With today’s proliferation of “internet” it’s easier than ever to find reputable sources of information, usually in just a few swipes of the finger (or words shouted, clarified and shouted again at Siri, Alexa or Echo).
It’s also easier to find “evidence” to back up whatever claim you want to make, and to find a “source” that supports whatever misinformation you choose to believe or pass along, which is how conspiracy theories take off.
And boy are they a lot of fun! I’m a sucker for anything that involves space, which is literally something you can confirm exists at any time by going outside and looking up. A few of my favorites:
• The earth is flat! (Where’s the edge, you ask? That’s what they WANT you to ask!)
• The sun isn’t hot! (If the sun’s so hot why is space cold? CHECKMATE!)
• The moon isn’t real, and it’s all holograms! (Have you seen any actual photographs of the moon from before 1900? I didn’t think so. Fun fact, if the moon were REAL wouldn’t it be hot since it’s in space and thus closer to the sun? Got ya scratching your head, huh?)
But what of our own fair county? Are there any wild conspiracy theories that maybe we should start putting a little more thought into? (Besides the usual “Oh the city/county/police is all corrupt, if you want proof look at my power bill/parking tickets/guilty verdict for indecent exposure” stuff, I mean.)
Here’s a few crackpot ideas to get the ball rolling.
1. There’s Only One Snaza. Have you ever seen Rob and John Snaza in the same place at the same time? I’ve seen pictures, but they can fake anything in photos nowadays. It’s basically a reverse “Prestige,” where Ron Snaza (his real name) has everyone convinced he’s got two jobs to pull in TWICE the salary. Pretty convenient he never had to do two debates on the same night during election season. If there’s really two Snazas why didn’t they run against each other?
2. The 2007 Floods Didn’t Happen. Obviously just a conspiracy fabricated by Local Government and propagated by The Comical (‘The Comical’ is trademarked by Reddit user FloodTruther1776) in order to siphon government funds into the Chehalis Basin Flood Authority coffers. Funny how without the state Legislature passing a budget the Flood Authority has to pause all its work — while we’re going on two months without a drop of rain. A little TOO convenient if you ask me. If the flood really happened, where’d all the water go? If it evaporated, why didn’t all the rivers and lakes dry up too?
3. George Washington’s Gold. There’s a longstanding rumor that Centerville founder George Washington hid his gold in town. Here’s what THEY don’t want you to know!
Fact: George Washington’s 200th birthday is this weekend. Fact: “Our George Washington” was rich beyond your wildest dreams, so rich he’d make the wealthiest folks in Centralia today look like paupers. Fact: He didn’t take all of his wealth — manifested in The Old Days in pure gold ingots — with him when he died, and all the things he built back in 1750 or whenever were super cheap, what with all the affordable labor and lax building codes in the pre-Constitution days. Fact: Gold is worth more now than it was when George Washington was accumulating his wealth. Fact: No one knows the name of George Washington’s dog, the same Very Good Boy in the life-sized portrait of GW painted on the side of what’s now the KeyBank building on Pearl Street.
So we’ve got a 20-foot-tall man and his horse-sized dog and a pile of gold that can be conservatively estimated as equal to Scrooge McDuck’s stash. Where is it today? Here’s a few clues:
• Gold is ALWAYS hidden in the last place you’d ever look. That’s why so few treasures are ever uncovered.
• The last place you’d ever look for gold is a place frequented by people with no gold. Have you ever seen transients in a bank vault? I didn’t think so.
• People with no gold frequent Washington Park, named after, you guessed it, George Washington.
• Andrew Carnegie commissioned Carnegie Library to be built in Washington Park because George Washington was so rich he gave Carnegie “new money” insecurities.
• George Washington was 20 feet tall (evidence: the aforementioned mural) so he could easily dig a really big hole in Washington Park (he used a canoe as a shovel) one night when everyone else was asleep. His giant dog helped.
Thus, by connecting the dots, we can with 100 percent certainty determine George Washington buried his gold beneath what is now the Nonfiction section in the Carnegie Library, because George Washington could not tell a lie and thus hated novels and the DVD section (though it was a VHS section back then).
That means this weekend’s George Washington birthday party is a top-secret plot to get a bunch of people to the park and start digging, and when the gold is unearthed it’ll be used to pay for … THE VERY STATUE OF GEORGE WASHINGTON THAT THE BIRTHDAY PARTY ORGANIZERS WANT TO BUILD.
I think we can all agree it’s exactly what George would have wanted.
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Aaron VanTuyl is The Chronicle sports editor and a columnist. His weekly Power Rankings are a satirical look at the news of the week. Send input to avantuyl@chronline.com.
