Beware of those who wear tinfoil hats

I was driving home the other night and as I made a turn, there it was — the moon. Very large and directly ahead, it looked almost as if I could drive there. I’ve always had a fascination for the moon and as I looked at it, I recalled with sadness the news of Neil Armstrong’s passing.

Mr. Armstrong’s legacy has got to be the coolest ever. For eternity he’ll have a marker circling for everyone on Earth to see and remember that he was the first man to set foot on the moon.

At home that night I spent a little time reading articles — and their comment sections — online about his legacy. And that’s when I saw them. Sprinkled throughout the comments section under each article were people spouting off about how we had never been to the moon, blah, blah, blah.

What is it with some people and the need to see a conspiracy everywhere? I’ve spent a lot of time pondering that because, by nature, I don’t like to take anything at face value. I teach my kids to never just swallow what they’re told, but rather to double-check and verify (even if they hear it from me). Because let’s face it, no matter how hard we try to present something factually it is nevertheless going to be at least slightly tainted by our own prejudices and opinions. I don’t even like reading political opinion books or news when they are slanted toward my direction because again, I like to get just the facts and form my own opinion. I don’t need my feelings on a subject verified or pandered to. So does that mean I am one of those hyper-skeptical kooks who take skepticism to the point of paranoia? I hope not!

Anyway, against my better judgment I put a short, simple post that basically said it was silly to honestly think he had never set foot on the moon. Ohhhhh boy. My notification flag started lighting up as a few hundred people piled on with their “evidence” that the whole thing had been staged. Did I get further annoyed or argue? Nah. To be honest, I actually enjoying the show. I mean, it’s not nice to smirk at somebody with issues, but within the anonymity of the Internet I couldn’t help but chuckle at some of these people.

In my mind I pictured unkempt adults living in their parents’ dark basements, surfing the Internet in between reruns of “X-Files” and World of Warcraft marathons, decked out in whitey-tighties and a chicken-grease stained T-shirt of three wolves howling at the moon.

At the risk of sounding like a know-it-all (and perhaps a bit callous) allow me to proclaim the following;

• Elvis and Tupac are dead.

• There are no little green men interned at Edwards Air Force Base (Area 51).

• There is no secret society of powerful people plotting world domination by controlling all the governments, banks, etc.

• The CIA did not detonate the World Trade Center.

• Yes, we landed — and walked — on the moon.

• The Earth is round (believe it or not, there are people out there who think there is a government conspiracy to make you think it’s really round when in fact it’s flat).

• There’s no such thing as Bigfoot. Or Loch Ness.

• The government has far better things to do than use satellites to spy on you mowing your lawn, or listen to your phone calls to your mother.

• Bush didn’t invade Iraq to settle some family squabble or “get oil.”

• Obama was born in Hawaii.

I know it’s fun to imagine a world around us full of nefarious schemes and fantastic plots by all-powerful secret societies, aliens and monsters. Hollywood makes a fortune from us because we like that kind of stuff. We like mystery and it fuels the need that many have to look for the boogeymen hiding in the bushes. But, unfortunately, reality is where we dwell and more often than not things are what they seem to be, and if nobody has actually ever seen it (but they know somebody who knows somebody who is related to this guy who had a roommate who …) then it probably doesn’t exist.

Yeah, I know. I’m a killjoy. But it just kills me to see this many people caught up so deep in this stuff. I could go on forever about how unhealthy it is and how much better it is to be wary, to fact-check, but not to go off the deep end with knee-jerk skepticism over each and every little thing that comes along.

As I write this I’m looking out the window at that van parked out in the street. I’ve never seen that van before. So I’ll bid you good day for now. I have to go fold myself a new tinfoil hat. Don’t know if the government has men hiding inside that van spying on my brainwaves.

Ben Compton is a Palmer resident and publishes his column as “Compton’s Corner,” the same title used by his grandmother, Phyllis Compton, a longtime Frontiersman columnist.