Break out the tinfoil hats

I love conspiracy theories.

I always have. As far back as I can remember, I've enjoyed reading books that talked about "alternative" theories of history. Aliens built the pyramids, Hitler is alive and well in Argentina, and we never landed on the Moon. Stuff like that. Some of my favorite conspiracy theories had to wait until the advent of the Internet, as the groups that advocate them were both too small and too marginalized to be trusted with a real physical book.

Besides, books have UPC codes on them, which everyone knows are the mark of the beast.

There's all sorts of fun stuff out there. The United Nations has a lot to do with it, apparently feeding into a deep-seated American fear that blue-helmeted troops will flood our shores, take our guns, and force us to drink delicious coffee and implement socialized health care. We'll be herded into camps, where we'll be forced to wear ugly shoes and subsist on a diet of Coq au Vin and delicious European pastries. But we won't fight back, since decades of drinking "fluoridated" water will have softened our resolve and clouded our minds.

Ok, so perhaps I'm paraphrasing a bit.

One of my favorite conspiracies has to do with Denver International Airport. My brother and I used to tell people that if you rode the underground train past the end of the line, you were kidnapped by government agents and replaced with an identical clone.

Come to think of it, we never did come up with a reason why they'd do that. That's probably because my brother rode the train past the end one time, and there's no way I'm trusting some government clone with my theories.

The real surprise came when I discovered that there were people who actually believed much much stranger things about DIA than I could ever imagine.

Turns out you can't go way over budget building an airport in the middle of nowhere on an absurdly large piece of land and then decorate it with borderline creepy murals and hidden masonic symbols without tipping your hand that it's a UN base to welcome the Reptilians to earth after establishing a New World Order.

No, seriously.

Anyway, the title of this post alludes one of the two most famous conspiracy icons - the aluminum foil beanie, the only 100% reliable way to rid yourself of governmental or alien mind control. (Though recently, testing has suggested that the tinfoil hat could be a covert propaganda campaign orchestrated by the Illuminati, as they actually enhance the transmission of some federally-owned frequencies.)

The other is the black helicopter, which occasionally goes hand-in-hand with Men in Black, but is more often associated with the gun-grabbing atheist communist government troop conspiracies (see above RE: UN).

I only mention this because my favorite hometown news source reported that many residents of Denver were perturbed by black helicopters conducting "counterterrorism" exercises without warning.

Here's where it gets weird. In the original story, (now only available via the Google Cache), the Mayor expressed his displeasure at the lack of notification they received. I'll quote it just in case "they" disappear the article permanently.

"The federal agencies sponsoring the ongoing multi-agency training in Denver agreed to make the proper notifications regarding the exercises to prevent surprise and inconvenience to Denver residents," Hickenlooper wrote. "There seems to have been a misunderstanding about the reach and scope of these notifications, and they did not occur in the manner expected by the City."

Now, if you search their website for "black helicopters," the sentiment expressed by the mayor's office is very different.

"We're very, very pleased and honored to have the Special Operations unit here," Katherine Archuleta, a senior advisor to Mayor John Hickenlooper, said in a conference along with a military spokesman.

Suspicious? Oh, it gets worse.

He said that Special Operations teams have done low-profile training successfully in other cities without news releases and briefings.

A 1997 Washington Post article said the Special Operations Command had conducted at least 21 such exercises in U.S. cities, including Atlanta, Chicago, Dallas, and Seattle over three years.

21 covert black-helicopter missions, and now one in Denver, host of the Democratic National Convention? A dramatic reversal by government officals? "What's the connection," you ask?

“It’s nothing more than Special Operations Command training with local authorities,” said Lt. Nathan Potter of Special Operations Command, which has authority over special forces with all branches of the military.

Potter would not say which branch of the military was flying the choppers over Denver.

The training has nothing to do with preparation for the Democratic National Convention, which will be held in Denver in August, Potter said.

“It’s routine preparation for the global war on terrorism,” he said.

Bam, right there! Official denial equals unofficial admission, that's how conspiracies work.

Here's how this will go down:

First, the Democrats will select Obama as their candidate for the 2008 election, who will (under Illuminati orders) pick Senator Daniel Inouye (D-Hawaii) as a running mate.

Inouye, as is widely known, is a Reptilian.

Obama will make a stirring speech about working together and hope, which will be the signal for the battalion of black ops UN troops trained and hidden underneath DIA to emerge and swarm across America. The troops, having been ordered to to kill those Americans living in zip codes ending in two-digit prime numbers, will confiscate everyone's guns and precious metals. Resistance will be brief, as secret signals embedded in dream-transmissions will compel most people to cooperate with the troops.

The masons, following an extraterrestrial document buried under the pyramids, will forge the stolen guns and jewelry into a device called the Overportal, which will be located in Hawaii. The Overportal will use the island's natural volcanic energy to bring about the second coming of Galactic Emperor Xenu.

Or, I suppose that it could just be an example of poor intra-governmental communication.

But that's a lot less interesting.