Andreas Heldal-Lund (10 December 1964 – 2 January 2024) was a Norwegian anti-Scientology activist best known for operating the website Operation Clambake.

Andreas Heldal-Lund was born in Oslo, Norway on 10 December 1964.^[1] He moved to Stavanger, Norway in 1985.^[1]

In August 2022, Heldal-Lund announced he had been diagnosed with an inoperable brain tumour.^[2] He died on 2 January 2024 at the age of 59.^[3]

Heldal-Lund served on multiple boards for the national secular humanist organization Human-Etisk Forbund.^[4][5][6] He was also a member of the Norwegian Society of Heathens.^[7]

Heldal-Lund first became interested in the Church of Scientology in 1996 when he read about Magne Berge, an ex-member in Norway, who sued the organization in court and won.^[2][8] Heldal-Lund started gathering information about Scientology and eventually began hosting the materials himself as part of a project he called Operation Clambake.^[2]

Heldal-Lund was also a contributor to the alt.religion.scientology newsgroup. On 14 July 2000, he sent an email to a user calling themselves "Magoo" with advice for making their posts more readable.^[9][10][11] This started a conversation between the two.^[9][11] Of the experience, Magoo would later say to Heldal-Lund, "I honestly thought you were the devil...I was amazed at how kind you were. I thought for sure you would be the meanest and worst of all the critics. So when you were you, it really cracked the shell."^[9] Magoo made an announcement on 20 July 2000 on alt.religion.scientology that she was Tory Bezazian and she was no longer a Scientologist.^[9]

In 2003, Heldal-Lund received the Leipzig Human Rights Award from the European-American Citizens Committee for Human Rights and Religious Freedom in the US, an organization which states it is composed of "Scientology opponents from all over the world."^[12][13]

He received an honorary award in 2022 from Human-Etisk Forbund.^[14]

Andreas Heldal-Lund originally created a website that was a list of links to articles and information about Scientology and the Church of Scientology. When he noticed that the links kept disappearing because of legal maneuvering by the church,^{[15][2][16][17]} he decided to host the information himself.^{[18][19][20][16]}

Most of the information presented by Operation Clambake is critical of the Church of Scientology and its leadership, although dissenters are given prominent space to air their differences.^[21]

Even though the Church of Scientology had threatened legal action, Heldal-Lund said he'd never been sued.^[15][16] Norway has more liberal copyright laws which provide more freedom of speech protections.^[15][2][17] However, Mike Rinder, a former executive director of the Office of Special Affairs for the Church of Scientology^[22], and Leah Remini, a former Scientologist, put forth another theory in a conversation with Heldal-Lund in their Fair Game Podcast.^[16] It as Heldal-Lund's chosen domain name of xenu.net that may be responsible.^[16] Xenu is a central character in Scientology's creation myth^[23] which can only be accessed in higher levels of the church.^[24][25] Scientologists are required to sign a confidentiality agreement that contains a clause stating they understand they will be fined each time they speak about the materials with anyone else.^[24][25] According to Remini, this fine can go as high as $100,000 for each infraction.^[26] Filing a lawsuit and referencing the name xenu.net in court documents could breach this agreement.^[16]

Instead Heldal-Lund said the Church sent harassing letters to his job and investigated his friends and former partners.^[27][16] Every time he'd think about stepping away, the church would do something else to keep him invested.^[27][15] In an interview with Dawn Olsen, Heldal-Lund said, "They created me; if they had left me alone and ignored me, I probably would have been doing this for [only] a couple of months."^[15]

The church also targeted his ISP, network service providers^[15] and filed Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) takedown notices with both Google and the Wayback Machine to remove links to xenu.net.^[17][28]. Under the law, if the site owner feels the removed links are fair use, they can file a counter notice under the DMCA to have the links restored.^[29] Heldal-Lund declined to take this step because he felt that filing the counter notice would subject him to US copyright law.^[28] Public outcry from free speech advocates made Google restore some of the links to xenu.net.^[30] For a time, this also resulted in Operation Clambake rising to the number two position on Google search results for "Scientology;" just under the church's official website.^[30][17]

When actor Jason Beghe decided to leave Scientology in 2008, he contacted Heldal-Lund, who convinced him to meet with Mark Bunker, a critic of Scientology known to the Anonymous group as "Wise Beard Man".^[31] Heldal-Lund and Bunker went to Beghe's house, where Beghe participated in an interview about his experiences as a Scientologist.^[31] Bunker published a two-hour portion of the three-hour interview to YouTube on 4 June 2008.^[32]

In the aftermath of online acts taken against Scientology by the group Anonymous as part of the protest movement Project Chanology, Heldal-Lund released a statement criticizing the digital assault against Scientology.^[33][34] "People should be able to have easy access to both sides and make up their own opinions. Freedom of speech means we need to allow all to speak – including those we strongly disagree with."^[35]

• Leipzig Human Rights Award, 17 May 2003^[12]
• Honorary Award 2022 in from Human-Etisk Forbund^[14]