Culture of Conspiracy

00-C2713-FM 6/13/03 12:46 PM Page i A Culture of Conspiracy G&S Typesetters PDF proof 00-C2713-FM 6/13/03 12:46 PM Page ii comparative studies in religion and society Mark Juergensmeyer, editor 1. Redemptive Encounters: Three Modern Styles in the Hindu Tradition, by Lawrence A. Babb 2. Saints and Virtues, edited by John Stratton Hawley 3. Utopias in Conflict: Religion and Nationalism in Modern India, by Ainslee T. Embree 4. Mama Lola: A Vodou Priestess in Brooklyn, by Karen McCarthy Brown 5. The New Cold War? Religious Nationalism Confronts the Secular State, by Mark Juergensmeyer 6. Pious Passion: The Emergence of Modern Fundamentalism in the United States and Iran, by Martin Riesebrodt, translated by Don Reneau 7. Devi: Goddess of India, edited by John Stratton Hawley and Donna Marie Wulff 8. Absent Lord: Ascetics and Kings in a Jain Ritual Culture, by Lawrence A. Babb 9. The Challenge of Fundamentalism: Political Islam and the New World Disorder, by Bassam Tibi 10. Leveling Crowds: Ethno-Nationalist Conflicts and Collective Violence in South Asia, by Stanley J. Tambiah 11. The Bridge Betrayed: Religion and Genocide in Bosnia, by Michael A. Sells 12. China’s Catholics: Tragedy and Hope in an Emerging Civil Society, by Richard Madsen 13. Terror in the Mind of God: The Global Rise of Religious Violence, by Mark Juergensmeyer 14. Imagining Karma: Ethical Transformation in Amerindian, Buddhist, and Greek Rebirth, by Gananath Obeyesekere 15. A Culture of Conspiracy: Apocalyptic Visions in Contemporary America, by Michael Barkun G&S Typesetters PDF proof 00-C2713-FM 6/13/03 12:46 PM Page iii A Culture of Conspiracy Apocalyptic Visions in Contemporary America Michael Barkun UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA PRESS Berkeley / Los Angeles / London G&S Typesetters PDF proof 00-C2713-FM 6/13/03 12:46 PM Page iv Portions of chapter 7 first appeared as Michael Barkun, “Myths of the Underworld in Contemporary American Millennialism,” in Experiences of Place, edited by Mary N. MacDonald. Cambridge, Mass.: Center for the Study of World Religions, Harvard Divinity School, 2003. University of California Press Berkeley and Los Angeles, California University of California Press, Ltd. London, England © 2003 by the Regents of the University of California Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Barkun, Michael. A culture of conspiracy : apocalyptic visions in contemporary America / Michael Barkun. p. cm. — (Comparative studies in religion and society ; 15) Includes bibliographical references and index. isbn 0-520-23805-2 (alk. paper) 1. Millennialism—United States. 2. Conspiracies—United States. 3. Human-alien encounters—United States. I. Title. II. Series. bl503.2 .b37 2003 306Խ.1—dc21 2002155793 Manufactured in the United States of America 11 10 09 08 07 06 05 04 03 10987654 321 The paper used in this publication is both acid-free and totally chlorine- free (tcf). It meets the minimum requirements of ansi/niso z39.48 – 1992 (R 1997) ᭺ϱ . G&S Typesetters PDF proof 00-C2713-FM 6/13/03 12:46 PM Page v For Natalie Rose G&S Typesetters PDF proof 00-C2713-FM 6/13/03 12:46 PM Page vi G&S Typesetters PDF proof 00-C2713-FM 6/13/03 12:46 PM Page vii Contents Preface ix 1. The Nature of Conspiracy Belief 1 2. Millennialism, Conspiracy, and Stigmatized Knowledge 15 3. New World Order Conspiracies I: The New World Order and the Illuminati 39 4. New World Order Conspiracies II: A World of Black Helicopters 65 5. UFO Conspiracy Theories, 1975 –1990 79 6. UFOs Meet the New World Order: Jim Keith and David Icke 98 7. Armageddon Below 110 8. UFOs and the Search for Scapegoats I: Anti-Catholicism and Anti-Masonry 126 9. UFOs and the Search for Scapegoats II: Anti-Semitism among the Aliens 141 10. September 11: The Aftermath 158 11. Conclusion: Millennialists from Outer Space 170 G&S Typesetters PDF proof 00-C2713-FM 6/13/03 12:46 PM Page viii Notes 191 Bibliography 221 Index 239 G&S Typesetters PDF proof 00-C2713-FM 6/13/03 12:46 PM Page ix Preface In the summer of 1994, less than a year before he blew up the Oklahoma City federal building, Timothy McVeigh visited Area 51, the secret in- stallation north of Las Vegas, Nevada, where legend has it that the U.S. government keeps captured UFOs. McVeigh apparently made the visit to protest restrictions on public access to the base, but he also had had a long-standing fascination with flying saucers and tales of alien life forms. On death row he watched the film Contact, a story of a scientist contacted by aliens, six times in two days. McVeigh was also said to have been a regular listener to the shortwave-radio broadcasts of Milton Wil- liam Cooper, an Arizona-based conspiracy theorist who first emerged in UFO circles in the 1980s and later acquired a large audience among antigovernment activists. A friend of Cooper’s claims that McVeigh visited Cooper shortly before the Oklahoma City bombing. The substance of their conversation is unknown.1 While McVeigh’s interests may seem merely the peculiarities of an individual whose true motives remain difficult to fathom, the connection he made between antigovernment politics and UFOs was not unique. Throughout the 1990s, right-wing conspiracy theories increasingly came together with beliefs about visiting creatures from outer space. We do not know whether McVeigh himself was affected by these specula- tions, but it is clear that his interests were shared by others. Similar hybrids emerged after the terrorist attacks on New York and Arlington, Virginia, in September 2001. They mingled the prophecies of Nostradamus, UFOs, and theories about the Illuminati in strange and unpredictable ways. These were not combinations I would have ex- ix G&S Typesetters PDF proof 00-C2713-FM 6/13/03 12:46 PM Page x x PREFACE pected to find. Like most people, I had assumed that those with a right- wing, antigovernment agenda were altogether different from believers in UFOs. But the first inkling I had that such boundaries might be crossed had come some years before the 2001 attacks, as I was reading through the extremist literature that served as a basis for my book Reli- gion and the Racist Right. While much of this literature was predictable, with its diatribes against Jews and blacks, there were unexpected in- trusions of material that, though certainly not considered mainstream, was neither racist nor antigovernment. It dealt with such matters as processed foods (which the writers condemned), garlic (whose medici- nal attributes they touted), and environmental pollution (which they wished to eliminate). Indeed, this was material that would not have been out of place in leftist publications or those for New Age readers. Consequently, when I found right-wing conspiracism emerging in UFO circles, it suggested that the odd juxtapositions I had found earlier might be part of a larger pattern in which seemingly discrete beliefs cohabited. Despite the many references to UFOs, this is not a book about flying saucers. I do not know whether they exist or, if they do, where they come from; and I do not address either of those questions. What this work does concern is the fusion of right-wing conspiracy theories with UFO motifs. This is a study of how certain dissimilar ideas have mi- grated from one underground subculture to another. Many readers may regard both sets of ideas as bizarre and may ques- tion whether this is terrain worth exploring. I have addressed such skep- ticism in earlier books on millennialism—belief in the imminent perfec- tion of human existence—and my response here is the same: it makes little sense to exclude ideas from examination merely because they are not considered respectable. Failing to analyze them will not keep some people from believing them, and history is littered with academically disreputable ideas that have had devastating effects—for example, the scientific acceptance of racial differences in the nineteenth century. Fail- ure to examine them did not cause them to disappear. My examination of certain odd beliefs does not signify my acceptance of them.2 The convergence of conspiracy theories with UFO beliefs is worth examining for two reasons. First, it has brought conspiracism to a large new audience. UFO writers have long been suspicious of the U.S. government, which they believe has suppressed crucial evidence of an alien presence on earth, but in the early years they did not, by and large, em- brace strong political positions. That began to change in the late 1980s and early 1990s, with the first appearance in UFO circles of references to G&S Typesetters PDF proof 00-C2713-FM 6/13/03 12:46 PM Page xi PREFACE xi right-wing conspiracism. Over the next decade, such borrowing accel- erated and, as a result, brought right-wing conspiracism to people who otherwise would not have been aware of it. Second, this combination provides a striking example of a new and growing form of millennialism, which I call improvisational millennialism. Unlike earlier forms, which elaborated themes from individual religious or secular traditions, improvisational millennialism is wildly eclectic. Its undisciplined borrowings from unrelated sources allow its proponents to build novel systems of belief. Mapping fringe ideas is a difficult undertaking. Familiar intellectual landmarks are unavailable, and the inhabitants of these territories tend to speak languages difficult for outsiders to penetrate. Some of these ideas have begun to filter into mainstream popular culture, a process I describe in chapter 11. But their origins lie in obscure and barely vis- ible subcultures—millenarian religion, occultism, and radical politics among them.

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