David Icke

Just take David Icke, the local British curiosity famous for claiming that the moon isn't real and that the world is run by shape-shifting alien reptiles. Laugh all you want — that dude has a net worth of 10 million pounds, accumulated through book sales and expensive, sold-out live talks. Whether people are generally interested in the reptilian moon people or they're just paying absurd cash to watch a crazy guy humiliate himself for a few hours, that money adds up. David Vaughan Icke is a human singularity of insanity best known for his "reptoid" conspiracy theory. He came to fame as an English footballer and sports commentator and used to be a spokesman for the Green Party of England and Wales, but since 1991, he has devoted his life to informing the world that it's actually secretly controlled by evil shape-shifting lizard-people from the 4th dimension. Genuinely. As you could expect, this makes Poe's Law a pretty big issue on the topic of this guy.

Combining messages of wide-ranging conspiracy themes with that of the "answer" to all the problems humanity is facing being the kind of love and consciousness Icke have, and more, Icke is a prototypical example of an early popularizer of modern conspirituality (conspiracy-spirituality) beliefs. While many groups and individuals in that area have risen to varying levels of fame and infamy since the 1990s, Icke has become a modern classic with staying power.

He often accused high profile British figures of being involved in the sexual abuse of children. One such figure was Jimmy Savile, who may be the most prolific child molester in British history. After Savile's death, David claimed he had warned about Jimmy's exploits, but no evidence has ever been presented.

Descent into woo
During the late 1980s, while he was still with the Green Party, Icke began to look to alternative medicine for a cure for the arthritis that had ended his football career. This also brought him in contact with the local members of the New Age movement. In 1989, he experienced neurological symptoms (impression of a presence, momentary paralysis of lower extremities, auditory hallucination, facial sensations) that he interpreted as spirits trying to contact him. In 1990, he met a psychic he called his "soul mate," who began to introduce him to hardcore New Age woo. He went off the deep end shortly thereafter. He left the party in 1990 and was formally banned from it in 1994, with the Greens calling his views "fascist".

Views
Some of my friends have urged me to tell people the basic story, but "for God's sake don't mention the reptiles"

Icke is a proponent of a super-duper grand unified conspiracy theory that mixes together just about every conspiracy theory you can think of; this he calls the "Babylonian Brotherhood." All members of the media, the scientific community, the banking system, and the religions and militaries of the world's nations are mere foot-soldiers of the conspiracy. These stooges are in turn controlled by the usual suspects: the United Nations, the Bilderberg Group, the Trilateral Commission, the Illuminati, the Freemasons, the Council on Foreign Relations, the Rothschild family, the World Bank, etc. All of these groups are merely the puppets of "the global elite," which are controlled by "the prison wardens."

Reptoids
In the very late 1800s, a controversial document came to light called the Protocols Of The Elders Of Zion. I call them the Illuminati Protocols and I quote many extracts from them in The Robots' Rebellion.The whole senario [sic] was planned centuries ago because the reptilians, operating from the lower fourth dimension, and indeed whatever force controls them, have a very different version of "time" than we have, hence they can see and plan down the three-dimensional "time"-line in a way that those in three-dimensional form cannot.

With the release of his book The Biggest Secret in 1999, Icke added the final layer on top of the pyramid of conspiracy: interdimensional shape-shifting lizard-people from a rift in the space-time continuum near the constellation Draco, often referred to as "reptilians" or "reptoids". Partially ripping off Zecharia Sitchin, he claims these aliens are the Anunnaki and have interbred with humans throughout history. Much of the "evidence" of reptoids that Icke's worshipers put forth is pictures of world leaders with enlarged pupils or redeye — the everyday kind in which camera flashes illuminate retinas. This supposedly signifies that the reptoids have momentarily lapsed in their shape-shifting.

You may have already spotted the tell-tale astronomical flaw here: that constellations aren't specific places in outer space, but only how a group of stars happens to appear from Earth. The stars that make up a given constellation could be dozens of parsecs apart. This misuse of constellations is reminiscent of when people say "intergalactic" to instead mean "interstellar, but fancier!"

Reasonable speculation about the source of his space-lizard theory may point to British progressive rock band 's 1971 album, which features metaphorical references to lizards as politico-religious enemies of a "Prince Rupert" in the title track. Ironically, these "lizards" seem to honor the Sabbath, promise Eden, and have a "sacred tablet". The song also references British writer William Blake's figure, Blake's parody and criticism of the God of the Old Testament, which Blake viewed as simultaneously extremely tyrannical and misguidedly benevolent. Another source may have been the 1980s TV series, which features lizard aliens in human disguise who took over Earth from within society. Another potential inspiration is the 1987 book "Beyond the Supernatural" which contained descriptions of D'arota, lizards from another dimension who drank human blood and who could morph into human form.

Not anti-Semitic
Some people have taken offence to Icke, claiming that "shape-shifting lizard-people" is a code word for "Jews". Icke claims that he is not anti-Semitic and that when he says "shape-shifting lizard-people," he quite literally means lizards, saying to Ronson in 2001: "There is a tribe of people interbreeding, which do not relate to any Earth race ... This is not a Jewish plot. This is not a plot on the world by Jewish people."

He does believe the virulently antisemitic Protocols of the Elders of Zion is a true document, although he argues that it was not about Jews, because "Jew" (ironically, given the accusation of coded anti-Semitism) was supposedly a code word for actual lizards. Icke was not original in this ploy but was preceded by William Cooper's 1991 book Behold a Pale Horse.

Although he hangs around with some rather fringe right-wing nutcases, he balances it all out by being just as insane a believer in New Age mumbo-jumbo. He also has been flirting with Holocaust denial, but in Icke's case it's less likely a sign of anti-Semitism than yet another manifestation of all-round insanity.

Icke certainly wasn't an anti-Semite when he published a book in 2019, called The Trigger: The Lie That Changed the World — Who Really Did It and Why, that essentially blamed 9/11 on the Jews. No siree, not anti-Semitic at all.

Altie
At this point, it shouldn't be surprising that Icke hawks alt-med and every crank medical idea under the sun through his website and book store: Homeopathy, vitamin woo, vaccine denial, AIDS denial, water fluoridation, Big Pharma conspiracies, Global warming denial, etc. The man has Jupiter-scale crank magnetism, okay?

Son of God
They're [the audience] laughing at you, they aren't laughing with you. In 1991, on Terry Wogan's TV chat show, in the middle of talking about football (the subject he was a guest on the show to talk about), Icke announced that he was "the son of God" and that Britain would be devastated by tidal waves and earthquakes (the UK isn't seismically active ). He also began wearing all turquoise all the time which furthered claims he was either disturbed or perhaps a reptilian himself. The interview propelled Icke from a minor celebrity to a household name and laughing stock of the UK. Not just Icke himself but also his family were unable to appear in public without being ridiculed. His wife and children were considered "fair game" by some "journalists"; they would hover around his house peering into windows and follow his children to school, proving once more that some journalists are bottom-feeding vultures. In 2006 Wogan admitted that he was "a bit sharp" during his 1991 interview and was "slightly embarrassed" by it.

In 2012, he announced that the opening ceremony of the London 2012 games was a Satanic ritual designed to harness negative energy, and that "The Olympic Stadium is strategically placed on the earth-energy grid to tap into the immense London and British power centres and this is why Glastonbury Tor, one of the most significant earth-vortex points in the UK, is a centrepiece of the opening ceremony."

Reality is a hologram
If all of the above wasn't crazy enough, Icke seems to have taken The Matrix literally (well, minus the parts with Keanu Reeves and robot overlords). He believes that much of reality is a holographic projection or sensory illusion being beamed down by our alien overlords from the moon, which is actually a space-station with a hollow interior. No, really... no, really.

Headgear
David Icke, as well as his fans, are well known in popular culture for promoting the aluminium foil hat trend.

Patriot movement
Icke's relationship with the Christian patriot movement in the United States is somewhat complex. The London Evening Standard wrote in 1995 that there were "uncanny parallels between Icke's thoughts" and other mad ramblings "and the writings of senior figures in the armed militia movement in America". It has been alleged that while Icke is trying to court the right-wing to believe his crazy beliefs, his New Age voodoo quackery may actually be putting off supporters. He has also admired The Spotlight, published by the Liberty Lobby, as containing "excellent research" with a "long and proven level of accuracy".

Although he fully believes that Christian patriots are the only Americans who know the truth about the New World Order, he clearly views them as dogmatists who are nearly as rigid as their adversaries, saying: "I don't know which I dislike more, the world controlled by the Brotherhood, or the one you want to replace it with." This has put him at odds with other conspiracy theorists such as Mark Dice and Alex Jones. Icke also did not become a follower of Donald Trump following his election to the White House and believes that Trump is a puppet of Russia the NWO, unlike Jones, Dice and much of the conspiracy theorist and patriot community who became fervent followers of The Donald.

Icke also encourages people to be skeptical of religious fundamentalism and religious organisations in general... but just not of his crazy ideas.

List of reptilian overlords
Or at least, those people Icke believes to be.

If any of these individuals are seen sacrificing children or drinking blood, they should be reported to immediately.

Royalty
name="Bullshit"/> The late Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother was apparently "one of highest satanic witches in Europe".
 * The entire British royal family. <ref
 * The Rothschilds
 * The Rockefellers
 * The Merovingians, a medieval French dynasty.
 * "The Habsburgs, the most powerful family in Europe under the Holy Roman Empire"
 * Various Egyptian pharaohs
 * Basically every royal dynasty ever...

Politicians

 * Winston Churchill
 * Joseph Stalin
 * Franklin D. Roosevelt
 * Adolf Hitler
 * Lyndon B. Johnson
 * Ronald Reagan
 * Richard Nixon
 * Gerald Ford
 * Ted Heath
 * John F. Kennedy
 * Henry Kissinger
 * Bush the Elder; claims that he spoke to many people who saw him change to a Reptoid and back again in front of their eyes.
 * Jimmy Carter
 * Mikhail Gorbachev
 * Ted Kennedy
 * Dick Cheney; almost believable.
 * George "Dubya" Bush
 * Bill and Hillary Clinton
 * Al Gore
 * Jeb Bush
 * Tony Blair
 * Dalton McGuinty, former premier of Ontario
 * Basically every world leader ever, too...

Other

 * Kris Kristofferson
 * Charlotte Cooper
 * The Nagas (gods of the Indus valley). Mythical creatures are really other mythical creatures. This is some advanced conspiracy. To be fair, Nagas are associated with reptiles, so there is a small amount of basis here...but in this case, not lizards but snakes.

Lawsuit
In January 2015 Icke paid $90,000CAN in settlement of a lawsuit by Richard Warman, a Canadian human rights lawyer. Icke had defamed Warman in his 2001 book Children of the Matrix by making allegations of Satanic child abuse and murder. This was in addition to an out of court settlement of $120,000CAN Warman had already received from three Canadian book stores who continued to sell the book after being named as co-respondents in the case.

In a public statement in March 2015, Warman said "This settlement exposes Icke’s argument that no one had ever sued him because his allegations were true as nothing more than a fallacy."

In response to this monumental legal victory expensive defeat Icke posted a video response on his website explaining the background to the case which, unsurprisingly (and probably wisely), doesn't even mention it. Instead, and with a breathtaking display of chutzpah lack of awareness, he invokes the memory of Carl Sagan.

COVID-19
He wouldn’t be a conspiracy theorist if he hasn’t talked about the Coronavirus!

Icke has fully embraced crank magnetism, and uses his social media channels to spread whatever bullshit trends in the conspiracy world are at the moment.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, Icke livestreamed an interview on 7 April 2020, where he asked if there is "a link between 5G and this health crisis". He then claimed that implementing 5G will mean "human life as we know it is over", insisted that any COVID-19 vaccine that develops will include "nanotechnology microchips" that would allow humans to be controlled, and blamed Bill Gates for the pandemic. Basically, he states that Bill Gates is Thanos converting people into trackable zombie dogs and installing 5G towers which are actually siren heads. In other social media posts, Icke made a number of other claims: a Jewish group was behind the virus, 5G would leave people unable to absorb oxygen, Germany was moving to "legalise rape" for Muslim men, and you cannot spread the virus by shaking hands.

For once, YouTube and Facebook got fed up with this bullshit and subsequently booted him off these social networks. He remained on Twitter, and as expected, his Twitter feed largely shifted to bitching and crying about how he has been banned from social media. However in early November 2020, he was banned from Twitter as well for his promotion of fake COVID-related material. Whether this had anything to do with the almost simultaneous US election is not known.

Separately, television programme was found to be in breach of standards with UK communication regulators  for airing an interview where Icke freely babbled his 5G bullshit and other conspiracies, without any attempt of a counterpoint whatsoever.

Factoids
Here are some reptoids factoids about Icke:
 * Icke claims that he was passed over for Celebrity Big Brother.
 * In 2008, Icke ran for election to Parliament as an independent candidate in the Haltemprice and Howden by-election. He got only 110 votes, and lost his deposit. If the lizard people (who live between Selby and Hull) had let him win, he would not have actually entered Parliament as he vowed not to actually take the oath to the Queen required (as he believes Her Majesty and the rest of the Royal Family to be lizard people as well). Because the irony does not stop with this fellow, Prince Charles agrees with Icke on the alternative medicine stuff.
 * Icke was the only non-American interviewee on the life-saving DVD The Fall of America and the Western World.
 * Icke considers himself the most controversial writer in the world. Non-British people who don't pay much attention to the weirder sections of bookshops consider him "Who?"