Bohemian Grove

A gentlemen's camping trip that grew enormous

The Bohemian Club, founded in San Francisco in 1872 by journalists and artists, began an annual summer encampment tradition in 1878 at a different Marin County site. The club moved to its present Monte Rio location along the Russian River in 1893 and purchased the 2,700 acre property outright in 1899. Over the following century its membership shifted from bohemian creatives toward CEOs, politicians, and financiers, and the annual two week July gathering became one of the most exclusive, hardest to access social rituals in American life.

The footage that fueled the theory

In 2000, broadcaster Alex Jones snuck a camera into the grove and filmed the Cremation of Care ceremony, a theatrical ritual performed at a 40 foot stone owl shrine in which attendees symbolically burn an effigy representing their worldly cares. Jones described it as a ritual tied to occult or Illuminati symbolism; the club itself has confirmed the footage is real but maintains the ceremony is a piece of fraternal theater dating back over a century.

The secrecy

No outside reporting has produced evidence that policy decisions get made inside the grove. The club keeps a strict no press, no outsiders policy.

The grove is not visible from the road. The nearest public ground is the town of Monte Rio, along the Russian River. The club's encampment at the grove runs for 2 weeks every July.