People think scientists are opening hell portals with this particle collider

After a three-year hiatus for repairs and upgrades, the Large Hadron Collider operated by the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) is back online. Scientists operating the world’s largest particle collider are once again searching for the existence of the fundamental particles known as the Higgs boson, which appeared after the Big Bang — or at least, that’s what they want you to believe.

You see, while scientists claim to be researching the origins of the universe and have produced a massive amount of research and scholarship to back this up, the truth-tellers on Twitter know better. The Large Hadron Collider is no tool for understanding our own existence. It is instead a tool to usher in the apocalypse and open a portal to hell. All of this was foretold by the ancient and predictive scroll known as ... Dr. Strange and the Multiverse of Madness.

Look, parsing this is an exercise in futility because the theories that people have cooked up about CERN’s particle collider are certified bonkers. But there is a surprisingly not-so-small contingent of internet sleuths who are pretty sure they’ve discovered the true purpose of the machine, and we shouldn’t ignore the fact that these people exist.

Deciding which collider conspiracy you’d like to believe is a bit of a choose your own adventure book. Would you like some faith and religion sprinkled in there? Try “CERN is summoning the devil” on for size. The evidence: CERN has “666” in its logo and the collider’s loop is 16.6 miles in circumference, which is apparently close enough to the devil’s number to count. In this telling of the story, CERN is opening a portal to hell under the Earth’s surface.

Maybe you’re more into the supernatural. Then perhaps the shadow people conspiracy is more your speed. In this explanation, CERN is inviting in “shadow people” from another dimension. You’ll be able to spot these people — amorphous, black clouds in the outline of a human — in your peripheral vision. It’s unclear what they do other than chill, but it does seem bad to invite interdimensional beings onto our plane.

If you fancy yourself more of a puzzle box type person who likes to piece together a mystery, then the “Hollywood has been warning us” theory should be up your alley. According to these experts, some of the sci-fi stories told in the last few years have been preparing us for CERN’s true intention: opening up a portal to another dimension. The proof: Well, Stranger Things did it. And so did the latest entry in the Dr. Strange franchise, kind of.

A good question for any of these conspiratorial explanations for the Large Hadron Collider is simply: Why? Like, why would scientists do these things? Presumably, the answer is that they are controlled by Satan, or are just too arrogant to restrain themselves, or something. But frankly, if scientists are creative enough to build a machine that can rip a hole in our very reality, surely they can come up with something better than a middling entry into the Marvel Cinematic Universe.