Conspiracy theories (a collection)

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Conspiracy Theories by topic

Assassinations

Assassinations are a classic subject of conspiracy theories. The assassination of a prominent figure is a singular event which can dramatically change the course of public affairs. Those drawn to conspiracy theory are led to ask, in the aftermath of an assassination, Who benefited from this death? Though some assassinations are committed by lone individuals, and many others by aboveboard governments (such as that of Leon Trotsky), and other assassinations are committed as the result of a provable conspiracy, there have been several assassinations whose purposes and evidence remain mysterious in the public eye — and suspicious to most people.

Best-known among assassination conspiracy theories in the United States are those dealing with a rash of seemingly politically motivated deaths in the 1960s, notably those of U.S. President John F. Kennedy, Senator Robert F. Kennedy, and civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr.

Investigations and scientific testing and recreations into the circumstances of John F. Kennedy's death have not settled the question of who killed him. That U.S. public opinion considers this still to be an open issue is suggested by three polls in 2003. An ABC News random telephone poll found that just 32% (plus or minus 3%) of Americans believe that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone in the assassination of John F. Kennedy, while 68% do not believe Oswald acted alone. [1] The "Discovery Channel" poll (sampling method not given) reveals that only 21% believe Oswald acted alone, while 79% do not believe Oswald acted alone. [2] The "History Channel" poll (self-selected responses) details that only 17% of respondents believe that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone in the assassination of John F. Kennedy, while 83% do not believe Oswald acted alone. [3] It should, however, be noted that opinion polls of this type are often subject to selection and response biases.

Similar theories have arisen around the assassination of Beatle John Lennon and the attempted assassination of U.S. President Ronald Reagan. In recent years theories about the death of Diana, Princess of Wales have made headlines.

Human sacrifice

Related articles: Blood libel, Human sacrifice

One of the world's most persistent and longstanding conspiracy theories claims that clandestine religious groups (which may or may not actually exist in reality), carry out human sacrifice, usually of children. Such accusations are often levelled against those believed to be plotting against accepted religious and social norms. Notable groups accused of this include Jews (with whom the term is usually associated), Christians of various denominations, alleged witches, and most recently alleged "Satanic" groups.

Evil aliens

A somewhat different version of this theory maintains that humanity is actually under the control of shape-shifting alien reptiles, who require periodic ingestion of human blood to maintain their human appearance.

Satanic cults

In the United States of America, during the 1980s there was an upsurge in the old belief of "Satanic ritual abuse". Hundreds of thousands Americans, including Protestant Christians, feared that the United States was filled with child-sacrificing Satanists. Church sermons, newsletters and soon letters to newspapers and magazines, were filled with claims of tens of thousands of American children being kidnapped and murdered by supposed Satanists. These ideas soon made their way into the mainstream American media, where they initially were reported uncritically. This led to a wave of arrests against hundreds of American citizens, whose neighbors suddenly began accusing them of kidnapping, child abuse or murder. Hundreds of these people were accused of being witches or satanists, and were convicted by a jury. Only in the mid 1990s did the wave of witch hunts subside; since then the reports of tens of thousands of missing children have been proven false by official sources; there was no massive increase in kidnapping, abuse or murder. Most of the convicted "witches" or "satanists" have since been released from jail. The entire phenomenon is now considered by mainstream historians and psychologists to be an episode of mass delusion , and witch hunts, augmented by the pseudo-scientific "repressed memory syndrome " idea, which has also now been discredited by the scientific establishment. The "suppression of proof" argument could be raised as a counter-argument by conspiracy theorists critical of official sources.

Secret societies and fraternities

Secret societies and fraternal societies have aroused nervousness from some non-members since at least the time of the ancient Greeks. A secret society is a club or organization whose members do not disclose their membership, and may be sworn to hold it secret. However, the term is also used in conspiracy theory to refer to fraternal organizations such as the Freemasons or the Skull-and-Bones Society who do not conceal membership, but are thought to harbor secret beliefs or political agendas.

College fraternities such as Yale's Skull and Bones society are also popular suspects among conspiracists. Many men form lifelong friendships with their fraternity "brothers" which some believe often carry on into the political and business world. This particular conspiracy theory was presented in the movie "the Skulls".

Masonic conspiracy theories

Conspiracy theory about the Freemasons goes back at least to the late 18th century. The Masons were accused of plotting the American and French Revolutions, the Jack the Ripper killings, the downfall of religion, and of dominating republican politics. In fact, the historian Georges Lefebvre, generally considered an authoritative source on the subject, concedes that the Masons had a role in organizing the revolution in the city, but says it is unclear how important their role was. Worry about Masonic conspiracy grew to such an extent in the early United States as to spawn a political party, the Anti-Masonic Party. The Bavarian Illuminati, a German secret society related to Masonry, also figures into conspiracy theories of that time. Rosicrucianism and the Priory of Sion are popular topics of conspiracists.

All the Catholic Popes in the last three centuries are subjects of conspiracy theories. Some people believe that Freemasonry was condemned by the Church primarily because of its view that all religions are equal; this view was diametrically opposed to the Catholic belief that it is the only true religion. Since a number of Catholics and Protestants now agree with the Masonic principles condemned by the Church, new theories about the Masons have emerged, such as that they are devil worshippers. Others hold that these views about the origins of conspiracy theories about Masons are themselves conspiracy theories.

The Jewish world domination conspiracy theory

Ironically a real conspiracy concocted a conspiracy theory in creating the fraudulent document known as The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, which has been for over 100 years used as proof positive of a Jewish world domination conspiracy.

In the mid-to-late 1890’s the Russian secret police, Okhrana conspired to instigate pogroms against Russian Jews. Often there appeared inflammatory articles in newspapers prior to the pogroms, and these were used to explain the seemingly unprovoked violence. This hoax document purportedly reported the minutes or accounts of a secret meeting of the leaders of the Jewish people. The secret police tried to use the Jews as scapegoats, on whom to blame Russia's social ills of the time. Since then this false document and the conspiratorial theory it presents has often been accepted as truth, in spite of the evidence against its authenticity and in spite of the ludicrousness of its postulations.(See: The Protocols of the Elders of Zion).

"Babylon" and racist oppression

Some Rastafarians who take their beliefs to an extreme maintain that a white racist patriarchy ("Babylon") controls the world in order to oppress the black race. They believe that Emperor Haile Selassie of Ethiopia did not die when it was reported in 1975, and that the racist, white media (again, "Babylon") propagated that rumour in order to squash Rastafarianism and its message of overthrowing Babylon. Other Rastafarians, however, believe in peace and unity, and interpret Babylon as a metaphor for the established "system" that oppresses (or "downpresses", in Rasta terminology) minority groups such as blacks and the poor.

Suppressed technologies

Suppressed inventions take conspiracy theory more into the realm of business, rather than strict politics.

Medicine and the FDA

The subject of suppressed-invention conspiracy also touches on the realm of medical quackery: proponents of more unlikely forms of alternative medicine are known to allege conspiracy by mainstream doctors to suppress their cures, particularly when faced with charges of medical fraud. Such conspiracies are often said to include government regulators, to the extent that a legal decision may be relevant. The experience of Durk Pearson and Sandy Shaw , who advocate the extensive use of supplements and drugs for life extension, contrary to FDA recommendations, may shed some light. They won a court case arguing that the FDA was preventing them from making medical assertions that were, in fact, well-supported.

Some medical conspiracy theorists argue that the medical community could actually cure supposedly "incurable" diseases such as Cancer and AIDS if it really wanted to, but instead prefers to suppress the cures as a way of extorting more funding from the government and donors, as well as the patients themselves. There are generally higher costs associated with long-term treatment than in a one-time cure.

Drug legalization

Activists and spokespersons for legalization of drugs (especially marijuana) have long espoused a theory that government and private industry conspired during the first half of the 20th Century to outlaw hemp, allegedly so that it would no longer provide inexpensive competition to pulp paper and synthetic materials.

Lightbulb conspiracy

The Phoebus cartel set up in 1924 certainly seems to have stopped competition in the light bulb industry for some years, and has been accused of preventing technological advances that would have produced longer-lasting light bulbs. [4] However, the Phoebus cartel also features in Thomas Pynchon's fictional Gravity's Rainbow, which has led some to blur fact and fiction.

Suppressed automotive technology

A typical suppressed-invention story is that of the incredibly efficient automobile carburetor, whose inventor was supposedly killed or hounded into obscurity by petroleum companies desirous to protect their business from an engine that would make their product obsolete. It has been claimed that the Elsbett diesel engine running on plant oil had to put up against unfair competition practices.

Tesla and "free energy"

Nikola Tesla has been the object of several conspiracy theories, with claims relating to revolutionary energy generation and distribution technologies which may or may not have been utilised by 'HAARP', an American military-funded research programme. Similarly, there are claims that Wilhelm Reich's 'orgone energy' was suppressed by the establishment.

Trans-dimensional travel

There are occasional articles in print and on the Internet, regarding a research center in Ong's Hat, New Jersey that supposedly discovered a method of inter-dimensional travel , then vanished.

There are also some claims about secret experiments in this way at Camp Hero, Montauk (Montauk Project).

Extraterrestrials

A sector of conspiracy theory with a particularly detailed mythology has become the basis for numerous pieces of popular entertainment: the Area 51/Grey Aliens conspiracy, and allegations surrounding the Dulce Base. Simply put, this is the allegation that the United States government conspires with extraterrestrials involved in the abduction and manipulation of citizens. A variant tells that particular technologies — notably the transistor — were given to American industry in exchange for alien dominance. The enforcers of the clandestine association of human leaders and aliens are the Men in Black, who silence those who speak out on UFO sightings. This conspiracy theory has been the basis of numerous books, as well as the popular television show The X-Files and the movies Men in Black and Men in Black II.

The X-Files based the plots of many of its episodes around urban legends and conspiracy theories, and had a framing plot which postulated a set of interlocking conspiracies controlling all recent human history.

A possible ET link to the crop circle phenomenon has been speculated upon, though proven to simply be locals who made the circles during the night as a joke.

David Icke's theory, which encompasses all the other conspiracy theories, is that humanity is actually under the control of dinosauroid-like alien reptiles who must consume human blood to maintain their human appearance, with evidence ranging from Sumerian tablets describing the "Anunnaki" (which he translates as "those who from heaven to earth came"), to the serpent in the Biblical Garden of Eden, to child abuse, fluoridation, and the genealogical connections between the Bush family and the House of Windsor. This theory has been the subject of several books.

War

The motivations for nations starting, entering, or ending wars is often suspect. Wars, after all, are by nature destructive of both people and property, and frequently have thoroughly undesirable consequences for the nations who start them. As with assassinations, the question that is often asked by conspiracists when a war breaks out is "who benefits?"

For decades, a common answer has been "munitions suppliers" — as argued by, e.g., Maj. Gen. Smedley Butler in the 1935 jeremiad "War is a Racket". [5] According to this view, there is always a party within the nation which would benefit from going to war, on whatever pretext: the sellers of weapons and other military material. President Dwight Eisenhower referred to this source of potential conflict of interest as the military-industrial complex.

Related is the allegation that certain wars which are claimed by politicians to be in the national interest, or for humanitarian purposes, are in fact motivated by the conquest and control of natural resources for commercial interest. In 1898's Spanish-American War, the explosion of the USS Maine prompted the US annexation of Puerto Rico, the Philippines, and Guam. Opponents of the war, such as Mark Twain and Andrew Carnegie, claimed that it was being fought for imperialist motives.

In recent times, wars in the Middle East such as the Gulf War and the invasion of Iraq have been described as wars for oil. During the 20th century the United States has also often been accused of plotting foreign coups d'état for commercial interest. In many cases, critics have accused the U.S. of engaging in realpolitik in the cynical sense of political action without regard for principle or morals. A war planned for economic gain can be seen as a conspiracy in the conventional sense of a secret plot — particularly when the public is presented with false pretexts for war.

Any of the other frequently-alleged conspiratorial groups described above; secret societies, "The Jews", etc, have also been alleged as the mastermind behind wars. For instance, Adolf Hitler repeatedly claimed in speeches that the "international finance Jews" were responsible for World War I.

Espionage agencies

Many governments use intelligence agencies to promote national policies in secretive ways — in several cases including the use of sabotage, propaganda, and assassination. Intelligence agencies, such as the CIA, KGB, MI6, and Mossad, are a common element of political conspiracy theories precisely because they are known to participate in some activities similar to those described in conspiracy theories.

Conspiracy theories of this sort include many about mind control.

Surveillance technologies

Particular technologies of surveillance and control arouse concern that has bordered upon, or crossed over into, conspiracy theory. These are technologies being developed by governments which are intended to intrude into the privacy or harm the persons of citizens, particularly dissenters. Conspiracy theories of this sort cast government agencies as pursuing vast technical powers in order to spy on people, control their minds, or otherwise suppress an alienated populace.

The plausibility of establishing such surveillance capabilities, by technical means or by a widespread network of informants, should perhaps be viewed in the context of events in former Eastern bloc countries, particularly the activities of the East German Stasi before the fall of the Berlin Wall. The various services provided by Google have also been considered to invade people's privacy, thus enabling intelligence agencies to monitor their activities.

Barcodes

Some conspiracy theorists have proposed that barcodes are really intended to serve as means of control by a putative world government, or that they are Satanic in intent. Mary Stewart Relfe claims in The New Money System 666 (1982) that barcodes secretly encode the number 666 - the Biblical "Number of the Beast". [6] This theory has been adopted by other fringe figures such as the "oracle" Sollog, who refuses to label any of his books with barcodes on the grounds that "any type of computer numbering systems MANDATED by any government or business is part of the PROPHECY of the BEAST controlling you." [7]

Technology and population control

Unusual technical projects such as HAARP and phenomenon such as Chem Trails are in this category.

Diseases and epidemics

There are conspiracy theories based on the notion that AIDS was a man-made disease (i.e. created by scientists in a laboratory). Some of these theories allege that HIV was created by a conspiratorial group or by a secret agency as a tool of genocide. Other theories suggest that the virus escaped into the population at large by accident, or may have been deliberately unleashed as a means of population control or as an experiment in biological and/or psychological warfare. See: AIDS conspiracy theories.

Some who believe that HIV was a government creation see a precedent for it in the Tuskegee syphilis study, in which government-funded researchers deceptively denied treatment to black patients infected with a sexually transmitted disease.

Apocalyptic prophecies

Apocalyptic prophecies, particularly Christian apocalyptic and eschatalogical claims about the end times, the Last Judgment, and the end of the world have inspired a range of conspiracy theories. Many of these deal with the Antichrist, the foremost figure of worldly evil from the Book of Revelation. This Antichrist, also known as the Beast 666, is supposed to be a leader who will create a world empire and oppress Christians (and, in some readings, Jews as well). In apocalyptic conspiracy theory, some person from current events is alleged to be the Antichrist, and some organisation (such as the Catholic Church or the United Nations) is alleged to be the Antichrist's world organization of evil.

Countless historical figures have been called "Antichrist" in their times, from the Roman emperor Nero to Ronald Reagan to Javier Solana; see Javier Solana Antichrist allegations. . At times, apocalyptic speculation has mixed with anti-Catholicism to yield the interpretation that the reigning Pope is the Biblical Antichrist. A more recent conspiratorial interpretation sees the Antichrist as a world leader involved with the United Nations, who will create a one world government and establish a single monetary system. The latter is identified with the Mark of the Beast, which the Bible states that people in the end times will need in order to conduct trade.

Two nations often involved in apocalyptic conspiracy theories are Israel and Iraq. The former is the location of both the Temple Mount and Armageddon (Megiddo), places seen as important in prophecy. The latter is the ancient location of Babylon, which also figures in Revelation. During the Gulf War, some suggested that Saddam Hussein had ordered the excavation and repopulation of the city of Babylon, thus casting Saddam as an Antichrist figure. Other interpretations have held that "Babylon" in Revelation refers to another mighty nation, such as the Roman Empire, or more recently the Soviet Union or the United States of America.

September 11 terrorist attacks

See also: Misinformation and rumors about the September 11, 2001 attacks, 9/11 conspiracy claims regarding Jews or Israel, and 9/11 domestic conspiracy theory.

Several conspiracy theories have been presented concerning the September 11, 2001 attacks, many of them claiming that President George W. Bush and/or individuals in his administration knew about the attacks beforehand and purposefully allowed them to occur because the attacks would generate public support for an invasion of Iraq and other aggressive foreign policies.

Proponents point to the Project for the New American Century, a conservative think tank that argues for increased American global leadership, whose former members include Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, Vice President Dick Cheney and several other key Bush administration figures. An internal memo of the group allegedly claims that "some catastrophic and catalyzing event — like a new Pearl Harbor" would be needed to budge public opinion in their favor. David Ray Griffin, in "The New Pearl Harbor", p. 2004, questions this idea as it relates to the Bush 43 government and September 11 (Vancouver Indymedia article), as does film-maker Alex Jones in "911: the Road to Tyranny" (Internet Archive item).

Proponents of this theory also note Bush’s ties to Saudi Arabia, the nation of origin for 15 of the 19 hijackers, the fact that all but one of the videotapes of the attack on the Pentagon have been confiscated, rumors that several dignitaries were told not to fly that day, and Bush’s initial opposition to a commission to investigate the attacks.

On December 1, 2003, Democratic presidential candidate Howard Dean told National Public Radio’s Diane Rehm “The most interesting theory that I've heard so far — which is nothing more than a theory, I can't think — it can't be proved — is that [President Bush] was warned ahead of time [about the 9/11 attacks] by the Saudis.” Although he never stated he believed such a theory, Dean was widely criticized for his comments. Critics accuse him, notably, of spreading disinformation and unfounded conspiracy theories for partisan political purposes.

In response to some of the least creditable theories about the attacks Philip D. Zelikow, the executive director of the 9/11 Commission said that "One reason you tend to doubt conspiracy theories when you've worked in government is because you know government is not nearly competent enough to carry off elaborate theories. It's a banal explanation, but imagine how efficient it would need to be." [8]
This response does not, however include Alex Jones' theorized global government .

The BBC News website posted two stories, stating that some of the alleged hijackers are still alive. Link here and here

A 9/11 conspiracy theory archive indexes more news items and articles.

2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami conspiracy

Some people think the U.S. and Indian militaries deliberately caused the Indian Ocean tsunamis with electromagnetic pulse technology. This conspiracy theory is mostly expressed by popular Arab news services. [[9]] Another type of theory bases its claims on oil and gas interests. [[10]]