#Nazi connection to UFOs

[talmagemoorehead]

Declassified Australian Government Documents on UFOs Deserve Everyone's Attention

If Jessie Roestenberg was lying, I'm an aardvark.

As I studied these previously classified UFO documents (second video below) that have now been released by the Australian Government, I kept wondering what in the world the motivation for secrecy has been over the years, and what keeps the lid on genuine UFO disclosure now. As we know, the unpardonable sin in US society today is racism against people of color. Could this cultural reality have…

[msclaritea]

1: The UK isn't obsessed with aliens. Certainly not as bad as the US. Also you know fuck-all about the UK so stfu. 2: What about him? There's no evidence that he's doing ANY of what you're accusing him of. 3: Man who writes a TV series, writes another TV series. How groundbreaking 🙄 4: Man who acts in one film, acts in another. That's what actors do, dumbass. 5: Sure, have a silly tantrum now that your paranoia doesn't hold up to scrutiny. Thanks for the laughs, though.

“Pseudo-histories feed the self-importance and aggrievement of neo-Nazis and alt-right folk,” says Benjamin Radford, a fellow with the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry who has written widely on pseudo-history and claims of paranormal activity. “They feel their rightful place in the world has been denied them — by ‘Big Archeology', by Jews, by an oppressive government.”

There is another source of the far right’s far-out ideas about ancient history, one that requires no psychologizing.

THE NAZI CONNECTION

The basic tenets of alt-archeology and alt-history were foundational to the ideology and program of National Socialism, but the Nazis did not invent them. The Nazi belief in a pure Aryan race with a glorious ancient past and distinct genetic history was central to a transatlantic nineteenth-century occult scene (that featured a heavy German influence.) After Hitler assumed power, this belief was institutionalized in the form of the Ancestral Heritage and Teaching Society, or the Ahnenerbe, an alt-archeology research outfit founded by Heinrich Himmler and the Atlantis theorist Herman Wirth.

Under the banner of the Ahnerbe, Nazi explorers fanned out across Europe and the globe in search of relics holding (possibly supernatural) hints of ancient Aryan glory. In 1938, a team was dispatched to Iceland in search of the lost Aryan civilization of Thule, which Nazi leaders discovered in an Icelandic epic poem. Among the Nazis’ interests in Thule was the legend of a race of ancient Aryan giants. (Versions of this myth remain common among biblically focused alt-historians like Steve Quayle and L.A. Marzulli.)

Belief in these legends was possible because of the Nazis’ sharp rejection of the Enlightenment. Dismissing the science of racial diversification and the archeological record, they reveled in symbology, myths and legends of “pure” ancient kingdoms that conquered the world under its symbol, the swastika. (This, the Nazis believed, explained the symbol’s presence in both Native American and Indian art.)

"...But Clarke and Roberts, whose research is to be published this week in a book called Out of the Shadows , did uncover evidence that the American Secret Service, with the possible connivance of the British, looked at ways of using the public panic over UFOs as a psychological weapon against the Russians.

In CIA memos marked 'secret' and seen by The Observer, top officials consider exploiting the UFO craze. 'I suggest that we discuss the possible offensive or defensive utilisation of these phenomena for psychological warfare purposes,' wrote CIA director Walter Smith in 1952.

'Shortly after that meeting the CIA sent a delegation to Britain to discuss UFOs. It is hard to imagine that they did not discuss the psychological warfare aspects of it with their British counterparts,' Clarke said.

Clarke, who started out as a believer in UFOs but is now a sceptic, said that the belief in alien visitation had once reached up to the highest positions in government. Prime Minister Winston Churchill once ordered an investigation into it and Lord Mountbatten was a firm believer in flying saucers. In the 1950s Britain set up a flying saucer working party of top Ministers and army staff. 'That is why this field is important for academic research. It did have an impact on government policy at a crucial stage in history,' he said..."

"The Office of Special Affairs (OSA), formerly the Guardian's Office, is a department of the Church of Scientology International. According to the Church, the OSA is responsible for directing legal affairs, public relations, pursuing investigations, publicizing the Church's "social betterment works," and "oversee[ing its] social reform programs". Some observers outside the Church have characterized the department as an intelligence agency, comparing it variously to the CIA or the KGB. The department has targeted critics of the Church with dead agent operations and character assassination. OSA is the successor to the now-defunct Guardian's Office, which was responsible for Operation Snow White and Operation Freakout; both are in Department 20 in the Scientology organizational chart. The most recent head of OSA International was Mike Rinder, who has since departed from the organization and criticizes it severely, appearing as a co-host on Leah Remini: Scientology and the Aftermath.

Structure and personnel

History

The Guardian's Office was established in 1966, and its initial mission was to protect the interests of the Church of Scientology, and gather information on agencies and individuals deemed enemies of the organization. The Guardian's Office was also charged with internal monitoring of current Scientologists, in particular heretics and notable defectors. L. Ron Hubbard put his wife Mary Sue Hubbard in charge of the Guardian's Office, and it was initially headquartered at Saint Hill Manor, in England. The Guardian's Office functioned effectively as an Intelligence Bureau of the Church of Scientology, and planted members in key positions within federal government agencies, in order to obtain confidential material. Most branches of the Church of Scientology soon had at least one member from the Guardian's Office on its staff, and the Guardian's Office itself had its own secret Intelligence Bureau at the top of its organizational structure. The Guardian's Office was disbanded in 1983, and the bulk of its previous functions were then assigned to the Office of Special Affairs..."

Like a man once said, don't think you can climb in the ring with the Incas and think you can box. Besides your country being historically, aggressively superstitious, besides the fact that many of your upper class were Nazi sympathizers, besides your history, also, of bastardizing the history of other cultures to elevate yourself, you people apparently have had a very cozy relationship for decades with the alien-loving Scientologists, who've infiltrated your government. Thanks for the ask. I didn't know that part. Now take your brain out the back of your pants and sit the fuck down, Jr. Your stupidity offends me, yo.

[brookstonalmanac]

Events 6.24 (after 1900)

1894 – Marie François Sadi Carnot, President of France, is assassinated by Sante Geronimo Caserio. 1913 – Greece and Serbia annul their alliance with Bulgaria. 1916 – Mary Pickford becomes the first female film star to sign a million-dollar contract. 1918 – First airmail service in Canada from Montreal to Toronto. 1922 – The American Professional Football Association is renamed the National Football League. 1932 – A bloodless revolution instigated by the People's Party ends the absolute power of King Prajadhipok of Siam (now Thailand). 1938 – Pieces of a meteorite land near Chicora, Pennsylvania. The meteorite is estimated to have weighed 450 metric tons when it hit the Earth's atmosphere and exploded. 1940 – World War II: Operation Collar, the first British Commando raid on occupied France, by No 11 Independent Company. 1943 – US military police attempt to arrest a black soldier in Bamber Bridge, England, sparking the Battle of Bamber Bridge mutiny that leaves one dead and seven wounded. 1945 – The first Victory Day Parade takes place on Red Square in Moscow, Soviet Union, symbolizing the victory of the Soviet Union over Nazi Germany. 1947 – Kenneth Arnold makes the first widely reported UFO sighting near Mount Rainier, Washington. 1948 – Cold War: Start of the Berlin Blockade: The Soviet Union makes overland travel between West Germany and West Berlin impossible. 1949 – The first television western, Hopalong Cassidy, starring William Boyd, is aired on NBC. 1950 – Apartheid: In South Africa, the Group Areas Act is passed, formally segregating races. 1954 – First Indochina War: Battle of Mang Yang Pass: Viet Minh troops belonging to the 803rd Regiment ambush G.M. 100 of France in An Khê. 1957 – In Roth v. United States, the U.S. Supreme Court rules that obscenity is not protected by the First Amendment. 1960 – Venezuelan President Rómulo Betancourt is injured in an assassination attempt. 1963 – The United Kingdom grants Zanzibar internal self-government. 1975 – Eastern Air Lines Flight 66 encounters severe wind shear and crashes on final approach to New York's JFK Airport killing 113 of the 124 passengers on board, making it the deadliest U.S. plane crash at the time. This accident led to decades of research into downburst and microburst phenomena and their effects on aircraft. 1981 – The Humber Bridge opens to traffic, connecting Yorkshire and Lincolnshire. It remained the world's longest bridge span for 17 years. 1982 – "The Jakarta Incident": British Airways Flight 009 flies into a cloud of volcanic ash thrown up by the eruption of Mount Galunggung, resulting in the failure of all four engines. 1989 – Jiang Zemin succeeds Zhao Ziyang to become the General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party after the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests and massacre. 1994 – A Boeing B-52 Stratofortress crashes at Fairchild Air Force Base near Spokane, Washington, killing four. 1995 – Rugby World Cup: South Africa defeats New Zealand and Nelson Mandela presents Francois Pienaar with the Webb Ellis Cup in an iconic post-apartheid moment. 2002 – The Igandu train disaster in Tanzania kills 281, the worst train accident in African history. 2004 – In New York, capital punishment is declared unconstitutional. 2012 – Death of Lonesome George, the last known individual of Chelonoidis nigra abingdonii, a subspecies of the Galápagos tortoise. 2013 – Former Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi is found guilty of abusing his power and engaging in sex with an underage prostitute, and is sentenced to seven years in prison. 2022 – In Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization, the U.S. Supreme Court rules that the U.S. Constitution does not assign the authority to regulate abortions to the federal government, thereby returning such authority to the individual states. This overturns the prior decisions in Roe v. Wade (1973) and Planned Parenthood v. Casey (1992). 2023 – The Wagner Group led by Yevgeny Prigozhin launches an insurrection against the Russian government.

[branded-perceptions]

Love is the affective desire for PRESENCE over any elevating👽 mind constructs, impulsive triggers or subjective emotions' symbolic in mind converted fake "attachment".

Love is the biological force that transcend the innate psychosis of all of peoples and societies' self-justifying mind constructs. Remember the last time you where fighting or arguing with someone you love, and all you actually wanted to do is hold each other to find the objectively overlapping aspects? Hegelian dialectics is driven by presence.

If we would not feel the intrinsic motivational pull of love, would we ever be able to let go of and look behind your subjective habits, by social constructs defined reward incentives and to ones FAMILIAR "conscious" identity-constructs tied "logic" self-justifying psychosis like C-19 $cience or any type of reductionistic argumentations?

🎥"Scientists should be humbe! Vandana Shiva"

Essentially, this function of love is what seperates artificial intelligence, computer programs and robots from humans. Are you a psychotic computer program? 🎥"Are machines smarter than humans? Vandana Shiva".

Love is what allows us to evolve from reductionistic perspectives (all we subjectively with our limited mind capacity believe objective reality or "causality" to be: 🎥"Real Science is Spiritual - Vandana Shiva - THRIVE Movement")

to "systems thinking Benjamin Egerland" (youtube video) which requires (Vandana Shiva explains why science is fundamentally spiritual) to constantly shed and restructure all for causal wellbeing unsuitable emotional cathexis in fictional mind constructs

(everything in mind is mythos more or less)

which only works if one is vulnerable with oneself which is encapsuled by question of WHO ARE YOU? Your or anyone elses' identity, story, "logic" constructs of reductionistic "causality", status, reputations, desires, drives, self-justifying ideologies, impulses, subjective emotions (all subjective dreams) or a causal being with your PRESENCE (🎥Authenticity vs. attachement Dr. Gabor Mate) in causal reality (shared objective reality: KANT) grounded joys and needs like PRESENCE of everyone else's simple "PRESENCE"?

🎥"The problem with endless growth and globalization. Vandana Shiva"

Purpose & direction (MOTIVATION) of all our th-oughts, actions and inevitably dualistic expressions

is fundamentally driven

("holy grail" of nerves in our neck connecting conscious and unconscious centers of intelligence)

by the (way we consciously repress thereby consciously unaware)

spectrum of contrasting emotions of our unconscious minds charging as natural ironic process our conscious linguistics and definitions and explanatory constructs and out of this emerging value-exchange (🎥"What's wrong with the myth of progress? Vandana Shiva")

that turn us into ALIENS (adaptable alien veeFriends)

if we value these constructs

[[group-identities (in-group rewards' in-group "positivity" psychosis like 🎶"We are veeFriends" = 🔍Hitler only had one ball = 🔍why were the Nazis looking so happy?), value-exchange, social customs, storytelled legacies, group self-justifications, brand love, ... metaphorical UFOs (mythos, shared psychosis) as they are Unidentified Flying Objects if their purpose cannot be related (logos, Occam Razor) to all our globally most basic shared life needs causal TOUCH🤝 of dialectic PLAY (Hegel) between psychological ID🍌 whistle (life needs) and superego🤥😷😇 (kant) sense-makings' symbolic🎅 projections🍌💦🎅❤️🛐🤯 # GAGA]]

of our "fallen" and via symbolic convergence theory entraining consciousness (the reflection (mirror) of greek story of narcissus)

more than the thereby ALIEN-ATE-D most basic causal life needs (like "holy grail" of daily causal food joys) of us all around the world

that many (especially the most "successful" ones) pathologically run away from if their parents have not provided them a stable via shared meritocratic interpersonal boundary setting in causal reality (not any stories, subjective intends or glorifications) grounded

🎶AFFECTION - CIGARETTES AFTER SEX

they thereby chase (bank) via obsessions with symbolic converted reference points' psychosis like by such socially rewarded repressions arising self-justifying peer-pressures of all sorts of "shots"

(🎵I KNOW THAT YOU SAY I GET MEAN WHEN I'M DRINKING)

that similar like pleasure derived out of music naturally link into neurochemistry & for that evolved biological reward systems

(🎵BUT THEN AGAIN SOMETIMES I GET REALLY SWEET)

for which we need to evolve meritocratic superego🤥😷😇 dialectics🧠 as shared boundaries👑🥜 to not just protect our by (various childhood acceptance issues induced)

lack of self-love

[[which is grounded in our out of "boring" causal reality not social fantasies springing selves: 🎥"How to Become Authentic through compassion, Dr. Gabor Mate." boredom🔑 = self-acceptance = ability to redirect subjective motivations and restructure conscious psychosis. Some mistakenly try to do it with compulsive "meditation" to obsessively "master-mind" themselves ("clarity") which does the opposite of what is intended. Simply reserve time for yourself to be bored, listen (authenticity) to yourself, your unconscious mind (📚intuition Gary Klein), make fun about your own motivations and thought structures: 📚creativity: unleashing the forces within, Osho Insights for a new way of living = 📚"to have (mind constructs) or to be (authentic with yourself) Erich Fromm". If you do it together with others that is intimacy]]

and resulting alien-like indirect communication (🔍brand love) exploited (🔍big food and big pharma killing for profits)

global most basic causal life needs' presence

(🎵SO WHAT DOES IT MEAN IF I TELL YOU TO GO FUCK YOURSELF)

but nourish it via upon that (by the above mentioned mirrored mind dynamics' chase of social constructs) calibrated🧭❤️🧭 internal values, behaviours and motivations: 🎵OR IF I SAY YOU'RE BEAUTIFUL TO ME

[kevinwillpkgd]

AI rockstar? (trolls, down-vote swarms, lawsuits, bull, etc)

[they'll NEVER admit it]

rich? not likely. ask the open source people how they got repaid.

if it worked, I have lots. Money usually has lots of people they'd rather see get paid., tho (civil war photo collection. he spent 20 years trying to sell it. 5000 dollars later a connection sells it for a half mil.) etc etc

now you know why UFOs don't stop in darkest africa. bull, thievery, and hate campains ARE their social life.

till the nazis take over. then it collaspes.

#canada #writing #poly-sci #AI

[jose-a-heredia-investiga-blog]

Secret Space - The Illuminati's Conquest of Space - Espacio Secreto-Conquista Illuminati del Espacio

Table of contents in the description with time links.

Índice de contenidos con vínculos de tiempo y la descripción en Español, bajo la Inglesa.

The images that you will be able to see, or have never seen or if you have, will be pieces out of context and many of you will have considered them incredible, therefore, here, being in their context and being images filmed by NASA or its namesake in the USSR, you will verify its veracity. This documentary by Chris Everad brings up several questions about the secret space program: what it is, who is behind it and why Is there a human civilization living off-world with highly advanced technology and knowledge about the existence of aliens. It reveals the hidden history of NASA and its connection to the network of Illuminati secret societies. It exposes how the Nazis were a crucial part in the development of the American space program, anomalies in the Apollo missions and UFO sightings recorded before World War II, until 2006 and during space missions.

 Index of contents:

• Prologue and Secret Space ………………...………….00:00:00

• Part 1 - The beginnings and their protagonists……00:11:28

• Brief contextualization of David Ike………….…….00:15:28

• Part 2 The beginning of the revelations……00:22:00

• Radiation………………………………………………………00:28:41

• Suppressed Inventions…………………….…….…..00:32:27

• Tests; videos of contacts with Aliens and Governments….….00:37:51

• NASA's Biggest Secret (Expansion of the previous videos)..00:42:01

• Space Snakes……………………………………………...00:43:21

• Where is the MIR Space Station?..................................00:47:42

• STS80 Space Shuttle mission very, very strange…………………00:51:40

• NASA and the Pentagon in the Secret Space War……………….00:57:56

• Mission STS-75 E.M. Tether full video…………………………..01:02:13

• NASA expenses and how to justify them………………….……..01:04:51

• Report of the President Elect of the AD HOC Space Committee..01:14:32

• NASA astronauts & UFOs………………………………..……...01:15:25

• 1.5 km long "Sperm Creature" filmed 1991…………………..….01:22:02

• Are there alien abductions in Russia?..........................................01:24:52

• Masonic Moon………………………………………..………….01:28:47

 --------------------------------------------

Las imágenes que podrán ver, o jamás habrán visto o si lo han hecho, serán trozos fuera de contexto y muchos los habréis dado por increíbles, por eso, aquí al estar en su contexto y al ser imágenes filmadas por la NASA o su igual en la URSS, comprobareis su veracidad. Este documental de Chris Everad plantea varias preguntas sobre el Programa Secreto Espacial: qué es, quién está detrás de él y por qué hay una civilización humana que vive fuera del mundo con tecnología altamente avanzada y conocimiento sobre la existencia de los extraterrestres. Así mismo, revela la historia oculta de la NASA y su conexión con la red de sociedades secretas illuminati. Se expone como los Nazis formaron parte crucial en el desarrollo del programa espacial estadounidense, las anomalías en las misiones Apollo y los avistamientos de OVNIs registrados desde antes de la 2da. Guerra Mundial, hasta el 2006 y las misiones espaciales.

 Índice:

• Prologo y Espacio secreto ………………...………………….00:00:00

• Parte 1 - Los comienzos y sus protagonistas…….00:11:28

• Breve puesta en contexto de David Ike…….00:15:28

• Parte 2 El comienzo de las revelaciones……00:22:00

• Radiación………………………………………………………00:28:41

• Inventos Suprimidos…………………………………..00:32:27

• Las pruebas; vídeos de contactos con Aliens y Gobiernos…….00:37:51

• El Mayor Secreto de la NASA (Ampliación de los vídeos anteriores)..00:42:01

• Serpientes Espaciales…………………………………………..00:43:21

• ¿Dónde está La Estación Espacial MIR?........................00:47:42

• STS80 misión Espacial Shuttle muy, muy Extraña………00:51:40

• La NASA y El Pentágono en la Guerra Secreta Espacial…….00:57:56

• Misión STS-75 Incidente E.M. Tether vídeo completo…..…..01:02:13

• Gastos de NASA y como Justificarlos………………….……..01:04:51

• Informe del Presidente Electo del AD HOC Comité del Espacio…01:14:32

• Astronautas de la NASA & OVNIs…………………………...01:15:25

• "Criatura Esperma" de 1,5 Km de largo filmada 1991……….01:22:02

• ¿Hay abducciones Alienígenas en Rusia?...........................01:24:52

• Luna Masónica……………………………………………….01:28:47

 #secret #space #program #horizonte #paperclip #moon #UFOs #UFO #majestic12 #shuttle #parallel #paralelo #serpientesespaciales #spacesnakes #MIR #estacion #espacial #internacional #internationalSpaceStation #ISS #Apollo #nazi #nazis #Proyecto #proyect #davidicke #ike #area51 #OVNIS #WernerVonBraun #HermanOberth #AllanShepard #JohnGlen #notaloneinuniverse #vida #life #extraterrestre #extraterrestrial #Station #alienships #spaceship #evidence #flyingaliensnakes #evidencias #SSP #programa #secreto #serpientesextraterrestres #MJ12 #Illuminati #conquista #conquest  #tecnología #technology #altamenteavanzada #highlyadvancedtechnology #highlyadvanced #Shuttle

[whatisonthemoon]

Two Segment Episode(s) on Religious, Spiritual, and Fascist Psychological Operations

The Liminalist # 219: Fake Blueprints for Revolution (The Shadow Ideology of the Elite, with Recluse)

https://auticulture.com/the-liminalist-219-recluse/

Return conversation with Recluse of VISUP about extreme right-wing shadow politics on east & west coasts, the hidden ideological template peaking through UFO narratives, occultism, & supposed liberal-progressive values, & the many lies of Peter Levenda & Aleister Crowley.

F I R S T   S E G M E N T 

Part One: Spooky Social Network (0 – 31 mins)

Suspicions about Peter Levenda, disagreements over alien abductions and Crowley, Association of Former Intelligence Officers, To the Stars Academy, David Atley Phillips or Maurice Bishop, the coup d’état in Chile, Operation Condor, Richard Dody, John Alexander & non-lethal weapons, Stillwell & JSOC, Michael Aquino, the Typhonian tradition, demonic space gods, Chris Knowles on Cracker, intelligence social network, plausible deniability, Levenda’s early years, Knights of Malta & the Sovereign Order of Saint John of Jerusalem, Charles Willoughby’s G2 & the OSS, Philip Corso & Gladio, The Secret Life of Plants, Stanley & David Ferrie & child abuse, Christian Identity Theology domestic terrorism network.

Part Two: The Evolutionary Drive of Madness (31 mins – end)

Levenda’s game, the rehabilitation of the CIA, a religious end game, Jacques Vallee, Kenneth Grant cosmology, In the Mouth of Madness, Pasulka’s American Cosmic, the transformation of society, Strieber, Castaneda, transhumanism, disembodiment, Jeffrey Epstein & the scientific community, the coming of the Beetles, Nick Land, accelerationism, Puharich & Spectre, genetic tampering, the ideology of sexual abuse, the evolutionary drive of madness, Manson the outsider, dreams of the zombie apocalypse, the pluses of cannibalism, The Necronomicon & The Satanic Bible, Sinister Forces, Levenda’s orientation, MKULTRA & the American Security Council, the right & wrong way of approaching knowledge.

S E C O N D   S E G M E N T .Part Three: Spy Games (0 – 20 mins)

Sinister Forces, the metaphysical & the parapolitical, synchromysticism, the tools of occultism, the perils of Necronomicon, Levenda’s changing position with occultism, propaganda & truth, what the books deliver, the Tom de Longe project, anticipating a Hilary presidency, Annie Jacobson’s Area 51, the UFO red herring, abolishing the line between reality & fantasy, spy games, Russian fake news about psi, targeting the American public.

Part Four: We Need to Talk About Crowley (20 mins – 48 mins)

Let’s talk about Crowley, Cecil family & royal intelligence, hidden power positions, the Society for Psychical Research, the Round Table, Crowley’s high-level endorsement, General Fuller, UK Nazi groups, Scottish League for European Freedom, Neal Billy MacLean, World Anti-Communist League’s occult groups  & Yakuza ties, the Moonies & drug money, the Iron Guard & Julius Evola, Las Tecos, strange ideologies, The Star in the West, the Anti-Bolshevik Bloc of Nations, Crowley researchers ignoring of Fuller & far-right allegiances, Crowley as a fascist progressive pioneer of liberal values, the enigma of Crowley’s promotion.

Part Five: The Hollywood Connection (48 mins – end)

Rebranding Crowley, the Hollywood connection, Crowley’s dark side, the Moonies & Christian fundamentalism, Stranger in a Strange Land, Heinlein & Hubbard, Charles Manson, drugs, and pedophilia, the Family as a prototype for militia group, ground zero for Christian Identity Theology, Manson’s parole officer, Haight-Ashbury Medical Clinic, Son of Sam, Roy Kohn, New York sex parties, Mindhunter, behavioral science BS, high-level propaganda, reasserting the fiction, Fight Club & solider of the apocalypse archetype, fake blueprints for revolution.

[hometoursandotherstuff]

And, now from the archives of Life Magazine, a funky flashback to the 1950s Flying Saucer Conventions.

These B&W photos document the convention, from the quirky attendees and their campsites, the UFO memorabilia, the bustling scene that once surrounded this now lonesome boulder and best of all, a look inside the secret home that once lay beneath the giant rock.

So, how did a man come to live under a rock in the California desert?

In the 1930s, an eccentric German immigrant called Frank Critzer, dug out a subterranean home under the giant rock. He lived there alone, isolated from society with nothing but a radio antenna on top of the rock to stay connected to the outside world.

In 1942, the police came to investigate rumors that he was a Nazi spy and Frank died from a self-detonated dynamite explosion in his own bunker. They thought that he was a spy because of his radio antenna. But, he was just a radio enthusiast who wanted to be left alone.

After his death, Frank’s only friend, a former aircraft inspector named George Van Tassel, became the giant rock’s new tenant in 1947. 

In addition to being an aviator, he also liked to dabble in the telepathic channeling of alien life.

In a few years, George went from living a simple life with his family in the rooms Frank Critzer had dug out under the Giant Rock, to building his own restaurant on the site, a small airstrip, and an extra-terrestrial research center.

The UFO center would play host to his annual Giant Rock Spacecraft Convention, attracting more than 11,000 people at its peak.

Tassel’s onsite research center, nicknamed “the Integratron“, was believed by many to have some pretty special powers– 

Including ‘anti-gravitational and time traveling capabilities provided by extra-terrestrial life on Venus.’

For nearly 20 years it became the dream pilgrimage of every UFO nut enthusiast in America.

Let’s take a look at the UFO style of the day, beginning with the wonderful hats.

And the flying saucer accessories. 

What the hell is that?

It was also something the whole family could enjoy.

The dome-shaped ‘Integratron Center’ still stands near the giant rock, and after  Tassel’s death in 1978 there were plans to turn it into a disco.

Instead, the new owners turned it into an off-beat tourist attraction offering “sound baths,” claiming it to be “the only all-wood, acoustically perfect sound chamber in the U.S.”

It was built from instructions from Mars. I don’t know, except for the bus, clothes, & lack of hats, the people are pretty much the same.

As for the rock, in the year 2000 it fractured in two when a large piece broke off, revealing its white interior granite. Sadly, it’s covered in graffiti. 

https://mojaveproject.org/dispatches-item/giant-rock-space-people-and-the-integratron/     //  messynessychic.com   //  life magazine

[vintagegeekculture]

I've been watching a lot of 70s-80s mystery/cop shows thanks to tubi/pluto streaming and I've noticed a trope that seems to have died out. IDK what to call it other than "the escaped nazi" story. It feels like just about every Detective series did their version of it (even Star Trek w/ "The Conscience of the King"). For obvious reasons of the passing of time, I don't think I recall a new example for ages. Tho, x-men first class nodded to it, and Brian Singer did a movie twisting the theme based off a Stephen King story. The likelihood of finding a living 'original nazi' is pretty unlikely and the generation of folx writing those tv plots have similarly passed on. I can't think of any stock plot that has inherented its purpose.

Interestingly, the earliest example of this kind of story that I can find is from 1945, the year the Nazis were defeated: the Hate Genius, a Doc Savage novel. In this one, it is revealed that Hitler escaped his extremely anticlimactic death, and was hiding in Europe with intent to rebuild and start another war all over again, which in 1945, with a destroyed Europe, was a legitimate fear. In retrospect, it was funny that Doc's cousin Pat Savage was hit on by Hitler in disguise.

It's actually interesting to read the seldom read post-war Doc Savage novels because they essentially had all 50s anxieties in extremely embryonic and early form. For example, there was a Doc Savage novel he investigated "Foo Fighters," which is the World War II name for UFOs and flying saucers. This was in 1946, a year before Kenneth Arnold's sighting started the UFO craze.

As a lover of lost old movies and silent German Cinema, it's always interesting to me how they keep on finding copies of "lost" UFA-studio and German Expressionist movies in Argentina. In fact, Argentina seems to be the most reliable place these movies come up. And the frequent response from a lot of suprised cinephiles and collectors, the kind who know a lot about movies but not everything else, is to say, "wow, I have no idea how a copy of a German movie got all the way to Argentina!" Oh really now? No idea? Are you sure?

History is a lot better at recording heroism than it is about anxieties in the background, and the reason the escaped Nazi story was such a big deal was because there was a widespread belief in the decades after World War II that it would all start all over again, just as World War I led to World War II.

As for Apt Pupil, it's very interesting to rewatch that movie in light of what we know about director Bryan Singer's disturbing personal life and numerous credible accusations (known now to every dog on the street of Los Angeles), including several on the set of that film. Because Apt Pupil doesn't come off as a movie about Nazism, but about pedophilia. It's a movie about an unnatural connection between an older man and a young boy who spend all their time together and keep their relationship secret.

[lizardsfromspace]

I love the boomer complaint that History Channel doesn't show history anymore bc it's true, but pre-Ancient Aliens History Channel defined history as "WWII", but not even "how the GREATEST GENERATION defeated the Nazis" stuff, they just aired constant shows about the Nazis. History Channel's actual history era was like, a show about the history of how bridges are built, then three hours of something called "HITLER'S OCCULT UFO CONNECTION???". People casually called it "the Hitler Channel" and everyone knew what that meant

The actual best part is that, like a lot of channels that abandoned their premise, History spun off a second channel for all their old content, and it was once called the Military Channel but then they declared it the AMERICAN HEROES NETWORK without changing what they show so the AMERICAN HEROES NETWORK is constantly showing stuff about Hitler which is...a bit of a tonal mismatch, I feel

[fbmains]

Watch deep space ancient space program billy carson

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Dax falls in love with one of the residents of a multi-dimensional planet, while on DS9 an alien. Other topics we touch on include the Roswell UFO Incident the Moon Landing and the aim of subsequent lunar missions the discoveries of Gary McKinnon and the influence of Freemasons in all these subject matters. At Deep Space Nine, a space station located next to a wormhole in the vicinity of the liberated planet of Bajor, Commander Sisko and crew welcome alien visitors, root out evildoers and solve all types of unexpected problems that come their way.

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This series explores the Secret Space Program, revealing extraordinary technologies and their potential. and is an expert host on Deep Space, a new original streaming series by Gaia. We also dive into the topic of our human origins, exploring various ideas concerning the Anunnaki and how they tie in with our modern fascination of space. Billy Carson is the founder and CEO of 4BiddenKnowledge Inc, and 2x Best Selling Author of The Compendium Of The Emerald Tablets and Woke Doesn’t Mean Broke. He is also an expert host on Gaia's original series, Ancient Civilizations, which aims to “decipher the riddle of our origins and piece together our forgotten history found in monuments and texts across the world.” During our interview, we question him on the history of secret space programs, discussing how far in time they go back, and focusing on the Nazi interest in space exploration. Billy Carson Himself Mike Bara Himself Guest Michael Salla Himself Guest Streaming, rent, or buy Deep Space Season 1: You are able to buy 'Deep Space - Season 1' on Amazon Video as download. Sisko (Avery Brooks) and crew members Odo (Rene Auberjonois), OBrien (Colm Meaney). He is an expert host on the new original streaming series by Gaia named Deep Space, which explores the Secret Space Program and the types of technologies that they use. At Deep Space Nine, a space station located next to a wormhole, Cmdr.

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Thank you, Billy Carson.Billy Carson is an author, researcher, and TV host of various fringe topics, including secret space programs and ancient civilizations. I highly recommend it to all those who are in search of factual knowledge, that links our ancient history to our present-day situation. S1 E10 - The New NASA Connection S1 E11 - The Veil Cast Regina Meredith Herself-Narrator Billy Carson Himself Mike Bara Himself Guest Michael Salla Himself Guest Streaming, rent, or buy Deep Space Season 1: You are able to buy 'Deep Space - Season 1' on Amazon Video as download. Dulce Base DEEP, DARK, SECRET and Aliens Involved. Billy Carson is the founder of 4biddenknowledge on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter and Tumblr. It was designed for simplicity and ease of entry. UFO, Moon and Beautiful Nebula over an Alien Planet. Billy Carson is the Best Selling Author of The Compendium Of The Emerald Tablets and is an expert host on Deep Space, a new original streaming series by Gaia This undeclared and cloaked space station has been in deep space for the past forty years, manned by U For instance, the positive space could be a vase of flowers in a still life. I am very grateful to Billy Carson for the profound information he shares with us. Deep Space Object May Have Been Alien Probe, Harvard Paper Argues (U. "This book contains excellent information that was meticulously researched and presented.

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[unwelcome-ozian]

What do you think of Joyofsatan.org? They claim to follow the Pagan Goddess Lilith/Lalitha, they’re pro-choice and they’re the largest Satanist group in the world.

I think the group is racist/anti-semitic.

“Joy of Satan Ministries advocates "Spiritual Satanism",[3] and presents a unique synthesis of Theistic Satanism, National Socialism, Gnostic Paganism, Western esotericism, UFO conspiracy theories and extraterrestrial beliefs similar to those popularized by Zecharia Sitchin and David Icke.”

“They have been the topic of significant controversy for their anti-Semitic beliefs and a connection to a former chairman of the National Socialist Movement, an American Neo-Nazi organization. Source

As for the largest Satanic group in the world, The Satanic Temple says they are. Source

There is nothing Satanic about being pro-choice. Women should have the right to choose if they want to have an abortion.

Oz

[theparanormalperiodical]

Everything You Never Knew About The Nazi UFO Conspiracy Theory (it’s a wild ride)

Oil.

You could tell the story of the modern world through oil.

The thick, sticky liquid is the dark glue clobbering the West together. Nations go to war, governments plot and plunder, and innocent people get caught up in the crossfire. All for oil.

But the oil I’m talking about didn’t start a war. It instead leads us to a little known historical tale. A tale that in turn brings us to the front step of a conspiracy theory.

Our story starts in Queen Maud Land, Antarctica.

It’s currently -46 degrees celsius. We are surrounded by soft, white stretches of snow and sharp, mountain-esque peaks breaching the ice.

But some would have you believe there is much more to the land lying just beyond the North Pole. According to some theorists, beneath the frost-bitten ground lies an entire hidden society. And amongst the people gathering in this underground bunker sits technological advances quite literally out of this world.

In 1938, an expedition from Nazi Germany was sent out to take control of Queen Maud Land (known then as New Swabia) in order to supply whale oil for the upcoming war in Western Europe.

Theorists, however, claimed that after the war, the remaining Nazis in Europe fled to New Swabia and may have even kept and developed their advancements in aircraft technology. Yes, it is here they keep and dispatch their UFO technology, helped only by a superhuman race or aliens!

Strap in, kids. It’s time to talk about the messy, mysterious and my-god-this-is-weird-shit Nazi UFOs.

2010 was a pretty tame year by the decade’s standards.

But in late November, a meme was born. A meme that probably relaunched a conspiracy that once thrived in a postwar world: it claimed aliens paid a visit to the guys at the top during Nazi Germany’s heyday and offered up advice for advanced aircraft technology.

Ancient Aliens (season 2 episode 5) gave us innocent viewers the lowdown on the UFOs spotted during and after the war that were supposedly related to Hitler’s regime.

This theory clusters alongside other Ancient Aliens theories - that extraterrestrials have popped down now and then to help construct vast civilisations like Ancient Egypt.

Is it true?

Is it bugger.

But the theories and the evidence put forward frame a unique time in history.

What are Nazi UFOs?

The title of this theory is far from imaginative. The theory claims the Nazis were successful in advancing aircrafts and spacecrafts during WW2. But there is also talk of postwar survival of this technology, whether concealed at the North Pole or hiding in plain sight at NASA.

We know that the Nazis made vast strides in engineering and weaponry. In fact, the ‘evidence’ route forward by theorists relies heavily on accounts from high-up figures in the Axis countries.

Take the Repulsine: this was a specialised engine built during the war. How far was the stretch from this feat of engineering to alien-tech? Is it possible that an advanced race of extraterrestrials stopped by with a few tips and tricks?

Apparently so, as put forward by the claims of the Haunebu flying saucer and the occult-inspired Die Glocke (the existence of both of these aircrafts is, of course, highly disputed).

Nazi UFO believers should get some credit, however - they at least did some research. They got their facts right on three crucial pieces of evidence, before losing control of the wheel and skidding off the track completely.

Firstly, yes, we know they claimed New Swabia in 1938 for the purpose of obtaining whale oil and potentially for imperial pursuits, as well.

And yeah, they researched advanced propulsion tech. They even created a prototype of a circular-winged aircraft that looks preeeeetty similar to your run-of-the-mill UFO.

They even get right that there were flurries of UFO sightings during the war by allied forces.

But as soon as 1950, outlandish claims emerged, mere years after Germany surrendered and the Allies claimed victory. But we need to start at the beginning.

The year is 1944.

The end of the war is just on the horizon. The Allies have liberated Western Europe from Nazi grip. But a new, surprising threat is in the soldiers line of sight, too.

It was a cold, November evening. Lt. Fred Ringwald was in a night fighter piloted by a fellow Lieutenant. As they soared above the Rhine valley, the two american soldiers spotted something in the hills of Strasbourg.

8 fiery, orange lights were staring back at them.

They were sure, as any fighter pilot in that situation, that this was enemy aircraft. And yet nothing showed up on the radar. As soon as they turned the plane to prepare to fight, the orange lights had disappeared.

Many would attribute such sightings to combat fatigue, St. Elmo’s Fire (weather phenomena during a storm where glowing plasma appears near masts) or the fact that pilots would have seen many aircrafts clogging across Europe's skies.

But soon, the sightings began to spread. And fast.

In December, a pilot saw “5 or 6 flashing red and green lights in ’T’ shape.” in the skies near Breisach, Germany. They followed him but quickly vanished.

Days later, two orange glowing lights were spotted by two more flight crews.

They rose from the earth to 10,000 feet before tailing the fighters for approx. 2 minutes. They then stopped following the allied planes and disappeared.

“They appear to be under perfect control at all times”

Keith Chester

These sightings would become so common, they’d be given a nickname:

Foo fighters.

Scientists would go on to investigate them, later decoding them as advanced German aircrafts and weaponry. As they were only spotted by allied forces, it was likely they were advancements such as the V-1 or V-2 rocket.

But after the war, UFO sightings continued to apparently connect the dots:

Project Sign, an official US UFO investigation team, linked the designs of the German Horten brothers to UFO reports. The head of the follow up investigation confirmed some of their findings:

“When WWII ended, the Germans had several radical types of aircraft and guided missiles under development. The majority were in the most preliminary stages, but they were the only known craft that could even approach the performance of objects reported by UFO observers.”

Captain Edward J. Ruppelt, 1959

It was only after the war that accounts from former officials of the Axis regimes appeared to support these claims.

The first newspaper report forging a connection between UFOs and the crushed Nazi regime was written by a former Italian Minister of National Economy under Mussolini’s regime:

"types of flying discs were designed and studied in Germany and Italy as early as 1942"

But this doesn’t suggest aliens airdropped a PDF of flying saucer designs. We know that flying saucer aircrafts can and have been created.

A similar account from a Czeh scientist spurred on another key element of this conspiracy theory.

Die Glocke.

December 9th 1965.

All is peaceful in the small town of Kecksberg, Pennsylvania. That’s about to change.

Six American citizens in Detroit, Michigan, Windsor and Ontario witnessed a fireball score across the sky. NASA later claimed that this was a meteorite or a Soviet satellite crashing back to Earth.

UFOlogists weren’t so sure.

Many claim they saw a large object the size of a VW Beetle spotted with strange symbols, like hieroglyphics, being carried out by a truck from the area cordoned off at the crash site.

UFOlogists believe they recovered The Bell, an occult-alien-hybrid spacecraft.

Apparently, such claims bear a similarity to the designs of an aircraft laid out in a Wehrmacht document about a vertical take-off craft. And then Rudolph Schirever, the man claiming he designed it during the war, gave a statement the same month something crashed to the earth.

He told Der Spiegel that he designed a craft powered by rotating turbine blades. He developed it until April 1945 at BMW in Prague before fleeing to the Czeh Republic, as it is now known. 3 years later, he claimed the designs were stolen.

He thinks Czeh agents nicked his ideas for a foreign power.

Could it have been for an underground society of failed Nazi war criminals stowed away in underground base in Antartica?

(That was a mouthful.)

Many have attached their own take to Die Glocke.

Some believe it was anti-gravitational, others claim it was a time-machine. Some claim a Nazi colonel handed it over to the US military to buy his freedom, and a few even allege that the US forces forced Nazi scientists to build Die Glocke and advance it’s anti-gravity technology.

This stuff is pretty out there.

Quite literally.

But the last bit does fit actual history: US forces did bring over Nazi scientists to advance their space technology.

Postwar Theories

When historians began to reflect on the war decades after it ended, new ideas banking on UFOs followed suit.

In the 1960s, one of these most infamous theories was put forward in the controversial book The Morning of the Magicians.

It made numerous claims about the mysterious and fictional Vril Society which was based on a novel about superhuman-angel-alien beings that lived inside the Earth. In 1935, a German engineer fled to the US spouting claims that the Nazis did indeed have a society dedicated to finding the Vril.

The Morning of the Magicians claimed the Vril Society was a precursor to the Nazi party amongst other ideas. They supposedly created flying disc prototypes and had a secret base on the moon.

Oh, and about that Antarctica underground base?

It’s so the Nazis can vanish into the Earth and meet that advanced race living down there.

Jumping onto this New Swabia bandwagon was Ernst Zündel.

This Holocaust denier (*stares into camera*) wrote many books throughout the 70s claiming flying saucers were secret weapons released from this base. He even claimed he would attempt to locate the base and reveal the Earth was crammed full of aliens this entire time!

In 2002, he let slip that it was a big ruse to bring in more cash for his publishing company.

At the end of the decade, Migeul Serrano gave it a go. He was a Nazi sympathiser and believed that Hitler was the avatar (a deity on earth) of a Hindu god. Apparently he was hanging out with the hyperborean gods (Greek gods that are stowed away at the North Pole) underground until he was ready to release UFOs and bring in the Fourth Reich.

The last, infamous proponent of this theory had physical, real-life consequences.

A year after Serrano made his claims, Richard Chase professed that Nazi UFOs had forced him to commit numerous brutal and bloody crimes under threat to his own life.

Chase is one of the most infamous serial killers in history, earning the title the Vampire of Sacramento due to his reputation for murder, rape, cannibalism and necrophilia. These claims can be traced back to his schizophrenia which prompted him to believe prison officials were poisoning his food as directed by Nazi UFOs.

***

I think sometimes it’s easier for us to frame the atrocities committed by the Nazi regime within the context of something the horror genre would spit out. We’d much rather spin tales of occult rituals and far-out entities than admit actual humans did what they did.

It’s no surprise that following the war, a surge in movies detailing alien invasion emerged. It fit the fears of impending doom from a foreign, fascist government, a reality for many nations during WW2.

What do you think is the craziest claim?

If you liked this blogpost, make sure you like and reblog it. And while you’re down there, hit follow to read something spooky every weekend!

[coutelier]

Vril, The World’s first Con, and Bovril

What connects Bovril, the world’s first Sci-Fi convention, and crazy neo-Nazi conspiracy theories?

So, ‘Vril – The Power of the Coming Race’, was an 1871 science-fiction novella by British politician and author Edward Bulwer-Lytton. Indeed, this is the same Lytton who brought us the classic opening line ‘It was a dark a stormy night…’ (that was in a much earlier novel of his, ‘Paul Clifford’).

In the story, a wealthy traveler is exploring a chasm when he stumbles into a whole subterranean world, encountering a race of angel-like beings descended from ancient Aryans, the Vril-Ya. Vril is a source of energy that is much like The Force – it does pretty much anything you want it to; healing, machinery, mass destruction. Anyway, he spends some time getting to know them, falls in love, is sentenced to death, at which point he decides it’s a good time to leave. The story ends with a warning that one day the Vril-Ya will run out of space underground and likely return to the surface to destroy mankind.

In 1891, ‘The Coming Race and Vril-Ya Bazaar and Fete’ was held at The Royal Albert Hall. This was perhaps the world’s first-ever sci-fi convention – there was cosplay with people dressing up as characters from the story, and the hall was decorated to resemble the Vril-Ya architecture Lytton described (which was mostly a mix of Egyptian and Indian). Also there was a new paste made of beef-extract, whose name contains the words ‘bovine’ and ‘vril’ – Bovril, which you can still get today. I’ve tried it – it’s basically like drinking a mug of gravy (apparently some people also use it as a spread, which I was never tempted to try).

Anyway, you may be wondering, if this story was such a big deal then, why is it not spoken about much now? Why is Lytton not up there with Shelley or Verne or Wells as one of the pioneers of popular sci-fi? Granted, there are many stories and authors popular at the time who have since faded into obscurity, but most of them don’t sell out The Albert Hall or have a beverage named after them.

Well, some of you may have already felt unease at the word ‘Aryans’ above. Lytton himself was very into the occult, but throughout history there have been those who struggle with the notion that sometimes human beings just make stuff up, and many became convinced of the ‘Hollow Earth’ theory and that ‘Vril’ was based on a real magical energy - including, eventually, a number of neo-Nazi groups. There are far too many strange theories to go into – like Vril powered Nazi UFO’s, or that Hitler fled to Antarctica to seek shelter with the underground Aryans and is even now plotting his return – rest assured it’s all nonsense based on a piece of Victorian sci-fi.

[historical-babes]

Note: So I've actually read Maria Orsic could have not existed and could be an Internet "invention". There is apparently no proof of her existence and these pictures could be photoshopped. I've made a poll on Instagram to know if our followers wanted a post about her anyway and they voted yes. So here it is. Obviously, it's hard to find information about her so don't take this post too seriously.

.

Maria Orsitsch/Oršić/Orsic (1895-?).

Croatian medium.

.

She was a medium of the Vril society in Munich. The Vril group may have been a precursor to the US Star Gate Project, as they had conducted Psychic research in the interests of the Nazi party.

.

Maria followed the German national movement which was active after WWI; the main goal of the movement was to unite Austria with Germany. In 1919, Maria moved to Munich, to her fiance. There, Maria was in contact with the Thule Gesellschaft and soon she created her own circle together with Traute A. and several other friends: the “Alldeutsche Gesellschaft für Metaphysik”, official name of the Vril Gesellschaft. All of them were young ladies, which among other things were against the arising fashion of short hair-styles for women. Both Maria and Traute were beautiful ladies with very long hair. They had long horse tails, a very uncommon hairstyle at that time. This became a disctinctive characteristic in all the women who integrated Vril which was maintained till May 1945. They believed that their long hair acted as cosmic antennae to receive alien communication from beyond. In public, however, they hardly ever exhibited the hair in horse tail style.

The Vril society was comprised of women wishing to establish their independence in a male-dominated world. They would practice meditation and other techniques to strengthen their uniqueness.

To get the public's attention, they would discuss the Germans connections to the Aryan race.

.

The objective of the Vril group was to acquire knowledge about Vril (energy) through psychic means, and to disclose pertinent information to Thule in the interests of the Nazi party. Thus came the development of the Munich Device, called the Jenseitsflugmaschine (JFM) "Otherworld flying machine". This was the very first Reichsflugscheiben ("Nazi UFO") that began construction in 1922, Munich.

.

It’s long been thought by conspiracy theorists that Maria Orsitsch was part of Hitler’s inner circle, and that she escaped with him to either Antarctica, or Argentina in 1945. But the truth is — when Hitler came into power in 1933, all Secret societies were disavowed and disbanded in Nazi Germany. The projekts of Thule were confiscated by the Schutzstaffel, and by this time Maria’s whereabouts remain unknown—whether imprisoned, killed, or escaped, no one knows.

[soler97]

The Age of Unreason

Men want certainty, not truth.

- possibly from Bertrand Russell

A thoughtful friend asked me what 2020 will be remembered for, apart from the obvious, ie Covid and Trump losing. I could not think of anything.

My friend suggested it is the realisation that in the 21st century millions of people are turning away from science and reality towards a variety of beliefs that border on the crazy. Examples are QAnon, flat earthers (yes, they are serious), deniers of Covid, about 40% of Americans believe the Rapture is coming, biblical fundamentalism, climate change denial, neo-Nazis, Holocaust denial, belief in Trump as a saviour, doomsday predictions, sundry cults, alien abductions, New Age beliefs, and a multitude of conspiracy theories, such as that the moon landings were a hoax, or that 9/11 was an inside job.

Some of these beliefs appear harmless, but occasionally, they inspire horrific violence, such as the killing of 920 people by the Jim Jones cult, the sarin attack in Japan, the Breivik massacre, the Oklahoma bombing, the Waco siege, the Christchurch massacre, and the Heaven's Gate suicides.

It is difficult to generalise about the various strange beliefs that people hold, as these include conspiracy theories, varieties of denial, religious fantasies, extremist political or racist views, and beliefs like the flat earth, that elude classification. There is no common thread underlying this spectrum of beliefs. Rather, they can be characterised by what they reject, which in a nutshell, is rationality.

Rationality can be defined as the desire to be guided by reason, which we apply to the available evidence. The third ingredient is the willingness to admit we are wrong. So turning away from rationality means letting emotion or emotionally-based belief take precedence over reason, an unwillingness to look at factual evidence, plus a dogmatic belief that one is in possession of the ultimate truth. Many irrational beliefs run counter to Occam's Razor, which tells us to prefer the simplest explanation that covers the known facts. Complex processes may require elaborate or involved explanations, but the point is not to introduce unnecessary factors, especially ones of a fanciful nature.

Clearly, there are too many irrational beliefs to do them justice, so let us look at flat earthers, Heaven's Gate and QAnon to see whether there is a pattern.

A Flat Earth

Flat earth map with the Antarctic ice wall at the perimeter

A bizarre example is the contemporary belief that the earth is flat. Is such a belief even possible in the 21st century? It may be feasible to construct a world view that makes a flat earth plausible. However, it requires factors such as a massive world-wide conspiracy to hide the truth, the abandoning of all of modern cosmology and much of physics, as well as weird ad-hoc explanations for why planes fly in circles around a flat disc, rather than around a spherical globe. Also, that ships at sea disappear below the horizon requires adjustment to the laws of optics. If that still does not cover all the facts countering a flat view, then one could invoke mind control by Martians, or something of the sort. The point is that if one wants to conjure up fantastical reasons to invalidate what we know of reality then it is always possible to do so.

It seems to me that the flat earth people are not interested in gaining knowledge about the world. They are uninterested in discovering what lies beyond the putative ice wall in Antarctica that holds back the oceans or why NASA might be guarding it. They just believe in the flat earth and that is that. Their only concern is to bolster the theory, which I think they hold on emotional grounds. They are willing to perform elaborate mental contortions to support their belief, and it is interesting to observe how much of modern science they are willing to jettison in order to keep their belief afloat, eg gravity.

Whereas the explanations given for the earth being flat are interesting, to me it is more interesting to enquire what causes people to seek these explanations in the first place. What causes people to believe the earth is flat?

Four factors come to mind. One is a desire to be rid of experts and eggheads, who insist on telling ordinary people what to think. In the case of the earth's apparent flatness, the boffins are telling us to deny the evidence of our senses by invoking the large-scale curvature of the earth, something that is far from apparent in ordinary life. Flat earth is like the last stand of common sense in the face of the inexorable advance of science, which keeps telling us the world is far stranger than we thought. It is also a form of contrariness and rebellion against authority. The second is the ego-gratification of knowing a secret that is hidden from nearly everyone else. The third factor is on religious grounds. The fourth is a desire to return to a comforting and anthropocentric model of the universe, rejecting the notion that our planet is an insignificant speck in the incomprehensible vastness of the universe.

Many ancient cultures subscribed to a flat earth cosmography, including Greece until the classical period (323 BC). However, early Christian writers tended to believe the earth is spherical, though with some notable exceptions. Curiously, it wasn't until 1849 that the flat earth belief was resurrected by Rowbotham and later others. He argued that the "Bible, alongside our senses, supported the idea that the earth was flat and immovable and this essential truth should not be set aside for a system based solely on human conjecture".

In the internet era, the proliferation of communications technology and social media have given individuals a platform to spread pseudo-scientific ideas and build stronger followings. The flat earth conjecture has flourished in this environment. Social media and the internet have made it easier for like-minded thinkers to connect and mutually reinforce their beliefs. They have also had a levelling effect, in that experts have less sway in the public mind than they used to.

The belief that the earth is flat could be seen as the ultimate conspiracy theory, given how many people are needed for a cover-up on such a scale. According to the Flat Earth Society's leadership, its ranks have grown by 200 people per year since 2009. Judging by the exhaustive effort flat earthers have invested in fleshing out the theory on their website, as well as the staunch defenses of their views they offer in media interviews and on Twitter, it would seem that these people genuinely believe the earth is flat. They tend to distrust observations they have not made themselves, and often distrust or disagree with each other. I imagine they are maverick individuals who enjoy challenging the status quo.

Paul Sutter, "The question isn't 'why do people believe in a flat Earth?' but rather 'why do people believe in a conspiracy?' And the answer is the same reason it always is: a lack of trust. Many people don't trust the society around them, most notably the representatives of that society. By claiming that the Earth is flat, people are really expressing a deep distrust of scientists and science itself."

Heaven's Gate

Heaven's Gate Logo

Far more bizarre than the flat earth belief are the doctrines of Heaven's Gate, which melded the Bible with belief in UFOs into a religious cult. It was founded in California in 1974 by Marshall Applewhite and Bonnie Nettles. These two pondered the life of St. Francis of Assisi and read works by Helena Blavatsky, RD Laing, and Richard Bach. They studied several passages from the New Testament, focusing on teachings about Christology, asceticism, and eschatology ("the end times"). Applewhite also read science fiction, including Robert Heinlein and Arthur Clarke. They concluded that they had been chosen to fulfill biblical prophecies, and that they had been given higher-level minds than other people. They wrote a pamphlet that described Jesus' reincarnation as a Texan, a thinly veiled reference to Applewhite.

Eventually, Applewhite and Nettles resolved to contact extraterrestrials, and they sought like-minded followers. They published advertisements for meetings, where they recruited disciples, whom they called "the crew". At the events, they purported to represent beings from another planet, the Next Level, which sought participants for an experiment that would bring people to a higher evolutionary level.

In September 1975, the group visited the small town of Waldport, Oregon, to give a lecture about how UFOs were soon going to make contact with the human race. Roughly 150 people packed into a motel hall to hear Applewhite. At first the town thought it was a joke. However, soon after, in a testament to Applewhite's charisma and powers of persuasion, 20 people - or about one in 30 residents of the town - drove off to a meeting of about 400 people in Grand Junction, Colorado, in the hope of meeting aliens.

Later, the crew sold all their worldly possessions and said farewell to loved ones; the group vanished from the public eye. From that point, "Do and Ti", as the two now called themselves, led the nearly one-hundred-member crew across the country, sleeping in tents and begging in the streets. Evading detection by the authorities and media enabled the group to focus on Do and Ti's doctrine of helping members of the crew achieve a "higher evolutionary level" above human, which they claimed to have already reached.

Most of their followers are described by researchers as having been longtime truth-seekers, or spiritual hippies who had long attempted to find themselves through spiritual means. The clan of UFO followers all seemed to have in common a need for communal belonging in an alternative path to higher existence without the constraints of institutionalised faith. The group purchased alien abduction insurance that would pay out $1 million per person, covering abduction, impregnation, or death by aliens.

Applewhite began to emphasize a strict hierarchy, teaching that his students needed his guidance, just as he needed the guidance of the Next Level. A relationship with Applewhite was said to be the only way to salvation and he encouraged his followers to see him as Christ. In the 1980s, the group became more like a religion in its focus on faith and submission to authority. Students who were not committed to this lifestyle were encouraged to leave; departing members were given financial assistance. He specifically cited sexual urges as the work of Lucifer. Applewhite, "We do in all honesty hate this world".

In March 1997, Marshall Applewhite videoed himself in Do's Final Exit, speaking of mass suicide as "the only way to evacuate this Earth". After asserting that a spacecraft was trailing Comet Hale-Bopp and that this event would represent the closure to Heaven's Gate, Applewhite persuaded 38 followers to prepare for ritual suicide so their souls could board the supposed craft. Applewhite believed that after their deaths a UFO would take their souls to another level of existence above human, which he described as being both physical and spiritual.

News of the 39 deaths in Rancho Santa Fe motivated the copycat suicide of a 58-year-old man living near Marysville, California. The man left a note, "I'm going on the spaceship with Hale-Bopp to be with those who have gone before me," and imitated some of the details of the Heaven's Gate suicides as they had been reported in the media. At least three former members of Heaven's Gate committed suicide in the months after the mass suicide.

Heaven's Gate members believed the earth would be wiped clean and refurbished before 2027, and that the only chance for their consciousness to survive was to leave their human bodies at an appointed time. Initially, the group had been told that they would be transported with their bodies aboard a spacecraft that would come to earth and take the crew to heaven, the Next Level. When Nettles (Ti) died of cancer in 1985, it confounded Applewhite's doctrine because Nettles was allegedly chosen by the Next Level to be a messenger on earth, yet her body died instead of leaving physically to outer space. The belief system was then revised to include the leaving of consciousness from the body as equivalent to leaving the earth in a spacecraft.

While the group was against suicide, they defined "suicide" to mean "to turn against the Next Level when it is being offered" and believed their bodies were only vehicles meant to help them on their journey. Suicide, therefore, would be not allowing their consciousness to leave their human bodies to join the Next Level. They believed that, "to be eligible for membership in the Next Level, humans would have to shed every attachment to the planet". This meant members had to give up all human characteristics, such as their family, friends, sexuality, individuality, jobs, money, and possessions.

The Evolutionary Level Above Human was seen as a physical, corporeal place, another planet, where residents live in pure bliss and nourish themselves by absorbing pure sunlight. They do not engage in sexual intercourse, eating or dying. Heaven's Gate believed that what the Bible calls God is actually a highly developed Extraterrestrial. Evil space aliens - called Luciferians - falsely represented themselves to Earthlings as God and conspired to keep humans from developing. Technically advanced humanoids, these aliens have spacecraft, space-time travel, telepathy, and increased longevity. They use holograms to fake miracles. Heaven's Gate believed that all existing religions on earth had been corrupted by these malevolent aliens.

Applewhite taught that "aliens planted the seeds of current humanity millions of years ago, and have come to reap the harvest of their work in the form of spiritually evolved individuals who will join the ranks of flying saucer crews. Only a select few members of humanity will be chosen to advance to this transhuman state. The rest will be left to wallow in the spiritually poisoned atmosphere of a corrupt world". Only the individuals who chose to join Heaven's Gate, followed its belief system, and made the sacrifices required by membership would be allowed to escape the prophesied disaster.

In a group open only to adults over the age of 18, members gave up their possessions and lived a highly ascetic life. The group was strictly regimented, tightly knit and everything was communally shared. Eight of the male members, including Applewhite (who was gay), voluntarily underwent castration as an extreme means of maintaining the ascetic lifestyle. "They couldn't stop smiling and giggling," surviving member DiAngelo told Newsweek. "They were excited about it."

Lalich speculates that they were willing to follow Applewhite in suicide because they had become totally dependent upon him, hence were poorly suited to life in his absence. He isolated them socially and cultivated an attitude of complete religious obedience. Applewhite's students had made a long-term commitment to him. Most of the dead had been members for about 20 years, although there were a few recent converts.

Three of the people who suicided left exit statements on their website. These extoll the joys of the Next Level while summing up people on earth as the walking dead. The texts are not the ramblings of disordered minds. The content is fantasy, but they are written in a lucid way in excellent English and give every appearance of sincerity. Unlike the Flat Earth Society, which no doubt numbers people who joined for a joke, as well as those who are not fully convinced, there is little doubt that the members of Heaven's Gate were totally committed to their beliefs. After all, they gave up their sexuality and their lives for their ideal.

QAnon

QAnon at the Capitol invasion

QAnon is a powerful but diffuse contemporary movement that sought to have Trump re-elected. It is animated by a loose collection of extreme right conspiracy theories whose central theme is that a cabal of Satan-worshipping pedophiles is running a global child sex-trafficking ring and plotting against Donald Trump, who is fighting the cabal. QAnon claims that Obama, Hillary Clinton, George Soros, and others are planning a coup against Trump and are involved in an international child sex-trafficking ring. It alleges that an elite cabal of pedophiles, comprising, among others, Hollywood A-listers, leading philanthropists, Jewish financiers and Democrat politicians, covertly rule the world. Followers of QAnon believe that there is an imminent event known as the "Storm", when thousands of members of the cabal will be arrested and possibly sent to Guantanamo Bay prison, and the US military will brutally take over the country. The result will be salvation and utopia on earth. QAnon promises a "Great Awakening", in which the elites will be routed and the truth revealed.

However, this summary is misleading because QAnon is amorphous, multi-faceted and confusing. In addition it keeps shape-shifting.

The conspiracy theory began with an October 2017 post on the anonymous bulletin-board 4chan by "Q". Q claimed to be a high-level government official with Q clearance. Q predicted the imminent arrest of Hillary Clinton and a violent uprising nationwide. It is likely that Q has become a group of people acting under the same name. QAnon's adherents, while seeing Trump as a flawed Christian, also view him as a messiah sent by God. Trump himself pretends to know little about QAnon, which is a lie. Trump has amplified QAnon messaging at least 216 times by retweeting or mentioning 129 QAnon-affiliated Twitter accounts, sometimes multiple times a day. Being a savvy politician, Trump is perfectly aware that many, perhaps most, of his supporters are QAnon people. He made a correct political calculation, deciding to give only scant public endorsement to QAnon. Showing full support would hurt his standing with moderate Republicans, whereas he does not need to do anything to retain the devotion of QAnon. They are happy with the crumbs he throws their way, being accustomed to snatching at Q's hints.

Q's posts have become more cryptic and vague, allowing followers to map their own beliefs onto them. Part of QAnon's appeal is its game-like quality, in which followers attempt to solve riddles presented in Qdrops by connecting them to Trump speeches and tweets. Q enthralls readers with clues rather than presenting claims directly. Travis View, a researcher who studies QAnon, says that it is as addictive as a video game, and offers the "player" the appealing possibility of being involved in something of world-historical importance. According to View, "You can sit at your computer and search for information and then post about what you find, and Q basically promises that through this process, you are going to radically change the country, institute this incredible, almost bloodless revolution, and then be part of this historical movement that will be written about for generations."

Although Q's claims are false and the prophecies routinely fail, this does little to decrease Q's influence. Believers overlook the lack of results and failed predictions because they gauge the movement's success by its popularity, its opposition from the mainstream media, and its recognition by the President himself. On multiple occasions, Q has dismissed his false claims and incorrect predictions as deliberate, claiming that "disinformation is necessary". This has led psychologist Stephan Lewandowsky to emphasize the "self-sealing" quality of the conspiracy theory, so that evidence against it can become evidence of its validity in the minds of believers. "The absence of evidence is reinterpreted as evidence without batting an eyelid." Conspiracy enthusiasts believe that the burden of proof lies with their opponents, ie that QAnon's claims are valid in the absence of positive proof that there is no cabal and no trafficking of children by Democrats.

Experts judge that QAnon's appeal is comparable to that of religious cults. According to Renee DiResta, QAnon's pattern of enticement is similar to that of cults in the pre-internet era where, as the targeted person was led deeper and deeper into the group's secrets, they became increasingly isolated from friends and family outside the cult. Rachel Bernstein, an expert on cults, has said, "What a movement such as QAnon has going for it, and why it will catch on like wildfire, is that it makes people feel connected to something important that other people don't yet know about... All cults will provide this feeling of being special."

A series of ideas began burbling in the QAnon community: that the coronavirus might not be real; that if it was, it had been created by the "deep state", the cabal of government officials and other elite figures who secretly run the world; that the hysteria surrounding the pandemic was part of a plot to hurt Trump's re-election chances. QAnon is a movement united in mass rejection of reason, objectivity, and other Enlightenment values. Some QAnoners are highly focused on what they perceive as degeneracy in the mainstream media, a perception fuelled in equal measure by Q and by Trump. QAnon may be propelled by paranoia and populism, but it is also driven by religious faith. The language of evangelical Christianity has come to define the QAnon movement. QAnon marries an appetite for the conspiratorial with positive beliefs about a radically different and better future, one that is preordained. As one adherent proclaimed, "It's not a theory. It's the foretelling of things to come."

Edgar Welch is a deeply religious father of two, who until December 4, 2016, had lived an unremarkable life in a small town. That morning, Welch grabbed his collection of guns and drove 580 km to a neighbourhood in Northwest Washington, DC. He held an AR-15 rifle across his chest as he walked through the front door of a pizzeria called Comet Ping Pong. Welch was there because of a conspiracy theory known as Pizzagate, which three years later became a pillar of QAnon. It claimed that Hillary Clinton was running a child sex ring out of Comet Ping Pong. The idea originated in October 2016, when some conspiracy theorists asserted that sexual abuse of children was taking place in the basement at Comet, where there is no basement. After firing a rifle to break a lock, Welch realised his mistake and gave himself up to police. He was sentenced to four years in prison. The New York Times wrote in June 2020 that posts on TikTok with the #PizzaGate hashtag were viewed more than 82 million times in recent months. The abuse of children fantasy arose because someone suggested that emails written by the restaurateurs referring to 'pizza' and 'pasta' were code words for 'boys' and 'girls'.

The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters

by Goya

Anthony Comello was charged with the March 2019 murder of Gambino crime family boss, Frank Cali. According to his defense attorney, Comello had become obsessed with QAnon theories, believing Cali was a member of a "deep state". Comello was convinced he "was enjoying the protection of President Trump himself" so he decided to act. Confronting Cali outside his Staten Island home, Comello allegedly shot Cali ten times. A May 30, 2019, FBI Intelligence Bulletin memo from the Phoenix Field Office identified QAnon-driven extremists as a domestic terrorism threat. Although the conspiracy that QAnon imagines does not exist, there is a real danger that QAnon itself might become a conspiracy of armed vigilantes, determined to bring about the promised "Storm". The storming of the US Capitol by Trump supporters, including QAnoners, is not a good sign.

Heavy on millennialism and the idea that a reckoning awaits the world, the theory has found fertile ground in the American alt-right. Some 56% of Republicans believe that QAnon is mostly or partly true. At least 35 current or former congressional candidates have shown support for QAnon. A Time magazine article listed Q among the 25 most influential people on the internet in 2018. Counting more than 130,000 related discussion videos on YouTube, Time cited the wide range of the conspiracy theory and its prominent followers and news coverage.

Why did Q's cryptic post on an obscure message-board ignite a movement involving millions? Why were so many eager to embrace such a far-fetched conspiracy theory? Perhaps it was the surge in confidence of the Right in the wake of Trump's win. Whatever the reasons, the grass was dry and Q provided the spark. Not all QAnoners come from a rightwing background. For those who have had no agency to suddenly discover a path into the game is heady stuff.

QAnon is not confined to the US. It has organised protest demonstrations in 200 countries, ostensibly to "save the children". One in four Britons are said to believe in QAnon-related theories. According to The Guardian, QAnon is growing in the UK, spilling over into anti-vaccine and 5G protests, fuelled by online misinformation. At a QAnon rally, Shemirani, a nurse suspended for promoting baseless theories about Covid19, told the crowd: "Our government has declared war on the people of the UK."

"There is a high possibility that the spirited belief system which surrounds QAnon can slowly become a political movement in the UK," Liyanage said. "It will be successful because no one can fight it through reason. It's not a rational belief system but mostly a supernatural belief system."

The time for Trump to arrest the pedophiles and satanists is fast running out. It is interesting to speculate what effect his departure will have on a conspiracy theory in which he is the key figure. My guess is that the powerful energy and passion that drive QAnon will shift focus.

My own view is that QAnon is a blank slate onto which people project their darkest nightmares, as well as their hopes for a Christian utopia. Where do the ideas of satanism, eating children, sinister cabals, sexual depravity, and other crimes against children come from? The answer is simple: from the minds of those who form QAnon. QAnon is nothing but a mirror showing people their shared fantasy. People are sharing with each other their worst fears, as well as their hopes. The dark parts are projected onto the favourite targets of the alt-right, ie Hillary and other Democrats, Jews, and liberals, whereas the messianic hopes are projected onto Trump and Q. However, it is a mistake to see the QAnon conspiracy theory as the work of Q. Although Q was the initial cause, his cryptic and vague messages are merely prompts, asking people to fill in the blanks. This is what many have done and the result is a miasma of fanciful lies about corruption, sexual perversions and violence. The irony is that whereas the accusations made by QAnon are entirely baseless, QAnon might itself become a violent entity, little better than the chimera it rails against.

James Baldwin wrote, "It is a terrible, an inexorable, law that one cannot deny the humanity of another without diminishing one's own." Voltaire put it more starkly, "Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities."

Is Credulity Humanity's Achilles Heel?

The three belief systems discussed  have almost nothing in common except the rejection of the consensus view of reality, combined with belief in a fantasised conspiracy. In each case, powerful unseen forces are seen as perverting or hiding the truth of what is really going on. All three beliefs appear absurd except to people who are believers. The puzzle is why do apparently normal people adopt such ideas?

In a study published online in March, 2014, in the American Journal of Political Science, Oliver and Wood, found that about half of Americans endorse at least one conspiracy theory, such as the notion that 9/11 was an inside job or the JFK conspiracy. "Many people are willing to believe many ideas that are directly in contradiction to a dominant cultural narrative," Oliver said. According to him, conspiratorial belief stems from a human tendency to perceive unseen forces at work, known as magical thinking.

In the Middle Ages the Devil was a convenient factor that could be used to explain anything weird or harmful, while the deity took responsibility for the rest. With the advance of science, both the Devil and God gradually lost their explanatory powers. God became "the God of the gaps", being only needed to explain what was missing in our understanding of the physical world. Nowadays, the term "act of God" is reserved to describe the insurance industry's view of natural disasters.

In the modern era magical thinking has undergone a new twist. God and the Devil have been replaced by conspiracies. A recent survey of 26,000 people in 25 countries asked respondents whether they believe there is "a single group of people who secretly control events and rule the world together". In the US 37% replied that this is "definitely or probably true". So did 45% of Italians, 56% of Spaniards and 78% of Nigerians.

2020 was the year of Covid19. The coronavirus has triggered the rise of myriad myths, waves of misinformation and virus conspiracy theories, including that it does not exist - believed by 22% in Poland, where there have been nearly 1.4 million cases. The virus has also had an incubating effect on unrelated conspiracy theories because it has thrown humankind into a state of fear and isolated people in their homes with too much time to think and surf. The extra time in the virtual space means increased exposure to the proponents of conspiracy theories, without the balancing effect of social interactions.

According to the Dunning-Kruger Effect, the normal process is that as people begin to acquire knowledge of a given subject, their feelings of competence rise quickly towards a peak, before declining, as they begin to realise how much more there is to know. In the case of conspiracy theories, such as QAnon, people can arrive almost immediately at that delicious peak of confidence, without actually learning anything at all. QAnon is like a super-car that can do 0 to 100 kph in 3 seconds flat. Many are captivated by the vicarious thrill of believing they are privy to vastly important secrets about which millions of people have no idea. This is the seductive appeal of conspiracy theories.

What causes us to believe? There is an analogy between religions and conspiracy theories. Once you pay the price of entry, ie faith in a religious doctrine or conspiracy, the payoff is that much of the confusion and mystery of life is dispelled because you are in possession of the answers. Yuval Harari: "Our lives are repeatedly rocked by wars, revolutions, crises and pandemics. But if I believe some kind of global cabal theory, I enjoy the comforting feeling that I do understand everything. The skeleton key of global cabal theory unlocks all the world's mysteries and offers me entree into an exclusive circle - the group of people who understand. It makes me smarter and wiser than the average person and even elevates me above the intellectual elite and the ruling class: professors, journalists, politicians. I see what they overlook - or what they try to conceal."

The spectrum of irrational beliefs shares one characteristic: they are all unfalsifiable. Their adherents never say, "If such-and-such happens I will discard this belief." This is particularly apparent in doomsday predictions. The predicted date comes and goes, but the true believers simply reset the clock to a future date. A cult called the Seekers went one better. They believed a UFO would save them from a cataclysm on December 24, 1954. Afterwards, some of the members claimed that their group's devotion had saved the rest of the world from disaster. They responded by proselytizing with renewed vigour. Cults and conspiracy theories are highly resistant to correction. Even the thoroughly discredited Pizzagate is still believed by masses of people.

The self-validating nature of the beliefs ensures that all evidence can be construed as confirmation. New findings that contradict a belief are interpreted as proof of the further workings of the conspiracy to hide the truth. Yet cults and conspiracy theories are not the only systems that guarantee their own validation. If one questions what is taught in a personal growth course one is rebuked with, "You are resisting". Pseudo-science is very difficult to debunk. Inconvenient facts, such as aliens not showing up, are explained by another tweak to the doctrine.

To be fair, the process of theory adjustment happens in science proper as well. When a theory fails experimental test it may be given an additional proviso that accounts for the discrepancy. For instance, the fact that personal experience can be handed down as a genetic legacy to future generations seems to contradict standard evolutionary theory. As it turns out, there is no contradiction. A new sub-science called epigenetics explains the mechanism of this process in terms of alterations to the DNA molecule that do not change the genetic code but which influence gene expression.

Since science is a human activity, it is subject to the foibles of our species. It too has dogmas that are difficult to overturn. Thomas Kuhn has written persuasively about paradigm shifts in science. He saw the history of science as consisting of normal and revolutionary phases, in which the community of scientists in a particular field are plunged into periods of turmoil, uncertainty and angst. These revolutionary phases, such as the transition from classical physics to quantum mechanics, involve great conceptual breakthroughs and lay the basis for a succeeding phase of business as usual. This is captured in an aphorism that is only half humorous, "The measure of the greatness of a scientist is how long they hold up advancement in their chosen field."

The history of science features dogmas that were held too long and new ideas that took an unreasonably long time to be accepted. One example is the resistance to the theory of plate tectonics, another is the opposition to a bacterial explanation for the cause of ulcers. The mainstream rejection of functional medicine and the progress it has made in curing Alzheimer's Disease is a current example.

Nevertheless, the greatest strength of science is that it is tentative: any scientific theory may be overturned and replaced by a better theory in the future. The criterion of a theory being scientific is that it makes predictions which could, in principle, be falsified by new data. Yet to a fundamentalist or a common sense sceptic, such as a flat earther, this is not a strength but a weakness. They point out that science can never prove anything, that scientific theories have been debunked plus questions science can't answer. Hence science is not to be trusted. With the authority of science diminished, the field opens for persuasive individuals with pet theories, especially about conspiracies. Why conspiracies? Because a belief that goes counter to the accepted view of reality requires a widespread suppression of the truth.

The bottom line is that many people do not perform due diligence in checking the information they encounter and its sources. Given the virulent spread of QAnon and other conspiracy theories, this is a massive under-statement. The worry is that many obtain their news from questionable sources, such as Facebook and YouTube.

Ultimately, eschewing reputable news media in favour of bulletin-boards and succumbing to their conspiracy theories has deeper causes. These are alienation and a lack of trust in society and its leaders. Why are people alienated and distrustful? Perhaps the underlying problem is not credulity but its opposite, ie a loss of belief in the system. Those who are drawn to far-right conspiracy theories have lost trust in democracy and the modern state. They think the US no longer embodies the ideals they believe in. Conservative Christians and right-wingers resent their defeat in "the culture wars", which were about abortion, separation of church and state, creationism, recreational drug use, homosexuality, and censorship. Perhaps the "Great Awakening" is their dream of a return to how things were. The fact that they grasp at ludicrous ideas indicates the depth of their disaffection.

Of course, irrational beliefs, superstitions, baseless theories and weird cults have been with us all through history, ever since the invention of writing, and probably long before. The difference now is that we supposedly live in the age of reason and science. Furthermore, knowledge is far more freely available than at any time in the past. The problem is that disinformation, extravagant falsehoods, fringe beliefs, and sensational stories are more easily disseminated than ever before, and they seem to capture peoples' attention more than sober facts. The difference between 30 years ago and now is that anyone can post anything and potentially reach millions of people. It's the old story - those who know least have the loudest voices. The paradox is that although reliable knowledge is now easily accessible to anyone with an internet connection, millions are turning their backs on both science and common sense.

My conclusion is that despite the advances of human knowledge, human nature itself has not changed. We remain a species ruled by emotion rather than logic, and hence we come to believe all kinds of nonsense.

Another conclusion comes from an insight of the brilliant intellectual, Yuval Harari. He is convinced that we human beings can only prosper and live in harmony with each other provided we believe in a shared myth. If so, then a propensity towards credulity might be built into our genome. Unfortunately, credulity is dangerous, as shown in Heaven's Gate, the Jim Jones cult and QAnon.

Tad Boniecki

January 2021