Fact check
Is it true: Bohemian Grove?
Partly — it's more complicated than the claim suggests.
Bohemian Grove exists and hosts an annual encampment for members of the Bohemian Club and their guests. Several men who were or became US presidents (Hoover, Eisenhower, Nixon, Reagan, George H. W. Bush) have attended, along with senior executives and cabinet officials. The "Cremation of Care" ceremony is a theatrical performance in which an effigy of "Care" is burned before a large owl shrine at the start of the retreat. It is documented in sociologist G. William Domhoff's study, in Philip Weiss's 1989 Spy magazine account and in Alex Jones's 2000 footage. Claims of literal sacrifice, Moloch worship, or Satanic ritual are unsupported, and Domhoff concludes the Grove "is not a secret meeting place to plot, plan, or conspire." The valid critique is a private, men-only club that does not disclose its membership: a roster of the 2023 encampment, about 2,200 names according to the San Francisco Standard (the Press Democrat counted 1,900), was leaked in February 2026.
The claim
An annual summer retreat held at a 2,700-acre private campground in California's redwoods by the men-only Bohemian Club, whose July encampments date back to the 1870s. Attended by business executives,
Key evidence
Real annual elite retreat with presidents and executives
Cremation of Care is allegorical theater, not sacrifice
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