On Behalf of the Sovereign Order of Cosmic Tricksters, I Would Like to Wish John A. Keel a Most Sincere...

HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!!!!!!!

For a previous Keel-centric CryptoPost, click HERE. 

And always remember, boys and girls...

"Belief is the enemy." 

--John A. Keel, THE MOTHMAN PROPHECIES, 1975 

Fireball Season

1) From Jack Shea's 3-19-26 Fox8.com report entitled "Meteorite Chaser Says He Found 2 Pieces in Medina County: ‘No Rock on Earth Looks Like This’":

A park in the quiet Medina County community of Sharon Center is considered prime hunting ground in the search for fragments of the meteor that blazed across the sky on St. Patrick’s Day.

Roberto Vargas, 40, of Bristol, Connecticut is part of a small army of meteorite chasers who converged on Northeast Ohio after scientific evidence from doppler radar revealed pieces of the seven-ton fireball were scattered across an area of Medina County [...].

So far, Vargas said he has found two pieces of the meteorite in Medina County.

“No rock on Earth looks like this. The fusion crust is unique to meteorites, the surface features are unique to meteorites,” he said [...].

As he held a small fragment that he found in Sharon Center on Thursday, Vargas said, “this was on the other side of the moon three days ago and now it’s here. I am the first human being to touch this stone. This stone is 4.56 billion years old. It tells us about the creation of the planet, it tells us about the origins of the species, so it’s really fascinating stuff.”

To read the entire article, click HERE. 

2) From Jenni Adamms' Cleveland13News.com 3-22-26 report entitled "The Truth About the Meteors That Fell over Cleveland and Houston Last Week is Crazier Than You Think":

Residents across Northeast Ohio are still looking to the skies following a week that saw two massive fireballs streak across the American landscape, including a 7-ton behemoth that ended its 4.5 billion-year journey in the soil of Medina County. While the back-to-back events might feel like a coordinated cosmic arrival, astronomers suggest it is more of a statistical fluke coinciding with the arrival of what is known as Fireball Season.

The first and largest object, dubbed the Ohio Giant, screamed into the atmosphere on March 17. Weighing roughly 14,000 pounds, the stony achondrite hit the air at 45,000 mph. The resulting energy release was equivalent to 250 tons of TNT, a blast that rattled windows and nerves from Valley City to parts of Pennsylvania, New York and Kentucky. According to data from NASA's Geostationary Lightning Mappers, the heat signature from the friction-heated rock was unmistakable. This was not a man-made object or a missile. Most hypersonic missiles top out around Mach 5, while this rock was traveling at roughly Mach 58.

Just four days later, a second fireball appeared over the Houston suburbs. This one was smaller, weighing about 1 ton and traveling at a slower pace of 35,000 mph. While the timing has led to social media theories about government testing or atmospheric anomalies, the physics tells a different story. Scientists from NASA note that we are currently near the spring equinox. During this window, Earth's tilt aligns in a way that allows us to intercept more sporadic space debris at steeper, more visible angles. While Earth is hit by 44 tons of space material every single day, the rocks that arrive during Fireball Season are often brighter and more likely to survive the descent.

To read the entire article, click HERE. 

3) From a 3-24-26 WOLDCNews.com report entitled "Meteors, Fireballs and Sonic Booms Across The Country In 2026":

At least half a dozen bright meteors have stolen the night sky show this month. For many people, they look dramatic and scary. For scientists, March 2026 shows how often Earth plows through leftover solar system debris.

Meteorologist Sydney Welch highlighted “March Meteor Sightings” in a Facebook post. She noted at least six fireballs so far. They include events over Texas, the Northeast, the Mid‑Atlantic and the West Coast. The headliner streaked over Houston on March 21. A meteor about three feet wide and a ton in mass hit the atmosphere near 35,000 miles per hour. It released energy like 26 tons of TNT. NASA and local media reported a bright daytime fireball, a loud boom and shaking homes. Radar later showed a field of meteorites north of the city. One baseball‑sized fragment likely punched through a home’s roof. Even small space rocks can deliver serious force.

The Houston event was not alone. Days earlier, another meteoroid nearly six feet wide broke apart above Ohio. It weighed about seven tons, according to NASA estimates. The breakup produced a sonic boom heard across several states. Scientists think meteorites fell and hope to recover them. Smaller fireballs also appeared this month over Louisiana and southern Illinois. Security cameras and doorbell videos captured many of those flashes. Clips then spread quickly online.

Astronomers say these fireballs match a familiar pattern. They are not warning signs of a hidden doomsday asteroid. Researchers estimate that thousands of meteoroids hit Earth’s atmosphere each year. Most burn up completely as harmless streaks of light. Only a few hundred meteorites probably reach the ground in any year. Fewer than ten usually get found and studied. Groups like NASA’s fireball networks and the American Meteor Society collect videos, radar and eyewitness reports. They turn viral sky shows into data about small objects that share our cosmic neighborhood.

To read the entire article, click HERE. 

"LETHE PRESS IS 25" SALE!

To commemorate their twenty-fifth year in publishing, Lethe Press is now offering a sale price of $10 for my mind-bending collection, CRYPTOPOLIS & OTHER STORIES. To take advantage of this deep discount, order the book through the Lethe Press website by clicking HERE!

If you want to know more about CRYPTOPOLIS & OTHER STORIES, here's the back cover ballyhoo... 

Last week, did you tell your best friend why the King of Cryptopolis has gone insane and why he ordered his guards to behead him? Do you know the secret of the black magician Aleister Crowley—how he wrote of the moonchild, an ethereal spirit to be placed in a barren womb? Have you ever heard of Arson Hoover and the Worldwide Church of Appliantology? If you answered no to any of these, you're clearly misinformed about the newest collection of dark and fantastical stories by Robert Guffey. How would you even survive Casual Day at work? When the tattoos begin to pile up on your flesh like unlucky cars drawn to an accident on the freeway, don't come crying to me—I am just the back cover of a book, after all--but look for the answers inside me, inside Guffey's head, which I have chopped off and bound in paper.

FYI: One of the tales in CRYPTOPOLIS, "Initiation," was recently adapted by StarShipSofa! If you want to hear Doni Nicoll-Duir's evocative reading of "Initiation," click HERE!

And you can hear me talking about the secret origins of CRYPTOPOLIS & OTHER STORIES on several different podcasts and radio shows including Tarek Al-Ubaidi's CROPfm, Seriah Azkath's WHERE DID THE ROAD GO?, Solaris Blueraven's HYPERSPACE, Matthew Hopewell's THE AP STRANGE SHOW, and Chris Mathieu's FORBIDDEN KNOWLEDGE NEWS.

PRAISE FOR CRYPTOPOLIS & OTHER STORIES: 

"The stories in Cryptopolis feel like the bloody, star-filled lovechildren of Burroughs and Delany, with each tale ostensibly one part of a greater whole; abstract limbs and organs tethered together by strained flesh. Cryptopolis will take readers on a hallucinogenic journey through worlds fractured by time and place—slipping through liminal dimensions with seamless abandon to unveil unsettling illusions and heartbreaking realities—and totally worth the trip."

--Philip Fracassi, author of Boys in the Valley

 

"If you're tired of the same wines and you're curious about the vintage only just whispered about, have a deep draught of Robert Guffey's Cryptopolis. You don't have to descend with Fortunato to the deepest cellars to find this bottle of Amontillado. Here it is! If Poe collaborated with Robert Anton Wilson...if Borges had a lovechild with Lovecraft, which was subsequently adopted by Kafka...you might get Cryptopolis. I think too that Clark Ashton Smith would admire this collection. Written with the obsessive precision of a mysterious staircase descending into the abyss, Cryptopolis will take you to strange epiphanies..."  

 

--John Shirley, author of The Feverish Stars

 

"Once upon a time, weird and speculative fiction had an underground full of stories that were not written as calling cards or as film treatments or as extended internet memes. Guffey's tales resist genre gentrification; they move into your mind to turn it into a punk house squat!" 

--Nick Mamatas, author of Move Under Ground and The Second Shooter

 

 "In Cryptopolis & Other Stories, Guffey's free-ranging intellect meshes wonderfully with his command of the language."

 

--John Oakes, author of The Fast

 

"Guffey brings together 25 horror shorts that swing wildly between terrifying mindtrips and gritty realism. Throughout, Guffey’s blunt prose lends a sense of normalcy to the fantastic as his cast of losers from all walks of life face the cruelties of their existence—sexual violence, drugs, war, parenthood, and poverty [...]. Though not for the faint of heart, this bizarre and over-the-top collection is sure to thrill devotees of weird fiction."

--Publishers Weekly   

"Cryptopolis may end up being a gateway drug into Robert Guffey’s work. I don’t use that term spuriously. So many of Guffey’s stories in Cryptopolis have a hard-bitten edge and gritty feel to them that I could see him crafting a metatext about an author whose books are physically addictive. Across the collection’s twenty-five stories and vignettes, Guffey displays a range of interests and foci with such depth and heart that I wouldn’t be surprised if he became one of my favorite modern writers [...].

"Affect, the experience of emotional response, seems to be at issue in every one of Guffey’s offerings. From the opening eponymous story (which is the only outright Lovecraftian story in the collection), with its resonances of love as a torturous paralytic, to the last, 'Esthra, Shadows, Glass, Silence,' a parable of alternate lives and lost possibilities, the emotional response drawn from the reader appears to be the crux of every piece. These stories are engines designed to make the reader feel."

--Géza A. G. Reilly, Dead Reckonings

 "If you want a walk on the wild side, and I mean WILD, Robert Guffey’s fiction delivers that and more. It’s as if you’re lying in the grass in a park on a calm summer afternoon, you look up, and a creature you can’t even describe is looking at you. He starts talking in an even voice. But his words are chopping reality to pieces, and when he puts the pieces back together again, and you see the new picture, you feel a need to call the police. But then you realize you’re in a new place where the last people you want to talk to are the cops. What do you do now? You’re on your own. You better have strong resources. Very strong." 

 --Jon Rappoport, author of The Secret Behind Secret Societies

Teleporting Is No Fun

From Dharna Noor's 3-20-26 GUARDIAN article entitled "Top US Fema Official Claims to Have Teleported to a Waffle House Before":

Gregg Phillips, who in December was appointed to lead Fema’s office of response and recovery, has spoken on “multiple podcasts” about being teleported against his will, CNN reported on Friday.

On a January 2025 podcast appearance, Phillips claimed that his car was “lifted up” while he was driving and transported 40 miles (65km) away into a ditch near a church. And in another instance on the same episode, Phillips said he was teleported 50 miles away to a Waffle House in Rome, Georgia, CNN detailed in a deep dive into Phillips’ past public statements.

“I was with my boys one time, and I was telling them I was gonna go to Waffle House and get Waffle House. And I ended up at a Waffle House – this was in Georgia, and I end up at a Waffle House like 50 miles away from where I was,” Phillips said on the podcast Onward, co-hosted by rightwing activist Catherine Engelbrecht.

Phillips added: “And they said, ‘where are you?’ and I said, ‘a Waffle House.’ And: ‘a Waffle House where?’ And I said: ‘Waffle House in Rome, Georgia.’ And they said: “‘That’s not possible, you just left here a moment ago.’ But it was possible. It was real.”

But Phillips did warn about the dangers of teleportation.

“Teleporting is no fun,” he said “You know it’s happening, but you can’t do anything about it, and so you just go, you just go with the ride. And wow, what just an incredible adventure it all was.”

To read the entire article, click HERE. 

HOLLYWOOD HAUNTS THE WORLD Has Been Nominated For a Rondo Award!

The nominations for the 24th Annual Rondo Awards have now been announced! I'm honored to be included among the nominees in the BOOK OF THE YEAR (NON-FICTION) category for my 2025 book, HOLLYWOOD HAUNTS THE WORLD: AN INVESTIGATION INTO THE CINEMA OF OCCULTED TABOOS, alongside the likes of such fine writers as Chris Kelso, Tim Lucas, Gary D. Rhodes, David J. Schow, and Tom Weaver! Please consider voting for HOLLYWOOD HAUNTS THE WORLD...

 

YOU CAN VOTE FOR HOLLYWOOD HAUNTS THE WORLD IN 3 EASY STEPS:

1. Copy-and-paste the ballot below into an e-mail.
 
2. Choose HOLLYWOOD HAUNTS THE WORLD in the BOOK OF THE YEAR (NON-FICTION) category.
 
3. Then email to David Colton (taraco@aol.com) by midnight on May 1, 2026.

Don’t forget to include your name in the e-mail!

--START COPYING--

11) BOOK OF THE YEAR (non-fiction):
— HOLLYWOOD HAUNTS THE WORLD: An Investigation into the Cinema of Occulted Taboos, by Robert Guffey (Headpress, softcover, 368 pages, $29.95). From UFOs to JFK, how filmmakers have handled conspiracies and the supernatural.

--END COPYING--

PRAISE FOR HOLLYWOOD HAUNTS THE WORLD: 

"In HOLLYWOOD HAUNTS THE WORLD, Robert Guffey takes his readers for a trip behind the magic curtain to reveal the true Wizards at work - those behind the lenses, making magic and moving the secret levers. To this end, Guffey plays the role of Toto, tearing the curtain aside to reveal these flesh and bone Wizards of the military-industrial-entertainment complex, and the occult role they play in influencing our inner dreams and everyday realities."

--Adam Gorightly,  

author of SAUCERS, SPOOKS, AND KOOKS
and THE SHADOW OVER SANTA SUSANA: BLACK MAGIC, MIND CONTROL, AND THE MANSON FAMILY MYTHOS

"Hollywood has truly haunted the world. So too should this book, one of the best ever written on American cinema."

--Gary D. Rhodes,

author of THE PERILS OF MOVIEGOING IN AMERICA and TOD BROWNING'S DRACULA, 

from his Foreword

 

"A heady, occult-driven exploration of cinema!"

 

--Larry Wade Carrell,

director of GIRL NEXT, THE QUANTUM DEVIL, and THE DARKSIDE OF SOCIETY

 

 "This is a fascinating, mind-expanding trip into some seriously dark corners."

 

--CINEMA RETRO 

 

 "[An] enjoyable trip from a tour guide likely (and proudly) on at least one agency watchlist."

 

--FLICK ATTACK 

CONSPIRINORMAL 504: Adam Gorightly & Christopher Graybill

Recommended Listening: In the latest episode of the CONSPIRINORMAL podcast, Adam Sayne and Serfiel Stevenson interview Adam Gorightly and Christopher Graybill about their incredible new documentary, SAUCERS, SPOOKS AND KOOKS...

Conspirinormal 504: Adam Gorightly and Christopher Graybill:

As I stated in a previous CryptoPost, I highly recommend purchasing Gorightly and Graybill's documentary--and not just because I'm in it! Gorightly and Graybill do a tremendous job of making a complex, disjointed, nonlinear, decades-spanning tale of dubious aliens and international intrigue surprisingly lucid. You can order the film by clicking right HERE!

 

HAPPY 125th BIRTHDAY, MANLY P. HALL!

Since today marks what would have been Manly P. Hall's 125th birthday, I suggest celebrating the occasion by listening to Hall's 9-22-85 lecture entitled "Confucius and the Computer"...

 Manly P. Hall: Confucius and the Computer:

Orson Welles Would Like to Wish You a Happy St. Patrick's Day...

In honor of the Emerald Isle, I suggest watching this Academy Award-nominated short film shot in Dublin and starring none other than Orson Welles...

Hilton Edwards' RETURN TO GLENNASCAUL (1951):

 

Flick Attack Reviews HOLLYWOOD HAUNTS THE WORLD!

From FLICK ATTACK'S 3-8-26 review of HOLLYWOOD HAUNTS THE WORLD:

"[An] enjoyable trip from a tour guide likely (and proudly) on at least one agency watchlist."

 

To read Rod Lott's entire review, click HERE.

 

PRAISE FOR HOLLYWOOD HAUNTS THE WORLD: 

"In HOLLYWOOD HAUNTS THE WORLD, Robert Guffey takes his readers for a trip behind the magic curtain to reveal the true Wizards at work - those behind the lenses, making magic and moving the secret levers. To this end, Guffey plays the role of Toto, tearing the curtain aside to reveal these flesh and bone Wizards of the military-industrial-entertainment complex, and the occult role they play in influencing our inner dreams and everyday realities."

--Adam Gorightly,  

author of SAUCERS, SPOOKS, AND KOOKS
and THE SHADOW OVER SANTA SUSANA: BLACK MAGIC, MIND CONTROL, AND THE MANSON FAMILY MYTHOS

"Hollywood has truly haunted the world. So too should this book, one of the best ever written on American cinema."

--Gary D. Rhodes,

author of THE PERILS OF MOVIEGOING IN AMERICA and TOD BROWNING'S DRACULA, 

from his Foreword

 

"A heady, occult-driven exploration of cinema!"

--Larry Wade Carrell,

director of GIRL NEXT, THE QUANTUM DEVIL, and THE DARKSIDE OF SOCIETY

 

 "This is a fascinating, mind-expanding trip into some seriously dark corners."

--CINEMA RETRO 

The Real Deep State (A Play in Six Acts)

ACT ONE:

From Paul McLeary, Connor O'Brien, and Joe Gould's 1-7-26 POLITICO article entitled "Trump Calls for Record $1.5 Trillion Defense Budget, a 50 Percent Jump" [published 52 days before the U.S. attacks Iran]:

President Donald Trump on Wednesday declared he would ask Congress for a $1.5 trillion defense budget in 2027, a massive $500 billion increase from this year’s Pentagon budget.

The huge boost likely reflects how expensive some of Trump’s military ambitions are, from the Golden Dome air defense effort to his call for a new battleship design. Neither of those programs could be fully funded under current spending levels.

The president provided few details in his post on Truth Social, other than to say the money would pay for his “Dream Military.”

To read the entire article, click HERE. 

ACT TWO:  

From a 2-26-26 Finance.Senate.gov article entitled "Wyden Questions DEA Over Mystery Epstein Investigation" [published two days before the U.S. attacks Iran]:

Following a recent report that Jeffrey Epstein was among several individuals targeted in a years-long investigation spearheaded by the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) into drug trafficking and money laundering, Senate Finance Committee Ranking Member Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) sought details today from DEA Administrator Terrance Cole about the investigation’s findings, whether it resulted in any federal criminal charges, and the manner and timing of its conclusion.

Senator Wyden also requested a complete, unredacted copy of the document that revealed the existence of the investigation, a 69-page memorandum prepared in 2015 by the then-director of the Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Forces’ (OCDETF) Fusion Center. (The OCDETF, a specialized Department of Justice unit tasked with identifying and dismantling transnational organized crime and drug trafficking networks, was shut down by the Trump administration in 2025.) A heavily-redacted version of the memorandum was among the documents released following the passage of the Epstein Files Transparency Act.

“The fact that Epstein was under investigation by [OCDETF] suggests that there was ample evidence indicating that Epstein was engaged in heavy drug trafficking and prostitution as part of cross-border criminal conspiracy. This is incredibly disturbing and raises serious questions as to how this investigation by the DEA was handled,” Senator Wyden wrote. “Since Epstein and his 14 co-conspirators were never charged by the DOJ for drug trafficking or financial crimes, I am concerned that the DEA and DOJ during the first Trump Administration moved to terminate this investigation in order to protect pedophiles. I am also concerned that the excessive redactions of this memorandum for operation ‘Chain Reaction’ go well beyond the intent of the Epstein Files Transparency Act, which allows for redactions to protect the identity of victims, not members of a criminal sex trafficking organization.”

The complete text of Senator Wyden’s letter is available online here and below...

To read the entire article, click HERE. 

ACT THREE:

From Annabella Rosciglione's 2-17-26 DAILY BEAST article entitled "MAGA Podcaster Torches Trump for Broken Promise" [published 11 days before the U.S. attacks Iran]:

A prominent MAGA podcaster put the Trump administration on blast for its failure to “prosecute any pedophiles” after the DOJ’s release of the files related to disgraced sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

In a profanity-filled rant on X, Shawn Ryan, a former Navy SEAL turned podcaster with more than 5.8 million subscribers on his YouTube channel, torched the DOJ and Attorney General Pam Bondi.

He took particular aim at Bondi’s combative testimony before the House Judiciary Committee last week. Ryan said, “nobody gives a f---,” that the Dow stock market index was “up 50,000” under Trump, a point which Bondi attempted to make during her hearing.

“What you should be talking about is how you are going to investigate and prosecute any pedophiles that are running around on Epstein Island that you’re affiliated with,” he said in the video. “But we didn’t talk about that, did we? Oh, and what’s the excuse? What was the excuse? Oh – ‘if we prosecute everybody the whole system would go down.’”

“Well, you know what that sounds like? That sounds like how Trump ran his campaign: ‘Let’s drain the swamp.’ Doesn’t that sound a lot like draining the swamp? It actually is drain the swamps served up to you on a f---ing silver platter, but you’re not gonna take it, are you?” His rant continued.

He then asserted that Bondi is “gonna protect pedophiles!”

“You’re going to protect pedophiles rather than go after them and hope that everybody’s happy that the Dow hit 50,000. Are you f---ing out of your mind?” he said.

To read the entire article, click HERE. 

ACT FOUR:

From Aram Roston's 3-1-26 GUARDIAN article entitled "Trump Appears to Link Iran Attack to His 2020 Election Loss" [published 1 day after the U.S. attacks Iran]:

Donald Trump on Saturday appeared to link the massive attack he ordered against Iran to his persistent claims about his 2020 election loss to former president Joe Biden, in a social media post about allegations that Tehran’s government interfered in the US president elections.

“Iran tried to interfere in 2020, 2024 elections to stop Trump,” his Truth Social post said, “and now faces renewed war with United States”.

Those words, written in the first hours of the bombardment of Iran, repeated the headline of an article to which he linked from Just the News, a Trump-friendly news site. “Iranian intelligence sought to undermine Trump’s re-election bid in 2020 through a variety of election influence efforts,” the article said. It also said Iran worked against him in 2024, when he beat Kamala Harris at the polls.

This is the second military operation of the Trump administration where he has alluded to allegations concerning the 2020 election. He made similar comments on social media in January, days after Trump ordered the Delta Force “rendition” of Venezuela’s president Nicolás Maduro. Trump reposted links that repeated discredited conspiracy allegations that Venezuela interfered in the 2020 election by controlling voting machines.

To read the entire article, click HERE.

ACT FIVE:

From Ewan Palmer's 3-5-26 DAILY BEAST article entitled "Rattled Trump Amps Up MAGA Civil War With Late-Night Threat" [published 5 days after the U.S. attacks Iran]:

Donald Trump blasted high-profile MAGA figures who have attacked the president over his war on Iran by claiming that Tuesday’s elections prove their influence is waning.

In a late-night Truth Social post, the 79-year-old shared an article from the Just the News website attacking former supporters who have turned on the “America First” president for launching the Middle East conflict despite his 2024 campaign pledge not to start any new wars.

The article notes that even as a MAGA civil war erupts, almost all of Trump’s endorsed candidates in Tuesday’s primaries went on to win their respective races. The majority of these Trump-backed candidates were incumbents widely expected to win their primaries anyway, or ran unopposed [...].

Former Fox News host Tucker Carlson called the joint U.S.-Israel airstrikes “absolutely evil and disgusting.” He also suggested the war was “waged purely because Israel wanted it to be waged.”

MAGA podcaster Megyn Kelly spent the entirety of her Monday show speaking out against the war and the reasons behind it [...].

Trump had already lashed out at Carlson and Kelly for their criticism of the Iran war.

“I think that MAGA is Trump—MAGA’s not the other two,” Trump told reporter Rachel Bade earlier this week. “MAGA wants to see our country thrive and be safe. And MAGA loves what I’m doing—every aspect of it.”

To read the entire article, click HERE. 

ACT SIX: 

From my 3-6-26 EVERGREEN REVIEW article entitled "One Nation Under G: Celebrating 250 Years of the Revolutionary Spirit" [published 6 days after the U.S. attacks Iran]:

While the serpentine forces of authoritarianism and fanaticism rear their ugly heads in the United States of America more brazenly than ever before, it’s self-evident that the pro-democratic, anti-totalitarian spirit of our revolutionary past is needed as much now as it was in those bloody, tumultuous decades of the late eighteenth century. 

To read my entire article, click HERE. 

If you want to know exactly how we reached this nadir, consider reading my nonfiction book, OPERATION MINDFUCK: QANON & THE CULT OF DONALD TRUMP, which maps out the anatomy of a ten-year-long campaign of asymmetric warfare directed against the American people by Trump and the cabal of sadistic cabal of right-wing nutjobs who support him...

 

PRAISE FOR
OPERATION MINDFUCK: QANON & THE CULT OF DONALD TRUMP

 

"It's great."

--Marc Maron, WTF Podcast

"Voltaire suggested that those who can make us believe absurdities can make us commit atrocities, and QAnon provided the practical demonstration. Robert Guffey’s razor-sharp postings illuminate how a collage of Shaver mysteries, Discordian prankster politics and recreational conspiracy theory played out as dissociative American fugue. Jaw-dropping and essential."

—Alan Moore, author of V for Vendetta and Watchmen

"One of the most difficult aspects of confronting QAnon conspiracism is finding the time and resolve to delve into its ever-expanding network of self-reinforcing connections and concepts. Robert Guffey does that work for you in OPERATION MINDFUCK, a codex to madness and a critical examination of how a massive fraction of our culture has imbibed a counter-reality. Guffey also explores underground sources lost on many mainstream historians, bringing us into an (occasionally ingenious) netherworld of outsider thought forms. Guffey is the Ernest Shackleton of paranoia—and one hopes his journey will result in a happier ending."

—Mitch Horowitz, PEN Award-winning author of Occult America and Uncertain Places

"It's practically a guide to your character to discover whether you find this expose of possibly the stupidest political movement in human history funny, alarming, or infuriating.... Highly recommended."

—Richard Smoley, author of Supernatural: Writings on an Unknown History and How God Became God

"OPERATION MINDFUCK: QANON & THE CULT OF DONALD TRUMP by Robert Guffey tackles the conspiracy theories Q draws from, the history of the Q phenomenon, and the eventual attempts by mobs at least partially influenced by Q, and certainly influenced by Donald Trump, to overturn the 2020 Presidential election. The book is well-researched, with a full Bibliography of notes that reference and identify each quote from each source that Guffey cites. Guffey, additionally, has a long background studying conspiracy theories and their origins [...]. Guffey is not a lightweight."

—Steve Henn, author of And God Said Let There Be Evolution

"Whether QAnon is a religion, a cult, a joke, a political movement, or just an online game gone awry, Robert Guffey's OPERATION MINDFUCK: QANON & THE CULT OF DONALD TRUMP is his attempt to figure it all out. Guffey's pedigree in this area is unmatched [...]. Throughout OPERATION MINDFUCK, Guffey follows Theodore Sturgeon's advice he quoted in his book CHAMELEO: 'Always ask the next question.'"

—Roy Christopher, author of Dead Precedents: How Hip-Hop Defines the Future

 

 "[Guffey's] expertise shines through in every chapter of this book. Operation Mindfuck: QAnon and the Cult of Donald Trump is not only a well written and well researched look into the abyss of bullshit known as QAnon, but it is also very funny and quite sad at the same time—an interesting, entertaining, and sometimes frightening read."

 

--Razorcake 

"If you are still dazed from this [QAnon] business, then Robert Guffey has written a book just for you. In readable yet well researched fashion, he lays it all out: where it began, who, why, how. He can’t make it go away for you—or me, for that matter—but he can make the whole bizarre business a bit less confusing... [T]his book is what you need. Get your fire lit, your cup of coffee (or something far stronger), curl up (in fetal position, if necessary), and prepare to learn."

 

--Seattle Book Mama

Cinema Retro Reviews HOLLYWOOD HAUNTS THE WORLD!

From CINEMA RETRO'S 3-5-26 review of HOLLYWOOD HAUNTS THE WORLD:

"This is a fascinating, mind-expanding trip into some seriously dark corners, and one which particularly appeals to people like me who read Cinema Retro AND Fortean Times."

 

To read Adrian Smith's entire review, click HERE.

 

  

PRAISE FOR HOLLYWOOD HAUNTS THE WORLD: 

"In HOLLYWOOD HAUNTS THE WORLD, Robert Guffey takes his readers for a trip behind the magic curtain to reveal the true Wizards at work - those behind the lenses, making magic and moving the secret levers. To this end, Guffey plays the role of Toto, tearing the curtain aside to reveal these flesh and bone Wizards of the military-industrial-entertainment complex, and the occult role they play in influencing our inner dreams and everyday realities."

--Adam Gorightly,  

author of SAUCERS, SPOOKS, AND KOOKS
and THE SHADOW OVER SANTA SUSANA: BLACK MAGIC, MIND CONTROL, AND THE MANSON FAMILY MYTHOS

"Hollywood has truly haunted the world. So too should this book, one of the best ever written on American cinema."

--Gary D. Rhodes,

author of THE PERILS OF MOVIEGOING IN AMERICA and TOD BROWNING'S DRACULA, 

from his Foreword

 

"A heady, occult-driven exploration of cinema!"

--Larry Wade Carrell,

director of GIRL NEXT, THE QUANTUM DEVIL, and THE DARKSIDE OF SOCIETY

THE EVERGREEN REVIEW: "One Nation Under G"

THE EVERGREEN REVIEW just went live with my latest essay, "One Nation Under G: Celebrating 250 Years of the Revolutionary Spirit," which examines the Masonic roots of the American Experiment. I wrote this piece for the express purpose of commemorating the Semiquincentennial of the United States. If you want to read the article, then click HERE.

Note: Near the end of the article, I mention a Scottish Rite performance entitled THE LIVING CONSTITUTION that took place in Pasadena last October. If you want to see several photographs I took of that event, click HERE.

Recommended Reading: "John Shirley's Guide to Wrecking Your Career in Science Fiction"

John Shirley, who generously provided a laudatory blurb for my story collection, CRYPTOPOLIS & OTHER STORIES, published a fascinating essay on BoingBoing on the 25th of February. The piece is a captivating (and sometimes even harrowing) memoir entitled "John Shirley's Guide to Wrecking Your Career in Science Fiction." Here's a brief excerpt: 

Pointless Hostility brought me numerous enemies. Strangely enough, this comeuppance surprised me.

But then — when you come with the damage I have…and when you are then caught up in the reflowering of anarchism alongside the proto-punk culture of NYC punk rock; when you're thrashing in the scene that applauded when Lou Reed was shooting up meth on stage and handing the syringe to the audience; when your first wife gets you into mainlining cocaine; when you're working under the (sublime) influence of Baudelaire, the great surrealists, and Celine; when you're fresh from prostitution and having to carrying a knife when you went out to score dope…when you're trying hard to give up drugs and sometimes failing …When your favorite album is Iggy's Raw Power with songs like "Death Trip" and "Your Pretty Face has Gone to Hell"…

…You just don't get how to relate to mainstream folks. You have neither the sensibility nor the sensitivity.

You don't understand people from outside the demimonde. You feel like your only salvation is to swagger onto a stage and snarl into a mic (figuratively and literally) and somehow intimidate the world into submission.

It was really about defensive aggression. I was hurt and scared — so I was anger. Sometimes I kept it inside, but through my darkest stories, and Pointless Hostility, I let it out. I didn't yet grasp that people can be critiqued with discretion and respect.

Anger is an energy, sang John Lydon. My later novel, Transmaniacon, was a Fellini-influenced, wildly plotted tale of a proto-cyberpunk hero in a surreal future. He's equipped with a device, implanted over his heart, that can project his own angry energy so it infects people around him. He can use this "exciter" to waken their suppressed anger, using their sudden rage as a weapon. The key to the concept was my notion that everyone is always secretly angry. Not quite true, in real life, but having to work on suppressing my own rage, I assumed it was there in everyone. And after all — riots aren't so hard to start. Nor are wars, really. Look at the angry savagery of history...

To read Shirley's entire article, click HERE.

I also recommend checking out Shirley's most recent short story, "The Corporate Soul," which you can find in the Summer 2025 issue of THE MAGAZINE OF FANTASY & SCIENCE FICTION...