dangerous neurotoxin referred to as "anatoxin-a." Second, it ridiculed the claim that anatoxin-a, which some scientists consider a "cocaine analog," might be the reason so many devoted algae eaters testified to its energy-boosting benefits. Why had Cell Tech chosen to respond so publicly to those particular accusations? What was the story behind the story? I had combed the Net, but couldn't answer that question. And the more I learned about algae online, the murkier the picture got: The anti-quack forces made a compelling case against Cell Tech, but some of their rhetoric was as off-putting as the obviously self-aggrandizing patter of the Cell Tech distributors. They lumped together all forms of "alternative" medicine as nonsense and myth and delighted in smearing the algae as "pond scum." Stephen Barrett, a psychologist who maintained the Quackwatch site, told me he appreciated publishing on the Internet because it gave him a chance to put out his version of the "unmediated" truth. But I was finding it hard to force a Net full of unmediated ranting into a clear picture. The Net could only take me so far. I had to go deeper. I had to pick up the telephone. I desperately wanted to talk to an electrical engineer named Mark Thorson. The man was a regular in several Usenet newsgroups, an obvious Net old-timer. And a crucial player in the story of Super Blue Green Algae and the Net. But he wasn't answering my e-mail. I sought him because I had determined, after a short review of a few years of blue-green algae-related Usenet postings, that when Cell Tech said "a response to misinformation on the Internet," Cell Tech meant, "a response to Mark Thorson." Thorson is a one-man anti-Cell Tech propaganda machine. For the past four years, in almost every single instance in which a Cell Tech distributor has posted a message in either the sci.med.nutrition or misc.health.alternative newsgroups, Thorson has come blazing in with a cut-and-paste flurry of facts about health dangers associated with blue-green algae. "My agenda is to bring an end to the abuse of the Internet for commercial advertising purposes by Cell Tech," wrote Thorson. He signed one message, "We're the Internet. To protect and to serve, that's us!" Thorson took his campaign seriously. After reading the Scientific American article by Wayne Carmichael, he spent hours in the Stanford Medical Library. He obtained Cell Tech's FDA file. He conducted detailed comparisons of the amounts of nutrients, amino acids and minerals in a day's dose of Super Blue Green Algae and more conventional "nutritive supplements" like bananas or eggs. A college major in neurobiology, he scoffed at claims that blue-green algae eaters owed their energy boosts to glycogen, or neuropeptides, or B-12. He was convinced that Super Blue Green Algae contained a pharmacological agent -- anatoxin-a -- that acted as a stimulant. When he tried it himself, the algae made him "wired," he wrote. Finally, late one Saturday night, he called me -- and then refused to talk. He told me that he would soon be forced to give a legal deposition in a blue-green algae-related law suit. He would not comment, on or off the record, until after the deposition. The deposition, I later discovered, was related to a personal injury lawsuit that a Pennsylvanian named Samuel Fineman had filed against Cell Tech. According to court documents, Fineman, an insulin-dependent diabetic, was claiming that "shortly after ingesting" Super Blue Green Algae, he had "suffered severe and adverse reactions, including but not limited to flushing of the skin and numbness of both arms and hands, lower legs and feet." Furthermore, after contacting the president of Cell Tech, Marta Kollman, "for information and assistance," the complaint alleged that Kollman had "refused to provide [Fineman] with information and/or assistance regarding his symptoms." Neither Fineman nor his lawyer would comment on the case, due to go to trial this fall. Other algae experts familiar with the details also refused to comment, as did Kollman herself, except to tell me that the lawsuit, which she claimed was the first in Cell Tech's 14-year history, was "ludicrous." Ludicrous or not, the lawsuit was the story behind the "misinformation" story -- the missing link I had been unable to find on the Internet that explained Cell Tech's home-page defensiveness. But though the lawsuit is invisible on the Net, ironically, it turns out to have been heavily shaped by the Net. Several people familiar with the case agreed that Fineman's legal strategy and research rely on information harvested online -- a low-budget answer to a cash-strapped plaintiff's dreams. Several days after my first brief conversation with Thorson, he called me again. Cell Tech, said Thorson, had dropped its efforts to subpoena him, and he was now more willing to talk. Thorson is confident that he has made an impact on Cell Tech: "I think I've been very effective. The level of abuse of the alternative medicine and nutrition newsgroups is much less now then it was in, say, 1995. It's very quiet out there, in terms of algae. I can go for weeks waiting for someone to post something." At least one Cell Tech distributor acknowledges that Thorson's postings had caused him to question whether he should be consuming blue-green algae. "If it wasn't for the Net I wouldn't know what I do now," says Ralph Castro, a Long Island psychologist. "At first, I believed that the feelings of energy that one gets from the blue-green algae were due to nutritive effects. But now I believe there is a psychopharmacologic effect. But I don't know for sure. All I really know is what I've read on the Internet." Thorson believes he knows why so many people are pumping up Cell Tech's sales: He thinks they may be addicted to a drug. "It definitely felt to me like a stimulant," said Thorson, describing his own experience. "It gave me a feeling of floating or flying on air ... I can see why people would enjoy that." After talking with Thorson, I saw puzzle pieces fitting into place. What was visible through the Net alone -- that festival of unmediation -- offered only an uneasy reflection of offline reality. But it did suggest that there was a new power afoot in traditional information dynamics. A flame war in cyberspace ... a showdown in district court. There was no real dividing line. The lawsuit would bring together algae experts, Cell Tech executives and Internet gadflies. The Internet was facilitating an ecology of information that knew no boundaries, virtual or real. But by now, I was frustrated with sifting through old Usenet postings and engaging in off-the-record phone calls. I craved more direct information. I purchased some blue-green algae and started popping capsules. And yes, there did appear to be something happening here. I felt pepped up, even a little jittery. I had convinced myself that some kind of biochemical action was going down. I could feel it in my bowels. But even that wasn't enough. I had exhausted the Net and made all my phone calls. The time had come to travel to the source -- to the town that time forgot: Klamath Falls. Once upon a time, Klamath Falls was a bustling logging town. Nestling down at the south end of Klamath Lake, the city also benefited tremendously from its position next to the tracks of the Southern Pacific Railroad. It even operated a profitable sideline to its main sawmill business: The town is dotted with huge cold-storage facilities originally intended to warehouse produce brought up by train from California's immense Central Valley. Today, Cell Tech owns all the cold storage in Klamath Falls, and the warehouses are filled with freeze-dried algae instead of corn and cucumbers. And today, Klamath Falls is just a shadow of its former self. Most of the sawmills are closed, and the city has been hurt badly by the construction of Interstate 5, some 70 miles to the west. Downtown Klamath Falls is filled with boarded up shops and crumbling old hotels. At 8 o'clock on a weeknight, the city is a ghost town, a likely location for a nefarious cult operation -- as some Cell Tech detractors (including some of Cell Tech's competitors) have been known to call Cell Tech. Indeed, Cell Tech's headquarters, freshly painted and well-maintained, occupy pride of place in the center of town. An oddly ornate building festooned with faux-Egyptian detailing that once served as a Ford dealership, the headquarters is only one of 14 Cell Tech buildings in Klamath Falls. Cell Tech is one of Klamath Falls' largest employers, with 600 staffers and considerable civic clout. Evidence of the clout is clear just north of the city center, overlooking the lake. There, a low hill is being cleared for a new consolidated center for Cell Tech operations. Construction of the buildings hasn't yet begun, but a brand new paved road winds up into the empty hill. The road is named Dan O'Brien Way, in honor of the Olympic gold medal-winning decathlete. O'Brien, Cell Tech president Marta Kollman tells me, is a major league algae eater. As is Kollman, who keeps a stash of Cell Tech products in her desk drawer and misses no chance to sing their praises. Blond, middle-aged, charismatic and effervescent, Kollman struck me at first glance as a typical super-salesperson, adeptly sliding away from the tough questions, but able to talk at length and with enthusiasm about most aspects of Super Blue Green Algae production. It wasn't until about a quarter of the way through a two-hour tour of Cell Tech's facilities that I realized she was wearing blue-green eye shadow like a badge of honor. Even later, the full truth of Kollman's algal sincerity was made even clearer when we entered a room adjoining one of Cell Tech's laboratories, and she pounced upon a plastic canister of algae powder that had been left sitting on a table. While telling me that this was a test sample of a new algae-production process, she quickly unscrewed the canister and took a deep whiff, then handed it to me, eyes glinting with obvious delight. The smell of freeze-dried algae, as Kollman herself admitted, is "an acquired taste" -- a harsh aroma more redolent of a stagnant pond than the health-giving bounty of nature. But the odor is anything but harsh to Kollman -- she could hardly restrain a bodily shiver of joy as she put the canister back down. Until I visited Klamath Falls, Cell Tech had remained an amorphous abstraction to me. The grandiose claims of Cell Tech distributors struck me as distinctly penny ante -- a traveling salesman's snake-oil rhetoric. But after zipping across the full gamut of Cell Tech operations, chauffeured in Kollman's ultra-comfortable Mercedes, I began to see the company in a new light. Super Blue Green Algae is big business on an industrial scale. While Cell Tech's much smaller competitors harvest the algae from the open waters of the lake using specially designed barges and small boats, Cell Tech sprawls along a canal that drains the lake and channels its water into irrigation systems feeding southern Oregon and portions of Northern California. The algae is harvested directly from the canal. On the day I visited, Cell Tech filtered some 200,000 pounds of green goo from the canal, using large, mechanized rectangular racks that scooped out the algae and channeled it into a massive system of pipes, centrifuges, fr