CONSPIRACY theories and delusional systems, Feedback has long observed, are as prone to fashion as are鈥� clothes. We recall receiving, back in the days when we started out in journalism, an inch-thick wodge of mostly illegible 10th-generation photocopies purporting to show that Marilyn Monroe had been assassinated by gangsters working for the CIA to cover up its secret experiments with hallucinogens.
In the years that followed, we received plaintive pleas for help from those whose minds were being controlled by microwaves from the Soviet Embassy. Then alien abduction became the delusion of choice. And so on, sadly. Now the advent of the interwebs has apparently allowed for cross-decade fertilisation.
Advertisement
How else to account for the portmanteau conspiracy that Fred Riley spotted being plugged by someone posting on the Facebook page of UK broadcaster Channel 4: 鈥淣ew Evidence Fukushima Disaster Created by HAARP/Chemtrails/Plasma Weapons and Possible Mini-nuke.鈥�
Delusional anxiety about the High Frequency Active Auroral Research Program falls roughly into the 鈥渕icrowave鈥� category. In reality, HAARP is, as its distinctly non-secret website explains, a facility for researching the ionosphere. The US Navy is one of the bodies openly involved in this work for communications purposes (see ). But HAARP has long excited more than the electrons in the atmosphere 鈥� in particular, it has excited people who really, really know the US government is controlling the weather. HAARP could almost have been designed, after all, to attract the attention of fans of the more esoteric ideas of independent physicist Nikola Tesla.
Anxiety about 鈥渃hemtrails鈥�, meanwhile, is a phenomenon of, as far as we have noticed, the first decade of the 21st century. The anxiety was initially caused by emails detailing how the evil government is spraying noxious nostrums into our skies. This made some people look up, possibly for the first time since they were a wondering child. What they saw, of course, were vapour trails, which convinced some that there is a conspiracy.
However, the thing that stands out most for our informant Fred about the Facebook posting he saw is 鈥渢he idea that atmospheric manipulation could create earthquakes. This is beyond comment.鈥�
A front-page advertising feature in Brian Whitehead鈥檚 local paper boasted: 鈥淣ew invisible hearing aid has to be seen to be believed鈥�
PHISHING emails 鈥� those that attempt to get you to reveal details that will enable someone to steal from you 鈥� vary widely.
There are the misspelled exhortations from unknown people with unusual names to open the attached 鈥渟exy photo鈥�.
There are the highly polished messages from your bank 鈥� except that your bank never sends such messages and, anyway, your information turns out to go to .
Then there are intermediate cases, such as the 鈥渕ore than usually convincing-looking spoof email supposedly from PayPal鈥� that Jeremy Marchant received. It bore this footnote: 鈥淗ow do I know this is not a Spoof email? Spoof or 鈥榩hishing鈥� emails tend to have generic greetings such as 鈥楧ear PayPal member鈥�. Emails from PayPal will always address you by your first and last name.鈥�
Glancing up, Jeremy noted that this one was addressed 鈥淒ear Paypal User鈥�. Is this a massive logic fail? Or could it support the hypothesis put forward by Cormac Herley of Microsoft Research in his paper 鈥淲hy do Nigerian scammers say they are from Nigeria?鈥� 鈥� that scammers want to hear only from the truly, deeply gullible (21 July 2012)?
SCIENCE has been of inestimable value in improving forensic inquiry in recent decades 鈥� think of the role of DNA matching in freeing the unjustly convicted. Now a new frontier has been breached.
Subramaniam Divakaran alerts us to a about a gated apartment development in Plano, Texas, that requires residents to supply a mouth swab from their dogs 鈥� so that anything they leave on the sidewalk can be sequenced and traced back to them.
GAITERS from Trespass are nylon 鈥渟leeves鈥� that cover the bottom of walkers鈥� legs to keep the bottom of their trousers free from mud.
Raffi Katz wants to know why they are billed as 鈥渨aterproof to 10000mm鈥�.
If the bottom of his trousers are 10 metres under water, and he is less than 10 metres tall, 鈥渢hen how,鈥� Raffi asks, 鈥渄o I breathe?鈥�
SEARCHING for research on an antenna design, Stephen Murray stumbled across a very puzzling conference session. Among the were 鈥淢architime Radar鈥�, 鈥淪Marcht Antenna Systems鈥� and 鈥淢archkovian Channel Modeling鈥�.
It was a reference to 鈥淨ueen Marchy鈥� college at the University of London that made everything clear: someone鈥檚 search-and-replace tool had gone marching out of control.
FINALLY, a announcing in online electronics magazine Z6 begins, 鈥淓xtinct Loggerhead sea turtles are about to get US government help.鈥�
鈥淭he US government,鈥� observes Gary Shoup, 鈥渕ay be slow, but it always comes through.鈥� Happily, the blurb-writer forgot to tell the very much alive, but endangered, loggerhead turtles that they are all dead.
