Because of the highly-specialised – and often terrifying – work that goes on at Cern, it has become a haven of speculation for conspiracy theorists and anxious people. It’s far from the first time that scientific work has been associated with the occult or the mystical. Cern said that it doesn’t “condone this type of spoof” because it can “give rise to misunderstandings about the scientific nature of our work”. “India is one of CERN’s observer states, along with the USA, Russia and Japan.Ī Cern spokesperson confirmed that the video had been filmed there, but said that it had been made without permission or knowledge. “This deity was chosen by the Indian government because of a metaphor that was drawn between the cosmic dance of the Nataraj and the modern study of the ‘cosmic dance’ of subatomic particles,” the organisation says on a website unrelated to the prank. The Shiva statue was a “gift from India to celebrate its association with Cern”, according to the institution’s website. In both the video and real life, it is lit from below – which means that a huge shadow is cast across the building behind.
The ceremony took place under the large states of the Hindu deity Shiva, which permanently stands at the complex.
As that happens, the person who is supposedly recording the video appears to react – firing out expletives and apparently running away, which causes the camera to move away from the scene before it is cut off.
