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Cooper

“ ” I believe that any man without principles that he is ready and willing to die for at any given moment is already dead and is of no use or consequence whatever. —William Cooper[1]:4

Milton William Cooper (1943–2001) was the conspiracy theorist whom other conspiracy theorists wish they could be. Getting his start in radio in the 1980s, Cooper was the first to mix New World Order (NWO) conspiracy theories with New Age nonsense like UFOs. His book, Behold a Pale Horse,[1] could be found in the New Age section of many book stores. You can also thank him for popularizing the term "sheeple" (though he didn't coin it). Cooper was closely associated with if not a member of the Ku Klux Klan.[2][3]

Cooper claimed to have been a member of the Order of DeMolay, an 'appendant body' of Freemasonry.[4] He claimed that his membership gave him insight into the workings of the NWO.[4][5]

Although he was swimming in the same waters as Alex Jones many years before Jones appeared on the scene, Cooper had a reputation for denouncing most of his rival conspiracy theorists as being part of the conspiracy themselves, leaving him as a paranoid. In particular, he accused the New Ager David Icke of teaching the doctrines of mystery religions and of fear-mongering, and accused Alex Jones of inflicting hysteria among people with his rants.

Supposed background [ edit ]

He claims to have been in the U.S. Air Force (like fellow conspiracy theorist Texe Marrs) as well as Naval Intelligence, where he supposedly saw top secret documents detailing U.S. involvement with evil space aliens. We'd love to believe his self-published military records, but we note that he's also published "authentic" documents revealing the U.S. Army's connection to Satanism,[1]:361-380 the existence of Moon Bases,[1]:212,221,423,436 and aliens at Area 51.[1]:397-441 However, all that can be confirmed by public records is that he was in the Navy with a rating of E5, served a tour of duty in Vietnam, and received two service medals in 1969.[1]:381-396[6] One reporter claimed that Cooper functioned as a low-level clerk without access to classified information.[2]

Conspiracy theories [ edit ]

Cooper started out believing that the UFO people were controlling the world, and that UFO technology had been used in Vietnam. He became one of the stars on the UFO lecture circuit, writing books that alleged that space aliens were part of the New World Order. He later claimed that the secret papers he had supposedly read while allegedly in "Naval Intelligence" were fake and that he had in fact been deliberately tricked into believing in aliens (although he did claim he witnessed the emergence of a UFO from the ocean), and it was all part of an Illuminati plot, including the JFK assassination and faked Moon landings. Or maybe the goat did it. Who knows?

His book, Behold a Pale Horse, contained the text of The Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion, which he prefaced by claiming the text didn't refer to Jews, but to the evil Illuminati (supposedly connected with the Priory of Sion and the Knights Templar) and their master plan to control the great unwashed masses of "cattle."[1]:267-332 It is functionally a form of dogwhistling, similar to how David Icke has claimed that his Lizard People are not really meant to be Jews.

Media [ edit ]

If you've heard of him at all, you've probably seen his book, or you heard of the radio show he had on shortwave, Hour of the Time, delivering his "Mystery Babylon Series" of lectures. He encouraged pirate radio and free speech. He operated a low-power pirate television station, and a low-power FM pirate radio station in his hometown of Eagar, Arizona.[note 1] In the early 1990s his radio show was broadcast via satellite.[note 2] He bought air time on such stations as WRNO, WWCR, and WBCQ. Listeners occasionally called into his show on WBCQ complaining that the Voice of America was jamming the station.[note 3]

Several thousand hours of recordings of Cooper's radio show from 1993 to 2001 have been posted on the internet. The collection shows how Cooper covered nearly all "speculative" topics on his show, including a mammoth series about a massive conspiracy of conspiracies entitled Mystery Babylon.[7]

The popularity of his 1991 book Behold a Pale Horse in New Age bookstores marked the first real penetration of classic Illuminati conspiracy theorizing into New Age circles, where it had previously not been a factor. Icke and several others soon made a cash cow out of this market, and, thanks to Cooper and Icke, conspiracy and UFO theories are now a staple of the smorgasbord of ideas making up the New Age. Ironically, Cooper opposed the New Age movement as a "satanic cult."

Behold a Pale Horse [ edit ]

Behold a Pale Horse, depicting riding toward the sun. Beneath Pegasus is Death, one of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, atop his pale horse. Front cover of, depicting Bellerophon riding Pegasus toward the sun. Beneath Pegasus is Death, one of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, atop his pale horse.

The book was purportedly a manifesto for the militia movement at around the time that Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols were tried for mass murder in the Oklahoma City bombing.[8] It is still popular among the credulous, who will regularly pay $200 to $300 on Ebay for an unsigned/unremarkable copy[9] even though it is widely available at public libraries, and be bought cheaply, and can be downloaded free from the Internet Archive.[1]

Behold a Pale Horse[1] begins with a quote from the Bible (Revelation 6:8), from which the title of the book comes. The quote refers to death, one of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse ("…behold a pale horse: and his name that sat on him was Death."). The second quote is by a 'Delamer Duverus' (real name: Edward Aloysius Roberts), an antisemitic conspiracy theorist who was a publisher of the American Sunbeam in Springdale, Arkansas.[10][11]

Introduction [ edit ]

The introduction peculiarly begins with one anonymous page referring to the author in the third person, then immediately goes into three pages by Cooper.

Foreword [ edit ]

This is thirty pages about Cooper's family and his autobiography. In the autobiography, he alleges second-hand knowledge of UFO abductions during his tour of duty in Vietnam,[1]:25 the existence of a One world government/New World Order, and that John F. Kennedy assassination conspiracy theory had been accidentally shot by a Secret Service Agent.[1]:27 Cooper weaves in various conspiracy theory elements, assassination attempts, and death threats against himself.[1]:27-28,31

Chapter 1: Silent Weapons for Quiet Wars [ edit ]

This chapter consists of excerpts of a document allegedly obtained from the purchase of a surplus photocopier in 1986. The document was allegedly dated 1979, and is allegedly a technical manual from the Bilderberg Group, a frequent target of conspiracy theorists. The writing style, however is not particularly professional ("Welcome Aboard…), and Cooper's poor typography makes it difficult to disentangle his editorializing from the alleged original document. Duverus either obtained the original copy[10][12]:01 or more likely fabricated the whole thing. The main premise of the document is absurd idea that socioeconomic interactions function just like electricity and the same physics formulas and circuit diagrams used to explain electricity can be used for economics.[12] If this were actually true, economists would have by now found out about this 'brilliant' discovery and have begun using it in their publications (since this book has been publicly and widely available for 29 years).

Chapter 2: Secret Societies and the New World Order [ edit ]

In this chapter, Cooper attempts to weave together various organizations and secret societies with little to no evidence: Brotherhood of the Snake, New World Order, Maitreya, Gnosticism (that Plato was initiated inside the Great Pyramid of Egypt[13]).[1]:67-96

Chapter 3: Oath of Initiation of an Unidentified Secret Order [ edit ]

This short chapter claims to be taken from "A mother who states that her son took this oath (who must remain unidentified) and Congressional Record — House, 1913, p. 3216".[1]:99 The oath is in fact reproduced verbatim from the Congressional Record, but Cooper did not give any of the full context. It was entered into the record by Champ Clark, then-Speaker of the House as evidence of anti-Catholic bigotry and a conspiracy of forgery perpetrated by supporters of one candidate in a Pennsylvania election for Congress (between Eugene C. Bonniwell and Thomas S. Butler).[14] The forged document purports to be an over-the-top Knights of Columbus oath for total war against Protestants and Masons ("… I do further promise and declare that I will, when opportunity presents, make and wage relentless war, secretly and openly, against all heretics, Protestants, and Masons, as I am directed to do, to extirpate them from the face of the whole earth; and that I will spare neither age, sex, nor condition, and that I will hang, burn, waste, boil, flay, strangle, and bury alive these infamous heretics; rip up the stomachs and wombs of their women, and crush their infants' heads against the walls in order to annihilate forever their execrable race. …")[14]

Though the Congressional Record entry clearly states that it was intended to be perceived as coming from the Knights of Columbus,[14] Cooper claims that based on the wording of the oath alone (and no evidence) that it may have been from from the Jesuit or the Knights of Malta.[1]:100

Chapter 4: Secret Treaty of Verona [ edit ]

The subtitle of this chapter is "Precedent and Positive Proof of Conspiracy from Congressional Record — Senate, 1916, p. 6781 and The American Diplomatic Code, Vol. 2, 1778-1884, Elliott, p. 179", and Cooper quotes both without commentary. The 1822 Treaty of Verona or Congress of Verona was part of a series of congresses following the Napoleonic Wars, which instituted a balance of power within Europe (Concert of Europe ). The treaty was entered into the Congressional Record by Senator Robert Latham Owen, in support of his argument for women's suffrage.[15] Secret treaties were common in 18th- and 19th-century Europe, but have become rare with the rise of democratic states.[16]

Cooper misquotes the title of the treaty in the Congressional Record as "American Diplomatic Code, 1778-1884".[1]:104 The actual title in the Congressional Record is "Secret Treaty of Verona", with an immediately preceding citation of "American Diplomatic Code, 1778-1884, vol. 2; Elliott, p. 179" as the source.[15] In other words, Cooper seems to be falsely implying that the treaty was an part of the American Diplomatic Code, whereas it was only referenced there. Note: Owen, himself misquoted the title as "…1778-1884"; the actual date range is 1778-1834.[17] The book is primarily just a compilation of known treaties, published by historian Jonathan Elliot. [17]

Chapter 5: Good-by USA, Hello New World Order [ edit ]

Cooper claims that the US has been under martial law since 1863 when Abraham Lincoln declared it during the Civil War.[1]:111 This is despite the fact that the Supreme Court ruling that the declaration was unconstitutional in 1866 in Ex parte Milligan (which Cooper does not mention). Cooper raises concerns about the large number of secretive presidential national security directives, particular since the Ronald Reagan administration.[1]:111-118 Cooper was not alone this particular concern, for example Steven Aftergood of the Federation of American Scientists has raised concerns about the excessive secrecy of national security directives.[18] Cooper then refers indirectly to Rex 84, a Reagan administration scenario developed with Oliver North to implement martial law should there be widespread opposition to a hypothetical invasion of Central America.[1]:114

Cooper then describes Mount Weather, a federal relocation center run by FEMA.[1]:115-116 A government relocation center is perhaps a sane thing to have should the Russkies ever decide to nuke Washington, D.C. Cooper claims personal knowledge that Mount Weather holds "dossiers on at least 100,000 Americans", whom he calls 'patriots'.[1]:116 He then claims that these 100,000 patriots (members of the patriot movement, a descendant of the John Birch Society) will be easily rounded up on a holiday, most likely a Thanksgiving after being stuffed like turkeys and boozed up like rum cakes.[1]:116 Thus will begin martial law (even though it started in 1863) and the New World Order.[1]:116 Cooper then claims that because of an executive order by Richard Nixon, FEMA (created post-Nixon) can suspend the Constitution for any reason at all.[1]:118 He claims that because he cannot find any plans for restoring the Constitution, it will not be restored. This ignores the fact that martial law (suspension of habeas corpus) has been declared multiple times in US history and has been terminated multiple times.[19] Furthermore the use of martial law has been limited several times by court decisions, as well as by the Posse Comitatus Act. [19]

Chapter 6: H.R. 4079 and FEMA, Federal Emergency Management Agency [ edit ]

Cooper continues his paranoid never-get-caught-at-home-during-holidays rant… was he a paid shill of travel agents? He starts the chapter out with:

“ ” Patriots and Patriots and tax protesters : You must never be found at home on any holiday. Your life depends upon how well you can obey that rule.

H.R. 4079 of 1990, the National Drug and Crime Emergency Act, was introduced by Newt Gingrich, of all people,[note 4] and died in committee.[20] The bill was still being considered as Cooper wrote the book,[1]:125 but not by the time the book was published — never mind!

The Act, which never became law, did spell out limitations to habeas corpus that went beyond those in the US Constitution, primarily by expanding the war clause to include the so-called War on Drugs and by details set forth by segregationist Strom Thurmond in Section 152, the "Strom Thurmond Habeas Corpus Reform Initiative".[21] Even if the bill had become law (not very likely since Bill Clinton was president at the time and the bill was basically a Republican wish list), it would have faced some serious constitutional challenges as has been the case for most other non-wartime abridgements of habeas corpus.[22]

Chapter 7: Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1988, H.R. 5201, P. I. 100-690 [ edit ]

Chapter 8: Are the Sheep Ready to Shear? [ edit ]

In this short chapter, Cooper tried to panic his sheep by relying on fellow-conspiracy theorist Gary North's analysis of Oklahoma House Bill 1750 from 1989.[1]:159-160 The claim was that the bill would have allowed tax assessors to enter people's houses to assess property taxes, and ultimately lead to the elimination of private property, a police state, and the NWO.[1]:159-161

While the bill contained language to that effect that tax assessors could enter people's houses, it was always the case in Oklahoma that assessors could enter people's homes for such purposes.[23] HB 1750, however required that assessors received homeowners' permission or to obtain a court-ordered search warrant before entering their houses.[23] Since statehood, it had never been the case that a tax assessor had entered a home for the purposes of assessment.[24] The crankery surrounding the bill cause such a national furor[24] that the legislature passed a different law to restrict the power of tax assessors.[25]

Chapter 9: Anatomy of an Alliance [ edit ]

Chapter 10: Lessons from Lithuania [ edit ]

Cooper begins this short chapter on guns by reasonably-enough quoting the Second Amendment and Patrick Henry.[1]:179 He then concedes that he could do no better in defending the Second Amendment than by quoting Neal Knox's letter, "Lessons from Lithuania".[1]:180-181 Knox contends in his letter that Mikhail Gorbachev was able to order the seizure of arms in Lithuania on March 22,1990[26] because Lithuania had no Second Amendment and because Lithuanians had been required to register their guns, concluding that it would be bad for Americans to register their guns.[1]:180 The irony of this is despite the lack of Second Amendment and despite the seizure order, Lithuania became fully independent of the Eastern Bloc later in 1990 after Lithuanians defeated Soviet troops without using weapons.[27]

It is also ironic that while Knox was one of the hardline leaders who pushed out the moderates from controlling the NRA in 1991, Knox himself was ousted from power in 1997,[28] and beginning in 2015, Russia corrupted the NRA.

Chapter 11: Coup de Grace [ edit ]

Chapter 12: The Secret Government [ edit ]

This chapter is subtitled, "The Origin, Identity, and Purpose of MJ-12", and begins with a misattributed quote that implies that a Pope saw a UFO or had an alien encounter:[1]:195

“ ” The signs are increasing. The lights in the sky will appear red, blue, green, rapidly. Someone is coming from very far and wants to meet the people of the Earth. Meetings have already taken place. But those who have really seen have been silent.

The quote is attributed to Pope John XXII in 1935, but John XXII lived from 1244-1334. Pope John XXIII lived from 1881-1963, but was only pope from 1958 onward. The English-language quote apparently derives from a collection of prophecies by John XXII, and was allegedly given during a secret meeting with ufologist George Adamski in 1963.[note 5] It is highly unlikely that Adamski ever met with the pope,[30] or that the pope would be sympathetic to ufology, which is rather heterodox to Catholicism.

Cooper claims that he attended a MUFON Symposium on July 2,1989.[1]:196 He proclaims, "I firmly believe that if aliens are real, this is the true nature of the Beast."[1]:196

Cooper later claims that MUFON was infiltrated by the CIA, and in turn that Whitley Strieber is a CIA asset, in order to suppress evidence for alien contacts.[1]:229-231

Dwight D. Eisenhower, according to Cooper, was the last president to know the full details of Operation Majestic (MJ-12), that "aliens have manipulated and/or ruled the human race through various secret societies, religions, magic, witchcraft, and the occult. The Council on Foreign Relations and the Trilateral Commission are in complete control of the alien technology and are also in complete control of the nation's economy."[1]:232 Cooper's assertions are based on fraudulent documents.

He concludes the chapter with several points:[1]:233-234

The Earth may self-destruct in the near future. (Not another one!) Aliens are manimuplating huments and will result in a One world government. Humans will be enslaved by aliens. Something else unspecified may happen. If none of those happened, the Cooper says he was totally deceived.

Chapter 13: Treason in High Places [ edit ]

Chapter 14: A Proposed Constitutional Model for the Newstates of America [ edit ]

Cooper reprinted "A Proposed Constitutional Model for the Newstates of America" without any commentary except:[1]:250-266

“ ” Prepared Over a 10-Year Period by the Center for Democratic Studies of Santa Barbara, California, at a Total Cost to the United States Taxpayers of Over $25 Million

The actual source of the proposed constitution is the 1974 book The Emerging Constitution by Rexford G. Tugwell.[31]:592-621 As such, the chapter was probably a copyright violation by Cooper. It was also a misattribution by Cooper. The book was created by The Center for the Study of Democratic Institutions, and "was contributed to not only by Senior Fellows of the Center but by may Visiting Fellows during several years."[31]:xi The general structure of the book is regarding the theory and process of constitution making, not how this proposed constitution is going replace the US Constitution, as Cooper presumably feared. There is no evidence that this cost the taxpayer "over $25 million";[1]:250 publications that are funded by the US government generally require acknowledgement of funding, and this book does not contain such an acknowledgement.

Chapter 15: Protocols of the Elders of Zion [ edit ]

Cooper reprints here the entire book, The Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion,[1]:268-332 with only the following additional preface by Cooper:[1]:267

“ ” The Protocols of Zion were referred to in the late 1700s. The first copy available to public scrutiny surfaced in the early 1800s. Every aspect of this plan to subjugate the world has since become reality, validating the authenticity of conspiracy.



Author's Note: This is an exact reprint of the original text. This has been written intentionally to deceive people. For clear understanding, the word "Zion" should be "Sion"; any reference to "Jews" should be replaced with the word "Illuminati"; and the word "goyim" should be replaced with the word "cattle."

Contrary to Cooper's feeble attempt at the history of the book, the text of the book that now circulates was originally plagiaristically cobbled together from three sources:[32]:97[33]:47,114

The Dialogue in Hell Between Machiavelli and Montesquieu , an 1864 political satire by Maurice Joly that did not mention Jews A chapter from the anti-Semitic 1868 novel Biarritz by Hermann Goedsche Der Judenstaat , an early Zionist tract by Theodor Herzl (1896)

The earliest known publication of The Protocols was when it was serialized in the Russian newspaper Znamya in August–September 1903, though The Protocols was first mentioned in 1902.[34] The Protocols was first exposed as a hoax in 1921.[35][36]

Cooper tries to hide his antisemitism behind his trying to claim that 'Zion' is not Zion but 'Sion', and that 'Jews' are not Jews, but 'Illuminati'. 'Sion' is just an alternative transliteration of 'Zion', so Cooper's statement regarding that is pointless. David Icke was later to try a similar ploy to try to hide his antisemitism by claiming that his "shape-shifting lizard-people" were not Jews,[37] and that The Protocols were true but about the Illuminati.[38] The conflating of Jews and Illuminati is not surprising since Illuminati conspiracy theorists do variously believe that Jews, Freemasons and/or Catholics are members of the Illuminati.

The idea that 'goyim' are not goyim, but 'cattle', is similarly a thin disguise for Cooper's antisemitism. Cattle, as is made clear in the Silent Weapons chapter, is a synonym of sheeple fevered imagination[1]:64-65) This defamatory conflation has been taken up by neo-Nazis, sometimes claiming that the Yiddish word goyim means cattle, when it actuality it means nations.[39][40]

Chapter 16: The Story of Jonathan May [ edit ]

Chapter 17: Documentation: U.S. Army Intelligence Connection with Satanic Church [ edit ]

Appendix A: William Cooper's Military Service Record [ edit ]

Appendix B: UFOs and Area 51 [ edit ]

Appendix C: Alien Implants [ edit ]

Appendix D: AIDS [ edit ]

Appendix E: New World Order [ edit ]

Appendix F: U.S. Government Drug Involvement [ edit ]

Appendix G: Kurzweil vs. Hopkins [ edit ]

The 9/11 prediction myth [ edit ]

See the main article on this topic: 9/11

Cooper's followers claim that he predicted the 9/11 attacks on his June 28, 2001 radio show.[41] Transcripts of the show indicate that Cooper made reference to a CNN news item widely released a few days earlier on June 24th reporting that Osama bin Laden had vowed to attack U.S. and Israeli interests in the next two weeks.[42] Cooper added his own spin to this report, saying that an attack would come (no date specified), it would be orchestrated by (you guessed it) the New World Order, and "bin Laden would be blamed for it."

Death [ edit ]

Cooper died as a paranoid asshole in a shootout with police, after avoiding an arrest warrant for tax evasion and bank fraud for three years.[4][43] Militia and conspiracy folklore subsequently enshrined Cooper as a martyr who was brutally beaten and murdered for "telling the truth" about a vast NWO conspiracy plot to disarm the populace in order to better subjugate them.[44]

Cooper openly refused to pay taxes, and the IRS charged him with income tax evasion. According to the Feds, Cooper spent years trying to avoid capture on a 1998 arrest warrant for tax evasion and "vowed that he would not be taken alive." Convinced that Bill Clinton was personally targeting him, Cooper made it known that any attempt to arrest him for such 'minor' things as assaulting a local man with a wrench and not paying taxes would be met with "armed resistance." He had broadcast threats to "kill any law enforcement officers that tried to take him" and police suspected he had a large quantity of weapons and possibly explosives in his home.



On November 5, 2001, the Apache County, Arizona sheriff's department, perhaps fearing another Waco, cautiously drew Cooper away from his ostensibly weapon-filled house using a car parked nearby playing loud music. According to police accounts, Cooper emerged from his house, and when police officers confronted him, he shot at them with a handgun and wounded one of them in the head. The police, not liking people shooting at them, returned fire and Cooper was killed.[45]

Notes [ edit ]

↑ Allan Weiner, owner of WBCQ, demonstrated Bill Cooper's television transmitter built into an ammo can, at the North American Shortwave Association listener festival in Kulpsville, Pennsylvania, c. 2006. ↑ Extant recordings of some early Cooper radio shows feature a station identification, "You are listening to the Hour of the Time on the Becker Satellite Network, Spacenet 2, channel 7, 7.5 audio." ↑ For many years, the Voice of America operated a high-power shortwave station in western Africa on or near WBCQ's frequency of 7.415 MHz, often badly interfering with WBCQ's lower powered transmissions. The VOA would use this service only a couple of hours a day, but would occasionally interfere with Cooper's program. ↑ Gingrich is a fellow conspiracy theorist, but of the birtherism ilk. ↑ “ ” "I rotoli verranno trovati nelle Azzorre e parleranno di antiche civiltà che agli uomini insegnerannno antiche cose ad essi sconosiute. La morte sarà allontanata e poco sarà il dolore. Le cose della terra, dai rotoli, parleranno agli uomini delle cose del cielo. Sempre più numerosi i segni. Le luci nel cielo saranno rosse, azzurre, verdi, veloci. Cresceranno. Qualcuno viene da lontano, vuole incontrare gli uomini della Terra. Incontri ci sono già stati. Ma chi ha visto veramente ha taciuto. [29] This is either the original Italian, or more likely, a book editor fell prey to Adamski's bullshit:

References [ edit ]



