This Is My Rifle: Conspiracy Theorist’s Guide to Malaysian Airlines Flight MH370 Posted by Jason James on 03/26/14 | Filed under Politics, This is My Rifle

On Monday afternoon, as I sat in my batcave reviewing 9/11 evidence and alien autopsy footage, I received an urgent tweet from Nathan:

If @JasonJames82 doesn't write about flight MH370 I may have to rethink everything I know about how the world works.

— Refined Hype (@refinedhype) March 24, 2014

As a general rule, when the Commissioner calls you answer. There are very few valid reasons not to pick up the batphone and this time around I was eager to accept his challenge. So I rose from the depths of darkness, strapped on my tinfoil bat-hat and headed straight for Reddit.

For the past two weeks I had been quietly reading about the mysterious disappearance of Malaysia Airlines flight MH370*. I had tweeted out a few interesting articles I found and discussed the absurdity of the story with a few people but I hadn't really done anything remotely close to serious research on the matter.

The story was interesting to say the least. On March 8, 2014 flight MH370 departed from Kuala Lumpur International Airport and disappeared into thin air en route to Beijing Capital International Airport. The last communication from the flight occurred 40 minutes after takeoff, and then as the aircraft made a sharp westerly turn, it vanished from both civilian and military radar. For nearly 3 weeks, none of the 26 countries involved in the search- including some of the world's most technologically advanced nations- could figure out where the Boeing 777 and the 239 people on board had landed and if they were alive. Then, on March 20th satellite images discovered what looked like pieces of debris floating in the southern Indian Ocean. On March 24th Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak announced that flight MH370 had crashed into the Indian Ocean 1,500 miles west of Perth, Australia. There were presumably no survivors.

Like everybody else I turned to Google and began my research into the suspicious disappearance of flight MH370, and like everybody else I was overwhelmed by a tangled web of conspiracies and pseudo-science. My mission had been compromised; the Internet had the story now and as we all know, the Internet is fucking crazy.

But I would not lose hope. I was going to get to the bottom of this story- if not for myself then for my fans (all 3 of them- mom, dad, psycho stalker girl). I refused to allow the throngs of fellow conspiracy theorists all grasping at threads of information and reshaping them conveniently to thwart me from finding the truth. I knew that I would eventually discover the cause of the aircraft's disappearance- I just had to peel away the layers of speculation. So I rolled up my batsleeves and dug through the mountains of bullshit in pursuit of truth nuggets. Here are few of the theories that caught my eye:

Alien Abduction

The theory: Shortly after takeoff flight MH370 was intercepted by a UFO large enough to hold a Boeing 777 and all of it's contents and carried away to a distant galaxy.

Plausibility rating: 3.2 stars out of a possible 68.4 anal probes

Conclusion: Because of course it was fucking aliens. As somebody who has himself claimed to have seen UFOs, I probably shouldn't be so quick to dismiss this theory but anytime anything happens ever, the same group of people blames the aliens. The JFK assassination? Aliens. The pyramids in Egypt? Aliens. Your pizza pop exploded because you left it in the microwave for too long? Boom, aliens. If alien life has visited Earth, which I believe they have, I highly doubt that they have any interest in bringing us back to their advanced civilization that is obviously way cooler than ours. Sorry, but it wasn't aliens.

Hyper-dimensional Portals

The theory: As flight MH370 turned west over the Strait of Malacca it flew into a wormhole that transported the plane and it's passengers to another dimension.

Plausibility rating: 4.9 Captain Picards out of a possible 56 Professor Xaviers

Conclusion: Of all the theories I like this one the best, and surprisingly, there is a little bit of science to it. For thousands of years Earth has been thought of by some ancient and present day civilizations as a serious of geometric shapes all brought together to make a sphere. In 1921 archeologist Alfred Watkins coined the term "ley lines" as a way to explain the outlines of these shapes. The ley lines are believed to harness a mysterious energy and there is strong evidence that suggests many ancient civilizations built structures along these lines as a means of connecting to said energy. Furthermore, it is believed that the areas where these lines intersect are portals to other universes and/or dimensions. Flight MH370 just so happened to fly right into one of these intersections.

Cloaking Weaponry

The theory: The aircraft was used as a real-time experiment for a cloaking technology developed by a semi-conductor firm and that’s why the flight disappeared from both civilian and military radar.

Plausibility rating: 9 Dick Cheneys out of a possible 43.7 Illuminatis

Conclusion: Of the 239 people aboard flight MH370, 20 were employees of Freescale Semiconductor - a manufacturer of hi-tech weapons and navigation systems. As crazy as it sounds, weapons companies have done far worse in the past when experimenting with new technologies and have had a strange infatuation with testing their inventions in real life situations. But what deflates this theory is the idea that Freescale Semiconductor would test a cloaking device on a flight where 20 of its employees were onboard. Unless they were like this guy, then yeah, it makes total sense. And if they did test the new technology, where are all the people? You would have to assume they landed safely. But wait… Aliens.

Hijacking/Suicide

The theory: Flight MH370 was redirected and taken down by terrorists and/or a suicidal pilot.

Plausibility rating: 13.6 Jesuses out of a possible 31.4 Moses

Conclusion: There are 2 interesting facts about the flight that have been downplayed by the mainstream media. First, two of the flight’s passengers were Iranian nationals traveling on one-way trips to Europe with stolen passports and tickets purchased by a third party with cash in the same fashion as the hijackers on 9/11. Secondly, a friend of Captain Zaharie Ahmad Shah said that the pilot was distraught over his recent separation from his wife and was possibly going on a “final joyride”. Additionally, sources close to the investigation have confirmed accusations that the crash was intentional. Between both theories, I think the second makes the most sense. No terrorist organizations have stepped forward to claim responsibility and we all know how those guys love taking credit for deplorable acts. Besides, I would imagine taking a plane down in the middle of nowhere would only bag like 2, maybe 3 virgins in heaven.

Safe Landing on an Uncharted Island

The theory: Flight MH370 landed safely on an uncharted island in the largely unmapped southern Indian Ocean where the survivors will begin a new civilization until they are eventually rescued. Or not. Or maybe they were dead the whole time. Or maybe aliens.

Plausibility rating: 18.3 Losts out of a possible 27 Lord of the Flies

Conclusion: Fuck Lost. That show sucked.

Diego Garcia

The theory: The aircraft was flown to, and landed safely or shot down, over the island of Diego Garcia - a top secret US military base in the central Indian Ocean.

Plausibility rating: 19 Iran Contras out of a possible 25.4 Area 51’s (ALIENS!)

Conclusion: This theory has been the least talked about and has a lot of feasibility. Little is known about Diego Garcia, but what we do know is that top secret weapons tests do occur there and it is used as a strategic base for operations in the Middle East. When you factor in the 20 passengers from Freescale Semiconductor, whose presence on the flight could easily be explained by a possible visit to Diego Garcia, it would make perfect sense that flight MH370 could have been redirected to, or shot down over, the military base. Why any of this may have occurred, that’s anybody’s guess. But this guy here has done the math and it checks out.

Ghost Flight

The theory: A sudden loss in cabin pressure caused the crew and passengers to lose consciousness and the aircraft ran on autopilot until it ran out of fuel and crashed into the Indian Ocean.

Plausibility rating: HIGH.

Conclusion: At this moment, I believe that this is what actually happened. As veteran pilots and aviation experts have confirmed, a sudden loss in cabin pressure would cause the entire crew and passengers onboard to lose consciousness in a matter of seconds. Although the crew and passengers would have had time to put on oxygen masks, an explosion or overwhelming fire quite possibly could have prevented them from doing so, resulting in the aforementioned loss of consciousness. From then onwards the aircraft would run on autopilot until there was no fuel left at which point the airplane would fall out of the sky and smash into the ocean.

Of all of the theories being passed around on the Internet, the ghost flight theory- as tragic as it is- is the most logical. However, there are a number of questions still unanswered. For example, why were the families of the 239 people on board able to call their cell phones and hear the phone ringing for days after the flight’s disappearance? If the cell phones had been damaged in any way or if they were in a remote area with no towers around, the phone calls would go straight to voicemail and not ring at all. Also, why were the aircraft’s transponders turned off manually one at a time within an hour of takeoff? Surely if the pilots planned on making it to their destination safely they would have left them on, and if there were any identifiable mechanical issues they would have turned around as soon as the transponders went down. So why did they continue flying south for 7 hours afterwards?

There are a number of things that don’t add up. If flight MH370 truly crashed in the ocean, debris would be everywhere and would be impossible to miss. Modern airplanes are designed specifically to float and most of the wreckage would be on the ocean’s surface. Conveniently enough, flight MH370 crashed into an area of the southern Indian Ocean known as the Roaring 40s; a notoriously turbulent part of the ocean. To add insult to injury, the search for debris and the flight’s black box has been postponed due to terrible weather conditions and as of this morning, Australian officials have concluded that the suspected debris is sitting above unmapped undersea volcanoes that will be impossible to reach even in optimal conditions.

Something just doesn’t feel right about all of this. My conspiracy senses are tingling.

*This article is in no way meant to disrespect or disregard the families and friends of those missing on Malaysian Airlines flight MH370. I only intend to satirize the conspiracy theories surrounding these tragic events. My heart and thoughts go out to all those who have been affected by this tragedy.

(Jason James is an artist, freelance columnist and writer for RefinedHype.com. You can read/download his free eBook, "This Is My Rifle" and listen/download his most recent album, "Pyramids in Stereo". You can also contact him here and here.)

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