Iraan – not a typo – is a small Texas community that developed around oil production. It’s name is pronounced “Ira Ann”, placing it firmly in the category of odd Texas names like “Palestine” (pronounced Pal-e-steen) and “West” (which is in central, not west, Texas).
It’s also next to a huge underground city. Or so some believe. The rumor spread, mostly, because of a video which was spread heavily by Stranger Than Fiction news, an Alex Jones wannabe site that continues to post to Twitter about the secret Hillary Clinton body double and 9/11 inside job as well as heavily retweeting Russia Today and Gateway Pundit posts.
Here’s an example, provided in friend-of-a-friend style popular with many conspiracy theorists. Please note the lack of specific attribution, but the amazing detail provided for a secondhand story – the rank of people, the brand of vehicles, everything.
The story gained some traction amidst conspiracy theorists and was picked up by some of the locals, who played along. Iraan is a small town. Things like this can be fun.
Note that the cyclist who narrates the video does not believe the story. He simply provides the details as he saw them, and admits that some of the locals were presenting the theory as fact.
The story continued to gain traction until a much more important and tragic story affected the town. In an event which garnered national attention, the small town’s football team season-undefeated team won the Texas state quarterfinals in 2016, only to have a bus carrying their cheer squad and a teacher involved in a traffic accident that left many dead. For a town of 1200, the incident drew the community together and ended much of the playful teasing of the conspiracy theorists.
The story still has believers, even though people traveling through Iraan have yet to find any evidence of a secret road, mountain base or hidden underground tunnel.
There are a few tells about the supposed city, however. The first and most obvious is the one which is a useful tool in all conspiracy theory: the extensive detail on second-hand stories. By the nature of second-hand information, if one is going to present only accurate information, the detail available will diminish with each subsequent retelling. If the opposite happens, there is only one possible conclusion: someone is lying.
Other than that, there are the mechanical issues. Power generation aside, an underground city would require considerable air flow and resource generation. Even with hydroponics and geothermal power, the area required to produce the food is enormous. These are simple physical restrictions on underground cities.
Even if the mysterious trucker were hauling loads on a regular basis, exclusively to that city, they would need more resources than what a single truck would carry.
The argument then becomes that the city of Iraan is fake. It’s a front, using the strangely ubiquitous “actors” found in many conspiracies as people supposedly living in the homes there. The resources there are the ones used to fuel the secret city. I suppose the actors don’t require things like food, if one is to believe that line.
Saying that the city doesn’t exist, however, diminishes both the tragedy of the cheerleader deaths and the triumph of the small town’s successful football efforts. Football and cheerleading are both extremely popular in Texas. A conspiracy theorist who insists that both are fake is a conspiracy theorist who will get little love from the Lone Star State.
