I Have a Secret Addiction

I have a secret addiction.

Don’t get all frothy and excited. It isn’t anything dangerous like heroin or running with the bulls on peyote. It isn’t anything freaky or weird like compulsively dressing up like Olivia Newton-John and signing Xanadu into the bathroom mirror, either.

No, my addiction is conspiracy theory websites. I love them. I. Fucking. Love. Them.

Look, I used to be just like you. I used to wander through my life focused on things like work and family and when the new season of Dexter was being released on DVD. Notice I said “used to”. Not any longer. I don’t have that luxury anymore. Not with the knowledge that a secret cabal of businessmen are plotting to overthrow the United States and create world government. Not with the knowledge that a race of reptilian aliens are already living amongst us, all the while plotting our demise. (I feel I must note for the record that many politicians and celebrities are actually reptilian aliens. It’s true. Included among their numbers are Bush & Cheney (Yawn. How obvious is THAT?), Henry Kissinger, Kris Kristofferson (yes, THAT Kris Kristofferson) and Boxcar Willie (yes, THAT Boxcar Willie.) Not with the knowledge that the contrails left by high-flying planes aren’t contrails at all, but rather chemicals being dispersed by the government to control our minds. Not with the knowledge that the United States government and a race of grey aliens operate secret underground bases throughout the southwestern United States.

These delightful slices of lunacy are but just a few of the whack-a-doodle ramblings I’ve stumbled across on the good ole’ internet.

Taken alone, paranoid and delusional ramblings like these could be viewed as, well, the realm of the paranoid and the delusional. These scenarios could be the very real fears of someone suffering in the grip of mental illness. At the very least you can almost imagine these rants echoing off the walls of some imagined Hollywood insane asylum. That’s precisely what makes these conspiracy websites so completely and utterly fascinating. The people that are subscribing to these theories - that are writing the articles and hosting the sites and posting the videos? They’re people just like you and me. They’re people with jobs and families, and there are thousands upon thousands of them.

So what makes apparently rational human beings suddenly start accepting lunatic theories like these? It’s this question that fascinates me the most about all of this. I wonder what it would take for me to wake up one morning and say, “Shape-shifting reptilian aliens that live amongst us and have taken the form of various celebrities? Sure, why not?” What would it take for me to start scrambling across rocks under the desert sun looking for hidden entrances to secret, underground alien bases? How thin is the string that tethers us to reality? What is reality, when you come right down to it?

I’m not implying that all the people who subscribe to this stuff are insane, delusional or otherwise crazy as a shithouse rat. Are some of them? Undoubtedly. But the bulk of them? That just seems highly improbable. Improbable and disturbing. Disturbing because it means that my neighbor, the friendly guy who drives the Jeep and plays with his kids, could be sitting in house right now tracking the movements of purported reptilian aliens using a GPS and TMZ.com. (I know he’s not posting YouTube videos on it, though - if he was I would have seen them.)

Look, I’m not being overly judgmental here. One man’s crazy is another man’s reality, right? I know people who live their lives according to the teachings of Christianity, and I find that just as ridiculous as those same Christians find Scientology. It’s all relative. A good example is my unflinching belief in UFOs. Yes, THOSE UFOs. Unidentified flying objects. Vehicles from outer space or another dimension or wherever it is they come from. One summer night many years ago I saw something that cemented my belief that something is out there. I know a lot of people who think my belief in UFOs is nuts. Just like I think the New World Order/world government/Alex Jones crowd is nuts. See? It’s all relative.

(Seriously, though – my belief in UFOs isn’t nearly as crazy as the belief that the United States government is intentionally acting in consort with the Federal Reserve and the Bilderberg Group to collapse our economy, dissolve American sovereignty and install world government. Not. Even. Close. That’s what I tell myself, anyway.)

Whatever the underlying reasons why people choose to believe the things that they believe, the fact remains that some people believe things that some other people think are crazy. That’s the way it is, and that’s the way it has probably always been. I’m reasonably sure that back in the days of the cavemen, Thorg thought that Korg was crazy because he thought the world was created by a flaming bird from the bowels of the earth rather than a turtle from beyond the Milky Way. Sure, at the time a turtle from beyond the Milky Way was the accepted theory for the origins of the universe. However, centuries of scientific advances and the invention of the telescope eventually made the space turtle theory pretty damned unlikely. Some might even say crazy. But that’s the thing about the subjectivity of it all. Who knows? A century from now maybe people will look back on those of us who didn’t believe in UFOs as crackpots. (If their alien overlords allow them the liberty of looking back, that is.)

I guess the point of this whole thing is a big, fat “who the fuck knows?” Maybe Kris Kristofferson is a shape-shifting reptilian. Maybe Alex jones is right about the 8,435,000 conspiracy theories he touts at any given time. Maybe all those birds dropped out of the sky last month because they were testing a secret government weapon called HAARP that’s tucked away in the wilds of Alaska. Maybe. Maybe not. Maybe the people who believe in that crackpot horseshit are crazy. Maybe. Then again, maybe we all are.


(All of the conspiracy theories I reference in this post are authentic. By “authentic” I mean that I didn’t make them up. I read them on the internet. I watched the videos. I bathed in the sweet, sweet crazy. If you’re interested in crossing the conspiracy rubicon, here are a few sites to kick off your journey into mind-boggling batshittery. Happy surfing!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Icke
http://www.prisonplanet.com/
http://www.reptilianagenda.com/menu.shtml
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_World_Order_(conspiracy_theory)