Conspiracy theories about widespread Satanic cults abducting and molesting kids have been circulating for decades. All have proved bogus in the end. The total number of Satan worshippers in the USA has always been trivially small ( < 10,000 according to Michael Shermer). None has been convicted of molesting that I know of.
Nevertheless, the idea keeps popping up in the media.
There’s a well-known syndrome that drives some people to believe that missing or dead relatives suffered the worst fate imaginable, and to build their own scenarios based on very little fact.
In 2006, any fool with a computer can fake a photograph.
Ok, Wildfire, I usually wouldn’t respond to this kind of tabloid-style conspiracy theory, but I grew up in Iowa and heard all the publicity around the search for Johnny Gosch. That said, consider this:
What possible reason would anyone in any position of power have for kidnapping a paper boy in suburban Iowa? His parents were no one of note, politically. They weren’t controversial. They weren’t from anywhere significant. (As a European, you probably don’t know this, but Iowa is about as far from significant goings-on as you can get. It’s a state built around farms and insurance companies.) Johnny was just some random kid.
Not every unfortunate event is caused by a vast government conspiracy.
Except that they’re apparently claiming Gannon is Gosch, and the former would have been in his early 20s at the time.
The analysis that Zabali linked also points out that the “boy in the sweatpants Gosch was wearing” actually appears to be wearing white jeans. Whoops. (And am I just not seeing it, or do the boys not look scared/distressed? It’s hard to tell in the bad quality photos - it’s even hard to see the purported “brand” in the one.)
Supposedly, the mother received several different pictures. The one where he’s sporting the sweats he had on at the time of his kidnapping, can be viewed here. So does this mean that those were taken on different days? With multiple changes of clothes?
I agree. In fact, the boys’ hands are bound at the wrists, but the fingers are free. Left alone, any boy who’s half awake would have untied the other kid in about 30 seconds. There is something fishy with that photo. It can’t be what it looks like as the first impression.
My first thought when seeing the picture of the three boys was also that they did not look “sufficiently” distressed. One of the linked articles has a similar photo of a tied up teen girl and young boy, who look very distressed by comparison. But if the photo is a fake, where did it originate?
I’m sure the current Administration kidnapped a kid in Iowa in '82 since they knew they’d be in power in '06. Oh, that’s right! Bush Sr. was veep, he was behind it and kept the kid in the dungeon during the Clinton years to pass him down to the current Administration. Damn, why didn’t I see that.
Are we sure the photo really pictures Johnny? Based on Noreen’s record, I don’t trust her judgment enough to rely solely on that. In fact, I don’t trust her enough to rule out her being responsible for the photo. There are a bunch of possibilities we could speculate, and none I can come up with are very satisfying.
I wondered the same thing whenever everyone mentioned that the boys didn’t look particularly distressed, but couldn’t find a way to articulate why without sounding like I needed a tinfoil hat of my own.
And I do feel sorry for Noreen, who is probably at this point, a mixture of grasping at straws, a chaser of conspiracy theories and sadly, an attention hound (undoubtedly all in the name of finding her son).
Nice of you to retract. But not before you managed to smear Karl Rove with this ridiculous made-up story. Don’t you feel even a little bit of shame for that? Or is Karl Rove so evil that it doesn’t matter?
I want you to get down on your knees and beg Karl Rove for forgiveness. Alternatively, undertake to stop posting malicious slanderous false accusations of public figures you don’t like. Deal?
I was on her side at first- becasue of her loss, she must have gone through hell and all, and maybe kind of “lost it”. But unless she’s turned into a complete basket case, her not being able to recognize a picture of her son seems quite peculiar…
Okay, that would involve Bush actually showing up for his Air National Guard duty, so your theory falls by the wayside right there.
Dude, it’s Nebraska that is build around farms and insurance companies; Iowa is built around farms and corn-fed beef. Get your indistinguisable rectangular Mid-Western states straight, will ya?
Gannon worked for Talon.org, a news site backed by the Republican Party. He was noted for lobbing real softball questions to Scott McClellan whenever he was called on. He was probably there, at McClellan’s behest, for that reason, maybe for others, since Gannon WAS a male prostitute and in fact had a website advertising his wares, so to speak. Gannon didn’t SOMEHOW get inot White House press conferences, all the evidence indicates he was let in. On purpose. By the White House staff.
The allegation about Gannon and Gock are interesting but ISTM a DNA test would put them to rest or confirm them in a heartbeat if anyone took them seriously.
