Those Shameless Sandy Hook Truthers

Meet the Sandy Hook truthers

Conspiracy Theorists think they’ve found “absolute proof” that Newtown was a hoax. Have they no shame?

BY ALEX SEITZ-WALD

(Credit: Reuters/Eric Thayer)

Yes, there really are Newtown truthers.

But in the crazy world of Sandy Hook conspiracy theories, this one may be the worst yet. (Maybe you’ve already heard some of the others, like the one about fantasy ties between the gunman’s family and the LIBOR banking scandal and a related theory about the Aurora shooting and the “Dark Knight Rises.”) Most of the theories are really pieces of a larger meta-theory: that the Sandy Hook shooting was a hoax, perhaps by the Obama administration, designed to stir demand for gun control.

In the latest angle, theorists think they have found “absolute proof” of a conspiracy to defraud the American people. “You reported in December that this little girl had been killed,” a reader emailed Salon in response to a story. “She has been found, and photographed with President Obama.”

The girl in question is Emilie Parker, a 6-year-old who was shot multiple times and killed at Sandy Hook. But for conspiracy theorists, the tears her family shed at her funeral, the moving eulogy from Utah’s governor, and the entire shooting spree are fake. Welcome to the world where Sandy Hook didn’t really happen.

There are dozens of websites, blog posts and YouTube videos extolling the Emilie Parker hoax theory. If you Google her name, the very first result is a post mocking her father for crying at a press conference after the shooting. One popular video, which already has 134,000 views, was made by the producers of a popular 9/11 Truther film. “Just as the movie ‘Operation Terror’ shows the 9/11 attacks were a made-for-TV event, so too were the mass shootings … There can be no doubt that Sandy Hook was a staged event,” the narrator intones. He goes on to say that the adults who participated in the media coverage of the shootings “should be prosecuted as accessories after the fact in a mass murder” — i.e., the parents whose children were murdered in the massacre should be thrown in prison.

The crux of the theory is a photograph of Parker’s sister sitting on President Obama’s lap when he visited with the victims’ families. The girl is wearing the same dress Emilie wore in a pre-shooting photograph of the family shared with media, so she must be Emilie, alive and well. “BAM! I cannot believe how idiot these people are [sic]… That’s her,” one YouTuber exclaims as he watches the two images superimposed on each other. (Apparently missed by these crack investigators is the possibility that the sister wore Emilie’s dress and that they look alike because they are sisters, after all.)

The supporting details to the hoax theory explanation are reminiscent of the arcana of any well-developed conspiracy theory. What about the car? What about the rifle? Why does someone off camera allegedly tell Parker’s father to “read the Card” (as in a cue card) before he goes on CNN? Why is he laughing? Who is the guy running into the woods? Why is there police audio referring to multiple shooters? Why does one boy who survived the shooting tell Dr. Oz it was like “a drill”? Why was the principal quoted by a local paper after she died? Why do some of the parents look like some of the victims of the Aurora shooting — are they “all actors”? All of these questions have simple explanations, but in each case, the theorists have sided more with less likely, but more nefarious possibilities.

One man has taken it upon himself to catalog all of the theories at SandyHookHoax.com. By way of credentials, creator Jay Johnson explains: “I am the only person in the world to solve LOST,” he writes (yes, the TV show).

In an email exchange with Salon, Johnson said he initially “wanted to help the kids express their feelings and memorialize the victims … But then I saw how the local paper interviewed the principal after she was dead, and I realized it was 99% odds another psychological operation that was going on,” he explained.

Noting that he started the website on “12/21/12” he explained, “since I am the New Age Messiah, with my Look Your Heart in the Mirror™ as the new revelation from the Goddess Tefnut, aka Ma’at, of Egypt, I thought the date was significant.”

But the hoax theory has even earned the backing for some presumably more credible sources. James Tracy, a tenured professor of communications at Florida Atlantic University, sparked controversy this week after he wrote a blog post suggesting the parents were “crisis actors.” “While it sounds like an outrageous claim, one is left to inquire whether the Sandy Hook shooting ever took place — at least in the way law enforcement authorities and the nation’s news media have described,” he wrote.

Websites owned by Alex Jones, the conspiracy theory pundit who helped start the 9/11 Truther movement and has millions of readers, are a virtual one-stop shop for Sandy Hook “false flag” miscellanea. So far, mainstream conservative figures haven’t hopped on board, though Gun Owners of American head Larry Pratt told Jones this summer that he thought there was a good chance the Aurora massacre was perpetrated by government agents.

Then there’s just the downright bizarre subgenre of theories. One posting on the community forum of Jones’ website connects Sandy Hook and Emilie Parker to Satanism, postulating that the school was a “recruiting center” for the Church of Satan. There’s even a low-budget slasher flick called “Sandy Hook Lingerie Party Massacre” — could that be connected?

Whether there is a connection or not, we can count on the Internet’s conspiracy theorists to find one, even if it means denying the legitimacy of the mourning families’ grief.

Alex Seitz-Wald is Salon’s political reporter. Email him at aseitz-wald@salon.com, and follow him on Twitter @aseitzwald.MORE ALEX SEITZ-WALD.

Related articles

• Sandy Hook “Truthers” (geo-geek.blogspot.com)
• “BAM! I can’t believe how idiot these people are!” (cannonfire.blogspot.com)
• Internet crackpots believe Newtown massacre was staged, citing “absolute” Photoshop proof (boingboing.net)
• ‘Absolute Proof Sandy Hook Was Staged’ – ‘Newtown Truthers’ Hit A New Low (VIDEO) (addictinginfo.org)
• The worst Sandy Hook conspiracy theory yet (salon.com)
• Meet the Sandy Hook truthers (illuminutti.com)
• Meet the Sandy Hook truthers – Salon.com (tribuneofthepeople.com)

Conspiracy Nuts | The Batman/Sandy Hook Delusion

The Batman/Sandy Hook Delusion

Posted by Mason I. Bilderberg

http://illuminutti.com/2012/12/26/the-batman-sandy-hook-delusion/

Have you heard the one about the latest Batman movie foretelling the shooting at the Sandy Hook school? The story has been floating around for at least two weeks now and i’ve been addressing the issue on a number of forums, so i thought i would bring the issue here to iLLumiNuTTi.com.

From our favorite morons over at infowars.com:

Bizarre evidence that the Sandy Hook massacre in Connecticut may have been staged has surfaced in the form of YouTube videos which point out the words “Sandy Hook” were written on a map that appeared in the most recent Dark Knight movie, a startling revelation given the deluge of mysterious coincidences already plaguing the movie.

According to numerous YouTube videos, a scene appears in which Commissioner Gordon points at a Gotham City map and confusingly, directly to the words “Sandy Hook.”

Here is a still shot from the movie The Dark Knight with an explanation below:

Click image for much larger view.

The top photo is a still shot from the movie showing the map of Gotham City. Allegedly (i’m not motivated enough to personally verify this ridiculousness) at 1:58:41 into the movie Commissioner Gordon sets his hand down on the map of Gotham City (lower left) on a location called Sandy Hook (lower right) and says, “To mark the truck. Get a GPS on it so we can start to figure out how to bring it down.” Also notice the words “strike zone” are written on the map (lower right). Shiver me timbers.

According to conspiracists, this can only mean one thing: It’s obvious the Sandy Hook shootings were foreseen by the filmmakers behind “The Dark Knight Rises“!!!!

Again from InfoWars.com:

“As more of these ‘strange coincidences’ continue to pop up, it would take a fool not to question the motive behind it all: Is this all part of an evil pre-conditioning program?”

“This definitely begins to tread into Satanic and occult territory, the purpose of which is known to only a select few in tight-knit circles at the very top branches of various secret societies.”

Yes, “evil pre-conditioning programming,” “Satanic and occult territories” and “the very top branches of various secret societies.” Are you scared yet? You shouldn’t be.

According to Batman co-creator Bill Finger, Gotham City is based on New York City:

«Writer Bill Finger, uncredited co-creator, with Bob Kane, of the DC Comics character Batman, on the naming of (Gotham) city and the reason for changing Batman’s locale from New York City to a fictional city said, “Originally I was going to call Gotham City ‘Civic City.’ Then I tried ‘Capital City,’ then ‘Coast City.’ Then I flipped through the New York City phone book and spotted the name ‘Gotham Jewelers’ and said, ‘That’s it,’ Gotham City. We didn’t call it New York because we wanted anybody in any city to identify with it.”

“Gotham” had long been a well-known nickname for New York City even prior to Batman’s 1939 introduction, which explains why “Gotham Jewelers” and many other businesses in New York City have the word “Gotham” in them. The nickname was popularized in the nineteenth century, having been first attached to New York by Washington Irving in the November 11, 1807 edition of his Salmagundi.»[1][2]

Look at a map of New York, there are A LOT of places in and around NY called Sandy Hook – most notably Sandy Hook Bay (only a stones throw away in NJ) and the 10-plus locations surrounding Sandy Hook Bay with “Sandy Hook” in the name.

Click image for much larger view.

Gotham City is based on the city of New York. New York is surrounded by many locales with the name Sandy Hook. Why do conspiracists ignore this obvious connection between the map of Gotham and the name Sandy Hook?

Conspiracists engage in confirmation bias to maintain their world of delusions.

Related articles

• The Batman, Sandy Hook Delusion (illuminutti.com)
• Conspiracy Nuts | The Batman/Sandy Hook Delusion (theageofblasphemy.wordpress.com)