How DeDunking creates a conspiracy theory

Dan Richards runs the YouTube channel DeDunking. He’s a self-described alternative historian, meaning he disagrees with the mainstream scholarly historical consensus, and is prepared to credit fringe views of history and archaeology. Dan is far more skeptical than other pseudo-archaeologists, but he does have a tendency towards conspiratorial thinking, which is common in the alternative history community. In this video we’ll see how DeDunking creates a conspiracy theory.


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———. “Comment on The Iron Plate in The Great Pyramid: Smelted Iron in The Bronze Age, Ancient High Tech, or Hoax?,” 10 September 2023. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tZLiTkPbmQ4&lc=UgxYrHxU40puRYIF8dB4AaABAg&ab_channel=DeDunking.

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DeDunking. “Comment on The Iron Plate in The Great Pyramid: Smelted Iron in The Bronze Age, Ancient High Tech, or Hoax?” YouTube, 10 September 2023. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tZLiTkPbmQ4&lc=UgxYrHxU40puRYIF8dB4AaABAg.9uUJa9cHysI9uVRJQebFR6&ab_channel=DeDunking.

———. “Gunung Padang Paper Retracted? Barnacles! #science #gunungpadang #lostcivilization – YouTube.” YouTube, 19 March 2024. https://www.youtube.com/.

———. “How the Gunung Padang Paper Should Have Been #gunungpadang #grahamhancock #atlantis – YouTube.” YouTube, 28 March 2024. https://www.youtube.com/.

———. “The Gunung Padang Retraction From Both Sides #pyramid #science #alternatehistory.” YouTube, 25 March 2024. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7mIG4S2AnrI.

———. “The Iron Plate in The Great Pyramid: Smelted Iron in The Bronze Age, Ancient High Tech, or Hoax?” YouTube, 10 September 2023. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tZLiTkPbmQ4.

———. “Who Hides The Evidence of Ancient Technology? #ancienttechnology #lostcivilization #atlantis.” YouTube, 22 January 2024. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_OvIDFuGGhU.

EKreiver. “Comment on The Iron Plate in The Great Pyramid: Smelted Iron in The Bronze Age, Ancient High Tech, or Hoax?” YouTube, 10 September 2023. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tZLiTkPbmQ4&lc=Ugze3wBGCno-WyCBXsp4AaABAg&ab_channel=DeDunking.

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HarpersInfiniteSystems. “Comment on The Iron Plate in The Great Pyramid: Smelted Iron in The Bronze Age, Ancient High Tech, or Hoax?” YouTube, 10 September 2023. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tZLiTkPbmQ4&lc=UgyNFkZ_cMbviARuBsd4AaABAg&ab_channel=DeDunking.

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JamesGough1. “Comment on The Iron Plate in The Great Pyramid: Smelted Iron in The Bronze Age, Ancient High Tech, or Hoax?” YouTube, 10 September 2023. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tZLiTkPbmQ4&lc=UgyJO7U-Op7lNEbK6ZR4AaABAg&ab_channel=DeDunking.

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Johnson, Diane, Joyce Tyldesley, Tristan Lowe, Philip J. Withers, and Monica M. Grady. “Analysis of a Prehistoric Egyptian Iron Bead with Implications for the Use and Perception of Meteorite Iron in Ancient Egypt.” Meteorit & Planetary Scien 48.6 (2013): 997–1006. https://doi.org/10.1111/maps.12120.

laurah1020. “Comment on The Iron Plate in The Great Pyramid: Smelted Iron in The Bronze Age, Ancient High Tech, or Hoax?” YouTube, 10 September 2023. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tZLiTkPbmQ4&lc=UgyYFz1PmEC7wJdLKbx4AaABAg&ab_channel=DeDunking.

Lesuer, D. R., C. K. Syn, O. D. Sherby, J. Wadsworth, J. J. Lewandowski, and W. H. Hunt. “Mechanical Behaviour of Laminated Metal Composites.” International Materials Reviews 41.5 (1996): 169–97. https://doi.org/10.1179/imr.1996.41.5.169.

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MoonRide333. “Comment on The Iron Plate in The Great Pyramid: Smelted Iron in The Bronze Age, Ancient High Tech, or Hoax?” YouTube, October 2024. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tZLiTkPbmQ4&lc=UgwrBQuv_cmvecy5l0l4AaABAg&ab_channel=DeDunking.

Moyer, Melinda Wenner. “People Drawn to Conspiracy Theories Share a Cluster of Psychological Features.” Scientific American, 1 March 2019. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/people-drawn-to-conspiracy-theories-share-a-cluster-of-psychological-features/.

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———. “Serendipitous Nanotechnology in Antiquity.” Page in Handbook of Materials Structures, Properties, Processing and Performance. Edited by Lawrence Murray. Cham: Springer International Publishing, 2015. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-01815-7, https://link.springer.com/10.1007/978-3-319-01815-7.

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peterson0096. “Comment on The Iron Plate in The Great Pyramid: Smelted Iron in The Bronze Age, Ancient High Tech, or Hoax?” YouTube, 10 September 2023. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tZLiTkPbmQ4&lc=UgyGZwjZQdG6qH92Ig54AaABAg&ab_channel=DeDunking.

richardskull5279. “Comment on The Iron Plate in The Great Pyramid: Smelted Iron in The Bronze Age, Ancient High Tech, or Hoax?” YouTube, 10 September 2023. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tZLiTkPbmQ4&lc=Ugzm8RLDfoUgdXUiUZ54AaABAg.

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Tweets

Dan Richards The DeDunker aka SuperSexyD [@DeDunkingPast]. “1/2 Doing Research for My next Video and I Found 2 Papers Supposedly Exist on the but This 1 Is Missing: Metallurgical Investigation of an Iron Plate Found in 1837 in the Great Pyramid at Gizeh, Egypt” (Journal of the Historical Metallurgy Society, Vol. 23 No. 2, 1989, Pp. 75-83).” Tweet. Twitter, 7 September 2023. https://x.com/DeDunkingPast/status/1699669501456036045.

———. “2/2 Can’t Find It by Name except Scam Sites and Can’t Find It in the Proper Year n Volume Journal Online, like They Scrubbed It or Something. It’s Heavily Cited, in the Same Journal Even… What Gives? Where Should I Look?” Tweet. Twitter, 7 September 2023. https://x.com/DeDunkingPast/status/1699669825621262733.

———. “@jtlewis_arch 1/2 I See That Reasoning, but I Think It Doesn’t Take Psychology into Account. So We Have a Pyramid Enigma, Originally ‘found’ by an Early Egyptologist, and It’s Got 2 Papers, 1 That Supported It Being Contemporary with the Pyramid and the Other Debunking That…” Tweet. Twitter, 7 September 2023. https://x.com/DeDunkingPast/status/1699690054392946901.

———. “@jtlewis_arch 2/2 …One of These Papers Is Withheld from the Public. You’re Right, This Is Ripe Turf for Alternate Historians. Some of Us (Not Me but Still) Think y’all Hide Stuff as a Matter of Procedure When It Supports ‘Our Side’. How Does This Look to Us?” Tweet. Twitter, 7 September 2023. https://x.com/DeDunkingPast/status/1699690644271399012.

———. “@jtlewis_arch I Emailed Them, No Response Thus Far… I’m Guessing My Lack of Credentials Coupled with the Subject Matter May Mean I’m Pissing up a Rope but I’m Trying. Thanks Man.” Tweet. Twitter, 8 September 2023. https://x.com/DeDunkingPast/status/1700142023188373688.

———. “@jtlewis_arch I Just Find Myself in a Bit of a Pickle Here. If I Report This as-Is, There’s No Question How Most My Audience Will Take It. But I Won’t Mislead Them, and I’m Not Gonna Pass over This Cause One of the Papers Went AWOL…” Tweet. Twitter, 7 September 2023. https://x.com/DeDunkingPast/status/1699788412533031423.

———. “@jtlewis_arch That’s What I Was Afraid of… Thanks. Not a Good Practice Tbh, like in This Case the Later Paper Cites the First, Now I Have a Big Hole in the Info. There Has to Be a Better Way to Label It ‘wrong’ without Scrubbing It. I Don’t Even Care about the Gold 😭😂.” Tweet. Twitter, 7 September 2023. https://x.com/DeDunkingPast/status/1699679902851792939.

———. “@jtlewis_arch The Original Paper. That’s the One That Is Missing from the Online Archive of the Journal, Which Is What I Find Weird and Frustrating.” Tweet. Twitter, 7 September 2023. https://x.com/DeDunkingPast/status/1699676957695492475.

Jeffrey (JT) Lewis [@jtlewis_arch]. “@DeDunkingPast 1/ It Is Likely That It May Have Been Retracted Due to the Follow up Investigations by Craddock and Lang. If the Original Paper Had Erroneous Information It Will Be Removed Because Its Technically Spreading Misinformation. The Issue (Based on the Follow-up in 1993) Was That The-.” Tweet. Twitter, 7 September 2023. https://x.com/jtlewis_arch/status/1699678494760849684.

———. “@DeDunkingPast 1/ The Paper Still Exist. These Would Have Been All Physical Copies in 1989. It Just Wasn’t Digitized in 2012 (Likely Because It Was Retracted for Lying about Results). There Are Likely PDFs of It for People as Well, but Just Not Accessible to the General Public. Researchers-.” Tweet. Twitter, 7 September 2023. https://x.com/jtlewis_arch/status/1699681115068371392.

———. “@DeDunkingPast 2/ That Are Working in the Field or on the Topic Can Likely Still Get Access to It. I Believe the Fear Is That If Someone Does Poor Research, They Would Only Look at the Original and State That Gold Was Found in the Iron Plate – Thereby Providing and Sharing Misinformation About-.” Tweet. Twitter, 7 September 2023. https://x.com/jtlewis_arch/status/1699681533102006535.

———. “@DeDunkingPast 2/2 Original Paper by Gayar and Jones Stated That the Plate Had Gold within It. Craddock and Lang Did Various Different Analytical Methods (Primarily Microscopy and XRF) and Found That There Was Not Gold Present. That May Have Resulted in the Previous Paper Being Removed.” Tweet. Twitter, 7 September 2023. https://x.com/jtlewis_arch/status/1699679161718075489.

———. “@DeDunkingPast 3/ the Object. That Would Then Likely (Because Lets Be Honest, Its an Egyptian Pyramid – Pseudoscience People Would Be All over It) and Then the Journal/Organization Is Discredited and That Would Fewerr New Researchers Would Want to Publish in That Journal and That Would Lead To-.” Tweet. Twitter, 7 September 2023. https://x.com/jtlewis_arch/status/1699681926712295614.

———. “@DeDunkingPast 4/ the Journal/Organizaiton Disappearing Altogether. If the Conclusion Is Different or Opinions about What the Results Mean Varies – That Is Fine. There Are Papers about Poverty Point Interpreted as All Kind of Different Things – but in All Those Papers the Methods and Results-.” Tweet. Twitter, 7 September 2023. https://x.com/jtlewis_arch/status/1699682492364591344.

———. “@DeDunkingPast 5/5 Were Still Valid. In the Gayar and Jones Paper They Seem to Have Lied about the Results – so the Entire Study Is Corrupted at Point.” Tweet. Twitter, 7 September 2023. https://x.com/jtlewis_arch/status/1699683069672726917.

———. “@DeDunkingPast I Think This May Just Be One of Those Scenarios Were There Will Be Negatives to Each Choice and Not a ‘Right’ Decision. You Could Reach out to the Journal and See If You Could Get a Copy of It. Like I Said, Its Still out There – It Is Just More Difficult to Get.” Tweet. Twitter, 7 September 2023. https://x.com/jtlewis_arch/status/1699694895697449083.

———. “@DeDunkingPast That Publication Issue Only Has a ‘Comment’ on the Original Iron Plate from Gizeh Paper by Craddock and Lang. Is That What You Are Looking for or Are You Looking for the Original Paper by Gayar and Jones?” Tweet. Twitter, 7 September 2023. https://x.com/jtlewis_arch/status/1699675082040205714.

———. “@DeDunkingPast Understand. My Only Advice Would Be to Reach out to the Journal about Getting a Copy.” Tweet. Twitter, 8 September 2023. https://x.com/jtlewis_arch/status/1700066075323277787.

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