Jim Marrs, investigative reporter and conspiracy theorist extraordinaire, has compiled a one-stop book of some of the biggest conspiracies of the last 80 years in his latest book, Above Top Secret.
     Drawing on the power of the internet, Marrs plumbed the depths of the forums of the website AboveTopSecret.com to come up with questions and answers to topics as varied as the Assassination of J.F.K, 9/11, the Federal Reserve scam, Alternative/Free Energy, Peak Oil, Roswell, Antarctic Nazi bases and Chemtrails, to name but a few.
     Marrs himself is known as one of the preeminent authorities on the conspiracy of the J.F.K assassination, having penned the book Crossfire: The Plot That Killed Kennedy, which subsequently inspired Oliver Stone’s brilliant blurring of fact, fiction and history in the film ‘J.F.K’.
     The idea of a conspiracy around the death of John Fitzgerald Kennedy in Dallas in 1963 has bored itself in and around popular culture like the proverbial ‘magic bullet’, and the public appetite for information on it seems only to be growing.
     Exiled Cubans, the Mafia and the CIA have all been named and linked to the assassination, as Kennedy himself was trying to re-open relations with Cuba, whose leader Fidel Castro had taken over in the 1950’s, expelling the Mafia and aligning the country with communism.
     The Mafia, running huge amounts of drugs and laundered money through Cuba under the previous leader, Fulgencio Batista, had reason to be upset about America taking a soft stance on Castro. The CIA, with its unseen hand in the pie of Organised Crime, contemplated that the future of possible peace and prosperity would simply interfere with the status quo of profit and power.
     Of course, the official story goes that a lone gunman with communist leanings, Lee Harvey Oswald, took out Kennedy on that fateful day with the three best shots in the history of the Western world, taking any concrete information of a conspiracy to his grave after his own assassination by Mafia-linked Jack Ruby.
     Hark the cry of the conspiracy theorist – ‘Dig Deeper!’
     Perhaps one of the most fascinating chapters in the book deals with hidden Nazi bases in Antarctica.
     It is well known that the Nazis scoured the world during the lead up to World War II, looking for religious artefacts, allies, secrets and powers that could help them win once the war got going.
     What is fascinating is that they actually made it as far south as Queen Maud Land in Antarctica, west of the Weddell sea, south of Argentina. Records show that submarine and supply bases were constructed there, but these were subsequently destroyed by allied powers.
     Marrs digs up some completely fantastical information on the ill-fated ‘Operation Tabarin’, a British search & destroy mission, of who only a handful survived, telling the tale of a huge underground base named Base-211 or ‘New Berlin’.
     One survivor claimed the Nazis had found Shangri-la under the ice in the form of huge caverns, lit by the sun reflecting through the ice and powered by limitless geothermal energy, all the while grass grew on valley floors and the temperate climate ensured human survival.
     There the Nazis worked on new and amazing weapons, synthetic oil (Marrs makes the claim that the Nazis discovered synthetic oil early on, hence their production of war machines was several levels higher at the end of the war than at the beginning, despite rampant supply shortages), and genetic manipulation of humans, giving rise to weather-proof ‘Polar Men’.
     This all seems very left of field, but this reviewer, for one, believes nothing he has not seen with his own eyes, and of course growing up on video games like Castle Wolfenstein may make him a tad biased. Depending on your leanings, this may be the most entertaining chapter in the book.
     Marrs gives the chapters concerning the alien-history of God and the predictions of what may happen in 2012 an air of authority that proves to be a breath of fresh air amongst the endless 0’s and 1’s about the subjects on the internet.
     This is where Marrs’ book succeeds: deceptively enjoyable, it reveals truth (or versions of it), without sending the reader into fits of righteous rage and confusion, extremely readable while delving deep into the mysteries of the modern age, and unlike the internet with its endless links, opinions and pop ups, the chapters come to an end!
     Marrs warns at the end of the book about the power of the internet, and how one should always do their research, keep a ‘Huh?’ file, and until you are completely satisfied yourself, never discount information and also never trust it blindly.
     So, prospective reader, beware the false God named ‘Lord Information-Overload’, keep a clear head and enjoy this tightly packed, fast paced conspiracy mash-up from one of the scene’s most prolific and respected authors.