Conspiracies draw attention of extraterrestrial watchers

JASON HAMILTON

I've discovered that the KGB, working with the Mafia, killed Kennedy (and tried to kill Reagan), because the CIA and National Security Council were conducting high-level talks with extraterrestrials.

This is not a new development. Soon after the Constitution was written, the head of the Bavarian Illuminati killed and replaced George Washington. His name was Adam Weishaupt, it is his face that appears on the dollar bill, and he was operating under orders from the secret tantric masters who rule the world.

So, maybe I've been reading a little too much conspiracy theory lately. Once every couple of years, I get totally engrossed in some far-out paranoid book about who actually runs things around here (theories range from the United Nations to the Rosicrucians).

I really enjoy it, but whenever I read that stuff, strange things start to happen around me. Bizarre coincidences, this year and mysterious letters. Spooky stuff.

For example, I think I might have been contacted by aliens on Friday. I could be wrong.

Author and adventurer, Robert Anton Wilson, has a theory about what conspiracy theory does to the brain. He says because conspiracy theory often relies on strange coincidences as "evidence," reading conspiracy works heighten one's sensitivity to everyday synchronicities.

I certainly have noticed that effect. Just a few days into reading a book about the CIA-Illuminati-extraterrestrial link, CNN reported the CIA spent millions of dollars on research into ESP.

That really shouldn't be surprising, even to people who aren't worried about a possible extraterrestrial connection. There are a lot of strange cases of the CIA throwing lots of money at bizarre research.

And, this time, at least, it only wasted money. The CIA has done a lot worse. In its infamous LSD research, it decided it might be groovy to keep several dozen black prison inmates on LSD for 70 days. The CIA continually upped the dosage to adjust for increased tolerances.

Anyone who has ever taken LSD can tell you that 70 hours is too long. But what the heck, said those chaps in the agency, we gotta know.

Anything went in those days. People in the CIA were dosing themselves and each other all the time. One former agent remembers how fun it was to slip the acid into their co-worker's coffee without telling telling them (This is not conspiracy theory, this is true. You only have to go as far as Farrell Library to confirm it.)

Doesn't that explain a lot, though? While LSD, for some people, can fill one's head with lots of neat ideas and pretty colors, it can have quite a different effect if you are, say, the type of person who works for a paranoid espionage agency.

Just think what kinds of dark, wiggly things could have been spawned in the CIA's bad acid trips, and then think about Cold War foreign policy.

I'm not saying that there's any real connection. I'm just saying...

Anyway, this revelation about the CIA coming out just when I'm reading about its talks with our friends from outer space is well, within the bounds of probable coincidence. But it wasn't the first, and as it turned out, not the last.

Wilson and I aren't the only ones who have noticed this phenomenon. It is widely reported by the people who write these conspiracy books, often with much more mystical and improbable explanations.

I like Wilson's theory the best. It seems very sane and sensible. Even so, the weirdness can get a little spooky. Which brings me to the aliens.

I got a letter Friday. It was in a plain envelope, with no return address. It was postmarked Alaska.

Inside was what apparently is a message from extraterrestrials, calling themselves UMMO. They also have a symbol: )+(.

Why either an extraterrestrial, or a prankster, would send me something like this is beyond me. If they wanted to get in touch with someone in the media, they could have found literally tens of thousands of people with larger audiences than me. They would have been better off with Hunter S. Thompson or maybe Rush Limbaugh.

Anyway, you can make your own judgments. The last bit went like this:

WHY DO YOU MAKE DECISIONS THE WAY YOU DO? WE HAVE BEEN WATCHING YOU AND KNOW THAT YOUR SPECIES' ABILITY TO MAKE RATIONAL DECISIONS DECREASES DRAMATICALLY WHEN YOU WORK TOGETHER IN GROUPS OF MORE THAN SEVEN.

WHAT PUZZLES US IS THAT SEVERAL OF YOUR OWN SCHOLARS KNOW THIS. WHY, THEN, DO YOU USE A DEMOCRATIC METHOD OF GOVERNMENT IN YOUR AMERICA, WHERE THE GROUP IS SO LARGE THAT RATIONAL THOUGHT IS ELIMINATED?

)+( UMMO

Well. The more I think about that last bit, the more I'm sure it comes from some earthly hoaxster. Every conspiracy buff knows that we don't actually live in a democracy. Geez.

Jason Hamilton is a senior in psychology and English.

This article was published on Tuesday, December 5, 1995