Conspiracy Watch: Little Green Men

Illustration: Peter Hoey

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The latest installment in our ongoing collection of wonderfully weird (and totally whack) conspiracy theories. Find more Conspiracy Watch entries here.

THE CONSPIRACY: The alien spaceships that crashed in Roswell, New Mexico, in 1947 (PDF) hold the secret to stopping climate change. The federal government has spent billions studying their anti-gravity propulsion system, which would make fossil fuels obsolete. But Republicans, wary of Democrats reaping the political benefits of unveiling this revolutionary carbon-free energy source, triggered the financial crisis to distract President Obama and delay our E.T.-inspired green future.

THE CONSPIRACY THEORISTS: Stephen Bassett, head of the Extraterrestrial Phenomena PAC, claims the Roswell saucers have an “inertial mass reduction system” that uses a mere fraction of the energy consumed by man-made engines—with zero emissions. He estimates that this technology could slash our energy costs by as much as 95 percent. Bassett has written to Obama and Al Gore urging them to end the “truth embargo” on the reverse engineering of UFOs. He’s also praised the Exopolitics Institute, which has suggested that the Iraq War was a secret effort to capture alien “stargates” hidden inside Sumerian ruins—a Conspiracy Watch favorite.

MEANWHILE, BACK ON EARTH: Bassett may not be the only one who wants to believe: Former Secretary of Energy Bill Richardson and Center for American Progress head John Podesta have called for full disclosure of any top-secret extraterrestrial research.

Kookiness Rating: Tin Foil Hat SmallTin Foil Hat SmallTin Foil Hat SmallTin Foil Hat SmallTin Foil Hat Small
(1=maybe they’re on to something, 5=break out the tinfoil hat!)

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WE CAME UP SHORT.

We just wrapped up a shorter-than-normal, urgent-as-ever fundraising drive and we came up about $45,000 short of our $300,000 goal.

That means we're going to have upwards of $350,000, maybe more, to raise in online donations between now and June 30, when our fiscal year ends and we have to get to break-even. And even though there's zero cushion to miss the mark, we won't be all that in your face about our fundraising again until June.

So we urgently need this specific ask, what you're reading right now, to start bringing in more donations than it ever has. The reality, for these next few months and next few years, is that we have to start finding ways to grow our online supporter base in a big way—and we're optimistic we can keep making real headway by being real with you about this.

Because the bottom line: Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism Mother Jones exists to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we hope you might consider pitching in before moving on to whatever it is you're about to do next. We really need to see if we'll be able to raise more with this real estate on a daily basis than we have been, so we're hoping to see a promising start.

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