Latest news with #conspiracytheorists
Telegraph
28-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Telegraph
Macron mocks Brigitte ‘shove' on arrival in Indonesia
Emmanuel Macron mocked the 'shoving' incident with his wife Brigitte as he departed the presidential plane in Indonesia on Wednesday. The French president stuck one hand out for the cameras, performing a tongue-in-cheek wave, before appearing at the top of the stairs, laughing. Instead of a shove, after a few seconds of suspense, Mrs Macron appeared, all smiles. The couple then locked arms, Mr Macron gave a thumbs up, and they descended the stairs side-by-side to greet officials. The departure was deliberately staged to make light of Monday's apparent squabble, sources said. Mr and Mrs Macron sparked a global furore after footage showed the French first lady raising her hand and pushing her husband's face, moments before they exited their plane in Hanoi, Vietnam. The Elysée initially suggested it was fake, AI-generated footage, only to later admit the images were real but were in fact a sign of 'closeness' and horseplay after a 16-hour flight. Mr Macron later blamed 'crackpot' conspiracy theorists for seeking to intensify speculation around the state of his marriage. In a fresh bid to quell continued speculation that the couple had fallen out, they chose to play up their departure from the presidential plane in Jakarta on Wednesday. A member of Mr Macron's entourage told France Info that the sequence was a deliberate send-up. 'Yes, they wanted to respond with self-deprecation,' the source was cited as saying. It was 'a gesture that will be seen as humorous by some... and provocative by others', suggested the state radio station. The spoof came hours after Mr Macron's communications team was reportedly in disarray over the 'shove', with splits reportedly emerging on how to handle the incident. The panicked reaction, and about-turn, reflected simmering 'tensions within the Elysée's communications unit', according to France Info. One Macron ally told the channel that the Elysée 'ballsed up' by first talking about fake images. Another insisted that they had to act quickly, adding: 'When they don't, it turns into the conspiracy theory sphere. We're in a world where there's a need for clarity so as not to let crazy stuff flourish.' Mr Macron shrugged off the incident, saying: 'My wife and I were squabbling, or rather we were joking, and I was taken by surprise. Now it has become a kind of planetary catastrophe, and some are even coming up with theories.' But Jean-Claude Dassier, a Europe1 commentator, bemoaned a 'catastrophic' PR reaction over what for him was 'clearly a row', but not an affair of state. 'Why haven't we heard from Brigitte?' he asked. 'For once, it would have been useful to have her plain and simple explanation.' Meanwhile, Olga Ciesco, a body language expert, insisted the initial incident was a dispute of some kind. While not a 'slap', the shove was 'a gesture of rejection,' she told the celebrity magazine Gala. 'She puts her hand on his cheek and pushes him to the point where he is forced to turn his head,' she said. 'He was rejected, a kind of rebuff. 'We can also see that he is reaching out to his wife, because he is used to supporting her, out of gallantry. But she doesn't take his hand, she doesn't accept his help. She is clearly saying no.'
Asharq Al-Awsat
26-05-2025
- Politics
- Asharq Al-Awsat
Macron Says He and Wife Were Horsing Around When She Appears to Push the French Leader
French first lady Brigitte Macron appeared to push her husband away with both hands on his face just before they disembarked from their plane to start a tour of Southeast Asia this weekend. President Emmanuel Macron dismissed the gesture — caught on camera — as just horseplay, but it caused a stir back home. French media on Monday tried to decipher the interaction that cameras spotted through the just-opened door of the plane. The headline of a story on the website of the daily Le Parisien newspaper asked: 'Slap or 'squabble'? The images of Emmanuel and Brigitte Macron disembarking in Vietnam trigger a lot of comment.' Macron later told reporters that the couple — married since 2007 after meeting at the high school where he was a student and she was a teacher — were simply joking around, The AP news reported. 'We are horsing around and, really, joking with my wife,' he said, adding that the incident was being overblown: 'It becomes a sort of geo-planetary catastrophe.' His office earlier offered a similar explanation. 'It was a moment where the president and his wife were decompressing one last time before the start of the trip by horsing around. It's a moment of complicity. It was all that was needed to give ammunition to the conspiracy theorists," his office said. The video — taken as the Macrons arrived in Hanoi, Vietnam, on Sunday — showed a uniformed man pulling open the plane door and revealing the president standing inside, dressed in a suit and talking to someone who wasn't visible. Two arms — in red sleeves — reached out and pushed Macron away, with one hand covering his mouth and part of his nose while the other was on his jawbone. The French leader recoiled, turning his head away. Then, apparently realizing that he was on camera, he broke into a smile and gave a little wave. In subsequent images, Macron and his wife, wearing a red jacket, appeared at the top of the stairs. He offered an arm but she didn't take it. They walked down the carpeted stairs side by side. Brigitte Macron was Brigitte Auzière, a married mother of three children, when they met at his high school. A teacher, she supervised the drama club where Emmanuel Macron, a literature lover, was a member. He moved to Paris for his last year of high school, but promised to marry Brigitte. She later moved to the French capital to join him and divorced before they finally married.
Daily Mail
21-05-2025
- Science
- Daily Mail
Mystery as crop circles appear on farms in world-famous UFO hotspot
Mysterious crop circles have been discovered etched into fields in one of the world's most famous UFO hotspots. Wiltshire in the UK has become the epicenter of the phenomenon since the 1970s, and the bizarre designs were recently found just 13 miles away from Stonehenge. A perfectly crafted geometric design was spotted in a farmer's field in the Wiltshire village of Sutton Veny on May 15. The pattern included a central design resembling a Celtic knot or a four-pointed star within a circle. On May 19, another unique crop circles was found in a grass field 30 miles away in the nearby county of Dorset. That design featured several geometric shapes set inside two overlapping circles. Crop circles are large, unexplained formations that appear, typically in the middle of the night, in fields with tall grass or fresh crops like wheat or corn. While many suspect the massive designs are the work of artists or pranksters, UFO conspiracy theorists have maintained that crop circles are made by extraterrestrials who are leaving cryptic messages for humans. However, it's been proven that many are man-made, using tools like planks to push down and flatten crops as a mean to spark fears or artistic expression. But some people truly believe the crop circles are the work of aliens as they can range between 50 and 1,000 feet in length but apparently take only minutes to create in the dark of night. Although these strange patterns have been discovered in dozens of countries, including the US, Canada, Australia, and Japan, crop circles have been most commonly found in the UK. Moreover, roughly 80 percent of all UK crop circles have been reported in Wiltshire. Since 2005, there have been more than 380 crop circles recorded in this area alone. The formations are typically found in crop fields and their appearance often coincides with the growing season, when crops are mature enough to show visible patterns but haven't been harvested yet. In countries in Earth's Northern Hemisphere, like the US and UK, crop circles tend to appear between May and August when the crops are tall enough to be flattened into circular patterns. Images and footage of the recent crop circles have flooded the internet where people claim they are a form of 'communication.' UAP researcher Holly Wood posted on X: 'Who or what is trying to get our attention?' Another Ufologist shared: 'People say when you look at it from the top, the symbol makes them 'download' certain information to their subconscious mind.' While the crop circles have sparked theories of alien visitors, the owner of the field where the Celtic knot was found was reportedly 'very upset' that someone or something flattened his valuable crops. However, he's making the most of the setback by opening the field up to crop circle enthusiasts to come and view the new pattern for a small donation, according to Coast to Coast AM, hosted by UFO enthusiast George Noory. Monique Klinkenbergh, founder of the crop circle exhibition in Wiltshire's Pewsey Vale, admitted that there are definitely man-made crop circles on Earth, but others are much harder to explain without considering UFOs and aliens. 'If you listen to eye witness accounts, the unexplained circles have one thing in common - they were formed in minutes, or seconds, by an invisible source,' Klinkenbergh told the BBC in 2023. 'There is definitely a mystery going on, but it's very hard to label the source, whether it is extra-terrestrial, paranormal or just nature,' she added. For example, the 2001 'Milk Hill circle' in Wiltshire had over 400 circles spanning 787 feet and was said to be too complex for humans to quickly create in one night. UFO researchers have also claimed that crop circles display several unusual features, like crop stalks which have all been perfectly bent but not broken or cut by machinery. Witnesses have also claimed to have seen orbs of light and other strange beams appearing over fields moments before the crop circles formed. Despite these strange occurrences, several people have come forward since the 1990s to claim that they were the culprits behind crop circles around the world. In 1991, Doug Bower and Dave Chorley, two Englishmen from Southampton, confessed to creating over 200 crop circles in southern England during the late 1970s. They claimed that they used simple tools like planks, ropes, and a sighting device (a baseball cap with a wire loop) to flatten crops into circular patterns. In 2002, five aeronautics and astronautics graduate students from MIT were recruited by a television show to create crop circles, aiming to replicate the work of Bower and Chorley. The students successfully produced a formation that could be mistaken as an alien message.
