Flights of Fancy: The Denver International Airport Conspiracy Theory
By Melanie Chapman & Chinmay Walavalkar
The Denver International Airport (DIA) began construction in 1989 and eventually opened 16 months behind schedule and $2 billion over budget (Ayres 1995). Today, the DIA is the largest airport in the Western Hemisphere. The airport’s chaotic construction, sheer size, and eclectic design have made it the target of conspiracy theories that claim the airport is the HQ for planning the New World Order (NWO), a totalitarian government comprised solely of elites. In the case of the DIA, a conspiracy theory is a narrative centered on the idea that a malevolent group of people is conspiring to bring about some state of affairs to the detriment of the public (Konda 2019). With a lack of any actual theory, the conspiracies surrounding the DIA embody New Conspiracism, a term defined as “conspiracy without the theory” and validated by “not evidence, but repetition” (Muirhead 2019).
During the airport’s construction, there was intense local opposition due to the high cost of the airport and the potential effects of the airport’s growth on the environment, especially since Denver already had Stapleton International Airport (Cushman Jr. 1989). This opposition set the stage for decades of unrest, and this unrest increased the fear and panic that led to conspiracies surrounding the airport. This provided the foundation for a plethora of unrelated conspiracy theories centered around the DIA, and its function for the new “elite”.
Elements of the DIA Conspiracy
In 1993, Blue Mustang by Luis Jiménez was commissioned by the DIA. The sculpture, a 32-foot-tall blue horse with neon red eyes, killed its sculptor in 2006 due to a piece falling on Jiménez and crushing his femoral artery. The ominous appearance of Blue Mustang, coupled with its role in Jiménez’s death, has made it a beacon of evil, signaling to the world where the NWO HQ is (Johnson 2009). There are also large murals in the airport that, according to conspiracists, depict apocalyptic visions that the NWO hopes come to fruition. Other conspiratorial elements include runways resembling swastikas and Masonic symbols in the airport. The most significant part of the theory is the belief that there is a vast underground system of tunnels and bunkers underneath the DIA, where the “elite” plan to hide while the world gets destroyed, and where they plan to keep their prisoners (Root 2023). This apocalypticism is both religious, drawing heavily from Christian end-times imagery, and geopolitical. Founded just shortly after the fall of the USSR, it is fitting that the imaginary elites in these DIA conspiracies are not the Communists of a Cold War-era America, but “globalists”. This ambiguous understanding of who exactly is doing the conspiring is what makes the DIA conspiracies so confusing and contradictory, at times scapegoating Jewish people, the US government, the Illuminati, and various powerful commercial institutions (Konda 2019).
Proliferation Through Media
In 1996, Alex Christopher, a grandmother from Alabama, became intrigued by the oddities of Denver International Airport (DIA). She claimed to have explored DIA’s underground tunnels with fellow conspiracy theorists, which led her to develop theories about DIA’s connection to the New World Order. That same year, she wrote a book detailing her theories and promoted it on a California radio show (KSCO AM 1080). This radio show interview was the source for the original DIA conspiracy theory. After Christopher’s interview, the DIA conspiracy spread in a similar manner. Fringe literature, one-off radio interviews, and sporadic blog posts were the most attention this conspiracy was getting (Maher 2007).
By the early 2000s, the discourse surrounding the DIA had calmed down. In 2006, though, Luis Jiménez’s death reignited discussion of DIA conspiracy theories (Martin 2006). The role of the statue in his death gave it significance in these theories that shaped public perception of the airport, especially outside of Denver. From 2007 to 2013, discussion of the conspiracy theory (produced by believers and skeptics) proliferated through news sites, blogs/forums, radio shows, and TV shows. In August 2007, George Noory devoted all four hours of Coast to Coast, his nationally syndicated (and popular) talk-radio program, to discussing conspiracies at the DIA (Maher 2007). Several conspiracy blog posts are still accessible from this era (India Forums, Vigilant Citizen, Gizmodo, The Chive); the most significant blog to come out of this era is diaconspiracyfiles.com, an index of all news related to the DIA conspiracy from 2009 to 2013. In 2009, the DIA conspiracy received legitimate national attention for the first time. First, the truTV episode of Conspiracy Theory focused on the DIA (Roberts 2009). Second, The New York Times published an article focused on Blue Mustang and touching on the “conspiracies [that] have floated around the Internet for years about secret bunkers or caverns beneath the terminals at the Denver airport” (Johnson 2009).
In December 2013, the History Channel aired an episode of America Unearthed, a popular show that investigated artifacts believed to reveal an alternative American history, focused on the NWO. 10 minutes were dedicated to the DIA, bringing attention to the conspiracy to an all-time high. After this episode, there was a brief boom of mainstream media related to the DIA (Complex, ABC, Reddit).
In 2016 the DIA conspiracy was revived due to a viral BuzzFeed video, which was an incentive for other media creators to explore the conspiracy. Even local news channels explored it in news broadcasts and uploaded them to YouTube, but the virality of this conspiracy exists beyond YouTube. In June 2020, viral tweets and Facebook posts spread regarding the DIA murals, falsely attributing a painting made in February 2020 as part of the mural (Fichera 2020). Going viral incentivized the spreading of misinformation regarding the DIA, fueling a wave of new conspiracism-based posts about the DIA through various social media platforms. Since 2016, the amount of DIA conspiracy videos on YouTube has skyrocketed, and as of March 2024, videos are still frequently uploaded discussing the DIA conspiracy.
The DIA Response
In 2016, the DIA began embracing its conspiracy theories, using them as marketing tactics to garner attention (Montgomery 2016). Just like the conspirators since 2017, the DIA focused on going viral, turning every “evil” aspect of their airport into a gimmick. In 2018, renovation construction began, and the DIA leaned into its “conspiracies” again (Williams 2018). They placed cartoonishly “demonic” golems around the airport, claiming that they were just symbolically guarding luggage, and often put up “under construction” signs that jokingly referred to the secret bunkers underground. For many DIA patrons and those casually interested in the many conspiracies around it, this initiative put to rest any lingering mistrust they had. However, for the hardcore conspiracists, who had already bought fully into the NWO and were convinced of the airport’s guilt, the embrace of jokingly satanic and NWO imagery was just another way that the “globalists” were laughing at everyone else.
References
Ayres Jr., B. D. (1995, February 19). Mistake or Modern Marvel? Denver Airport Set to Open. The New York Times, 20.
Cushman Jr., J. H. (1989, February 9). Denver Airport Plan Runs Into Trouble. The New York Times, 16.
Fichera, A. (2020, June 30). Painting of Children in Masks Isn’t a 1994 Airport Mural. FactCheck.org. Retrieved March 26, 2024, from https://www.factcheck.org/2020/06/painting-of-children-in-masks-isnt-a-1994-airport-mural/
Johnson, D. (1994, May 3). Denver Delays Opening Of Airport Indefinitely. The New York Times, 16.
Johnson, K. (2009, March 1). Many Just Say Neigh to ‘Blue Mustang’ at Denver Airport. The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/02/arts/design/02hors.html
Konda, T. M. (2019). Conspiracies of Conspiracies: How Delusions Have Overrun America. University of Chicago Press.
Maher, J. J. (2007, August 30). DIA Conspiracies Take Off. Westword. https://www.westword.com/news/dia-conspiracies-take-off-5095058
Martin, C. (2006, June 14). Artist Jimenez killed by sculpture — The Denver Post. The Denver Post. https://www.denverpost.com/2006/06/14/artist-jimenez-killed-by-sculpture/
Montgomery, H. (2016, October 3). Embracing the Unbelievable: Denver International Airport Addresses Conspiracy Theories by Celebrating Them in October. DEN. Retrieved March 26, 2024, from https://www.flydenver.com/app/uploads/2023/09/16-078-Conspiracy-month.pdf
Muirhead, R., & Rosenblum, N. L. (2019). A Lot of People Are Saying: The New Conspiracism and the Assault on Democracy. Princeton University Press.
Roberts, M. (2009, December 18). Jesse Ventura blows the lid off DIA conspiracy theories! Maybe! Denver Westword. https://www.westword.com/news/jesse-ventura-blows-the-lid-off-dia-conspiracy-theories-maybe-5840271
Root, C. (2023, February 22). A Local’s Guide to DIA Conspiracy Theories. Denver Public Library History. Retrieved March 26, 2024, from https://history.denverlibrary.org/news/denver/locals-guide-dia-conspiracy-theories
Williams, D. (2018, September 7). Denver’s airport pokes fun at conspiracy theories. Walls are hiding construction, not lizard people. CNN. Retrieved March 26, 2024, from https://www.cnn.com/travel/article/denver-dia-airport-conspiracy-trnd/index.html
