What’s with the number 33? To occultists and secret societies like the Freemasons, 33 is held in reverence. This supposedly magical number appears to pop up time and time again throughout many of history’s most significant and tumultuous events, from Biblical times through to the modern era. Is there really something to 33 or is it just another number like any other? Let’s don our shiny tin foil hats and plunge headlong down the rabbit hole to explore the possible significance of the number 33 in connection with secret societies, UFOs, death, destruction and Disneyland.

In her book The Secret of the Illumintati, Elizabeth van Buren wrote that:

“…in Spiritual Numerology, the numbers 11, 22, and 33 are the three ‘Master Numbers’, the highest being 33 … This highest of the master numbers was the age of the Master Initiate (Jesus) at his death, resurrection and ascension, giving more esoteric accents. The ’33’ symbolizes the highest spiritual conscious attainable by the human being.”

So, in some circles at least, the number 33 holds esoteric significance as the “highest of the master numbers”.

In Freemasonry, the highest order is the 33 degrees of the Scottish Rite. The Scottish Rite within Freemasonry was established in 1801 with the formation of the Mother Supreme Council at Charleston, South Carolina. Perhaps it was no accident that Charleston was the birthplace of the Scottish Rite, being situated just 15 miles south of the 33rd parallel. Interestingly, it’s also where the first shots of the American Civil War were fired when Charleston’s Citadel Cadets fired upon a Federal ship, Star of the West, as it sailed into Charleston Harbor. As we shall soon see, many pivotal events of recent history have occurred along the 33rd parallel.

Another organization some consider a secret society with Luciferian links to the Illuminati, although to others it’s merely an inept world body lacking any real power or influence – the United Nations – may also find significance in the number 33. Take a look at the UN flag and you’ll see a world globe divided into 33 sections, encircled by olive branches. Coincidence, or is there some deeper meaning?

Death and Destruction

Now, back to the 33rd parallel and the pivotal role it has played in many major events of the modern era.

Apart from kicking off the bloody American Civil War in January 1861, the 33rd parallel also played host to the death of US President Franklin D. Roosevelt who died suddenly on 12 April 1945 of a cerebral hemorrhage after complaining of having “a terrific headache”. He died at his home, dubbed “Little White House,” in Warm Springs, Georgia, close to the 33rd parallel. Following Roosevelt’s death, Harry S. Truman, a 33 degree Mason, became 33rd President of the United States.

At the end of hostilities with Germany in 1945, Operation Paperclip helped cleanse the Nazi past from Germany’s top rocket scientists, so that they could continue their work for the US. Many of these former Nazi scientists ended up at the White Sands V-2 Launch site, or, as it was also known, Launch Complex 33. Again, located not far from the 33rd parallel.

The National Park Service describes Launch Complex 33 as: “Closely associated with U.S. testing of the German V-2 rocket, the origins of the American rocket program, and the leadership of Dr. Werner von Braun…”

The first atomic detonation (that we know of at least) occurred on 16 July 1945 at the Trinity test site near Alamogordo, New Mexico. The Trinity site also sits on the 33rd parallel. The following month, atomic weapons obliterated the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, despite neither city having much in the way of real political or military significance. Did the 33rd US President target these two Japanese cities on the basis that they both straddled the 33rd parallel?

Two decades later, in 1963, US President John F. Kennedy was assassinated in Dealey Plaza in Dallas, Texas close to the 33rd Parallel on 22 November (11/22). And then just after midnight on 6 June 1968, JFK’s younger brother, Senator Robert F. Kennedy, was gunned down at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles, California, about 1,245 miles east along the 33rd parallel from where his brother was murdered.

UFO Lore and the 33rd Parallel

The event that today remains synonymous with UFO and alien lore, the rumoured 1947 crash and retrieval of an extraterrestrial craft at Roswell, New Mexico, occurred, you guessed it, on the 33rd parallel. Another significant UFO event that shares more than one parallel with Roswell is the Phoenix Lights event of the evening of 13 March 1997.

The Phoenix Lights were reported by thousands of people in the skies above the city, in what appears to be two separate UFO events. The first wave of sightings reported from around 8pm were generally of a huge “carpenter’s square” shaped object flying slowly over the city. The second wave, occurring around 10pm, of a series of lights that appeared to hover, was captured widely on camera and video. But, based on this second sighting of the Phoenix Lights, the US Air Force claimed that what witnesses reported as UFOs in Phoenix that night, were nothing more than illumination flares dropped by a training flight at Luke Air Force Base.

Like Roswell, Phoenix is also located along the 33rd parallel. And as in the Roswell case, there appears to be some level of orchestrated military and government subterfuge involved.

And Disneyland

And finally to Disneyland. Yes, the happiest place on earth also lies along the 33rd parallel. Some, like researcher and writer Walter Bosley, author of Latitude 33: Key to the Kingdom, contend that the site was chosen by Harrison Price (then of the Stanford Research Institute) in part at least due to its proximity to the 33rd parallel and that the famous Disneyland carousel was built in the exact spot where two powerful ley lines intersect – one of which runs along the 33rd parallel.

Then there’s Club 33, the exclusive private club, and the only place in Disneyland where you can order a stiff drink. Some say the club got its name from the original 33 corporate sponsors of Disneyland, but then …

So, is there really anything to the number 33? Is the supposed significance just us humans looking for patterns wherever we can find them?

Or, are the so-called “Powers That Be” orchestrating events to coincide with certain numbers considered in esoteric circles to be influential, powerful, or even magical?