So I'm a nut for conspiracy theories and I consider myself some kind of an occultist, so I have a few opinions on this. A lot of this kind of stuff is driven by a radical New Age agenda, i.e if we all synchronize our consciousnesses we'll enter the age of aquarius and all become super-dimensional beings. The New Age movement is largely a rehashing of ancient religious understandings robbed of cultural context and appropriated for a modern western world. Now that isn't to say it's entirely made-up; it does mean however that many things purported as fact are at worst blatant lies and at best poorly researched.
Then the problem arises that people who have the time and resources to research these things properly are quick to dismiss them as pseudo-science. It's all very interesting but the people who research these things have heavy confirmation bias. Do ley lines, UFOs, and such exist? Possibly. There is definitely evidence that points to greater mysteries but that's all there is no evidence to support an answer to any of these questions.
Let's talk about UFOs. The first widely reported UFO sighting that caught the public's imagination was in 1947. Kenneth Arnold was a private pilot flying in Washington State when he spotted a string of lights flying very fast and very strangely. Arnold describes these UFOs as moving across the sky like saucers skipping through the water. This is where the term flying saucer comes from he describes them as crescents. Then why is it that after this so many people report seeing "saucer" shape crafts? My point being if the first widely reported UFO story popularizes saucers, despite their shape not being saucer shaped, why are subsequent reports saucers?
Also we have to recognize this period being one of the hottest periods of the Cold War and that the US government was working on top secret military technology that would seem strange. Area 51 was used for the development and testing of stealth aircraft the U-2, SR-71, and others. There's probably a whole lot more failed programs and others that remain top secret (Area-51 was officially non-extant until the 90's when workers there sued the government). There just isn't enough evidence to swing either way on the Alien UFO hypothesis. Though I do find the case of a Mr. Bob Lazar interesting.
Moving on a bit to the Annunaki/Nephilim theories which are just permutations of Erich von Daniken's "Ancient Astronaut" Theory. Now these theories are 100% bull
>-bleeped-<. All the evidence to support these theories are either made up or intentionally misread. They quote texts that are incomplete written in languages that can't be properly translated or whose translations are debated by paleolinguists. When they say that certain buildings were impossible for premodern humans to build they are overlooking all the scholarly research proving them wrong. Some of these megalithic sites were heavily documented during their construction (the Pyramids) or are not as perfect as they say. Also this theory project's modern culture's ideas of aliens and superdimesional intelligence onto the vastness of human history.
David Icke and a lot of his fellows like Alex Gray sit on a spectrum of charlatan to madman. This past year Icke claimed his ex-wife was a Reptilian, just because why else would she hate him? The problem with these guys is that they distract from the truth with sensationalism and mass marketing attempts. Like I said there is a whole of evidence to support questioning and mystery. We should be exploring those mysteries legitimately without liars, narcissists, and idiots get in the way.
Now my favorite of the topics mentioned: Crowley and Hubbard. This is 100% true. Jack Parsons, famous rocket scientist, was one of Crowley's top students. He ran his own Thelema (Crowley's religion) group and performed his own Scarlet Woman summoning (Crowley's Magnum Opus). Parsons was living in a mansion with his lover and some Thelemite friends; he was sitting pretty on a large trust fund. Hubbard, a master con man, befriended Parsons and was interested in Thelema. Parsons was convinced of Hubbard's convictions and got really close with him; he even wrote Crowley expressing his trust and friendship for Hubbard. Crowley responded with warnings that this Hubbard shouldn't be trusted. Hubbard eventually convinced Parsons to empty his trust fund and invest in Hubbard's business venture. Hubbard then stole Parsons money and his girlfriend and left.
In his time with Parsons Hubbard picked up plenty of occult tips, tricks, and stories that he eventually put together with his own science fiction writings to create Scientology his master scam. So Crowley isn't really connected to Scientology his ideas were just appropriated as Science Fiction. Wicca is much the same. Gerald Gardener was a student of Crowley who would also meet with a circle of people who professed to have connections to ancient Druidic pagan lineages (A highly disputable claim). Gardener combined Crowley's Thelema with the work of these "witch circles" and created what we now know as Wicca.
Sorry for the text dump
