What is the nature of reality? How do we know what we know? These are questions that have challenged philosophers since the dawn of time.
Bob Ianson believes he has found the answers after watching a video on YouTube. "It looked very convincing," he said, pointing to a video by a conspiracy theory cult called G Onad, whose founder Geoff O'Nadder is the enigmatic "G".
Followers believe that the moon is a secret base for paedophiles to spy on the world. They also believe that the moon landings were fake, because "how could they land there with all the paedos?"
It is not surprising to learn that they are also anti-cough medicine, they believe the Earth is a cylinder, and that JFK was an alien. Bizarrely, G claims that the only way to rid the moon of perverts is to re-elect known sexual predator Trump as US president.
Ianson claims, "Trump faked Jeffrey Epstein's death to send him on an undercover mission to the moon to infiltrate the paedos' secret base. If Trump is re-elected, then he'll send the nuclear codes to Epstein, who will nuke the moon and save the world."
Psychologist Brian Reader tried to explain the phenomenon. "These people are struggling to understand a complex world. It makes more sense to them if they can simplify it into a single conspiracy theory, like some dumb TV show where everything gets resolved in the final episode."
The conspiracy has spread rapidly on the internet and politicians have begun trying to tap into its potential. Boris Johnson, this week, declared that not only would he be happy to break international law, but that, by doing so, he would also prevent the EU from breaking the law.
Reader said, "Boris has been spreading lies for years, from stories about bendy bananas to rumours of his own virility. But now he is taking it further than ever before.
"By undermining reality, politicians can attempt to impose their own version of the world, where they can say or do whatever they want. Trump does the same thing, and it's all nonsense. For people in the G Onad cult, everything on TheSpoof website looks like real news."
When he heard this, TheSpoof editor immediately became a keen follower. "We need to write more G Onad stories," he panted. "Where's my bubblewrap hat?"
