Most of it's boring

Of Nazis and nutters

Heinrich Himmler sent an expedition to Tibet in 1938, to search for the origins of the Aryan race. This is the same mythical race that was a figment of Hitler's imagination.

Adherents to the myth of a Nordic superior race believed that people of the purest blood once lived in Atlantis, until it was destroyed and sunk by a divine thunderbolt. Atlantis was, to their belief, situated somewhere between England and Portugal in the Atlantic Ocean. With the best will in the world, that doesn't sound very Nordic to me! Hey ho.

Anyhow, the surviving pure bloods looked for more secure places, including the Himalayas.

Tibet in particular because it was famous for being "the roof of the world".

Vaibhav Purandare, When Nazis tried to trace Aryan race myth in Tibet, BBC News

I'm going to go out on a limb here, and suggest that the concept of Tibet being the roof of the world may not have been known to these mythical people at the time they made their imaginary journey. But that's not really the point.

The point is that high-ranking members of the Nazi leadership actually believed this bollocks. And sent an expedition to gather evidence.

Roll on 83 years. Now we have the likes of Dr Naomi Wolf, and other conspiracy theorising whackjobs, believing that vaccines against a pandemic are bioweapons that are worse than the pandemic itself. While the QAnon movement believes that a conspiracy of elite Satan-worshipping paedophiles exists at the highest levels of US government, business, and the media. (SMH)

All of which just goes to show that some people will believe anything, and that it predates the internet and social media.

Rien ça change.

Of Ernst Schäfer, one of the expedition members, Purandare writes:

Schafer [sic] was crazy about hunting and loved to gather trophies in his Berlin home. On one hunting expedition, while attempting to shoot a duck from a boat he and his wife were in, he slipped when taking aim and shot his wife in the head accidentally, killing her.

Vaibhav Purandare, When Nazis tried to trace Aryan race myth in Tibet, BBC News

Did anyone consider that this might've been a ruse to cover up her murder? Honest, Your Honour, I was aiming at a duck, and slipped! It could happen to anyone.

Incidentally, it's telling that QAnon started on 4chan, infamous for its edgy mischief. I wonder whether Q is pissing themself/themselves laughing, or concerned as to how far out of control it's become.