by Br. Alexis Bugnolo

There are internet myths like there are urban legends. One of these is both. I speak about the Internet myth that Bill Gates’ name meets the biblical requirements for name of the Antichrist.

The myth goes like this:  Bill Gates name in Ascii has the numerical decimal value of 666. I will recite the myth, from an article entitled, AntiChrist Myths – Bill Gates and Microsoft:

The ASCII decimal code is how our computers communicate with each other and internally. (ASCII actually has two versions of this code, but only the decimal one will work here.)

Every letter and numeral on a computer has a corresponding ASCII decimal code. For Bill Gates III, it works out like this … according to legend, anyway …

B = 66
I = 73
L = 76
L = 76

G = 71
A = 65
T = 84
E = 69
S = 83

I = 1
I = 1
I = 1

Thus the Internet Myth.  Now 666truth.org, from which I recite the myth, rebuts it, in this way:

For the most part, the numbers in the Bill Gates III calculation are spot on — until you come to the “III.” The email suggests that the ASCII code for each of the characters in “III” is 1, but that’s not true. If you use the upper case “I,” the decimal code for each is 73. If you use the number “1,” the decimal code for each is 49. In fact, there isn’t any instance in the ASCII code in which any of the letters or numerals normally used to form “III” equates to 1. Indeed, the closest our calculations came to was 810! That’s not very scary, is it? Moreover, we wonder why his full legal name, which includes William and Henry, isn’t so important when calculating the number of his name.

I suppose for some who study scripture it is necessary to understand whether Bill Gate’s is the AntiChrist or not, but as a Franciscan and anthropologist, I find it very curious there exists a site to debunk misunderstandings of the biblical reference to 666.  666truth.org, describes itself thus, on its home page:

We don’t have to be afraid of this number. Indeed, it’s the natural number that follows 665 and precedes 667. It doesn’t have to be a mystery as you’ll soon find out as you explore this website. The Bible is abundantly clear on what 666 has to do with prophecy.

And if you read their article on, Who is the Antichrist?, you will find, after a long long discussion, that the author of this website thinks that one of the Beasts of the Apocalypse is the Papacy, another is Protestantism in North America. Next, that article claims its contrary to the Gospel for Christians to use military power to defend themselves. So far, they agree to everything the Masonic Lodge teaches.

Finally, after a long historical diatribe full of errors and anti-Catholic bigotry the author of it praises John Calvin, the Arch-heretic son of a simoniacal Catholic priest, as a great preacher of god.

So I think you can see where the website 666truth.org is coming from and what its objective is.

What remains curious, is why such a website wants to debunk an internet myth about Bill Gates? Who after all is said to be a Roman Catholic. It does not make sense.

But it is an example in informational warfare. To direct the narrative, any possibility which challenges that narrative, no matter how absurd, has to be refuted.

666truth.org is simply, that, then, a website by a small sectarian kind of protestant who uses the Biblical number to direct followers to his own cult. It is not about the biblical teaching at all, it is about marketing disinformation in matters of the Gospel.

But the truth is that Bill Gates was raised in the Congregational Christian Church, and that his wife is a Catholic and that he has raised his children as Catholics, though he is not one himself, he does attend Mass with his wife and family. He is, therefore, ostensibly Christian, even though the surnames of his four grandparents are also used by Ashkenazi Jews.

As for the Internet Myth and its debunking, both are wrong. I dabbled in programming back in the 80’s and know that the string, “BILLGATES” equals 666, because BILLGATES equals 663 and the end of text character, which follows all strings in ASCIII equals 3.

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