The world of alien conspiracies is an improbably complex one. It's filled with weird personalities, unexplainable events, half-remembered government secrets, and countless races of alien visitors, all with their own agendas.
Roswell
So, let's start with arguably the grand-daddy of UFO conspiracy events: the supposed Roswell UFO incident. In 1947, the Roswell Air Force Base issued a press release saying that they'd found a mysterious metallic disc on a nearby ranch. The press was, of course, intrigued, but the base quickly changed their wording slightly: they'd found what appeared to be the remnants of a weather balloon.
The change was not quick enough, of course: the local papers ran giant headlines saying that the air force had recovered a crashed alien spaceship. And in the years since, that story has stuck, as accounts surfaced from employees at the base that include multiple crash sites, massive cover-ups, and even a reported alien autopsy (a film released in 1995 purported to depict the actual autopsy, but it its creator admitted that "most" of the footage was fake, thereby sort of discrediting all of the footage).
Die-hards still stand by these scant accounts of fishy dealings at Roswell. The supposed cover-up has permeated public perception of the base, leading to a Star Trek plot, a Futurama episode, and even an entire TV series, among many others. It also launched a veritable squadron of alien conspiracies. Some still believe that the spaceship remnants and alien bodies have been squirreled away in some sort of secret military enclave.
Area 51
And Area 51 might just be that military enclave. The actual base has
long been a very closely-guarded secret, including wide "trespassers will
be shot" stretches around the base itself and a large no-fly zone
surrounding it.
According to
conspiracy theorists, what we can see of Area 51 is just the tip of the
paranoid iceberg. The base allegedly features elaborate underground labs,
hidden tunnels, a dedicated extra-terrestrial runway that can disappear and
reappear, and research programs dedicated to reverse-engineering alien technology.
In one particularly
colorful and alluring detail, two different alleged former Area 51 employees
reported working side-by-side with an alien being named "J-Rod" on
cloning alien viruses and on a telepathic translator device (it's funnier if
you imagine J-Rod as Jar-Jar; I'd watch that movie).
And the mystery of
Area 51 is still only one example of the vast network of supposed government
cover-up of alien contact.
Project Blue Book and the Majestic 12
The government has
been relatively transparent with Project
Blue Book.
It was an endeavor for the US government to catalog and examine every instance
of supposed alien contact, visitation, and spacecraft reported to them. The project
spanned years (and many incarnations), and its official result was that there
existed no substantial evidence that these incidents were the result of alien
visitation.
But that didn't stop
conspiracy theorists. In addition to challenging the rigor of the study, some
"experts" on the subject stand by the claim that Blue Book became a
distraction and cover-up from the reality of alien visitation, which included a
top secret international squad called Majestic
12
to perpetrate the elaborate smoke-screen. Amongst the alleged weaponry of this
massive cover-up are disinformation campaigns, character assassination, and
elaborate webs of government lies.
Another weapon in the
cover-up arsenal is the network of supposed Men
in Black
responsible for doing the actual dirty work. You've seen them in Will
Smith movies
and on the X-Files, but die-hard alien conspiracy
theorists claim they're everywhere, as CIA agents, or as shape-shifting aliens,
or even inter-dimensional beings. Some even report encounters with these men in
black (like the account in the video above), and some say they have the smashed
cameras and bruises to prove it.
But WHY would the
government try to cover up alien invasions? Just what are they hiding?
The Reptilians
The cover-up might
just be so that world leaders can hide
their true reptilian nature. Conspiracy theorist (and very creative thinker) David
Icke
is the man primarily responsible for the paranoia about secret shape-shifting
reptile-like aliens invading Slithered-style and replacing
high-ranking political leaders. There are countless
videos
and images all over the internet purporting to depict these reptilians slipping
and revealing their true selves.
One of my favorite
details about Icke's worldview is that of the Red Dresses. These are
personality-less software constructs of the reptilian invaders installed at
high rank to facilitate the aliens' plans. This particular theory is what leads
to stunning images like the one above, which reveals a few of the "red
dresses" in their true form.
Another proponent of
this reptilian-invasion worldview recently gained a bit of notoriety when
discussing her own version of the conspiracy. Her name is Colleen Thomas, and she
wants to warn us all
of the impending shadow-government dirty bombing and a Draconian-Reptilian
invasion.
These reptilian
usurpers and shape-shifters are supposed to have been around for millennia,
manipulating all of human history for their own gain. But Icke and his
reptilian cronies aren't the first to propose alien invasions in ancient
history.