Reject the "DIA Mural Conspiracy Theories"
Dear friends,
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Certain individuals have said that murals at the Denver International Airport (DIA), titled Children of the World Dream of Peace and Peace and Harmony with Nature, promote genocide and the “New World Order.”
My father, Leo Tanguma, who designed and directed this mural project, and I, Leticia Tanguma, assistant artist, reject these accusations. In response to books, websites, blogs, and TV and radio shows about the “DIA mural conspiracies” - - I wish to share the truth of the mural’s original meaning and beginnings.
My father and I accept that everyone has the right to interpret any art. Even DIA administrators have advised acquiring individuals to “select whatever explanation you choose to believe” (Gettleman).”
However, when certain interpretations generate hate and fear, we are naturally compelled to share our original purpose of this mural of peace
To a world wide audience, some of the conspiracies generated by specific books and by a host of websites, such as Vigilant Citizen, appear to state, as fact, that images portray the following within our mural: Hitler teaching children, that the Mayans were to have destroyed the world in 2012, that the mural is a road map for extraterrestrials to land at DIA, that the animals depicted in the murals are “unclean animals” from the Bible, and that DIA will only cater to the “elite” in its underground fallout bunkers when the world ends. The accusers also claim that the murals predicted 9-11 and foretell a doomed future.
My father and I did not know about these conspiracies and accusations until several years after the mural was completed. We did not address these “theories” because we were busy in our lives, working on other projects, and just trying to survive like all Americans do. It was not until my cousin shared some of the accusers’ particular writings and blogs about the mural that we developed a stronger interest. My cousin was afraid that some of the content sounded like the accusers wanted not only the murals destroyed, but my father as well (Ramirez).
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I wonder how could people making such spiteful accusations create such confusion and hatred and advocate it?
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The Mayan child
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In the 1st panel, Peace and Harmony with Nature, one of the children witnessing the tragedy of the destruction of the environment and the genocide of her people is a Guatemalan Mayan girl. She is holding a broken artifact of a Mayan motif. Many conspiracy theorists emphasize that this image proves that the mural’s artists and that DIA desire the destruction of the earth by 2012.
​THE TRUTH: The symbols on the Mayan artifact are actually two people speaking to each other. They are holding images of a butterfly and a flower, two symbols from numerous cultures around the world, meaning transformation, beauty, and nature. My father depicted a child from Guatemala, a country that has faced much brutality and war. She is holding something special to her people saved from a burning rainforest.
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The symbol of a butterfly and flower clearly do not represent the Westernized fear of the 2012 Mayan prediction – the conspiracy theorists only claim to this artifact is that this image is Mayan, and that the artists desired the destruction of the world in 2012. The accusers choose to dismiss or ignore the sadness in a people’s loss of their culture and livelihoods because of the destruction of the environment. The accusers are only concerned with the Mayan people when it comes to this “2012 prophecy.”
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The Coffins
Dave Alan of Radio KSEO interviewed author Alex Christopher in 1996, in which Christopher states: “One of them that is very unusual has three caskets with dead people in them . . . There are evidently three groups of people that they would like to see dead. Now, normally I would not have thought too much about these murals if I had not done a lot of research. Even in the government documents I have run across gene-splicing discussions on how they would like to "splice out specific races", and also whoever these people are do not like the Jewish people. This same mural depicts the destruction of a city and the forest, and there is a little girl holding a Mayan tablet that speaks of the destruction of civilization. “
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THE TRUTH: Aware that many corporations are responsible for the destruction of the forests and oceans, my father had painted three concrete slabs to symbolize industry crushing the environment. While we were painting this panel, I reminded my father that not only nature and animals are affected by land development and exploitation -the destruction of the environment has also wiped out entire groups of people. It is well documented that certain tribes of Native Americans actually became extinct due to disease and the massacres committed in the 1600s through 1800s for the procurement of land.
As descendants of surviving indigenous peoples of the United States, my father and I are greatly concerned that this event in history be remembered and not repeated.
Because of this conversation, my father painted images of indigenous individuals in coffins, slain by the hands of greed and racism.
He painted an African young person holding beloved cultural artifacts and a Native American youth holding and cherishing the Iroquois Confederation Belt. He painted these images to illustrate how resources, culture, and societal contributions were stolen in order to benefit an oppressive, dominant society. We, like so many others, are saddened and outraged by this crime against our people and that of other peoples.
We also discussed the genocide in Bosnia and Serbia that happened in the 1990s, so we chose to paint a European child. We were touched by the struggles of our European brothers and sisters - Christians, Jews, and Muslims - being persecuted for their religion and ethnicity. The children standing above the coffins are deeply saddened as they see that mankind has killed these young people and the beautiful nature and animals around them.
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On the next panel of Peace and Harmony with Nature, we portray children of all races coming together in peace. The children represent the best of our humanity, and are determined to be caretakers of the earth and to respect each other in brotherhood and peace.
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The German child
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Instead of heeding the mural’s true, beautiful messages and dreams of peace, certain authors, such as Alex Christopher states: "All of the children of the world (take) the weapons from each country on earth and (give) them to a central figure which is a GERMAN boy who has this iron fist and anvil in his hand. What all this symbology on the airport murals seems to convey is that not only do we have a secret society behind this, but that it is a German [Bavarian] secret society behind this, working in the vicinity of this New World Control Center. " (qtd. in Alan)
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THE TRUTH: Children whose countries have been enemies are coming together in peace to discard weapons of pain and fear. My father chose to paint American, Japanese and Russian as well as German children in the center of the mural because he wanted to portray the “super powers” finally learning peace and not continuing the legacy of Hiroshima, Pearl Harbor, the Holocaust and Stalinism.
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My father felt that Germany, with its history of the Holocaust, needed to be portrayed as finally learning peace the most, so he has the German child “beating swords into plowshares.”
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Furthermore, we do not see every German as a Nazi or from sort of secret society as Christopher appears to do. We dedicated the image of the German child to Hans and Sophie Scholl, two Christian German university students who spoke out against the Nazis – they were martyred because they distributed leaflets imploring German citizens to rally against Hitler.
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My father, a Christian, loves the passage in the book of Micah and wanted to show people coming together in peace and refusing to wage war.
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The Boy Scout
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The Vigilant Citizen has an equal sinister message: “Even the American kid (dressed as a boy scout) seems eager to give his weapons and flag to the German boy…America joyfully submitting to Germany.”
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THE TRUTH: The notion that "America joyfully submitting to German" never crossed our minds and is a silly attempt to diss the mural.
The painting of the American kid in the boy scout uniform is Chris, one of my daughter's classmates. They knew each other throughout elementary school. Most of my daughter's friends were in either the Brownies, Girl Scouts, Boy Scouts, and Karate, but Christopher was a proud Boy Scout, and his parents and we were very proud of him and his accomplishments, so we painted him this way.
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Furthermore, there are many other kids represented in the murals who are from the United States: The kid wearing Colorado Rockies colors (white, purple, and black), and the Native American girl in the Peace and Harmony mural set. Also in the same set of murals that Chris is in, the classmates represent a variety of heritages, and they all live in the U.S.
My family is very proud when Americans are tolerant and accepting of those different from ourselves, who work for justice, and who do good deeds such as the case of Chris being in the Boy Scouts. We are very proud of the people of America, especially when it comes to people who stand up against inequality, racism, sexism, classism and hatred, and who stand up for human and civil rights.
The figure of war and 9 -11
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David Dionisi, author of Vigilant Christian li, interprets the murals as “World War III murals." The accusers have written or stated that the panel with the towering figure of war predicts 9-11. The accusers’ belief that this panel predicts September 11, 2001 and a future of doom is another one of the conspiracy theorists’ dismissals of acknowledging or minimilizing that war and suffering has happened in other nations and that those people’s suffering is vital too.
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THE TRUTH: We as artists and community folks recognize the suffering of people seeking shelter from disease, starvation, poverty, and the bloodshed of war. We were also very concerned with the genocide in Rwanda in 1994 (on the adjacent panel, there are Tutsis and Hutus coming together in peace). In the 1990s, we painted this panel to recognize the suffering of war and to speak out against war and its injustice and violence.
My father, Cheryl, I, or the children and community we worked in, never fathomed that something like 9-11 would happen. On September 11th, 2001, we were deeply horrified and shocked by the terrible, unjust events just like our fellow Americans and just like the world.
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Be a Person of Peace
None of these authors or public figures, such as Christopher, Weidner, Noory, or Ventura, has ever interviewed the parents of the children whose portraits are in the mural, or my father, Cheryl Detwiler, or me. They disregard the beauty of a community that shared their children’s lives within the mural’s true message. They feign ignorance and generate fear and maliciousness. They attempt to kill hope for their monetary profit and for their own selfish agendas. To the people who generate the conspiracies of the Children of the World Dream of Peace murals, promoting fallacies is more important than community, more important than interviewing the families, and more important than addressing the real issues depicted on the murals.
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It is sad that Alex Christopher and fellow accusers choose to ignore the murals’ humble message. Their accusations speak more to what they are about: generating misunderstanding, hate, and fear, and putting money in their pockets.
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I hope that the authors and hosts of the DIA mural conspiracies will put aside their agendas and be open to seeing and hearing the message of the children portrayed in the mural as fellow human beings.​
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Hopefully, like most people, they will truly wish for the world to thrive in peace.​
Hope cannot be destroyed, nor will the murals’ true message.
Children of the world dream of peace.
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With love and light to you all,
Leticia Darlina Tanguma
and the Tanguma family
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​WORKS CITED
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Alan, Dave. KSEO Radio Interview with Alex Christopher, Author of "Pandora's Box" and "Pandora's Box II" Extract from Leading Edge International Research Journal #92. Transcript by Leading Edge Research Group. 1 June 1996. Radio.
“An index of the theories surrounding the world’s most sinister airport. Smithsonian mag takes a peek at DIA conspiracy theories” Denver Conspiracy Files. 25 Nov. 2011. Web. 4 Dec. 2011.​
Dionisi, David J. Vigilant Christian li: Preventing an American Hiroshima Trafford Publishing.
North America and International 2011. Page 273. Print.
Gettleman, Elizabeth. “Conspiracy Watch: America’s Evilest Airport” Mother Jones. Nov. – Dec. 2009: 4 gale Opposing Viewpoints in Context. Web. 15 Nov. 2011
Maher, Jared Jacang. “DIA Conspiracies Take Off. Conspiracy theorists think something’s fishy at Denver International Airport.” Westword Denver News. 30 Aug. 2007. 7 Nov. 2011. Print.
Ramirez, Raul. Personal interview 2008
Tanguma, Leo. Personal interview 1993
Tanguma, Leo, Children of the World Dream of Peace, 2007. Web. 1 Nov. 2011.
The Vigilant Citizen, Sinister Sites – The Denver International Airport, The Vigilant Citizen,
Symbols Rule the World, not Words or Laws, 27 Nov. 2008. Web. 1 Nov. 2011.