David Vaughan Icke (; born 29 April 1952) is an English conspiracy theorist and a former footballer and sports broadcaster. He has written over 20 books, self-published since the mid-1990s, and spoken in more than 25 countries. In 1990, Icke visited a psychic who told him he was on Earth for a purpose and would receive messages from the spirit world. This led him to claim in 1991 to be a "Son of the Godhead" and that the world would soon be devastated by tidal waves and earthquakes. He repeated this on the BBC show Wogan. His appearance led to public ridicule. Books Icke wrote over the next 11 years developed his world view of a New Age conspiracy. Reactions to his endorsement of an antisemitic fabrication, The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, in The Robots' Rebellion (1994) and in And the Truth Shall Set You Free (1995) led his then publisher to decline further books, and he has self-published since then. Icke contends that the universe consists of "vibrational" energy and infinite dimensions sharing the same space. He claims that there is an inter-dimensional race of reptilian beings, the Archons or Anunnaki, which have hijacked the Earth. Further, a genetically modified human–Archon hybrid race of reptilian shape shifters – the Babylonian Brotherhood, Illuminati or "elite" – manipulate events to keep humans in fear, so that the Archons can feed off the resulting "negative energy". He claims that many public figures belong to the Babylonian Brotherhood and propel humanity towards a global fascist state or New World Order, a post-truth era ending freedom of speech. He sees the only way to defeat such "Archontic" influence is for people to wake up to the truth and fill their hearts with love. Critics have accused Icke of being antisemitic and a Holocaust denier with his theories of reptilians serving as a deliberate "code". Icke strongly denies these claims. Early life, family and education The middle son of three boys born seven years apart, Icke was born in Leicester General Hospital to Beric Vaughan Icke and Barbara J. Cooke, who were married in Leicester in 1951. Beric Icke served in the Royal Air Force as a medical orderly during World War II, and after the war became a clerk in the Gents clock factory. The family lived in a terraced house on Lead Street in the centre of Leicester, an area that