Denver Airport by Layne Williams

Imagine, your strolling through the Denver Airport with your six-year-old daughter, when hear a scream. You look down at your daughter, who looks petrified, you then look up to see NAZIS! KILLING CHILDREN! ON A MURAL! Your daughter is traumatized, and you’re mad about it. Why? You ask. Why would the airport hang up such a heinous painting? Find that and many more spine tingling facts as we try to uncover the truth about this eerie airport.

What better place to begin than the passionate painter himself, Leo Tanguma. He was born and raised in the small town of Beeville, Texas. He had always had a darker approach when it came to his murals, with his first mural showing the town’s local sheriff being killed by a boy. His rebellious tendencies make more sense when looking at it a bit deeper. “Like many little towns in Texas we had very racist sheriffs and police that liked to keep Mexicans in our place.” (Dalamangas 1). Being a Latino living in the south in a very racist time, growing up was not easy for Tanguma, so he let it out in his murals.

Tanguma kept this fire in his later years as well. One of his most famous works of art is still known today as a powerful symbol of the oppression minorities were facing at that time. Taking place in Houston, Texas, this mural sends a heartfelt message against police brutality, which was very shocking at the time because not many people had spoken out against it at this time, all were too scared, all but Tanguma. While he extremely loud in his work, he is much more reserved in real life, he is described as “quiet but intense, a man who never smiled and didn't play by the art world's unwritten rules.” (Glentzer) His mural did and still does stand as a symbol against racial injustice and was a pivotal point in the empowerment of Chincanos.

While many are frightened by the violent mural in the Denver airport, it is an understandable concept when seeing the previous work of Tanguma and understanding all that he stands for.

The Denver Airport is famous for being an extremely unsettling and creepy place, and that has led to many interesting conspiracies. The first conspiracy is the Denver airport is the head of the illuminati. When building the airport, they went 2 billion dollars over budget. 2 BILLION. That is far more then a casual slip up. No amount of pluming issues could ever prompt a 2 billion dollar over spend. People believe that this money went to the illuminati. Another reason for this conspiracy is the under-ground tunnels. “The airport is home to a number of tunnels, including a tram that goes between concourses and a failed automated baggage system.” (Erbland) all these tunnels go completely untouched. No use. No purpose. Or so they say. There truly is no way for us to know what’s going on down there, which sounds perfect for a secret society.

Our next conspiracies are surrounding the amount of unsettling artwork covering the airport. we have touched on the violent murals covering the walls. The murals in itself are already extremely nauseating, but upon a closer look you can see that the soldiers killing families are actually Nazi soldiers. Although the muralist has a history of taking risks and making social commentary, this is far too extreme. This has led people to believe that the airport is ran my Nazi’s. this isn’t the only evidence though. When looking at the runways from a bird’s eye view you will see “ a shape that many people have noticed looks curiously like a swastika”(Erbland). While you could just brush it off as a coincidence, I think we can all agree it seems a bit odd.

The final conspiracy is surrounding the infamous “Blucifer”. This large statue in the airport that is said to be haunted. Commonly described as “The demonic horse greeting visitors” (John), Blucifer is a light blue 32 ft tall horse statue with beaming red eyes. Just what everyone wants to see while going to their travel destination. But the looks aren’t even the scariest part about him. This horse is said to be haunted because killed his creator. While Luis Jimenez was in the finishing building process, piece of the horse fell off and crushed his leg, causing him to bleed out and die. And for some reason they thought it would be a good idea to keep the scary killer horse.

There is definitely some fishy stuff going down at the Denver Airport. with the budget over spend on top of the underground tunnels, the murals, the horse, and the layout, either at least one of these theories are true or the airport is playing one bid elaborate prank on all of us, and I fell for it. I even did some research to see what the airport has to say about it, and they feed right into it, poking fun at the theories and using it an advertising. Which makes me think, what if this really was just a ploy for advertising. Who knows, all I know is I’m never flying Denver airlines. And I think the students of College of the Mainland agree, with 62% of them saying they would also for fly Denver airlines. Whatever the case may be, it does make people wonder, are they ran by Nazi’s? is the artwork haunted? Is the airport the head of the illuminate? The world may never know.

S Erbland, Kate, “5 Conspiracy Theories Surrounding the Denver Airport.” Mental Floss, 8 Feb, 2016 https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/61740/5-weird-conspiracy-theories-surrounding-denver-international-airport

S John, Colin St, “How the Denver Airport Became an Icon of the Illuminati” Thrillist, 31 Oct. 2017, https://www.thrillist.com/travel/nation/denver-airport-conspiracy-theories

P Dalamangas, R. C. (2012). INTERVIEW: Leo Tanguma , Retrieved December 4, 2019, from https://www.zingmagazine.com/drupal/node/2039

Glentzer, Molly “Leo Tanguma, The Muralist Houston Forgot” Retrieved December 4, 2019, from https://www.houstonchronicle.com/entertainment/article/Leo-Tanguma-the-muralist-Houston-forgot-12344786.php