ZEBRA

Few of us know the web of conspiracy surroundingrenowned Zachariah the Zebra at a well-known zoo.The fate of the poor aforementioned animal seemed to beset in stone when he finally passed away after years offaithful service to the zoo. Distress failed to describe theemotions of the children who had traveled from all cornersof the country to see poor old Zack.And so, decided the authorities, action had to be taken.The expressions on the faces of the hordes of distraughtchildren who had rushed so expectantly to Zack’s cage wasjust too much to bear. An artful disguise was undertaken. Ahorse was imported from the adjoining cage and waspainted black and white. And no one noticed. The delightof the children knew no bounds. Zack was back.This project was not without its complications, however—not least of all that Zack had to be repainted every week,and every two hours if it rained. But this seems of littleconsequence, seeing as rumor was threatening closure ofthe zoo. And if it took standing in the rain painting a horseblack and white to avoid redundancy, the zoo workers werequite happy to undertake the task.

POPE JOHN PAUL II

On May 13, 1981 antipapal violence became evenmore overt as Pope John Paul II was shot and verynearly killed in St. Peter’s Square. Immediately it was acceptedby people all over the world as the action of an individualmadman called Mehmet Ali Agca. Even at the time,Italian authorities suggested that this might be a part of alarger conspiracy, but this was largely ignored. The Westernpress suggested that Mehmet Ali Agca may in fact havebeen a cog in the wheel of a Turkish right-wing Islamicfundamentalist conspiracy, but this was as far as it went.New evidence, however, has pointed the finger at the SovietKGB, operating through the secret factions of theCommunist regimes in Bulgaria and the Turkish Mafia.Rumor has it that Agca escaped from a Turkish prison and,having been given extensive training and an elaborate plot,adopted a right-wing disguise to hide the real motivationsof the assassination.The plot to kill the Pope may have failed, but this maynot have been the sole purpose of the assassination attempt.The whole thing could have been a clever doublebluff. After all, what better way to stir up public reaction against right-wing extremity and religious “fundamentalism.”No one suspected the Communist role for a minute.This does raise some doubts as to whether the neo-Naziactivities that have plagued Germany for more than half acentury are in fact propagated by extreme right-wing factionsat all or whether, again, it could be Communists behindthe series of events, which have included the brandingof the swastika, militant homophobia and racial prejudice.Information leaked from within the Soviet Party revealedthat one of its primary aims was to stir up public emotionagainst all that it termed as right-wing. Hitlerites were oneobvious example, but other right-wing factions also includedChristians, liberals and in fact anyone at all whowas not Communist.

PAUL McCARTNEY

In 1969 the rumor that Paul McCartney had died threeyears earlier raged around the world, coinciding with increasinglywidespread suspicion of a conspiracy behind theassassination of JFK. Propagators of the theory claimedthat Paul had actually died in a road crash three years earlier,in accordance with the lyrics of the song “A Day in theLife.” “He blew his mind out in a car,” the lyrics state. “Hedidn’t notice that the lights had changed.” And then, evenmore suspiciously, “A crowd of people stood and stared,they’d seen his face before.”On the cover of the Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely HeartsClub Band album, the number-plate of one of the cars inthe foreground reads “28 IF.” If Paul had lived, he wouldhave been 28 by then. Moreover, George Harrison is wearingclothes that clearly resemble an undertaker. In the albumitself, at the end of “Strawberry Fields,” John Lennon’srepeated intonation of the words cranberry sauce mustsurely be a fairly transparent disguise for the words “I buryPaul.”It is said that after Paul’s death, the group searched fora replacement so that they could continue with the same success as before. So they drafted in a certain Billy Shearsas a replacement, gave him extensive plastic surgery andall grew beards so that no one would actually be able to seethe minor facial discrepancies that gave away the fact thathe was not the real Paul. If the conspiracy holds, they did apretty good job of it.

LENNON'S ASSASSINATION

John Lennon was shot on December 8, 1980 outside theDakota in New York by Mark David Chapman, agedtwenty-five. Was Chapman merely another disturbed killer,unsure of his own motives, or could there in fact have beenpolitical reasons behind the killings?It would seem unlikely that Chapman had killed Lennonto be famous. During his life, he turned down thirty toforty interviews, and said himself, “I am not a seekerafter publicity.” He never allowed documentaries to befilmed with him and never gave an interview. Moreover,his composure after he had shot Lennon was quite remarkable.Lennon was one of the most politically active rockstars of his generation. This, coupled with his reputationas a drug user, classified him as an undesirable in the eyesof the authorities, making it difficult for him to obtain agreen card to come and live in the U.S. The coinciding ofhis return to his former greatness with Reagan’s rise topower is interesting to say the least. Reagan’s policieswere radical and Lennon was the only person who would have been able to bring out millions of people to protest.The question therefore has to be asked whether theremay have been some kind of political involvement in hismurder.

KURT COBAIN

One of the most intriguing current conspiracy theoriesis that surrounding the premature and sudden deathof world-famous singer Kurt Cobain. The truth seems morethan slightly elusive. Questions of whether it really was asuicide are closely tied with the issues of whether his allegedlyestranged wife, Courtney Love, was involved in anyconspiracy. The further one delves into the mystery, thefewer ends seem to tie up.What seems strangest of all is the suicide note left byCobain directly prior to his dramatic exit scene, given thatthe tone really was not suicidal, with statements such as “Ihave it good, very good, and I’m grateful.” The entire notewas written in the present tense and seems to be a far cryfrom the final words of a man about to kill himself.According to psychologists at the rehabilitation centerCobain had visited only the week before, as well as closefriends, no one had suspected that he was suicidal, whichin the light of his Rome “suicide attempt” a few monthsearlier seems suspicious. Kurt had written Courtney a noteafter that incident which included one line which she saidwas “very definitely suicidal.” “Dr. Baker says I would have to choose between life and death,” Kurt had written. “I’mchoosing death.”There is the theory that Cobain was quite simply terrifiedfor his life after walking out on a $9.5 million contractto headline Lollapalooza and that this inspired him to commitsuicide. And the fact that the shotgun was loaded withthree shells when the fatal deed was done could have beenpart of a plan to make his suicide look like murder.Strangest of all, police failed to find any fingerprints atall on the gun. Of course, perhaps Kurt had carefully coveredhis traces and wiped the gun down, but such behavioris not what one expects from someone on the verge of suicide,and in any case, if it really was suicide, why the needfor the big cover-up?It is not to be denied that murdering the father of yourchild is fairly uncommon and the fact that Courtney andKurt were not getting on well before his death would seemlittle justification for cold-blooded killing. However, shecould have had several other possible motives. In January1994 Cobain told Rolling Stone that he might well be divorcingCourtney. Apparently divorce papers had alreadybeen drawn up by the time of his death. And shortly beforethe death itself, Courtney had apparently instructed one ofher lawyers to get the “meanest, most vicious divorcelawyer” she could find. Kurt had also hinted that he wantedCourtney taken out of his will, in which case she wouldhave gained a lot more financially from a suicide beforethe will could be changed than from a divorce. If Kurt wereto die, sales for Kurt’s band Nirvana would rocket. AndCourtney would benefit financially.The official line is that Kurt committed suicide. In thedays and weeks following his death, fans began killingthemselves in empathy with their fallen hero. In light ofthis suicide rush, the backlash would be devastating if policereversed their original judgment and opened a murderinvestigation.

HARRY POTTER

Of the thousands of column inches and hundreds ofbroadcast hours devoted to the phenomenally successfulseries of J. K. Rowling’s Harry Potter books, only ascarce few have claimed the influence of the occult withinthis remarkably popular set of books.The fifth installment, Harry Potter and the Order of thePhoenix, contains exactly 666 pages (excluding the prologue).The book’s worldwide release date was at midnighton the eve of the Summer Solstice. Although cynics wouldsuggest this was a simple marketing gimmick, there was noreference made to the unusual timing of the launch in thepromotional campaign.Many studies on the Harry Potter series have noted varioussymbolic connections. The lightning scar by whichHarry is recognized is a symbol used in Satanism. Unicorns,which are featured in the series, are symbolic of theAntichrist. The Phoenix is said to be Lucifer, who was castdown in flames and will rise again triumphantly. Mandrakeplants resembling humans are grown and used for medicinalpurposes, leading some people to draw comparisonswith human sacrifice. Some believe these connections are made deliberately to confuse the young mind. However, 60percent of Harry Potter books are purchased for adults toread, which may suggest that an interest in the occult has amuch wider grip on society than was previously realized.

GULF WAR COVER UP

During the 1990s GulfWar, the world was astounded atthe superiority of the American war effort. Iraqi armieswere overtaken by a ratio of about a thousand to one. Thetroops came back alive.But that is not to say that they came back healthy, andthousands of war veterans have died or are dying fromwhat has commonly come to be known as Gulf War Syndrome.Scientists’ attempts to locate the precise origins ofMycoplasma Incognita are not helped by the government’sunbending denials that there is such a thing as Gulf WarSyndrome in the first place.It is thought that Mycoplasma Incognita could havebeen manufactured as a sort of biological warfare agent.Whoever created this weapon allegedly used the HIV geneand so the illness therefore targets those with weak immunesystems. But no one seems to know what the real storyis. Lack of funding, as well as pressure from the governmentto cover up what has really gone on, has hamperedextensive research. It would seem that the M. D. AndersonCancer Center is the only center where this is being takenseriously. In recent years the government has released documentswhich suggest that Gulf War veterans are indeed rightwhen they claim that they were exposed to chemical andbiological agents during Operation Desert Storm, a claimwhich had previously been denied over and over again.Supporters of the veterans have claimed that the U.S. wasdirectly responsible for the weapons in the first place, havingsold those chemical and biological agents to the Iraqis.And it would appear that the veterans might have beenused as test subjects by the military themselves. The military,it would seem, forced the troops to take injections ofexperimental drugs which were supposedly intended toprotect them from biological weapons and nerve gas. Immediatelyprior to the Gulf War, the U.S. Food and DrugAdministration adopted the Interim Rule which allows themilitary to use experimental drugs on military staff withouttheir consent “during times of military exigency.” TheInterim Rule is still being observed. As a result, the troopswere given shots of pyridostigmine bromide tablets andbotulism toxoid vaccine. The FDA maintained that the militaryprovide staff with information about the side effectsof these experimental drugs and demanded that thoroughrecords be kept of which troops they were administered to.This, according to the National GulfWar Resource Center,however, is not the case. The Department of Defensefailed to inform troops of the possible side effects and virtuallyforced them into taking the injections. The Departmentof Defense also failed to keep records of whichtroops were given experimental drugs and did not keepcomplete records of the side effects that were inevitablyexperienced by the troops. This lack of recordkeeping hindersveterans’ ability to get medical help to this day.What is most frightening is that Mycoplasma Incognitaseems to be highly contagious. It is claimed that some ofthe families of these GulfWar veterans have now been attackedby the disease and low-income families who weregiven surplus Desert Storm food at food banks may alsohave become ill. Could this be a warped form of population control?Starting with men and women who pledged their lives toserve their country and who now can’t get enough helpfrom the authorities who sent them out in the first place?

FLUORIDE

Strong bones and teeth, but at what cost? Unnamedsources have revealed information regarding the massfluoridation conspiracy in Westernized countries. Couldthe addition of this powerful chemical to our drinking systembe wreaking havoc on our people? There is a distinctpossibility that information is being withheld from the publicin a massive cover-up.There is no denying that fluoride does initially strengthenbones and teeth. But the benefits are short-lived. Therecomes a point when genetic damage erupts. Bones areweakened to the point of complete dissolution. Within sevengenerations, offspring of fluoridated reproduction are bornwithout any skeleton at all.This theory provokes the serious concern that there is adreadful fate in store for the entire Western world. Furthermore,the question is raised of whether the potentially direconsequences were known when fluoride was introducedinto our water. Could this be yet another disturbing attemptto curb population growth?

ELVIS KILLED KENNEDY

Quite apart from his underhand dealings with the CIA,there seems to be another side to Elvis that is generallyunknown. The suggestion that Elvis may have killedcharismatic President John F. Kennedy for having hoggedthe media coverage is not to be missed. It would seem thata whole chain of events was triggered by this event andthat a network of conspiracies can be unraveled by examiningit.If Elvis killed Kennedy, the question remains as to whokilled Elvis. And if jealousy over media coverage was onereason for the assassination, it would make sense that JohnLennon was overcome by a similar pique of jealousy andkilled Elvis to make way for his own publicity.And the theory does not stop there. It would seem thatLennon did not think ahead very far and see that Elvis wasinfluential. The theory alleges that the tragic assassinationof John Lennon in 1980 might have been performed byElvis supporter Michael Jackson, who, in turn, closed thecircle of conspiracy and gave the whole thing away bymarrying Elvis’s daughter, Lisa Marie Presley. The celebrityworld is nothing if not incestuous.

ELVIS

Most people are only aware of one side to Elvis Presley.Most of us are unaware that he was in fact anagent for the CIA. And most of us are blind to the implicationsof this.Elvis’s rise in popularity provided the perfect cover fora top-secret military installation in the heart of Memphis,Tennessee. The fact that the site was so high profile meantthat the CIA officials could be as open as the y wanted as itwas thought that no one, internal or foreign, would eversuspect an international celebrity’s home as a headquartersfor an international spy network. However, obviously someprecautions had to be taken and to prevent a suspiciousnumber of government vehicles congregating in Elvis’sdriveway, an extensive system of tunnels were dug, someextending for several hundred yards. At Agent Presley’sdeath, the government took precautionary measures to ensurethat the mansion remained within the Presley family.Rumor has it that, despite the constant waves of tourists,the tunnel network is in continuous use.

EARTHQUAKES

Earthquakes are an example of Mother Nature’s mostdestructive natural disasters. They have left a trail ofdevastation across the globe and throughout the centuries.But could it be that more recent seismic activity is theproduct of man and not of the earth?In the deep recesses of the Alaskan tundra U.S. intelligenceare working on a new weapon for the twenty-firstcentury. Known as Project HAARP (High-Frequency ActiveAuroral Research Program), the project is described asthe world’s largest “ionospheric heater.” It transmits highfrequencyradio waves into the ionosphere, sending morethan a gigawatt of energy into the sky. The official explanationfor this project from the U.S. Navy is that it is “toobserve the complex natural variations of Alaska’s ionosphere.”This could lead to advances in communicationstechnology, enabling transmissions to be sent over enormousdistances and underground.But independent analysts believe this is a pretext concealingthe true nature of the project, which is to developnewtechnologies enabling human manipulation ofweather patterns, mind control and man-made earthquakes. In hisbook, HAARP: The Ultimate Weapon of the Conspiracy,Jerry E. Smith predicts that these experiments may havefar graver consequences than people realize. The HAARPproject involves detecting and observing electromagneticactivity, which is the catalyst for seismic activity and movementamongst the Earth’s tectonic plates. This technologycould be harnessed by the military to trigger earthquakes,either deliberately or by accident. The science behind this isso complex that unless those working on it fully comprehendit they could create an unexpected disaster.Man can already instigate seismic activity throughfive known techniques: injecting fluids into the earth atextremely high pressures; extracting fluids already underground;mining activity and quarrying; testing nuclearweapons; and constructing artificial barriers like dams andreservoirs. Scientists agree that there have been man-madeearthquakes already. In Denver during the 1960s there wereseveral earthquakes of varying intensity which coincidedwith waste disposal schemes that involved injecting wastedeep underground. This high pressure injection of wastetriggered the release of stored strain energy in the undergroundrock, causing the destruction of several blocks ofsuburban Denver.The exploitation of the HAARP technology could provevital for the Pentagon. In the future if they wanted to createinstability in a region, instead of using conventional militarycapability, they could manipulate an area using geophysicalweapons. According to Professor Gordon MacDonald,“The key to geophysical warfare is the identification ofenvironmental instabilities to which the addition of a smallamount of energy would release vastly greater amounts ofenergy.” Just tiny amounts of energy could spell catastrophe,especially in poor regions of the world with an inferior infrastructureand shoddily constructed buildings. The blamefor these events would appear to lie with Mother Nature andnot with the real culprits. The implications of this are enormous. All future disasterscould potentially be created by covert military planners.With secrecy of the project being imperative, the realcause of these events could be undetectable to the outsideworld.

DAVID KELLY

Weapons expert Dr. David Kelly died in suspiciouscircumstances in July 2003 days after admitting tothe Foreign Affairs Select Committee that he had spoken toBBC reporter Andrew Gilligan. The BBC subsequently reportedthat the danger Iraq posed had been exaggerated inthe government dossier of September 2002, which warnedthe British public of the existence of certain weapons ofmass destruction.The Hutton Inquiry set out to determine whether or notthe circumstances leading up to Dr. Kelly’s death couldhave had an effect on his state of mind, or whether thesecircumstances might have influenced the actions of others.Yet in a statement delivered by Lord Hutton on January 28,2004, the following ruling was made: “I am satisfied thatDr. Kelly took his own life by cutting his left wrist and thathis death was hastened by his taking Co-Proxamol tablets.I am further satisfied that there was no involvement by athird person in Dr. Kelly’s death.”The forensic pathologist at the Hutton Inquiry, Dr.Nicholas Hunt, judged that Dr. Kelly bled to death from acut to the wrist, but other experts were skeptical of this conclusion. In a letter to the Guardian, medical specialistsDavid Halpin, C. Stephen Frost and Searle Sennett expressedtheir view that this was “highly improbable.” Dr.Hunt stated that only the ulnar artery had been completelytransected. This complete transection would cause the arteryto retract and close down, enabling the blood to clot.To have died this way Dr. Kelly would have had to losemuch more blood than the ambulance team reported.Alexander Allan, the forensic toxicologist at the inquiry,said that the blood level of the drug’s componentswas less than a third of what is normal for a fatal overdose.Halpin, Frost and Sennett conclude their letter by stating:“We dispute that Dr. Kelly could have died from haemorrhageor from Co-Proxamol ingestion or from both.” Thistheory raises the question of the real cause of Dr. Kelly’sdeath—and, furthermore, why it is not being made knownto the public.Dr. Kelly denied that he could have been the BBC’smain source and the Ministry of Defence claimed that nosuggestion was made that Dr. Kelly should lose his jobover the issue. However, a friend of Dr. Kelly, Britishdiplomat David Broucher, told the Hutton Inquiry that inan e-mail hours before his disappearance, Dr. Kelly hintedat his crisis with lines such as “many dark actors playinggames.” In other conversations, Kelly seemed to predict hisown death, saying that he would “probably be found deadin the woods” if the British invasion of Iraq was to goahead.

COIN OVER NOTE

Maybe you have never noticed. Maybe you have toleranceof saintly proportions and maybe these thingsdon’t irritate you. But it has been pointed out that everytime you buy something in a supermarket, the cashier willhand you your change, first with the notes and then thecoins on top of them.This means that unless you can perform some superhumanfeat, you either have to crumple it all up into a ball orelse perform the singularly pointless task of bringing yourother hand over to separate the notes from the coins. Anddon’t let yourself be persuaded into thinking that this is amere logistical error. This is a conspiracy. They do it to annoythe hell out of you.

CLINTON

It goes without saying that former U.S. President BillClinton is not what he appears to be. But startling newevidence may point to the fact that he is neither a humannor an alien. Manufactured, patented and operated jointlyby the FBI and a certain famous cartoon company, BillClinton is actually a robot.Of course, it is only an indication of the superiority ofcurrent technology that he appears almost identical to a humanand what is more, is able to fool people in everydaysituations. He can, for example, communicate with otherson his own. During his presidency his foreign policies wereresolved by his creators, as are his domestic programs.Clinton’s notorious sexual escapades only make him seemall the more human. What is more, the choice of Al Gore ashis vice president served to make him look positively superhuman.Some right-wing groups became aware of therobotic nature of the former president. But the facts are sobizarre that they were reluctant to go public and risk theirown heads, so they tried to bring him down by more conventionalmeans. Clinton is rarely allowed out in the rainfor fear of a short circuit.

CHRISTOPHER MARLOWE

In 1593 Christopher Marlowe, one of England’s finestpoets and dramatists, was stabbed to death by IngramFrizer at the age of twenty-nine. Historians acknowledgethat his murder was probably the result of a bar brawl—adispute over who should pay the bill, in fact—but somepeople believe that his mysterious death may well have hada political cause. Prior to his death, accusations of blasphemy,subversion and homosexuality had destroyed hispublic image; he was also charged with atheism on the evidenceof his former roommate and fellow dramatist,Thomas Kyd. As a result of his sacrilegious beliefs, somescholars allege that Marlowe was murdered by FrancisWalsingham, a Puritan sympathizer and agent of ElizabethI. Others accuse royalists, in particular the supporters ofthe Earl of Essex, of his murder. Significantly, Marlowe’skiller eventually received a pardon from the Queen.In the sixteenth century, the punishment for such crimesas Marlowe was accused of included being boiled alive,burnt at the stake, or hanged, drawn and quartered. Takingthese penalties into consideration, it is hardly surprisingthat some people believe that Christopher Marlowe faked his own death. Had he simply fled the country, or gone intohiding, he would have been pursued as a fugitive for therest of his life. A much better solution would have been tostage his own murder and assume a new identity. Havingworked as a secret agent for years, Marlowe would havehad both the experience and the contacts to hatch such aplan. Indeed, the fact that the coroner’s inquest and subsequentburial of the body—in an unmarked grave—werecompleted within forty-eight hours of the “killing” giveseven more credence to this idea.To this day, conspiracy theories rather than facts shroudthe events leading up to Marlowe’s death. Though IngramFrizer was named as the writer’s killer, the real truth aboutMarlowe’s end will probably never be known.

CHRISTIAN PERSECUTIONS

By the time of Augustus’s death in a.d. 14, the RomanEmpire stood as by far the most influential politicalunit of the ancient world. Rome’s religious tolerance musthave been a central fact in this overwhelming political success.The Romans were not looking for trouble and onlyused persecution when absolutely necessary. Necessity includedputting a stop to the suspected barbarism of theDruids and the activities of the Christians. The first Christianpersecutions occurred during the reign of the emperorNero who, after the fire of a.d. 64, declared that Christianswere responsible for the arson. Persecutions continued in afairly half-hearted way until the Trojan Dedius came intopower in the third century, when authorities acting underthe emperor’s orders began a series of persecutions throughoutthe Empire. The number of persecutions began to increase,culminating in the reigns of Diocletian in the Eastand Maximianus in the West, when an Empire-wide manhuntfor Christian blood began. Although most historiansclaim that the persecutions were simply due to a misunderstandingof the Christian religion, some researchers havesuggested a more practical motive. By the late third century, Rome’s political prowess wasunder constant threat and, in order to be able to fight thecompeting nations, it urgently needed to control its increasinglyunruly inhabitants. The Roman authorities searchedfor some distraction, something that would occupy thepopulace. The policy had already been put into action butrelied on the cooperation of the slaves who participated inthe events. During the third century Roman slaves increasinglyrevolted against their often violent destiny, much tothe distress of the emperors, who recognized the publicneed for mass entertainment and so the Roman populace,now lacking an outlet for its pent-up frustrations, begantaking to the streets in acts of violence. As a solution, theChristians, whose population in Rome was enormous, wereused as unwitting sacrifices for Roman entertainment. Inaddition, their being burnt alive served to light Romanstreets at night, bringing safety and warmth to the city. Witnessingthe fate of the Roman Christians served its purposeof distracting the citizens and stabilizing the populace ofRome. Thus its continued survival was ensured into thethird century. It was not until the reign of Constantine thatChristianity was legalized and the persecutions stopped.

CHERNOBYL: WAS IT AN ACCIDENT

What actually happened? Was it an accident? Orwere there in fact ulterior motives behind a consciousexperiment?More and more people are beginning to wonder if thelatter proposition was in fact the case, and whether theChernobyl disaster was not in fact the horrific accident itwas made out to be but rather that it was consciously driveninto an extremely dangerous situation on April 26, 1986.Chernobyl was certainly a situation known for its dangers,and the complete security mechanisms were left unobserved.The series of reported mistakes that went into theexplosion are, to an extent, unbelievable. But why wouldthe Soviet authorities have ordered such a large-scale disaster,devastating the lives of so many millions of people?It has been suggested that the most likely explanationwould be that the disaster constituted an experiment to preparefor fighting a nuclear war. If Chernobyl can ever makesense, one explanation could be that it would have been alogical starting point if Moscow was putting a plan for nuclearwar against the West into action. If this was the case,it would have been necessary to test and conduct research into procedures and equipment that had been designed duringthe Cold War years to protect against radioactive contaminationin the aftermath of nuclear war. Also, in orderto be able to implement long-term protection, leaders wouldneed to know about the immediate effects of the worst-casescenario. If a multiyear plan culminating in nuclear waragainst the West was in the cards, could a major nuclear disasterin the Ukraine have been a useful, if tasteless, preparatoryexperiment? The West has aided Russian scientists togather a wealth of information about the short- and longtermeffects of radioactivity. Furthermore, the most effectiveprocedures have been developed to deal with the contamination,which will be of tremendous value if Moscow does actupon the rumors that are circulating.Moreover, why should Russia be in the process of buildinga huge underground center in the Ural mountains? Andthe CIA’s former acting director recently told military servicesin America that being prepared for nuclear war withRussia must remain a priority at all costs. Certainly Russiahas been forced to modernize its nuclear infrastructure. Wecan only wait to see what will happen next.

CARTOONS

To some, children’s animation is yet another form ofnot-so-subtle mind control. And so it was hardly a surprisewhen the connection between animation and mindcontrol became quite literal. A somewhat bizarre incidentin Japan, which induced nausea and epileptic-type fits inmore than seven hundred children, provoked a wide-scaleinquiry into the physical effects that television may haveand the motives behind the inducement of these physicalreactions.It would appear that these convulsions were caused by aspecific episode of a certain hit animation series, which hadreached enormous popularity amongst the Japanese youth.A colorful explosion behind one of the popular charactersused strobe lighting which seems to have stimulated nervecells, causing seizures, breathlessness, impaired vision andnausea.It would seem that strobe lighting produces an effectsimilar to hypnosis and that this was not the first time thatscreen addicts have suffered from epilepsy-type seizures.And electronic stimuli seem to be able to induce electricalcharges in an individual’s brain, again causing epileptic fits. The question remains whether these cartoons, ever-popularamong the Japanese young, could have used their harmlessveneer as a disguise to experiment on their fans. TheU.S. Pentagon has allegedly looked into the effects of strobelighting to produce a nonlethal weapon, and Russia has apparentlyproduced a computer virus going by the name of“666” affecting bodily functions by the same means.

CARS

By the twentieth century, the U.S. had established itsindependence and England had accepted that even ifthey had lost their colonies, they had gained a powerfulally. However, a small number of British people could notcope with the idea of colonial independence. Ever sincethe War of 1812, conspirators devised elaborate schemeafter elaborate scheme to return the colonies to Englishrule. After the SecondWorldWar, these thinkers devised aplan geared towards the collapse of the whole Americaninfrastructure.During the American boom years of the late 1940sthrough to the 1960s, the conspirators reached agreementswith several British car manufacturers looking to expandtheir markets in the USA. Soon, brands such as MG, Triumph,Austin-Healey and Jaguar began to sell cars thatwere exquisitely beautiful, but nightmarishly finicky andunreliable to operate. The conspirators believed that theAmerican roads, which, in the absence of an advancedpublic transport system, were so crucial to the running ofthe large nation, would grind to a halt as multitudes of Englishcars broke down and were left littering the surround-ing countryside. The inevitable economic collapse thatwould follow would weaken the nation so much that anarmy of English soldiers could march intoWashington andtake over the nation.Unfortunately, the English cars were so unreliable mostdidn’t make it past the docks. Once the Americans realizedwhat was happening they introduced safety regulations designedto bankrupt UK motor manufacturers. It worked!

BUNS AND HOT DOGS

One of the greatest conspiracies of the modern world isthe fact that hot dogs come in packets of ten and hotdog buns come only in packets of eight. This may soundtrivial, but when one starts to consider the marketing strategiesinvolved, the amount of money being dealt with isquite staggering. Here’s how it works.You buy a packet of hot dogs and then you buy a packetof buns. Now you have two spare hot dogs and must buyanother packet of buns to make up the difference. Now youhave six loose buns . . . and so on and so forth. The twocompanies must have been in cooperation for some timenow and have us all wrapped around their collective littlefingers. Innocuous as it all may sound, when you considerthe billions made by the two companies, it does make youwonder at what point they will strike collectively and takeover the world.

BRUCE LEE

Bruce Lee, dressed in the traditional Chinese outfit hewore in the movie Enter the Dragon, was laid to restin Lakeview Cemetery in Seattle on July 20, 1973. Butlong before his sudden and tragic death at the age of thirtytwo,rumors were rife throughout Asia that he had beendead for months. According to one source, Hong Kong Triadshad killed Lee because he had refused to pay them protectionmoney. Another claimed that he had been druggedby a former sensei who resented the fact that he taughtmartial arts to foreigners. Many Chinese people believethat Lee was the victim of his own rigorous training regime,while others cite drug abuse as the cause of his demise. Itis even claimed by some cynics that Lee faked his deathand that he is merely waiting for the right time to return tosociety.The most popular story printed in the Hong Kong presssuggested that the American Mafia had killed Lee. Aftercompleting the film The Green Hornet, Lee was approachedby Mafia agents who wanted him to become the first Asianstar in Hollywood. Bravely, Lee refused and returned hometo Hong Kong. In the aftermath, it is alleged that humiliated Mafia bosses signed Lee’s death warrant and hired a professionalassassin. An interesting postscript to this storyclaims that Lee’s son Brandon, also a martial arts actor, was“accidentally” shot dead after he had found vital informationabout his father’s killer.Perhaps the most outrageous theory regarding Lee’sdeath is that a prostitute killed him in a fit of panic. If thestory is to be believed, Lee had taken a powerful aphrodisiacwhich had caused him to become very violent duringsex. Fearing for her life, the prostitute reached out forthe nearest heavy object—a glass ashtray—and struck Leeon the skull. He would never wake from the resulting coma.Countless documentaries, books and magazines havepurported to tell the “true” story of Bruce Lee’s death. Asfar as the people of Hong Kong are concerned, the fullfacts surrounding Lee’s passing have never been revealed,and probably never will be.

THE BRITISH

Startling new evidence suggests that ever since the collapseof the North American empire, the British havesought to undermine and subvert the integrity of the U.S.On several occasions Britain has launched programs to regainits “lost colonies.” What perhaps is most telling is itsbehavior during the early ’60s, when it took advantage ofthe ever-increasing popularity of several musical venturesand formulated a grand scheme to corrupt the minds of theAmerican youth in order to gain economic and cultural superiorityover the nation. By means of careful marketing,British bands such as The Beatles, The Rolling Stones andThe Who took the U.S. by storm.Critics of this theory may reason that the effects of the“British Invasion” in the U.S. today are minimal. But perhapsmore telling is the British attitude towards those culturalicons who have acted as diplomats for the greatergood of the nation. This has included several knightings bythe Queen. Perhaps the British impact in the U.S. may remainundetected to this day.

BORMANN

The death of Adolf Hitler has always been cryptic andmany of the top Nazis are still unaccounted for. Thefate of Hitler’s deputy, Martin Bormann, is one of the unsolvedmysteries ofWorld War II, and, it would seem, hasprovided a role-model for Elvis Presley and Princess Diana.That said, he doesn’t seem to have made too gooda job of it and apparently he’s been seen everywherefrom Scandinavia to the Caribbean. And his body hasnever been found. While in 1972, a German court claimedto have found the skull of Bormann, some researchers saythat it was no more than a ploy to put the Nazi hunters welloff track.Evidence from British intelligence officers has pointedto the fact that Bormann may have come to Britain afterthe War. Having the authority to release all German fundsin Swiss banks, he was apparently brought to Britain andused by British intelligence to their advantage while beinghoused in a small village.More bizarrely, the scheme to rescue Bormann was, apparently,conducted by Ian Fleming who, upon retirementfrom the British Secret Service, became the creator of James Bond, who was to become the world’s most famoussecret agent.Nevertheless, there are problems regarding this theory,not least of all that everyone involved is dead; Bormannapparently having died in the early ’50s and Ian Fleming in1964, not having breathed a word about the whole Bormannaffair. But then, as the widow of one of Fleming’sfriends pointed out, “He maintained that you must neversay anything more than you are morally bound to say.”

BLACK HELICOPTER

On May 7, 1994, a black helicopter pursued a teenageboy for forty-five minutes in Harrahan, Louisiana. Itsexterior gave nothing away, bearing no mark of its originor owners. The boy was terrified not as much by the sinisternature of the vehicle itself, but by the threatening stanceof its occupants who had descended from the aircraft andpointed weapons at him. The boy has no idea to this daywhy the helicopter should have targeted him. The policechief was not forthcoming and intimated that the helicoptersbelonged to the American government, that in fact thematter was completely out of his hands.A week later, people traveling in a car near Washingtonwere given similar treatment. They too were chased, thehelicopter following the car for several miles. They werecompletely unable to help themselves at all; when the drivertried to escape from the road, a rope ladder was let downand men in black uniforms and carrying weapons started toclimb out. There was no option but to do as the men in theaircraft wanted. The driver counts himself lucky that thevolume of traffic forced the aircraft to retreat in the end, him if the road had been deserted.Then in 1995, a black helicopter flew over a couple’sfarm in Nevada. Spraying some unknown substance on thearea, it had killed over a dozen of the animals by the nextday, and months later, the surrounding vegetation was stillclearly damaged. Official authorities denied any knowledgeof the helicopter.Mysterious black helicopters seem to be constantly inevidence, pursuing and terrifying completely innocent victims.They often seem to have some link to cattle mutilationsand are seen in immediate proximity before, while orafter they have taken place. What is most alarming is thatthe occupants of the helicopters do not even pretend tohave peaceable intentions and are quite prepared to usegunfire and other violent means to their advantage, all thetime keeping their identity secret.The spraying of both urban and rural settings with unknownchemicals, and the killing of pets, plants and livestockfor no apparent reason is more ominous still. Whoknows whether the helicopters could be linked to the mysteriousmen in black, but people who have dared to photographthe helicopters have allegedly been accosted by menwearing black uniforms. They have then been told to leavethe area and have been forbidden to tell anyone what hashappened on pain of death. The men have also confiscatedthe cameras and film.Whether the mysterious helicopters and their occupantsare an alien phenomenon or whether they are in factfrom hostile government departments we cannot know.But it seems certain that they do not come in peace andthat they are not prepared to uphold fundamental democraticprinciples.

BLACK DEATH

The first millennium a.d. over, the developed Europeanworld set off for pastures new and embarked on amassive new program of exploration and expansion. Explorerstraveled far beyond the previously observed boundariesof Eastern Europe, and discovered new Easterncivilizations that not only had money but, in addition, weremore than willing to trade. After several centuries, however,things started to turn sour and several of these Easternnations grew discontented as they felt that their Westerntrade partners were taking advantage of them.So the leaders of India took the initiative and set intomotion a plan intended to all but annihilate the Europeannations. This became the first known case of biologicalwarfare. Rats infected with a local plague were put on theships of the European traders. The rats would then dispersethrough the port cities of the Mediterranean and as the Europeanswould have no tolerance at all to the disease thiswould wreak complete havoc. Once this had happened, theIndians would march an army to Europe, knowing thatthe time required to march the distance would allow theplague to spread throughout Europe destroying huge numbers of the population. Once Europe was weakened bythe plague, they could easily dominate and add vast newterritories to their kingdom.This plan only worked on one level. The Black Death,as it came to be called, certainly devastated entire nationsas millions succumbed to the plague. But the Indians couldnot organize the army required to take Europe and thustheir empire never spread.

BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING YOU

Have you ever felt that THEY are watching you? Haveyou ever felt as if you are in the hands of the authorities,the plaything of a conspiracy about which you knownothing and over which you have no control? Not wantingto cast aspersions, suspicions or doubts onto our governments,here are some facts which may make you feel everso slightly uncomfortable:• Surveillance devices now in the hands of governmentofficials include, according to MIT professor Gary Marx,“heat sensing imaging devices that can tell if a house isoccupied, voice amplifiers, light amplifiers, night visiondevices and techniques for reading mail without breakingthe seal.” Cameras can be concealed in virtually anypiece of furniture.• A major computer company is now marketing its “activebadge” to employers. Employees attach this tinygadget to their clothing and it gives out an emitting infraredbeat every fifteen seconds. The movement is thenpicked up by strategically placed sensors and processed through a central computer, which means that employeescan hide absolutely nothing from their bosses.• On a typical day, four thousand telephone calls arelegally recorded by authorities. How many calls are beingeavesdropped on illegally? In some countries, every internationalphone call is recorded and monitored. Monitoringdomestic calls is sometimes illegal, but with the(legal) development of microwave transmission, a hugenumber of long distance phone calls are now recorded.• In April 1995, Great Britain opened the world’s firstDNA database. By the year 2000, five million Britonswill have their genetic codes in the Home Office mastercomputer. Under the current law, the Home Office hasno right to anyone’s genetic code unless they are a convictedcriminal. The world of George Orwell’s 1984does not seem so far off, however, when the system canbe expanded to collect records from citizens who notonly haven’t been convicted, but who have had no criminaldealings at all.• The United States has the world’s most extensive systemof computer databases of personal information oncitizens. The information is collected for purposes rangingfrom monitoring criminals to credit reporting tomarket research. The types of personal information collectedon millions ofAmericans and stored in databasesinclude the impersonal basics, such as names and addresses,but also completely invade an individual’s privacyby storing such information as medical records,psychological profiles, drinking habits, political and religiousbeliefs.• Electronic espionage has now become so common thatfew people even see it as a problem. Many networkingsoftware packages have worker-monitoring features builtin as a matter of course. “Look in on Sue’s computerscreen,” exhorts one ad for a major networking package.“Sue doesn’t even know you’re there!” • According to a U.S. government study, the FBI’s databaseof criminal histories is totally incomplete and inaccurate.Thousands of Americans are at risk of falsearrest because of this.• The number of people on the records of the criminalinformation system in California exceeds California’spopulation.• Over the last ten years, the FBI and other organizationshave increased the amount of private mail theyopened, read and inspected tenfold.• The U.S. Customs Service plans a computer systemthat would classify incoming airline passengers as “highrisk” or “low risk” based on information supplied by theairlines. The purpose is supposedly to speed up lines atcustoms counters. “Americans are meant to be free people.There’re not supposed to be records made whenyou travel,” said a skeptical U.S. representative. “Theminute you get your name and birth date into a computerin Washington, watch out.”• It is a policy of the U.S. Navy to collect DNA sampleson all new recruits. Who knows how long it will be beforethey start genetically engineering perfect sailors?

BEAST OF BODMIN

Certain wildlife experts have admitted their fears insuggesting that a conspiracy at the highest level existsbehind the British government’s failure to admit the existenceof the Beast of Bodmin.A three-month study was carried out by top animal expertsfrom the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food,following complaints by local farmers. But the chairman ofthe National Register of Big Cat Sightings, Bob Engledow,believes that the study was inconclusive only because ofhidden motives.He says:“There was no way that there was a genuine study. It wasonly done for a very short time over a very limited area. Ifthey were genuinely looking they would have kept on for acouple of years right across the country. They obviouslywant to sweep up the queries as quickly as possible. I’mconfident there’s a cover-up by the government.”Government officials have denied these allegations. Arepresentative for the Ministry said in response:“We did it with the best experts available. We gave it ourbest shot. They weren’t just going on a scouting mission with an elephant gun and a pair of binoculars. They wentwhere there had been sightings and tracks found and unusuallivestock deaths. We analyzed pictures and videos.We didn’t do it as a great tracking-down exercise with greatnumbers of people sweeping the moor.”But Mr. Engledow said that it was in the government’sinterest not to find the beast.“I think the government is worried about paying compensationto farmers who have lost livestock. It would haveto pay because pumas and panthers escaped from captivityand the government should have caught them and not letthem breed.”He goes on to add that hundreds of detailed sightingsproved the big cats were loose in thirty-three counties. Moreover,if the government is not prepared to admit the existenceof the Beast of Bodmin, howcan we knowwhat it is or is nothiding about the likes of the Loch Ness monster?Of course, there is also the theory that the Beast of Bodminis an alien in cahoots with the government. It might bea trifle embarrassing for the authorities to admit this at thisstage, and might command a fundamental disrespect whichwould not stand them in terribly good stead at the next general election.

ARMY EXERCISES

Apparently, in recent years, Charlotte, North Carolina,has been victim to a terrifying series of military exercisesposing under the guise of urban combat training.The town’s inhabitants have been thrown into completepanic as gunfire and grenades have exploded in the dead ofnight. Hundreds of helicopters have come screeching downover residential areas, so low that they have rattled the windowsof buildings not to mention the nerves of the peopleinside.The police did not seem prepared to offer any reassuranceat all and simply met inquiries with the response that“operations were being performed.” The lighting conditionsand tall buildings meant that Charlotte was an ideallocation for the exercises to be carried out, unlike FortBragg, center of the U.S. Army’s Special Operations Command.And the fact that the area was thinly populated andcommercial meant that the setting was lifelike, without endangeringcivilians and soldiers. Or so the Army said.But these excuses came over as distinctly pathetic toCharlotte residents who made their views on the unannouncedexercises quite clear on local radio programs. As soon as the exercises began, Mayor Pat McCrory foundhimself inundated with telephone calls from citizens andstaff as he himself attempted to take some control of the situation.Shortly afterwards he expressed his “deep concern”over the exercises in a letter to then President Clinton.It turned out that the mayor was as much in the dark aboutthe whole program as anyone else. He had been given no detailsabout what would happen and the Army had simply ensuredthat they had his signature on the confidentialityagreement. Moreover, he was led to believe that there wouldbe serious consequences if their plans were revealed to thepublic. Despite this, they let him imagine that their work wascompletely routine, that they would be in and out and no onewould even know they were there.But it would seem that the Army lied by what they didnot say as much as what they did. Police Chief DennisNowicki of Charlotte-Mecklenburg was only given warningof the disruptions four hours before the start of the onslaught,and he was lucky to have been given any warningat all. He said “When you’re holding back information,you’re deceiving.” And according to Malachi Greene, oneof the city council members, “The city got hoodooed. . . .It’s a deliberate thing on the part of these guys.”The Charlotte exercises were only one instance in a regularseries of urban combat training exercises conductedby the Special Operations Command. Similar exerciseshave apparently been carried out in Pittsburgh, where ninehelicopters and two hundred troops stormed the areas ofMcKeesport, the Strip District and Brighton Heights.The harsh criticism from officials in the cities victim tothe Army’s exercises has not encouraged any willingnessamong the Special Operations Command to accept the wellbeingof local communities as something that needs to betaken into consideration. The military has, by law, the rightto conduct training exercises as it sees fit. But to repeatedlyignore the vehement complaints of those affected by it doespoint to a conspiratorial pattern.

AREA 51

For many years, speculation has gone on about whatreally takes place in a remote part of the Nevadadesert. It seems somewhat strange that such a large expanseof land can be used to hide anything at all frompublic view, but it seems almos t certain that something istaking place there that the public is not meant to knowabout.The official line has it that the area is a military testingrange. The only concrete information we have isgeographical—we know that it is to the north of Las Vegas.Beyond that, we enter into a whole web of cover-upand conspiracy. Few people know what really goes on.Curtained off by a no-fly zone, it seems well-nigh impossibleto glean any reliable information. The military seemsto go to quite excessive measures to prevent any hope ofentry. If the area is a military firing range, this is justifiable,but still, the entry prohibitions seem stringent to saythe least. The area is fenced off, the fence being guardedby hundreds of closed circuit security cameras worthy ofa modern-day Berlin Wall. Signs in the proximity warn that deadly force and violence is quite permissible to preventintruders. Someone seems very keen to keep otherpeople out. The roads surrounding the area are guarded bywhite vehicles bearing government plates. They are mannedby men wearing black uniforms who appear to be heavilyarmed. Moreover, the roads are full of movement sensorswhich transmit any movement on the roads. All this doesnot seem to point to a conventional firing range.And we just do not know what happens inside the area,because hardly anyone has been inside. All we know is thatthere is a large airbase which is not recorded on any map.Some intrepid explorers have risked their lives by photographingit from nearby hills and thus we do have photographicevidence of the airfield’s existence.One theory would have it that the area is a research centerfor investigating UFOs and for manufacturing the infamousblack helicopters. Certainly, UFOs would need to betaken somewhere for investigation, such as in the aftermathof the Roswell incident. Of course, the American governmentcould also be trying to reproduce the technologygleaned from the alien spacecraft here.Cynics can pour cold water on the case of UFOs, but thecase of black helicopters is indisputable. The Americangovernment’s most deadly weapons have, for a long time,been kept secret to hide them from the view of potentialenemies. Whatever the reason for the ominous black helicopters,it is quite clear that the public is deliberately keptin the dark about them.An even more disturbing possibility is that some formof alien life is being kept alive in the area, retrieved fromtheir spacecraft. Who knows what happened to the alienbodies after Roswell? If this is the case, it would seem thatthe authorities are sitting on a time bomb. The very fact thealiens have managed to come to Ea rth at all would suggestthat their technology is far superior to ours. Which would,in turn, suggest that we cannot expect them to be subservientforever. Who knows how long it will be before the secret of Area 51 is revealed to us as the aliens break out oftheir confined space? There is without doubt somethingthat we are not meant to see in there. The possibilities are horrifying.

ANTI BLACK

These days we like to believe that apartheid regimes donot exist in what we would call the developed world.But shocking stories of racial hatred abound from the areasof the world that we would think of as being most developed.It is in these areas that racism becomes most foreboding,because the technology is there to implement it.The possible manufacturing of AIDS is one manifestation,and possibly the most appalling one at that, but it is not theonly one.Many African-Americans believe that Charles Drew,the black Washington physician whose pioneering workwith blood plasma saved thousands of lives, died after acar accident because he was denied entry into a whitesonlyhospital. A man whose work has benefited medicinefor all races died because of racial prejudice.While incidents such as this are shocking, the one thingthat can be said in their favor is that they make no pretenseat what they are setting out to do. What perhaps is evenmore shocking are the reports of conspiracies with the solepurpose of wiping out the black population in America.Sales of Tropical Fantasy, a soft drink produced by a firm employing large numbers of ethnic minorities, fell dramaticallyafter mysterious leaflets appeared in black areaswarning that the drink was actually a product of the KuKlux Klan and that it contained chemicals to sterilize blackmen. Similar allegations arose over the Church’s FriedChicken chain and the Snapple soft drinks. While theAIDS virus has escalated out of all possible control, itwould seem that there are other, more small-scale projectstargeting the same victims.

ALIENS

Aliens are nearly always presented as harmless, ratherclueless little green men. It is only very rarely thatthe possibility is presented that their intentions may not beentirely laudable, even in the light of the fact that their victimshave all claimed to have been taken against their willand that they were completely powerless to protect themselvesfrom various assaults. It cannot be denied that kidnapping,molestation and even rape are atrocious, even ifthe acts are committed by extraterrestrial beings with differentsocial and moral codes from our own.What is perhaps most disturbing is the considerable evidencepointing to the fact that the Western world’s leadersare heavily involved with the aliens. This involvementwould appear first and foremost to be military, which isdisturbing at the best of times and, in non-wartime, downrightsinister. Witnesses testify to the fact that particularlyhigh numbers of UFOs are to be spotted around militarybases all over the world, that there are military centershidden underground all over the United States and thatsome people can even hear a disturbing buzzing sound inthe southwestern U.S., which can only be caused by some massive underground project. What could the governmentbe trying to hide? Why the need for massive security?Can we really doubt that governments are capable ofmaking a deal with an alien race? After all, why not allowthese foreign races to take animals and humans for experiments,genetic engineering or any other purpose in exchangefor technology going far beyond our own primitivescientific knowledge? Stories of abductions would suggestthat aliens and those who deal with them have provedthemselves to be far from trustworthy. Such actions arefrightening and point to nothing less than a malevolentconspiracy.Much UFO activity conveys a seemingly harmlessprogram under the guise of exploration. By acting out apretense of having no intention of domination, extraterrestrialsfeign what humans would term conscience, if aprimitive conscience, of good and evil. And moreover, theyare able to persuade our governments why they should workin cooperation together. They pile on the pathos and byclaiming to be a physically weakened race who merelyneed to join their genetic makeup with a more developedhuman DNA structure to survive, they present a convincingtale that they have escaped from a dying planet and needthe help of sympathetic foreigners. They thus manage tosatisfy the humanitarian instincts in governments.And so the saga continues and it would seem that we areheading towards inevitable catastrophe. Because as long asour governments continue in their naive gullibility, goingalong in their blindly altruistic beliefs that their deal with thealiens is mutually beneficial, the more leeway this givesthe aliens. It would seem that the fate of our entire race, not tomention our planet, is at stake here. World domination byan extraterrestrial people is not an entirely comfortable prospect.

AIDS

AIDS is quite possibly one of the most horrific developmentsthis past century. Millions of dollars are beingpoured into research and yet a cure still seems all butcompletely elusive. Gone are the days of carefree sex ’n’drugs ’n’ rock ’n’ roll, as the deadly virus does not seem tobe at all choosy in who it targets.Shocking as the whole phenomenon would be if this reallywas a natural plague, theory has it that the AIDS viruswas in fact artificially manufactured by the U.S. governmentto kill African-Americans and this is being takenvery seriously by the black community. Rumors are beingcirculated that the disease was developed to kill off the socalled“useless eaters” of the human race—blacks, homosexualsand drug users to be more precise. The Minister ofHealth for Louis Farrakhan’s Nation of Islam, Dr. AbdulAlim Muhammed, has called for a formal investigation. Inhis words:“We know from the Congressional Report that moneywas appropriated for the creation of artificial biologicalagents to defeat the human immune system. This tookplace in July of 1969. Ten million dollars was allocated to the U.S. army. So . . . let there be hearings to uncover thefiles.”Many African-Americans quote this experiment, whichtook place at Tuskegee as grounds for skepticism about thegovernment’s intentions. From 1932 to 1972 about fourhundred poor black men were used as guinea pigs as scientistsstudied the effects of syphilis left untreated. Andwhat’s more, as Thomas Blocker, Director of Health Professionsat Morehouse College says: “A number of peoplehave the idea that the re’s always the possibility that peoplewho are disadvantaged may be used as guinea pigs in termsof medicine.”We cannot know about the origins of AIDS. We do notknow whether the most lethal worldwide killer was born ofsome warped conspiracy in the name of population controlor scientific experiment. But they certainly succeeded if aconspiracy was at work. Perhaps they had not bargainedfor such dramatic results.

ABRAHAM LINCOLN

Abraham Lincoln was shot by John Wilkes Booth onApril 14, 1865. And questions surrounding the assassinationarose immediately. Was Booth solely responsiblefor the assassination? Or was he simply a tool in a muchlarger conspiracy?The vice president’s role in the whole mystery is unclearto say the least. About seven hours before the assassinationof the president, Booth stopped at the Washington hotel, residenceof Andrew Johnson, the vice president. Learning thatneither Johnson nor his private secretary were present,Booth wrote the following note: “Don’t wish to disturb you.Are you at home? J. Wilkes Booth.” Johnson’s private secretarytestified to the fact that he found the note later in the afternoon.So from this can we assume that Johnson andBooth knew each other?Many people thought that Johnson was involved withthe assassination, and a special Assassination Committeewas established to investigate any evidence linking him toLincoln’s death. Nothing suspicious was ever found by thecommittee, yet a belief that he was in some way involvedcontinued for many years. It certainly seems suspicious that Booth should have sought him out so shortly beforethe assassination.Of course, rather than having been controlled by someoneelse, Booth himself could have been in control of anumber of coconspirators who were then either hanged orimprisoned at Ft. Jefferson. Booth could have been defendingSouthern values of slavery and racism. The assassinationcould have been a rather more dramatic solution thanwas initially intended. Booth may have intended merely tokidnap the president and to demand pr isoners of war in return.The assassination could have been a simple step furtherwhen the kidnapping plans fell through.It would appear, according to a series of letters found inBooth’s possession, that he knew of a plot to blow up theWhite House. Certainly if this was the case, if the plot haddisintegrated, more daring and radical planning wouldhave been necessary in order to carry out the original objectivesof the conspirators. In this sense, perhaps the originalplot was far smaller in scale and the whole thing was areckless afterthought when original plans went wrong.Lincoln had made himself a considerable number ofenemies as a result of his financial policies. His Civil Warefforts had eaten into his financial resources but he had declinedhigh-interest offers of loans from European bankersled by the Rothschilds and had found other ways to fundthe war. More importantly, the British bankers opposedLincoln’s protectionist policies. Some Englishmen in the1860s believed that “British free trade, industrial monopolyand human slavery travel together.” Lincoln was thusviewed as a threat to the established order of things andwas possibly assassinated as a result.

911

The “War on Terror” is said to have begun on September11, 2001. But is it possible that the war began beforethis date? Some people point to U.S. governmentcomplicity in the events of 9/11, either by not doing enoughto prevent it, or—more ominously—by actively planningfor it. Whatever the truth may be, there is plenty of conjecturethat what happened on that day doesn’t add up to thepopular version of the events.What is not in dispute is that public support for the Waron Terror was far greater after these attacks than it wouldhave been on September 10, 2001. Could it be that the attackswere allowed to happen to create public clamor for awar that would otherwise have been inconceivable? Manypeople have pointed to the possibility that 9/11 was a cloneof Pearl Harbor, an attack on the U.S. that was deliberatelyallowed to take place in order to further the war aims of apresident. But a more sinister comparison has been madeby those skeptical of the motives of the Bush administration.They claim that what happened was more akin to AdolfHitler’s burning of the Reichstag, the German Republic’sparliament, on February 27, 1933. Hitler blamed the fire onCommunists plotting against the state. But historians widelyaccept the view that a member of the Prussian interiorministry set fire to the building deliberately, on Hitler’sorders. Immediately after the fire Hitler announced anemergency decree which suspended the normal civilianrights and liberties of citizens and gave the governmentenormous authority to impose order. This was the beginningof the end for democratic values and the rise of Nazidictatorship.On October 3, 2001 Congress approved Bush’s PatriotAct, a similar bill which reduced the civil liberties ofAmericans and allowed the detention without trial of anyonethe government deemed a potential “security threat.”Furthermore, the public and political pressure for retaliationfor the attacks was intense, and neatly tied into theagenda of the “Project for a New American Century.” Thiswas a strategic document put forward by a group of neoconservativesin September 2000 outlining a new strategyfor American global dominance in the twenty-first century.This think tank included Dick Cheney, the vice president;Donald Rumsfeld, secretary of defense; Paul Wolfowitz,his deputy; Jeb Bush, brother of George and governor ofFlorida; and Lewis Libby, the leader of Bush’s 2000 electioncampaign team now working in the White House.The most intriguing part of the document concerns thereadjustment of American forces across the globe. The reportstates that only an incremental approach can be takento this radical restructuring owing to political and publicconstraints, unless there was “some catastrophic and catalyzingevent like a new Pearl Harbor.”Despite all this, however, there is still the question ofhow such an elaborate attack could have been prepared andexecuted by the government and its agencies without themedia becoming deeply suspicious. The most likely explanationis that the attacks were planned by Osama binLaden and Al Qaeda but that U.S. intelligence agencies didnot act upon the information they received to adequatelyprevent them. Evidence of their failure, whether deliberate or through incompetence, has been widespread followingCongressional investigations but without any smoking gun.Furthermore, the CIA and New York City counterterrorismoffices were based in Building 7 of the World Trade Centerand were therefore destroyed, along with any potentiallyincriminating evidence.The suspicions about intelligence are just part of thegrowing mistrust about the events that day, which reverberatedright around the world. On the day of the attacks geologicalsurveys in NewYork recorded the greatest amountof seismic activity as occurring immediately before the TwinTowers collapsed, and not when they hit the ground. Thishas led many people to the conclusion that the towers wereblown up with explosives underneath the building and notby the enormous volume of fuel that ignited after the twoairliners exploded; a belief reinforced by the way the towersimploded inwards instead of collapsing sideways.The evidence at the Pentagon also raises profound questions.Why was the Pentagon hit on the one side of thebuilding that happened to be empty on the day of the attacksowing to refurbishment? Why was there no visibleevidence of a destroyed airliner among the debris? Whywere no fighter jets scrambled to intercept the hijacked aircraftuntil after the third plane had hit the Pentagon, despiteit being a legal requirement in the U.S. for fighter jetsto be scrambled whenever a commercial airliner veers significantlyoff its flight path? How was so much informationknown about the hijackers and released to the media by theFBI so soon after the attacks, including details on a passportmiraculously found among the rubble of the TwinTowers?These question marks raise serious doubts about the officialversion of what happened on September 11. Manyare cynical of the report published only a year prior to thatdate; a report which would revolutionize America’s role inthe world toward ultimate military, political and socialhegemony, but one which would require a catastrophicevent. These cynics cannot accept that the occurrence of just such an event can be no more than coincidence. Can italso be mere coincidence that those who authored the reportare responsible for failing to prevent the attack and forcoordinating their desired global response?