Claim: DC officials are "flocking" to "Doomsday Camps"

[MikeG]

A few weeks ago, a story about “Doomsday Camps” made the internet rounds. It turns out to be based on a combination of the usual conspiracy yarn, combined with some inferences, and a good deal of clever marketing.

I originally ran across the reference to “Doomsday Camps” on Dane Wigington’s March 31st Global Alert News [bold face added]:

Does humanity's propensity toward denial have any limits? Western power structures are continuing to provoke other world powers in what appears to be an increasingly desperate attempt to trigger global conflict. Diminishing global resources are the bottom line in the equation. DC officials are "flocking" to "Doomsday Camps", what do they know that they are not disclosing to the public?

Content from External Source

http://www.geoengineeringwatch.org/?s=doomsday+camp

Wigington likely picked up this story from a number of websites that have been reposting a March 18thWashington Examinerstory by Paul Bedard.

A building network of backwoods doomsday camps around the country are pulling in members from affluent areas and even Washington national security officials as the threats grow from nuclear war, an EMP or virus attack.

Called Fortitude Ranch, the outposts promise protection and a year’s supply of food for those unable to build their own bunker. What’s more, until a crisis strikes, they are being used for prepper training and vacations.

Content from External Source

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/...icial-washington-flocking-to-doomsday-camps-1


The Fortitude Ranch website is easy to find and essentially a prepper marketing platform.

Welcome to Fortitude Ranch

Fortitude Ranch is a survival community equipped to survive any type of disaster and long-term loss of law and order, managed by full time staff. Fortitude Ranch is affordable (about $1,000/person annually) because of large numbers of members and economies of scale. Fortitude Ranch is especially attractive to join because it doubles as a recreation and vacation facility as well as a survival retreat. Members can vacation, hunt, fish and recreate at our forest and mountain locations in good times, and shelter at Fortitude Ranch to survive a collapse.

Content from External Source

https://www.fortituderanch.com

It offers a detailed map of mostly proposed locations.


The website introduces official U.S. government shelters under the menu “Survival Community.”

Mount Weather" in West Virginia is a huge FEMA-run survival site for top U.S. civilian and military officials

Survival Condo provides luxury survival facilities in former ICBM silos—with libraries, meeting rooms, swimming pool, rock climbing wall, theater and many other amenities to wait out the collapse in comfort. These $1.5 – $3 million Survival Condos are sold out now, but a new location is under construction.

Content from External Source

https://www.fortituderanch.com/survival-community/

Dropping in the reference to Mount Weather site interesting.

The Mount Weather Emergency Operations Center is a civilian command facility in the U.S. Commonwealth of Virginia, used as the center of operations for the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). Also known as the High Point Special Facility (HPSF), its preferred designation since 1991 is "SF".

Content from External Source

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mount_Weather_Emergency_Operations_Center

It does exist, but has nothing to do with the extensive network of imaginary “doomsday camps.”

The entrepreneurs running Fortitude Ranch are conflating their product with the federal government, a marketing ploy that evolves into an implied conspiracy as it travels from the Washington Examiner to Dane Wigington.

 

[Mick West]

A few weeks ago, a story about “Doomsday Camps” made the internet rounds. It turns out to be based on a combination of the usual conspiracy yarn, combined with some inferences, and a good deal of clever marketing.

I originally ran across the reference to “Doomsday Camps” on Dane Wigington’s March 31st Global Alert News [bold face added]:

Does he offer any evidence at all for the DC Officials thing?? What does he say in the video?

Wigington is enmeshed in prepper culture, which has a long history in the US. I think he's totally oblivious to the fact that he's one of the people partly driving the current slight uptick in interest. However it's been around (and growing) in similar form since the 1950s, and has always been touched with conspiracism and apocalyptical thinking.

 

[deirdre]

Doesn't sound like conspiracy stuff to me.

“We’re seeing members from all the three letter agencies,” said Fortitude creator Drew Miller, a retired Air Force colonel and intelligence officer, in a reference to the Central Intelligence Agency, Defense Intelligence Agency and Federal Bureau of Investigation.

He called an attack or even a weather-related electromagnetic pulse shutdown of the electric grid “inevitable,” and a driving force in his project. https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/...icial-washington-flocking-to-doomsday-camps-1

Content from External Source

In a Fox News interview he says

1:10 "a place you can go to survive a pandemic, or a long term electrical outage or some other disaster that leads to a collapse of economic activity and loss of law and order.

[..]

1:25 "governemnt is not prepared to handle a pandemic,...
2:23 "the North Korean threat is bad for example, CIA director James Wolsey warned last year that just one nuclear weapon thats optimized for electromagnetic pulse exploding over the U.S could take down our electric system, not for weeks or months but for over a year"

3:03 [admiral Wolsey estimated ] "up to 90% of the US population could potentially perish in a disaster like that [the electric grid]"


Source: http://video.foxnews.com/v/5756669319001/?#sp=show-clips

Content from External Source

edit add: oh and in non threat times, for $1000 a year membership you can just go enjoy the naturescape, "fishing, hiking, hunting", camping.. they have a gun range. “We are also a great, low cost vacation and recreational site for our members since we locate in remote, beautiful forest, mountain areas.”

 

[MikeG]

Doesn't sound like conspiracy stuff to me.

“We’re seeing members from all the three letter agencies,” said Fortitude creator Drew Miller, a retired Air Force colonel and intelligence officer, in a reference to the Central Intelligence Agency, Defense Intelligence Agency and Federal Bureau of Investigation.

He called an attack or even a weather-related electromagnetic pulse shutdown of the electric grid “inevitable,” and a driving force in his project. https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/...icial-washington-flocking-to-doomsday-camps-1

Content from External Source

In a Fox News interview he says

1:10 "a place you can go to survive a pandemic, or a long term electrical outage or some other disaster that leads to a collapse of economic activity and loss of law and order.

[..]

1:25 "governemnt is not prepared to handle a pandemic,...
2:23 "the North Korean threat is bad for example, CIA director James Wolsey warned last year that just one nuclear weapon thats optimized for electromagnetic pulse exploding over the U.S could take down our electric system, not for weeks or months but for over a year"

3:03 [admiral Wolsey estimated ] "up to 90% of the US population could potentially perish in a disaster like that [the electric grid]"


Source: http://video.foxnews.com/v/5756669319001/?#sp=show-clips

Content from External Source

edit add: oh and in non threat times, for $1000 a year membership you can just go enjoy the naturescape, "fishing, hiking, hunting", camping.. they have a gun range. “We are also a great, low cost vacation and recreational site for our members since we locate in remote, beautiful forest, mountain areas.”

As far as Drew Miller is concerned, I agree. He is marketing a product. For Dane Wigington, the Washington Examiner headline alone fits his confirmation bias about the global power structure.

 

[MikeG]

Does he offer any evidence at all for the DC Officials thing?? What does he say in the video?

Wigington is enmeshed in prepper culture, which has a long history in the US. I think he's totally oblivious to the fact that he's one of the people partly driving the current slight uptick in interest. However it's been around (and growing) in similar form since the 1950s, and has always been touched with conspiracism and apocalyptical thinking.

For the sake of due diligence, I listened to the entire broadcast. Wigington finally gets to doomsday bunkers at 49:47:

Now, what are DC officials doing? Listen to this: “DC officials flock to doomsday camps.” Multiple sources cover this. I encourage people to look it up because this is what the criminals in our so-called government are preparing for. They know exactly where they are pushing us. And they are preparing. From this report, “Washington, DC government officials are flocking to doomsday camps around the country,” which, of course, begs the question: “What do they know that we don’t know?” We should know. There’s enough information out there to know. But we have a population that unfortunately still doesn’t want to know. Another headline: “Officials flocking to doomsday camps.” Similar headline. Different source. This is from the WashingtonExaminer.com. From their report: “A building network of backwoods doomsday camps around the country are pulling in members of affluent areas and even Washington national security officials and elected officials as the threats grow from nuclear war and EMP or virus attack.” And here is the bottom line: biosphere collapse can’t be hidden much longer and those in power know it as the population is forced to wake up and face the fate that’s, again, closing in on us all. Panic will ensue. Power structure knows that. They’re preparing and what cards will they play as the public begins to awaken?

Content from External Source

http://www.geoengineeringwatch.org/?s=doomsday+camp

My impression is that Wigington routinely only skims news that conforms with his worldview, adds some scientific terminology, and the usual word goulash about the ill-informed public and encroaching disaster. He doesn't cite any other sources besides the Washington Examiner.

The whole broadcast reminded me of his normal Gish gallop.