The Illuminati, the Antichrist, Aliens, and Gay Porn: Conspiracies in the News

An anonymous former employee of Sinclair Broadcast Group told Hopes and Fears that he (I assume it is a male) hid Illuminati and Masonic symbolism in graphics packages meant for the conglomerates more than sixty local television stations out of a combination of boredom and disagreement with the company’s right wing politics. 

I’d find a way to incorporate something in the graphics, usually small and out of the way—maybe a reference to the Illuminati or Freemasonry—just to fuck with anyone who noticed it. I also liked using symbols created by John Dee, who was a 16th century alchemist and occultist, like the esoteric Monas Hieroglyphica, or just simple, but well-known things like the pentagram or the eye in the pyramid.

So far as I know no one ever noticed the occult symbols, but the confession speaks to one way that such symbolism ends up in mainstream media without the need for a real conspiracy. On the other hand, the Sinclair Broadcast Group is about as perfectly named as the mastermind of an alleged Illuminati conspiracy could possibly be, recalling the fictitious Holy Bloodline conspiracy and its dozens of supposed Sinclair supporters, from the alleged discoverer of America Henry I Sinclair, Earl of Orkney to the builder or Rosslyn Chapel William Sinclair, to the modern Sinclair family members who profit from selling conspiracies about their family.

Indeed, the weight of the Sinclair name lends itself to conspiracies wherever it is found, as it is with the porn star and escort Brodie Sinclair, whose real name is Leif Derek Truitt, a 33-year-old from Texas. (Media reports call him a gay porn star, but as I understand it he has performed in both straight and gay porn.) Truitt made headlines when a business executive attempted to pay the $700-per-hour escort for sex, and Truitt used the opportunity to press the executive to use his family connections to resolve a housing dispute Truitt had brought before the Dept. of Housing and Urban Development. Truitt turned over records of the conversation to Gawker, which published and then retracted the story, generating outrage over a breach of journalistic ethics for naming the business executive, who was not a public figure, only related to one.

Last week Truitt spoke to The Daily Caller, which discovered that Truitt is a conspiracy theorist with a knack for spinning apocalyptic conspiracies from the Bible and numerology. Truitt claims to have special knowledge of a large number of conspiracies, including who is really behind 9/11, the disappearance of a Malaysian airliner last year, and even the crash of an Amtrak train in May. “I’m the guy that is responsible for leaking the information to the families of the 9/11 victims,” Truitt told the Daily Caller. On his Facebook page, Truitt references even more conspiracies, including alleged proof that Barack Obama is the Beast foretold in Revelation. “I’ve figure it out,” he said in a video in which he claims that the Illinois State Lottery routinely calls the number 666 when Obama gives speeches. “Eleven times since 1980,” Truitt said, the lottery’s demonic results and “dirt bag” Obama’s speeches have coincided. (Truitt believes the lottery regularly returns symbolic numbers.) “I’ve got that figured out already. Anybody doubts that, look me up on Facebook.” He also called Russian President Vladimir Putin the Fallen Angel Abaddon. (Of course there’s a Watchers connection.) Although I don’t know for certain, it seems like his porn name is a nod to his conspiracy beliefs.

Before you laugh, there is a sad side to the story, one that puts this in perspective. Truitt is a veteran who says he suffers from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder that requires the use of a service dog. He was arrested for assaulting family members in 2001 and 2007, and he feels that he is be persecuted by the government and those linked to it for a number of reasons. Obviously, there is more going on here than just conspiracy theories.

The sense of sadness carried over to my reading of Nick Redfern’s review of Jo Ann Koch’s new self-published memoir Aliens, Abductions, and Other Curious Encounters. Koch claims a lifetime of encounters with aliens, dating back decades. She claims not to know whether the beings that abduct her are extraterrestrials, inter-dimensional beings, or (of course) demons. Some, she speculates, may even be angels. She, too, claims Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, which for her has manifested as decades of nocturnal encounters with the demonic. Her fantasies of good and evil beings occurring during self-confessed episodes of sleep paralysis (i.e. waking dreams) seem to have emerged at the same time that her father became friends with pseudo-Theosophical alien hoaxer George Adamski, who claimed to be in contact with Aryan Venusians.