Would you expect any military base, let alone the infamous Area 51, to be the “most boring” place you could ever work? Don’t they get to play with ET and fly spaceships? Or at least know what really happened in Roswell in 1947?
Not so much according to Thorton “T.D.” Barnes, former special-projects engineer at Area 51 in Nevada.
Actually, he says what people thought were alien-piloted UFOs in the 1960's were really spy planes being tested at over 2,000 miles per hour at altitudes of 90,000 feet, which would produce flashes of light high in the sky.
"We considered it to be a bonus. They [the UFO sightings] made it easier to conceal what we were doing," says Barnes.
While it's true that most reported UFO sightings really can be identified, I still have some questions about this random admittance of “truth:”
Why come out with it half a century later?
If the military at Area 51 was using the idea of UFOs and aliens as a cover-up for something else, how odd/questionable/bad must that something else be?
Is this just another cover-up?
(Image: Strangely hilarious, although I'm not sure if it's real. From GreyFalcon.us.)
An agreement between two or more persons to perform together an illegal, wrongful, or subversive act, as if by sinister design.
But conspiracies aren't always bad; an example of a "good" conspiracy would be the the Underground Railroad. On the other hand, because conspiracies are based on lies and deceit, they're usually so disgusting, terrible, and just plain wrong that they need to be kept secret to prevent public outrage - and to keep the lie going.
Here are 5 of the worst.
(Not to sound like a stereotypical conspiracy nut with tin foil on my head, but isn't it strange that most of these involve a government of some sort?)
Jeffrey Amherst was the Commander-in-Chief of the British Army mid-18th century, and is also believed to be responsible for purposely giving smallpox-infected blankets to American Indians, an early form of germ warfare.
Some people are skeptical about these stories, while others assert that the infected blankets were not intentionally distributed to the Indians, or that Lord Jeff himself is not to blame.
Two hard-to-read letters , however, suggest not only that it happened, but that it was intentional, and that Amherst was responsible – assuming, of course, the letters are authentic:
Amherst to Bouquet (16 July 1763) approves this plan in a postscript and suggests "to try Every other method that can serve to Extirpate this Execrable Race."
The Protocols of the Elders of Zion is an anti-Semitic forgery claiming an elaborate plot of Jewish world domination. It was first privately printed in 1897 and was first made public in Russia in 1905, when Nicholas II and his secret police distributed the work and presented it as true.
It was later published in 1920 in a Michigan newspaper started by Henry Ford mainly to attack Jews and Communists. Ford even wrote a book that was heavily influenced by the text —The International Jew: The World's Foremost Problem.
Adolf Hitler later used the Protocols to help justify his attempt to exterminate Jews during World War II.
Beginning in 1932, the U.S. Public Health Service conducted an experiment on 399 black men who were unknowingly suffering from syphilis. The men were never treated for the disease, but their symptoms and the progression of the disease was studied.
(Experimenters wanted to see how blacks and whites reacted differently to syphilis, but whites were not part of the study.)
By the end of the experiment, 28 of the men had died directly of syphilis, 100 died of related complications, 40 of their wives had been infected, and 19 of their children had been born with congenital syphilis.
Even when penicillin was discovered in the 1940s—the first real cure for syphilis— the study participants were deliberately denied the medication
The experiments ended 40 years later when the story finally broke in the Washington Star on July 25, 1972.
MKULTRA was the code name for a covert CIA mind-control and chemical interrogation research program, run by the Office of Scientific Intelligence. The program began in the early 1950s, continuing at least through the late 1960s - although some argue it’s still being done - and used United States citizens as its test subjects.
These are just some of the other disturbing aims of the CIA’s mind-altering substance studies, aside from creating manchurian candidates:
Substances which will promote illogical thinking and impulsiveness to the point where the recipient would be discredited in public.
Substances which will enhance the ability of individuals to withstand privation, torture and coercion during interrogation and so-called "brain-washing".
A material which…in very small amounts will make it impossible for a man to perform any physical activity whatsoever.
Another study of MKULTRA was Operation Midnight Climax - and yes, it was just as perverted as it sounds. Women (prostitutes on the CIA payroll) lured men to apartment hideaways in New York City and San Francisco. They then fed them LSD or marijuana while experimenters watched through two-way mirrors and recorded the sounds.
In 2004 images began to surface of the abuse, torture, sodomy, and murder of prisoners at Abu Ghraib in Iraq in a news report on CBS’s Sixty Minutes II, acts that were committed by personnel of the United States Army.
With nothing to lose, Rather accused CBS management of sitting on the Abu Ghraib story, the evidence for which was discovered in early 2004 by Mary Mapes, a producer for 60 Minutes II with over 20 years experience.
They’ve got your name, location, phone number, email address, interests, beliefs, daily activities, pictures, conversations, dreams, and the names and related information of your family and friends. Basically, all the happenings of your life.
So who are they exactly? And what are they doing with all that valuable information?
Here's one answer:
I actually read through those painfully long and boring Facebook Terms of Use just to see if the video was was telling the truth, at least about the Terms of Use part. And what did I discover?
It was all there. (Then I realized that was the first time I ever actually read the Facebook Terms of Use.)
Another Term I found interesting was:
“We reserve the right, at our sole discretion, to change, modify, add, or delete portions of these Terms of Use at any time without further notice...It is your responsibility to regularly check the Site to determine if there have been changes to these Terms of Use and to review such changes.”
I don’t typically read any terms of use (Does anyone?), but this seems odd.
They could basically say,
“If the Company so hereto desires, the Company can irreversibly, conclusively, indisputably, irrefutably, sell all of your information to the fat cats of billion-dollar companies. The Company is not responsible for how this affects you, as you, the User, acknowledged, accepted, and understood, these unnecessarily complicated Terms of Use. And you can't do anything about it.”
Do you ever see those infomercials that highlight herbal remedies that no one knows about but "totally work"? There’s always the same Letterman-style set-up with a fake night-time city in the background, and some person no one’s ever heard of being interviewed by someone else no one's never heard of. The whole thing = cheesiness (especially when it's on during the day).
Here are some of the more ridiculous quotes from an infomercial for Veggie Cal D. From what I could gather, it’s some sort of combination of seaweed, calcium, and vitamin D.
Said product:
“is a natural medical insurance”
“is a super-supplement”
“is an insurance policy to better health”
“can reduce risk of cancer by up to 50%”
"is made from God-given nutrients”
From the interview:
“They (pharmaceutical companies) don’t want you to know about it.”
“I’m just reporting on what the scientific community is reporting on.”
In small print:
“Results not typical”
“Not tested by the Food and Drug Administration”
“Not intended to prevent diagnose, treat, or cure any disease”
I’m sold!
Or, maybe I could just drink some milk, eat some cereal (with more milk), and chill out in the sun instead of inside with these ridonculous twisting-of-the-truth-o-mercials.
I found this cartoon a while ago, and I just kept it bookmarked. But I think now would be a good time to use it.
Like the guy in the cartoon, I’m about to graduate. But it just so happens there’s a recession going on. And it just so happens I want a career that’s not in demand and already pays pretty crappy.
But my fear of graduating after spending $20,000 and countless hours studying and overcoming last-minute project panic attacks, oh, and not finding a job after all that, isn’t the entire point of this post. As the cartoon suggests, this has something to do with war.
I’m going to say something "daring" now. Ready? Unemployment in the US is the highest it’s been in 25 years because of a certain $3 trillion war (for the most part).
$3 trillion?! I don’t even know what that means. That’s like 12 zeros with a 3 on the end. Now here I go attempting to do math: $3 trillion + 1 big war – nearly 100,000 lives = 1 giant mistake.
When I showed my mom this cartoon, she thought it might be offensive to soldiers. That’s not what I’m saying here. I know people who have fought in Iraq, and people who still are, so I’m definitely not trying to insult them (or anyone else who’s risked or given their lives for that matter).
My own personal turmoil aside, and that of the thousands of unemployed Canadians (which still isn't that bad considering), wouldn’t it really suck to go to war in a foreign country, get shot at, see your friends get injured or killed, only to come home and not be able to find a job?
For those who aren’t familiar with Icke’s work, he’s pretty much famous for spreading the idea that the world is being controlled by a secret society called the Illuminati, which he believes is comprised of reptilian-humanoids (a term that can also be substituted with Snakepeople, Reptoids, Lizardfolk, Lizard People, or the lamest of the bunch, Dinosauroids).
Icke claims that George W. Bush, Queen Elizabeth II, Hillary Clinton, and Tony Blair are just a few members of this scaly clan.
This sounds crazy, I know. Like something right out of The X-Files. (Actually, I’m pretty sure the overarching plot of the super amazing show that should have never ended was based on this theory.)
But I found this video on kindastrange.net, my new go-to for paranormal news, which actually makes the whole Icke-reptoid thing seem more convincing. It talks about the different cultures around the world that believe humans are descended from, and even created by, reptiles.
Strange thing is, the only places that don’t have these beliefs are places where the government and Church have dominated knowledge and understanding. (Oh, so that’s why it sounds so insane!)
As if the evidence against our leaders being human couldn’t be any more damning.
By the by, you can get your own Dinosauroid Queen paraphernalia at Teach the Controversy.
Naturally an article called, “UFOs Do Not Exist” caught my attention, especially when it’s in UFO Digest. But being a big believer in extra-terrestrial intelligence myself, it seems UFO’s really don’t exist. Of course! I don’t know why I didn’t realize it before.
What thousands of people report as UFOs are actually “IFOs” (Identified Flying Objects) or “IPFOs” (Intelligently Piloted Flying Objects). If they aren’t part of some sort of military project, or the creation of pranksters with lots of money and serious engineering capabilities, then we should know exactly what they are, right? What we should be doing is questioning what’s inside.
So I guess when skeptics disregard the claims of “IFO” witnesses, what they’re really unsure of is the existence of UIPIFOs (Unidentified Intelligent Pilots of Identified Flying Objects).
That was a mouthful. Maybe I’ll just stick to using “UFO.” Plus, I think I’d get more strange looks if I said, “I saw a UIPIFO,” should it ever happen.
"Local fields of this type have been medically proven to cause responses in the temporal lobes of the human brain. These result in the observer sustaining his or her own vivid, but mainly incorrect, description of what is experienced.”
One question: why would people hallucinate UFOs?
(Image: Daily Mail. Also check out this crazy-awesome UFO image from The Sun)
Since I seem to be on some sort of free-speech kick, let’s just keep it going with a spoof article I came across called, “Human rights lawyer sues himself.” At first I didn’t understand why it was supposed to be funny, other than the idea of a human rights lawyer suing himself.
But the lawyer in the story is named Richard Warman. That’s not quite funny enough do be made up, so who exactly is Richard Warman? (And am I the only person who's never heard of him until now?)
Apparently he's a Canadian human rights lawyer who has made more complaints to the Canadian Human Rights Commission than, well, anyone else. Not that that’s necessarily a bad thing; it’s not like there aren’t human rights violations happening right now that need to be complained about.
But among his complaints about white supremacists on the internet, he’s also focused a lot of his energy on suing conspiracy theorist David Icke (more on him to come), and requested that British Columbia libraries remove all copies of Icke’s book, “Children of the Matrix,” from their shelves. Warman isn’t exactly known for leaving (mainly conservative) bloggers alone either.
Oddly enough, all this information can be found at RichardWarman.com. Even weirder is the fact that it’s not even his site. There’s a disclaimer at the bottom that says, “This site is to document the actions of Richard Warman. Richard Warman has no association with this site.”
Apparently a bishop – you know, someone who, by definition and requirement, believes in God – denies the Holocaust and ignores the murder of 11,000,000 people because there’s “no proof” that it occurred.
Um, is that what you call hypocrisy, or just plain nuts?
A letter written to the Belfast Telegraph caught my attention because it asked those questions (but not in those words, exactly), and it got me searching for more.
I found another article, this one from BBC News, which reported that Bishop Richard Williamson claims the “Protocols of the Elders of Zion” is authentic. This anti-Semitic piece of garbage supposedly reveals a secret plot for Jewish world domination, and has been proven a hoax numerous times since the early 20th century – hence the garbage comment.
To attempt to be fair, I should refer to this video in which Williamson explains that people were never killed in gas chambers. He doesn’t specifically deny that Jews were killed in Nazi concentration camps, but he says it was more likely 200,000 to 300,000.
Even more ridiculous is Williamson’s attempt to exonerate himself from his clearly anti-Semitic beliefs: "My definition of anti-Semitism is to be against every single Jew purely because he's a Jew. That's not at all my case. I once had a Jewish rabbi come and speak to seminarians. Does that sound to you like anti-Semitism?"
Well, no, but the part about the Holocaust never happening, and supporting the authenticity of a piece of hate literature that’s been used to justify the oppression and genocide of Jews, is.
Plus, it kind of reminds me of that part in movies when a white person is accused of being racist and all they can come up with is, “My grandma’s black. How can I be racist?”
But doing one semi-tolerant thing doesn’t make up for saying, "Jews made up the Holocaust, Protestants get their orders from the devil and the Vatican has sold its soul to liberalism,” or, “A woman can do a good imitation of handling ideas, but then she will not be thinking properly as a woman.”
So if denying the Holocaust isn’t anti-Semitic, does that mean calling Protestants devil-worshipers isn’t hateful? Or that claiming women are inherently stupid isn’t sexist?
Is this guy Rush Limbaugh’s best friend or something?
For the sake of being rhetorical, even IF (IF) the Holocaust didn't happen the way we're told it happened, according to Williamson at least 200,000 people were imprisoned and killed in Nazi concentration camps. Whether gas chambers were used or not, it doesn't make what happened any less awful.
Since I’ve been giving FOX so much flak for its right-wing biases, racial stereotyping, fear-mongering, cluelessness about the definition of “fair” and “balanced,” and its unwavering support for the Bush Administration (to name a few), it’s only fair to mention that FOX isn’t the only network guilty of spinning the news – and in some cases, ignoring it completely.
While researching editorial cartoons for a school project – My topic was conspiracies. Go figure – I came upon something especially disturbing regarding CBS.
In 2007 CBS made headlines of its own after the network released long-time Evening News anchor Dan Rather, which prompted him to fire back with a $70 million lawsuit.
But he didn’t stop there.
For one, Rather accused CBS of purposely sitting on the Abu Ghraib story, the evidence for which had been discovered months before the images were released in April 2004.
As an even larger blow, Rather claims this - as well as many other skewed reporting - was done simply to placate the Bush Administration.
And it was only when a journalist at the New Yorker was about to scoop the story that CBS reacted and reluctantly unveiled the horrible truth about the US Military’s actions at Abu Ghraib.
Above is a cartoon (GoalsForAmericans.org) based off an actual photograph of the kind of torture being administered at Abu Ghraib. A prisoner was connected to a series of wires and told to stand on a box; he was told that if he fell off he would be electrocuted. As you can see from this image, the victim is Liberty.
As the famous X-Files tagline states: “The truth is out there.” There’s just one question: How do we go about finding it? The obvious answer should be through research and investigation. But when the sources of information – who have the tools, means, and responsibility to research and investigate – fail to disclose the truth, what then?
(Note: Don’t be surprised when X-Files references occasionally pop up. It’s bound to happen from time to time.)
Before I take a crack at answering that, maybe I should clarify. We’re not (usually) outright lied to by the mainstream news media, but given a selected version of the truth. But as the documentary OUTFOXED shows, sometimes lying is part of the gig.
The stories we’re told are not only fictitious at times, but suggest that “objectivity” – in other words, what journalism is supposed to be – is also a lie. When journalists can’t do their job, what does that mean for democracy?
I don’t care if FOX is a conservative, Republican, Bush-idolizing news source, but if they’re going to be that obvious, they should just admit it. Maybe journalism had it right when partisan presses were the norm. At least then you knew when you were getting the facts and when you were getting commentary.
When Bill O’Reilly – shudder – tells his left-wing, anti-war, anti-Bush guests to “shut up,” how can FOX news morally, legally, logically, consider itself “fair and balanced”? What’s even more amazing is that anyone watching the show can think it is.
However, to be fair and balanced, the same can be said about the more recent coverage of Barack Obama and John McCain. I can’t think of one news channel – besides FOX, of course – that regularly cast Obama in a negative light. On the other hand, McCain tended to be the subject of ridicule, if not for his relationship with Bush, then for his incessant references to Joe the Plumber, and major attitude shift throughout the campaign - oh, I almost forgot, Sarah Palin too.
I’m not saying those criticisms weren’t founded – especially regarding Joe – but it was clear that neither candidate received equal coverage.
To get the opposing view, and to see a neat bar graph comparing Obama and McCain coverage, visit Donald Douglas’s blog. (Notice that he subscribes to the FOX newswire.)
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