Atlas Obscura Gift Guide: 8 Presents for the Conspiracy Theorist
(Photo: Everett Collection/shutterstock.com)
The world can be a mysterious and shadowy place at times, and even more so for those curious souls who dare to peek behind the veil of accepted truths. But just because they believe in men in black, supernatural cover-ups, and weather-control drones doesn’t mean that the conspiracy nut in your life doesn’t deserve a thoughtful gift for the holidays (even if they were just invented to get us to pour money into the international capitalist banking cabal). Here are a few suggestions for gifts to get that friend of yours with all of the facts.
This is one part of Atlas Obscura’s eight-part 2015 gift guide. See the rest.
Sure it’s a bag of dirt, but it’s a bag of dirt that is a part of the shadow conspiracy. (Photo: Courtesy Amazon)
8. Roswell UFO Crash Site Soil
The truth is out there, and you can give a bit of it as a gift for under $20. When an alien flying saucer crash-landed in Roswell, New Mexico, it forever changed our world, mainly by inspiring one of the greatest cover-ups in history. While you can’t get that truth-seeker in your life all the answers they crave, you can pick up a sample of earth from the region of the actual Roswell crash. Whether the UFO imbued the dirt with any uncanny characteristics is unknown, but the packet of soil does come with a certificate of authenticity–hopefully something you can trust.
Some days the world IS out to get you. (Photo: Joe Loong/Flickr)
7. Simple Sabotage Field Manual
Everyone has days where it seems like every small indignity is part of some grand plan to ruin your life. And according to this 1940s sabotage manual, they are! This handy guide for the everyday rabble rouser gives all sorts of tips on how to foment insurrection through annoyance. From infesting movie theaters with moths to being willfully terrible at your job to frustrate your bosses, this guide offers an enlightening glimpse at the myriad little ways the grand conspiracy is trying to wreck your day.
Yeah, right. (Photo: Courtesy SpaceStore.com)
6. Space-Flown Artifacts
$49.95 - $295.95 on SpaceStore.com
Looking for that perfect gag gift for the conspiracy enthusiast in your life? How about a supposedly space-flown object from one of NASA’s supposed shuttle missions. While you can’t purchase one of the thermal tiles that supposedly fell off the Challenger shuttle (probably because we mysteriously lost track of them), you can pick up blankets and small keepsakes that they’d like us to believe went to space. Supposedly.
Be careful what you light this candle for. (Photo: Courtesy Etsy)
5. Ouija Board Candle
You might not be able to use it to talk to the dead, but that doesn’t mean that this Ouija decorated candle can’t summon a spirit of homey warmth. If you or your conspiratorial loved one would like to summon up some spirits, they will need to get their hands on a real Ouija board, but for those just looking to add a bit of spectral flair to their hearth, this candle makes the perfect gift. Just be sure not to begin asking questions of the deceased while staring into the flame. Those powers were not meant to be meddled with.
Who is Koons Crooks? (Photo: Courtesy Amazon)
4. Iterating Grace
Who is Koons Crooks? The only thing anyone seems to know about this mysterious figure is that he (or she) penned a slim book called Iterating Grace that quietly began showing up on the doorsteps of journalists and venture capitalists. The collection of hand-copied koans taken from the Twitter feeds of influential members of the finance world has yet to be explained–despite receiving a five-figure book distribution deal. Is the book just an overly clever literary experiment, or is it a coded message to and from the international banking conspiracy? You decide.
Wash away that bad juju. (Photo Courtesy of Original Botanica)
3. Jinx-Removing Soap
Wake up, people. It’s not just the government and the international banking conspiracy that are jamming us up. The discerning paranoiac knows that they should look out for magic curses as well. If there is someone in your life that thinks they may have been hexed by a government-sanctioned sorcerer or voodoo priest, stuff their stocking with this jinx-busting soap. Because you can’t be too safe.
The miracle plant the Soviets didn’t want us to know about. (Photo: Botanischer Garten TU Darmstat/Flickr)
2. Rhodiola Rosea Seeds
$100 a gram for site members / $200 a gram for non-members
The powers-that-be in the healthcare industrial complex want you to think that you need to purchase all sorts of chemicals to keep yourself fit and healthy. But there is a plant called Rhodiola rosea, or golden root, that we are already growing in Alaska which might be better than all of their drugs. A long classified Soviet secret, the miracle plant is said to improve mental and physical performance to a shocking degree. And it grows like a weed in even our most inhospitable climes. Get your person-in-the-know some golden root seeds and give them the gift of a healthy life that the establishment wants to keep secret.
Blessed by thy toast. (Photo: Courtesy Amazon)
1. Virgin Mary Toaster
For those religious types in your life (perhaps the most devoted to a grand unifying conspiracy), gift buying can be tough since miracles happen every single day, all around the world. So why not get them this toaster that allows them to make their very own image of the Virgin Mary on a piece of toast? Obviously it’s not sanctioned by any church because they would never stand for someone taking the miracle monopoly out of their hands. It might not be the holy manna from Santa’s bones, but this toaster is the perfect way to get back at the shadowy church operators who would rather see holy images hidden than in the hands of the public. Ever read the Da Vinci Code?
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