Seattle and San Francisco have bronze horses shaped like driftwood, central Illinois has wire horses hanging from the ceiling, Tucson has winged horses, and Barcelona has burly horses. I have.
No one has a horse like Brucifer.
Standing 32 feet tall on the median outside Denver International Airport, this cobalt-hued demon-eyed, vein-striped horse has terrified travelers since it arrived 15 years ago. It has tricked and mobilized conspiracy theorists. However, I killed the creator first.
Artist Luis Jiménez designed the statue, formally known as the “Mustang,” referencing Mexican murals and southwestern energy, with glowing red eyes meant as a tribute to his father’s neon workshop. In 2006, while Jimenez was completing a 9,000-pound cast fiberglass sculpture, a piece detached and fatally severed an artery in his leg.
A giant killer stallion makes sense as an airport mascot. Misunderstood As depictions of the Covid-19 virus and rumors of a humanoid reptilian race living beneath the facility could surface in the popular sitcom Abbott Elementary. Actor Macaulay Culkin, who famously traveled through Manhattan during the holiday season, murmured “Denver Airport is the scariest place I’ve ever been in my life.”
In recent American history, massive delusions about electoral fraud and unsubstantiated rumors about the Covid-19 pandemic and environmental disaster have permeated the mainstream discourse and top levels of government officials. Technology continues to distort reality. Conspiracy theories about pernicious political and racist conspiracies have been invoked by the US Capitol mob and shooter.
Denver airport isn’t that scary. Not an attack on society-shaking truth, but an ongoing experimentation on whether institutional fabulism can simply be fun.
One official statement said,Senior Illuminati SpokespersonEmployee appears ridiculous video To explain the dubious inscription in the Great Hall: “AU AG” does not represent the Australian antigen associated with viral hepatitis and linked by conspiracy theorists to the genocidal plague, she said. , a nod to gold and silver, the metals at the heart of Colorado’s mining history.
Denver Airport tall tales tend not to be particularly dangerous or politically prominent, instead drawing from an obsessive fascination with extraterrestrials, the paranormal and “nonsense of all kinds.” said Joseph Usshinski, a professor of political science and conspiracy theory expert at the University of Miami.
“If I were to save people from conspiracy theories and misinformation, would alien beliefs and the Illuminati be at the top of my list? I would be more concerned about what is going on.
And as the airport case study shows, it tends to be difficult to change people’s minds.
“Often, our beliefs reflect our underlying ideologies and temperaments,” he said. “So you’re not fighting just beliefs about aliens or the Illuminati, you’re fighting the whole worldview.”
At Denver Airport, the persistence of the site’s mythology means any news, such as the airport’s top manager missing a major federal appointment this year or the airport’s temporary closure. 2,000 parking lots — You may fall prey to online claims of secret conspiracies and sinister motives.
Earlier this year, a TikTok claim made headlines that a “new” art installation in Concourse A legitimized the flat-Earth theory. The video, which attempts to assign a conspiratorial meaning to a tiled world map set beneath arched tracks and titanium poles, includes: piled up Over 1.5 million views. Airport officials say the piece is nearly 30 years old and show The past and future of transportation.
When Stacey Stegman, head of the airport’s communications effort, took over ten years ago, her colleagues were fed up with local lore. For Stegman, the airport’s reputation as international aviation’s Uncle Batty is part of its appeal, to travelers who haven’t given much thought to Denver, and to airlines looking to expand to new destinations. It was an opportunity to raise awareness for Denver.
In 2019, she supported plans to set up temporary housing. Animatronic gargoyle named Greg (short for Gregoryden) in one of the halls spouted sarcasm such as “Welcome to Illuminati Headquarters.” There was a deal with the airport in Roswell, New Mexico, which was supposed to be the site of many alien sightings.supernatural sister airport”. Ms. Stegman even wanted to decorate the airport’s sprawling grounds with Mystery Her Circle for her 20th birthday at the airport (it was too expensive in the end).
“We cuddled up pretty intensely for a few years,” she said. “And I’ve learned some lessons from it.”
one marketing campaignin connection with the promotion of renovations initiated in 2018, poster Stories of aliens joking about the facility’s “secrets” – suggesting that construction crews were building “gargoyle breeding grounds” or hiding Masonic gatherings. According to the airport, the publicity generated by the campaign was worth more than $8 million.
True believers hated it.
“Some people got very angry thinking, ‘Oh, they’re making fun of us. They’re hiding in plain sight and hiding evil,'” Stegman said. Told. “99% of people see this for what it is, but for the rest it’s like, ‘Look, this can’t hurt people, please know I’m kidding, this isn’t serious. is not. “
Two gargoyles remain in the baggage claim area to protect your luggage, including the quieter animatronic Greg. Stegman said the original “triggered” some people to see it as overtly demonic. Airport officials have also stopped downplaying conspiracy theories that have been found to have racist or otherwise offensive origins, such as the anti-Semitic-rooted “lizard people” narrative.
“You learn and grow. We slowed it down a bit,” Stegman said. “I’m going back to a little more traditional advertising now.”
According to Dylan Slus, co-founder of Atlas Obscura, a travel media company focused on unusual destinations, the airport straddles two traditions of American fibbing. In the last decade, airports have been plagued by possible online conspiracy theories that focused on urban planning concepts like physical locations and his 15-minute city without being translated into actual tourism. We rushed into the occupied space.
Then there’s the kind of kitschy folklore that inspired multiple groups in Washington State to offer Bigfoot hunting expeditions. One is a $245 day tour that includes a lesson in “Techniques Proven to Seduce Sasquatch.”
“There are wineries everywhere and beaches in many places, so it is difficult for tourism boards to compete in wineries and beaches,” Turas said. “People are drawn to mythological stories.”
In Denver, a park was built over thousands of corpses, and there’s a park nearby. Street polluted with radiumpsychedelic art installation It pretends to be a multidimensional gateway and a restaurant housed in a mortuary that reportedly once housed the remains of Buffalo Bill Cody.
A restaurant server says the runway is shaped like a swastika (airport officials vehemently deny it, explaining that the design allows for multiple simultaneous takeoffs and landings). Airline employees have reported glimpses of ghosts, and claim Native American music is played at night to soothe the spirits of the dead buried below (Stegman claims that there are no graves and , stated that the music is part of the art installation (sound system, always on). Uber drivers believe the soil left over from the construction of the airport was used to create man-made mountains and store food to prepare for a catastrophe. Said he hadn’t heard).
When Denver Airport opened in 1995, it was 16 months behind schedule and $2 billion over budget. Not only has this difficulty attracted legal complaints and government investigations, but the extra time and expense has led to ominous design changes, including underground conference facilities, survival bunkers, and over 100 miles of tunnels leading deep underground. Rumors circulated online and locally that it was spent on Even military bases near Colorado Springs and the North American Aerospace Defense Command.
The airport’s isolated location and disorienting size — its land holdings make it the world’s second-largest airport after Saudi Arabia’s King Fahd International Airport and larger than any actual U.S. city such as San Francisco — is suitable for online. A murmur that it will one day be used as a prison or concentration camp by the mysterious totalitarian world government known as the New World Order.
But the airport’s gigantic layout was actually a visionary effort to allow for future growth and efficiency, according to Stegman. If anything, the design should have been more ambitious — while it was intended to support 50 million travelers a year, last year he passed nearly 70 million and by 2030 It is expected to reach nearly 100 million people annually.
To combat this pressure, the airport recently launched a $1.3 billion project to upgrade and expand its Great Hall. This work has lost sight of some of its most unique and interesting points.
28ft pair included mural By Leo Tangma, it was intended to depict humanity existing at peace with its environment in post-war harmony. The artwork’s images of soldiers in gas masks wielding rifles and swords, destroyed buildings, and crying mothers embracing lifeless children were prophetic visions of the end of the world.
Unlike works in museums and galleries, airport art is often experienced as a surprise, says Sarah Magnatta, assistant professor of global contemporary art at the University of Denver. Murals and installations inside the terminal can increase the exposure of local artists and add dimension to otherwise utilitarian spaces, she said.
“I think that’s the best way to look at art, actually, when it happens to you,” Dr. Magnatta said. “It is an art that becomes part of everyday life, and whether we want it or not, we are forced to encounter it. I have.”
The removal of the Denver airport mural has sparked rumors on Telegram channels and Reddit forums that the construction is a cover to hide the truth. Stegman said the airport has always embraced the “conspiracy part” of its identity, but is trying to hide nothing.
What about the mysterious disappearance of the mural? It has been temporarily stored to avoid damage and will be returned to you.
