Black helicopter conspiracy theory

From The Book of THoTH (Leaves of Wisdom)

Black helicopters are part of a conspiracy theory, especially prevalent among the US militia movement, that claims that special unmarked "black" helicopters are used by secret agents of the New World Order, United Nations troops and/or the Men in Black preparing to take control of the United States, or for other nefarious purposes.

1 Overview
2 Black Helicopter Facts
3 Black Helicopters in Modern Culture
4 See also
5 External links

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Overview

The greatest media attention to "black helicopters" was probably paid in February 1995, when first-term Republican northern Idaho congressman Helen Chenoweth charged that armed federal agents were landing "black helicopters" on Idaho ranchers' property to enforce the Endangered Species Act. "I have never seen them," Chenoweth said in an interview in the New York Times. "But enough people in my district have become concerned that I can't just ignore it. We do have some proof." Chenoweth made the charges at a press conference without ever consulting with the Department of Interior.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, which enforces the act, says that they do not own any helicopters and have never used any in Idaho. The only green and black helicopters in Idaho are used by the National Guard. Black helicopters without FAA-required running lights are regularly used by the drug interdiction office of the DEA. In addition, most US Army helicopters (such as the Black Hawk) are finished in a very dark chocolate or olive matte paint. With the progressive development of night-vision goggles, the need for helicopters to be lit when moving as a planned formation has been reduced. Thinking they were under surveillance by "black helicopters," the Montana division of the North American Volunteer Militia once tried to shoot down a National Guard helicopter on a training mission which flew over a ranch owned by fugitive militia leader Calvin Greenup.

Parapsychologist John Keel has argued that this theory has origins similar to those of UFOs, ghosts and fairies, i.e. that they are part of modern mythology; in this case, representing a fear of the government and its technology as well as a large degree of xenophobia.

Black helicopters have also been reported in the areas where cattle mutilation has been reported.

But "black helicopters" resonates well with the militia movement's conspiracy theories of black helicopters from the United Nations invading the West. They fear that federal environmental regulations are just the beginning of the one-world government long feared by right-wing groups such as the John Birch Society (which ironically published an article in The New American detailing how the covert aircrafts' existences were mostly the products of visual errors and fearmongering). This fear is epitomized by the United Nations' designation of Yellowstone National Park as a World Heritage Site (even though the designation was authored by Ronald Reagan's Secretary of the Interior, James Watt, and the park has not lost its status as a national treasure).

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Black Helicopter Facts

The American military community does in fact operate helicopters painted in black or dark colors, particularly the Pave Low which is optimized for long-range stealthy insertion and extraction of personnel, including combat search and rescue.

U.S. Army and National Guard helicopters painted olive drab will appear to be black in the reddish light of dawn or dusk, or under other low light conditions during the day when their shadow side is viewed against the sky with the naked eye.

The U.S. Army regularly conducts both exercises and operational missions in United States airspace. Some of these exercises have taken place in heavily urbanized areas, including Los Angeles, Detroit, San Francisco, Oakland and Washington D.C. Most operational missions are tasked in narcotics interdiction in the American Southwest and out of Florida. By extensive use of GPS and night vision equipment, as well as other classified means, they are able to fly in zero visibility conditions with no running lights. At this high intensity level of operation, training is necessarily almost as dangerous as actual combat. Frequent practice is necessary to retain proficiency.

Many defense contractors and helicopter manufacturers also conduct public flight testing of aircraft and components or fly aircraft in public view to test ranges or other corporate airfields for training or demonstrations. Occasionally, some of these aircraft will be made for military clients and are painted in black or dark colors.

At least some sightings of black helicopters are very likely to have been helicopters on exercises and/or missions. This only feeds fuel to the fire for conspiracy theorists who do their homework on military matters. However, from a practical perspective, any extensive missions conducted by the American military on domestic soil would likely be rapidly leaked to the news media, and thus to the general public.

Conspiracy theorists would probably not be comforted to know that small-arms fire is almost entirely ineffective against a well-planned helicopter mission, and that the use of automatic weapons would mark the firing positions for counter-fire and air strikes. However, surface to air missiles are particularly effective against helicopters, with many infrared-guided weapons able to acquire targets from any angle of launch. Other weapons, such as the Rocket Propelled Grenade have also been used against low flying helicopters, with some success (See Battle of Mogadishu).

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Black Helicopters in Modern Culture

In Deus Ex, the protagonist travels in the fictional SH-187, a sleek high-performance black helicopter with stealth technology.
In Psychonauts, the paranoid conspiracy theorist Boyd Cooper has his mental landscape constantly surveyed by black helicopters.
In the 1997 film Conspiracy Theory, they are seen using an active noise control system to operate secretly in urban areas.
The two biggest-selling books on the subject: Black Helicopters over America: Strikeforce for the New World Order (1995), and Black Helicopters II : The End Game Strategy (1998), are from the now-defunct Illuminet Press and were written by the late Jim Keith.
Both Blue Thunder (movie and TV-series) and Airwolf (TV) from the early 80s have similarities with Black Helicopters, in look as well as use.
Black helicopters also play a key symbolic role in the Evil Atheist Conspiracy.
Alt-pop group Soul Coughing has a song called "Unmarked Helicopters", which was briefly featured in the episode Max-2 of the TV series The X-Files. There are several other portrayals of black helicopters in other episodes of the series, as well as the movie The X-Files: Fight the Future.
Several black helicopters are featured on the cover of the Bad Religion album The New America.
A popular underground hip hop group named Non Phixion also wrote a song named "Black Helicopters". They often mention the US government in their lyrics and other conspiracies such as aliens in Area 51.
Bill Amend humorously mentions black helicopters (along with Roswell and CFR) in the Introduction to the FoxTrot collection FoxTrot Beyond A Doubt; he facetiously claims that writing a popular comic strip allows him to leak information on conspiracies to the public.
Black Helicopters were mentioned by the Prime Minister of Canada, Stephen Harper, in a sarcastic answer to a question given in Question Period on May 9, 2006. [1]