21.12.2012, Prophecy End of time End of the world: August 2011

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For the UFO study done by sane people, see Project Blue Book.

Project Blue Beam is a conspiracy theory that claims that NASA is attempting to implement a New Age religion with the Antichrist at its head and start a New World Order, via a technologically-simulated Second Coming.

The allegations were contained in an audio presentation in 1994 by Quebecois journalist turned conspiracy theorist Serge Monast and later published in his book Project Blue Beam (NASA). Proponents of the theory allege that Monast and another, unnamed, journalist, who both died of heart attacks in 1996, were in fact assassinated. In addition, the Canadian government allegedly kidnapped Monast's daughter in an effort to dissuade him from investigating Project Blue Beam.^[1]

The project was apparently supposed to be implemented in 1983,^[1] but was delayed. It was then set for implementation in 1995 and then 1996.^[2] Monast thought Project Blue Beam would be brought to fruition by the year 2000,^[3] really, definitely, for sure.

1 Propagation of a theory
2 The theory
3 Critical acclaim
4 The actual source of the theory
5 Further reading
6 Footnotes

[edit] Propagation of a theory

The theory is widely popular (for a conspiracy theory) on the Web, with many web pages on the subject and countless YouTube videos explaining it. The actual source material is very thin indeed.

Monast lectured on the theory in the mid-1990s (a transcript of one such lecture is widely available), before writing and publishing his book, which has not been reissued by his current publisher and is all but unobtainable. The currently available pages and videos all appear to trace back to four documents:

A transcript of the 1994 lecture by Monast.^[3]
A GeoCities page^[4] written by David Openheimer and which appears to draw on the original book.
A page on educate-yourself.org, compiled in 2005, which appears to include a translation of the book from the French.^[1]
Monast's page in French Wikipedia.^[5] The French Wikipedia article is largely sourced from two books on conspiracy theories and extremism by Pierre-André Taguieff, a mainstream academic expert on racist and extremist groups.

From these few texts have come a flood of green ink, in text and video form, in several languages. Even the French language material typically does not cite the original book but the English language pages on educate-yourself.org. However, conspiracy theorists seem to use quantity as a measure of substance (much as alternative medicine uses appeal to tradition) and never mind the extremely few sources it all traces back to.^[6]

Proponents of the theory have extrapolated^[7] it to embrace HAARP,^[8] 9/11,^[9] the Norwegian Spiral,^[10] chemtrails^[11]^[12] and FEMA concentration camps.^[13] It's not quite the Unified Conspiracy Theory, but it's well on its way.

[edit] The theory

The primary claimed perpetrator is NASA, presented as a large and mostly faceless organization that can readily absorb such frankly odd accusations, aided by the United Nations.

According to Monast, the project has four steps:

[edit] Step One

Step One is the breakdown of all archaeological knowledge. This will apparently be accomplished by faking earthquakes at precise locations around the planet. These locations will supposedly have fake "discoveries" to convince humanity that "new discoveries will finally explain to all people the error of all fundamental religious doctrines."

[edit] Step Two

Step Two involves a gigantic "space show" wherein three-dimensional laser projections will be beamed all over the planet. These will take the shape of whatever deity is most predominant, and will speak in all languages. At the end of the light show, the gods will all merge into one god, the Antichrist. Apparently people will think this is their god, rather than the more natural twenty-first century assumption that it is a particularly opaque Coca Cola advertisement.

Evidence advanced for this has been a supposed plan to project the face of Allah, despite its contradiction with Muslim belief of God's uniqueness, over Baghdad in 1991, to tell the Iraqis to overthrow Saddam Hussein. Someone, somewhere, must have thought those primitive, ignorant non-Western savages wouldn't have had television or advertising, and would never guess it was being done with mirrors.^[14]

The light show can supposedly be seen in occasional tests, which manifest as unidentified flying objects. Some of the True Believers in the project cite existing display technology such as 3D projection mapping as foreshadowing the great light show in the sky.

This stage will be accomplished, apparently, with the aid of a Soviet computer that will be fed "with the minute physio-psychological particulars based on their studies of the anatomy and electro-mechanical composition of the human body, and the studies of the electrical, chemical and biological properties of the human brain." The computers are also capable of inducing suicidal thoughts.^[15] The Soviets are (not "were") the "New World Order" people. Why NASA would use a Soviet computer when the USSR had to import or copy its computer technology from the West is not detailed.

[edit] Step Three

Step Three involves making people think their god is speaking to them through telepathy, projected into the head of each person individually using extreme low frequency radio waves. The atheists will presumably hear an absence of Richard Dawkins.

[edit] Step Four

Step Four has three parts:

Making humanity think an alien invasion is about to occur at every major city;
Making the Christians think the Rapture is about to happen;
A mixture of electronic and supernatural forces, allowing the supernatural forces to travel through fiber optics, coax, power and telephone lines to penetrate all electronic equipment and appliances, that will by then all have a special microchip installed.^[16]

Then chaos will break out, and people will finally be willing - perhaps even desperate - to accept the New World Order. The United Nations plans to use Beethoven's "Ode to Joy" as the anthem for the introduction of the one world religion.^[1]

A device has apparently already been perfected that will lift enormous numbers of people, as in a Rapture. UFO abductions are tests of this device.

Project Blue Beam proponents believe psychological preparations have already been made, Monast having claimed that 2001: A Space Odyssey, Star Wars and the Star Trek series all involve an invasion from space and all nations coming together (the first two don't, plus the third is peaceful contact) and that Jurassic Park propagandises evolution in order to make people think God's words are lies.

[edit] Critical acclaim

Project Blue Beam has all the usual hallmarks of a conspiracy theory:

It attempts to shoehorn events that have happened and are happening into its predictive framework, particularly with references to films being used to prep people psychologically for the conspiracy's dramatic conclusion.
It shows a lack of comprehension of the practical psychology of those who are not paranoid.^[14]
It plays on fears of alleged advanced technology that most people, including its author, do not understand.

The theory itself cobbles together past conspiracy tropes in such a manner as to gain itself a small amount of attention from future conspiracy theorists, starting from paranoia and progressing to technologically implausible plans with motivations that literally do not make any sense.

The theorist's death from a middle-age heart attack cut off its possible spread early and left it short on source material in English - though there is the tantalizing promise of several books' worth in French - but did cap the theory itself off nicely.

[edit] The actual source of the theory

Joel Engel's book Gene Roddenberry: The Myth and the Man Behind Star Trek was released in 1994, shortly before Monast's widely-sourced lecture on Project Blue Beam.

In May 1975, Gene Roddenberry accepted an offer from Paramount to develop Star Trek into a feature film, and moved back into his old office on the Paramount lot. His proposed story told of a flying saucer, hovering above Earth, that was programmed to send down people who looked like prophets, including Jesus Christ.

All the steps of the conspiracy theory were in the unmade mid-'70s Star Trek film script by Roddenberry, which were recycled for the ST:TNG episode Devil's Due, broadcast in 1991.^[17]

There is no evidence of deliberate fraud on Monast's part; given his head was quite thoroughly full of squirrels and confetti by this time, it's entirely plausible that he thought this was the revelation of secret information in a guise safe for propagation. Or something.

However, the actual source was so obvious that even other conspiracy theorists noticed.^[18] They confidently state it was obvious that Monast had been fed deceptive information by the CIA. Of course!

[edit] Further reading

Not just in French, but on paper. You'd think we were Wikipedia.

Serge Monast. Project Blue Beam (NASA). Presse libre nord-américaine, 1994. The original book, long unobtainable and not reissued by Monast's current publisher. If you have or can track down a copy, this article needs you!
Pierre-André Taguieff. La Foire aux illuminés : Ésotérisme, théorie du complot, extrémisme. Paris, Mille et une nuits, 2005.
Pierre-André Taguieff. L'imaginaire du complot mondial : Aspects d'un mythe moderne. Paris, Mille et une nuits, 2006.