Project Blue Beam Is Gaining Steam on Social Media, but What Even Is It?

The internet has not exactly been good for facts. Conspiracy theories spread like wildfire in part because they can seem just as credible as the truth, which has meant that even theories that are decades old have found new life with a little help from prominent people who post about them.

One such theory is Project Blue Beam. The theory is 30 years old, but it's gained new life in the age of the internet in part because of videos that claim to be from all over the globe showing glowing orbs in the sky. Here's what we know about Project Blue Beam.

Project Blue Beam is a conspiracy theory first proposed by Quebecois journalist Serge Monast in 1994. According to the theory, NASA is working in concert with the U.S. government to implement a New Age religion headed by the antichrist by using technology to simulate the Second Coming. Basically, the government is going to create disasters and other natural phenomena and thereby trick people into worshipping the devil.

This particular theory includes some concrete steps. The first step involves staging natural disasters like earthquakes that will facilitate the discovery of new religious documents, and thereby discredit many of the major world religions. Step two is where Blue Beam gets its name. This step assumes that lights will appear in the sky all over the world and that those lights will take the shape of whatever the pre-eminent god is in that region.

At the end of this light display, all these deities will merge into a single entity: the anti-christ. Of course, people would have to believe that these lights in the sky were actually a sign from their deity, and not just lights in the sky. This particular step is where many online believe we are now, even though there are things like drones and planes out there that also just make lights in the sky.

From there, Project Blue Beam suggests that the U.S. will use new technology to make people believe that their god is communicating with them telepathically, again pushing them toward worship of the antichrist. The fourth and final step that will usher in a new world order involves convincing people that aliens are coming or that the rapture is. The resulting chaos will, according to these theory, make people eager to accept this new world order.

According to the theory, this new world order involves subjugation of Christians (as many conspiracy theories do) and slave labor camps, among other terrible things. The theory also stated that these things would happen in the 1990s, and then in 2000, and of course, neither of those realities came to pass.

This conspiracy theory is especially trenchant because if you believe it, you can argue that everyone else is just being taken in by the government. And, as more and more drones cover the planet, many will be convinced that they're going to trick us, when really all they want is to surveil our movements.