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Disappointed by Skyline? Tantalized by Castle's X-Files-y episode
this week? Want an alien conspiracy with some meat on its bones (or
exoskeleton, as the case may be)? Here are six of the greatest real-life
alien conspiracy theories.
Image by Jim Nichols.
Actually,
"real-life" is kind of a dubious term when talking about this kind of
thing. The world of alien conspiracies is an improbably complex and
interwoven one. It's filled with weird personalities, unexplainable
events, half-remembered government secrets, and countless races of alien
visitors, all with their own agendas.
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Roswell
So let's start with arguably the grand-daddy of UFO conspiracy events: the supposed Roswell UFO incident.
In 1947, the Roswell Air Force Base issued a press release saying that
they'd found a mysterious metallic disc on a nearby ranch. The press
was, of course, intrigued, but the base quickly changed their wording
slightly: they'd found what appeared to be the remnants of a weather
balloon.
The change
was not quick enough, of course: the local papers ran giant headlines
saying that the air force had recovered a crashed alien spaceship. And
in the years since, that story has stuck, as accounts surfaced from
employees at the base that include multiple crash sites, massive
cover-ups, and even a reported alien autopsy (a film released in 1995
purported to depict the actual autopsy, but it its creator admitted
that "most" of the footage was fake, thereby sort of discrediting all of the footage).
Die-hards
still stand by these scant accounts of fishy dealings at Roswell. The
supposed cover-up has permeated public perception of the base, leading
to a Star Trek plot, a Futurama episode, and even an entire TV series,
among many others. It also launched a veritable squadron of alien
conspiracies. Some still believe that the spaceship remnants and alien
bodies have been squirreled away in some sort of secret military
enclave.
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Area 51
And Area 51
might just be that military enclave. The actual base has long been a
very closely-guarded secret, including wide "trespassers will be shot"
stretches around the base itself and a large no-fly zone surrounding it.
According
to conspiracy theorists, what we can see of Area 51 is just the tip of
the paranoid iceberg. The base allegedly features elaborate underground
labs, hidden tunnels, a dedicated extra-terrestrial runway that can
disappear and reappear, and research programs dedicated to
reverse-engineering alien technology.
In one
particularly colorful and alluring detail, two different alleged former
Area 51 employees reported working side-by-side with an alien being
named "J-Rod" on cloning alien viruses and on a telepathic translator
device (it's funnier if you imagine J-Rod as Jar-Jar; I'd watch that
movie).
And the mystery of Area 51 is still only one example of the vast network of supposed government cover-up of alien contact.
Project Blue Book and the Majestic 12
The government has been relatively transparent with Project Blue Book.
It was an endeavor for the US government to catalog and examine every
instance of supposed alien contact, visitation, and spacecraft reported
to them. The project spanned years (and many incarnations), and its
official result was that there existed no substantial evidence that
these incidents were the result of alien visitation.
But that
didn't stop conspiracy theorists. In addition to challenging the rigor
of the study, some "experts" on the subject stand by the claim that Blue
Book became a distraction and cover-up from the reality of alien
visitation, which included a top secret international squad called Majestic 12
to perpetrate the elaborate smoke-screen. Amongst the alleged weaponry
of this massive cover-up are disinformation campaigns, character
assassination, and elaborate webs of government lies.
Another weapon in the cover-up arsenal is the network of supposed Men in Black responsible for doing the actual dirty work. You've seen them in Will Smith movies and on the X-Files,
but die-hard alien conspiracy theorists claim they're everywhere, as
CIA agents, or as shape-shifting aliens, or even inter-dimensional
beings. Some even report encounters with these men in black (like the
account in the video above), and some say they have the smashed cameras
and bruises to prove it.
But WHY would the government try to cover up alien invasions? Just what are they hiding?
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The Reptilians
The cover-up might just be so that world leaders can hide their true reptilian nature. Conspiracy theorist (and very creative thinker) David Icke is the man primarily responsible for the paranoia about secret shape-shifting reptile-like aliens invading Slitheen-style and replacing high-ranking political leaders. There are countless videos and images all over the internet purporting to depict these reptilians slipping and revealing their true selves.
One of my
favorite details about Icke's worldview is that of the Red Dresses.
These are personality-less software constructs of the reptilian invaders
installed at high rank to facilitate the aliens' plans. This particular
theory is what leads to stunning images like the one above, which
reveals a few of the "red dresses" in their true form.
Another
proponent of this reptilian-invasion worldview recently gained a bit of
notoriety when discussing her own version of the conspiracy. Her name is
Colleen Thomas, and she wants to warn us all of the impending shadow-government dirty bombing and a Draconian-Reptilian invasion.
These
reptilian usurpers and shape-shifters are supposed to have been around
for millennia, manipulating all of human history for their own gain. But
Icke and his reptilian cronies aren't the first to propose alien
invasions in ancient history.
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Ancient Astronauts
As long as we're talking about extraterrestrials secretly influencing human history, we have to talk about the "ancient astronauts." Erich von Däniken, in his landmark (in certain circles) book, Chariots of the Gods?,
posits that Earth has been the frequent recipient of alien visitors.
These visitors have brought with them advanced technologies, some of
which helped build the pyramids, the Moai statues on Easter Island,
Stonehenge, and more.
Many religions have developed as a response to this particular conspiracy, and we've covered some of the most absurd ones before.
Hidden histories like this tend to have religious implications. But, as
the next item demonstrates, they sometimes have unexpected political
implications.
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Esoteric Hitlerism
As with any internet discussion,
it all eventually turns to a discussion of Nazism. And alien conspiracy
theories are no exception, with my favorite of the weird
extraterrestrial conspiracies, Esoteric Hitlerism.
Spearheaded
by Miguel Serrano, Esoteric Hitlerists believe that the Aryan race is
descended from an alien species of the highest order. Finding evidence
in the story of the Nephilim
in the bible, Serrano believes that an ancient alien civilization came
to Earth to enlighten man. They bred with ancient earthlings, and the
Aryan race are the only race alive that maintains any of the purity in
their blood of these lofty ancestors. Serrano taught that the alien gods
were hiding, with Adolf Hitler, in an icy underground fortress, from
which they will one day emerge with fleets of spacecraft to usher in the
Fourth Reich.
Yikes.
So if you
are disappointed by a fictional portrayal of the secret alien
interactions with humanity, you can always fall back on the real things
that people believe. Sometimes, especially in the case of Esoteric
Hitlerism, not only is the truth stranger than fiction - some people's
version of the truth is just too strange for fiction.
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