Sandy Hook
On December 14, 2012, Adam Lanza walked into Sandy Hook Elementary school in Newton, Connecticut and slaughtered 20 young students and 6 adults. The children were no older than 8! Soon after, the conspiracy theories started to fly.
Alex Jones, founder and on-air personality of InfoWars, is probably the most despicable person on the planet. He called Sandy Hook a hoax and that the victims were “crisis actors” whose sole purpose was to promote gun control restrictions. He has repeatedly accused Sandy Hook families of faking their family member’s deaths. He is currently being sued for defamation by nine Sandy Hook families and one FBI agent. The suits followed an incident when Lucy Richards sent death threats to Leonard Pozner, father of 6 y/o Sandy Hook victim Noah. Ms. Richards has since plead guilty and was sentenced to five months in federal prison. All social platforms have barred InfoWars for hate speech, but his website and podcasts still exist.
It should be noted that Donald Trump, a major supporter of the Birther Movement, appeared on InfoWars with Alex Jones and told Alex,
“Your reputation is amazing. I will not let you down.”
When Pozner succeeded in getting a Jones video off of YouTube, Jones responded by showing in a video, Pozner’s personal information and maps and directions to his house. Pozner has had to move seven times, and is currently living in hiding.
Let that sink in for a minute.
Pizzagate
On December 4, 2016, Edgar Maddison Welch, a 28-year-old man from Salisbury, North
Carolina, stormed into Comet Ping Pong Pizza Parlor in Washington, D.C. He fired three shots in the restaurant with an AR-15-style rifle, striking walls, a desk, and a door.
It started like this: After Hillary Clinton’s campaign manager, John Podesta, had his emails hacked and published by Wikileaks, a conspiracy theory showed up on Reddit and was subsequently repeated on Jones’ InfoWars. It claimed that Clinton and Podesta were operating a child sex ring in the basement of Comet Ping Pong.
Two problems: it’s a lie, and Comet Ping Pong doesn’t have a basement.
The restaurant’s owner, James Alefantis told The New York Times:
“From this insane, fabricated conspiracy theory, we’ve come under constant assault. I’ve done nothing for days but try to clean this up and protect my staff and friends from being terrorized.”
On December 13, 2016, Welch was charged with one count of “interstate transportation of a firearm with intent to commit an offense” (a federal crime). According to court documents,Welch attempted to recruit friends three days before the attack by urging them to watch a YouTube video about the conspiracy. He was subsequently charged with two additional offenses, with the grand jury returning an indictment charging Welch with assault with a dangerous weapon and possession of a firearm during the commission of a crime.
U.S. District Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson sentenced Welch to four years in prison.
The good thing: nobody was injured.
The bad thing: 46% of Trump supporters STILL believe the conspiracy theory is true.
On January 12, 2017, Yusif Lee Jones, a 52-year-old man from Shreveport, Louisiana, pleaded guilty in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Louisiana to making a threatening phone call three days after Welch’s attack, to Besta Pizza, another pizzeria on the same block as Comet Ping Pong. He said that he threatened Besta to “save the kids” and “finish what the other guy didn’t.”
By the way, this conspiracy theory was re-tweeted by Michael Flynn Jr. son of, you guessed it, former National Security Adviser and lying to FBI Michael Flynn.
NASA admitted to dosing Americans with airborne lithium, aka chemtrails
I actually have contact with someone who believes this conspiracy theory. It goes like this: We are friends on Facebook. I actually know this person and used to work with the person. I will not reveal their name.
I’ve noticed on my News Feed that this person has started posting conspiracy theories. A particular post was a link to CNN and titled, Dimming the Sun: the answer to global warming?
This seemed innocuous enough if it weren’t for the fact that, preceding the link was a forward comment by my friend. It said,
“I haven’t seen the sunlight in three weeks!! After the first week of constant spraying everyone around me including myself gets the flu/respiratory issues or cold whatever..! After digging for answers my research suggests they are vaccinating us from the sky! Real talk!! Finally yesterday we get some sun! Next thing I know I watch the whole blue sky turn white in a matter of a couple hours. My question is why are we normalizing this?! I do not consent to this and neither should any of us! The chemtrail’s NASA is spraying has toxic ingredients including aluminum which causes early Alzheimer’s.”
In addition to the comment and link, this person uploaded a video taken with a cell phone. The object of the video was a view of the sky with about four contrails and some cirrus clouds. The sun is brightly visible and backlights the clouds. You could hear the person talking and saying, “No one’s seeing this shit?” This person was obviously claiming that these were chemtrails.
I had to weigh in.
I spent four years in the Air Force as a weather technician, observer and forecaster’s assistant. In school, I was taught to identify the 27 States of Sky and how to report them in the required hourly weather observation reports. This data is available to any forecast center here in the U.S. or globally. This information is used in drawing a weather surface map with highs, lows, frontal boundaries and isobars contours. We were also required to report any contrails observed.
Contrail is short for condensation trail and is caused by the exhaust of a jet engine. They are typically formed at higher altitudes, 28,000 to 38,000 feet. These supposed chemtrails are in the ionosphere, the upper layer of the atmosphere which starts at 50 miles up to 200 miles.
I described my USAF career and emphatically asserted that
“Those are contrails.”, and that “I know of what I speak.”
That had no effect. In the thread of comments, I was told by this person and one other that contrails only last a minute or two. I responded, “You are wrong.” with a link to the NAOO website clearly stating that they can last 4-6 hours. My Air Force career was also subtly mocked when I was called “Air Force guy!”
I included a link to Factcheck debunking the theory. Click here to see it.
Another item in the original forward of this post was:
“…my research suggests they are vaccinating us from the sky!”
Vaccinating? And away we go.
I commented that vaccines are effective and that the CDC has affirmed that there is NO empirical evidence that the MMR vaccine causes autism. That started another storm of attacks, and I was told to watch the movie Vaxxed, which I did watch awhile back.
I also read two scathing critiques on it; one from The Immunisation Advisory Center debunking the movie and totally discrediting Andrew Wakefield, the man behind Vaxxed.
Sadly, none of the links I posted debunking all of this had any effect. Even the link to a study verified by Psychology Today, titled; Why Do People Believe in Conspiracy Theories?
In a nutshell, The researchers found that reasons for believing in conspiracy theories can be grouped into three categories:
- The desire for understanding and certainty
- The desire for control and security
- The desire to maintain a positive self-image
Sadly, this study concluded that dissuading someone to give up their belief in a conspiracy theory would be unsuccessful. Unsuccessful because you are arguing facts against someone’s sense of security.
In June of 2014, NPR reported that research from the University of Chicago indicates that at least 50 percent of Americans believe in at least one conspiracy theory. WOW and SMH
I finally threw up my hands and ended the thread with this statement:
“I’m going to add one last comment to this thread then no more.
The eminent Astrophysicist Dr. Carl Sagan, the creator of the award winning PBS TV series Cosmos and collaborator on NASA’s Voyager I and II space probes, once said,
“Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.”
I’ve watched videos and read articles posted in this thread by other people that posit extraordinary theories and not a single one of them live up to this level of proof, if they even bother to offer proof. Yet people accept them as true despite the incredibly outlandish and unfounded claims. Logic, truth and reasoning don’t seem to enter into the equation.
Scientific studies and theories which are peer reviewed, tested, proven and accepted by the scientific community are not subject to an ala carte menu. You don’t get to pick and choose which ones you believe and which ones you deny.
You deny one; you deny all. If you attack any valid, tested and proven scientific study or theory, you attack science itself. And that becomes a slippery slope. Where will it stop if it will stop at all?
If you believe in a theory of conspiracy that makes extraordinary, irrational, implausible, unfounded, baseless, far-fetched, paranoid and unproven claims, you are turning your backs on all science.”
And now to conclude:
The examples of the Sandy Hook and Pizzagate conspiracy theories have not had any deadly consequences so far. Thank God.
But what if some believer in a conspiracy theory, grabbed an AR-15 and stormed the CDC in Atlanta to murder doctors and researchers because he believed vaccines are poison.
But what if some believer in a conspiracy theory, grabbed an AR-15 and stormed NASA Headquarters and started shooting rocket scientists because he believed NASA was doping and vaccinating him with chemtrails.
But what if some believer in a conspiracy theory, grabbed an AR-15 and stormed the National Weather Service or NASA and started shooting people because he believed that Global Warming was a hoax.
But what if some believer in a conspiracy theory, grabbed an AR-15 and stormed Verizon Headquarters and started shooting people because he believed tests on the new 5G technology is killing birds and driving people insane. (This is a more recent theory to hit the internet)
Where does it end?
Sidebar
Cesar Sayoc sent a pipe bomb to CNN Headquarters in New York (and many people) because they are “fake news.” and the “enemy of the people.” Know of anybody who says that a lot?