Conspiracy Theories of the 90s
no, not the Mel Gibson film.
I was raised in a Christian conservative home in the nineties. While I wouldn’t say my parents were obsessed with talk radio like Rush Limbaugh, I sure as shit heard enough of it growing up.
I’m not really sure how much conspiracy theory is too much for a kid, I assume the answer is zero?
I remember being on a road trip and one of my siblings pointed out a helicopter and told me it was a black helicopter. I barely understood what that meant, but even as an eight year old, I knew it was the government spying on us.
These were the Clinton years and my family was on high alert.
I recall times where my stepmom would get us to draw the blinds and turn off all the lights, because a car was parked outside of the house. Could it be the police? Could it be a robber? Or could it be our own personal Ruby Ridge?
We would sit and wait, holding our breath as if that made a difference. My stepsister would peek through the blinds, but only so much as to not tip off our deep state agent, tasked with keeping track of a blended family of seven, living in a double-wide trailer in Wilmington, NC.
I vaguely remember the discussions at the barber shop between my dad, the barber and other patrons about their guns and if the Clintons were going to take them away. I’d comb through issues of Soldier of Fortune, waiting for my time to hop up in the chair so I could get a flat top, to get myself a little bit closer to my idol, Arnold Schwarzenegger ala Terminator 2.
So what are black helicopters you ask?
Black helicopters have been a symbol of conspiratorial military takeover in American militia movement. In the United Kingdom they’ve been associated with UFOs and cattle mutilation since the 1970s. These are sometimes called Phantom Helicopters.
The John Birch Society, a right-wing group, were known for promoted it, asserting that a United Nations force would soon arrive in black helicopters to bring the US under UN control.
In popular media, such as X-Files, you’d hear the characters speak about unmarked black helicopters. Specifically in the finale episode of season two and nine, involving the Cigarette Smoking Man. In the film, The X-Files: Fight the Future, black helicopters pursue Mulder and Scully.
In the film Conspiracy Theory, the protagonist, Jerry Fletcher (Mel Gibson), describes silent black military helicopters to an empty cab. It turns out his wild theories are based on reality.
All that to say, it’s been a thing. But maybe not great for a young kid looking up the sky on the way to his softball church league practice.
Some of it was a little more harmless, yet still rooted in homophobia.
Do you remember the Bill Clinton three dollar bill?
The conspiracy theory in Clinton’s first term was that he was gay and his marriage to Hilary Clinton was simply a front.
What’s interesting about the accusation is that Bill Clinton signed the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) in 1996, which defined marriage as between a man and a woman. Clinton did criticize DOMA as "divisive and unnecessary". He nonetheless signed it into law in September 1996.
“Queer as a three dollar bill” was the quip thrown around in private and not so private company. I remember a parody magazine called Slick Times where you could buy some gag gifts poking fun at the Clinton family.
It’s also laughable these accusations, based on what we learned of Bill Clinton in regards to the Monica Lewinsky trial, just a few years later.
In a lot of ways it makes sense that conspiracy theory exploded in the nineties. We were fresh off the heels of Satanic Panic, and in some ways still very much in the throes of it. Economically the country was at a low near the end of George W. Bush’s term, due to stagflation brought on by eight years of Reaganomics. Factory jobs had been steadily being sent overseas throughout the 80s, see Michael Moore’s 1989 documentary Roger & Me.
People didn’t often have the time to sit around who was the appropriate boogeyman to blame and right-wing infrastructure and Lee Atwater were working overtime to convince you that it wasn’t the corporation or government that was to blame for these downturns. If they could instead blame immigrants, your neighbor, queer people, with an added twist of science fiction then you’d be none the wiser.
In 1978, William Luther Pierce wrote The Turner Diaries under the pseudonym Andrew MacDonald. The book depicts a violent revolution in the United States, caused by a group called the Organization. The Organization's actions lead to the overthrow of the federal government, a nuclear war, and ultimately a race war. White people viewed as "race traitors" are ultimately hanged in a mass execution called the "Day of the Rope".
The New York Times describes the book as extremely racist and anti-semitic. It has inspired numerous hates crimes and acts of terrorism, including the 1984 assassination of Alan Berg and the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing. It is estimated to have influenced perpetrators in over 200 killings.
William Luther Pierce went on to form the National Alliance, an American white nationalist group in the United States.
This is not to say that every conspiracy theorist was an avowed white nationalist, but it is to say that conspiracy theorists were often indirectly peddling the wares of white nationalism within their doctrine.
In the soup of this discussion, let’s not forget the Branch Davidians and the subsequent FBI siege of Waco, leading to the deaths of David Koresh and more than seventy other members.
(once again see Ruby Ridge)
Reddit user Seattle Exile makes a good point in regards to conspiracy theories, “I think the discovery of the Titanic had a lot to do with this cultural shift. For 70 years or so, the resting place of the ship was uncertain and the story of its sinking was already subject of speculation and conspiracy theory. When it was found and came complete with video footage, it gave the public a sense that such mysteries do have answers, and that it we keep seeking we will eventually find them. If we can learn more about the Titanic, why not the Bermuda Triangle or flying saucers?”
With many reasons to distrust your government and the lies they’d been feeding us since the Vietnam War (and before), it makes perfect sense to start questioning everything.
The nineties were a time that started capitalizing on this as a commodity. The aforementioned X-Files, but coupled with Unsolved Mysteries, Coast to Coast, and the beginning of Fox News in 1996. An explosion due to cable TV and as the nineties continued on, the internet.
The Berlin Wall fell in 1989 and no longer were the Russians such an ever pressing threat. So with Cold War tensions slightly alleviated, we could turn that pressure inward and really capitalize on cryptids, the government and people that weren’t like us.
Let’s review a list:
The Moon Landing Hoax
New World Order
Firearm Confiscation
Black Helicopters
Skinwalker Ranch
Cryptids
Area 51
The Rapture (see religious cults)
What else am I missing?
I was just a young child swimming in a pool of all of this newly mainstream thought, not shielded from any of it.
It honestly took a long time to unlearn a lot of it, even going into college. It’s still just up there though, not doing me any good, other than seeing those signs of indoctrination in family and friends. It can truly be hard to see and recognize those patterns that might lead us on a path that nowadays arrives at whatever QAnon has shattered into. Those phrases like “cabal” have been pushed out of Protocols of the Elders of Zion territory and into the mainstream thanks to Alex Jones and Infowars and now your Tucker Carlson’s and the mainstream Republican party, like Marjorie Taylor Green.
So while these conspiracy theories often felt “exciting” in the nineties, I can look back and see the real world impact it had on culture (and human life) at the time, which led us to where we are today.
Don’t believe everything you read. Unless I wrote it.