You walk through the streets, surrounded by people. Everyone seems normal, just going about their day - or are they? You’ve heard things, and you can’t help but wonder, are all the people surrounding you what they appear to be?
Or are there some otherworldly beings wearing human disguises living among us - and plotting against us? It’s one of the most popular - and terrifying - conspiracy theories around. Are there actually lizard people living among us, and possibly secretly ruling us?
The idea is simple. We’re not the only intelligent life in the universe. There is a species of highly intelligent, highly ambitious aliens being out there.
But instead of evolving from primates like we did, it’s not mammalian at all. These beings are reptilian, and are believed to be either shapeshifters or masters of disguise. That allows them to take on a human appearance, and infiltrate human society.
But we don’t have to be worried about alien invasion - because the invasion is supposedly already here and has been for a very long time. That’s because this theory often has ties to another famous conspiracy. The Illuminati.
A powerful and shadowy group of power brokers that control the governments of every major country. A council so powerful that even the President of the United States takes his orders from them. The Illuminati are usually believed to be composed of the most powerful and wealthy families on Earth.
While this mysterious group has never been found and their existence is unproven, the believers in the theory say that’s exactly what they want. And a certain small and vocal group of Illuminati believers say they may not be human at all. But is there any truth to this conspiracy theory?
And how did it begin? The origins likely draw back not to events in our world, but to the world of fiction. In his short but prolific career as a writer, Robert E.
Howard created many of the most lasting concepts in fantasy fiction. Ranging from the barbarian nomad Conan to the warrior king Kull, his heroes faced a bizarre mix of supernatural and sci-fi enemies - but few more bizarre than the Serpent Men. This ancient prehistoric race had snake-like heads and lived underground.
Other writers like Clark Ashton Smith and most famously HP Lovecraft used inspiration from this story to create their own stories involving terrifying ancient reptilians, but the very first inspiration may come from much earlier. And it may bring in another iconic mystery. The Secret Doctrine, a book by Russian philosopher Helena Blavatsky, is hard to classify.
That’s because it was classified as non-fiction - but most analysts believe it contained mostly fiction. A combination of modern science and ancient occult concepts, it claimed to represent the “Wisdom of the Ages” and spoke of ancient lost civilizations in Atlantis and Lemuria where prehistoric races of pre-humans lived. One of these “root races” was described as “Drgon Men” - possibly the earliest mention of these ancient beings in literature.
And while Blavatsky’s book has been widely discredited, this concept has stuck around far longer than the rest of her ideas. So how did these literary ideas make the jump into our world? One of the big tipping points was when a mysterious incident happened in Roswell, New Mexico in 1947.
Officially classified as an Air Force balloon crash near a ranch, it became the launch for a million conspiracy theories about alien UFOs coming to Earth - and just as many claims of other sightings and even alien abductions. People would run into the police and claim that they had been lifted out of their cars by tractor beams and experimented on by bizarre alien beings. While most of these reports had the common description of tall grey aliens, some had a different appearance.
And one was by a man with a more trustworthy reputation than most. It was 1967, and Herbert Schirmer was a police officer in Ashland, Nebraska. The man had been having strange dreams and flashbacks, so he sought out the help of a hypnotist.
While under hypnosis, he recalled being abducted by aliens and taken on a UFO. His description of the aliens gained larger attention. He said they had reptilian features, and more significantly reported they had a military-style emblem of a winged serpent on their chests.
Could this be a close encounter with the mysterious dragon-men who supposedly preceded humanity? Or was it a hoax? Most UFO skeptics say Schirmer is not one of the most convincing cases, especially given the addition of a third-party hypnotist, but his case continues to intrigue conspiracists to this day.
But is there any real evidence of evolved, secret reptiles living among us? That depends on what you consider evidence. There are many cryptids out there that people describe as reptile-like.
Some, like the Loch Ness Monster of Scotland and the Mokele-mbembe of Africa, are said to resemble dinosaurs who have survived to the modern day. Others, like the Lizardman of South Carolina or the Loveland Frog, resemble reptiles or amphibians who are evolved enough to stand on two legs - close to the legend of the lizard people. But the one thing all these creatures have in common is that they’ve only been sighted by a few people, none of whom have managed to take a clear picture, and most scientists believe it’s highly unlikely that a creature of this size could hide from human discovery indefinitely.
So how did this conspiracy theory jump the line into a major belief? Sometimes, all it takes is one charismatic believer to get everyone else on board. And the lizard people found their believer in the form of British radio host David Icke.
Originally a footballer and sports broadcaster, he soon started expressing beliefs in bizarre theories and using his platform as a radio host to spread them. What started as an exploration of New Age philosophies and alternative medicine to heal his chronic arthritis briefly led to a prominent position in the Green Party and a series of books that predicted doom for the world, expressed antisemitic views, and claimed we were just one of many parallel dimensions. His bigoted views soon got him kicked out of the party.
But it was a 1999 book that left the biggest impact. “The Biggest Secret” would soon become the most in-depth exploration of the Lizard People theory ever published, giving these creatures a name. He claimed they came from a distant star system called Alpha Drconis, although they didn’t stay there - they could travel across dimensions.
Called the Archons or Anunnaki, they had been there on Earth for ages and had already hijacked the Earth. But they weren’t the ones actually ruling the Earth - they had placed another group of genetically modified hybrid beings on the planet to rule in their place. And they had a name - the Babylonian Brotherhood.
These powerful hybrids were supposedly the one running the planet in the form of an Illuminati, and they had the ability to feed on fear and negative energy. Thus, their manipulations of the government were aimed at keeping us in a constant state of fear and lead us to embrace an authoritarian global government that would end freedom of speech and elections and rule indefinitely, as part of a “New World Order”. But Icke went further than most believers in this theory.
He named names. Icke claimed that these human-reptile hybrids had been running Earth for centuries and were secretly behind several of the most powerful people in the world. These included the Merovingian dynasty, a powerful ruling family responsible for uniting much of Europe starting in the fifth century.
In more modern times, the list supposedly includes the Rothschilds, a powerful family of businessmen; the Bush political dynasty responsible for two US Presidents, and the British royal family. He also named former President Barack Obama and former Defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld - indicating the conspiracy is a bipartisan affair. While these are the most prominent names, Icke claims we’ve never seen most of the lizard people - because they live underground in massive bases, and we won’t see them until they’ve made their move and it’s too late.
It’s a terrifying conspiracy - but is there any truth to it? Icke and his fellow believers have been widely criticized for their conspiracies having little to no basis in reality and working in many antisemitic theories. Icke even personally endorsed the famous historical forgery The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, which claimed a powerful Jewish conspiracy ruling the world and bears many similarities to the lizard people theory - including having the Rothschilds at the center of many versions.
Scientists and politicians have both condemned Icke and denounced the theory, and he finally made Twitter run out of patience in 2020 when he claimed that the Covid-19 pandemic was caused not by a virus but by 5G cell towers. So he’s probably just a niche conspiracy theorist and the lizard people theory isn’t very popular. .
. right? Wrong.
Despite no real evidence for the theory, it has a surprisingly large following numbering in the millions in the United States alone. A recent poll indicated that four percent of American adults believe there’s truth to the theory - which might not sound like much, but it comes out to over twelve million believers. These believers may not get much mainstream attention, but they communicate actively on the internet, even sharing their beliefs on how to supposedly spot these impostors among us.
So what are the supposed signs of a lizard-person in human form? Some are related to the nature of lizards, like low blood pressure. Others are seemingly random, but the believers will insist they’re a giveaway - like good eyesight and hearing or red hair.
Unexplained scars on the body are supposedly a giveaway - maybe because they’re not fitting in their skin quite right. Others have nothing to do with the body and more to do with the mind, with believers claiming that they can tell when someone is too interested in space or gives off the “Vibe” of not belonging to the human race. Have you ever had the feeling someone is sizing you up and trying to figure you out a little too much?
They might have been looking for clues. But these bizarre conspiracies are jumping the line into affecting the real world. The conspiracy first picked up some mainstream attention in 2008 when a man named Lucas Davenport decided to write in “lizard people” on his Senate ballot in Minnesota.
While his vote was thrown out and it later turned out that he wasn’t an actual believer - instead wanting to make a funny joke because he didn’t like any of the candidates - the gecko was out of the bottle. Different media outlets covered the conspiracy and it sent countless people running to their computer to google what exactly the lizard people were - giving the theory, and Icke’s writings, a whole new platform in the digital era. But the theory would influence a far darker day over ten years later.
It was Christmas day in 2020 when an explosion rocked downtown Nashville, blowing up a building next to an AT&T network hub. While the bomber, Anthony Warner, was the only person killed, it disrupted network communications for days in the area - and the only clue to his motive was a series of bizarre packages he had sent to friends days before his shocking act. Anthony Quinn Warner had previously worked for AT&T, but he held some bizarre views, including beliefs that UFOs had already invaded Earth and that the moon landing had been faked.
And the mastermind behind these plots? You guessed it - our reptilian friends. So what gives this conspiracy theory so much staying power?
The world is scary out there, so why make it more scary? Why do people believe in evil forces where there is no proof? Psychologists believe that this may actually be a way to take back control in their minds.
If bad things are just happening in the world with no purpose behind them, it’s impossible to know when or how it will get better. If there is actually a shadowy evil force behind all the bad things, people convince themselves that all they have to do is find the people responsible and they can make things get better. Which, in 2020, certainly sounds better to some people than the alternative.
And for those who believe in conspiracies, it’s notoriously hard to convince them otherwise. After all, if you believe there’s a conspiracy to hide the truth, wouldn’t someone telling you it isn’t true just make you more suspicious? The Lizard-people conspiracy theory is clearly ridiculous, but then again that’s exactly what we would say if we ourselves here at The Infographics Show were part of the Lizard People agenda and wanted to get you off the trail.
Or maybe we would admit that we were Lizard People and play it off as a big joke, yet again to get you off the scent. Guess you’ll just have to take our word for it that we’re definitely, probably, not part of the global lizard people conspiracy. Now if you’ll excuse us there’s a giant bowl of delicious flies to eat that we’ve been eyeing this whole time.
For another of the greatest conspiracies of all time, check out “Is There Evidence That Aliens Did Come to Roswell”, or watch this video instead.
