WARNING: The following contains spoilers for American Horror Story: Double Feature, available now on Hulu.

In the midst of another bonkers season finale, American Horror Story introduces another in its seemingly bottomless bag of UFO conspiracy theories. Season 10, Episode 10, “The Future Perfect” reveals Henry Kissinger and an unknown number of other world leaders to be intelligent reptile people from another planet. As outlandish as it is, the idea has flourished in UFO conspiracy circles for many years, developing convoluted explanations and variations along the way. The episode upends the idea with its typical camp excess, revealing its lizard people as at once terrifying and utterly absurd.

Yet as briefly as they appear, they form a connection between American Horror Story and an entirely different pop culture beast: Conan the Barbarian, the 1982 swords-and-sorcery epic that made a star out of Arnold Schwarzenegger. Both Conan and the lizard people theory begin with the same author – Robert E. Howard – though for decidedly different reasons. The real-life connection is as strange as anything on the show.

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The theory holds that a race of reptile beings from another planet have secretly governed the human race for thousands of years. They have the ability to appear human if they wish, and in this guise have occupied positions of power throughout history. Its earliest roots lie in 19th century anti-Semitism and fears of immigration. But in his book A Culture of Conspiracy, political scientist Michael Barkun traces it to an overt piece of fiction: Howard’s “The Shadow Kingdom,” published in the August 1929 issue of Weird Tales Magazine.

The story has nothing to do with aliens, focusing instead on Howard’s fantasy hero Kull the Conqueror. He discovers a conspiracy of serpent people in his newly claimed kingdom, who have lived there for thousands of years and ruled from the shadows. They have the ability to take on human form and use a cult of snake worshippers to hold sway over the people as well. Kull survives multiple attempts to kill him and impersonate him with a reptile man. In the end, he reveals the conspiracy and vows to rid the kingdom of the hidden threat.

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Thulsa Doom on his throne in Conan the Barbarian

UFO conspiracists took to the idea as wild reports of abductions came with descriptions of alien reptile men. Conspiracy theorist David Icke generated a lot of publicity in 1999 by claiming that several world leaders were actually reptile people and that they were from a planet in the Alpha Draconis system. As outlandish and easily disproven as it is, a recent poll found that up to 12 million Americans continue to believe it, a troubling figure considering the concept’s deeply problematic racial and anti-Semitic undertones.

Conan the Barbarian carries problematic elements of its own, though like “The Shadow Kingdom,” it never pretends to be anything but make-believe. The story arrays the title character against Thulsa Doom, a sorcerer rumored to be a thousand years old and who has the ability to transform into a giant snake. He leads a cult of serpent worshippers spreading throughout the civilized world, using them to conduct political assassinations and similar acts of mayhem before finally being slain by Conan in the finale.

That’s a long way from American Horror Story's brief glimpse of the same idea, and yet the overlaps can be seen. Like Thulsa Doom, the show's version of Kissinger holds tremendous political power and conducts all manner of global mayhem in secret, though the series doesn’t develop the idea beyond a few brief moments. But its odd link to Schwarzenegger’s muscle-bound action classic feels of a kind with the season’s other outlandish twists and turns. Indeed, after revealing that both Marilyn Monroe and JFK were murdered to keep silent in its twisted alternate history, Howard himself might have feasibly been added to the show’s list. The author tragically killed himself at age 30.

To see America's alien takeover, all 10 episodes of American Horror Story: Double Feature are on Hulu now.

KEEP READING: AHS: Double Feature Episode 10, 'The Future Perfect,' Recap & Spoilers