Blog Archives

J. Hutton Pulitzer Uses Ancient Astronaut and Atlantean Claims to Defend "Roman" Voyages to Oak Island

1/31/2016

I had been hearing rumors for several months now that conspiracy theorist and geologist Scott F. Wolter had joined the Freemasons, an organization he previously accused of conspiring to suppress the truth about history and manipulate world governments. But now it seems to be official, with Wolter’s elevation to the rank of Master Mason reported in the January-February edition of the Minnesota Mason. According to that publication, Scott F. Wolter is a member of the Wayzata Lodge (no. 205) and joined the order sometime in 2015. Wayzata is in the Minneapolis-St. Paul metro area and is close to Wolter’s home. Since Masons are supposed to keep their mouths shut about Masonry’s secrets, this will either force Wolter to curtail his conspiracy theories or open himself to charges of hypocrisy for making insinuations about secrets he shouldn’t be discussing.

41 Comments

Hyperborean Hyperbole: Atlantis Theorist Alleges That Greeks Reached America via the Arctic

1/30/2016

18 Comments

Back in 2013, I discussed the work of Christos A. Djonis, a fringe speculator who believes that Plato’s Atlantis dialogues have been incorrectly translated and that his own translation revealed that Atlantis was actually the Cyclades through his unique decision to rearrange the word order of the English translation by following the Greek word order irrespective of grammar. Well, Djonis is back again, this time with claims that the ancient Greeks discovered America.

18 Comments

After Rapper Claims Earth Is Flat, Science Writer Says Bad Ideas Are Fine as Long as They Have Good Intentions

1/29/2016

40 Comments

Musicians, being the creative type, seem prone to supporting fringe ideas. We’ve had metal bands that sing about ancient astronauts and the Insane Clown Posse considering magnets to be a form of magic. The hip hop community created a stir by causing conspiracy theorists to foam at the mouth over Illuminati imagery in hip hop videos. Now one rapper is taking the fringe beliefs all the way back to before Eratosthenes by denying that the Earth is round.

40 Comments

FX Network Releases Analysis of Peak TV and Reveals the Ratings for Your Favorite Fringe History Shows

1/28/2016

27 Comments

Many of you have probably heard about the phenomenon of “peak TV,” a term for the overabundance of television programs currently airing across the broadcast, cable, and streaming spectrums. According to an analysis conducted by the FX network, primetime alone saw 1,415 television series in 2015. Obviously, no one could watch them all. However, in releasing their analysis, FX provided us with some data that cable networks have been trying to keep secret, namely the total number of viewers who watch their programs.

27 Comments

Are Hyperborean Giants Buried Atop Portals to Shambhala in Romania?

1/27/2016

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We all know that Ancient Origins has low standards and the Romanian nationalist writer who goes by the name of Valdar has among the lowest standards in fringe history, but are people really willing to accept an obviously Photoshop-manipulated photograph of a skeleton as a 10-meter-tall giant allegedly uncovered in Romania in 1976? Apparently so, since this particular conspiracy theory about giants in Romania has been percolating since at least 2013, with spikes in interest annually. The anti-gay gigantologist Steve Quayle has an article about the supposed giants or Romania, which appears to have been mechanically translated from a Romanian original, and which supposedly tells the story behind the fictitious photograph.

14 Comments

Why Is "Ancient Aliens" Trying to Look Inside an Obscure Adena Burial Mound in West Virginia?

1/26/2016

35 Comments

Yesterday I mentioned that the X-Files was likely to spark interest among conspiracy theorists, and I indeed found that my Facebook feed was filled with conspiracy theorists who felt that the program has vindicated their worldview. “Curious about how much of the new x-files is real?” read one typical post. “Turns out most of what was presented in the first episode was absolutely REAL!” An article on a conspiracy website expanded on this: “Chris Carter claims its (sic) all research, others claim its (sic) disinformation on a grand scale. For me I think its (sic) little bit of everything. […] I’m curious to see how far they take it, or are allowed to take it.”

35 Comments

On "The X-Files," Elitism, and the Ethics of Television

1/25/2016

26 Comments

“Templars doesn’t sound cool. Illuminati is way tighter,” DJ Babu said in explaining why hip-hop artists have latched on to conspiracy theories about the Illuminati, a group that happens to rhyme with more words than Bilderberg or Templar. I learned this from an article in the Daily Beast about hip-hop’s use of paranoid conspiracy theories, excerpted from a book on conspiracy theories by Rob Brotherton.

26 Comments

On the Discovery of a Giant Near Thessalonica in 1691

1/24/2016

16 Comments

This is a slightly weird but interesting account of an alleged skeleton of a giant. In reading Edward J. Wood’s book Giants and Dwarves (1868), I came across a passage claiming that a French Capuchin missionary named Jerome de Rhetel had reported to another clergyman, Jerome de Monceaux, that in Macedonia, near Thessalonica, there was discovered embedded in the wall of a village the massive skeleton of a giant, with a skull capable of holding hundreds of pounds of corn and with seven-inch teeth that weighed fifteen pounds apiece. It took only a few seconds to determine that Wood, like other Victorian writers, was copying nearly verbatim from Kirby’s Wonderful and Scientific Museum, the oldest edition of which I traced back to 1804, though it may be older. But there the trail seemed to grow cold.

16 Comments

The Zombie Apocalypse and the Blurring Line Between Fact and Fiction

1/23/2016

40 Comments

I read a sad story today about a 16-year-old who shot and killed his father and brother two years ago and is currently on trial for the killings. According to media accounts, the teen’s father, who was addicted to pain medication, had become convinced that the zombie apocalypse was about to occur and had been training his son in the most effective ways to kill the undead, specifically with headshots and decapitation. The entire family, who lived in Idaho, had joined in the father’s madness and were making plans to escape to a rural and isolated area to ride out the coming rise of the dead, according to accused killer Eldon Samuel III’s mother, Tina Samuel.

40 Comments

Did H. P. Lovecraft Inspire a "Black Pilgrimage" to Ritual Magic and Scientology?

1/22/2016

6 Comments

If you watched the Yesterday TV (UK) and American Heroes Channel (US) series Forbidden History, you probably saw frequent commentator Andrew Gough, the publisher of Heretic magazine. If you did not watch this series, chances are you have never heard of Andrew Gough or Heretic magazine. Anyway, the newest edition of the Heretic is out and in it the British writer Mark Oxbrow, author of a book on the history of Halloween, has a piece on “Lovecraft, Scientology, and the Black Pilgrimage” that I think overstates its case a bit.

6 Comments

<<Previous

J. Hutton Pulitzer Uses Ancient Astronaut and Atlantean Claims to Defend "Roman" Voyages to Oak Island

Hyperborean Hyperbole: Atlantis Theorist Alleges That Greeks Reached America via the Arctic

After Rapper Claims Earth Is Flat, Science Writer Says Bad Ideas Are Fine as Long as They Have Good Intentions

FX Network Releases Analysis of Peak TV and Reveals the Ratings for Your Favorite Fringe History Shows

Are Hyperborean Giants Buried Atop Portals to Shambhala in Romania?

Why Is "Ancient Aliens" Trying to Look Inside an Obscure Adena Burial Mound in West Virginia?

On "The X-Files," Elitism, and the Ethics of Television

On the Discovery of a Giant Near Thessalonica in 1691

The Zombie Apocalypse and the Blurring Line Between Fact and Fiction

Did H. P. Lovecraft Inspire a "Black Pilgrimage" to Ritual Magic and Scientology?

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