#1749: Tom Horn & Cris Putnam

Tom Horn and Cris Putnam comprise a pair of delusional fundie conspiracy theorists who, it seems, run the website Exo-Vaticana. The main purpose of the website is to uncover Vatican-led conspiracies to cover up alien visitations, and “break the greatest story of our time and expose the elitists and intellectuals who are planning to assimilate mankind under a coming ‘savior,’ one whom the prophet Daniel foresaw as ‘an alien god’” (link here; it’s … fascinating). It offers things like:

- UNVEILED! THE VATICAN’S SECRET PLAN for the arrival of an alien god.

- DISCLOSED! SECRET FILES in the Vatican Library on the reality of the alien presence.

- FOUND! THE HIDDEN DOCUMENT detailing the Vatican's position on the extraterrestrials.

- REVEALED! PROJECT LUCIFER and the quest for “Fallen Star.”

And so on. You have to look for the revelations yourself, or buy their book Exo-Vaticana: Petrus Romanus, PROJECT LUCIFER, and the Vatican’s astonishing exo-theological plan for the arrival of an alien savior (with a foreword by Chuck Missler – the guy behind the peanut butter argument against evolution – no less). Apparently, Horn and Putnam are Jack Chick-style fundies who has gone a step further in their Catholicism conspiracies and – somehow – ended up with UFOs and aliens, all of it tortured to fit wht they take to be a literal interpretation of the Bible.

Despite some deviations from mainstream theology, Horn and Putnam have nevertheless managed to draw some attention from rightwing fundies. Here, for instance, is Horn talking to Jim Bakker about “GIANTS – THEIR FIRST ARRIVAL … AND SOON, THEIR SECOND COMING” (they’re aliens, of course). And of course, the WND has never failed to offer credulous coverage of wild-eyed fundies ranting about conspiracies or pseudoscience, and at least they try to offer a minimally coherent representation of Horn’s and Putnam’s raging lunacy (their own websites are predictably undermined by dizzying color and font choices, as well as stream-of-consciousness random capslock rantings): Apparently, there is a conspiracy – going back all the way to Nimrod (of the Bible), who is also Osiris in Egypt and Apollo in Greece – involving pagan sun-worshippers, America’s Founding Fathers and Freemasons. And they have been planning the endtimes or at least the coming of the Antichrist or some sort of ancient, extraterrestrial Cthulhu-like, magic and evil being, which is the being whose eye is depicted on top of the pyramid on the $1 bill. Importantly, the date at the base of that pyramid is 1776, which is the beginning of a new Mayan “katun,” a time period of 19.7 years. If each of the 13 levels of the pyramid on the Great Seal represents one of these time periods, the top level would mark the year 2012 (oh, yes). So, because of the Mayan calendar, the end times will come in 2012. Moreover, the phrase “Novus ordo seclorum” is part of the American seal, and that proves that there is a “New World Order” coming. And if that wasn’t enough, remember that the famous painting in the Rotunda of the Capitol is titled “The Apotheosis of George Washington,” and since “apotheosis” means to deify or elevate to divine status, it depicts Washington as being resurrected and becoming divine (among Greek deities and devils), which means that George Washington was Cthulhu all along‼‼

Yeah, the WND synopsis (slightly paraphrased here) is not very coherent either, but it’s actually less derangedly confusing than Horn’s own writings. So yes, Horn and Putnam are grown-ups who don’t seem to realize that the Da Vinci code is not a documentary, and that Lovecraft’s stories are fiction. And they believe in trolls, too – it doesn’t matter if you call them “nephilim”; they’re trolls. Martian trolls.

Diagnosis: It is really tragic, but we can’t quite manage to look away either.