I like a good conspiracy theory as much as the next guy.

Probably a lot more, in fact.

I’m convinced, for example, that extraterrestrials are among us in the media and government, reporting back to their secret base, Area 51 in New Mexico, where alien bodies have long been stored in suspended animation. Other extraterrestrials, I believe, are meantime galavanting about in electromagnetically propelled craft, abducting innocent people every week and implanting them with genetically engineered exobiological microdevices designed for surveillance and mind control. Except, of course, for those phony UFO sightings that are just an elaborate ruse to cover up decades of CIA brainwashing experiments. I suspect for that matter that disgruntled workers and murderous AK-47 wielders are only acting that way because the government’s secret brain-manipulation microwave rays are forcing them to. They never seem to remember much afterward, do they? And I believe, of course, that various Kennedys, Martin Luther King Jr., John Lennon, Elvis, Johnny Thunders, Sonny Bono, etc., simply knew too much. Their deaths can be linked to a vast worldwide conspiracy controlled by the super-elite Trilateral Commission, which answers back to . . . . the aliens . . .who are, quite obviously, threatening our American way of life by planning a planetary takeover utilizing their armada of black United Nations helicopters.

It’s a burden to constantly shoulder The Truth, and sometimes God knows I’d like to just drop the ball. But I have irrefutable evidence and can’t go back. A few years ago, I was traveling through New Mexico when I met a straight-backed, no-nonsense Air Force officer at a bus station, not that far from Area 51. And I couldn’t help sussing him out on the alien HQ theory. I offered a smattering of small talk, to which he was not the least bit responsive, and then eased into broaching the subject at hand.

"You know," I said, with a curious I’m-of-course-above-such-silliness-myself grin on my face, "I once read this thing about Jackie Gleason -- you know, Ralph Kramden, the ‘Honeymooners’ guy -- and how he had gone out with Richard Nixon one night in New York. And well, Dick, he sort of got tanked up on a few too many martinis and started to spill his guts about the whole Area 51 thing."

The guy’s previously expressionless visage suddenly revealed a subtle look of alarm, barely detectable but undeniable.

"Really,’’ he said, "and what did he say?"

"Well according to the article," I replied, "Jackie told his wife that ole Dick said that he once visited Area 51 and actually saw the alien bodies."

"Where did you read this?’’ he asked, his concern growing more apparent.

"The New York Post,’’ I said. "Page Six. Mrs. Gleason, who’s now a widow, called them up and just had to get it off her chest.’’

"Hmmmmphhhh!’’ he snorted. "So much for security."

There you have it. "So much for security.’’ I tried to get more out of him, but he promptly snapped into shut-down mode. But then, nothing more needed to be said. In the words "so much for security’’ lie a universe of confirmation. "It’s all true," I said to myself, "a universe of lies, shadow truths, smokescreens and obfuscations, revealed in a momentary flicker, as one human cog in the monolithic cover-up mechanism let down his guard for a nanosecond."

I endured the next years in mute fear. What if the Air Force guy knew that I knew that he had revealed too much? I’d surely be marked for death. John Lennon saw UFO’s flying in formation along the East River before disappearing into the U.N., didn’t he? That was enough to get him rubbed out by a microwave brain-ray entranced CIA pawn, wasn’t it? It seemed only a matter of time before I’d be added to the list and hunted down by the aliens and their government lackeys.

I swore off my silent career as an autodidact of conspiracy and kept a low profile. Which is when the Chemtrails guy showed up. I work for a major metropolitan publication. And on any given day demonstrators vent their spleen on the sidewalk out front. Enraged Haitians, inflamed Serbs, self-righteous anti-abortion campaigners, emotionally crushed actors betrayed by thoughtless critics, they all stake their turf and state their case -- as loudly as possible. But the Chemtrails guy was different. He stood quietly off to the side every weekend, attempting to hand out leaflets to anyone entering the building, all of whom ignored him totally. He wore a cardboard banner that read "Chemstreams = Government Conspiracy,’’ just the sort of thing that would normally draw me right in. But though I was impressed with his silent, steely determination as he religiously stood outside the lobby every Saturday and Sunday for months straight, even when the mercury plunged to near zero and the winds howled, I kept my distance. Walking past the man, I affected the smug, detached air of my colleagues, far above whatever silliness he might be purveying.

OK, so eventually I gave in. One frigid day, I crept past the Chemtrails guy and took his pamphlet. He fixed my eyes with a possessed stare, and I had a strange premonition that we were being watched. I quickly tucked the brochure into my pocket before disappearing unassumingly through the revolving doors of my place of employment. When I eventually got around to examining the simply printed sheets of paper, a torrent of paranoiac theories leapt off the pages. The CIA and the Air Force were trying to slowly poison all of us by dumping toxic gases and genetically engineered viruses high in the atmosphere. Those innocent white contrails puffing through the stratosphere on any given day were anything but innocuous, the warnings stated; they were in fact part of a vast conspiracy to slowly but steadily degrade our lungs and immune systems. And epidemics of bronchial infections and asthma were only the beginning. Furthermore, black helicopters were even at that moment hovering malevolently over the city, keeping us all under surveillance. You could see them at times when there were NO traffic reports on the radio, a dead giveaway that something nasty was afoot. But we, the people of America, are too anesthesized by television, media lies, and pornography to even notice.

As I said, a good conspiracy theory's fine with me. But some of this seemed a little too hokey, even by my own admittedly permeable standards. Granted, the CIA was evil, no doubt about that, but why exactly would they want to poison all of us, I thought? If you dump weird chemicals on large population centers, aren’t you poisoning Republicans as well as pinko liberals? And that theory about the helicopters -- they had to come up with something better than that traffic report connection to draw me in.

I felt marvelously smug. At last, a conspiracy theory that even I could reject right out of hand as silly and beneath me. CIA contrails poisoning us from above. . . HAAAAA!! That Chemtrails guy. Just another loopy nutjob with too much time on his hands and a wacky imagination.

But then the winter dragged on, and things didn’t quite seem so clear cut. Virtually everyone I knew, it seemed, including myself, developed the worst and most persistent chest coughs of their lives. A doctor I visited said it was the worst outbreak he had ever witnessed, and that this particular strain was proving resistant to antibiotics. Meantime, I began to watch the skies. And what I saw was alarming. Thick, strangely colored, contrails crisscrossed the sky high above the city, forming unpredictable patterns that seemed to convey some sort of hieroglyphic language. The airplanes that left them appeared to be flying in far too erratic a pattern for commercial jetliners. I even began to cast a suspicious eye on helicopters that lacked clear identification. Some, I found, were even painted black. And then it occurred to me that the Chemtrails guy was nowhere to be found. I began to miss him, and even planned to sneak a conversation with him if he showed up again. Eventually, my curiosity peaked and I took to the Web. I typed the Chemtrails address and was met with an array of photographs of strangely configured contrails, just like the ones I had noticed in the sky. Then in the upper corner was a picture of my friend, the intense, possessed gaze and sad expression just the same as on those cold mornings as I trudged into work. There was no name under his picture, just the dates, 1945-2001 I think it was, followed by the words "rest in peace".