While I do not believe in conspiracy theories as a whole, I do enjoy researching them so I can see what people can theorize about certain places, events or people. There are prevalent conspiracy theories on events such as 9/11 or the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, but I recently came across conspiracy theories on an interesting place.

The Denver International Airport (DIA) has been the subject of conspiracy theories due to its architectural design, artwork and construction. To start off with popular conspiracy theories on the airport, it is theorized that the Illuminati or the Freemasons built or have something to do with the airport.

For those who are unaware, the Illuminati are a theorized secret society that supposedly has very powerful members in world politics and entertainment, and some say their end goal is to take over the world. The Freemasons are a real fraternal society, but there are numerous conspiracy theories surrounding their members and intentions. But, how does the DIA come into this? Well there are a number of factors.

There is very strange artwork on display at the airport. In particular there is “In Peace and Harmony with Nature” By Leo Tanguma. The mural depicts the theme of environmental destruction, and the piece shows children being saddened by this and trying to save nature with a forest on fire in the background.

There is also “Children of the World Dream Peace” also by Tanguma that is currently not on display due to renovations. The mural depicts some kind of creepy Nazi or some kind of fascist soldier dressed in green and wearing a gas mask. The soldier is holding an assault rifle and a sword, and he is stabbing a dove with said sword. Besides the soldier, there are buildings that seemed to be destroyed after some massive attack and there are people who seem to be living in fear of this invading soldier.

These are certainly weird artworks for people to see right before they get on an international flight. Conspiracy theorists usually point these murals out as evidence for the new world order having something to do with the airport. Or these artworks illustrate an upcoming apocalypse. The Denver Post does a detailed description of all of the conspiracy theories surrounding the DIA and they show the obvious fallacy with these theories surrounding the murals.

Another common theory pertains to what is supposedly underground at the DIA. According to The Denver Post the theory is that hidden beneath the baggage transport there are a series of bunkers designed to house billionaires and world political elite in the event of an upcoming apocalypse. There also theories pertaining to aliens or lizard people (a.k.a Reptoids.) Then The Denver Post goes on what the real history and the facts surrounding the DIA’s underground, to dispute these claims.

However what actually inspired me to write this is the marketing campaign done by the DIA pertaining to the conspiracy theories surrounding them. Unlike others, the DIA has fully embraced these theories and started a marketing campaign to attract people and conspiracy theorists to the airport. There are now posters put up addressing the conspiracies in a humorous way.

For example, a poster put up for the recent remodeling states, “Under construction? Or underground tunnels?” There is also a poster of a lizard man that states, “What are we doing? A: Adding amazing new restaurants and bars. B: Building an Illuminati headquarters. C: Remolding the lizard people’s lair.”

As you can see the marketing team at the airport has taken advantage of their current renovations to poke some fun at the conspiracies people have come up with. To my knowledge, this is one of the few places to fully embrace conspiracies on them, it seems that everyone else just ignores them as crazy theories.

For at least this instance I believe we can label the DIA conspiracy theories just a marketing campaign sprung from prevalent theorists online. The problem with almost all conspiracy theories is that people use false evidence to back up their claims. To get real information on the theories and the truth you can check out The Denver Post and the DIA’s website.

Jordan Boyer is a senior history major; he can be reached at 581-2812 or at [email protected].