Reptilian conspiracy theory

Michael Barkun, professor of political science at Syracuse University, posits that the idea of a reptilian conspiracy originated in the fiction of Conan the Barbarian creator Robert E. Howard, in his story "The Shadow Kingdom", published in Weird Tales in August 1929.

[9] This story drew on theosophical ideas of the "lost worlds" of Atlantis and Lemuria, particularly Helena Blavatsky's The Secret Doctrine written in 1888, with its reference to "'dragon-men' who once had a mighty civilization on a Lemurian continent".

[12] In the 1940s, American occultist Maurice Doreal (also known as Claude Doggins)[13] wrote a pamphlet entitled "Mysteries of the Gobi" that described a "serpent race" with "bodies like man but...heads...like a great snake" and an ability to take human form.

Barkun asserts that "in all likelihood", Doreal's ideas came from "The Shadow Kingdom", and that in turn, "The Emerald Tablets" formed the basis for David Icke's book, Children of the Matrix.

[15] Historian Edward Guimont has argued that the reptilian conspiracy theory, particularly as expounded by Icke, drew from earlier pseudohistorical legends developed during the colonisation of Africa, particularly surrounding Great Zimbabwe and the mokele-mbembe.

[30] On March 4, 2013, a video depicting a security agent with unusual features guarding a speech by U.S. President Barack Obama was spotlighted in a Wired report about shapeshifting reptilian humanoids.

This led to a tongue-in-cheek response from chief National Security Council spokeswoman Caitlin Hayden who said "any alleged program to guard the president with aliens or robots would likely have to be scaled back or eliminated in the sequester".

[31] In October, 2022, Dutch MP Thierry Baudet, head of the far-right Forum for Democracy, said in an interview with the "Geopolitics and Empire" podcast that he believes that the world is "being governed by evil reptiles.