CXA5489

Terrence Andrew Davis was born in West Allis, Wisconsin, later moving to Washington, Michigan, California and Arizona. He was the seventh of eight children, and his father was an industrial engineer. As a child, Davis used an Apple II at his elementary school, and as a teenager, learned assembly language on a Commodore 64.[3] He earned a master's degree in electrical engineering from Arizona State University in 1994 and worked for several years at Ticketmaster[3] as a programmer for VAX machines.[4] On the subject of his certifications, he wrote in 2011: "Everybody knows electrical is higher in the engineering pecking order than CS because it requires real math ;-) I'm a rocket scientist, though, not a very good one".

In March 1996, Davis began experiencing regular manic episodes and developed delusions centering around space aliens and government agents. According to Davis, he attributed a profound quality to the Rage Against the Machine lyric "some of those work forces are the same that burn crosses" and recalled "I started seeing people following me around in suits and stuff. It just seemed something was strange." He started donating large sums of money to charity organizations, something he had never done before. Later, he surmised, "that act [probably] caused God to reveal Himself to me and saved me."

Soon afterward, Davis began driving hundreds of miles south with no destination, convinced that his car radio was talking to him, and abandoned his vehicle in a Texas desert, where he was then picked up by an officer and driven to a hospital. Distressed about a conversation over "artifacts" found on his X-ray scans, he ran away from the hospital and attempted to carjack a nearby truck before being arrested by police. He was then admitted to a mental hospital for two weeks.