Tony Russo - Dragged Into the Light: Truthers, Reptilians, Super Soldiers, and Death Inside an Online Cult

Copyright 2021 Tony Russo

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning, or otherwise, without written permission from the publisher, except for brief excerpts used for purposes of review. It is illegal to copy this book, post it to a website, or distribute it by any other means without permission.

Secant Publishing, LLC

P.O. Box 4059

Salisbury, MD 21803

www.secantpublishing.com

The names of principal characters in this book are those identified in court and police records. The names of some cult members may be aliases or online personae.

ISBN: 978-1-944962-93-7 (hardcover)

ISBN: 978-1-944962-94-4 (paperback)

ISBN: 978-1-944962-95-1 (ebook)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2021907488

Book cover design by ebooklaunch.com

For my wife, Kelly

Contents

Introduction

And if any one tried to loose another and lead him up to the light,

let them only catch the offender, and they would put him to death.

Plato, The Republic

I want to implicate you in this story the same way I was implicated. I want that realization to come to you the same way it came to me. I wasnt drawn to this story; it was suggested by a colleague. Id just come off more than two years interviewing combat veterans for the This Is War podcast and was looking for something else to write about.

Have you seen this Sherry Shriner reptile thing? the colleague asked.

I saw Sherrys story as an introduction to a larger story about for-profit cults and internet scammers. When I dove deeper, though, her storys implications broadened as QAnon and other conspiracy actors and theories bubbled up into the mainstream.

Anthony Warner, the 2020 Nashville Christmas bomber, who espoused many of the beliefs Im about to discuss, was reported to have written, They put a switch into the human brain so they could walk among us and appear human. Its a description of the reptilian conspiracy espoused by the people Ive dubbed the Shrinerites, nearly down to the word.

I watched a conspiracy theory-driven mob take over the US Capitol, I imagine, the way a true prophet might see their vague notions solidify, shadows of inklings emerging from the gray. Worse, I saw, and still see, the ripples. The obvious responses and reactions. Finger-pointing and think-piecing about how the internet breeds these beasts.

Im here to tell you that the internet doesnt breed monsters any more than a coop breeds pigeons. We breed the monsters; the internet just lets them thrive. And as we wring our hands about what the internet does as if it has volition, we avoid responsibility. We avoid the truth. In this case, that conspiracy theory culture is a symptom of our crumbling belief in religions ability to salve, and the farce of professional political discourse.

In many cases, the people who are most susceptible to these conspiracies and cults are those who believe most in God and country and are heartbroken by their betrayal. Its not just that religious and political figures dodge leadership responsibilities. Its that their lies have cast the idea of safety, or even of stasis, into serious doubt.

Conspiracy theories replace their perceived chaos with order, their dissembling with fixed truths, and give lie to their claims of higher service. Thats the appeal. To dismiss large communities of people as unwilling slaves to the corporate internet misses their search for certainty while relieving our complicity. Accepting their striving to understand as genuine, rather than as a result of some deeper madness, helped me understand the people in this story better.

The short answer to why they cling to their beliefs is the same as the reason you cling to yours: it is comfortable and safe. How and why they choose their beliefs is where we feel like we can step back and judge.

That was the hardest realization for me in reporting this book, and at times I fail to suspend judgment. It is so difficult not to be dismissive once we realize that, in the conspiracy theorists reality, incompatible or inconsistent claims live together happily. Orgone, a mystical substance invented from whole cloth by a respected psychologist, stands out as the most impenetrable idea in this story. It works under such conditional rules as to be baffling in its meaninglessness. Yet peoples lives have been changed and ruined by it.

Another difficulty was the temptation to understand and refute the conspiracy theories or to dismiss them out of hand. I tried to find middle ground where I understood well enough to explain without getting caught up in what I knew was utter nonsense. For example, I struggled to navigate the murky rules for how and when reptilians take over a persons body, but since that doesnt ever happen, I leave the nebulous reasoning untouched.

The conspiracies for me are a distraction from whats going on, which is a predictable amount of religious charlatanism feeding on soul-crushing fear and loneliness.

What Ive come to discover is that beneath the accounts of crazy beliefs, ritual shunning, and tragic deaths is a look at a dying culture. In a time when it is common to talk about two Americas, I worry that we are talking about two realities. We can agree to disagree about whether or not theres a God, but we cant agree to disagree about whether or not I am possessed by an evil spirit.

All the Christian Truthers in this book believe in literal demonic possession. Many believe demons pop in and out of bodies, using the people around the target as hosts while they execute their torment. If you say Im possessed, we dont have a difference of opinion. Were occupying two realities.

Platos allegory of the cave in his Republic is supposed to praise the search for truth, but the line I borrowed at the beginning of this introduction has always been the takeaway for me. People want to be safe and comfortable in their beliefs and their lives. On the face of it, this is a story about when death is preferable to trading a certain reality for an uncertain one.

What follows is my account of and attempt to come to terms with both what happened and why things happened as they did. As loud as they tend to be, the old-time religions are dying, or at least changing. Reality is raining down upon them. Since so many people are seeking justification where none can be found in accepted reality, theyve carved out their ownwhere the God of the Hebrews and science fiction cohabitate, and the truth is what you say it is.

1 He said, Here! Press this here, oh, my God!

Barbara Rogers stood screaming over the fresh corpse of Steven Mineo. The scene was too vivid, as if it were staged. Ignoring the brain matter on the bed, Barbara shook Steven again, begging him to wake up as she choked back another wave of panic. She wanted more than anything for him to get back up, to relive the last moments of his life, of their life together, and prevent this from ever happening. Maybe they had gone to bed as she wanted to, and she was just dreaming. Maybe this was one of the alternate realities Steven was obsessed with, and somewhere in another dimension none of this had happened.

She looked into his empty face, his head lolled back as if he were dozing, but his open eyes told a different story. The agony was gone, but so was the humor, the defiance, and the adoration theyd contained before the gun went off. She looked again at the fresh bullet wound in the middle of his forehead, and the screams returned. Barbara Rogers checked out.