15 potential headquarters for the Illuminati: theories and conspiracies

May 26, 2014 1:52 PM

The Complex City Guide has a bit of information on 15 possible headquarters for the Illuminati, but it's a slideshow with limited information, and there's a lot of information out there, so let's get into it.

15. Disney World, Lake Buena Vista, Florida - for more on this, read The Disney Bloodline, which includes among other things, an extensive break-down about how Fantasia is used as "a standard programming tool." Really, the whole Disney empire is suspect, what with the underground tunnels with human programming rooms.

14. Salt Lake LDS Temple, Salt Lake City, Utah - there's a lot of symbolism that can be tied to the Illuminati, but this isn't so much a hidden truth as it is related to the life of Mormon founder Joseph Smith, Jr., as his older brother and possibly his father were Freemasons.

13. Statue of Liberty, New York City - the initial post is just tying the sculptor, Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi, to the Freemasons, but it goes deeper than that. See more: Brad Meltzer's Decoded - Statue of Liberty

12. Big Ben, London - it all comes down to 2012 Olympics "false flag" attacks focused on Big Ben, which seems like an odd reason to make the location an Illuminati HQ. Anyway, The City of London is the hub for international control of economics, one of three City State corporations, the others being Washington DC (military headquarters) and Vatican City (religion).

11. Eiffel Tower, Paris, France - Complex cites a blogpost that ties together a lot of random ideas but other sources tie it and Big Ben to the Old World Order. Then again, the Eiffel Tower is something of an obelisk, one of the major Illuminati symbols.

10. Illuminati Night Club, Chicago, Illinois - Of course, the easiest way to hide a huge, international secret organization is to hide in plain sight, and maybe have less than stellar reviews to keep your secret headquarters from getting too crowded with non-members.

9. Roc Nation Headquarters, New York City - Jay-Z might say he's not in a secret society, and that they don't really exist, and there's that line from Magna Carta Holy Grail, but what about the name Ivy Blue? And how can you deny these 10 clues that Jay-Z is involved with something bigger? So his Roc Nation HQ in NYC is a likely location for Illuminati organization.

8. The Pentagon, Washington, D.C. - One of a number of "satanic occult symbols" in Washington, D.C., one of the three City State Corporations. But it was the construction of the Pentagon that conferred the 33 degree status of Washington DC and therefore the United States.

7. The White House, Washington, D.C. - Central to Washington , D.C. , is the White House. The seat of power , the throne of the Mason King of the Novo Ordo Seclorum. The New Secular Order...crafted by masonic rebels turned new government leaders in the 1700s.

6. Area 51, outside of Las Vegas, Nevada - everyone talks about the aliens and their spaceships there, but what if UFOs and aliens are just Illuminati deceptions, and Elvis Presley was murdered by Freemasons, and shortly thereafter resurrected by the Illuminati in Area 51 to eventually become the shadow leader of the world’s largest conspiracy?

5. The Vatican, Vatican City - there are stories of secret Vatican catacombs, child sacrifices, and mind control as part of the Illuminati rituals. But the Vatican wasn't always a focal point for the Illuminati. In fact, there was a 200-Year battle between the Catholic Jesuit Order and the Illuminati, coming to a head with the coronation of Pope Paul VI in 1963.

4. The City of Sandusky, Ohio - the Illuminati seal can be seen in the street layout, and the town history includes an influx of German and Irish stonecutters including ... Freemasons. And some notes on UFO activity.

3. Independence Hall, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania - one of a number of Masonic sites in Philadelphia, and possibly (but probably not) the location foretold in the Combined Disasters Illuminati Card.*

2. Underneath Brooklyn, New York - The Secret World MMO claims that the Illuminati's corporate headquaters are a labyrinth in an undisclosed location beneath Brooklyn, but the Internet Illuminati Watchers don't have much else. Oh, Hitler and the Nazi Illuminati might have some ties to Brooklyn aboveground.

1. Denver International Airport (DIA), Denver, Colorado - There are a great number of (debunkable) theories about the facility design and symbols in the new mega-airport, built in 1995 to replace the old Stapleton International Airport. The mother lode of conspiracy sites dedicated to DIA is The DIA Conspiracy files, proclaiming to be "An index of the theories surrounding the world's most sinister airport."

Of course, these are just a few of the many examples of modern Illuminati architecture which might house the Illuminati headquarters.

* The Illuminati card game is seen by some as foretelling of the end times and the rise of the Illuminati, or at least forthcoming plans from the Illuminati, including the 9/11 attacks, and the CIA contacted Steve Jackson about a 9/11 document (that his employee hosted on a BBS).

posted by filthy light thief (73 comments total)

tldr: fnord
posted by chavenet at 1:57 PM on May 26, 2014 [27 favorites]

none of the above. the illuminati are headquartered at the omphalos, the navel of the world, where the telluric currents run closest to the surface. as a native angeleno, i always thought the omphalos was somewhere in the san fernando valley, but maybe that was just the anus.
posted by bruce at 1:57 PM on May 26, 2014 [5 favorites]

For all the crap people give Dan Brown, he's basically responsible for the most hilarious thing to happen in pop culture for the last little while, so that's good. Also, this is a great post. And I am apparently a sheeple.
posted by papayaninja at 1:59 PM on May 26, 2014 [4 favorites]

Dan brown was not remotely responsible for paranoia about the illuminati.
posted by empath at 2:01 PM on May 26, 2014 [13 favorites]

Assembling this much weapons-grade loony in one place may earn you a visit from a stern fellow named Korgos the Impaler unless you give him the password. It's written on the base of the plinth of the Denis Diderot statue I saw in Paris. Hie thee, for I cannot type it here.
posted by Emperor SnooKloze at 2:02 PM on May 26, 2014 [5 favorites]

Cabal Hotel, if you don't know where it is, you don't need to.
posted by mediocre at 2:06 PM on May 26, 2014 [2 favorites]

These people have obviously never been up the Eiffel Tower.
posted by TheWhiteSkull at 2:14 PM on May 26, 2014 [4 favorites]

the Illuminati seal can be seen in the street layout

That one I had to see. At first glance it was a little interesting - why is the freemason square and compass slapped in the streets like that?

And then I looked closer and realized that less than 50% of the highlighted logo actually has pavement beneath it.


For shame, sketchy conspiracy site. You're killing me.
posted by Nonsteroidal Anti-Inflammatory Drug at 2:16 PM on May 26, 2014 [2 favorites]

Also, whenever someone writes "Vatican City" in a discussion of the Vatican, in my head I always hear Spatula City!
posted by TheWhiteSkull at 2:17 PM on May 26, 2014 [5 favorites]

Disinformation, I tell you. The real illuminati are in Zurich, where they control the world's banking.

And where's the Trilateral Commission? Why isn't it on the list, somehow?
posted by Chocolate Pickle at 2:18 PM on May 26, 2014 [3 favorites]

But we're all agreed that the Erisian Liberation Front are directed from below Dealey Plaza, right?
posted by Nerd of the North at 2:20 PM on May 26, 2014 [4 favorites]

Isn't there a Masonic Knights of Malta also? I find this all the more confusing for 19th century America's love of semi-military outfits and decoration such as medals and badges. Does the illuminati get more obscure or less as young people obviously give away all of there social connections online?
posted by parmanparman at 2:20 PM on May 26, 2014

parmanparman: Isn't there a Masonic Knights of Malta also?

I think it's just a "degree" in the Freemasonry hierarchy, which is a jumbled mess of disagreements between the various divisions.
posted by filthy light thief at 2:23 PM on May 26, 2014

one more thing. the person who came closest to divining the location of the illuminati hq was samuel taylor coleridge, who as you may know was an opium fiend. he had an opium vision, sent to him by the shade of kublai khan, founder of the illuminati, and when he got off his nod, he sat down to write the famous poem as the directions to the site.

unfortunately, a neighbor knocked on his door to borrow a cup of sugar or some damn thing, and by the time he was done with that, about 2/3 of it had flitted off to wherever forgotten visions go. what remains is insufficient to locate the hq.
posted by bruce at 2:23 PM on May 26, 2014 [1 favorite]

come on, everyone knows the vatican has been a templar stronghold since 1492
posted by elizardbits at 2:26 PM on May 26, 2014

TheWhiteSkull: Also, whenever someone writes "Vatican City" in a discussion of the Vatican, in my head I always hear Spatula City!

If you need something darker for your ventures into the secret societies, Vatican Shadows might be more fitting.
posted by filthy light thief at 2:26 PM on May 26, 2014 [1 favorite]

Once you discount peasants, Jews and Catholics, who wasn't a Freemason back in ye olden tymes?
posted by Thorzdad at 2:29 PM on May 26, 2014 [1 favorite]

Guys, I'm *pretty* sure they're headquartered in a subterranean city below the Himalayas. Everything else is just disinformation.
posted by synecdoche at 2:30 PM on May 26, 2014

I don't know what you guys are so worried about. The Illuminati have been meeting in my basement for years. Mostly they just grill out and play Scrabble, but sometimes they challenge the Knights Templar to a dance-off and winner tanks the world economy. On the bonus: they bring doughnuts!
posted by thivaia at 2:34 PM on May 26, 2014 [7 favorites]

Also, whenever someone writes "Vatican City" in a discussion of the Vatican, in my head I always hear Spatula City!

And now I have a vision in my head of the same frantic camerawork from that "UHF" bit rushing down pegboard aisles loaded with vestments, pope hats, and incense for sale at low, low prices.
posted by AlonzoMosleyFBI at 2:38 PM on May 26, 2014 [2 favorites]

I wish I was in the Illuminati, seems like they have a pretty good time.
posted by turbid dahlia at 2:41 PM on May 26, 2014 [1 favorite]

And if you need more reason to believe the Illuminati game and its expansions foresaw the future, here's an article detailing a few individual cards. (Really, this shows you that you could "foretell the future" by sketching out a ton of ideas for terrible events, and a few of them will come true. Viola! You're the new Nostradamus!)
posted by filthy light thief at 2:43 PM on May 26, 2014 [1 favorite]

(Really, this shows you that you could "foretell the future" by sketching out a ton of ideas for terrible events, and a few of them will come true. Viola!

Look, they're not my favourite stringed instrument either, but they're not that bad.
posted by zamboni at 2:54 PM on May 26, 2014 [10 favorites]

So was Ingolstadt no longer good enough?!
posted by homodigitalis at 2:56 PM on May 26, 2014 [4 favorites]

the illuminati had also originally planned to reveal their secrets to umberto eco, but when he produced an initial manuscript, they were like "shit, nobody's gonna read all the way through this to learn the secrets."
posted by bruce at 2:56 PM on May 26, 2014 [6 favorites]

"White Magic occultist, David Icke"

Perfect!
posted by marienbad at 2:57 PM on May 26, 2014

Yo, just to clarify

The SECRET SERVICE (not the CIA) raided Steve Jackson Games about a 9-1-1 document, that is to say, a document concerning the emergency phone number 9-1-1, not a "9/11" document.
posted by edheil at 3:09 PM on May 26, 2014 [5 favorites]

My ancestor on the Van Horne side (the one who agitated for the confederacy in the lead up to the civil war) was a high ranking mason (er, is it Grand Master or something creepy-sounding like that?). Ironically, that wing of the family still currently loves to entertain all sorts of conspiracy theorizing about the masons and their secret role in history.
posted by saulgoodman at 3:09 PM on May 26, 2014

And where's the Trilateral Commission? Why isn't it on the list, somehow?

Unlike those low-rent illuminati, they just put it on the Contact Us page of their website:
1156 Fifteenth Street, NW, Washington, DC 20005
posted by 445supermag at 3:10 PM on May 26, 2014 [2 favorites]

Between Sandusky and Disney world it seems like the Illuminati love roller coasters.
posted by Harpocrates at 3:27 PM on May 26, 2014 [6 favorites]

I don't know where the HQ is now, but I think I know where it used to be. Back in the '70s, I drove taxi in the Boston suburbs. Just about every day, I'd pass a driveway off a main street, winding off out of sight through a manicured lawn. At the street end of the driveway, a small sign sprouted from the lawn. In gold-leaf letters, it said THE SUPREME COUNCIL. I never saw a car going in or out. Later, they must have moved the HQ, because they opened a "Museum of Our National Heritage" there, run by The Ancient and Accepted Order of Scottish Freemasons.
posted by Kirth Gerson at 3:30 PM on May 26, 2014 [2 favorites]

People shouldn't be searching for the Illuminati. Rather, we should be trying to attract them. In this day and age, everyone is thinking about downsizing/relocating to stretch their dollars farther. So why not instead put up ads on Cragslist offering spooky buildings at competitive rent in low-tax areas near nice suburban and metropolitan areas for talent to commute from?

Then, as their landlord, you either extort them for Ameros, or expose them to the masses a week before Bohemian Grove, totally spoiling the mood.
posted by mccarty.tim at 3:31 PM on May 26, 2014 [5 favorites]

calling my annual memorial day cookout "grilluminati" in honor of this post
posted by raihan_ at 3:39 PM on May 26, 2014 [11 favorites]

Well guys, probably my last post and few will see this but I nominate a sub-basement of the Scottish Rite Masonic Museum.
posted by sammyo at 3:39 PM on May 26, 2014 [1 favorite]

What if the Illuminati think the rest of the world is merely a conspiracy theory within their organization?
posted by clockzero at 3:56 PM on May 26, 2014 [3 favorites]

memorial day cookout. now i'm hungry for a bilderburger.
posted by bruce at 4:08 PM on May 26, 2014 [5 favorites]

The vanguard outposts of the illuminati are found throughout the U.S. here.
posted by JimInLoganSquare at 4:25 PM on May 26, 2014

Take it from a presiding Master of Lodge of Ancient Free and Accepted Masons: The Illuminati don't keep their headquarters in one place for too long at a time; they move it around. It was in a basement storage closet of our building a couple of weeks ago.
posted by usonian at 4:27 PM on May 26, 2014 [1 favorite]

These slides are pretty dumb. However, when I visited the museum in Temple Square in Salt Lake, the prevalence of Masonic imagery in the early church artifacts was striking. Later I read that Smith borrowed a lot of Masonic ritual and symbology for his church.

Temple Square is a pretty good show. Check it out next time you're stuck in SLC on a layover.
posted by chrchr at 4:33 PM on May 26, 2014

Eh, griphus, I reckon Dan Brown is responsible for a lot of the popular awareness of Illuminati conspiracies. Obviously the whole idea of Illuminati/New World Order/etc is a lot older, and even in hip-hop dates to well before Angels & Demons, but it's certainly become more of a thing in the last decade.

Google Trends can only go back to 2004, but the searches for illuminati and Dan Brown were pretty closely correlated up until about 2010, at which point Illuminati stuff entered the mainstream in a bigger way. I know, correlation =/= causation, but Dan Brown's books were really big, and the exposure they gave to theories like these is definitely not negligible.
posted by papayaninja at 4:35 PM on May 26, 2014 [1 favorite]

I wonder if the ARPA folks ever realized that what they were really building was really a paranoid fantasy amplifier and distribution mechanism.
posted by tommasz at 4:36 PM on May 26, 2014 [3 favorites]

tommasz, it's like the krell machine in "forbidden planet", except with lolcats AND id monsters.
posted by bruce at 4:42 PM on May 26, 2014 [2 favorites]

Surprising lack of favorites in this thread...
posted by unknowncommand at 4:47 PM on May 26, 2014 [2 favorites]

Three days late, dude.
posted by robocop is bleeding at 4:57 PM on May 26, 2014 [1 favorite]

Great misdirection but the true Illuminati address is:

1271 NE Hwy 99W #109
McMinnville, OR 97128
posted by humanfont at 5:08 PM on May 26, 2014 [4 favorites]

it's not so secret, it has nothing to do with "illumination" and it's in Wichita, Kansas.
posted by oneswellfoop at 5:13 PM on May 26, 2014 [1 favorite]

It's obviously located in The Bermuda Triangle, where they are using Orbital Mind Control Lasers to realign the Nephews of God with the C.F.L.A.I.O and launch a Junk Mail scheme to take over the Post Office so they can circulate fliers promoting Health Food Stores, thus increasing control over Joggers and Anti-Nuclear Activists, which is you and me, friend.
posted by Ice Cream Socialist at 5:13 PM on May 26, 2014 [2 favorites]

Eh, I sometimes bump into the Illuminati. Some mornings there are three or four of them hanging out at the local Dunkin Donuts eating french crullers. They're all older gentlemen dressed in button-up shirts and suspenders, and they always sit at a table with one additional unoccupied seat at the head. They mostly keep to themselves, but usually give a polite not to anyone who notices them, and I always return the favor because they're the freakin' Illuminati and I don't ever want to get on their bad side.
posted by RonButNotStupid at 5:43 PM on May 26, 2014 [3 favorites]

I have the SJ game sitting on a shelf, and its been waiting to be played since Christmas. I'm pretty sure the rule book will intimidate my gaming group to the point of disinterest. They couldn't even handle the BSG so...
posted by lownote at 6:07 PM on May 26, 2014

mason bees conduct
secret rituals at night
in my herb garden
posted by bruce at 6:13 PM on May 26, 2014 [7 favorites]

The real secret powers behind all world events want you to believe in the Illuminati so you won't expect them when they final reveal themselves. Nobody expects them. Money Python tried to warn us.
posted by Joey Michaels at 6:25 PM on May 26, 2014

I was laughing along with this post until I got to DIA.

Clearly something occult is going on with that place.
posted by shakespeherian at 6:36 PM on May 26, 2014 [5 favorites]

NB seriously what the fuck, DIA
posted by shakespeherian at 6:37 PM on May 26, 2014 [2 favorites]

Well guys, probably my last post and few will see this but I nominate a sub-basement of the Scottish Rite Masonic Museum.

Which museum is, in fact, the exact place I was talking about, that used to be THE SUPREME COUNCIL. I have been in the building,* and didn't find any sub-basements - but then, I wouldn't, would I?


* My daughter's piano school had a concert there. At the time, the feature exhibit was Muppets. All very sinister.
posted by Kirth Gerson at 6:40 PM on May 26, 2014

The headquarters of the Illuminati is on the astral plane. I mean, doi, the issue is the portals to the astral plane which tend to be either transient, or permeable, allowing The Others momentary ingress into the psyches of those bold enough to attempt to use them unless they have undergone the 16 rites of purification. Almost all of the great cities of the western world have a portal or potential portal somewhere within them but as said before, they are wont to shift and gibber and are not fit foundations for those who watch from beyond to truly Build. The Illuminati have been on a thousand year project to use architecture in order to stabilize and fix these portals. After all, what's more reasonable, that this, or this, or this was the result of a dedicated and intelligent professional who wanted to create spaces for people to live and work, or that they were all part of some evil experiment to use the channeled misery of human beings forced into unnatural patterns to stabilize portals to beyond?
posted by Grimgrin at 6:46 PM on May 26, 2014 [3 favorites]

And their wee-beady eyes?
posted by blue_beetle at 7:08 PM on May 26, 2014 [2 favorites]

the Illuminati's corporate headquaters are a labyrinth in an undisclosed location beneath Brooklyn,

Under the Brooklyn Masonic Temple, most likely.

Worth noting that said Masonic Temple is a short walk from Jay-Z's "stash spot" in "Empire State Of Mind".

Obviously.
posted by Sara C. at 7:12 PM on May 26, 2014 [2 favorites]

Needs more Rosicrucianism.
posted by Chrysostom at 8:13 PM on May 26, 2014 [1 favorite]

Who keeps Atlantis off the maps? Who keeps the Martians under wraps?
posted by Brocktoon at 9:01 PM on May 26, 2014 [2 favorites]

I thought everybody knew the secret meeting place was the Meditation Room at the UN Building in NYC. I had a conspiracy nut friend who insisted that the room is a Faraday Cage, bugproof and impermeable to radio signals since it is wrapped in copper mesh which he said he personally verified by peeling up a corner of the wall covering. He said they have meetings of the Illuminati, which of course everybody knows is the Société Belgique. During these meetings in the Meditation Room, they defile virgins on the stone altar which is made from pure lodestone.

I don't have the slightest interest in conspiracy theories, but his were so entertaining and convoluted, and he was so serious about it, that I could not help but listen to them.
posted by charlie don't surf at 9:22 PM on May 26, 2014 [3 favorites]

Nobody ever suspects the Belgians of running the world... yet NATO is headquartered there..... hmmmm
posted by MikeWarot at 9:34 PM on May 26, 2014 [4 favorites]

Between Sandusky and Disney world it seems like the Illuminati love roller coasters.

I would have thought they both love small children, instead.
posted by Pyrogenesis at 9:45 PM on May 26, 2014 [1 favorite]

brocktoon, atlantis IS on the maps. it's called "crete". it did not actually sink beneath the waves, the waves washed over it in a tsunami when santorini blew and wiped out the minoan civilization.

there was a second, much smaller civilization on crete at the time which knew that something bad was going to happen, they weren't sure what, but they made adequate preparations. their descendants survive today, they could be angry at me for posting this, but i have sufficient stature to fend them off.
posted by bruce at 10:00 PM on May 26, 2014

There was actually a pretty good comment on reddit about the illuminati a little while ago, with actual primary sources. He basically ran down everything we actually know about the history of the historical Illuminati (not much) in a few paragraphs.
posted by empath at 10:55 PM on May 26, 2014 [7 favorites]

The batshitinsanity that is the DIA is one of my favorite things. I know it's all explainable and not really the Cabal HQ, but it's hard to look at that horse and believe that everything is OK.
posted by Rock Steady at 6:37 AM on May 27, 2014

Ah, the Devil Horse. I have a strange connection to that statue.

I'm also a thirty-second degree Mason, if that makes it any weirder.
posted by malocchio at 6:49 AM on May 27, 2014 [2 favorites]

I'm amazed no one has actually guessed at the correct location. It seems so obvious, and yet, there it is. Hidden, in plain sight. You don't really think they'd go through all that trouble for some trains and cars, do you? LOL!
posted by Goofyy at 7:57 AM on May 27, 2014

lownote: I have the SJ game sitting on a shelf, and its been waiting to be played since Christmas. I'm pretty sure the rule book will intimidate my gaming group to the point of disinterest. They couldn't even handle the BSG so...

Yes, world domination is pretty complex.

I've also been waiting to play the game from this past Christmas when I got it as a present. I don't have enough dedicated gaming friends around here to slog through the rules.
posted by filthy light thief at 8:21 AM on May 27, 2014

(Waiting patiently for Jaden Smith to explain via tweet how all this ties in to Orgonite.)
posted by DirtyOldTown at 8:24 AM on May 27, 2014

Monsanto Shifts ALL Liability to Farmers . . .
Monsanto Shifts ALL Liability to Farmers . . .
Monsanto Shifts ALL Liability to Farmers . . .
Monsanto Shifts ALL Liability to Farmers . . .
Monsanto Shifts ALL Liability to Farmers . . .
Monsanto Shifts ALL Liability to Farmers . . .
Yankee Zulu Foxtrot . . .
posted by Herodios at 8:41 AM on May 27, 2014

You can't get away from this stuff. It's even on the label of your PBR. (They even admit it)
posted by RobotVoodooPower at 10:59 AM on May 27, 2014

Ill. Lou Malnati's
posted by crepesofwrath at 11:17 AM on May 27, 2014 [1 favorite]

NB seriously what the fuck, DIA
posted by shakespeherian

Well, if I were hired as a mural artist to do that job, it would be tempting to create something subversive in a dramatic fashion. Less like the Andre Obey stickers and more like "Guernica" with apocalyptic symbolism. Most people barely notice that sort of public art and are far too preoccupied with finding luggage or their gate, but some people will try to decipher it. I like to imagine it's inspired by some inside joke told in the texts of the Church of the Subgenius, but it's not quite their style...
posted by krinklyfig at 3:34 PM on May 27, 2014