Top 10 People Shrouded in Controversy

Pejoratives are words or phrases that bring out contempt or distaste in the human psyche. The words elicit a specific emotional reaction in people. Some good examples include the words liberal, punk, hacker, fascist, extremist and conspiracy theorist. In the 20th century, the phrase conspiracy theory began to be used for any accusation that is fully unsupported by conclusive evidence and scientific fact. This includes any suggestion that does not follow the commonly accepted beliefs of society. In modern times, the world is full of people who have published books, and dedicated their life to the study of conspiracy. These individuals provide some interesting and bizarre claims. This article will examine ten conspiracy theories and the people who made them popular.

Conspiracy Theory: The alien agenda.

Phil Schneider stands out in the world of alien conspiracy. In 1995, Schneider began to give public conferences describing the history of human and alien interaction on the planet Earth. Many of his speeches given during 1995 can be viewed on YouTube. Phil claims that he was an ex-government structural engineer, who was put in charge of developing secret underground bases around the United States. He says that the United States has been aware of extraterrestrial life on Earth since the early 20th century, but has kept the evidence secret. In 1979, Schneider was involved with an underground project in New Mexico. He was the lead engineer in creating a large American base.

During the construction, the group of builders stumbled upon a large nest of huge Grey aliens. The workers became curious after their drill bit was being sabotaged. Phil Schneider describes a situation in which he traveled underground in a powered basket in order to check out the bizarre occurrence. Upon reaching the area, he was accosted by a huge Grey alien. Phil immediately pulled out his gun and shot the alien dead. In response, one of the creatures rubbed its stomach and emitted a deadly beam that completely removed three of Phil’s fingers, and his toe nails were blown off. Schneider’s life was saved by a military friend, who repelled the basket back to the surface of Earth. During the incident, Phil Schneider claims that 66 men died in an underground battle with the aliens.

He then continues to discuss the alien agenda. Schneider says that, in 1954, the U.S. government entered into a pact with three alien species. Since that time, the aliens have deceived high government officials and infiltrated the human population. Schneider claims that the New World Order is the same thing as the alien agenda, with the ultimate goal of world dominance. The alien agenda is the complete decimation of the human population and takeover of the planet by 2029. Phil says that there are nine alien species living underground and that they are hostile. The aliens see the human population as a bag of food. However, the creatures don’t eat the flesh of humans, but instead use our glandular secretions as a drug to get high.

Schneider says that several world governments are aware of the alien threat, and that they are actively fighting the creatures. He talks in length about a material called Corbamite, which Schneider says is element 140 on the periodic table. He claims the material is impregnable and that the technology was given to humans by a collection of friendly aliens, who are helping humanity fight. Phil has estimated that 28% of the United States budget is being spent on the creation of underground bases. He continues to mention a number of conspiracy theories, including the suggestion that the 1993 World Trade Center bombing in New York was produced by a nuclear explosion. On January 17, 1996, Phil Schneider was found dead in his apartment.

Conspiracy Theory: The implementation of Christian Zionism.

This entry is not about the former United States Presidents, but rather a different George Bush, who lived from 1796 to 1859. He is the great-grand uncle of George H. W. Bush. In the 19th century, George Bush was a prominent American biblical scholar, pastor, abolitionist and Christian Restorationist. Christian Restorationism is a movement with the goal of returning the Jewish population to the Holy Land. It was a popular theme in the 19th century. The idea includes a set of political and religious motivations for the habitation of Jews in the area around Israel. In the context, it is suggested that Jews shall achieve national independence in the Land of Israel, and return to Judea, as prophesied in the Bible. The book continues to discuss the Second Coming of Christ, which is an attitude known as Christian Zionism.

In 1844, George Bush, who was a professor of Hebrew at New York University, published a book titled The Dry Bones of Israel Revived. In the text he denounced “the thralldom and oppression which has so long ground them (the Jews) to the dust,” and called for the elevation of the Jews to a rank of honorable repute among the nations of Earth. The majority of controversy surrounding George Bush has come as the result of his first book, titled The Life of Mohammed: Founder of the Religion of Islam, and of the Empire of the Saracens. The book was the first American biography written on Muhammad. In the text, George Bush refers to Muhammad as “a remarkable man” and “irresistibly attractive.” However, for the most part, he questions everything about Muhammad’s life and the history of Islam.

The book takes a dim view of the state of Christianity during Muhammad’s age. The Life of Mohammed by George Bush has been out of print for a long time. In 2004, clerics at Egypt’s Al Azhar University obtained a copy of the book. They were appalled by the text. Riots began in Egypt, and the state department was forced to put out a notice indicating that the book had not been written by the then current U.S. President Bush, and “has nothing to do with the attitudes of President Bush, who is respectful of Islam as one of the world’s great religions.” Towards the end of his life, the 19th century George Bush became a strong advocate for The New Church (or Swedenborgianism), which is based on the ideas of Emanuel Swedenborg, and is connected to freemasonry.

Conspiracy Theory: Teleportation and the existence of life on Mars.

Andrew Basiago is a conspiracy theorist. He is the inspiration behind a large number of bizarre accusations and claims regarding teleportation and the existence of life on Mars. Basiago has stated that, in the late 1960s, he participated in a secret United States program that examined the concept of time travel using a machine that was developed by the Serbian inventor Nikola Tesla. Basiago has claimed that he was chosen and trained to become one of America’s first time travelers. He has suggested that the United States government has achieved quantum access to past and future events. According to Andrew, he was sent back in time to watch the Gettysburg Address, and his presence was captured in a photograph.

In his most controversial suggestion, Basiago claims that, in 1971, he was sent to the year 2013 in order to view the U.S. Supreme Court building. He describes it as being totally underwater and covered with algae due to the events of 2012. He then talks in length about the Denver International Airport conspiracy theory. Basiago is probably most well known for his 2008 paper, The Discovery of Life on Mars, in which he attempts to prove that Mars in an inhabited planet. After publishing the paper, Basiago founded the Mars Anomaly Research Society (MARS). The possibility of life on Mars remains an open question in the scientific world. Evidence has been discovered that water could exist on Mars. In 2003, it was revealed that Mars has methane in its atmosphere. Methane is an unstable gas, so its presence indicates an active source.

In February 2005, it was announced that the Planetary Fourier Spectrometer (PFS) on the European Space Agency’s Mars Express Orbiter, detected traces of formaldehyde in the atmosphere of Mars. It has been speculated that the formaldehyde could be the byproduct of the oxidation of methane and could provide evidence that Mars is either extremely geologically active or harboring colonies of microbial life. These facts are interesting. However, Andrew Basiago has suggested a government cover-up in order to hide evidence that Mars is inhabited by a wide variety of humanoid and alien creatures. Basiago has claimed that NASA photograph PIA10214 shows evidence of life on Mars. For this reason, the image has become highly controversial.

PIA10214 was taken in November of 2007, by the Mars Exploration Rover Spirit. The picture shows a westward view of the West Valley of the Columbia Basin in the Gusev Crater of Mars. The image captured a large portion of the Martian landscape in panorama view. After examination of the photograph, Basiago has claimed that a large collection of bizarre organisms are visible. The most famous is a humanoid looking creature that has since become known as the Martian Bigfoot. Baslago claims that the picture shows evidence of humanoid beings, animal species, carved statues, built structures and dead bodies. He has suggested a large number of strange findings in the picture, including a collection of people in blue jumpsuits, huge ground worms and human-like insects.

Conspiracy Theory: The resurrection of the dead.

Why People Believe Weird Things is a book that was written by Michael Shermer and published in 1997. In the text, Shermer explores the psychology of scholars who have given up their careers in order to pursue paranormal beliefs. Shermer suggests that smart people can be more susceptible to believing in weird things. In part 5 of the book, he discusses Voltaire’s character Pangloss, and relates his personality to a man named Frank J. Tipler, who is a mathematical physicist. Shermer does this in order to show how intelligent people can deceive themselves. Frank J. Tipler is a physicist and cosmologist employed in the Department of Mathematics and Physics at Tulane University.

He has authored books and papers on a hypothesis called the Omega Point, which he claims is a mechanism for the resurrection of the dead. Frank Tipler is also an advocate for intelligent design, which is a concept that “certain features of the universe and of living things are best explained by an intelligent cause, not an undirected process such as natural selection.” The Omega Point is a term used to describe a cosmological state in the distant proper time future of the universe. Tipler has suggested that a future society will be able to resurrect the dead by perfectly emulating the entire multiverse sequence from the Big Bang.

He identifies the Omega Point singularity as God, citing the views and characteristics attributed to God by most all of the traditional religions. Critics of the Omega Point say its arguments violate the Copernican principle. Many feel the hypothesis doesn’t apply to the laws of probability. As you would expect, the idea of resurrection has been labeled pseudoscience. In the magazine Nature, George Ellis described Tipler’s book on the Omega Point as “a masterpiece of pseudoscience … the product of a fertile and creative imagination.” In his later publications, Frank J. Tipler has put forth a theory of everything using the Omega Point and a Standard Model of subatomic particles. He remains a controversial figure in the world of science.

Conspiracy Theory: The 1999 Russian bombings.

Alexander Litvinenko was an officer who served in the Soviet KGB. After the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, the internal security agency of Russia became known as the Federal Security Service (FSB). In November of 1998, Alexander Litvinenko and several other FSB officers publicly accused their superiors of ordering the assassination of Russian tycoon Boris Berezovsky. The following year, Litvinenko was arrested on charges of exceeding his authority at work. He was acquitted, but eventually forced to flee Russia. Alexander became part of a group of exiles known as the London Circle, including Akhmed Zakayev, Alex Goldfarb and Boris Berezovsky. Alexander Litvinenko settled in London and, in 2002, published a book titled Blowing up Russia: Terror from Within.

The text alleges that the Russian apartment bombings and other September 1999 terrorist acts were committed by the Federal Security Service. It accuses the Russian government of creating a false flag operation intended to justify the Second Chechen War and in order to bring Vladimir Putin to power. After a Russian investigation into the 1999 terrorist activity, it was determined that the attacks were ordered by Muslim terrorists Ibn Al-Khattab and Abu Omar al-Saif. A Russian man named Achemez Gochiyayev was implicated in organizing the terrorist activity. Gochiyayev claimed that he was framed by an FSB officer, who asked him to rent the basements at four separate locations where the bombs were later detonated. Achemez Gochiyayev remains a wanted fugitive.

After the release of Litvinenko’s book, the Russian Interior Ministry seized many copies of the text. In response to this action, the authors granted the right to distribute the book in Russia to “anybody who wishes”, free of charge. In 2006, Alexander Litvinenko published another book titled Lubyanka Criminal Group. In the book, it is claimed that Russian president, Vladimir Putin, and other FSB officers have been involved in organized crime, including several political murders and drug trafficking from Afghanistan. Upon release, the text was withdrawn from sales in Russia by request from the FSB. The International Foundation for Civil Liberties responded with the quote, “By banning this book for the first time since the Soviet times, FSB threw down a challenge to the society.”

In Lubyanka Criminal Group, Alexander Litvinenko writes about ordered assassinations and criminal activity on part of the FSB. On November 1, 2006, while living in London, Litvinenko fell ill and was hospitalized in what was diagnosed as a case of poisoning by radioactive polonium-210. He died on November 23. The British investigation into his death has suggested that a Russian man named Andrey Lugovoy is responsible. Lugovoy remains at large. The Russian government has denied all accusations in the books of Alexander Litvinenko and accused him of creating a conspiracy against Vladimir Putin. The same has been said for the follow up text written by Alexander Goldfarb titled Death of a Dissident: The Poisoning of Alexander Litvinenko and the Return of the KGB.

Conspiracy Theory: The existence of aliens and unexplained flying objects.

Bob Lazar is a man who claims he once was a physicist at S-4 (Sector Four), located near Groom Lake, Nevada, next to Area 51. According to Lazar, S-4 serves as a hidden military base for the study of aliens and the reverse engineering of extraterrestrial flying saucers. In November of 1989, Bob Lazar gave an interview to an investigative journalist named George Knapp. In the footage Bob discusses Sector Four. He mentions unexplained aircraft and their method for propulsion. Lazar claims that the atomic Element 115 can serve as a nuclear fuel. Element 115 (nicknamed Ununpentium) reportedly provides an energy source that will produce anti-gravity effects under proton bombardment, along with antimatter for energy production.

These claims are actually the most interesting aspect of Bob Lazar’s interview, because Element 115, Ununpentium, wasn’t discovered until 2003, which is fourteen years after Lazar mentioned it. Bob Lazar claimed that if you amplify the nucleus of Element 115, the resulting large-scale gravitational effect can distort the space-time continuum and shorten the distance traveled. Bob claims that he was given an introductory briefing describing the history of extraterrestrial beings on Earth for the past 100,000 years. The beings originate from the Zeta Reticuli 1 and 2 star systems, and are therefore referred to as Zeta Reticulians, popularly called Greys. Bob Lazar has stated that he has college degrees from the California Institute of Technology and Massachusetts Institute of Technology. In 1990, he pled guilty to felony pandering charges and declared bankruptcy.

In 1993, the Los Angeles Times conducted research into Bob Lazar’s background and found that there was no evidence to support his claims of schooling. In the year 2000, Lazar started United Nuclear, an amateur scientific supply company operated in Laingsburg, MI.

John Lear is a conspiracy theorist. Lear is a skilled and experienced American pilot who has operated over 160 different types of aircraft. His father is Bill Lear, who was the founder of the Lear Jet Corporation, a manufacturer of business jets. John Lear has many theories, but we will examine only a few. He believes that the U.S. government is hiding the existence of numerous alien species. Lear claims that the creatures are living underground on Earth in secret bases. He continues to suggest that there are over 150,000 of these aliens under New York alone.

John Lear says that the aliens regularly hunt, abduct and eat thousands of humans every year, with the majority being children. He introduces a stance on the statistics of child abduction in the United States, which is actually quite shocking. Approximately 850,000 people are reported missing in the U.S. every year. This is one individual every 40 seconds. A huge percentage of these reports are missing children. Some of John Lear’s most talked about conspiracy theories are related to September 11, 2001. He has suggested that it would be impossible for the most skilled pilot to crash a Boeing 767 directly into the World Trade Center. His ideas have been highly contended and John Lear’s Wikipedia page has been removed because of his views.

Conspiracy Theory: AIDS is a man-made biological weapon.

Dr. William Campbell Douglas II is a man who publishes a newsletter titled Daily Dose. The ideas presented in his writing are extremely controversial. William Douglas refers to himself as “the conscience of modern medicine.” Let’s examine some of his most famous suggestions. William Douglas has written that the modern day cancer treatments are harmful. He says that the drugs used in chemotherapy are “ineffective” and “unacceptably toxic.” Douglas claims that mammograms are not good. He has suggested that they are causing the mass disfigurement of American woman, while not reducing the spread of breast cancer.

William Douglas has written that the current test for prostate cancer is practically worthless, and can lead to impotence, loss of urinary control and surgical complications. He is against biopsies for cancer detection and says the government is hiding a non-invasive screening method. Douglas challenges the mainstream belief that skin cancer is caused by sun exposure. He doesn’t like Brita water filters and has some harsh words for vegetarians. William Douglas has said that fiber in your diet is useless and that coffee is a natural miracle. He has frequently discussed the healthy aspects of cigarettes, and suggested that the world population is experiencing an unexplained outbreak of lung cancer in non-smokers.

William Douglas has written about the chemical compound Dimethyl sulfoxide, claiming the substance has painkiller properties that are being suppressed from release. He has attacked the drug Gardasil. Gardasil is a vaccine that was approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) on June 8, 2006, for use in the prevention of certain types of human papillomavirus (HPV). The drug has been riddled with complaints and been connected with a series of unexplained deaths. As of February 2009, 40 million doses of Gardasil have been distributed worldwide. In 2007, medical groups, politicians and parents began to complain after the drug’s manufacturer began a campaign to get state legislatures to require 11 and 12-year-old girls to get a three-dose vaccine of Gardasil as a requirement for school attendance.

The governor of Texas, Rick Perry, issued an executive order mandating the use of Gardasil in children, which was later overturned by the Texas legislature. In 2003, William Campbell Douglas published a book titled AIDS and Biological Warfare. In the text he claims that AIDS is a man-made biological weapon. He has suggested that following the expansion of the virus, a smoke screen of misinformation was developed in order to cloud the issue. William Douglas is a controversial character and his ideas are not supported by medicine or science. Many feel he is taking advantage of people with cancer and looking to profit on absurd claims.

Conspiracy Theory: The New World Order.

John Coleman is an author and analyst of world affairs. He claims to have been a British Intelligence Officer for MI6. Coleman has published a large collection of books that examine controversial topics. He argues that a small collection of people, whom he calls The Committee of 300, constitute the world’s ruling elite. Coleman has suggested that the group is attempting to form one-world government, or a New World Order. In the text, The Committee of 300 (The Olympians) is a group founded by the British aristocracy, in 1727. The goal of the organization is to influence politics, commerce, banking, media and the military, for centralized global purposes. Coleman has suggested the group is possibly headed by the Rothschild family of international financiers and a collection of Royal Families.

John Coleman argues that the Muslim Brotherhood is a secret Masonic order created with support from T. E. Lawrence, Bertrand Russell and St. John Philby, to “keep the Middle East backward so its natural resource, oil, could continue to be looted.” The Society of the Muslim Brothers is the largest political opposition organization in many Arab states. At various times in history, the group has used violence and been banned in Egypt for attempting to overthrow Cairo’s secular government. Since the 1970s, the Egyptian Brotherhood has disavowed violence and sought to participate in Egyptian politics. In 2011, the Brotherhood took an active part in the Egyptian Revolution. Afterwards, the Muslim Brotherhood announced it would set up the Freedom and Justice Party to contest post-revolutionary parliamentary elections.

John Coleman has criticized a large collection of private organizations, including the Club of Rome, the Giorgio Cini Foundation, the Interreligious Peace Colloquium and the Tavistock Institute. The Club of Rome is “a group of world citizens, sharing a common concern for the future of humanity.” The organization consists of current and former Heads of State, UN bureaucrats, high-level politicians and government officials, diplomats, scientists, economists and business leaders from around the globe. In 1972, the Club of Rome raised considerable public attention with a report titled The Limits to Growth. In the paper, five variables are examined to predict exponential growth. It concludes that humanity will experience an economic and social collapse in the 21st century. Upon the papers release, a large collection of economists, scientists and political figures labeled the text rhetoric, with insufficient evidence.

Conspiracy Theory: The existence of aliens and free energy suppression.

Gary McKinnon is a Scottish systems administrator and hacker, who has been accused of what the United States claims is the “biggest military computer hack of all time.” McKinnon has been accused of hacking into 97 United States military and NASA computers over a 13-month period between February 2001 and March 2002, using the name Solo. The compromised networks are owned and operated by NASA, the U.S. Army, U.S. Navy, Department of Defense and the U.S. Air Force. Gary McKinnon has been accused of deleting critical files from the operating systems, which subsequently shut down the U.S. Army’s Military District network of 2,000 computers for 24 hours. He has also been accused of deleting U.S. Navy Weapons logs.

Gary McKinnon has denied the charges, arguing that he was only searching for evidence of free energy suppression and a cover-up of UFO activity. Gary claims that he found evidence indicating that the U.S. government has been hiding information regarding extraterrestrial life and free energy. He has indicated in many interviews that it was easy for him break into the U.S. governments highly secure networks. He accomplished this by writing a Perl script that tied together people’s programs and searched for blank passwords. This enabled him to scan 65,000 machines in just over eight minutes. He looked for computers with a high ranking status and if the system didn’t have a password, McKinnon was able to hack the default and gain access.

Gary claims that during his time in the network, he identified multiple IP addresses that were hacking into the U.S. system. He discovered a group called the Disclosure Project, which he suggests is a collection of 400 expert witnesses that have identified UFO activity. McKinnon says that he read documents indicating that there is alien technology and that it has allowed scientist to create anti-gravity devices and free energy. He claims that the U.S. government has captured a spacecraft and reverse-engineered it. McKinnon said he discovered that NASA regularly airbrushes unexplained aircraft out of high resolution satellite imagery.

Gary found evidence of a file named “Non-terrestrial officers” and described off-world cargo operations in space. Since 2002, Gary McKinnon has been banned from using a computer with access to the Internet. In late 2005, the United States began an extradition process against McKinnon. On July 20, 2010, President Barack Obama and Prime Minister David Cameron said that they have discussed the Gary McKinnon issue and are working to find an appropriate solution. If he is extradited to the United States and charged, Gary could face up to 70 years in prison. Many people feel that Gary McKinnon discovered a large collection of secrets that he has not announced to the press.

Conspiracy Theory: The Soviet Union and the CIA.

Anatoliy Golitsyn is a Soviet KGB defector and author of two books about the long-term deception strategy of the KGB leadership. During his time in the Soviet Union, Golitsyn worked in the strategic planning department of the KGB with the rank of Major. On December 15, 1961, under the name Ivan Klimov, Golitsyn defected with his wife and daughter to the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) via Helsinki, Finland. Upon arrival he was interviewed by CIA counter-intelligence director James Jesus Angleton. Golitsyn provided information on many famous Soviet double agents including Kim Philby, Donald Duart Maclean, Guy Burgess and John Vassall. He claimed that Harold Wilson (then Prime Minister of the United Kingdom) was a KGB informer and agent of influence.

Golitsyn accused the KGB of killing British politician Hugh Gaitskell, so Harold Wilson could take over the Labour Party. Anatoliy Golitsyn successfully convinced CIA director James Angleton that the CIA had been infiltrated by numerous KGB agents. Golitsyn claimed that the KGB was using a campaign to learn how the CIA analyzed information, which was then used to manipulate America into helping the Soviet Union in its objectives. In response to this, James Angleton suspended the careers of multiple CIA officers who were under suspicion. Under most circumstances, the FBI and CIA did not support James Angleton or Anatoliy Galitsyn. In a notable account, Anatoliy Golitsyn suggested that the Sino-Soviet split was a deception plan to push America into the Vietnam War.

James Angleton went so far as to speculate that U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger might be under KGB influence. In response to Angleton’s actions, a man named William Colby was put in charge of reorganizing the CIA. He officially relinquished the influence of Angleton and Galitsyn. James Angleton accused numerous foreign leaders of being Soviet spies. This includes Canadian Prime Ministers Lester Pearson and Pierre Trudeau, Swedish Prime Minister Olof Palme, West German Chancellor Willy Brandt, UK Prime Minister Harold Wilson and members of the United States Congress. James Angleton’s resignation was announced on Christmas Eve of 1975.

In 1984, Anatoliy Golitsyn published a book titled New Lies for Old. The text describes a series of predictions about the future of world governments. In the text, Golitsyn predicts the collapse of the communist bloc. He warns about a long-term deception strategy designed to lull the West into a false sense of security, with the result being an economic crippling and diplomatic isolation of the United States. The book claims that “as early as 1959, the KGB was working up a plot to manipulate foreign public opinion on a global scale.” In an interesting twist, a large collection of the predictions made in Anatoliy Golitsyn’s book have become historically accurate.

Art Bell is an American broadcaster. He is known primarily as one of the founders and the original host of the paranormal-themed radio program Coast to Coast AM. On September 11, 1997, Art Bell received a call from a frantic person during an Area 51 themed program. The caller gives a disturbing message before the show is cut off the air due to “satellite failure.” “I am a former employee of Area 51 that was let go on medical discharge a week ago. I have been running across the country and I don’t know where to start. They’re going to triangulate on this position really soon.” Art jumps in, “so you can’t spend a lot of time on the phone, give us something quick.” “Ok, what we are thinking of as aliens Art, they’re extra-dimensional beings that an earlier precursor of the space program made contact with.

They are not what they claim to be. They have infiltrated a lot of aspects of the military establishment, particularly the Area 51. The disasters that are coming, the military, I am sorry, the government knows about them. There are a lot of safe areas in this world and we could start moving the population, but they are not. They want the major population centers wiped out, so that the few that are left will be easier to control.” The call is lost after this statement. The audio recording is chilling. The man’s voice is clearly distraught and he sobs during the conversation. He is a great actor and this is an incredible hoax.