Getting to the Bottom of a Conspiracy Theory

The distinguished war hero, Captain Oley Washington, Jr., was overcome with emotion when retired FBI operative, Haywood Runyan, informed him that over ten years had passed since his dad, the brilliant military scientist, Oley Washington, Sr., took his life. It was a crushing blow to Oley who felt deep inside that his father was not capable of such a mind-boggling act. What he can recall was that his father was embroiled in the US government’s Blue Book project that had something to do with pellets as energy sources. Could it be part of a bigger and more sinister conspiracy?

Kegerreis’s I Wish I Had Those Gasoline Pellets

Carl Kegerreis’s stunningly realistic work of fiction could not have come at a more opportune time. With the price of regular gasoline in the US vaulting over five US dollars per gallon because of the Russian-initiated war in Ukraine, ordinary citizens who are feeling the pinch cannot help but speculate that there is more to this crazy spiral than meets the eye. 

People have always gravitated to conspiracy theories when events take a wild turn or turn out for the worst. Kegerreis ably fills the void and keeps the readers on edge with a plot centered on green-yellow jellybean pellets that transform water into gasoline. 

The Popularity of Conspiracy Theories

One of the wildest conspiracy theories and one that titillated people’s imaginations for years on end is that the US moon landing never happened. It was allegedly staged in some Hollywood film studio. It got so bad that a 72-year-old Edwin “Buzz” Aldrin, who, together with Apollo 11 mission commander Neil Armstrong, were the first astronauts to walk on the moon, had to punch a die-hard conspiracy theorist in the jaw.

Another conspiracy theory involved the cover-up of the crash of a flying saucer reportedly with alien bodies inside at Roswell, New Mexico in 1947. It turned out to be a top-secret military balloon, the reason why it was being kept in the dark.

Conspiracy theories, like the above, give life to works of fiction, like Kegerreis’s.