| The Underground Bunker

Tony Ortega is a journalist who was formerly the editor of The Village Voice. He's written about Scientology since 1995, and in May 2015 released a book about Scientology's harassment of Paulette Cooper titled 'The Unbreakable Miss Lovely.' He continues to monitor breaking developments in the Scientology world from an undisclosed location in an underground bunker he shares with four cats and one of them wrinkly Shar Pei dogs. Despite his super-secret security protections, you can still reach him pretty easily by sending him a message at tonyo94 AT gmail.com (Drop him a line if you'd like to get an e-mail whenever a new story is posted.) [Header image courtesy John Rickard]

Tom Cruise’s Scientology superpowers, No. 14: Helping at the scene of a car accident

Friday we began our countdown of Scientology superpowers that Tom Cruise can expect as an OT Scientologist and million-dollar donor.

Today, we thought we’d tackle the astounding claim that Cruise made during his infamous “black turtleneck video” which was recorded in 2004 and leaked to the Internet four years later. You must have seen it. […]

News from Texas reminds us of a legendary fight against Scientology’s goon squad

[Back in the day]

One of the reasons that Marty Rathbun’s bizarre about-face in 2016 was so startling and disappointing was that until that time, interviewing him was one of the absolute highlights of the work we had done here and at the Village […]

Was David Miscavige behind Tom Mesereau’s biggest blunder at Danny Masterson’s prelim?

[Mesereau, Miscavige, Masterson, and Podberesky]

With another set of hearings coming up for Danny Masterson in both his civil and criminal cases this Monday, we have been thinking about the dramatic four days we spent in Los Angeles at his last courtroom […]

Scientology’s Chicago Ideal Org says it’s next to open. Is Second City ready for its closeup?

It was just a couple of days ago that we posted mailers from Scientology which claimed that the new Austin Ideal Org would be the first to open now that the pandemic is […]

Scientology is back! Fundraising back on to turn the entire country ‘Ideal,’ praise Xenu!

Scientology is back!

Oh wow, it’s been so long since we’ve seen this version of Scientology — Dave’s push to get all of the orgs ‘Ideal’ and all at once — that we nearly forgot how fun it […]

Two Scientologists win seats on Los Angeles neighborhood council

[Lallah and Chris Rowe]

Our thanks to the tipster who noticed that a couple of Scientologists won election this week to spots on their neighborhood council in Sunland-Tujunga, a residential part of Los Angeles in the San Fernando […]

The Top 25 People Enabling Scientology, No. 1: The Feds

[IRS commissioner Charles Rettig and AG Merrick Garland]

Last August we started this countdown because we wanted to shine a light on the non-Scientologists who help keep Scientology in business, and who end up enabling Scientology’s worst […]

ABCMouse honcho gives Scientology another $10 million — for construction of ‘LRH Hall’

Scientology’s long planned L. Ron Hubbard Hall, an auditorium to join its ‘Flag Land Base’ in Clearwater, Florida, is still soaking up million-dollar donations from the church’s wealthy donors, and we get to see who they are in a new church […]

Clearwater City Council denounces ‘Cult City Tours,’ expresses shock at operator behavior

Mark Bunker was clearly on the hot seat tonight at the Clearwater City Council meeting, and Scientology had to be loving […]

Scientology’s Brent Jones & ‘Real Water’ horror: kids needed liver transplants, attorney says

This story out of Nevada is much, much worse than you may have already heard.

We spoke with Will Kemp, the Las Vegas attorney who filed a lawsuit for a family whose child’s liver nearly failed, and they are accusing the makers of “Real Water,” an alkaline water we’ve told you about many times in the […]