The Sandy Hook truthers- a movement whose adherents insist that the Newtown massacre was a hoax perpetrated by the government in order to bolster support for tighter gun restrictions- have been gaining momentum in recent weeks, thanks in part to several YouTube videos posted by the "truthers", as well as a Florida college professor who believes that the shootings could have been staged.
According to conspiracy theorists, the grieving parents and law enforcement officials were paid actors. In order to prove their claim, they point to a video made days after the shooting, which shows a little girl named Emilie Parker sitting on the lap of President Obama. The funny thing, they claim, is that Emilie Parker was one of the children killed in Newtown.
Family members explain that the girl seen with Obama was not Emilie, but her younger sister Madeline. Nonetheless, this explanation has only served to give more publicity to the "Sandy Hook truthers". Now, we're not going to blindly accept the fact that Sandy Hook went down exactly as the media claimed, nor are we going to jump on the conspiracy bandwagon. The truth about Sandy Hook will come out in the wash, as the saying goes. To accept everything told to you by the media is a foolish idea, but it is equally foolish to claim there's a massive conspiracy afoot just because of a picture of a little girl posing with President Obama, or simply because the parents of the slain children didn't appear "mournful" enough in front of television cameras.
With all of the publicity surrounding the Sandy Hook Truther movement, our initial reaction at JOTB was to stay out of the fray, because our mission isn't to jump on what's "trendy" in order to boost our page views. Our mission, as our regular readers are aware, is to uncover the truth, in all of its multi-colored hues. That being said, we believe that the rhetoric espoused by both sides of the alleged Sandy Hook conspiracy is biased and, in some cases, downright faulty. It is evident that many of the Sandy Hook "debunkers" have made their hypotheses based on visceral reaction, as opposed to irrefutable evidence. And that, of course, is understandable; the slaughtering of children should arouse a feeling of disgust (if it doesn't, there's something wrong with you).
Therefore, we at the Journal of the Bizarre have decided that we will investigate the claims made by not only the Sandy Hook Truthers, but the claims made by the debunkers as well.
We will explore each of the claims made by both sides in a multi-part series of articles over the coming days and weeks, and we will do so because we believe that there isn't anyone covering the story who is truly and wholly unbiased. Our core belief is, and always has been, that an investigator must not begin any investigation with any preconceived notions or opinions. To do otherwise will always taint the results. For example, those who decide to investigate UFOs are almost always "believers" in the first place, before they ever make the decision to become investigators. The same applies for so-called paranormal investigators, crytozoologists, and others of the same ilk. Likewise, skeptics and those who make it their mission to debunk such phenomena often come into the debate already carrying a grudge or an axe to grind. This results in both sides being equally culpable of flawed "research".
Why do we believe that we are qualified to effectively investigate Sandy Hook? Well, so far, our crack team of researchers have either put to rest or shed new light on several claims. Earlier this month, we debunked the research of renowned vampire skeptic Costas Efthimiou. When stories began to surface in books and websites about a race of horned giants which lived in Pennsylvania, we tracked down the source of the legend- to an extremely rare book of local history written in 1908. We were the first to expose the Baltic Sea UFO hoax, and we were the first to establish a link between the "Black Eyed Children" to recreational drug use. And when Extreme Expeditions LTD caught a creature that might be Bigfoot on a camera in Washington, we analyzed the footage and were able to correctly deduce the make and model of the trailcam used, as well as the time of day and outside temperature- even though the group's trailcam had malfunctioned during the event and the timestamp was incorrect. To sum it up, research is what we do best.
In other words, consider JOTB as your Sandy Hook conspiracy headquarters. We hope that you'll check back regularly and join us in our quest for the truth.