Epsilon Team

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The Epsilon Team (In Greek: Ομάδα Έψιλον, Omadha Epsilon) is a persistent rumor concerning a secret society consisting of an elite team of Greek engineers, academics, pilots, powerful businesspeople and politicians etc. manufacturing and piloting UFOs and supposedly working for major international forces or even secretly ruling the United States of America. Its status or actual existence is considered to lie halfway between a conspiracy theory and an urban legend.

First coined by an Ioannis Fourakis, this term was then used by Anestis Keramidas, Gerasimos Kalogerakis, Kyriakos Velopoulos and a few other imaginative writers in a series of eschatologist, racially supremacist, messianic books, which have now formed a complex mythos.

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[edit] Symbols

This symbol is usually presented as Epsilon Team's logo.
This symbol is usually presented as Epsilon Team's logo.

Epsilon Team's associated symbol is a Delphic Epsilon, looking like two Epsilons connected back to back and considered to appear on their "UFOs" and on ancient Greek and Inca monuments as well. Their "UFOs" are also supposed to have the word "Ελευθερία" (Freedom, in Greek) on them.

Coincidentally, in modern Greek, "Epsilon" is also the first letter of the words "Ελλάδα" and "Έλληνες"—Greece and Greeks (Hellenes), respectively—and generally of anything having to do with Hellenism and Greece. The Greek Alphabet in its current form (the Ionian union-alphabet) was adopted in Athens in 403 BCE, in different places at the latest in Hellenism. Some different alphabets, as the original Athenian one, had a unique letter for the spiritus asper, namely H (spoken He), making H the first letter for Hellas in these Alphabets. So any criticism stating that E only became the initial letter for Ellas in modern times is simply not correct, although the notion of something like an ethnic symbol is truly absurd enough for those times.

[edit] Principles and purpose of the Epsilon Team

As stated by people proclaiming themselves as members or representatives of the Epsilon Team, they are briefly:

  • Spreading the influence of Greek culture all over the world.
  • Projecting and promoting all "positive aspects" of Greece and Greek arts, culture, language, civilization, etc. all over the world.
  • Restoring the ancient Greek moral values and way of life.
  • Uniting all of the people's world under the Apollonian Light (sic).
  • Pursue of perfection under the perspective of Apollonian Aesthetics (sic).
  • Military defence of Greece through secret, proprietary and exclusive science and technology.

[edit] Who believes in its existence?

Their existence is promoted by (mainly Greek) pseudohistorians and mystical nationalists as well as some ufologists.

Their Greek supporters like to present the "Epsilon Team" as a proof of the superiority of the Greek race and culture above all other cultures, by claiming that Ancient Greeks were of extraterrestrial, Hyperborean origins and had extremely advanced technology, now secretly discovered and studied by the "Epsilon Team", which is, if not of Greek origin, at least using "forbidden" and "top secret" Greek technology, either the result of rediscovering "ancient" technology or the work of scientists, members of the society. Also this team is supposed to fight against the so called Jewish Darkness, an eternal fight between light and darkness. A fight between two cultures actually, the Greek and the Israeli.

[edit] History of the Epsilon team

No clear timeline of the Epsilon team can be traced, mainly because people who support its existence or claim to be members, connoisseurs or even its representatives all give very different and incoherent versions of the story.

Some of them claim that the Epsilon team has existed in some form since the first forms of Greek civilization, and that its members included ancient philosophers, historians, scientists, and politicians like Plato, Aristotle, Pericles, Socrates, and so on.

Others don't dwell into antiquity but claim that the "contemporary" form of the Epsilon team as a secret society dates back to the post World War II period, founded as a secret society by Greek scientists working in the United States and economically backed up by people like Aristotelis Onassis and others (mostly people already deceased at the moment of "acknowledgment").

An interesting view is that of the journalist G. Palmos, who dismisses any attempts at providing a definite timeline or description by simply stating that the Epsilon Team is more of an "eternal common Greek spiritual brotherhood" than a secret society or organized company of sort and thus has no timeline or traceable structure.

One of the few common points is however that the Epsilon team has always helped and protected the Greek People and culture through the centuries. However, all supporters fail to give a satisfactory answers and use elusive statements when asked to explain how the omnipotent Epsilon team could be absent during hardships such as the persecution of Greek pagans by the Christian church (which is well-documented in both Patrologia Graeca and Patrologia Latina, as well as the sermons of many ecclesiastical figures of a very high stature), the fall of Constantinople and the subsequent 400-year Ottoman dominion was imposed on Greece, when the burning of Smyrna took place in 1922 and when other minor or major ethnic problems like the Cyprus dispute or the Imia-Kardak crisis took place.

[edit] Possible reasons behind the legend

One possible explanation of the origin of the "Epsilon Team" legend is to be found in the ultra-nationalistic exaggerations of a part of the Greek occultist/mysticist press. These on the one hand fuel irrational fears of an emerging worldwide anti-Greek sentiment and on the other hand show off, magnify, and exaggerate the achievements and the "superiority" of all Greek civilization, people, and culture. This is done by mixing historical data with crypto-nationalistic, anti-Semitic, and occultist elements.

Among these circles, the "Epsilon Team" is presented as the Greek equivalent of the Jewish Golem, a sort of secret weapon meant to "protect" the Greeks from all "enemies". In the best case, it is considered a discrete but tireless and powerful guardian ready to smite the "barbarian hordes" that secretly threaten the Greek people. In part, this idea was a response to anti-Greek ideologies that apparently seem to be spreading throughout the world - see anti-Hellenism - especially in North America and Israel. More specifically, the historical (or, rather, traditional) Israelo-Greek rivalry might be a major cause of the legend.

In the worst case, the "Epsilon Team" is viewed as a secret retaliation weapon meant to attack and destroy, for example, Turkey and Albania and anyone "threatening" the Greek people. Also, since there are some anti-Semitic ideas among these circles, the Epsilon Team is also viewed as a counterpart/competitor to the "Jewish lobbies" that supposedly rule the world, meant to establish the Greeks as the "chosen people".

Relatively recent indications that Anestis Keramidas is attempting to co-opt the Greek Orthodox Church (TV appearances where he claimed that the Greek Orthodox Church is the continuation of the Greek pantheon, attempts he made to identify Jesus with the Argonaut Jason), etc. offer another possible explanation: In recent years, some Greeks have started questioning the way in which Christianity was accepted by their ancestors and the identification of Hellenism and Orthodoxy. These persons have sometimes sought to revive the ancient Greek pagan religion, while others have become atheist.

Keramidas (followed later by Kalogerakis and Yannis Fragoulis) took the term "Epsilon Team" and concocted a messianiac and racially supremacist theory on a "Judaeo-Christian" foundation. This theory combined the glory and the names of the gods of ancient Greece with ideas from the texts of Euhemerus. This was a minor and obscure philosopher who coined the idea that the Greek pantheon consisted of nothing but ancient kings and leaders who were deified and worshipped in an effort to convince others that it is all right for people to worship their leader as a god.

[edit] Epsilon Team in popular culture

Being an urban legend, the Epsilon Team has of course supporters and detractors, with the latter being far more numerous. The Epsilon Team is sometimes mentioned in conversations as a means of sarcasm or, when listening to alarming news about war, terrorism etc. At least one mockery song has been written about it, by a Greek music project named "Κόντρα" (Kontra), the lyrics clearly stating that the Epsilon Team is just bogus and nonsense.

The official Church of Greece, who has prominent activity in social and spiritual affairs, never mentioned anything about Epsilon, pro or against and it's likely that they never bothered about the subject. Religious (conservative) analysts and theologians however (who don't obligatory express the official Church's view) claim it's a hoax originated from Greek neo-pagans and fascist (anti-semitic) circles. On the contrary, Greek pagan circles are strongly opposed to the proliferation of this theory, which they consider nonsense, since they feel Epsilonism bastardizes and distorts their ancestors' beliefs into a ridiculous mongrel.

[edit] People and publications

Most publications and people openly supporting the existence of the Epsilon team are currently found in Greece, and usually their interests are either mystical, nationalistic or both. A brief list of related publications:

  • The Greek "Ελληνόραμα" (Hellenorama) magazine, a monthly magazine featuring articles on the existence of Greek Language elements in Hawaiian or Australian Aboriginal languages (a claim made by a German linguistics professor named Nors S. Josephson in his book "Greek Linguistic Elements in the Polynesian Languages - Hellenicum Pacificum") and various pseudoscientific articles with no bibliographic references. While some of their claims are true, they are usually mixed and adulterated with irrationality.
  • The Greek "Τρίτο Μάτι" (Third Eye) monthly magazine, mostly focusing on mysticism, National Mysticism and conspiracy theories.
  • Several books, usually marketed only inside Greece and only by some particular bookstores. One of them is a book issued in 1998 by the publisher Dion (Thessaloniki) called "Omada Epsilon" (The Epsilon Team), by Anestis Keramidas. Some other books related to National Mysticism are published by the Greek publisher "Georgiades books" (see external links). Another epsilonist writers are Gerasimos Kalogerakis and Yannis Fragoulis.

[edit] External links

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