Priory of Sion

The Prieuré de Sion, translated from French as Priory of Sion, is a name given to multiple groups, both real and fictitious. The most notorious is a fringe fraternal organization, founded and dissolved in France in 1956 by Pierre Plantard. In the 1960s, Plantard created a fictitious history for that organization, describing it as a secret society founded in the Kingdom of Jerusalem in 1099, which serves the interests of the Merovingian dynasty and its alleged bloodlines. This myth was expanded upon and popularized by the 1982 controversial book The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail, and later claimed as factual in the preface of the 2003 conspiracy fiction novel The Da Vinci Code.

After becoming a cause célèbre from the late 1960s to the 1980s, the mythical Priory of Sion was exposed as a ludibrium created by Plantard as a framework for his false pretention to the French throne. Evidence presented in support of its historical existence and activities before 1956 was discovered to have been forged and then planted in various locations around France by Plantard and his accomplices. Nevertheless, many conspiracy theorists persist in believing that the Priory of Sion is an age-old cabal which conceals a subversive secret.

The Priory of Sion myth has been exhaustively debunked by journalists and scholars as one of the great hoaxes of the 20th century. Some skeptics have expressed concern that the proliferation and popularity of books, websites and films inspired by this hoax have contributed to the problem of conspiracy theories, pseudohistory and other confusions becoming more mainstream. Others are troubled by the romantic reactionary ideology unwittingly promoted in these works.

Skull and Bones

Skull and Bones is a secret society at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut. The society’s alumni organization, which owns the society’s real property and oversees the organization’s activity, is the Russell Trust Association, and is named after General William Huntington Russell, who founded the society with fellow classmate Alphonso Taft. Informally, the group is known as “Bones”, and members have been known as “Bonesmen”.

President George H. W. Bush, his son President George W. Bush, and the latter’s 2004 Presidential opponent Senator John Kerry are members of Skull and Bones.

Skull and Bones was founded in 1832 after a dispute among Yale’s debating societies, Linonia, Brothers in Unity, and Calliope, over that season’s Phi Beta Kappa awards; its original name was “the Order of Skull and Bones.”

The only chapter of Skull and Bones created outside Yale was a chapter at Wesleyan University in 1870. That chapter, the Beta of Skull & Bones, became independent in 1872 in a dispute over control over creating additional chapters; the Beta Chapter reconstituted itself as Theta Nu Epsilon.

For most of its history, Skull & Bones operated as a peer society with Scroll and Key and, later, Wolf’s Head, two of Yale’s other property-owning senior societies.

Skull and Bones owns a campground island in the St. Lawrence River in upstate New York named Deer Island. “The 40-acre (160,000 m²) retreat is intended to give Bonesmen an opportunity to ‘get together and rekindle old friendships.’ A century ago the island sported tennis courts and its softball fields were surrounded by rhubarb plants and gooseberry bushes. Catboats waited on the lake. Stewards catered elegant meals. Although each new Skull and Bones member still visits Deer Island, the place leaves something to be desired. ‘Now it is just a bunch of burned-out stone buildings,’ a patriarch sighs. ‘It’s basically ruins.’ Another Bonesman says that to call the island ‘rustic’ would be to glorify it. ‘It’s a dump, but it’s beautiful.’”

Yale became coeducational in 1969, but Skull & Bones remained all-male at the behest of the Russell Trust Association. The Class of 1991, however, disregarded the Trust and tapped seven female members for membership in the next year’s class. The Trust responded by changing the locks on the “Tomb”; the Bonesmen had to meet at the building of Manuscript Society. A mail-in vote by living members decided 368-320 to permit going co-ed, but a group of alumni led by William F. Buckley obtained a temporary restraining order to block the move, arguing that a formal change in bylaws was needed. Other alumni, such as John Kerry, spoke out in favor of admitting women, and the dispute even ended up on The New York Times editorial page. A second vote of alumni in October 1991 agreed to accept the Class of 1992, and the lawsuit was dropped. Wolf’s Head Society was the last all-male society at Yale.

Once the pinnacle of the college’s social system, the society remained central to campus life through the 1950s, but since then has lost much of its luster.

Illuminati

Illuminati (plural of Latin illuminatus, “enlightened”) is a name that refers to several groups, both historical and modern, and both real and fictitious. Historically, it refers specifically to the Bavarian Illuminati, an Enlightenment-era secret society founded on May 1, 1776. In modern times it is also used to refer to a purported conspiratorial organization which acts as a shadowy “power behind the throne”, allegedly controlling world affairs through present day governments and corporations, usually as a modern incarnation or continuation of the Bavarian Illuminati. In this context, Illuminati is often used in reference to a New World Order (NWO). Many conspiracy theorists believe the Illuminati are the masterminds behind events that will lead to the establishment of such a New World Order.

Freemasons

Freemasonry is a fraternal organisation that arose from obscure origins in the late 16th to early 17th century. Freemasonry now exists in various forms all over the world, with a membership estimated at around 5 million, including just under two million in the United States and around 480,000 in England, Scotland and Ireland. The various forms all share moral and metaphysical ideals, which include, in most cases, a constitutional declaration of belief in a Supreme Being.

The fraternity is administratively organised into Grand Lodges (or sometimes Orients), each of which governs its own jurisdiction, which consists of subordinate (or constituent) Lodges. Grand Lodges recognise each other through a process of landmarks and regularity. There are also appendant bodies, which are organisations related to the main branch of Freemasonry, but with their own independent administration.

Freemasonry uses the metaphors of operative stonemasons’ tools and implements, against the allegorical backdrop of the building of King Solomon’s Temple, to convey what has been described by both Masons and critics as “a system of morality veiled in allegory and illustrated by symbols.”

Chemtrails

chemtrail conspiracy theory holds that some contrails are actually chemicals or biological agents deliberately sprayed at high altitudes for a purpose undisclosed to the general public. Versions of the chemtrail conspiracy theory circulating on the internet and radio talk shows theorize that the activity is directed by government officials. As a result, federal agencies have received thousands of complaints from people who have demanded an explanation. The existence of chemtrails has been repeatedly refuted by government agencies and scientists around the world.

The United States Air Force has stated that the theory is a hoax which “has been investigated and refuted by many established and accredited universities, scientific organizations, and major media publications”. The British Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs has stated that chemtrails “are not scientifically recognised phenomena”.^[5] The Canadian Government House Leader has stated that “The term ‘chemtrails’ is a popularized expression, and there is no scientific evidence to support their existence.”

The term chemtrail is derived from “chemical trail” in the similar fashion that contrail is an abbreviation for condensation trail. It does not refer to common forms of aerial spraying such as crop dusting, cloud seeding or aerial firefighting. The term specifically refers to aerial trails allegedly caused by the systematic high-altitude release of chemical substances not found in ordinary contrails, resulting in the appearance of supposedly uncharacteristic sky tracks. Believers of this theory speculate that the purpose of the chemical release may be for global dimming, population control, weather control, or biowarfare and claim that these trails are causing respiratory illnesses and other health problems.

Council on Foreign Relationships

The Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) is an American bipartisan foreign policy membership organization founded in 1921. Located at 58 East 68th Street (Park Avenue) in New York City, with an office in Washington, D.C. Some international journalists believe it to be ‘the most influential foreign-policy think tank.’  It publishes a bi-monthly journal Foreign Affairs. It has an extensive website, featuring links to its think tank, The David Rockefeller Studies Program, a new geoeconomic center, Emmy award-winning multimedia Crisis Guides Foreign Affairs, and many other projects, publications, history, biographies of notable directors and other board members, corporate members, and press releases.

The Council has been the subject of debate, as shown in the 2006 film by Aaron Russo, America: Freedom to Fascism and a 2007 documentary Zeitgeist, the Movie. This is partly due to the number of high-ranking government officials in its membership, along with world business leaders, its secrecy clauses, and the large number of aspects of American foreign policy that its members have been involved with, beginning with Wilson’s Fourteen Points. The John Birch Society believes that the CFR plans a one-world government. Wilson’s Fourteen Points speech was the first in which he suggested a worldwide security organization to prevent future world wars.

Historian Carroll Quigley included the CFR in his discussion of the Anglo-American Establishment’s efforts to shape international developments during the 20th century. His book “Tragedy and Hope” was cited by conspiracy theorists as showing that the CFR was engaged in a conspiracy against American interests, though Quigley himself denied this.

Systems theorists working with tools developed at MIT by Jay Forrester counter David Rockefeller’s support for his goals with the claim that an attempt to build an integrated global political and economic structure is a serious danger to humanity’s freedom and prosperity. They argue that a dearth of distributed systems on a global scale would mean, first, a globe more susceptible to total economic and/or resource calamity, and second, a world in which lack of competition between rival political systems would make totalitarianism—if ever globally established—extremely difficult to challenge. Supporting the former charge, they cite the recession of 2008, which was exacerbated by the global nature of capital and derivative markets, as an example of the dangers of extreme economic interdependence.

Black Helicopters

The concept of black helicopters became popular in the United States militia movement, and in associated political circles, in the 1990s as an alleged symbol and warning sign of a conspiratorial military takeover of part or all of the United States. Rumors would circulate that, for instance, the United Nations patrolled the US with black helicopters, or that federal agents used black helicopters to enforce wildlife laws. The concept springs from the basic truth that many government agencies and corporations do use helicopters, and that some of these helicopters are dark-colored or black. For instance, dark-colored military helicopters were deployed in the standoff at Ruby Ridge. Earlier tales from the 1970′s linked them with the UFO conspiracy.

The phrase “black helicopters” is also sometimes used figuratively to ridicule conspiracy theories in general (see below).

In the United Kingdom, a similar phenomenon known as “phantom helicopters” has been reported since the mid 1970s. This concept relates phantom helicopters to UFOs and alien invasion rather than to martial law.

Bilderberg Group

The Bilderberg Group, Bilderberg conference, or Bilderberg Club is an unofficial, annual, invitation-only conference of around 130 guests, most of whom are persons of great influence in the fields of politics, business, and banking.

The group meets annually at hotels or resorts throughout the world—normally in Europe, and once every four years in the United States or Canada. The 2009 Bilderberg meeting took place from 14-16 May in Athens, Greece.

The original Bilderberg conference was held at the Hotel de Bilderberg, near Arnhem in The Netherlands, from 29 May to 31 May 1954. It was initiated by several people, including Denis Healey and Józef Retinger, concerned about the growth of anti-Americanism in Western Europe, who proposed an international conference at which leaders from European countries and the United States would be brought together with the aim of promoting understanding between the cultures of the United States and Western Europe. Retinger approached Prince Bernhard of the Netherlands, who agreed to promote the idea, together with Belgian Prime Minister Paul Van Zeeland, and the head of Unilever at that time, the Dutchman Paul Rijkens. Bernhard in turn contacted Walter Bedell Smith, then head of the CIA, who asked Eisenhower adviser Charles Douglas Jackson to deal with the suggestion. The guest list was to be drawn up by inviting two attendees from each nation, one of each to represent conservative and liberal points of view. Fifty delegates from 11 countries in Western Europe attended the first conference along with 11 Americans.

The success of the meeting led the organizers to arrange an annual conference. A permanent Steering Committee was established, with Retinger appointed as permanent secretary. As well as organizing the conference, the steering committee also maintained a register of attendee names and contact details, with the aim of creating an informal network of individuals who could call upon one another in a private capacity. Conferences were held in France, Germany, and Denmark over the following three years. In 1957, the first US conference was held in St. Simons, Georgia, with $30,000 from the Ford Foundation. The foundation supplied further funding for the 1959 and 1963 conferences.

Meetings are organized by a steering committee with two members from each of around eighteen nations. Official posts, in addition to a chairman, include an Honorary Secretary General. There is no such category in the group’s rules as a “member of the group”. The only category that exists is “member of the Steering Committee”. In addition to the committee, there also exists a separate advisory group, though membership overlaps.

Dutch economist Ernst van der Beugel took over as permanent secretary in 1960, upon Retinger’s death. Prince Bernhard continued to serve as the meeting’s chairman until 1976, the year of his involvement in the Lockheed affair. The position of Honorary American Secretary General has been held successively by Joseph E. Johnson of the Carnegie Endowment, William Bundy of Princeton, Theodore L. Eliot, Jr., former U.S. Ambassador to Afghanistan, and Casimir A. Yost of Georgetown’s Institute for the Study of Diplomacy.

A 2008 press release from the American Friends of Bilderberg stated that “Bilderberg’s only activity is its annual Conference. At the meetings, no resolutions are proposed, no votes taken, and no policy statements issued” and noted that the names of attendees were available to the press. The Bilderberg group unofficial headquarters is the University of Leiden in the Netherlands.

Because of its secrecy and refusal to issue news releases, the group is frequently accused of secretive and nefarious world plots.

Holocaust Denial

Holocaust denial is the claim that the genocide of Jews during World War II—usually referred to as the Holocaust—did not occur at all, or that it did not happen in the manner or to the extent historically recognized.

Key elements of this claim are the rejection of any of the following: that the German Nazi government had a policy of deliberately targeting Jews for extermination as a people; that more than five million Jews were systematically killed by the Nazis and their allies; and that genocide was carried out at extermination camps using tools of mass murder, such as gas chambers.

Holocaust deniers do not accept the term “denial” as an appropriate description of their point of view, and use the term Holocaust revisionism instead. Scholars use the term “denial” to differentiate Holocaust deniers from historical revisionists, who use established historical methodologies.

Most Holocaust denial claims imply, or openly state, that the Holocaust is a hoax arising out of a deliberate Jewish conspiracy to advance the interest of Jews at the expense of other peoples. For this reason, Holocaust denial is generally considered to be an antisemitic conspiracy theory. The methodologies of Holocaust deniers are criticized as based on a predetermined conclusion that ignores extensive historical evidence to the contrary.

The seeds of evil are contained within those who deny the Holocaust.

God help us all.

Area 51

Area 51 is a nickname for a military base that is located in the southern portion of Nevada in the western United States (83 miles north-northwest of downtown Las Vegas). Situated at its center, on the southern shore of Groom Lake, is a large secretive military airfield. The base’s primary purpose is to support development and testing of experimental aircraft and weapons systems.

The base lies within the United States Air Force’s vast Nevada Test and Training Range. Although the facilities at the range are managed by the 99th Air Base Wing at Nellis Air Force Base, the Groom facility appears to be run as an adjunct of the Air Force Flight Test Center (AFFTC) at Edwards Air Force Base in the Mojave Desert, around 186 miles (300 km) southwest of Groom, and as such the base is known as Air Force Flight Test Center (Detachment 3).

Other names used for the facility include Dreamland, Paradise Ranch, Home Base, Watertown Strip, Groom Lake, and most recently Homey Airport. The area is part of the Nellis Military Operations Area, and the restricted airspace around the field is referred to as (R-4808N), known by the military pilots in the area as “The Box.”

The intense secrecy surrounding the base, the very existence of which the U.S. government barely acknowledges, has made it the frequent subject of conspiracy theories and a central component to unidentified flying object (UFO) folklore.