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  • Slight change of subject, but while on holiday in the US two years ago I met two separate people who detailed conspiracy theories, one chemtrails and one some kind of alien/government thing. These were seemingly sober people, a shop manager and a taxi driver, not placard bearers in the street outside government buildings.

    The taxi driver was interesting, we were on our way to an aircraft museum at an old airbase and he started with urban legends about unexplained cockpit lights being seen at night, propellers rotating even when the engines were removed.

    Pretty common stuff which you hear/read about around pretty much every old airfield. He didn't seem to even take them seriously himself, but I channelled Jon Ronson/Louis Theroux and appeared credulous. He then alluded to 'problem people' in the area and I asked if he meant meth users, which I'd realised was a big issue from local news.

    He then gradually dropped hints to his bizarre worldview, which I'm still not clear on, but started with implying the meth was supplied by the government or another organisation, and was a factor in mind control.

    He then started on 'illegal aliens', and I assumed he was back on familiar taxi driver themes, so asked if he meant Mexicans.

    So he started along the lines of "'Mexicans'? Yes these 'Mexicans' are a real problem, but some of them come from a whole lot further away than Mexico, if you get what I'm saying" while gesturing vaguely at the night sky.

    Very strange. Also rather clichéd, but that's one of the interesting things about conspiracy theories, they have a great degree of shared belief. And I suppose these archetypes of sun-crazed Californians have to come from somewhere.

    #csb

  • propellers rotating even when the engines were removed.

    Props will rotate, given sufficient airflow.

  • Surely one would park them long term with blades feathered to 'neutral' or whatever the term is. Anyway, seeing some physical or human phenomenon and leaping to a rather different conclusion to the majority is rather the point.

  • Yeah but you can "prove" anything with facts, everyone knows aliens go round turning driveless props why do you think the government is so deafeningly quiet on the matter??

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