What Lies Below: Part 42
Exploring the Depths of the Conspiracy Iceberg
Welcome back to What Lies Below: a daily rundown of 13 items from the Conspiracy Iceberg meme. We’re grinding our way toward the halfway mark and really in the thick of it now. As a blanket warning for this and all WLB pieces: there will occasionally be items touching on sensitive topics from sexual assault to violence. I will try to avoid grisly details but please keep this in mind!
IRISH ROCK MOTHERS — I suppose it’s not a great start to open with one that stumped me. I don’t know! Maybe something to do with ‘dry walls’ in Ireland that are essentially old large walls made of stones just kind of wedged together? The “Mother Stones” are larger base stones for the rest to be against. I don’t think that’s it. If you know, tell me!
COMETARY EARTH THEORY — Unless there’s some other definition out there that I’m unaware of, this is just the Panspermia theory applied to the origins of life on earth. We got hit with a comet covered in microbes or something and there you go. Not that weird! A lot deeper than this one deserves imo! I believe there was once a theory that Earth was just sort of hurtling through space like a comet with the sun trapped and orbiting us, but I don’t think that has any contemporary adherents.
ANCIENT EGYPT SPACE PROGRAMS — Kind of a mixed bag here. This can be as mundane as the theory that a significant amount of ancient Egyptian spirituality and culture were based around varying levels of extraterrestrial influence, or it could be something as fringe as believing they had means of actually leaving the planet. Just as with a couple earlier items on the Iceberg, sometimes there are carvings or images in Egyptian history that, if you squint just right, can look like some sort of spaceship. Today’s list has not been very exciting so far, I’m sorry!
FIRE IS ALIVE — Fire consumes things, uses oxygen, grows, etc. Sometimes people use this as a point in philosophical debates about what specifically constitutes “life” as opposed to what does not. You’ll also sometimes see occultists of various stripes suggest it’s alive, or contains living forces, from a more metaphysical perspective. Still, not exactly a widespread belief. It may just be a misinterpretation of outsiders seeing contemporary magic-oriented systems call upon the element of Fire during ritual work.
LEGAL R*PE RESORTS — Some variation of this exists in a lot of theories surrounding a “cabal”, whether the older Satanic Ritual Abuse stuff or the more recent Qanon spin on it. These places are usually on some island where wealthy and powerful people congregate to do horrible things — often including sexual abuse. The term may be a bit of an oversimplification, but the Epstein case pretty conclusively proved that these concerns are grounded in reality. It’s almost like we shouldn’t allow there to be a class of wealthy people with unchecked power who operate above all laws and controls and view us all as bugs, right?
RETROCAUSALITY — Cause and effect, but reversed. Quantum physics and real-life time travel enthusiasts (there are more than you think) both work with the idea. Some point toward psychic phenomenon as evidence of this, i.e. they see an event in the future because it has already happened and the present is being shaped in the necessary way to accommodate it. It’s hard to give examples of this because it’s not exactly something that would appear in a tangible way, and most theorists and scientists just think it’s not possible whatsoever.
PAUL HELLYER’S FINAL ANNOUNCEMENT — Hellyer is a former Canadian government official who is very big in the UFO/Alien scene. A lot of these types of guys have come out over the years to give vague statements about some UFO activity being real, but Hellyer is a particularly loud voice and talks at length about how many types of aliens there are, how often they visit earth(a lot), their motivations, their involvement in our history, and so on. He’s said too much for me to really put all here, but a search of his name will give you plenty of details. I believe he’s still alive, but I don’t know if he’s very active at this point in his life. I cannot find the text of his “Final Announcement” and videos of it appear to have been scrubbed from YouTube(!!!). I am assuming it was just more details about alien intentions and presence on Earth.
ANTARCTIC FACILITIES — There are definitely facilities there. Officially, they are just various research stations and the like. Unofficially, who knows! These are a staple of a lot of conspiracy theories. Flat/Hollow Earthers are pretty big on them, Lost Civilization people sometimes think these are a sort of co-inhabited way-post between our civilization and the hidden ones living either underground or in secret places. There’s no shortage of alien base theories, of course, and everyone knows about the purported nazi installations down there. Too broad to narrow down, honestly.
THE CEREAL BOX CONSPIRACY — This is…not much of a conspiracy. It’s definitely real, mind you, but it’s not very weird to anyone who has a base level understanding of how insidious marketing can be. The “Conspiracy” is just the idea that cereal marketed to kids is placed lower so they’re more likely to grab it, and that the characters on it are made to appeal to them, and so on. The eyes also tend to all be designed in such a way that, allegedly, they’re trying to make eye contact with passing kids — creating a reflexive link that draws interest. It’s not “proven” and you’re not going to find cereal companies eager to admit this is what they do, but yes it is what they do. A lot of Conspiracy Theories are just people learning about the way Capitalism works through indirect means and then going wait, no, this is evil! It can’t be the thing the world is based on!
COLLAPSE CULTS — This is similar to a doomsday cult, but less hinged on specific theology or dates or even specific events. It’s been heavily memed on Imageboards and social media, and there can be a lot of variation. In general, the belief is that “the collapse is happening” or “it’s about to”, but viewed with a certain apathy or even joy for the end of civilization as we know it. Sometimes it’s born of misanthropy or nihilism, sometimes it’s born of a sort of Primitivism-styled belief that things will be much better on the other side. I think, ultimately, most of them just like the idea of living through such an event. While people into this will often share social media spaces, there aren’t a great deal of Collapse Cults in which there are defined members and locations and the like. Those that exist, for the most part, are essentially small rural militias made up of guys whose hobby is filling their bunkers with ammunition and speculating about how they’d totally survive and thrive unlike the rest of us. It’s basically LARP.
WE HAVE NEVER BEEN HUMAN — This can go a few ways. There are plenty of people out there who think our roots are something not of this earth: we’re a race engineered by ancient aliens or we’re aliens who landed one way or another and somehow forgot our roots, that sort of thing. Sometimes it’s more of a philosophy debate about humanism vs post-humanism, i.e. what even is a human and when does a human start or stop being a human if you add or subtract pieces.
CHAI NAT 747 — A few years ago a Thai Airways jet seemed to just appear one day near Chai Nat village in Thailand. People were freaked out to some extent, and really confused. It was missing some parts like engine stuff, but was overall pretty intact. Later it turned out a local man had just bought the damn thing and was going to try to make it into some kind of tourist attraction. I don’t know what the conspiracy here is! It’s definitely weird, but there’s no further insidious levels as far as I can tell.
KENNY VEACH FINAL RECORDING — Kenny Veach was a guy who was very into hiking, especially long distance. He had a modest YouTube channel and commented a lot on other channels about his subject of interest. One day he made a comment suggesting he’d seen a strange cave near Nellis Air Force base that was ‘M’ shaped and made his body “vibrate”; this made a lot of people very curious. He said he’d go check it out and that was the last anyone ever heard from him.
The eventual search operation found his cell phone near a mine shaft, but didn’t find him and did not confirm that they thought he’d fallen. Someone claiming to be his girlfriend eventually posted, saying there was no confirmation of anything, but that she believed he had killed himself.
And that’s it. There’s precious little to go on and people are still torn on what is real and what to believe. Some think he did find the ‘M’ cave and bad things happened, some believe the girlfriend, some think it was all fake.
I really don’t know on that “Irish Rock Mothers” thing. My instinct tells me it sounds like some kind of folklore topic, maybe a really niche local bit that’s still mostly oral and not online? Anyway, this wasn’t the best assortment - but we’ll be back soon with another 13. See you then!