Lizard People Can Kill

Or at least online trolls who manage to convince gullible YouTube viewers that lizard people exist can. Cults are famous for killing their followers - that's practically the definition of a cult versus a garden variety new religious movement. Think Jonestown or Heaven's Gate. But up until now the loose online group of conspiracy theorists dedicated to the wacky notion that the V miniseries from the 1980's was real history - meaning we're ruled by evil lizard people who masquerade as human - remained death-free. But recently all that has changed.

Barbara Rogers, 44, will spend 15 to 40 years in prison for murdering Steve Mineo – who she said asked her to kill him because he was ‘having online issues with the cult.’ Rogers said both she and Mineo were members of the ‘Sherry Shriner’ cult, which relied on YouTube to promote the idea that a race of reptile aliens – commonly called ‘lizard people’ or ‘reptile humanoids’ – are controlling humanity.

After the cult reportedly ousted the couple and branded Rogers a ‘witch,’ she said Mineo, then 32-years-old, was so distressed that he handed her a pistol and asked her to shoot him point-blank on July 15, 2017 at a home in Tobyhanna, Pennsylvania. In a frantic call to 911, Rogers could be heard telling a dispatcher: ‘My boyfriend had a gun. He told me to hold it here and press the trigger. Oh my God, he’s dead!’

I have never heard of this particular group of lizard-people enthusiasts, but people like them have been proliferating ever since British television presenter David Icke basically lost it and decided that it was his life's work to expose imaginary reptile people. Whoever the group is, it's true that Rogers' case is quite a bit different from the organized mass suicides that I mentioned above. Still, the idea that somebody could be so worked up that they wanted to be killed over something so stupid is troubling. Where does this nonsense end?