Secret Societies: Inside the World's Most Notorious Organizations (43 page)

July 4, 1947: flying saucers are spotted and new conspiracies are born.

But not everyone. Legends have been constructed around this otherwise mundane event, and outlandish tales suggest how and why nothing more of substance has been revealed. This has led to the supposition that a secret organization monitors the public's curiosity, maintains necessary secrecy, protects evidence, and deflects any public investigation that comes too close to “the truth.” In this case, the clandestine group is known as the jason Society, supposedly established to conceal evidence of alien entry into the U.S., including the “flying saucer” crash at Roswell.

Created by President Eisenhower, the fable goes, jason consists of thirty-two prominent men, many with cia connections, responsible for keeping U.S. citizens and the world at large from discovering the true facts about Roswell, including the “fact” that the bodies of two alien creatures were found among the wreckage. Twelve members of jason, identified by the code mj-12, direct the group's income, which is earned by
running most of the world's illegal drug traffic; in this manner, jason is concealed from members of Congress who might be alerted to its existence through budget appropriations. As a byproduct of generating its funds through narcotics, the organization is able to identify and eliminate, if necessary, weak elements of U.S. society.

The rest of the alleged actions and attributes of jason provide a clinic in tying together elements of multiple conspiracy theories to create a conclusion that is not only larger than the sum of its parts, but distinctly different.

President John Kennedy's discovery of jason, its believers claim, prompted his assassination by mj-12 members within the cia. These cia operatives disagreed with his plans to reveal the presence of aliens, along with samples of their weapons and materials, to the American public, a move that would cut off the group's funding. jason determined that the president of the United States must be killed, and hidden in the jason vaults is a film showing the driver of Kennedy's limousine turning in his seat with a pistol in his hand to deliver the coup de grace while guiding the limo through Dallas streets. Bizarre? Of course. But how much more weird than the idea of descendants of Jesus Christ manipulating world events for 2000 years while managing to conceal their existence? Weirdness is relative, after all.

Secret societies prosper when their believers can coalesce around some individual whose unique powers of perception serve as a beacon to his followers. When that leader becomes a martyr, whose violent death serves as proof that he possessed information that cost him his life, so much the better. In the case of jason, this role was played with great effect by Milton William Cooper, who alleged that he owned an immense trove of government secrets regarding the events at Roswell and other actions, including John F. Kennedy being shot by his own chauffeur. Cooper had examined evidence of these events while serving as a U.S. navy intelligence officer with access to top secret files.

Believers on the far right fringe of U.S. society, especially those who tuned to Cooper's daily radio show or plodded through his 1991 book
Behold a Pale Horse (
Light Technology Publications, 1991), called him “America's greatest patriot,” an accolade awarded even after he claimed
The Protocols of the Elders of Zion
were authentic (although he suggested to his listeners that they replace “Jews” with “Illuminati”). Cooper supported many of his claims by saying he had once been a member of the Order of de Molay, providing him with insight into the secret powers of Freemasonry.

Milton William Cooper claimed flying saucers exist, aliens had landed, and he would be killed by the government. Only the last has proved true.

Cooper constantly railed against a litany of secret societies, always boasting that he possessed hard evidence of their existence and evil influence. Too bad he didn't possess a world atlas. In attacking the Bilderberg Group, he claimed their headquarters was located in “The Hague, in Switzerland” and pointed out that Switzerland was the only European country that avoided invasion and bombing during World War ii, attributing this fact (which is not entirely true) to the influence of Bilderberg participants. Perhaps he should have acquired a calendar as well, since the Bilderberg Group was not formed until nearly ten years after World War ii ended.

Whatever his Masonic credentials, Cooper was no naval intelligence expert. According to official U.S. military records, he rose no higher than a second-class petty officer in the navy before being discharged in 1975. Twenty-five years later, living as a recluse in a remote corner of Arizona, Cooper was killed during a shoot-out with several sheriff's deputies attempting to
serve him with a warrant for, among other charges, tax evasion and aggravated assault with a deadly weapon.

Since that day in November 2000, legends have crystalized around Cooper and his revelations. He was killed, the stories say, because he knew too many government secrets. His military records, his followers contend, had been altered to remove any evidence of his intelligence work. The truth about Roswell, the Kennedy assassination, the 9/11 attacks, the jason Group, Richard Nixon's real reasons for resigning, and other events manipulated by secret societies were buried with him, they insist.

It is not difficult to imagine Cooper's “martyred” death and his claimed knowledge of dark secrets and dangerous conspiracies evolving over several generations into a foundation promulgating the existence of clandestine plans and treacherous activities, all based on “unassailable facts.” The legend will undoubtedly attract individuals who choose to believe that the failings of this world in general, and their fortunes in particular, are the result not of flaws in our economic system or their own lack of initiative, but the realized goals of covens and committees employing secret oaths and rituals. They will rely upon unproven activities of secret societies that they wish, or even need, to believe in. And they will take comfort in a certainty that exists purely, exclusively, in their own imaginations.

AFTERWORD

OF DEMONS AND BALONEY

I SET OUT TO WRITE THIS BOOK WITH THE HOPE, IF NOT THE
expectation, of discovering centuries-old conspiracies among the world's power elite. I hoped to meet shadowy men in subterranean caverns manipulating the world's currencies, concealing proof of extraterrestrial visitors, or confirming the location of Christ's bones. I sought evidence of brilliant minds dealing with eternal questions of the cosmos, or engaged in accumulating wealth and power over a grand scale of time and geography. For the most part, all I encountered was ill-defined paranoia expressed in juvenile babble, supported by sporadic tales in the mainstream media, stories designed to titillate readers and build circulation rather than deliver real news or knowledge.

Evil and invisible powers lie at the heart of every conspiracy theory, the tales too often delivered with half truths, outright fiction, and an absurd blend of historical and imaginary events. These wild assertions carry weight because, especially in advanced and industrialized cultures, they tap widespread anxiety over our potential loss of control and identity as individuals. They address the fears many of us harbor, and accounts of their existence, no matter how outlandish, are comforting to some degree.

I concluded that buying into these theories without exercising logic and reasoning is dangerous, because it diverts attention from concrete risks. Too many of us spend too much time wrestling with imaginative secret society–based explanations and not enough time probing the validity of false
presumptions leading to catastrophic events… or have we forgotten those weapons of mass destruction? Instead of making gullible readers aware of actual risks and providing a means of dealing with them, as conspiracy authors claim to do, their tales aggravate a sense of helplessness while diminishing the ability to deal with serious social and political situations.

Amid the myths, a few glimmers of reality appear from time to time. The linear connection between the Assassins and Al Qaeda, for example, is obvious, although whether an understanding of the Assassins’ methods and structure will assist in the battle against extremist Muslim terrorism remains to be seen. The influence of the nsc extends well past the borders of the U.S., and their inclination to act unilaterally in the pursuit of U.S. interests remains a reason for monitoring their power. Beyond these exceptions, our fascination with secret societies appears rooted more in the entertainment value they afford than in the global menace they suggest.

It took the esteemed scientist Carl Sagan, in his book
The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark
(New York: Ballantine Books, 1997)
,
to point his finger at the core of the secret society phenomenon. Sagan's primary topic was the enduring fascination with flying saucers in his country and the extraterrestrial demons piloting them, prompting him to note that 95 percent of Americans are scientifically illiterate and seek bizarre explanations for natural events. Instead of parsing superstition-based tales of alchemists and occult masters behind many ancient societies, Sagan suggests, we should pay attention to things even more awe-inspiring and comprehensive that lie all around us waiting to be explored, deciphered and appreciated. “We want so much to be roused from our humdrum lives,” Sagan writes, “to rekindle that sense of wonder we remember from childhood.” Secret societies provide a link with that phase of childhood wonder, but while immersing ourselves in their allure we risk accepting legends of their existence as true and avoid the application of logic and reason. Too often, we settle for superstition instead of scientific analysis.

Sagan especially decries a “celebration of ignorance” among those who favor rigid dogma over reasonable deduction. “Sooner or later,” he warns, “this combustible mixture of ignorance and power is going to blow up in our faces. When governments and societies lose the capacity for critical thinking, the results can be catastrophic, however sympathetic we may be to those who bought the baloney.”

It seemed to me, as I reviewed and assessed all the sources, viewpoints, evidence and opinions regarding secret societies, that it has been a seller's market in the baloney business for some time now.

December 15, 2005