Our weekly column from the humor site PreOccupied Territory.
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Damascus, July 23 – Cryptozoologists and other enthusiasts of paranormal phenomena have begun including Assad regime claims of thwarted Israeli airborne operations in their logs of unconfirmed-but-definitely-real incidents, opening a new realm in which the credulous can enjoy the sense of superiority and insider status born of knowing something most other people are too closed-minded to accept.
Conspiracy-theory-minded groups devoted to documenting sightings of phenomena and entities for which scientists and mainstream society find insufficient or uncompelling evidence have decided to add to their record-keeping the cases in which Syrian air defense officials say they have shot down or driven away Israeli aircraft or missiles, amid ongoing Israeli efforts to interdict the movement of strategic weapons from Iran to Hezbollah in Lebanon through Syrian territory.
“I’m excited about this addition,” gushed Gimlin Patterson, a cryptozoology documentary filmmaker. “It’s been ages since our community has had something really, genuinely new to discuss. Most of our research involves stories or sightings that are decades, sometimes centuries old: the Loch Ness Monster, Yeti, Sasquatch, Area 51 aliens, chupacabras, ghosts, you know. Sometimes we get the novelty of an old map that purports to show Chinese knowledge of the Americans before the Europeans got there. But the Syria interception accounts are a breath of fresh air. And as a bonus, so many of us are already primed to believe in conspiracy theories and secret cabals that suppress the truth, so this new collection of claims fits nicely into the antisemitic sensibilities so many of us already bring to the table.”
“I’m more of an aliens-built-the-pyramids kind of gal,” added Roz Well, hostess of the podcast What They Won’t Tell You. “But the discovery that Syria has actually been shooting down Israeli aircraft and missiles, and that mainstream media, when they even cover the incidents, only parrot Israeli propaganda, really resonates. Outfits that shill for governments, and governments that try to suppress the truth, will lie about anything, not just ignore all the evidence that aliens built all the ancient pyramids around the world – Mayan, Egyptian, or wherever.”
“The key is to look for any shred of fact that supports the conclusion you’ve already reached – and the antisemites among us have lots of practice at that – and then,” she continued, “either take anything that contradicts the conclusion and ignore, downplay, or dismiss it as fake, or as evidence of the cover-up. It’s such a good thing that Bashar Assad, contrary to what the lamestream press will tell you, is really the reincarnation of Sennacherib, because that’s a real humanitarian.”
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