Laughing Horse's Orifice Headquarters

Laughing Horse's Orifice Headquarters (LHOHQ) is a domain by the name of LHOHQ.info which contains many bizarre pages with disturbing imagery that alludes to government conspiracy theories and occultism. The information featured has led many to believe it is a honeypot that contains illegal materials, while others believe it is a sort of netart internet project given its artistic ties. It is thus considered an internet mystery and sometimes labeled as an ARG in a loose sense, though it is not a playable game. LHOHQ received recognition from internet communities at the height of pizzagate’s popularity and has since been subject to theories about its operation, such as the incorporation of AI or bots.

Origin

The earliest mention of LHOHQ appears to be in 2007, when an identical post was added to forums abovetopsecret and blizzhackers on June 12 and 13, respectively. Both appear to have been posted by the same individual, as the usernames were AlexM and Alex-M, respectively.

The post contained the following (please note that the linked images are unavailable):

Today, while walking down the street with friends, I discovered a sheet of paper with a strange symbol on it taped to the side of a small billboard. 
For whatever reason it striked me as extremely weird so I pocketed it with the hopes of discovering what it meant. 
Is it a riddle? Just a symbol? I have no idea but hopefully someone here will recognize something from it. 
Here is a picture of the symbol:
[image]
On the bottom of the hexagon is a cobra inside a circle:
[image]
In the center of the pentagon maze is an eye:
[image]
Around the outside of the hexagon are the letters: H, Q, L, H, and O (in that order)
Has anyone ever seen anything like this? I guess what strikes me most (beyond the fact that it is wierd as hell) is the creepy eye in the center...reminds me of the Illuminati eye.
On a semi-related note, I live in Milwaukee, WI.

According to the site urlscan.io, the domain www.lhohq.info was registered on November 10, 2007.

Content

Many have characterized LHOHQ as a rabbit hole due to the sheer amount of pages within the domain. The website visualsitemapper.com reports that there are 200 pages within lhohq.info, and a 4chan user has created a pastebin containing 230 links that all allegedly belong to lhohq.info.

The pages themselves are bizarre and typically contain bright, flashing images, obscene and disturbing visual content, and sometimes equally unsettling music. The pages usually contain many branching links to other LHOHQ pages, without any central organization. It is not known whether illegal content has been found on any of the pages in the domain. Themes in the pages include government conspiracies, mind control such as Project MKUltra, and religious or occult references, and can appear in the form of varyingly incoherent writing. Some pages contain several pieces of personal information about prominent public figures, such as contact information and home addresses. Internet users have remarked that such information may have been illegally obtained and therefore of a confidential nature. Others have noted the presence of screenshots from Intelius, a public records business, might indicate that the information is already publicly available.

Notoriety

In 2016 U.S. election cycle, the pizzagate conspiracy theory became viral, which brought considerable attention to LHOHQ given its conspiracy-riddled pages. Many conspiracy-oriented conversations at the time, particularly within the communities of Reddit and 4chan, make reference to LHOHQ. The subreddits InternetMysteries, conspiracy, ARG, conspiracy_commons, and talesfromtheinternet all have threads relating to LHOHQ, as well as 4chan boards /pol/ and /x/. There is a small following dedicated to a subreddit about LHOHQ, entitled LaughingHorseOrifice, and a small LHOHQ Wiki as well.

Connections

LHOHQ is closely connected to domain of Applied Controlled Dynamics of Control Association, which was registered on December 7, 2014, according to urlscan.io. The latter contains several mentions of LHOHQ and features much of the same type of content. LHOHQ is also believed to be connected to synt.us due to similar content, but the site is no longer operational. The Youtube account lhohq has posted videos with remarkably similar imagery to the original website, as well.

Intention

In a video about LHOHQ, Youtuber blameitonjorge makes mention of an LHOHQ page that has a list of videos. LHOHQ’s “The First Time Space Girl on the Farm” is the same as “Space Girl by L.H.O.", which is listed on Mark Escribiano’s Vimeo page. The same goes for “The Pond”: Escribiano is credited as a director for both videos. The connection to other artists, such as photo credit given to Dmitry Myaskovsky and other references on his own social media, has led users such as blameitonjorge to come to the conclusion that LHOHQ is an art project of sorts. Some users have added that it seems to have a satirical element, like reddit user snallygaster, who classifies LHOHQ as an “interactive art [media]”. Correspondingly, LHOHQ itself references Church of the Subgenius, which is also considered satirical.

Many believe that the website makes use of artificial intelligence of some kind. Some pages with walls of personal information also contain the words “Auto-Added” or “Uncategorized”: as noted by Youtuber blameitonjorge, this may be indicative of bot activity.

References

This article "Laughing Horse's Orifice Headquarters" is from Wikipedia. The list of its authors can be seen in its historical and/or the page Edithistory:Laughing Horse's Orifice Headquarters. Articles copied from Draft Namespace on Wikipedia could be seen on the Draft Namespace of Wikipedia and not main one.

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