ZEBRA

Few of us know the web of conspiracy surroundingrenowned Zachariah the Zebra at a well-known zoo.The fate of the poor aforementioned animal seemed to beset in stone when he finally passed away after years offaithful service to the zoo. Distress failed to describe theemotions of the children who had traveled from all cornersof the country to see poor old Zack.And so, decided the authorities, action had to be taken.The expressions on the faces of the hordes of distraughtchildren who had rushed so expectantly to Zack’s cage wasjust too much to bear. An artful disguise was undertaken. Ahorse was imported from the adjoining cage and waspainted black and white. And no one noticed. The delightof the children knew no bounds. Zack was back.This project was not without its complications, however—not least of all that Zack had to be repainted every week,and every two hours if it rained. But this seems of littleconsequence, seeing as rumor was threatening closure ofthe zoo. And if it took standing in the rain painting a horseblack and white to avoid redundancy, the zoo workers werequite happy to undertake the task.

POPE JOHN PAUL II

On May 13, 1981 antipapal violence became evenmore overt as Pope John Paul II was shot and verynearly killed in St. Peter’s Square. Immediately it was acceptedby people all over the world as the action of an individualmadman called Mehmet Ali Agca. Even at the time,Italian authorities suggested that this might be a part of alarger conspiracy, but this was largely ignored. The Westernpress suggested that Mehmet Ali Agca may in fact havebeen a cog in the wheel of a Turkish right-wing Islamicfundamentalist conspiracy, but this was as far as it went.New evidence, however, has pointed the finger at the SovietKGB, operating through the secret factions of theCommunist regimes in Bulgaria and the Turkish Mafia.Rumor has it that Agca escaped from a Turkish prison and,having been given extensive training and an elaborate plot,adopted a right-wing disguise to hide the real motivationsof the assassination.The plot to kill the Pope may have failed, but this maynot have been the sole purpose of the assassination attempt.The whole thing could have been a clever doublebluff. After all, what better way to stir up public reaction against right-wing extremity and religious “fundamentalism.”No one suspected the Communist role for a minute.This does raise some doubts as to whether the neo-Naziactivities that have plagued Germany for more than half acentury are in fact propagated by extreme right-wing factionsat all or whether, again, it could be Communists behindthe series of events, which have included the brandingof the swastika, militant homophobia and racial prejudice.Information leaked from within the Soviet Party revealedthat one of its primary aims was to stir up public emotionagainst all that it termed as right-wing. Hitlerites were oneobvious example, but other right-wing factions also includedChristians, liberals and in fact anyone at all whowas not Communist.

PAUL McCARTNEY

In 1969 the rumor that Paul McCartney had died threeyears earlier raged around the world, coinciding with increasinglywidespread suspicion of a conspiracy behind theassassination of JFK. Propagators of the theory claimedthat Paul had actually died in a road crash three years earlier,in accordance with the lyrics of the song “A Day in theLife.” “He blew his mind out in a car,” the lyrics state. “Hedidn’t notice that the lights had changed.” And then, evenmore suspiciously, “A crowd of people stood and stared,they’d seen his face before.”On the cover of the Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely HeartsClub Band album, the number-plate of one of the cars inthe foreground reads “28 IF.” If Paul had lived, he wouldhave been 28 by then. Moreover, George Harrison is wearingclothes that clearly resemble an undertaker. In the albumitself, at the end of “Strawberry Fields,” John Lennon’srepeated intonation of the words cranberry sauce mustsurely be a fairly transparent disguise for the words “I buryPaul.”It is said that after Paul’s death, the group searched fora replacement so that they could continue with the same success as before. So they drafted in a certain Billy Shearsas a replacement, gave him extensive plastic surgery andall grew beards so that no one would actually be able to seethe minor facial discrepancies that gave away the fact thathe was not the real Paul. If the conspiracy holds, they did apretty good job of it.

LENNON'S ASSASSINATION

John Lennon was shot on December 8, 1980 outside theDakota in New York by Mark David Chapman, agedtwenty-five. Was Chapman merely another disturbed killer,unsure of his own motives, or could there in fact have beenpolitical reasons behind the killings?It would seem unlikely that Chapman had killed Lennonto be famous. During his life, he turned down thirty toforty interviews, and said himself, “I am not a seekerafter publicity.” He never allowed documentaries to befilmed with him and never gave an interview. Moreover,his composure after he had shot Lennon was quite remarkable.Lennon was one of the most politically active rockstars of his generation. This, coupled with his reputationas a drug user, classified him as an undesirable in the eyesof the authorities, making it difficult for him to obtain agreen card to come and live in the U.S. The coinciding ofhis return to his former greatness with Reagan’s rise topower is interesting to say the least. Reagan’s policieswere radical and Lennon was the only person who would have been able to bring out millions of people to protest.The question therefore has to be asked whether theremay have been some kind of political involvement in hismurder.

KURT COBAIN

One of the most intriguing current conspiracy theoriesis that surrounding the premature and sudden deathof world-famous singer Kurt Cobain. The truth seems morethan slightly elusive. Questions of whether it really was asuicide are closely tied with the issues of whether his allegedlyestranged wife, Courtney Love, was involved in anyconspiracy. The further one delves into the mystery, thefewer ends seem to tie up.What seems strangest of all is the suicide note left byCobain directly prior to his dramatic exit scene, given thatthe tone really was not suicidal, with statements such as “Ihave it good, very good, and I’m grateful.” The entire notewas written in the present tense and seems to be a far cryfrom the final words of a man about to kill himself.According to psychologists at the rehabilitation centerCobain had visited only the week before, as well as closefriends, no one had suspected that he was suicidal, whichin the light of his Rome “suicide attempt” a few monthsearlier seems suspicious. Kurt had written Courtney a noteafter that incident which included one line which she saidwas “very definitely suicidal.” “Dr. Baker says I would have to choose between life and death,” Kurt had written. “I’mchoosing death.”There is the theory that Cobain was quite simply terrifiedfor his life after walking out on a $9.5 million contractto headline Lollapalooza and that this inspired him to commitsuicide. And the fact that the shotgun was loaded withthree shells when the fatal deed was done could have beenpart of a plan to make his suicide look like murder.Strangest of all, police failed to find any fingerprints atall on the gun. Of course, perhaps Kurt had carefully coveredhis traces and wiped the gun down, but such behavioris not what one expects from someone on the verge of suicide,and in any case, if it really was suicide, why the needfor the big cover-up?It is not to be denied that murdering the father of yourchild is fairly uncommon and the fact that Courtney andKurt were not getting on well before his death would seemlittle justification for cold-blooded killing. However, shecould have had several other possible motives. In January1994 Cobain told Rolling Stone that he might well be divorcingCourtney. Apparently divorce papers had alreadybeen drawn up by the time of his death. And shortly beforethe death itself, Courtney had apparently instructed one ofher lawyers to get the “meanest, most vicious divorcelawyer” she could find. Kurt had also hinted that he wantedCourtney taken out of his will, in which case she wouldhave gained a lot more financially from a suicide beforethe will could be changed than from a divorce. If Kurt wereto die, sales for Kurt’s band Nirvana would rocket. AndCourtney would benefit financially.The official line is that Kurt committed suicide. In thedays and weeks following his death, fans began killingthemselves in empathy with their fallen hero. In light ofthis suicide rush, the backlash would be devastating if policereversed their original judgment and opened a murderinvestigation.

HARRY POTTER

Of the thousands of column inches and hundreds ofbroadcast hours devoted to the phenomenally successfulseries of J. K. Rowling’s Harry Potter books, only ascarce few have claimed the influence of the occult withinthis remarkably popular set of books.The fifth installment, Harry Potter and the Order of thePhoenix, contains exactly 666 pages (excluding the prologue).The book’s worldwide release date was at midnighton the eve of the Summer Solstice. Although cynics wouldsuggest this was a simple marketing gimmick, there was noreference made to the unusual timing of the launch in thepromotional campaign.Many studies on the Harry Potter series have noted varioussymbolic connections. The lightning scar by whichHarry is recognized is a symbol used in Satanism. Unicorns,which are featured in the series, are symbolic of theAntichrist. The Phoenix is said to be Lucifer, who was castdown in flames and will rise again triumphantly. Mandrakeplants resembling humans are grown and used for medicinalpurposes, leading some people to draw comparisonswith human sacrifice. Some believe these connections are made deliberately to confuse the young mind. However, 60percent of Harry Potter books are purchased for adults toread, which may suggest that an interest in the occult has amuch wider grip on society than was previously realized.

GULF WAR COVER UP

During the 1990s GulfWar, the world was astounded atthe superiority of the American war effort. Iraqi armieswere overtaken by a ratio of about a thousand to one. Thetroops came back alive.But that is not to say that they came back healthy, andthousands of war veterans have died or are dying fromwhat has commonly come to be known as Gulf War Syndrome.Scientists’ attempts to locate the precise origins ofMycoplasma Incognita are not helped by the government’sunbending denials that there is such a thing as Gulf WarSyndrome in the first place.It is thought that Mycoplasma Incognita could havebeen manufactured as a sort of biological warfare agent.Whoever created this weapon allegedly used the HIV geneand so the illness therefore targets those with weak immunesystems. But no one seems to know what the real storyis. Lack of funding, as well as pressure from the governmentto cover up what has really gone on, has hamperedextensive research. It would seem that the M. D. AndersonCancer Center is the only center where this is being takenseriously. In recent years the government has released documentswhich suggest that Gulf War veterans are indeed rightwhen they claim that they were exposed to chemical andbiological agents during Operation Desert Storm, a claimwhich had previously been denied over and over again.Supporters of the veterans have claimed that the U.S. wasdirectly responsible for the weapons in the first place, havingsold those chemical and biological agents to the Iraqis.And it would appear that the veterans might have beenused as test subjects by the military themselves. The military,it would seem, forced the troops to take injections ofexperimental drugs which were supposedly intended toprotect them from biological weapons and nerve gas. Immediatelyprior to the Gulf War, the U.S. Food and DrugAdministration adopted the Interim Rule which allows themilitary to use experimental drugs on military staff withouttheir consent “during times of military exigency.” TheInterim Rule is still being observed. As a result, the troopswere given shots of pyridostigmine bromide tablets andbotulism toxoid vaccine. The FDA maintained that the militaryprovide staff with information about the side effectsof these experimental drugs and demanded that thoroughrecords be kept of which troops they were administered to.This, according to the National GulfWar Resource Center,however, is not the case. The Department of Defensefailed to inform troops of the possible side effects and virtuallyforced them into taking the injections. The Departmentof Defense also failed to keep records of whichtroops were given experimental drugs and did not keepcomplete records of the side effects that were inevitablyexperienced by the troops. This lack of recordkeeping hindersveterans’ ability to get medical help to this day.What is most frightening is that Mycoplasma Incognitaseems to be highly contagious. It is claimed that some ofthe families of these GulfWar veterans have now been attackedby the disease and low-income families who weregiven surplus Desert Storm food at food banks may alsohave become ill. Could this be a warped form of population control?Starting with men and women who pledged their lives toserve their country and who now can’t get enough helpfrom the authorities who sent them out in the first place?