caption birth_place party birth_date known_for residence image article_title birth_name occupation
icke in 2008 leicester , leicestershire , england green 1991 -rrb- green party -lrb- 1988 -- 1990 -rrb- party of england and wales -lrb- 1990 -- 29 april 1952 football , television sports , conspiracy theories ryde , isle of wight david icke by stef -lrb- cropped -rrb- . jpg david icke
 david vaughan icke writer and speaker
david icke

david vaughan icke -lrb- ; , born 29 april 1952 -rrb- is an english writer , public speaker and a former professional footballer and sports broadcaster .
he promotes conspiracy theories about global politics and has written extensively about them .
icke was a bbc television sports presenter and spokesman for the green party , when in 1990 a psychic told him that he was a healer who had been placed on earth for a purpose , and that the spirit world was going to pass messages to him .
in march 1991 he held a press conference to announce that he was a `` son of the godhead '' -- a phrase he said later the media had misunderstood .
he said that a subsequent appearance on bbc 's `` wogan '' changed his life , turning him from a respected household name into a public laughing stock .
he nevertheless continued to develop his ideas , and in four books published over seven years -- `` the robots ' rebellion '' -lrb- 1994 -rrb- , `` and the truth shall set you free '' -lrb- 1995 -rrb- , `` the biggest secret '' -lrb- 1999 -rrb- , and `` children of the matrix '' -lrb- 2001 -rrb- -- he set out a worldview that combined new-age spiritualism with a denunciation of totalitarian trends in the modern world .
at the heart of his theories lies the idea that a secret group of reptilian humanoids called the babylonian brotherhood -lrb- including george w. bush , queen elizabeth ii , kris kristofferson and boxcar willie -rrb- controls humanity , and that many prominent figures are reptilian .
he further proposes that the moon is an artificial construct -- `` probably a hollowed-out planetoid '' -- from which the reptilians broadcast an `` artificial sense of self and the world '' that humans mistakenly perceive as reality .
michael barkun has described icke 's position as `` new age conspiracism , '' writing that he is the most fluent of the conspiracist genre .
richard kahn and tyson lewis argue that the reptilian hypothesis may simply be swiftian satire , a way of giving ordinary people a narrative with which to question what they see around them .
