What have I gotten myself into? I just sat through a bizarre, rambling, self-congratulory lecture by Scott Wolter (some guy with a fringey History Channel show) that started with the Kensington Runestone — it’s a genuine Viking artifact, don’t you know, staking a land claim for some Catholic order of monks — then wandered over to the Bat Creek stone, a rock with some funny scratches on it unearthed from an Indian mound. The scratches are ancient Hebrew! Wait, no, they’re secret Masonic symbols! Did you know the Cherokee rituals were exact copies of the Knights Templar’s rituals? Yes, they are. Obviously.
Then we got a whole series of photos of Catholic figures and medieval and renaissance paintings and sculptures in which people are making the Masonic gang sign. This one:
That’s an “M”. For Mary Magdelene, Jesus’s wife. The Masonic cult spread over to the New World in the first century AD to share the word among the Indians, who happily adopted it. And now it’s everywhere.
Oreo cookies bear the sign.
Then to wrap it all up, he goes back to ancient Egypt, the precession of the Equinox, and the signs of the zodiac, which represent major shifts in world cultures, each paradigmatic shift associated with changing which house was represented in the equinox.
People applauded.
Dear god, wasn’t the cookie slide a loud enough cry for help?
:suffers a near fatal eyeroll:
I don’t get the cookie business. Of course, I haven’t spent time poring over the pattern on Oreo cookies. Am I supposed to be all inner Masonic because I’ve eaten the *gasp* cookies?
Um, If the Cherokee were involved with the Masons, I don’t think the Trail of Tears of would have happened.
With several thousand years of recorded history, its easy to come up with patterns. The trick is to find out if the patterns are really related, or just pareidolia.
Well, Oreo cookies…
I actually have no idea what you just wrote.
Masons Indians cookies Egypt Jesus… did the guy have a stack of slides, and just picked a couple at random, making up the story on the spot?
Yup, this is what the History Channel has devolved into, along with Animal Planet, the Discovery channel, the SciFi Channel and a few other cable channels that started off as decent places to learn something. These used to have programming that we felt could help to make up for the lousy science and history educations that were available in the Texas schools for our younger kids and later our grandson.
Now these cable channels have dumbed down to the level of Texas education, I suppose for the ratings – sigh.
Antoine:
Going by my rats (and I have 20), M&Mmmmmmms have a much higher addiction potential than Oreo cookies. My crew isn’t all that impressed with Oreo cookies.
But what about the Hydrox ???????
The magical mindset is like the spiritual mindset is like the conspiracy mindset: you discover the truth by looking for the underlying connections. There are subtle and secret signs of the Grand Design all around us and only those who are open-minded and sensitive enough to look and interpret them properly will find them. And oh, yeah. It takes humility. And an ability to think outside the box. And a scorn for “experts” who have none of that but only want to protect their turf.
I have a woo background and woo friends and have read and sat through too many of these Amazing Insights, where superficial similarities are selected out of the noise and massaged into major revelations. If you are “too skeptical” that’s supposed to be a sign that you’re too afraid of the discovery and want to cling to the safety of the old paradigm. Note the subject shift from ‘what’s wrong with the hypothesis’ to ‘what’s wrong with you. ‘
You’re so judgmental, PZ. Can’t you just nod and admit it as a “possibility?” Believe in possibilities.
At least their Oreos are better than the Catholic’s wafers. If you eat enough of them, who knows what you might see.
Carlie:
Masonic wannabes. I mostly eat Oreo knock offs, too. So I suppose I’m safe. Or not. Whatever. Besides, being half Indian, I suppose that means I’m protected. Or targeted. Whatever.
Caine,
You suppose. Yeah. That’s what you want us to think.
Beatrice:
Well, I’m not Cherokee, so I don’t think I have the superawesome level of oogabooga mind powers. And that whole Knights of whatever business…no women allowed in the Knight business, so…
I think I’ve just become even more addicted to Oreos. (“M” also stands for “milk”.)
Dang, looks like I missed a chance to offload some hats. They, like the the infamous tin-foil hat, will keep out unwanted skepticism and black-ops agents from any chance of mind control.
They are made out of the unknown element ghostium, which is supplied by the grey aliens™ from their dark matter mining operations, and the hat is made during a full moon by the Bigfoot™ tribe, listening to the real Elvis croon, backed up by the Pullet Patrol™. The hat is sold with a HPLE cover, which should be removed once placed upon the head, where the ghostium will adhere to the head, but allow for normal grooming operations, like shampooing, combing, hair cutting, brushing, and head scratching. The hats are so thin that you can’t tell they are there, other than the effect on negative thoughts. The hats come with a 30 second warrantee. Side-effects include setting out piles of grog soaked corn when Pullets are seen.
Look to the cookie, Elaine.
Scott Wolter’s America Unearthed is a steaming pile of crap not much better than Ancient Aliens. Supposidly he spent many years researching the Kensington Rune Stone and has uncovered “new” evidence that it is authentic and carved by French Normans?! He and someone else wrote a huge tome of a book “providing evidence” of all this. In other words it is just another collection of padded fantasy dressed up in pseudo-scholarship.
Does anyone know if Bigfoots are attracted to Oreos?
Great, now Im craving oreos…
Cookies (or biscuits as we English people call them) and wafers (just Jacob’s Cream Crackers without the priest). Hell, it must all be true.
brother, can you ‘pare a digm?
Reminds me of a book I read that insisted that the pyramids of Mexico were an idea brought over by Egyptians who sailed there and were greeted with open arms and worshiped as gods.
Of the many reasons he believed this was 1) pyramids are too sophisticated an engineering feat for those simple Native Americans to have developed; 2) both cultures thought the color purple was a symbol of royalty; and (my personal favorite) 3) both cultures used a crescent shape in their iconographies.
I mean, after all, how could two cultures, thousands of miles and across a great ocean from each other, possibly have come up with that particular shape as an important symbol?
Somewhere, deep in the Oreo headquarters, an evil laugh echoes through the halls.
Ugh. My mom used to buy those because they were cheaper than Oreos. Oddly, however, Oreos were an imitation of Hydrox, not the other way around! (According to Wikipedia.)
I watched about half of a Scott Wolter show one time just out fascination to see how much worse it could get. They were diving for a Masonic treasure in somebody-or-other’s old well. They knew the treasure had been there because the dowsing rods pointed straight to it…
Y’know, if that’s not already a party game, it really should be.
The time and effort expended…
Its a conspiracy alright but its far more evil than Masons or Oreos!
http://cats.about.com/cs/tabbycats/a/tabby_cats_2.htm
Coooookies … mmmmmmm
Sorry, did you write something else?
Ah, cookies …
Annnnnnnnd Beatrice wins another thread – twice over! Something isn’t normal here. Perhaps it’s paranormal.
Wait.
The Kensington runestone being genuine is one thing. But why in the fuck would it mean something completely different from what it says?
You can just read it. The script is known and clearly legible, the language is known – look the runes up on Wikipedia, take a dictionary, and there you go!
*headshake*
I’d be more concerned with the infinite “A”‘s in Morse around the cookie. An atheist conspiracy, perhaps?
David, you, of all people, must know that there is the text, and there is the hidden text. Just look at the US Constitution for an example. There is the text that is read, and then there is the hidden text in the Real Constitution in which the United States of Christian America is proclaimed, where it says that machine guns may be owned by white men of good conservative Christian standing, and that any regulation of business and industry is an attempt to create a Marxist State (Yes, I know that Das Kapital and The Communist Manifesto were written a hundred or so years after the Constitution of the United States was written, but that just shows that the Masons (Ball Mason and Lamb Mason jars) were in contact with Time Traveling Monks from Minnesota.). Every document has the obvious words, but reading, shall we say, between the lines, will always show the Truth.
For instance, the US Army’s First Infantry Division is called the Big Red One. On a qwerty keyboard, the number 1 is directly over the Q, the U is left alone, the S is under the E, and, through similar decipherment, the word QUEEN is spelled out. Which, of course, is a cutlery company in Titusville, Pennsylvania, which is very close to the town where the oil boom started. That first oil well was drilled by Drake, under letter of marque from Queen Elizabeth, in order to extract the necessary chemicals to control the US populace through ChemTrails. The Wright Brothers were, of course, also in on this because they had to invent the airplane to spread the chemtrails using distillates of, what else, oil! (which means my NPS is involved, because on of our units is the Wright Brothers Memorial in North Carolina, and their original bicycle shoppe is also a national park)
See? Easy.
awakeinmo @ 29: Those are actually A’s for Anarchy, not Atheism. Sorry.
Al Dente at 17:
Bigfoots are attracted to blueberry bagels, if the genetic evidence can be believed…
Well obviously oreos are used as a representation of the fact that there’s a hidden truth. You’ve got the outer cookies (i.e. the “outer truth”) that are fairly tasty. But, for someone who’s willing to do a little work to pry those outer layers away, you’ve got a significantly tastier creamy filling (the “inner truth”).
So um. Where exactly is the masonic M on the oreo? The only M-like thing I can see is if we line up those X’s, apply a large amount of generous interpretation to come up with a circular zig zag, and then another dose of generosity to interpret the zig zag as a series of linked M’s.
It isn’t that fucking idiotic, is it?
ogvorbis[] @ 30,31:
Wow. I guess we know which side of YOUR bread is buttered. From your comment at 30, it is obvious that your eyes have been opened to the real powers in the world. So it can only be malice, not ignorance, when you turn around and help awakeinmo spread this misinformation.
As you know full well, the Oreo design is further indoctrination by the American Dental Association, the same arm of the World Government that gives us mind-controlling Fluoride in our Water. Those are no mere Morse Code As. As part of that conspiracy, they have imprinted the word “TARTAR” around the rim of the Oreo, as a subliminal inducement to get us to consume YET MORE of their Brain-Puppet Serum. Since you know this and still put out this Red Herring, I can only conclude that you want the Dentists to win.
If you are not a Dentist yourself, I expect you will be happy to provide the rest of us with peer-reviewed evidence to prove it.
Don’tWantNo @ 35:
Please note that I was not delving into the Oreo Conspiracy, I was merely illustrating for the good doctor how hidden text, hidden meaning, can expand our consciousness.
I am not now, nor have I ever been, a dentist.
I am (according to some here) a Carmen Miranda Impersonator. At the very least, I wear a funny hat at work.
Oggie, how many pineapples and mangoes fit on the brim of your hat?
morgan, what is you security clearance?
Highest possible. Possibly even fruitarian!
Fine. Please submit form Bu11S(h)1+ with full documentation, a blood sample, a clipping from your sixth toe on your left foot, and three (3) nostril hairs. If this checks out, I will be happy to consider the possibility of responding to query.
Ogvorbis @36
The thick plottens! Everyone knows that NPS rangers wear Smokey the Bear hats. You know who else wears those hats? Army drill sergeants and Marine drill instructors! The function of these people is to indoctrinate innocent young men and women into mindless military robots. I’m just trying to figure out how Oreos fit into this.
Al Dente:
Yes, DI’s do wear campaign hats, but theirs are rotated 45 degrees.
Been there. Done that. They do not try to create mindless military robots. A DI’s job is change the way that the soldier responds to authority, change the way the soldier processes information, and trains the soldier to speak, hear and respond as a soldier, not a civilian. Different does not mean mindless.
That’s the easy part.
See, Drill Instructor is abreviated ‘DI’ which, backwards, becomes ID, or Intelligent Design. Barbara Streisand’s band in the movie, “A Star is Born”, was called the Oreos. Since Oreo Cookies are, obviously, designed and since intelligent people think that “A Star is Born” is perhaps the most perfect embodiment of the 1970s, it all fits together.
That said, what the hell am I drinking?
And it is Smoky Bear, not Smoky the Bear. And that is USFS, not NPS.
Oh Oggie, dear, if you insist on being recalcitrant it might behoove you to remember that We Have Our Ways of Knowing. Might you reconsider?
No, morgan. Until you submit the proper forms, I cannot release classified information regarding my work with the US Army as a 69CMI.
#28, David Marjanović:
You haven’t read it carefully enough. There’s a pattern of dots in the runes that also encode the date, and something something something else indicates the date, so the date is repeated THREE times on the stone. Then the account written there references THREE relative physical locations. Also, it’s located on the continental divide, and some European states a few hundred years later would consider a claim at the source of a river to represent a valid claim to the entirety of that river’s drainage. Therefore, it’s a land claim.
So help me, that’s his actual argument.
#35, Don’tWantNo (ShortShortMan):
Wrong. He had a slide in which he showed several companies that had crossed X’s in their logos: Nabisco and Exxon are in cahoots. When he put up that slide, he shook his head and said “Yeah, crazy”, and pointed at the slide like it confirmed that he wasn’t crazy.
@Holms,
Maybe the arrow below the OREO when looked at upside down? I don’t really know myself, but that’s the only “M” I could find.
Alright. You have been warned. Beware of drones, micro-drones, odd shaped packages with no return address, and far too many people wearing sunglasses indoors. We Have Our Ways.
PZed, so are these dots like the ones the Bene Gesserit place on, say, the edge of a leaf in a greenhouse to warn sisters that there is danger? Or am I reading too much into this?
Al Dente:
They fit in your mouth, silly.
I might be stating the bleedin’ obvious here, but the photo is upside down, so rather than being an ‘M-for-Mary-mother-of-myth’, he’s making a ‘W-for-weird-people-believe-weird-shit’ symbol.
[OT]
OGGIE! *tacklehug!*
[/OT]
Those are the same thing, duh.
Damnit! Alexandra, you just knocked me gages right off me hat!
Hi.
That’s because you’re not looking at it with your third eye.
You’d like to think that it’s just a stream of “A”s around the Oreo, wouldn’t you. In fact, it spells out “RCCAKRTAR”. Rearrange the letters and you get “TRACK CARR”, a subliminal message to all who consume OREOs to stalk the Carr family members, specifically Emily Carr, who’s works contains hidden messages intended to reveal the nefarious plots of the Illuminati.
Sandy Small wrote:
Alright. Let me get my drill. This is gonna hurt, isn’t it?
Of course! The mouth that’s under the Smokey Bear USFS hat. It all makes sense now. Plus it’s proof that the birthers are right about the 9/11 terrorists killing JFK with chemtrails or something like that. Perhaps the Princes in the Tower fit into this as well. As soon as morgan ?! gets hir security clearance updated we’ll get to the bottom of this.
Sounds like The old BBC series “Connections” hybridized with the Gish Gallop.
Memetic warfare.
No, Al Dente, JFK was killed by Colonel Sanders because he was going to reveal the ten secret herbs and spices of the KFC recipe (one of them is salt, so only ten are really secret).
No Og, only nine are secret. Salt and sugar are well known. And just what level is YOUR security clearance?
morgan ?!:
What kind of sugar? See, that is the part that is secret.
And you don’t have the clearance to know my security clearance. The mere fact that I know about form Bu11S(h)1+ (to be submitted with full orchestration (and four part harmony)) should tell you just how high I am.
I’d engage in this conversation but I’m too chicken.
And there is salt, sugar, savory, sage, white pepper, paprika, henway, and I’m pretty sure some thyme. So that’s 8 that we know. Down to three.
I’m pretty sure there is no henway in the secret recipe. If there were, there would be more spice than bird.
Oggie, Oggie, Oggie… the sugar is High Fructose Corn Syrup. No gawd fearing seasoning would be without it.
no, the henway is there. You can taste it on the back of your tongue. Trust me.
And where is form Bu11S(h)1+ (to be submitted with full orchestration (and four part harmony))?
http://www.aquariumofpacific.org/blogs/comments/the_finger_painting_octopus1
A finger painting octopus.
AND, Oggie m’dear, unless you are a castrato, you are not high enough for a really respectable clearance. Myself, I’m a contralto so I surely don’t qualify.
Or a Contra Tenor, but they are very rare. I think they even stopped offering clearances for them.
Henway on the back of the tongue would be murder in the first degree.
I was a first tenor until I got pneumonia. Now I’m a second tenor, high baritone.
But I’m talking about how high your security clearance is. You wanna examine my fruits, you need to follow procedure. Just submit form Bu11S(h)1+ (to be submitted with full orchestration (and four part harmony)) and all will be good.
Pishaw, you pikers. My clearance: Fugal Harmony ((A= 439HZ) Mixolydian)
I believe the X’s around the edge of the cookie look a bit like Templar crosses Link. Of course, they could just be X’s.
As far as the Cherokee, my Google fu found a website indicating that there was a Masonic Lodge in the Cherokee nation founded in 1848 Link. So if a little bit of Masonic symbolism snuck into Cherokee tradition over the years, it wouldn’t be surprising. Back in the 18th and 19th century, Freemasonry was quite popular.
Bottom line – Scott Wolter was taking stuff out of context and weaving huge conspiracy theories. My nephew used to do this about Freemasons all the time, which is why I know so much about it. I had to listen to him go on for hours while I smiled and nodded, or else he would start yelling at me.
Hee, hee, hee. Oggie, you win. It is seven pm here on the left coast and I have dinner and a movie waiting for me. All is good. And I really am a contralto. Until tomorrow.
No form Bu11S(h)1+ (to be submitted with full orchestration (and four part harmony)) ? No soup for you!
I Borked the Cherokee link. Let’s try that one more time. Linky
Oggie @63: What’s a henway?
I accept my just punishment. How about a deal. The full orchestration is a bit much, but the harmony can be managed with several sousaphones and a bagpipe. Deal?
ekwhite:
About 2 kilograms once it is dressed.
I dare anybody to answer ekwhite at #77.
morgan:
In order to get the details on my fruits, I need to see your bona fides. Again, that is form Bu11S(h)1+ (to be submitted with full orchestration (and four part harmony)).
Oggie honey, I’d really love to see your fruits, but honestly, I don’t think you’ve got anything I haven’t seen before.
You asked, morgan, up at 37.
Yes I did. Give me some time. I’m filling out the form in fond hope of discovering something new and interesting.
Wait, I’m confused. The Native Americans all learned about Jesus in the first century AD? Is this guy a Mormon? Come to think of it, Mason and Mormon both start with M! The conspiracy deepens!
That hand sign is the anti-Star Trek sign. Instead of “Peace and long life” it means “War and short life”.
Off topic: http://build-a-diy.tumblr.com/post/60084351985/8-foot-giant-squid-pillow-youll-need-2-yards
It’s about sea life; you might like it.
I am…disturbed…that no one has pointed out the obvious aliens/Atlantis/Oreos connections.
–
Like a Steinway, but with less beer.
–
Oh non-existent god! I need a drink!
I’ve been re-reading “Foucault’s Pendulum.” I thought Eco had every possible conspiracy theory covered but he missed the Oreo cookie…
“M” symbol, my third eye! It’s just a Vulcan giving the finger!
FWIW, Bayou Bakery sells a cookie they call a Dat-o that is a gigantic Oreo. It lets me rationalize that I’m only having one cookie. I can stop any time I want, but I’m no quitter.
The cross above the Oreo is from the Nabisco logo. It was incorporated into the cookie’s design in 1952. That’s pretty obvious, but the Nabisco logo may have a strange pedigree. Straight from the Ppppfff’s mouth FWIW:
The rim is supposed to be a wreath, so the boxed cross-like objects could be some kind of leaf.
Ah! Per the Ppppfff: the Oreo was a rip off of the Sunshine Hydrox. Eat your Hydrox now with pride!
FossilFishy 72
Mine’s about 5’3″, unless I’m in heels.*
And I would like to point out that Martini & Rossi recently dropped the Rossi part on the main label and use just the Martini. Clearly the company is edging towards using just the M.
*I know, I know, but I’m so bad at puns that if I didn’t use the bad ones I’d have no puns at all.
Caine,
A comparative study of rats addiction, Oreo vs M&M, should be planned ASAP.
Does your crew care to be included?
Lyn M 93
The only bad pun is one that doesn’t provoke a groan. You have nothing to fear on that score. Cheers.
Not to mention that the Mormons temple rituals actually are based on Masonic rituals and the Hebrews that traveled to America became the basis for the Indians there. Also, according to Mormonism, the Catholic church is the Whore of Babylon and the church and the Masons have always been at odds.
The evidence just keeps piling up. Will you still deny the truth, you so-called skeptics?
Wolter also did a show a series of shows supporting the premise that much of the copper used by the Minoan culture was actually imported from the Michigan Copper Country.
A load of nonsense, needless to say.
For anyone interested, Jason Colavito (http://www.jasoncolavito.com/blog.html) did a pretty good take-down of this just this week. He’s making a career out of debunking Wolter’s fantasies, along with his Ancient Aliens rebuttals.
O hai, Ogvorbis! I maded you an Internet out of lavender cookies, and I did not eated it.
Impressive.
I was about to say how suspicious that was! :-)
…which would be a neat trick for multiple reasons, perhaps starting with the probability that masonic cults didn’t exist at the time. As Ye Pfffft! of All Knowledge puts it:
The alleged involvement of Euclid is almost certainly an example of backdating and adding the fictional involvement of a well-known ancient respected name. (There is a term for this phenomenon, but I forget what it is.)
I also wonder why there is no credible trace of anything from the Americas in Europe (presumably) dating to that time.
General conclusion: Ancient alien astronauts with Oreos, and absolutely bonkers.
David:
Failure to grok in fullness.
blf:
Lying.
blf:
It was covered up by the Bigfoots as part of the Gray’s experiment.
I’m with Beatrice @4. That stuff does not compute.
The exchange between morgan and Ogvorbis was far more comprehensible (& entertaining).
Lying… Yes. But that also covers a multiple of other lies.
I was referring to the sort of lies which claim the association/involvement/works/et al of a (usually-)well-known (and typically ancient) person/name. It is quite an ancient form of lying. This sort of lie can make it hard to disentangle the origins of ideas/works/&tc., and (as far as I know) is presumed to be done through a mixture of ignorance and the idea the older something is, the somehow “better” or “truer” it is…
And it is a form of lying that particularly annoys me.
Another modern example would be Barton’s bullshite about USAlienstan’s “Founding Fathers” wanting a xiancentric theocracy.
Oh, hey, another attempt by paranormal historians of erasing the agency and originality of work done by indigenous people. Why am I not surprised?
More info on the mormon connection (see #85 and #96 for previous notes on the mormons) and on the generally cult-like obsessions of fringe archaeology:
Source: http://www.jasoncolavito.com/1/post/2013/03/scott-wolter-burrows-cave-and-christian-america.html
Sorry, I should have said “historians”.
A bit more information concerning the magazine that is the main outlet for Scott Wolter’s papers:
Source.
Ex-mormons discuss Glenn Beck’s infatuation with the Bat Creek Stone and with Scott Wolter.
http://exmormon.org/phorum/read.php?2,93285,93808
The whole discussion is quite entertaining, and it also offers disturbing evidence of some ex-mormons still being fooled by Wolter, alongside ample evidence of other ex-mormons offering well-sourced counters to the fraud.
http://exmormon.org/phorum/read.php?2,93285,373646#msg-373646
http://exmormon.org/phorum/read.php?2,93285,375263#msg-375263
Again, I’m not fucking surprised. How can people not see how racism is embedded in the core of paranormal history?
Perhaps because it has also been present in reality-based history for a long long time?
I don’t mean the history of racism, but the racism in history books and teachings.
Antoine:
They would be honoured. Er, scientifically interested.
Scott Wolter must really like Cookie Clicker.
blf #100
Stupidity.
Antoine Vekris @94
Sorry to shove myself in on the conversation, but I would gladly be involved. I don’t have any rats, but if you are willing to provide the samples for the experiment, I will dress up in a rat suit.
It seems that we have a project building up! And maybe the possibility of the weirdest control group ever @115… awakeinmo you are welcome, have you read the modalities of the study?
Retro-fitted evidence?