Transformer: Richard Hoagland, Dazed & Confused Magazine

Richard Hoagland is a controversial writer and researcher who has put forth a number of extravagant theories about outer space. A former consultant for CBS News, he is best known for proposing that the Martian structure of Cydonia is a gigantic sculpture of a face, the remnant of a lost civilization, gazing toward Earth. His 2008 book, Dark Mission, argued that NASA is obsessed with occult Egyptology, and the agency was created by Free Masons and Nazi scientists steeped in the occult philosophy of Thule, brought over after the Second World War through Operation Paperclip. According to Dark Mission, NASA covered up its discovery of remnants of gigantic glass domes and alien technology on the moon, along with other evidence of extra-terrestrial life found throughout the solar system. While some dismiss him as a “pseudo-scientist,” Hoagland’s work can be appreciated as a deep dive into the mythological unconscious, dredging up strange wonders and phantasmagorical possibilities.

Q What’s on Mars?

A The remnant of an ancient civilization, much older than Earth, with cities and vast libraries and junk and evidence of wars. Mars is a huge planetary tomb.

Q What did NASA find on the moon?

There is huge evidence of enormous technology used on the moon and elsewhere in the solar system. It is evidence of what is called a “Type 2” civilization.

Q What does 2012 mean for you?

A The Apocalypse does not mean catastrophe – it means enlightenment. I believe that the ruling elite intend to use 2012 as an opportunity to reveal that life exists on other worlds. These guys can’t go to the men’s room without doing a ritual, and they see the end of the Mayan calendar, which links to many other mythologies, as a great opportunity to run a gambit – to blow people’s minds. They will start with the news that microbes have been found on Mars. This will pave the way for future revelations. It will give Obama his “Kennedy moment.” Probably, someone is showing up at the end of the 13th Baktun. But the extraterrestrials we will meet are not really aliens. The extraterrestrials are humans who share our DNA. They are our relatives from ancient failed civilizations.

Q What is the best evidence that extraterrestrials have visited our solar system?

A There are ruins of bases and cities from Mercury to Neptune – multiple space stations have given us data, from the US to Europe, Japan, and even China. The first two moons of Mars – Provos and Demos – are artificial. The data is there for those who are in the know. I see my role as bridging this information to the outside world.

Q Is there a secret government in contact with extraterrestrials?

A Probably, What the content of that contact is – whether its them keeping us in prison, running the world, or trying to liberate us – I have no idea.

Q What do you think of the crop circles?

A They are a symbolic effort at communication. The question is, who is doing the communicating? There is a scientific way to discriminate between real and fake formations. The work of Leavengood, a biophysicist, documents molecular changes in the effected crops, leaving behind energy traces. If the real ones are done with some kind of energy signature, who is doing it? I see the formations as a decades-long education program. The guys doing it are the ones who are off to the side, waiting for us to wake up.

Q In the Bible, Genesis, it says, “There were Giants in the Earth in those days.” What does this mean?

A The ruins we see around the solar system are not conventionally human scaled: They are massive. We also see evidence for a vast war. It is possible that the physics of the solar system changed dramatically when that catastrophe happened, and the scale of life was reduced considerably. We are going to be in for some major surprises!