What Lies Below, Day Thirty
Exploring the Depths of the Infamous “Conspiracy Iceberg”
STONE HEAD OF GUATEMALA — This is all based on a story from the 80s, which in and of itself is based on a photo and account from the 50s. The guy who received the photo went to see the head, which was real but had by that time been heavily damaged — presumably due to local conflict. It was big, very deep in the jungle, and some people will tell you its features do not look like the features of the people of the region. Giant stone heads are a thing in a lot of places, but this one did have some unique characteristics that stood it apart from the others. Some think the whole thing is a hoax. Not much work has been done to rediscover or explore it, oddly.
OLANCHA GEODE — A pretty well-known “OOPArt”. In the 60s, some guys were looking for geodes in California and found a rock with something odd embedded in it. Turns out the object was a sparkplug from the 20s, but the rock it was embedded in was hundreds of thousands of years old. This is heavily criticized, not so much as a fake but as the result of a natural process by which things like sparkplugs rusting in the ground will accumulate ‘concretion’ around them. The original geologist who looked at it suggested the rock had evidence of fossil life from very very long ago, but later inspection has shown none of that.
ANTARCTIC BLOODFALLS — There’s a place in Antarctica where it looks like a waterfall of blood is happening. It’s just iron oxide in the water, and I haven’t really seen any conspiracy theories suggesting otherwise. It’s pretty cool, though! And weird microbes live in it that usually wouldn’t be easy to find! For a while people weren’t sure what it was, but it seems pretty settled now so I dunno why it’s so low on the iceberg.
GRACE ROAD CHURCH — A lesser-known cult based in Fiji. The Church identifies as “Christian”, but definitely has its own spin on things. Still operational, it would appear, with several hundred followers at least. They have a doomsday vibe, based around the inevitable Second Coming of Jesus, bla bla bla. Fairly standard for small pseudo-Christian cults. But this one is known for being absurdly abusive to its members, especially their founder Shin Ok-Ju. She was found guilty in South Korea for a host of crimes, from child abuse to assault, but this didn’t stop the cult — who is very much structured around its leadership. Christian-flavored cults springing up out of Asian countries like Korea are becoming more and more popular.
THE PAULDING LIGHT — Weird light that shows up sometimes in a valley in Michigan! It stretches back to the 60s and people have tried to figure it out, but nothing concrete has happened. Some “scientific study” suggested it was car headlights seen further away than they should be due to some kind of science words, but a lot of people aren’t biting. Stop ruining stuff, nerds! Let people think it’s the light of the fairy world finally beckoning me home away from this cursed earth! I deserve this!
VIKTORS FLYING MACHINE — A russian guy who was really fixated on two things: human flight and bugs. He claimed to have made some kind of device that let humans fly, and wrote all about the experiences he had with it. There’s never been any proof of this. What makes this probably worthy of being Tier Five isn’t just the flying thing, but that he believed it was powered by insect parts: wings, chitin, etc. This all happened in fairly recent history and he even has a book about all of it out. Oddly, there’s even videos online of some of his ‘experiments’.
STONE AGE SPACE TRAVEL — Just a blend of ancient astronaut and lost civilization theory, sometimes fueled by carvings or drawings from ancient times that people interpret as depicting advanced technology or spaceships. No real unified theory here, it’s just sort of a *hits blunt, dude what if-* thing that pops up in places where people talk about weird stuff.
DOG-SUICIDE BRIDGES — There are lesser known varieties of this phenomenon, but the most famous is Overtoun Bridge in Scotland. For decades, dogs have inexplicably leaped the barrier of the old stone bridge and usually not survived the experience. The numbers may well be up in the hundreds, and it is a known thing that has been studied. Some people naturally think it’s a supernatural explanation, but so far no genuine alternative has been offered! Why are people still walking their dogs on it??
CAMP THUNDER COVE — Alright, bit of a story. There are some islands in the middle of the Indian Ocean, the largest being called ‘Diego Garcia’. English and French controlled it until the 60s, at which point the US wanted to put a base there. There were indigenous people there but the UK and US did exactly what you’d expect and forcefully removed them. It then became an important base for various US operations in the Middle East, and evidence has surfaced that it may be used to detain and torture prisoners. It’s also off limits to basically everyone but military, so lots of rumors swirl about what may or may not happen there. Oh, and technically Britain doesn’t own the island anymore and doesn’t have the right to ‘give’ it to the US for use, but the US basically shrugged and said they’re not leaving to Mauritius(the current owners).
There’s also a splinter theory where that missing Malaysian MH370 jet actually landed on the island where this base is.
BARBARA DAYTON — Barbara Dayton is one of the people think might be D.B. Cooper, a person who hijacked a 727 in the early 70s’. Cooper told an attendant he had a bomb, demanded money, and then parachuted from the jet while it was in flight. No one ever found a body, but the jump likely took place over pretty rough and inhospitable terrain. Some of the money did turn up and there were “sightings” based on sketches and stuff, but it remains unsolved. The DB Cooper case is cool and worth reading about or watching a video on. Barbara Dayton openly claimed she was actually DB Cooper, and had fooled people by dressing as a man. She gave some details, which haven’t been verified, then abruptly recanted, and then died. Who knows!
MKOFTEN — A real thing! It’s basically the same as MKULTRA, which was listed a bit higher on the iceberg, but was created 10 years after MKULTRA — so a sort of spiritual successor. MKULTRA had somewhat of a wider scope, whereas MKOFTEN was specifically built around testing drugs on people. There was, however, also an alleged wing that looked into paranormal and occult phenomenon — working with psychics, ‘Satanists’, and so on. While MKOFTEN is definitely real and the drug-related stuff is confirmed, the occult studies are not so confirmed. Still, the CIA definitely dug into that stuff one way or another — it’s just a matter of which cute little subdivision they put in charge of it.
GWEN TOWERS — In short, these are meant to create a backup communication network for the government/military during a nuclear war. Whether or not they’d even work at this point is iffy. There’s a scattering of theories about them that get popular every so often — right now they’re either being misidentified as 5G towers or somehow tied in with shooting 5G nanobots into our head or whatever. Sometimes they’re monitoring posts, sometimes they’re broadcasting stuff to mess with our heads as an experiment, etc. If you’re this deep down the iceberg, sometimes things unfortunately get a little standard in terms of what they’re associated with. It’s a side-effect of what happens when people get a little too deep into conspiracy stuff: you mix some natural paranoia and some knowledge of other weird stuff with a few things you can only defend by saying “Well, X and Y are PART of it too!”. Suddenly the only way to make sense of it is to keep adding things, and soon literally everything even mildly out of place is part of the conspiracy. Unfortunately, it’s usually just rich people trying to maintain the status quo and occasionally using unpredictable events as leverage because they have the power to do so. Sometimes its aliens or magic or cryptids, but usually just rich assholes. Anyway, moving on!
S QUEST LOGS — Not a clue. Gotta guess it’s something to do with some kind of program or game, maybe? Please let me know! I’m sorry I let you down!
And so closes Day Thirty! That’s a lot of days! We’re getting there, though. Tomorrow we crack into Tier Six and official break past the 25% mark. See you then!
