The Secret Space Program: The Wackiest, Most Outlandish Theory You'll Ever Hear
In this blog post, we discuss the multi-layered, fascinating conspiracy that is the Secret Space Program! Today, we will dive into paranoia-based folklore about Nazi super soldiers, extra-terrestrial clones, and hidden government information about a military force on Mars. Yet to fully explain this phenomenon, we must look into its origins and purpose. After all, how could it have spread to such a large magnitude as it has? Why does it matter that so many people are starting to believe in it in the first place?
To start, let's look at the beginning. Why did this come about? Who created it? What is it about this otherworldly escapism that draws so many people into its cult?
Could the Nazis Get Any Weirder?
So, believe it or not, this conspiracy ties back to before World War II with the German Nazis! This theory starts during World War II, a time in which the government took a lot of authoritarian control over the economy and materials created in the country. As their search for new technology and universal explanations grew, there became a deep-rooted fascination with mysticism.
The Fourth Reich separated from the Third Reich to go after such knowledge, looking for people to be believed of possessing "fantastical powers." This is how they met Maria Orsic, leader of the Vril Society. She was said to have been able to channel Nordic and Draco reptilians -- lizard people, so to speak -- who offered the Nazis information on anti-gravity technology and other alien secrets. Subsequently, the Die Glocke was created not long after -- a purported weapon that supposedly could travel through time and space.
(pictured above is the Die Glocke)
Following this, the lore continues by the Nazis actually gaining access to space by 1948, where they used this technological advantage to land and create a settlement on the dark side of the moon. Not long after, they ventured towards Mars.
Despite all this universal, otherworldly knowledge, the Germans still lost World War II. (Hence the split of Reichs). The "Space Germans," as the Fourth Reich has become known as, since got engaged in a war with the very reptilian aliens that had helped them before. To fight this war, the Nazis needed an army to help them, and the tale is that they began kidnapping people to act as officials or slaves on Mars, and that they were forced to serve in this secret military program called the Mars Defense Force. These people are called MILABS, or Military Abductees.
That leads us into the next section about what the Secret Space Program actually is.
So . . . What Is It?
What happened to all of these Soldiers? What did they do in this "war" between space?
There's a YouTube channel named Super Soldier Talk where real-time interviews are given to people who believe themselves to have lived into this conspiracy and actually fought on Mars. A lot of their stories are similar, varying per legion or rank. Randy Cramer is one of them, and probably one of the most popular. He claimed to have been abducted and forced to become a Super Soldier for seventeen years on Mars. Cramer also claimed that Mars had developed into a population of over 7 billion with settlements and bases across planets, consisting of human and extra-terrestrial species as well. He states, “I was genetically engineered from the ground up, tinkered with some extraterrestrial hybridized DNA to, you know, be smarter, faster, stronger for soldiering abilities.”
(pictured above is Randy Cramer)
His statement resonates with a lot of others, where they all believed to have been genetically manipulated into a species completely different. Whether that be an eagle, turtle, blue wolf, or others, they were changed this way for spying purposes. Then, they accused the government of wiping their memories and changing them back to their human forms so they would have no remembrance of ever being taken and used as militarized weapons.
While the Secret Space Program has grown well beyond its original premise, the core of the theory remains the same. As originally proposed by “whistleblower” Randy Cramer, the Secret Space Program is a joint effort by the major world powers to train and genetically enhance humans for military use on Mars. These super soldiers engage in conflicts with the insectoid and reptilian species of Mars, each with their own civilization and culture. The theory also claims that humanity has achieved far greater technological advancement than is publicly accessible, and that the Program uses de-aging, memory manipulation, and time travel to send soldiers back to Earth after they retire. The “whistleblowers” of the Program claim to recall their previously erased memories and past lives, revealing their former experiences with the Space Marines.
After Randy Cramer’s initial interviews, many more witnesses began to come forward with their own accounts of recalled Space Program memories. These witnesses had varying backgrounds, ranging from lower-middle-class Americans to Laura Magdalene Eisenhower, the granddaughter of former United States President Dwight D. Eisenhower. These witnesses eventually formed a community, which is now primarily centralized on forums and YouTube. The most prominent of these community outlets is the YouTube channel Super Soldier Talk, run by self-proclaimed former Space Marine James Rink. Rink’s channel hosts many witness accounts and interviews, and Rink himself has written multiple books discussing the Secret Space Program and its connection to other theories.
(pictured above is James Rink)
With such a great emphasis on community accounts, the theory has bloated in scope and gained new facets, absorbed other theories, and even taken from fictional universes such as Star Trek and Resident Evil. This has created an environment in which witnesses pull from a broad variety of sources to create elaborate backstories and roles for themselves, in a similar vein to role-playing games such as Dungeons & Dragons.
How Conspiracies Stem, and the Allure of It All.
The Secret Space Program, like many conspiracies before, must begin with something and someone. It has to be created for a reason, you know? And the reality of this is that all conspiracies involve at least a kernel of truth before they get extrapolated into the wild, otherworldly tales they become. Digging further, that little kernel must be rooted somewhere for it to be able to bloom into a greater ideology. Most often, those roots find themselves reaching toward our own government.
Hugo Drochon, a political theorist, wrote for The Guardian, "We’re suckers for conspiracy theories – and it’s a sign of a deep social malaise." Drochon goes on to explain that these conspiracies are born out of a “disenchantment with democracy.” This means when a group of people become fed up with the government and the way things are being run, or the things that are happening, they create a false narrative to explain those wrongdoings of the government. So then this creates a Malay of thought and descent from what is known. People want a justification for everything, especially if it supports their own worldview. From this, hidden discussions and secret organizations rise up on the belief that they are "rebelling" in astronomical ways. They seek out others who share their beliefs or look to people who are gullible enough to be persuaded into it.
With all conspiracy theorists, there comes the allure of fitting in with a group of people who also do not fit in with regular life. They feel like outcasts, and these bizarre theories are just desperate ways to connect. When you feel tossed out by society, or when you feel like the environment you are in does not support the person you are, you seek out an environment that does. You seek out any possible reason to spin it back on society and say "No, you are the one that is wrong." Think of it like an emotional security blanket taken to the extreme. Another author states in his work, “These forms and practices of conspiracies revel in powerlessness, seeking to recapture lost control through revelatory fantasies and role-playing carnivals that infuse a hip, pseudo-paranoia” with an enervating sense of fun” (Fenster 217). What could possibly be more empowering than being a literal space marine in a past life?
In a study about how likely people are to believe conspiracy theories, Gary Marcus in “WHAT A CONSPIRACY THEORIST BELIEVES” commentates on this. There was an online study done to prove that people supporting “free market ideology” were less likely to support any array of conspiracy theory; moreover, on the contrary, people that did not support the idea of “free market ideology” were more likely to support the conspiracy theories. This was found through a survey rating the likelihood to believe on a scale of 1-4, the study consisted of about 1,000 responses. Marcus calls this phenomenon “‘motivated reasoning,’” which is when “people tend to believe what they want to believe, and to disbelieve new information that might challenge them.” This goes to show confirmation bias on pre-existing beliefs that these people have, and how it affects any new information that they will take in and believe.
Like described in the column above, conspiracies thrive on the community that keeps it alive, especially in this new age of technology where chat rooms and websites are built to lure people in and create a sense of unity within them. The Internet has helped bring the SSP into modern recognition.
For example, here attached is a YouTube account where they post video interviews about the Super Soldiers who were supposedly a part of the Secret Space Program, as well as a comment made under said video.
The second comment illustrates how this theory is so far-flung, a user could easily mistake it as a role playing exercise. This theory, which is a verified “everything bagel” of conspiracies, throwing together everything under the sun, still has a large enough following for people to make a living off of it. The enduring popularity of the Secret Space Program theory has interesting implications for human psychology and belief in general. The documentarian Oki, in his video “How I infiltrated a Bizarre Conspiracy Cult” linked above, stated “What you believe becomes your own reality, no matter how ridiculous it is.” If people could be adherents to something so bizarre, they could believe in anything. Of course, the effect of seeing some belief as far-fetched is common among all conspiracy theories, but this theory is as far-out as possible, and yet it still holds a following! No matter how ridiculous an idea, if it is part of an appealing enough package and presented to the right person, somebody could believe in it.
Works Cited
Drochon, Hugo. “We’re suckers for conspiracy theories – and it’s a sign of a deep social malaise.” The Guardian, November 2, 2017.
Fenster, Mark. Conspiracy Theories: Secrecy and Power in American Culture. University of Minnesota Press, 2008.
“How I Became Space Jesus (w/ @okisweirdstories1327).” YouTube, uploaded by NightDocs, 11 Jan. 2022, www.youtube.com/watch?v=FyVeBELbtQQ&ab_channel=NightDocs.
“How I infiltrated a Bizarre Conspiracy Cult.” Youtube, uploaded by Oki’s Weird Stories, 30 Dec 2021, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EYvnKc908Fw
Marcus, Gary. “WHAT A CONSPIRACY THEORIST BELIEVES.” The New Yorker, April 10, 2013.
“Randy Cramer Discusses His Time in the Secret Space Program.” Gaia, 19 Dec. 2019, https://www.gaia.com/article/randy-cramer-mars-defense-force.
“Super Soldier Talk – Dr. Dean Allen – Body Talker Biofeedback Device.” Youtube, uploaded by Super Soldier Talk, 5 Nov 2022, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VWTYYtviBXI
