Is he Hassan Hosseini Nayeh? Or is it Nayjeh? Or is it Ashkan Zare? In any case, he is a rabid email-sender; he is an outsider artist; he is a writer; he is a subversive thinker; he is a theorist.
Oh, and he sends a lot of emails.
In 2024, I began receiving emails to my work address from someone called "Nayjehtheory." The topic: a completely new theory of the means by which planets form in our solar system. That theory is, of course, the Theory of Nayjeh, and its author is a person named Hassan Hosseini Nayeh. Where the "j" comes from is anybody's guess.
When you work in science, you often get emails from predatory journals or junk conference organizers who have seen your name pop up in Google Scholar searches. Sometimes you even get some random preprints from people at institutions you've never heard of. Common practice is to quickly delete those emails and go about your day; that's what I did.
But the Nayjeh Theory emails just kept coming. It seemed every week there was a virtually identical email in my inbox, and people around the lab started chatting about how strange the text was. After realizing he sent the email to over four-hundred recipients, I could no longer ignore this guy. He won me over - I'm a sucker for persistent cranks.
In the past few months, I have received dozens of emails from Hassan Hosseini Nayeh under a number of aliases. The content of the emails, the writing style, the hand-drawn figures, and the persistence and urgency have turned me in to perhaps the world's only Nayeh Theory superfan.
This is the story of that man, his art, and my correspondences with him. Expect hobby astronomy, allegations of torture, Diego Rivera, doxing, oh, and a final solution to the Israel problem.
The Solar System
Nayeh's earliest emails were all carbon copies of one another. They came with subject lines like "Solar system" or "Nayjeh theory," a respectful introduction inviting scientists to interact with his work, and about four-thousand words of text explaining the theory. In short, he explains, he is "presenting a new theory on how the gas and dust along with the solar system cools and the creation of its objects, including the Earth."
The most striking elements of the emails were the figures. To each email, he attached eight images labeled Fig. 1 through Fig. 8, which appear to be painstakingly hand-drawn in blue and black pen. The style is akin to that of Seurat, intercepted by clean cartoonish arrows indicating rotation of the clusters of dots in-and-out of the plane of the image. Futuro-pointillism?
The second-most striking was the recipient list. On one March 2025 email, there were 450 recipients. The primary targets seem to be Rockefeller University employees, although within that category there is no discrimination; graduate students, postdocs, heads of laboratory and even the people who work at the daycare center were among the crowd fortunate enough to receive the theory of Nayjeh.
The Rockefeller University is not well-known for astrophysics, and its day care workers are unlikely to be able to interrogate a new theory of the solar system, so Nayeh's selection mechanism seems confused. Still, it is a prestigious research institute with many well-read physicists, and if I had (what I thought was) a legitimate breakthrough in understanding the creation of our universe, who's to say I wouldn't do the same?
The actual contents of the theory are admittedly hard to follow. The English is poor, there are some odd typos and metaphors (he refers to "technological plates" but likely means tectonic plates, he refers to some planetary matter as "dough", etc.) and many sentences do not finish. Describing his eight figure, he writes "4--The pieces of the moon behind it f [newline] They go." Many sentences end in ellipses, as if he meant to finish them later but did not have the time to fill in the blanks: "You can imagine how the granite crust of the Earth and other rocky planets are formed. made..."
Using the same decoding tools I needed to get through Ulysses, I was able to vaguely grasp his thesis: the axis between the magnetic poles of the Earth corresponds to a physical rod passing all of the way through the planet. While the standard model (I think?) is that the Earth's core is more-or-less mechanically spherically symmetric, the Nayeh theory claims that the Earth has actually formed by accumulating mass about a thick, spinning rod - a cylindrical core.
Admittedly, I do not actually know how the planets formed. I know as close to nothing about astronomy as possible. This makes me the perfect mark for this alternative theory, because I have absolutely no sense of the mainstream theory it is mean to challenge. When Nayeh writes "by using the phenomenon of spherical masses of rotating materials in orbits around the sun, it is possible to explain why all the objects of the solar system...!!!?", I can only answer "maybe!" Isn't that what planets are?
Or should I say, isn't that what planets are...!!!?
But obviously, this closing sentence with its extravagant punctuation is not a great summary of Nayeh's transgression. No, Nayeh's real point is this rod. This big physical rod through the center of the Earth that nobody wants to talk about. Why does nobody want to talk about the rod?
Probably because of the Cold War.
The prime evidence he offers for his alternative is an experiment by Soviet scientists from the 1960s "that could change the foundations of false knowledge about the solar system." According to Nayeh, the scientists performed two tests: 1) they measured the time sound waves took to transmit from the North Pole to the South Pole, and 2) they measured the time sound waves took to transmit from two antipodal points on the equator. The scientists found that sound took less time in the former case than in the latter, indicating a mechanical asymmetry beneath the Earth's surface.
So there you have it - rod core. Why did nobody take this stuff seriously? Well, "unfortunately, other complex and strange analyzes were presented from this experiment, which were far from reality: [newline] Considering that simple physical laws govern the phenomena of the world." These Soviets lied about other things, for sure, but not about the rod.
Don't believe them? No problem. An Antarctican scientist in the 80s sent "special waves" into the Earth and found that there is a massive mountain beneat the surface - bigger even than Everest. And what is that mountain? Rod core.
Let's not give the guy too much heat for the poor presentation; clearly English is not his first language. I decided it might be interesting to check out these two experiments on my own to see if I could piece together the evidence - do my own research, as it were. I was disappointed to find that this 1960s Soviet experiment was not easily found online. The only thing I did find was this vaguely related Facebook post from an account ironically titled 80's Memories... As for Nayeh's 1980s memory of the mountain beneath Antarctica, I couldn't find that either.
So look, this guy is either making up Soviet experiments or down some super-niche rabbitholes that I am not aware of. In any case, Nayjeh theory in its current form was too hard to back without citations, and it disappeared into the infinite well of "cool figures saved on my computer."
The Nayjeh Theory of Mind
Nayeh writes: "I remember that in the classroom I was protested many times by the teacher because I explained the earth's movements based on the reality of the existence of this rod axis... but this ambiguity had always troubled my mind..."
Perhaps the silent rejection of Nayeh's theory by the Rockefeller University scientists echoed those schoolteachers. Worse, a quick Google search shows that it wasn't just us ignoring his emails - a few tweets from 2024 indicate that people at other universities were getting spammed as well, and his comment on one Daily Galaxy article received only negative responses. The first mention I see of Nayeh is a tweet from January of 2024; the last copy of the theory he bulk-blasted to the university was May 3, 2025 (less than two weeks ago).
Beyond being ignored, Nayeh was being censored. The IT people at Rockefeller began deleting his emails from our servers. Don't worry - we kept getting new Nayjeh Theory emails, they were just coming from dozens of different email addresses named nayjehtheory(some number)@gmail.com. Whether the IT department was simply too incompetent or too lazy to block anything with the word "Nayeh" or "Nayjeh" in it is anyone's guess, but either way, the emails were getting deleted within hours of receipt.
This is where we arrive at the moment of escalation in our story - in late March of 2025, Rockefeller addresses began getting spammed with emails from Nayjehtheory accounts with the subject line "hey fascists." These emails were quite different from their predecessors - while the Nayjeh Theory emails were very respectful in tone, the Hey Fascists emails were accusatory, demeaning and apocalyptic. These were invariably deleted from the Rockefeller server in even less time, but they had a pretty serious impact on the people who received them. Here is the full text of one from March 27:
"Hey fascists
The emails that I have sent about the solar system can be a way to end your problems and on the other hand, it can be a way to collapse this dynasty that you have built and bring such destruction that the historians will not be able to write about it, and in the first step, the imaginations of
Swallow your nonsense. And until the end of your lustful and miserable life, may you taste the true taste of servants and chakras. Now go tell your master"
What I have learned is that if you are an average person, and you receive daily emails from an unknown man calling you a lustful, miserable fascist, and telling you that you are soon to face unprecedented destruction, you get a bit shaken up. I, on the other hand, responded to the emails.
Unfortunately, the vast majority of the Hey Fascists emails have been deleted, and I didn't have the foresight to back them up. Most of them initially read like the one quoted above, but some rang a bit more conspiratorial. One memorable email contained the address of some women's gym in Tehran. Another just contained two headshots of women who he labeled as "fascist Rockefeller sattelites" (he gave their full names, and it seems they are Iranian boxers). My favorite contained an image of "Man at the Crossroads" by Diego Rivera with a juxtaposition of one of the capitalist figures in the image and John D. Rockefeller, Jr. (My coworkers thought the mural was an AI-generated image, which made me feel dead inside.)
As he continued sending us Hey Fascist emails, I continued to respond from both my work email and my personal email. He didn't respond. When I brought up these attempts at lunch, my labmates began to wonder if I was Hassan Hosseini Nayeh; perhaps I was playing some sort of prank? But as he continued to ignore my emails, my requests for one-on-one correspondence, my pleadings for deeper explanations of his theories, I really did begin to feel like Hassan Hosseini Nayeh. Unheard. Unseen. Our emails disappearing into the void as they were deleted by the IT team at Rockefeller University.
And isn't deleting emails containing subversive content... exactly what a fascist would do?
Don Quixote and the State of Israel
Until April, there was still no obvious link between the Rockefeller University, the Nayjeh Theory of the rod-cored Earth, and the true taste of servants and chakras. The cosmic dust cloud only became more opaque when we started receiving emails from gazastripoils(number)@gmail.com, not signed by any individual, but often containing some Nayeh classics. An April 25 email reads:
"It's better for this theory to disappear before it falls into the hands of fascists like you and those dirty Rockefellers. Rockefellers who have also corrupted science and hindered its progress."
Oh sorry, I meant to say that was the subject line. This has to be Hassan Hosseini Nayeh, right? If so, we have a few more nodes in our graph but also, finally, a few connections.
The Gaza Strip Oils theory is not obviously related to Nayeh theory, but there are some parallels. This first email claims that oil bubbles are rising from the mantle to the crust, which in some unexplained way is causing trouble for the Rockefeller Standard Oil monopoly. Well, there's a link: geology -> oil -> Rockefeller. Easy!
This new oil is showing up in Basra (Iraq) and Syria, splitting Sudan into two countries, and most importantly, has just been discovered under the Gaza Strip. As far as I can tell, this is not the Gaza Strip Oils theory. These are simply the facts. The theory itself? Well, it's better for it to disappear than for it to fall into the hands of fascists like us!
I was kind of intrigued. This time around, I was smart enough not to waste time Googling his quoted facts - I just wanted to know what the theory was. Were there figures? What's so dangerous about it? And does he think the Rockefeller University scientists have something to do with Rockefeller Standard Oil?
So I shot him back an email: "Hey Hassan, can we talk one-on-one? I am not a fascist." He didn't respond directly, but instead sent out an email blast to, again, every single person at the Rockefeller University:
"I'm not Hassan Hosseini Nayeh. Stupid fascists. This theory is more important than what a torture doctor at Rockefeller University is working on. You better go find more electric wires to cause seizures, you wretches. This theory is about oil and oil basin exploration and advances in geological science. So you better tell your master."
That was both the subject line and the body of the email. I thought, the disguise fell apart when he (accidentally?) used a gazastripoils account to send out the Nayeh Theory email a few days later. There's some plausible deniability, though: a recent email reads "I am not Hassan Hosseini Nayeh, I am just sending an email. Hassan Hosseini Nayeh is very old and may not live long." I am just sending an email.
The gazastripoils emails grew more and more aggressive. One particularly frightening one titled "Re: Don Quixote Rockefeller's mercenaries are assassins in Iran 09161415576" contained pictures of dozens of random students. I started getting emails off of the larger Rockefeller chain, but instead included on a list of recipients from Harvard, Dartmouth and the Rothschild Foundation.
It does seem he has targets - he is sending us pictures of specific people - so maybe I should be concerned that he has my real name and place of work. Then again, he is very busy and probably lives in Tehran, right? And he isn't making threats, no, just predictions. Plus, I still don't know what the Gaza Strip Oils theory is!
Then I got my first one-to-one email from this person - now under the name "Ashkan Zare" - and I actually felt a bit unsettled. The subject line and body read: "Hey fascist, if you can't tell your masters, then get out of this, go buy more torture wires, you stupid torture doctor Don Quixote."
Aw! Singular fascist! That's me! This was my chance. I would not blow it.
The correspondences themselves are somewhat interesting in part because they are far more legible than the usual Nayeh rambles. They are still riddled with grammatical errors and odd word choices, but they are structured in normal paragraphs with periods and commas in the correct places. This is a real guy; the Nayeh and Gaza Strip Oil theories that I believed for so long were stream-of-consciousness nonsense came out of a real, thinking brain.
Here is my best attempt at a summary. The Rockefeller monopoly was ostensibly broken up by the Sherman anti-trust act, but obviously the Rockefellers maintained extreme wealth and power. The family still has stake in oil, and can reasonably be assumed to be involved in any geopolitical event surrounding it. Every Rockefeller-associated organization (the Rockefeller University, the Council on Foreign Relations, the Trilateral Commission) is complicit as they are funded by this oil-blood money.
The oil in the Middle East is incentivizing the Rockefellers to send mercenaries (by which he means scientists and consultants) to countries like Iran and prepare them for maximal capital extraction through oil. Iran is the most important ally to the Palestians in Gaza, and Gaza has oil that most people don't know about yet, so that's the place to send Rockefeller plants.
The connection back to Nayjeh theory is, as far as I can tell, that you can derive from it the existence of Gazan oil. Otherwise, you would have to be a Rockefeller to know about it. The Rockefeller graduate students in Iran aren't knowingly contributing to the eventual destruction of Israel, Gaza and Iran - they are Don Quixotes who psychotically believe that they are engaging in noble science.
Let me be frank: what I wrote above sounds crazy, and that is the most charitable condensation of the emails that I can give. There is still a lot to be explained, and perhaps in the coming weeks I will receive more emails. How does one get from the rod-core to oil specifically under Gaza? Why would the Rockefellers want to destroy the state of Israel? Why does he keep bringing up the Michaelangelo Antonioni film "Zabriskie Point"?
And why am I so interested in learning these answers? When I brought up this long-desired personal correspondence in the lunchroom, the lab secratary responded: "this seems like a hobby to you. What would you call this hobby?"