REPTOID ROYALTY
In February 2014, I spent four days at the International UFO Congress, the largest annual meeting devoted to all forms of UFO research, which was held at a hotel and casino in the desert outside of Phoenix in Fountain Hills, Arizona. I was there to work on a book about paranormal investigators, but I thought about Richard while there. Government conspiracy and ufology go hand in hand, and I heard speakers talk on the secret UFO storage area the government had maintained at Ohio’s Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, and debates on whether we would ever get disclosure on what U.S. intelligence knew about visitors from outer space.
One of the features of the International UFO Congress was a daily “experiencer session,” a sort of group therapy meeting for those who claimed they were abducted or had other encounters with extraterrestrials. In addition to the mistrust of the government, there were several theories bouncing around the conference about what the intent of alien visitors might be. These theories ranged from friendly “space brothers” ushering in a new era of peace to a hostile takeover.
Fear of alien invaders has been with us for a long time. On October 30, 1938, there was a public panic when radio listeners tuned to a mock radio report of Martians landing when Orson Welles and his Mercury Theatre on the Air performed a dramatization of H.G. Wells’ The War of the Worlds. Portrayals of an invasion have perennially played to our fears ever since, in scenes like the White House being blown up by alien technology in 1996’s Independence Day or visions of an extraterrestrial police state dystopia in 2019’s Captive State.
Real-life fears of alien abduction began to spread in the early 1960s with cases like Betty and Barney Hill, who claimed to have been kidnapped from rural New Hampshire by aliens from the Zeta Reticuli system. Since then many have claimed they’ve been part of strange and frightening alien experimentations. The villains in these stories include a range of different races of aliens, and none is more terrifying than a shape-shifting, blood-drinking, scaly race known as the Reptilians.
REDWOOD CITY
RICHARD WASN’T COMPLETELY FREE when released from Sole-dad—he still had three years of parole to serve.
“They screwed me over on my parole because I requested to be sent to Los Angeles County, where Lon lived. About three weeks before it was time for me to leave, they called me in and said, ‘we weren’t able to do it, we’re sending you back to Sonoma County, and there’s nothing you can do about it,’” Richard says, noting it was a strange plan as Sonoma County was home to the Bohemian Grove, the scene of the crime. Richard got on a bus to Santa Rosa with his $200 gate money given to prisoners on their way out.
Richard found a hotel in Santa Rosa and called Lon, who shipped him a debit card so he could access his money. The Santa Rosa police showed up a week later, confident Richard had snuck back up to take another run at the Bohemian Grove. After showing them paperwork, he was sent to the Santa Rosa parole offices, who determined he wasn’t supposed to be in Sonoma County after all and gave him 24 hours to report to Redwood City, a city of about 77,000 people 27 miles south of San Francisco in San Mateo County. Failure to do so would land him back in prison, so Richard packed his few belongings and got on the bus immediately. The police were there to make sure he got on board.
Richard was still on parole and living in Redwood City when he first contacted me in 2010. He described the city as “tolerable” but had no plans to stick around after his parole was up. “The weather is great, but the rent is sky high,” he says of the Bay Area. “I’d never be able to afford and maintain my own home in a decent area.”
Richard found an apartment and began checking in with his parole officer, John Alvarez.
Richard had put down a decent amount of money to get his 94-page color Prison Penned Comics printed, and perhaps trying to convert Alvarez from skeptic to believer, Richard gave him a copy.
“Have you been looking for Real-Life action and relevance in your comic book reading?” asks cartoon Richard on the cover of the book, wearing his prison jumpsuit and handcuffs, flanked by the Phantom Patriot and The Revelator, both with arms crossed across their chests. “…then check out my journey through Bohemian Grove, into the Soledad State Pen and beyond!”
However, flipping to the inside front cover, Alvarez was not at all amused to find two full-color photos of Richard dressed as the Phantom Patriot, carrying his Crossfire MK-1 in one picture and his Glock and ninja sword in the other. The images were taken in 2001, before Richard’s arrest, but Alvarez had no context and jumped to the conclusion that the photos had been recently shot and that Richard was currently armed, costumed, and in serious violation of the law.
He assembled a team to raid Richard’s apartment immediately after Richard left the parole office.
“I get a knock on the door, open it, and there’s a gun in my face,” Richard told me, shaking his head at the memory. “My parole officer has three backups, a bomb-sniffing dog, all this stuff. They go through my apartment, tear it all up. They took the stove door off the hinges; I don’t know what that was. He takes me to jail, and they dump me there, they’re like ‘well if we find out you’re clean, we’ll let you go at some point.’ I said, ‘you better have me out of here in 24 hours, or I will sue your ass for false arrest, and you know I have the money.’ He gives me this look. Twenty-four hours later, he’s back.”
Richard was released, but a new set of parole conditions had been drafted. The list made it very clear they did not want another visit from the Phantom Patriot to happen. A document he was given titled “Special Conditions of Parole” laid down these five points:
You will submit to anti-narcotic testing as directed by a Parole Agent.
You will not be within 35 miles of Occidental, CA, Bohemian Grove.
You or persons acting on your behalf will have no contact with the Bohemian Club in San Francisco, CA.
You will not be within ¼ mile of the Bohe-mian Club in San Francisco, CA. Map to be provided.
You will not possess or have access to costumes-clothing.
Alvarez’s copy of Richard’s comic book was turned over to the Secret Service.
AS FOR CHELY WRIGHT, Richard decided it was time to get her out of his head.
“I decided to go ‘cold turkey’ on all things Chely; music, videos, magazines, etc. I had to get on with my life.” It would turn out his decision would be short-lived.
Richard signed up for a dating website and tried opening his mind to the concept, but not too much, as he told me in a letter from 2010.
“I’ve tried Internet dating, but it’s kind of pointless. I don’t want to date women my age and no woman (of my choice) wants to date a 46-year-old ex-con. On the other hand, I haven’t been trying that hard because I don’t want to get stuck in California and the Bay Area in particular.
I think my days of dating ‘normal’ women are long gone. I’ve tried dating online with no success. I decided to admit on my personality profile that I had been to prison for arson and weapons charges. All of the women who were brave enough, desperate enough or who were just scammers bailed on me shortly after I told them my last name. Google and Wikipedia are obviously to blame for that.
However, I’m still picky about the women I choose to ask out…under 40, never married, no kids, no smokers, drinkers, or druggies, no religious affiliation (not anymore), pretty, with a decent body.5”
RICHARD, DESPITE HAVING a sizable amount of inheritance waiting for him when he was released, found part-time work, to make extra money and fill his time. He had a job delivering free glossy car-ad magazines around San Francisco until he was fired for having a fender-bender in the company van on one of the city’s hilly streets. Richard then found a job delivering food for Boston Market. In his spare time, he became active in Redwood City’s Kingdom Hall of Jehovah’s Witnesses. He attended the local Kingdom Hall regularly, went to meetings, played flag football (and injured his knee in the process), and like all Jehovah’s Witnesses, spent quite a few afternoons walking around to knock on doors and try to recruit new members.
RICHARD’S INTEREST IN CONSPIRACY was as intense as ever. But after Alex Jones declined to offer support and denounced his raid, Richard abandoned the theorist he had been so devoted to and tried to find someone new. He found the teachings of conspiracy guru David Icke.
Icke had a healthy, mainstream life up until a sudden snapping point. He had played professional football, but after he began suffering from arthritis, he took on a job as a BBC sportscaster. An interest in the plight of the environment led him to become a well-known spokesman for the British Green Party. In 1990, his life began to change drastically. A psychic told him he was a healer that would pass important messages on to the human race. In 1991, he held a press conference in which he announced he was “a son of the Godhead.” He began to wear only turquoise-colored clothing for some time and predicted the world would end in 1997.
As his beliefs, a mix of New Age and conspiracy theory, developed, he began to prolifically churn out thick volumes of books and DVD sets on what would appear to be every random line of thinking that’s entered his head. David Icke became a cottage industry, with his books often translated into other languages and going through multiple printings. He has also lectured extensively around the world, with his speeches often rambling on to over nine hours in a single day.
A free man, Richard was soon able to capture one of these marathon talks himself.
David Icke, 2013. CREDIT: WIKIMEDIA COMMONS/TYLER MERBLER
“I attended a David Icke event in San Rafael. The crowd was somewhere between two and three thousand people. This guy is for real; no teleprompter, no prepared speeches, no ‘guru’-like behavior. From 10 a.m. to 9 p.m. (two breaks for meals), Icke presented a PowerPoint video program, based on his books. He doesn’t mince words. Icke isn’t afraid to talk about aliens, other dimensions, Zionism, etc. He is passionate about exposing serial pedophiles, like George Bush Sr. At the same time, he can be quite funny; his speech is peppered with British slang.”
” Icke has many beliefs that would be considered fringe, but none is as infamous as the theory he has been the most major proponent of—that a race of malicious extraterrestrials called the Reptilians has infiltrated the leadership roles of the world. These reptile-like aliens are seven to 12 feet tall, but through shape-shifting and hologram technology they can disguise themselves as humans and have a slow-burning plot to enslave the entire human race as an inside job.
“The world is controlled today by the reptilian shape-shifters and their bloodlines,” Icke writes. “Reptilian bloodlines are chosen to be U.S. Presidents, prime ministers, chancellors, and other world leaders. All of it has been planned for hundreds of years,” Richard explained to me in a letter. He calls these Reptilian bloodline leaders “Reptoid Royalty.”
To help me understand this theory better, Richard suggested I read a copy of Icke’s book Children of the Matrix (subtitled: How an interdimensional race has controlled the world for thousands of years—and still does, 2001). My informal rule for writing this book was to always read anything Richard recommended, but I immediately regretted this decision after picking up Icke’s 459-page-long Reptilian rant. Icke’s style rambles from conspiracy to conspiracy, with lots of info on the Reptilians sounding like a mishmash pulp of sci-fi plots.
“The reptilians are a tall, mostly humanoid-type race, with snake-like eyes and skin and they are connected to the classic ‘greys’ with the big black ‘eyes,’ which have become the very symbol of the ‘ET.’ Often these various extraterrestrial factions battled for supremacy in the legendary ‘wars of the gods,’” Icke writes in Children of the Matrix. He goes on to explain that people occasionally witness these power players slip from human to Reptilian form when you accidentally tune in to their fourth-dimension frequency. A telltale sign of a potential Reptilian is their cold, emotionless eyes, with slatted pupils. Icke suggests, “Next time you see Hillary Clinton, watch her eyes.”
It’s a theory so outlandish that other conspiracy theorists often ridicule it as being hogwash. On an episode of Conspiracy Theory with Jesse Ventura, Alex Jones tells conspiracy theorist and former wrestler and Minnesota Governor Ventura that Icke’s theories have made him a “turd in the punchbowl.” Ventura then sets up an interview with Icke and confronts him with an angry and awkward exchange in front of the cameras.
Gov. Ventura: All right, you got a big list of these world leaders and politicos that you say are these shape-shifting hybrids. Am I one?
David Icke: I… I have no idea.
Gov. Ventura: Well, you’re telling me you can’t answer anything, that I have to go sit through nine hours of your discussion to grasp what you’re going to talk about. And then if I sit through this nine hours, will it then become clear to me?
David Icke (angry): It depends what you make of the information!
Gov. Ventura: You’re deflecting from what you’re saying and putting it back onto me.
David Icke (exasperated): Oh, dear!
Gov. Ventura: That I have to be open-minded enough to— David Icke: No!
Gov. Ventura: —to accept everything that you talk about! David Icke: What bloody rubbish!
Eventually, Icke has had enough with former Gov. Ventura, and the two conspiracy theorists part ways. “That guy can (censor beep) off,” Icke says angrily to the camera, after storming out of the room.
ICKE IS THE MOST FAMOUS promoter of stories about an evil race of aliens invading the earth, but not the only one. A hidden underground base, supposedly in Dulce, New Mexico, is where theorists claim seven-foot-tall gray aliens do experiments on human guinea pigs and is the site of a battle between aliens and Delta Force, called the “Alien-Human Battle of Dulce.” Sixty humans allegedly died in the war.
Others picked up Icke’s concepts and came up with other details. A list circulating through forums related to aliens says that potential signs a person could be a Reptilian in disguise include things like “predominance of green or hazel eyes that change color like a chameleon,” “low blood pressure,” “keen sight and hearing,” “true red or reddish hair,” and a “love of space and science.”
ICKE’S TEACHINGS HAD such a profound effect on Richard that he completely dropped all of his religious beliefs, turning his back on the scriptures that had inspired him so much previously. “After reading David Icke’s books, I decided to leave Christianity entirely. I would now categorize myself as ‘spiritual, but not religious,’” Richard wrote. “Keep in mind that a couple years ago, I was a hardcore Christian/Jehovah’s Witness who didn’t really believe in any E.T.s. That’s how thorough and compelling his research is. The evidence for the existence of Reptilians is everywhere—historical, religious, mythological, biological, and archeological. You just have to know where to look.”
Richard told me in a letter that Icke’s writing had also only strengthened his beliefs about the Bohemian Grove.
My opinion of the Bohemian Grove has not changed. In fact, my belief in a “satanic” government conspiracy has only been strengthened by reading two David Icke books, The David Icke Book to Global Conspiracy and Human Race, Get Off Your Knees—The Lion Sleeps No More. He has done vastly more research on Bohemian Grove and the Illuminati than I have and can explain these subjects in much greater detail and clarity. Icke isn’t hampered by false religious beliefs (like I have been for so long). I highly recommend his books and videos to everybody. He’s not trying to save the world single-handedly; just show the rest of us what we need to do together to make that happen.
What I had trouble understanding was what this race of Reptilian aliens was waiting for, hiding out in our human bodies. What was the Reptilians’ end game? The answer was quite complicated, I was informed. Richard wrote out a synopsis over several pages about the Reptilians bleeding the world dry of energy and eventually dominating the world, and told me about the surprising cast of politicians and celebrities who were Reptoid Royalty. My mind boggled as I read over it, and I was sad to see Richard’s conspiracy had grown so big that it now included Marvel Comics head honcho Stan Lee, the man who had helped create so many of Richard’s beloved comic book heroes. How could he have reached such a wild conclusion? He explained it to me in a letter, along with random statements in follow-up messages. You can find a chart documenting Richard’s Reptilian conspiracy at the end of this chapter.
If, by the way, you think the Reptoid Royalty conspiracy is just something peddled by David Icke and eaten up by a few impressionable people like Richard, consider this: a poll on conspiracy belief by Public Policy Polling found that over 12.5 million Americans not only believe in Reptilians, but believe they have infiltrated our government at the highest levels.
As it turns out, belief in Reptilians can be a dangerous thing. In 2017, two former followers of an Ohio conspiracy guru named Sherry Shriner fell into an escalating Reptilian finger-pointing session. Shriner, who had an online cult following, preached a “heady stew of conspiracy theories, apocalyptic biblical interpretation, and warnings about ‘reptilian’ extraterrestrials living secretly as humans,” similar in tone to Icke through online writings, video, and a podcast, according to the Washington Post.
Two of Shriner’s followers, Steven Mineo and Barbara Rogers, who lived in the Poconos in Tobyhanna, Pennsylvania, had a falling-out with Shriner after she called out Rogers for being a Reptilian. Shriner’s evidence was a social media post Rogers had made about her love for eating a rare steak tartare with minced garlic. Her tastes for undercooked meat pointed to a Reptilian bloodlust, Shriner informed her followers.
Mineo was extremely distraught about splitting ways with Shriner’s group and suggested that Shriner herself was a Reptilian (conspiracy theorists often strike at those they don’t like by accusing them of being Reptilians, Illuminati, undercover CIA agents, etc.)
On July 15, 2017, Rogers claimed that Mineo put a gun in her hands and held it there, lifting the weapon to his forehead, demanding that she shoot him, then squeezed her finger on the trigger, ending his life.
“I was not in control of the situation,” Rogers told reporters. “I was not the dominating party in that situation.”
Shriner died in 2018 of natural causes.
In June 2019 Rogers was convicted of third-degree murder and sentenced to 15 to 40 years in prison.
RELIGION WAS OVER FOR Richard. He decided to leave his Jehovah’s Witness Kingdom Hall, but in true Richard fashion, he decided not to slip quietly out the back door.
“I quit in front of my whole congregation after learning that their founder, Charles Taze Russell, was a 33rd degree Freemason and Knights Templar—a major player for the Illuminati!” After informing the entire Kingdom Hall about their conspiracy connection, Richard turned his back and left what few friends he had made there behind.
Richard would soon be trying to deal with another group of people, one much different than the Jehovah’s Witnesses. As if Reptilian aliens secretly dominating the human race wasn’t an intense enough revelation, Richard had another surprise about the world he entered after prison—he was no longer alone in his costumed fantasies. An entire “movement” of people calling themselves “Real-Life Superheroes” had sprung up.
“AFTER READING DAVID Icke, I have a much clearer understanding of these topics,” Richard wrote me. “I’ll try to hit the main points, briefly. It’s going to get ‘weird,’ but just bear with me…
1: “The ruling class Reptilians operate from the 4th dimension, just beyond human sight and visible light. They manipulate and control humanity through their reptilian/human hybrid bloodlines. These people have been kings, queens, pharaohs, czars, dictators, prime ministers and presidents throughout history.”
2-10: “All American presidents (including Obama) are descended from King John of England, who was descended from Charlemagne. So much for Democracy! The 4-d Reptilians aren’t compatible with our 3-d reality, so they have to possess the hybrids (the Bushes, the Clintons, the Obamas, the Kennedys, etc.)”
11. “The leading Reptilian family is the Rothschilds, from Frankfurt, Germany. They ultimately control all politics, religion, corporations, medicine, education, and the media through various secret societies (like the Bohemian Club).”
12. “Giuliani is a Reptilian hybrid and crossdressing freak, who had prior knowledge of the 9/11 attacks and used the recovery effort to bolster his own reputation.”
13. “Heavy drinking and drug use makes people susceptible to ‘demonic’ (4-d Reptilian) influence and even possession… Bohemian Grove is the ‘Woodstock’ of the Establishment…with ‘satanic’ rituals and snake people!”
14. “Over the last few years Tea Party members and Constitutionalists have been flying the colonial Gadsen Flag (the yellow one with the snake on it) However, if you try to explain the Reptilian agenda to most of these people, they will either laugh in your face or want to hit you. Morons!”
15. “The Greys are the creatures that everybody thinks of whenever Area 51 is discussed. They are the genetically engineered, soulless, ‘biological robot’ servants and ‘errand boys’ of the Reptilians. It has been suggested their DNA was used to create the Asian race.”
16. “There are colonies of Reptilians who live in our three-dimensional reality in underground cities here on earth and on the moon. The moon is actually a hollowed-out planetoid ‘mother ship’ that was put into orbit many millennia ago. From there, the Reptilians somehow broadcast a low vibrational ‘program’ which causes us to perceive reality through our 5 ‘physical’ senses.”
17. “The Reptilians control Hollywood and the music industry.”
18. On the film They Live: “Corny but conceptually accurate.”
19. “I didn’t watch the Superbowl, but I saw clips of Madonna’s performance on the news. From what little was shown, it definitely had a lot of pagan symbolism, which ultimately means Reptilian. I’ve read she is somehow related to the British royal family, which once again means Reptilian.”
20. “Have you heard this crap about Arnold Schwartzenegger and Stan Lee collaborating on a new comic book and cartoon series called ‘The Governator?’Arnold would almost have to be a Reptoid hybrid to marry into an Illuminati family like the Kennedys and produce children (bloodline purity).”
21. “I came across a YouTube video for a Hillary Clinton fundraiser. In it she personally thanks Stan Lee for his generous contribution. The Clintons are Reptoid hybrids. Bad associations, Stan!”
22. “Is Stan Lee a Reptoid hybrid? Who wrote all those Skrull stories back in the 60s? Takes one to know one?”
“…a lot of comic book fans would probably brand me as a heretic for sullying the reputation of their childhood idol. Heroes are supposed to follow the truth, no matter where it leads. Deal with it!” Richard concluded.
5 Richard adds this footnote to his letter: “This list is just in case you know of any hot, young heroines who might team up with an ‘old warhorse.’”
