Is there an underground city and other shenanigans in Salt Lake City?
Take a deep breath, please, clear your head a bit and let's talk tunnels.
In a previous RfM thread, poster "anon" asked the following:
"[Is the] City Creek project [an]underground city, money laundering operation?," accompanied by the following link:
("city creek project--underground city, money laundering operation?, " by "anon," at "Recovery from Mormonism" bulletin board, 15 February 2011, 8:56 p.m.)
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Now, we have a follow-up post breathlessly addressing the same silly question, posted by RfMer "ex-sushi-chef":
"Hi everyone. Conspiracy show time again.....
"'Someone seems worrying/anticipating if the flood comes to the city creek....'
http://exmormon.org/phorum/read.php?2,187769"But, what about those subterranean tunnel network stuff, aren't they real???
http://www.bibliotecapleyades.net/sociopolitica/esp_sociopol_underground18b.htmhttp://www.fortunecity.com/roswell/prediction/51/text-files/redbook/redbookuz.htmlhttp://searchwarp.com/swa695264-A-Conspiracy-Of-Ufo-Aliens-And-United-States-Government.htm"(Aren't there any 33+ degree masons among LDS??? Saw a webpage somewhere, says the current president 40th....)
"The main reason so much money has to be spent is that probably church authories have had a clandestine deal to build underground facilities right below the mall to be a part of that network???
"Eventually going to hide themselves in the dens and in the rocks of the mountains....to go into the clefts and the holes of the rocks and into the tops of the ragged rocks and the caves of the earth???
"Rocks of the mountains' mean Rocky Mountains, Denver, Salt Lake, etc.???"
("underground bunker/shelter below the new mall for a few, chosen elite families???," by "ex_sushi_chef," at "Recovery from Mormonism" bulletin board, 12 May 2011, 2:34 a.m.)
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Oh, pleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeze.
While I don't have the insider pooper scooper regarding allegations of Mormon money laundering shenanigans, I think I can say with some degree of reasonableness that wild speculations about a supposed nuclear bomb-proof city complex reposing under the streets of SLC only makes critics of the Mormon Church with legitimate points of view look like nutwads rivaling LDS believers in Kolobian glory.
(I can also say that I worked for a Salt Lake City-based demolition company back during part of my BYU days in the 1970s, where we tore down a bunch of junk in downtown SLC to make way for the then-Crossroads Mall. There were dozers and hosers and a big, gaping, squared-off hole that could easily be viewed by the passing public, so I don't see how some kind of Secret City of the Saints could be built without folks getting wind of a whole lot of strangeness goin' on).
Anyway, allow me to tell you about some actual underground "facilities," if you will, that do exist under the roads in downtown SLC (at least the ones that I have personally experienced).
I'm talking about the Mormon tunnel system (such as I traveled it) running under Temple Square and connected to Mormon Church offices in downtown Salt Lake City.
I traversed the main tunnel several times over the years.
As I recall, it ran from underneath the Tabernacle on Temple Square over to the Church Administration Building. It was relatively wide, wall-to-wall carpeted, well-lit and could easily accomodate a golf cart (which was, in fact, used to transport GAs and other Church dignitaries and personnel back and forth).
During General Conference, I would sometimes accompany my grandfather Ezra Taft through the tunnel, pushing his wheelchair or walking along with family and staff who were with him. The walk through this tunnel took about 5 to 10 minutes at a leisurely pace. I would be in the tunnel with ETB when, in his later years and due to his frail health, he would exit the Conference sessions at the top-of-the-hour rest song, when the congregation would rise to their feet for a break from the sermonizing before dropping back on their faithful posteriors for the second half of indoctrination. I'd sit in the front congregational rows in the Tabernacle (reserved for GA families, as unfair as that was) until ETB got up and left, assisted by handlers who would escort him out. ETB would be helped off the dais, waving weakly, and members of the Benson family would likewise exit (without waving, by the way). We'd meet up with him in the back area, out of sight behind the out-front stage area where the GAs perched during Conference. There we'd join him and his assistants in wheeling him through the underground tunnel on his eventual way over to where he lived at the Eagle Gate condo that was across the street from Temple Square. If his assistants got ETB out ahead of us, we'd simply make our own way out of the Tabernacle and go over to his apartment. By then, ETB's staff had wheel-chaired him into his small, private study, where they would place him in a soft, leather reclining chair. They would then either turn on the TV for the second half of Conference or merely play soft music for him to listen to.
There is actually nothing dark or secret about that beneath-the-street tunnel--and I saw nothing branching off from it that appeared to go to Zionic bomb shelters, restricted-access laundry rooms, or a mini-city honeycomb of subterranean dwelling places for the Mormon elite in the event of an attack by Satan on God's Chosen Ones.
Geezus, it's essentially an underground trafficway constructed for the convenience of and use by the Mormon high command, their families, their support Church staff and connected Church employees that provides an efficient, quick and out-of-sight way of getting from point A to point B--one that is accessed through the Tabernacle on one end and an underground parking garage (complete with reserved parking spots for the GAs) on the other.
No Indiana Jones mummies, skulls, snakes or kidnap victims.
For all the sci-fi-pie-in-the-sky Illuminati types, sorry for the inconvenient illumination (although I imagine it could be kinda freaky if you turned the lights off).
Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 05/12/2011 02:06PM by steve benson.