Tim Marchman: What about you, Makena?
Makena Kelly: I feel like I have this folk story in my head and maybe it’s real I have to check but of Jimmy Carter when he walked into the office he saw some UFO files and cried and he never said anything about it again.
Tim Marchman: I think I’ve heard that too.
Makena Kelly: Yes, and I don’t know if it’s real. I just tried to search a bit. And when I think about Trump finding out these things, I don’t know if he would release them. I wouldn’t be optimistic.
Tim Marchman: I don’t believe they will release anything because he was already president and didn’t release the material in question. I think what the secret files would show if they were declassified is that the United States engaged in a cover-up of Lee Harvey Oswald and his relationship with the Soviet Union for fear that if it were made public it would lead to to a nuclear war. And that much of the subsequent cover-up has been a cover-up of cover-ups. And I believe the UFO files would show that extraterrestrial biological entities crashed in New Mexico in the 1940s and led the US government on a journey of discovery about the nature of the universe, which includes aliens who have created familiar religious figures throughout man’s history. as guides to give humans instructions on how not to damage their bodies, which are containers for souls that aliens harvest for energy. This has been the theory, at least as put forth by many UFO proponents since the 1980s, and of course I firmly believe it to be true, perhaps Donald Trump will confirm it. Makena and David, thank you so much for being here. Coming back, it’s time for the last ever conspiracy of the week.
Tim Marchman: Welcome back to WIRED Politics Lab. This is Conspiracy of the Week, the part of the show where our guests bring their favorite conspiracy theories, and I’ll be judging in Leah’s place. The winner this week gets to brag about it forever, so I hope you both have something good to offer. Makena, let’s start with you.
Makena Kelly: Yeah, I’m glad you brought up aliens and the JFK assassination, because I’m going to complete the trifecta with this. One of the conspiracy theories that I think has had its time in the sky, shall we say, this year has been chemtrails. These are the trails that the airplanes leave when they fly in the sky, apparently spreading all these chemicals and destroying and poisoning us, when really it’s just water vapor. Just earlier this year with the hurricane in North Carolina there were conspiracies about chemtrails happening there. Legislators in Tennessee passed a bill that had to do with something and regulate chemtrails, crazy stuff. But this week, oh my god, I lost it when I saw this. There was what appeared to be a satirical joke online about a Lufthansa pilot who refused to spray chemtrails on his son while piloting a plane. He apparently took a stand and said, “I won’t do it.” And the chemtrail, I guess we can call it the chemtrail community, was really excited about it. And it’s not true, it was a joke. Yes.