What Lies Below, Day Sixty Three
Hello! It’s been a while! I haven’t forgotten. We’re going to get through this. I can’t write about anything else until I do. The iceberg is in my brain, melting and letting its contents bleed into all my brain wrinkles. It’s part of me now. To answer a question: no I don’t think I’d do this as just a straight YouTube show because I’m pretty sure that’s a flooded market. But if I’m wrong, tell me! Anyway, we break out of Tier 11 and into Tier 12 today; well past the halfway mark.
GOLF RUMOURS=SAN ANDREAS PATCH — This one is fairly simple but also not simple because the internet made it weird. It seems to have originally just been a bit of video game lore regarding Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas. Allegedly there was some golf-based content in the game that you couldn’t normally get to, but modders discovered. Easy, right? But the internet hosts a very large and strange amount of lore regarding this that has very little to do with the game, creating a sort of meta-conspiracy around this conspiracy. It feels like a crowd-sourced “creepypasta”(online scary store shared all over the place), which isn’t uncommon — imageboards regularly wind up with threads where a whole bunch of users kind of play along with something creepy until it manages to become canonical lore. The golf rumors thing is all over the place but mostly just follows the “don’t look into it because scary things happen” routine.
PENNINE HILLS FAE — Seems to be just a blanket term for a variety of classical fae who are the subject of lots of European folklore. You know the stuff — don’t go near still ponds or soandso will snatch you, don’t misbehave or they’ll come grab you in the night, etc. I can’t find anything in terms of tangible sightings or modern reports on this one, so I’m not sure exactly what made it stick out more than the host of other similar ones(basically every region in Britain, Scotland, and Ireland has its own unique flavor of fae).
’EM EFFECTS ON HUMAN BODY.ZIP’ — This one is weird, funny, and a little concerning. A couple years ago, a journalist sent a FOIA(Freedom of Information Act) request to an organization called the “Washington State Fusion Center”, a consolidation of Washington State cops and the Feds. The FOIA was for info on their surveillance of various political activist groups, but for some reason one of the things they sent back was a file titled “EM Effects on the Human Body.zip”. Obviously the journalist immediately checked it out, and sure enough, it was a bunch of documents and diagrams showing the possible(confirmed?) ways in which electromagnetism could be weaponized against people. When asked what the heck this was about, the WSFC ignored the questions. Seems bad!
ARTIFICIAL OUTRAGE INDUSTRY — This is way too deep on the iceberg for something that’s like, unquestionably real and totally ubiquitous. The “theory” is that there’s a huge incentive to find ways to make people outraged about things because it’s a surefire way to make them watch your news program, subscribe to your blog, fund your political campaign, attack your enemies, and so on. Every political camp utilizes this tactic, every mainstream media network utilizes this tactic, and the vast majority of political/social youtubers and streamers and so on do it very blatantly. The secondary conspiracy theory is that this is all a coordinated effort by the Powers That Be to keep us mad and yelling at one another so we can never achieve the solidarity necessary to topple the illuminati. Yeah, probably! Also it’s usually targeted at boomers and late-stage X’ers but Millennials and Zoomers are not immune to this! You have fallen for ‘outrage porn’ at some point even if you think you haven’t! I’m sorry!
ROANOKE COLONY STILL EXISTS — If this is anything at all, it’s people just hitting a blunt and saying “what if like, the colony is still somewhere hidden somehow and it’s all still like, pilgrims and stuff”. Roanoke is cool and it’s a bummer to think it has a mundane explanation but they all probably just assimilated with local indigenous people and/or died of exposure and stuff. I don’t like it any more than you do!
FACTISH GODS — An anthropologist named Bruno Latour came up with a theory that you’ll see interpreted this way and that in the occasional online discussion. More or less, “facts” can be created and worshiped in the same way that fetishes are. It’s just academic stuff, not particularly weird or conspiratorial. I imagine there are internet posts using this term to conjure up ideas of thoughtform-style entities lurking behind concepts we accept as fact.
MILKWALKER — Milkwalker is, or was, a real mascot. An obscure little 80s milk carton with a weird face and stick-figure style legs and arms, it was rediscovered a few years ago and went viral. This led to fanart, stories, and eventually a whole world of lore to appear around the character. People have tried to dig into its real origins without much luck, some people suggest it really IS something creepy and the benign origin story is a ruse, and so on. Just weird internet meme stuff, not sure why it’s all the way down in Tier 11!
THE MT. STROMBOLI MYSTERY — Mt Stromboli is an “active” volcano in Italy. This volcano has been ‘erupting’ regularly, as in every 20 minutes, for thousands of years. There’s a bit of debate on whether this is caused by regular ‘bubbles’ of gas traveling up and bursting, or pressure below. But there’s, as far as I know, no big mystery. I haven’t heard about UFOs or lost civilizations, and a little bit of poking around online didn’t turn up anything. Just a volcano. I’ve got to be missing some obscure theory here, but now you have one for yourself! It’s not me knowing stuff, it’s me giving you the gift of a little mystery to unwrap. You’re welcome.
POLITICS=LARP — LARP stands for “Live Action Role Playing”, which is just what it sounds like. A D&D game, but acted out in physical space with costumes and simulated combat and all the rest. Anyway, once you know that term, you know what this theory is. There’s no unified version of this, it’s just sort of a common ingredient in most folks’ larger concept. Simply put: most politics, at least those on a national level, is a complete pro-wrestling style show carried out to keep the people convinced they have a voice. Pretty standard component of virtually all government-flavored conspiracies, but it’ll vary from person to person in terms of how far-reaching it is. Yes, there are people who think even your local city council is in on it.
ABAKA ALIGNMENT — Pretty obscure. An ‘abaka’ is, allegedly at least, an ancient Egyptian geometric configuration. It’s how the pyramids were arranged, for example. The abaka alignment seems to be an arrangement of stones or monoliths or spires on the moon that create one of these patterns, which would obviously be proof of something beyond normal happening up there. Not much to go on here, despite the moon and Egypt being hot subjects for theorists. Looks like mostly based of scraps of conjecture in old magazines, things sourced to a Soviet era scientists, etc.
GIGAMESH — I honestly don’t know here. I don’t think it’s just a misspelling of “Gilgamesh” because that wouldn’t make sense. But I can’t find anything substantial about this. I know I’m letting you down here! The most I can find, and it is very tenuous, is that a musical artist called Gigamesh commented on the “Great Reset” issue that a lot of conspiracy theorists have strong opinions on. Depending on your flavor, the Great Reset is going to use COVID as a means of ‘resetting’ the world’s economy or population or politics or all of the above, usually for evil nefarious vague goals. But his comment was just one tweet and he seemed to be laughing off the conspiracy so I don’t know, folks!
JESUS CONVERTED ON THE CROSS — Gnostic idea that Jesus was basically switched out with someone either through physical means or divine magic or whatever you like, and therefore didn’t die on the cross? At least I think so. The title makes it sound like it’s something else, but there’s nothing about him having a sudden change of faith up there that I’m aware of.
EYES OF CHRIST, LIMPIAS — In Spain in the 1910s, monks claimed to have seen the eyes and mouth move on a carving of Jesus on the cross. Later, other people including nuns and citizens claimed to have also seen this. After a while, it stopped happening. The Catholic Church has not weighed in on if it is a real miracle. Some folks still travel to see the carving though, which is still there.
And that’s all for today, friends. Not the most exciting arrangement, but I’m glad we’re hitting more obscure topics. See you soon, and hopefully without such a long gap between articles next time!
