A double treat for conspiracy hounds this, both from veteran researcher and thorn in the side of any government, Robin Ramsey. Ramsey has edited Lobster, The Journal of Parapolitics, since 1983, and the CD ROM contains more or less every article from all 40 issues, right up to Spring 2001, and a special issue detailing intelligence operations against the left-wing in Britain. The archive's search engine has been improved considerably since Ian Tresman's equally essential Science Frontiers CD ROM, and all issues can be browsed individually. Only a handful of articles have been dropped, apparently because they proved to be untrue. This seems a shame, including them on the CD and detailing their errors would have been a revealing exercise.
Most of the archive material covers the operations of British state intelligence which, while perhaps not of immediate fortean interest, is certainly illuminating when considered in the light of the taller stories circulating in conspiracy circles today. Certainly, as Ramsey points out, the disinformation techniques employed by MI5 and MI6 in Northern Ireland, as detailed so thoroughly here, bear a striking resemblence to some of those used to confuse ufologists since the mid 1940s.
In 1990 Lobster became one of the first publications to treat seriously the tales of alleged microwave mind control victims, publishing material on the intriguing, overlapping subjects of psychotronic warfare and UFOs by Martin Cannon, who has since dropped out of such research, and the mysterious "Armen Victorian". In 1996 FT90 ran Rob Irving's feature-length expose of Victorian as a Nottingham shop assistant and convicted orchid smuggler, Henry Azadehdel. Victorian immediately denied the connection, and Ramsey supported his claims, but unless Irving was himself duped as part of some twisted intelligence operation, the link seemed pretty clear cut. Lobster, meanwhile, continued to publish Victorian's increasingly bizarre tales of "The Aviary", PSI warfare and UFOs, all seemingly gathered from documents obtained under the Freedom of Information act. Such tales now form the backbone of much ufological rumour-mongering.
While the MJ-12 farrago that so effectively fractured the UFO research community has been fairly conclusively identified as the work of US Air Force Intelligence, namely one Richard Doty, we still don't know why the deception was carried out. Ramsey, like Jacques Vallee and others, has suggested that its intention was to mask experimentation with microwaves and Extra Low Frequency (ELF) signals, perhaps tied to mind control and psychological warfare experiments. Whether Victorian/Azadehdel stumbled onto a genuine mystery, was taken for a ride, or was himself spinning yarns on somebody else's behalf is unclear, but the material is collected here for posterity and, perhaps, one day we'll find learn who or what was behind it. Meanwhile, these archives make for immensely engrossing reading, and should be an essential purchase for anyone seriously interested in the machinations of the secret state.
At first glance, Ramsey's Conspiracy Theories might look like the run-of-the-dark-satanic-mill conspiracy tome that we've seen a few of round these parts lately. But, as with any good conspiracy, scratch the surface and there's a wealth of information buried underneath. Ramsey has little time for the inclusionist, conspiracy-of-everything-including-the-sink-on the-Knight's Templars'-flying saucer style that does so well for David Icke and others, and his no-nonsense approach is ideally suited to separating the wheat from the chaff (though even Ramsey admits it can be tough going at times).
While the book presents a fine overview of the loopier end of the conspiracy arena, what makes it essential reading for anyone who has clambered into the conspiracy culture through the X-shaped window is Ramsey's insistence that, in the words of Carl Oglesby, "conspiracy is normal politics". His experience as Lobster's editor means that his research is, for the most part, grounded firmly in the real world, more MI5 than MJ12. Genuine conspiracy politics makes things more complicated, not less so.
Ramsey identifies the problem, particularly in America, seedbed for the most extreme conspiracy mongering, as resulting from a need to identify somebody - or something - else as responsible for their nation's woes. It would seem that for some people shape-shifting, genital-fixated extraterrestrials are easier to come to terms with than a devastating, endemic and ongoing socio-economic crisis. Still, as Ramsey notes in a fortean moment, there might well be a grain of truth in even the most bizarre ideas. He accepts, for example, that some of the moon-landing photographs may have been studio jobs, taken to ensure better-quality images for contemporary flag-waving purposes.
Coming himself from a left-wing perspective, Ramsey admits that it has become increasingly difficult to separate left and right wing conspiracy theories. Once left-wingers saw the state perpetrating conspiracies against the people, while right-wingers saw people carrying out conspiracies against the state. Now those lines are blurred and there are just people who are into conspiracies - and it is just those people who should read this book.
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