1 April 2005: Conspiracy

What conspiracy am I talking about? The fact that the Iraq WMD intelligence, which led to a huge (ongoing) war and tens of thousands of civilian deaths, was 'dead wrong'? The whole Papal conspiracy thing, given the current incumbent of the Vatican may not last even until you read this? (If you want a good chuckle, have a look at 'The Vatican's Plans To Destroy America'). The Tory plans to secretly cut a whole lot more than just the £35bn they talk about if they win the election?

No, worse than all that. It's the elephants.

For the uninitiated, let me explain the central thesis to this debate: elephants and giraffes do not exist, nor have they ever existed. They are part of a plan invented shortly after World War II by the Allies as a way of making people feel good about the world, and they were adopted by the secretly-government-backed 'Flower People' movement of the 1950s and 60s. These fake animals spread their way into the mainstream consciousness through appearances in childrens' books and as technology has developed, sophisticated animation techniques are used to make false film images for our television screens.

Think about it for a moment. A huge, grey animal built like a tank with huge ears and a nose the length of a football goal? An enormous horse with outsize legs and neck that's the colour of a slightly-too-long-in-Duncan's-cupboard banana? Who are they trying to fool? It's fanciful stuff, children's myths, the stuff of legend that we as a society should now be too sophisticated to pay serious attention to.

Except, over the easter break, this happened:


I saw it myself. There were five or six of them. They moved. There were two giraffes too. I kept looking for wires or evidence of electronically-motorised movement, but they seemed quite genuine. One of them betrayed cat-like behaving by turning it's bottom towards us visitors at Fort Worth's excellent zoo, and proceeding to do it's number twos in our direction.

I don't know how they did it, and I don't know what to make of it, except to say this: the elephant conspiracy is stronger than ever.

Watch out. They may try and fool you next.

Edited to add: This is not an April Fool thing any more than any other blog entry. As friends will know, I've held the elephant conspiracy belief for many years, and find it an especially useful help/distraction/annoyance in religious debates.