Operation EMU

Status: Parody
imageOperationEMU.com offers up "Statements, theories and artifacts related to the alleged 1974 NASA experiment during which an entire Hollywood film crew, contracted by the government, disappeared in a remote section of Nevada." This seems to be the jist of what the site alleges happened: The Hollywood film crew was there to help stage a training exercise for the NASA-led Operation EMU (which stands for Operation Experimental Mitigated Universe). Operation EMU itself was some kind of NASA project to prepare for alien contact. And somehow a group of Meemaw Indians performing a solstice ritual were involved in this.

Sound a little bizarre? I think that's the intention. The site was created by B. Brandon Barker to promote his novel, for which he's shopping for a publisher. (The article about him in the Baltimore Sun should definitely help his chances with that.) Barker says that he designed his novel to be a parody of "pretentious sci-fi films like 2001: A Space Odyssey and the cult of alien-life true believers" (Hey, I like 2001: A Space Odyssey!). The strange thing is that although Barker's plot is pure fiction, some people now believe elements of it to be real. At least, according to the Baltimore Sun:
Some apparently think Operation EMU is for real. "It seems only logical that there are cover ups of major proportions that aren't discovered," forum member Robyn Zimmerman of Michigan writes in response to an e-mail query. Forum member John Nesbit, a 52-year-old crawfish farmer in Martinsville, La., used to be an Air Force mechanic and was stationed at Nellis in the early 1970s. He claims to have first-hand knowledge of Operation EMU. "I get less dubious the older I get," says Nesbit. "I did know about Operation EMU, but it was a NASA training thing. That's what we were told. Only much later did it come out that it was broader than that, that they were training the military to fight aliens. ... The film crew thing, that's documented."
Shades of Alternative Three there. If you create a hoax about a government cover-up, some people will inevitably insist that revealing it as a hoax is part of the cover-up.

Conspiracy Theories Extraterrestrial Life Websites

Posted on Thu Jun 22, 2006



Comments

"'It seems only logical that there are cover ups of major proportions that aren't discovered,' forum member Robyn Zimmerman of Michigan writes in response to an e-mail query."

I see this kind of non-logical logic on this forum all the time. The True Believers go from the proposition that there are things we don't yet know (with which no one argues) to the notion that the wacky whatever currently under discussion MUST therefore be the truth.
Posted by Cranky Media Guy  on  Thu Jun 22, 2006  at  02:12 AM
It's kind of like an inside joke. 😊
Posted by Charybdis  on  Thu Jun 22, 2006  at  08:45 AM
Obviously that film crew was the same one that did the fake moon landings. They were going to talk so NASA dreamed up this clever plan to eliminate them.
Posted by Captain Al  on  Thu Jun 22, 2006  at  09:16 AM
I'd actually have some respect for it if it WAS an inside joke. That would be funny, as opposed to just being an example of fallacious reasoning.
Posted by Cranky Media Guy  on  Thu Jun 22, 2006  at  05:44 PM
We are pleased to announce the web site Operation EMU has been awarded the Majestic Twelve Seal of Approval.

Majestic Twelve can neither confirm nor deny the validity of this site.

Regards,
MJ-12 Monitor
Posted by MJ-12 Monitor  on  Fri Jun 23, 2006  at  08:17 PM
And you can see the listing at http://www.mj12.com/mj12/approved.htm.
Posted by MJ-12 Monitor  on  Fri Jun 23, 2006  at  08:18 PM
Dont there always show up people who claim they`ve been there and seen it? That they were part of the "selected few"?
Wars for example...if you`d pile up the "fights" everyone has been in, there would have been 20 times more battles than there ever took place.
Its sad how some people are too dumb to recognize hoaxes and even are willing to prove themselves liars when facts show its a hoax just to get some attention.
Posted by Chrissy  on  Mon Jun 26, 2006  at  11:38 PM
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