What’s funny is, when I was a kid, I used to gobble up books about UFOs, cryptids, government conspiracies, and the paranormal. Probably helped that I grew up in that period of the late 80s and early 90s when shows like Unsolved Mysteries, Sightings, and Beyond Belief: Fact or Fiction were all the rage. Then came The X-Files and suddenly everybody was interested for a time in the idea of aliens, government cover-ups, and how hot Gillian Anderson was…okay, maybe everybody wasn’t interested in that last one.

What really killed the conspiracy theorist part of me and began fashioning me into the cynical bastard you know and love was…9/11. More specifically the “Truther” movement and the reality that as deep as I might have been into the culture, there were people who were on a whole ‘nother level. The real tipping point for me was discussing it one day with a Truther and bringing up the issue of what happened to the passengers of the four jets. “Taken a secret facility and murdered to cover up the truth” was not an answer I was willing to accept, no matter how depraved or secretive the government is.

I still find the culture fascinating and believe there’s more out there than we really can grasp. But I’ve seen too many people who ruined their lives pursuing this stuff to ever give it more than mild interest.