What Lies Below, Day Fifty Three
Back to normal! Hopefully I don’t screw up and delete a few days worth of stuff again. Thanks for coming! We’re almost done with Tier 10! That’s technically halfway, but it gets sparse in the last few tiers so we’ve covered more than half the total topics!
(Edit:Oops looks like I have the wrong number on the banner! Oh well!)
FIRMAMENT/SHELLED EARTH — This is often but not always tied to Flat Earth stuff. In any case, it’s the idea that there is a shell around the earth, seperating us from space or the ocean out there or whatever. Biblical theorists love this because ‘firmament’ comes from the Genesis story about how the Earth was created.
GREYS=EVOLVED DOLPHINS — “Greys” meaning the type of alien we often think of when thinking of aliens: slender, short(usually), big head, big black eyes, few facial features. I have never heard this theory presented seriously and I genuinely believe someone just went “well dolphins are grey and smart so-” and now here we are. Whether they’re time-travelers or just a branch that evolved ahead of the others is up to you!
GREY GOO — The term comes from the 80s when a scientist in the field of robotics talked about how a nanotech robot might become a real problem if it was able to build more of itself without limits. Assume you have one microscopic robot that is able to build another, which then builds another, and so on. They replicate exponentially while consuming virtually everything around them as raw materials. Eventually, when they became so numerous as to be visible, some think it would look like a sort of “grey goo”. Don’t worry, though, by the time it got that far they’d probably consume the entire planet within a few moments! It is not a likely scenario, but it does hold a lot of fascination in the sci fi, futurist, and conspiracy theorist worlds — along with the growing “we have to stop the robots” community.
FLATLAND ROVER — Flatland Rover is(was) an experimental step in web browsing that absolutely should have taken off, and I think probably will reappear in some other form to greater success in the future. Basically, it turned browsing a website into a 3D experience. The graphics were pretty low-key as far as I’ve seen, but it had a retro charm. You can’t really see “3DML” sites without it, but it is something you can go download and run even today! There isn’t much of a community supporting it, but there are still sites(called “spots”) out there.
GLASS CAMERA — Allegedly, this was a project by US alphabet agencies to create “invisible” and undetectable surveillance apparatus: cameras and microphones, for example. So the story goes, they wound up somehow getting remote viewing and psychic projection involved. The thing is, this all seems based on online posts that don’t really cite anything. I suppose one could take the time to try and track down the original posting and trace from there, but who knows.
MAN-OF-THE-HOLE — This is an interesting man. He was “discovered” in the 90s, a man living in the Amazon rainforest all by himself. He is believed to be indigenous, perhaps the last member of a tribe. The ‘hole’ part comes from deep holes found in places where he has stayed. He is aware people are out there and has had encounters, some good and some bad, but remains alone. He’s still out there as of my writing this!
S.S. COTOPAXI — A US vessel that went missing along with all aboard during the 1920s. A lot of people thought it was another victim of the Bermuda Triangle gobbling something up. Buuut then it was found and identified by divers about a hundred years later, so there you go. They think a design flaw caused it to capsize but maybe people still think aliens sunk it or something? I dunno, seems like a dud! Sorry!
IRAQ STARGATES — There is a small but vocal community that thinks ancient Sumerian Stargates existed in Iraq, which Saddam Hussein had access to. This is the reason the US invaded in 2003: to stop him from exploiting it, and/or to recover it for themselves. There are posts and videos on it which are just about what you’d expect, a sort of metaphysical/ancient aliens crossover. I love this kind of theory, a little bit of everything for everyone.
KORO — This is also called “Shrinking Penis”. It is something in the neighborhood of mass hysteria, as it doesn’t seem attached to any known mental illness. Basically, someone(usually someone with a penis) suddenly gets really worked up over the idea that it is shrinking/retracting and will soon be gone entirely. While it happens worldwide, it seems China has had the largest bouts of it.
F.O.R.K. 2006 SIGNAL — You got me. I never heard of this so I poked around and found the bread crumbs of others who also looked, but no one ever pinned it down. ‘F.O.R.K.’ could mean ‘Friends of Rohit Khare, an employee of Google — but like, it’s just a weird website. Not much to it. It could be a 2006 movie about tv signals that kill people, but that was just a movie — not a documentary. Or it could be some very complicated DNA-replication science thing that I honestly am not smart enough to explain to you folks.
RECKLESS SHRIMP — Antidepressants and other drugs getting into water has had all sorts of effects on wildlife, and apparently certain types of shrimp get really worked up from prozac. Basically, it seemed to make them either a lot bolder or a lot dumber — causing shrimp to leave the dark hidden areas they like to hide in and wander out into the open where predators get ’em. That’s uh, that’s it. One of those things that’s not really a conspiracy but still a weird story. Though I’m sure somewhere there are people citing this as a proof of big pharma doing X or Y to our brains for X or Y purpose.
QUITON/PERCEPTRON PHYSICS — A theory about time, space, the universe, and everything. The only thing I can find on this is a decades-old academic paper that is so high-science that I genuinely can’t really explain it here. It’s a thing, though. I don’t think it’s a widely regarded thing, and there doesn’t appear to be much conspiratorial or spooky things regarding it. Sorry!
SUMINIA — Herbivorous critters from millions of years ago. I guess they had thumbs? They aren’t very weird. They’re extinct and this isn’t one of those “they’re not really extinct” entries, either. They weren’t that weird and there isn’t anything controversial about them. I think some people think maybe they could have evolved into the dominant “human-like” species if given time, but this is a pretty weak entry for the tenth tier!
Almost done with Tier 10, folks! Getting there!
