Is it satire? A hoax? It's hard to say, but whatever the case, the Illuminati's new website is the strangest thing we've ever come across. More worryingly, this unlikely ad campaign seems to have been taken very seriously by tons of people on the internet, who are signing up to join the secret society in their thousands.

The Illuminati ('the illuminated, or enlightened, in Latin) is a secret society that can be traced back to Bavaria, Germany, in 1776, with ties to freemasonry and the Jesuits. Since then its existence remains shrouded in secrecy, only gaining notoriety in recent years with the explosion of the internet and so-called conspiracy theories which have grown in popularity since 9/11. But what exactly does it mean?

According to the website, "the Illuminati is an elite collective of political leaders, business owners, entertainment celebrities, and other influential members of this planet. By uniting influencers of the world in an unrestrictive, private domain — free of political, religious, and geological boundaries — our organization helps to further the prosperity of the human species as a whole."