Crypto Corner: Microchip Madness???

 

It’s the middle of an “off” week, and I’ve been debating what to do. I decided it was time for another round of Forteana, and I decided to do a subject I’ve been meaning to get to elsewhere. Lately, the crazy has been ramping up around theories that vaccines are being used to implant microchips, and the more curious claim that vaccination somehow produces a form of magnetism. The latter idea in particular is just loopy enough to fall in the realm of anomalism, so I’m diving right in.

The first and relatively routine thing to note is that the conspiracy theorists suppose technology that is well beyond anything known or likely in the present. Per an insightful assessment at The Atlantic (see here to get around a paywall threshold), there are known devices that are claimed to be injectable through a hypodermic needle that do satisfy the requirements of a self-powered transmitter rather than a more routine passive device. But there remain significant obstacles, particularly the functionality of the power supply (incidentally one application where Matrix-style bioelectricity makes sense). What this really means is equipment that costs thousands and would take years to improve and test. But what’s really noteworthy is that it’s not at all clear that a test as simple as the theorists imagine would work. First, the thing to test with is a magnet, not a piece of metal, which some have done but many have not. Second, you would have to find the exact spot where the implant came to rest, which would be potentially unpredictable even if you could find the original injection site (a non-trivial problem with the whole proposition). Third, miniature electronics would mostly be made of copper and silica, which normally wouldn’t stick to a magnet. Finally, anything with enough iron or steel to attract a magnet would probably set off a metal detector, which in itself is usually enough to leave real-world authorities annoyed.

That leaves the question why objects would stick to human skin. The simplest explanations all involve trickery or at least “fudging”, such as applying saliva to the skin or the object before performing the test or simply having the object fall off after a limited time. More unambiguous demonstrations might involve genuine biological anomalies, particularly abnormally high perspiration and/ or natural oils and other secretions. In theory, there might even be actual magnetic anomalies from elevated iron levels in the blood, though it would probably take virtually more iron than blood to produce a noticeable effect. As usual, this would invite a spectrum of actors, from the willfully fraudulent to the sincerely misled, plus a certain number of pranksters perhaps aiming to debunk or mock the phenomenon. The most telling cases are those who have sought out doctors or scientists with every sign of sincerity for an explanation why objects “stick to their bodies.

The real question, of course, is whether this has been going on all along. In fact, it’s not even hard to find decades of investigation on “magnetic” people. Typical representative cases (notably from the files of the late James Randi) are virtually identical to the recent plague of online videos (covered in Forbes of all places). All that needs to be noted is that neutral observers have easily shown that the phenomenon “works” equally well whether the object is magnetic, ferrous, or entirely non-metallic. Looking further afield, there is a reasonable body of research on whether humans are able to detect magnetic fields, so far inconclusive at best. At the very edges, one might consider the many accounts of UFO witnesses who encounter scrambled radio and TV signals and other malfunctioning devices before during and after their encounters. If one is willing to consider biological electromagnetism at all, then the possibility opens up that this has more to do with the witness than the putative Fortean entities they observe. Also from the same realm come those who recount receiving invasive implants from paraterrestrial abusers, in certain very odd cases found to correspond to benign growths, accidentally ingested objects, and other harmless medical anomalies.

This brings us back to the truly central phenomenon, the pervasive belief of conspiracy theorists that they are themselves being “watched” by known or unknown government entities. The grim reality that has long plagued the Fortean community is that those attracted to unusual phenomena include a very high proportion of unstable personalities. It’s all too plausible that they would attract at least passing scrutiny from law enforcement and other authorities, but they are equally apt to perceive MIBs and other entities as elusive or subjective as UFOs and sasquatch. In this context, the only thing novel in the antivaxxers’ conceptual architecture is the back-breaking inversion of logic. Rather than apply their resources to the debatable task of monitoring the cranks and crazies, it’s suddenly the compliant and law-abiding citizens that the “authorities” want to track down to the smallest step, regardless of how they could possibly compile and analyze such a vast quantity of data. And they can’t think of a better way than implanting tens and hundreds of millions with experimental technology that might or might not literally explode on the first encounter with an MRI machine. That way lies madness, but also the self-centeredness that is the other side of the same coin to paranoia.

With that, I’m wrapping this up. It’s a short piece, yet exactly as much as the subject that Back when I was first getting into self-publishing and blogging, I covered anti-vax nonsense on something like a full time basis. Coming back to it now, I find that I take to it quickly, but I equally quickly lose patience. It’s a lingering blight of our culture that we can no longer afford to believe will simply go away. The brighter side is that in the current crisis, the media are finally listening to us. And now I’m calling it a night.