David Icke

Author of the —highly controversial— theory of interdimensional reptilians controlling the world.

David Vaughan Icke ( vawn EYEK; born 29 April 1952) is an English conspiracy theorist, author and a former semi-professional footballer, sports journalist and sports broadcaster. He has written over 20 books, self-published since the mid-1990s, and spoken in more than 25 countries. An aspiring professional football goalkeeper in his early years, he retired aged 21 from playing due to rheumatoid arthritis. He subsequently became a sports journalist. In 1981, he became a sports broadcaster for the BBC, but his contract was terminated in 1990 over his vocal opposition to the Community Charge. In an effort to relieve his arthritis, he began to engage with alternative medicine and New Age philosophies in the 1980s, and this encouraged his interest in Green politics. He joined the Green Party and became a national spokesperson within six months, but left the party soon after. In 1990, Icke started visiting Betty Shine, a psychic who told him he was on Earth for a purpose and would receive messages from the spirit world. This led him to claim in 1991 to be a "Son of the Godhead" and that the world would soon be devastated by tidal waves and earthquakes. He repeated this on the BBC show Wogan. His appearance led to public ridicule. Icke wrote various books over the next 11 years which developed his world view of a New Age conspiracy.