Alex was raised by conspiracy theorists. This makes him different from most people who end up down the rabbit hole in that assuming nefarious plots were going on was never a surprise to him. Indeed, it was the default.
We talk about growing up in a conspiracy theory family, how his perceptions shifted when he went out into the real world, and how he ended up going even deeper down the rabbit hole before he finally found his way out.
Alex also read my book, Escaping the Rabbit Hole, and his reaction to my 9/11 debunking was rather surprising.
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Johnny Orbital is a rare breed – a former genuine believer in the Flat Earth theory who is willing to talk about his experience. When I was writing my book Tales From the Rabbit Hole, I had to look far and wide for such a person. Even now, it’s rare to find people who once were flat-earth believers and now are not.
DJ Thermal Detonator was heavily involved in the Los Angeles 9/11 Truth scene in the late 2000s. At that time, local activism centered around the We Are Change group. DJ attended meetings, helped out with a variety of things, and saw the shift of the organization into even more extreme theories, like Sandy Hook being faked, and chemtrails. He even helped Michael J. Murphy with his popular chemtrails film What In The World Are They Spraying” in 2010.
Stian is someone who has been quite deeply involved in the 9/11 Truth community and the UFO community. He also just read my book: Escaping the Rabbit Hole, and has a few questions for me about my approach to debunking. We also cover the slippery slope of internet censorship, the sometimes useful role of conspiracy promoters, how to find common ground, and what I think about the Tic-Tac UFO.
Phil is a former conspiracy theorist in Northern Ireland who got into conspiracy theories aged 18, around 14 years ago. Going to university exposed him to a variety of people and to new ways of thinking, which over the course of a year gradually pulled him out of the rabbit hole.
“Paradigm Shift” is the name used by a poster on Metabunk. Paradigm Shift had made many posts about 9/11, and the need, as he sees it, for a new investigation to look into the possibility of explosives being used to bring down the twin towers. Online discussions can be slow-moving and fractious, so I asked him to come on the podcast for a more detailed and direct conversation about what we believe, and why we believe it.
Willie was one of the first people that I interviewed for my book 
Brad is an electrical engineer and an expert in mathematics. He also likes to consider that an idea might be true before rejecting it, no matter how extreme. This led him very briefly down the rabbit hole of checking to see if the earth was actually round like a ball, or might it possibly be flat. His strong grounding in mathematics very quickly put an end to that – but what about the people who don’t really understand the math? Is there hope for “flat earthers” who don’t really understand geometry?
Rory has an extensive series of videos on YouTube debunking Flat Earth, focusing on simple ways of demonstrating that there’s a curve. But he’s also got a very interesting life story as a traveler, both around the world and in a spiritual sense. This exploration has eventually given him a great perspective on why people believe in things when the evidence is against them, but at times led him to entertain a number of conspiracy theories and other esoteric beliefs. He’s still a little esoteric, but as he’s got older he’s become a bit more grounded. We talk about his journey from “bliss ninny” to “pain-in-the ass debunker”
Paul is a former promoter of the Planet X conspiracy theory, which is also known as the 
Jim Lee used to be a fairly hardcore conspiracy theorist, deep into things like Chemtrails and doomsday comets. Now he’s less deep down the rabbit hole, but has managed to create one of his own. He’s convinced there’s something going on involving chemicals in the air or modifying contrails. Not exactly chemtrails, but still something nefarious. He spends a lot of time researching what it might be. He’s also concerned about the effects of potential future geoengineering, pollution, and nuclear leaks, and his large website Climate Viewer, is where he educates people on those issues, and other things he finds important.
Dan used to be convinced that some kind of drastic collapse of society was just around the corner. He was prepared for this, stockpiling food and supplies, and watching all the lastest prepper/survivalist videos on YouTube, as well as making his own videos about what was going to happen. When Obama came to power he received and initially believed dire warnings that some kind of society “reset” was imminent. But then nothing happened, and he gradually realized that probably nothing was happening, and all the worrying about it was a waste of time and having a bad effect on his life. So he stopped, deleted all his videos, and stopped consuming conspiracy theories. He’s a lot happier now.
