In all probability, the Bilderbergers are no more and no less than what their website openly proclaims them to be: “an annual forum for informal discussions, designed to foster dialogue between Europe and North America.” And there is no better evidence of this than the extraordinary diversity of the meeting’s many attendees and their broad satisfaction with the tools the meetings provide.
The North American Union
* * *
Date: Imminent
Location: North America
The Conspirators: The governments of the United States, Canada, and Mexico
The Victims: The citizens of the United States, Canada, and Mexico
* * *
The Theory
Conspiracy theorists believe Canada, Mexico, and the United States are actively planning to merge into a single police megastate called the North American Union, or NAU. Why? Maximum profits for those in control (exactly who those might be is a little vague), with a half a billion laborers being forced into a Socialist dystopia to benefit those at the top. Under Socialist martial law, the dollar would disappear, and the new currency would be called the Amero. These theorists regard trade agreements such as NAFTA (North American Free Trade Agreement, 1994) and the SPP (Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America, 2005) as first steps to this imminent merging. Nothing like this has ever been presented to the legislative bodies or voters in any of the three countries, nor will it, claim the believers—it will simply be thrust upon everyone by force.
The Truth
The idea that the United States, Canada, and Mexico are planning to merge into a single, giant police state isn’t true. And, in fact, very few people would want this to happen—including those whom the conspiracy theorists claim would benefit.
The Backstory
Rumblings of a North American Union have always existed in the conspiracy theory community, mainly based on the existence of the Soviet Union, which was formed when a number of Eastern European states merged in 1922 and became a powerful Communist megastate. Then in 1992 the European Union was formed and theorists, who saw this as a precedent to a similar North American Union, began to talk about the idea as something that could actually happen. After all, if the Euro currency could happen over there, the Amero currency could certainly happen here.
Then, in 1994, NAFTA went into effect, which was seen by many of the more paranoid thinkers as a first step toward larger unification. Many American tradespeople found NAFTA distasteful; they believed that it benefited larger corporations at the expense of the American worker. In the aftermath of NAFTA, some academics published works that argued in favor of an Amero currency. Chief among these was a paper from a Canadian think tank called “The Case for the Amero.” Here economist Herb Grubel made a compelling case, but also pointed out that the benefits were probably outweighed by the importance to the governments of Canada and the United States of maintaining control over their own currencies.
Now, the vision of an NAU that the conspiracy theorists had in mind involved a violent takeover. There would be city-sized prison camps, forced labor, mass executions. By themselves, NAFTA and a few fringe papers just didn’t quite have this flavor . . . but then, on September 11, 2001, the world changed. Conspiracy theorists who took 9/11 as a false flag attack by the government upon its own people became convinced that martial law was imminent, and believers in the NAU took it as a sign that a violent takeover was underway. Over the years other destructive events, like the 2010 explosion of the oil rig Deepwater Horizon and various hurricanes (which some believe the government creates using some unspecified technology) were also seen as deliberate attacks upon the people by some emerging shadow cabal to weaken local economies and make the populace more susceptible to takeover.
Throughout it all, images of Amero currency have appeared regularly on the Internet. All are hoaxes, yet every image of a piece of Amero currency has its share of believers who fully accept that minting has begun, and that the takeover might happen as early as tomorrow.
Skeptoid ® Says . . .
At least one conspiracy theorist has even found a way to make a few bucks (literally) off the story. A 2007 article from The New York Times says: “The coin designer Daniel Carr, who created the New York and Rhode Island state quarters, has minted a series of copper and silver Ameros, in denominations from one up to one thousand, and is selling them online to raise awareness of [the NUA].” You can find images of the coins by searching for them online.
The Explanation
A principal benefit of an economic union, such as the European Union, is that it makes commerce between many small, neighboring nations simpler. When everyone uses different currencies, transactions are a lot more complicated, and it’s hard to keep on top of pricing when different currencies are always fluctuating. A shared currency makes many of those problems go away.
That said, it is not without cost. When nations share a currency, they lose control over their own inflation and interest rates. The currencies of small economies are stabilized at the expense of the larger economies who can no longer control what happens to their rates. For this reason, economic unions are usually favored by smaller, more volatile economies and avoided by larger, more stable economies. Thus, when certain politicians or economists have called for a North American economic union using an Amero currency, they’ve usually been from Mexico and also from Quebec, which has always sought to be less tied economically to the rest of Canada and to be able to trade more freely with the United States. There has been little or no support for an Amero by any economists in the United States.
So, with this in mind, if an NAU is created it would be a huge net loss for the United States. This largest of the three economies would have to take on the duty of supporting the much smaller Mexican economy, draining resources away from where they are currently enjoyed. Very few American members of the alleged conspiracy would support this.
Furthermore, according to conspiracy theorists, the NAU would be far more than just an economic union. Rather, it would be a full political unification into a single state, more like the Soviet Union than the European Union. But in making this comparison, the conspiracy theorists are radically misunderstanding what took place when the Soviet Union was created. Far from being the surprise imposition of martial law upon an unsuspecting population or a secret takeover by hidden illuminati intent on deceiving the masses, which is what the conspiracy theorists think will happen when the NAU is created, the Russian Revolution of 1917 was a popular uprising by the people, led by a majority party, the Bolsheviks, against the autocratic tsars. The Bolsheviks had a lot to gain through creating a union, but this isn’t true for the United States. In fact, such a move would require the United States, a major world superpower, to give away its sovereignty. This would be unprecedented in geopolitical history, for obvious reasons. What leading nation would ever want to hand over the keys to its own destiny to someone else?
Neither Canada nor Mexico, let alone the United States, has expressed any burning desire to give away its sovereignty. None of their political or social situations resemble Russia in 1917. There are no official proposals to form a North American Union, no evidence that anyone plans to create such a union by force, and no specific individuals known to be interested in such a thing. This particular conspiracy theory is one you probably don’t need to worry about all that much.
The Denver Airport Conspiracy
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Date: 1995–Present
Location: Denver, Colorado
The Conspirators: The New World Order
The Victims: Unsuspecting innocents worldwide
* * *
The Theory
Conspiracy theorists claim that the New World Order—a mysterious and poorly defined shadow cabal of illuminati—built the Denver International Airport to act as both a headquarters from which the world’s elite would launch global genocide and a vast prison camp made to contain those who resist.
When the airport opened
in 1995 to replace Stapleton International Airport, questions began to emerge almost immediately from the fringe. Why was it even needed, since Stapleton appeared to be perfectly good? Why is so much of it hidden underground? Why does it appear to be built like a giant prison camp, with tall razor wire fences canted inward as if to keep people in, not out? And above all, what’s with all the weird symbolism in its bizarre artwork? According to the conspiracy theorists, just about everything about the airport is another piece of proof that the takeover by the New World Order is about to begin.
The Truth
Denver International Airport is an international airport in Denver. There are no reliable reports of anything contradicting that.
The Backstory
In 1990, construction started on the Denver International Airport and the project ended up as a topic of conversation right away. For starters, why was the airport even being built at all? Many people felt that the old Stapleton International Airport was just fine. And why was it being built so far outside of the city?
Then something odd happened. Large concrete bunker-like buildings were constructed in excavated pits and then buried. While an unsuspicious observer might think nothing of underground spaces being built, some online communities took this very seriously. To this day they insist that the builders explained this away by saying the buildings had been “built wrong” and were therefore buried—an odd explanation for an odd event.
Soon bizarre nonsense phrases like “DZIT DIT GAII” were found inlaid in the airport’s floors. Some have interpreted these as alien languages, perhaps foretelling who shall assist the New World Order when it comes time to exterminate humankind. How will this be accomplished? Another inlay, “Au Ag,” has been interpreted to refer to Australia antigen, a powerful toxin, possibly the weapon of choice.
The Denver International Airport’s art collection is said by conspiracy theorists to be proof of the New World Order headquarters. Two such pieces are the two diptychs (two-part murals) created by artist Leo Tanguma. One part of the first diptych depicts a frightening Nazi-style soldier wreaking havoc; in the second part the soldier lies dead, vanquished by the children of the world who have now reforged his weapons into plows. In the other diptych, a future Earth is shown laid to waste, with the only remaining animals being exhibits behind museum glass; the second part shows children tending a rejuvenated Earth. Both murals have been interpreted as depicting the New World Order’s plans to destroy the planet and all those on it, only to then rebuild it with a Utopian society of their own design.
Particularly chilling was the 2007 breakage of a large number of aircraft windshields, said to have been caused by an electromagnetic pulse weapon, possibly a test of some defensive weapon to protect the New World Order headquarters. But perhaps most suspicious of all is a massive object labeled as a time capsule: a granite capstone with a mysterious control keypad inscribed with unintelligible symbols, and a brass plaque proclaiming the “New World Airport Commission.” This keypad holds what conspiracy theorists believe to be the buttons that the New World Order will press to initiate global genocide.
The Explanation
While it’s easy to take a look at the theories and think something may be going on, there are rational explanations for every issue theorists bring up about the Denver International Airport. The razor wire fences said to make it look like a prison are the most commonly cited piece of evidence. However, a drive to the airport reveals that this is not the case at all. The runways are protected by fencing, like runways at all airports, but stockades consisting of inward-canted razor wire simply don’t exist there.
They say a new airport wasn’t needed and this was just an excuse to build a New World headquarters. Well, it turns out that a new airport was desperately needed, and no conspiracy was necessary to explain its construction. Stapleton was a major noise nuisance inside Denver, its runways were too short to accommodate modern jets, and there were too few runways to accommodate all the international flights. A new airport was absolutely needed, one located comfortably far away where neither noise nor space were a problem.
And those underground buildings? Simply a new state-of-the-art automated baggage handling system. Unfortunately, it never worked well and was eventually abandoned, but its underground spaces are still used for conventional baggage handling. No discernible mystery exists down there.
The flooring? Well, “Au Ag” are simply the chemical symbols for silver and gold, a nod to Colorado’s mining history, as the mining carts and other objects inlaid in the floor indicate (strange that the conspiracy theorists missed those). It doesn’t represent Australia antigen, because that’s abbreviated as HBsAg. Regardless, it isn’t a toxin; it’s the surface protein of hepatitis B, which is treatable and rarely fatal. Therefore it’s unlikely that those who use the words “DZIT DIT GAII” are going to kill us all with it. And who are these people who use those words? The Navajo. Those words in that “alien language” are actually the Navajo names for sacred mountains in Colorado.
The same goes for the two murals. Denver International Airport hosts an extensive permanent art collection and numerous temporary exhibitions, all of which explore many different themes. Why the conspiracy theorists have selected these two in particular, and attributed nefarious symbolism to them while ignoring the many others, is singularly bizarre.
Skeptoid ® Says . . .
One of the pieces in the airport’s art collection is a giant blue sculpture of a rearing horse with glowing eyes. While it’s true that during its construction a piece of it did fall and fatally injure its creator, Luis Jiménez, there is no clear reason to interpret the sculpture, which is nicknamed Blucifer, as a prelude to global genocide.
In addition, those 2007 windshield breakages were neither unusual nor unexplained. Colorado often has high winds, and an investigation by the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) confirmed that these were all caused by wind-thrown debris. It happens at windy airports everywhere. And sufficient proof that no electromagnetic pulse weapon was involved lies in the fact that glass is not affected by electromagnetic pulses.
So what about the “New World Airport Commission”? Well, far from being the illuminati, this was simply an association of local civic and business leaders who sponsored the celebratory events at the airport’s opening, which is easy enough to find by anyone willing to look up newspaper articles from 1995. And that alleged control pad with strange buttons? It’s just the braille translation of the words inscribed on the time capsule’s brass plaque. The time capsule’s capstone, by the way, bears the symbol of the Freemasons, an organization that has played no small part in sparking the imagination of the conspiracy theorists. It’s there simply because the time capsule was placed by the local Freemason lodge, as is the case with a large percentage of such capsules around the country.
Generally, successful conspiracies are those that are never discovered. When theorists discover what they believe to be evidence of conspiracy broadly and publicly trumpeted all over a giant public space, chances are they’ve probably misinterpreted it. And let’s be honest: evil plans are not typically publicized with artwork. Did Nixon order that a mural showing GOP spies breaking into a hotel room be installed in the lobby of the Watergate Hotel? No, and neither should you expect some mythical New World Order to announce their genocidal plans in this way.
The Reptoids
* * *
Date: The Present
Location: Worldwide
The Conspirators: An unknown alien reptilian culture
The Victims: Citizens of Earth
* * *
The Theory
Have you ever paused an old video of almost any world leader or business executive and caught a strange-looking frame of the person’s face? While most people would casually dismiss this as just a video glitch (the technical term is a compression artifact, or simply noise in the signal), conspiracy theorists believe that these distortions are not in the video itself, but in the electroni
c holographic disguise worn by the world leader. They believe he, along with many other prominent people, is a reptilian being.
The theory asserts that many prominent people—including political leaders, business and religious leaders, and even famous actors and sports personalities—are actually these disguised reptilian beings called reptoids. They are reptilian in appearance like alligators, but humanoid in their upright posture. At some point in the past, theorists believe, important people worldwide began to be replaced and impersonated by reptilians. Little by little, they believe, we are being replaced—and the reptoids’ origin and purpose remain unknown.
Conspiracies Declassified Page 3
