Besides all the apocalyptic hype over the Mayan doomsday prophecy this past year has seen it's share of additions to paranormal-related history.  The conspiracy world  has had no shortage of fodder to fuel their paranoid fires this year.  Some of their claims have us looking over our shoulders.  Others make us happy knowing that conspiracy for entertainment purposes is continuing to grow and evolve.  Here’s a few of this year’s best conspiracies from a Lost Creek point of view.

Whitney Houston Illuminati Sacrifice for Blue Ivy Carter

The first conspiracy is by far my favorite.  It shows how the pop culture machine, mass media, and paranoids the world over all combine to produce us some quality entertainment.  As I mentioned in the Smurl article, whether ghost stories or conspiracy theories are true or not they reflect the views and concerns of society at large and provide some seriously interesting entertainment.  The perfect storm of conspiracy came when Whitney Houston died, shortly after the birth of Blue Ivy Carter to parents Beyonce and Jay-Z.

On Jan. 7 we welcomed Blue Ivy Carter into the world to parents Beyonce and Jay-Z.  Conspiracy forums and videos abounded with claims of both of Blue Ivy's parents' allegiance to the Illuminati- a secret order that controls the world.  Many of them are reaching way too far, like when Beyonce’s latest video is freeze-framed and dissected to point out possible Illuminati symbolism.  With so many of the devoted working to prove the music duo were part of the secret order it was no wonder that within hours of the baby’s birth the internet was abuzz with theories on Blue Ivy.

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Beyonce with Blue Ivy
The theories were popularized on Twitter with users making "Illuminati’s Very Youngest" one of its trending topics.  The leading retweet stated that Blue Ivy was an anagram for Eulb Yvi, the supposed name of one of the daughters of Satan.  The name was also said to be an anagram for “Born Living Under Evil” and “Illuminati’s Very Youngest.”  Conspiracy forums filled with theories using numerology.  4 was said to be a powerful number representing the Illuminati.  Ivy was likened to the Roman numeral IV, or 4.  Pointed out was that 4 seemed to be a very significant number for Blue Ivy’s parents.  Beyonce’s 2011 album was titled “4,” her birthday was on the 4th of the month, Jay-Z’s birthday is the 4th of the month, and their anniversary is on the 4th of the month.

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Jay-Z throwing up an Illuminati sign?
Skeptics tried to reason that if they existed the Illuminati were an uber-secretive group whose members were the elitist of the elite.  They wouldn’t think of inducting a newborn into their ranks.  However, if her parents are in fact Illuminatus as has been speculated, couldn’t it be possible that Blue Ivy was planned and her position within the order was secured by birthright?  The conspiracists were quick enough to claim once that Barak Obama had been the result of an Illuminati-planed birth.

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Whitney Houston
Whitney Houston died on February 11.  Early rumors spread that she had been killed by drug dealers to whom she owed a large amount of money.  The facts were that she was found in the bathtub of the Beverly Hilton hotel room she was staying.  The cause of death was ruled accidental drowning with heart disease and chronic cocaine abuse as contributing factors. A large amount, even for Whitney, of cocaine was found in her toxicology report, along with marijuana and several prescription drugs.

Conspiracy theories went a step further by including Whitney Houston’s death as a sacrifice in a fertility ritual by the Illuminati so they could bring forth Blue Ivy who would either take over the world or have a notable music career.  "For a queen to grow, another queen has to fall,” touted the headlines of these articles.

In detailed conspiracies it was noted that location is very important to the rituals of secret orders.  Hollywood lies at 35 degrees north.  When such a sacrifice is made, it has to be within 3 degrees north or south of a 33rd degree coordinate, which relates to the 33 degree’s of Freemasonry. Martin Luther King, Michael Jackson and JFK are all said to have been targets who were sacrificed within 3 degrees of a 33rd degree north point.

David Petraeus Planned Affair to Cover Up Benghazi Attacks

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Gen. David Petraeus
The conspiracy theory that uncovering of the head of the CIA’s extramarital affair was of his own orchestration to avoid giving congressional testimony on the attacks at Benghazi made it all the way to the pages of the New Yorker and on respected news channels such as CNN. 

Petraeus was said to be a master strategist, several chess moves ahead of events.  On Sept. 11 an attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya, resulted in the deaths of U.S. ambassador Christopher Stevens and three other Americans.  The Obama administration was blamed, and in turn said that sloppy work had caused the tragedy. Days before he was scheduled to give testimony at a congressional hearing on the Benghazi attacks Petraeus went public with an affair he had had with his biographer and the president accepted his resignation.  The affair had been with Paula Broadwell, a West Point graduate who accompanied Petraeus to the Middle East while writing the book.


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Petraeus with Broadwell
The affair came to light when the FBI performed an audit searching for a leak in an unrelated matter.  Emails between Petraeus and Broadwell were found.  It was also discovered that Broadwell had access to Petraeus' email account, which undoubtedly contained top secret information.

If going to the media with the affair to get out of testifying was his intention, it worked.  Conspiracy theorists already after the Obama administration over the Benghazi attack claim that Petraeus’ testimony would have answered many questions and he had been a patsy, taking the fall for the cover up.  White House officials have been busy with other conspiracies this year as well, such as fudging employment numbers just before the election to make the economy appear more favorable and secure a reelection.  Wonder if they’ve put on their administrative parachutes to jump off the fiscal cliff yet?

Andrew Breitbart was Murdered by Obama

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Andrew Breitbart
Conservative blogger Andrew Breitbart died unexpectedly on March 1 in L.A. He collapsed while walking near his home late that night and was pronounced dead at the hospital.  His lawyer immediately released a statement citing the cause of death as being a cardiac event.  Conspiracists jumped on this, as no autopsy had yet been performed. 

Breitbart was widely read and gained notoriety for his coverage of the Anthony Weiner scandal in 2011.  He had created several websites and had a large conservative following.  Weeks before his death Breitbart appeared at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington, D.C. and announced he had damning video evidence of Pres. Barak Obama.  "We are going to vet Obama from his college days to show you why racial division and class warfare are central to what hope and change was sold in 2008." He planned to release the video in early March.

From what was released after his death it seems that the damning evidence Breitbart referred to was from Harvard and showed a young Barry Obama hugging controversial Professor Derrick Bell at a Harvard protest.  Bell was the first tenured African-American Professor of at Harvard Law School and is largely credited as one of the originators of critical race theory.  CRT is a whole other subject, but to see why it’s so controversial, jump here.


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Obama hugging Derrick Bell. Was Breitbart killed for having this?
That’s what they tell us he was talking about anyway….

Another twist in this story came when LA County forensic technician Michael Cormier died on April 20.  He had been complaining of stomach pains and throwing up.  He was taken to the hospital and died. It was suspected that Cormier had been poisoned with arsenic.  Officials were quick to say that they weren’t sure if it had been intentional or if he could have accidentally ingested the poison. The same day the coroner’s office released Breitbart’s autopsy findings, ruling heart failure from natural causes as being responsible for his death.  It was later stated that Cormier had never worked on the Breitbart case.

 

When Thomas Edison invented the phonograph he noted that when played backwards, music sounded novel but all together different.  Fast forward a hundred years later and experimental musicians began to purposely include backward recordings, or backmasking, on their albums.  Artists like the Beatles inserted these clips and teenagers everywhere began searching their record collections for hidden messages.  Today every new pop song that comes out is scrutinized in reverse in search of possible satanic references, allegiance to the Illuminati, or any random string of possible words.

Technically backmasking is the process of reversing an audio track and placing it in another track meant to be played forward.  When played normally the message will sound like gibberish, but when reversed is clear.  Some of the classic examples that follow were intentionally done this way, while other artists contend that if there is any meaning to be found when playing their music backwards it is purely coincidental.

The Beatles were among the first artists to incorporate backmasking into their music.  Following rumors that member Paul McCartney had been killed in a car crash and replaced with a lookalike fans scoured their White Album for clues to confirm this.  The legend grew as they seemed to find what they were looking for.  During the song "I'm So Tired" John Lennon can be heard speaking but not plainly.  When played backwards, it sounds like he says "Paul is dead man. Miss him, miss him, miss him."  You decide:

YouTube is full of videos purporting to be evidence of unmasked backmasking.  While a lot of the 'backwards translations' sound more like gibberish to me (the example that comes to mind being Brittney Spears' "Hit Me Baby One More Time" being "sleep with me I'm not too young" in reverse), we can find among them the classics.  Listening to the backmasked tracks is a lot like listening for EVP evidence while ghost hunting.  What you hear isn't usual talking or singing.  The pronunciations and inflections are skewed, but with a little push (such as including the backward interpretation on screen) listeners may hear alternate messages.

The connection between backmasking and Satanism can be traced back to the grand magician himself, Aleister Crowley, who stated in a 1913 book that those wishing to practice the dark arts would do well to learn to speak backwards.  Sixty years later Led Zeppelin guitarist Jimmy Page moved into what used to be Crowley's mansion.  Is it a coincidence, then, that the most often cited backmasked message, which also fits into the category of seeming to promote satanic worship, appears in Zeppelin's "Stairway to Heaven?"
The band denied claims that they put the hidden message in their lyrics.  It would take a lot of work to come up with words that would sound cohesive both backward and forward.  This is a psychedelic rock band we're talking about, though.  But if too much free time and hallucinogenic drugs aren't the answer, did they perhaps make a pact as legendary guitarist Robert Johnson was said to have done and made a pact with the devil, selling their souls for music mastery?  Is the reverse message a side effect of such a Faustian deal?  

Another often cited song when talking about backmasking is Queen's "Another One Bites the Dust."  When played in reverse, some say "It's fun to smoke marijuana" can be heard.  The band denies an intentional message.  This is often cited as an example of phonetic reversal, where a word sounds similar to another word when reversed and similar connections are made by the brain, as with matrixing when looking at photos of "ghosts."  Judge for yourself:
In 1990 Judas Priest was taken to court by the angry parents of a teenager who had committed suicide after repeatedly listening to their song “Better by You, Better than Me."  The parents filed a civil action, alleging the song encouraged listeners to commit suicide and urging them to "Do it" when played in reverse.  The case was dismissed after being deemed unfounded.    

The Eagles were also targets of the Christian movement to expose satanic music.  When "Hotel California" is played backwards, they claim to hear an allegiance to the devil. Listen to it below and decide:

Did you hear anything like "Satan hears me, he had me believe in him?"

A quick YouTube search for backmasking will turn up these classics, as well as what seems to be every song released by Beyonce, Lady Gaga, Rihanna, Jay-Z, and Nicki Minaj, all who seem to have either sold their soul to the devil and are announcing it to the world or have secretly embedded clues that they are part of the New World Order and the Illuminati.  A list of admitted intentional backmasking, sometimes for comedic purposes, can be found here.  All the others out there are unintentional, or not being admitted to because of the artists' secret allegiance with the dark powers that be.

Here's one more, just for fun.  This YouTube user has taken Nirvana's grunge-ground breaking "Smells Like Teen Spirit" and found an entire song in reverse. I found it uncanny that the listener managed to translate the whole song, with the better part of it sounding like rock song lyrics.