Which of these conspiracy theories is most plausible?

JFK

also, ban.

I hate all of these so fucking much

So do I. Amazingly, 48% of the UK population believe in the Area 51 theory.

what was the question? who did they ask it to?

US government knew about attacks on Pearl harbor and let them happen

they decrypted stuff about the attacks a couple hours before they actually occured (specifically, instructions to break off negotiations in anticipation) so this is the most plausible

people under-estimate how much fun it is to believe this shit

It's gotta be lizard people.

David Kelly, followed by JFK.

surely the whole point of barcodes is to provide some control over certain elements of human interaction, namely buying & selling & stock control etc. its not exactly a conspiracy is it? ooh traffic lights are designed to control people!!

i've met someone who believed AIDS was created as a form of population control, which is...mindboggling, to say the least

yeah we all know it came from space

US government knew about attacks on Pearl harbor and let them happen

Not really

The things on this list which make me least angry are David Kelly (a few things don't seem to add up about his death, but then a whole bunch of things don't add up about any conspiracy theory either) and scientologists, not because I believe they control anything much, but if anything increases general suspicion about them then I guess it's a good thing. Or something. So I suppose most plausible = Dr Kelly.

The conspiracy theories which make me most angry are the moon landing ones and global warming denial. NNGGHH.

Aliens most "plausible", out of a list of very implausible shit. The "moon landing was a hoax" people piss me off the most, because they're prepared to believe the most stupid bullshit in the face of libraries and archives full of evidence. And because they are completely ignorant of how impossible it would be to get hundreds of thousands of people to keep a secret in order for the "hoax" to remain undetected. And because they refuse to believe actual physical evidence, like being able to bounce a laser beam off a mirror that was put on the moon by Buzz/Neil...

However this makes me feel better...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZOo6aHSY8hU

i believe 5 of those things

There are remains of aliens/UFOs in Area 51

i choose to believe this one the most often

john d otm, forget this garbage.

on the bright side, it seems like this kind of thinking is becoming much less prominent.

?!?!!?

What kind of fantasyland do you live in

Mythbusters is going to do one on the moon landing hoaxers, aren't they?

also, tonight on Coast to Coast AM with George Noory, we have...

You've been Pentaconned!

i dunno, maybe i've grown up or something or changed my media consumption habits. but i hear very little about any of this kind of thing anymore, compared to say a decade ago.

maybe it seems like obvious bullshit and i don't pay it much mind.

http://www.avclub.com/content/interview/matt_taibbi

AVC: In The Great Derangement, you document your infiltration into John Hagee's Cornerstone Church and your incognito participation in 9/11 Truth Movement meetings. Have you gotten a reaction from either camp since the book's publication?

MT: Oh yeah. Among the people that I was in church with, one of them actually saw me on television earlier this spring and called me up right afterward. So my cover was blown before the book even came out, which was kind of embarrassing. But I haven't heard too much from that whole crew. Weirdly enough, the letters I've been getting from a lot of Christians—not specifically from that church, but from other fundamentalist Christians—have been strangely positive in a way that I really didn't expect. A lot of people are very critical of Hagee's church, that it's deviating from the real message of Christ. I get a lot of letters of the "If only you'd experienced Christ through our church" variety. There's a lot of that, but relatively little abuse of the sort that you would've expected. The Truthers, on the other hand… [Laughs.] I think they're probably the most self-Googling sliver of humanity on the planet. The instant you write anything about them, your e-mail is flooded with letters. I haven't gotten a single positive reaction from anybody who's a self-described Truther.

AVC: You'd think a movement devoted to seeking truth would encourage debate as a way to arrive at the truth, rather than trying to suppress whatever doesn't already align with their own views.

MT: Absolutely. I make this point with Truthers all the time, that the whole direction of everything they do is the opposite of what finding out the truth is. They approach the subject matter in much the same way a defense attorney does. A defense attorney takes a case and he sees six pieces of evidence that are going to convict his client, and he sets out to destroy those six pieces of evidence, irrelevant to the actual truth of the situation. That's not to denigrate defense attorneys, but that's what they do. It's exactly the same thing that Truthers do. They just take the 9/11 Commission Report piece by piece, and they try to break down links in that evidentiary chain that compose the official story, but they never really try to find out what happened. They're just trying to convince you that the official story couldn't possibly be true. For instance, the stuff about Hani Hanjour—the hijacker who reportedly made that maneuver into the Pentagon. They're really hopped up about the fact that he was a bad pilot and couldn't have made that sophisticated maneuver. But they make absolutely no effort to tell you what actually did happen. They're like, "Oh, it could have been a remote-controlled plane." Offhandedly, they'll say that. [Laughs.] Like that's a very simple thing. It's really weird.

AVC: The whole "smoking gun" of the Truth Movement seems to revolve around the collapse of Building 7, near the Twin Towers. There's this matter-of-fact assertion that the government obviously blew it up.

MT: I love when you ask them, "Okay, so let's just say for instance that it wasn't collapsed by the fire. Why would you demolish Building 7? What would be the propaganda purpose of doing that?" They're like, "Oh, you know, they're hiding the evidence." I'm like, "They need to blow up a whole building to hide the evidence?" It's just crazy. But whatever. I mean, once you jump on board that train, you're on it for life. [Laughs.]

AVC: This "great derangement," as you've coined it, do you think it's unique to these times? Conspiracy theories and apocalyptic religious dogma have been around in various forms for a very long time. What's different about it now?

MT: America's always had a real passion for lunatic movements. That's one of the things we're probably known for around the world, I would imagine. I think what's different about it now is that we had a relatively cohesive national society for a while. For a giant industrial country, we had a situation where pretty much everybody agreed on the same sets of facts when they talked about the news, and they believed in the media. When somebody reported something, they generally accepted that it was true. For a long time, I think that was the case in this country. But recently, because of a bunch of things—there was a general collapse in faith of the mainstream news media, because of Jayson Blair. And the 2000 election was a situation where if you were on the Bush side, you believed X set of facts, and if you were on the Democratic side, you believed Y set of facts. The wound was never healed. You got a situation where people decided to reality-shop and search for their own sets of facts at their own news sources, and they just kind of stopped coming to this common meeting-place where we all had the same commonly accepted set of facts. And because of the Internet, which is a new phenomenon, people can do that more than ever before. You can have somebody living next door to you and you can live in a completely different world from that person, which is definitely something we've never experienced before. So I think just because of the media landscape and the way we get our information now, we're more atomized and isolated from each other than ever before.

AVC: The Internet has fed a lot of the suspicion people have for "mainstream media," but does the Internet suffer from its own distortions? Aren't there a lot of so-called "news" sites that manufacture their own version of events to play on fears and serve their own needs just as much as the established media?

MT: Yeah, sure. It's just for different reasons. Obviously the commercial news media tries to get you worked up and terrified so you'll buy products that they're advertising. I think the Internet is a completely different phenomenon. When you have movements like this that are preying on fears, or your misconceptions, they're doing it basically just to bolster their ranks and to self-aggrandize their movement objectives. It's not for commercial reasons, which is maybe a positive. It's a very similar phenomenon, it's just that it's for different reasons...

I think the internet has helped fuel the networks to allow many of these to flourish in a way that was if not unheard of at least away from the mainstream. It seems to be that if it's online it makes it more credible. I've received several emails at work from colleagues who will happily forward a story they received in an email, when a quick check at Snopes would debunk it.

buzz aldrin otm

in that youtube :D

Scientology! Well, if they don't "control" Hollywood they'd certainly like to.

jayson blair?!? shyeah right

surely the whole point of barcodes is to provide some control over certain elements of human interaction, namely buying & selling & stock control etc. its not exactly a conspiracy is it? ooh traffic lights are designed to control people!!

-- Thomas, Wednesday, August 27, 2008 8:34 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Link

I voted pretty much in line with this thought, semi-pedantic as we might be for sharing it.

The Pearl Harbor one is really strange: the complete unpreparedness and heavy losses there are a pretty good sign that nobody was calmly waiting for it as a pretext to joining the war, insofar as a pretext really doesn't require that you get bloodied.

You can kind of make a case that we SHOULD have known about the Japanese attack but the war that FDR was far more interested in getting into in '41 was in Europe and we only got into that one 'cause Hitler decided to declare war on us on Dec. 11 despite not having any treaty obligations to the Japanese to do so.

I remember reading one of them UFO books full of declassified top secret material saying that yup aliens do exist. I was quite taken with at the time, probably 'cause I was a lol gullible youth. Wouldn't mind taking another look with the advantage of cynicalcritical thinking. And the internet.

Yeah it's all a hoax, well that was easy.

Oh wait I forgot about the mysterious cattle mutilations. Wikipedia suspiciously unforthcoming there.

The Straight Dope knows all.

pearl harbor is the only remotely plausible one.

the moon landing hoax is the best one. anyone else remember the fox special on it?

xp I still think it's aliens. Aliens in desperate need of cow anuses.

Moon landing hoax is almost disappointingly easy to disprove.

Voted David Kelly, not because I think it's true, but it's about the only remotely plausible one here--more I think he was hounded to suicide.
Moon landing hoax people give me the shits. I helped organise a lecture once by a guy who goes around debunking the hoax believers, and the audience was about half made up of people who just refused to listen to what he said, and insisted on talking over him with their own batshit beliefs.

disappointed there's no "clintons killed vince foster" option, but thats probably because the jews control ilx

there isn't a genuine conspiracy theorist alive who isn't crazy, stupid, and egomaniacal

JFK, doy

Voted for Pope John Paul I murder. There's enough circumstantial evidence (even more than there is with JFK) with the Vatican Bank, the Propaganda Due lodge, and the fallout from the Pope John Paul II shooting that I'll buy into it.

As fun as all of this is, the 9/11 people have really made conspiracy politics a severely autocratic, reductionist land of ugly.

i hated the 9/11 thing most of all b/c it sorts of tries to shift responsibility onto u.s. black ops and ignores actual real world issues that are too complex for these numbnuts to wrap their tiny brains around.

Think the David Kelly one is most plausible (not that I necessarily believe it to be true, but it seems much less batshit crazy than the rest of them), or what James Morrison said minus the bit about organising fake-moon-landing nutjobs into a lecture hall.

http://i43.photobucket.com/albums/e372/tlthe5th/bush/bush_banner2.gif

awesome site for o_0 9/11 + vatican conspiracy mashup
http://www.spirituallysmart.com/bush.html

Anyway, there's a bunch of stuff missing from the list...

- Chemtrails
- Big Pharma's anti-depressants create Brave New World.
- HAARP leverages secret Tesla technology to control the weather
- TWA Flight 800 downed by some sort of military event.
- CIA involvement with People's Temple

the first one I thought of was Chemtrails. i have a friend who was utterly convinced that this stuff was real. i used to follow these things and read r3ns3 for lolz, but 9/11 conspiracy nuts really turned me off to all of this stuff.

i voted for the Kelly thing because i read too many espionage thrillers as a child.

I still have trouble grasping how the nerve-center of our country's national defense system can get hit by a known-hijacked plane without any attempt at interception for the 41 minutes that it was known to be hijacked post-WTC attacks.

How many trillions of tax dollars annually fund the pentagon and DoD?

challop-py?

9/11 truthers make me murderous pissed. Like they lose SO much credibility as a person with a brain when I find out they think that.

I mean, srsly, the first time I talked to a buddy and he explained the 'truth' movement/wacked-out conspiracy theory, I started crying. 1. I couldn't believe anyone could conceive of or believe that and 2. I couldn't believe my FRIEND would believe that.

they're all true. even the ones that blatantly contradict each other.

lizard people

http://farm1.static.flickr.com/141/371459287_d211186758.jpg?v=0

As fun as all of this is, the 9/11 people have really made conspiracy politics a severely autocratic, reductionist land of ugly.

"Poll Closes: 9/11"

I SMELL CONSPIRACY

Conspiracy theories are all fabricated, to divert attention from what's REALLY going on!

latebloomer so otm, was thinking the same thing. ruined all the fun for everyone else.

also missing, flying saucer technology devised by nazis

(xpost) That's what you want us to think!

I think these are plausible, as in not batshit insane, although I wouldn't go so far as to say I believe any of them:

There are remains of aliens/UFOs in Area 51
John F Kennedy was murdered by the Mob/Expat Cubans/CIA etc
AIDS is a man-made disease
US government knew about attacks on Pearl harbor and let them happen
Pope John Paul I was murdered by the Mafia/CIA etc
Dr David Kelly was murdered by MI5/British government

There are remains of Pope John Paul I in Area 51
Dr David Kelly was murdered by the Mob/Expat Cubans/CIA etc
aliens/UFOs is a man-made disease
US government knew about Expat Cubans and let them happen
British government was murdered by the Mafia/CIA etc
John F Kennedy was murdered by MI5/British government

Elvis T very much OTM.

The whole conspiracy theory game used to be a kind of fun hobby, (I used to rather enjoy keeping track of them, because I was interested in how the human mind could put together patterns) but now it's turned into some kind of mass hysteria post-9/11.

As much as I enjoyed the program, I also think the X-Files didn't help, either - a lot of people took that rather too seriously.

I voted for JFK, because that's the most Classic of the plausible ones. But that's only coz there was no fun Masonic sh*t in there to amuse me. (Masons have rather lost their hold on the public imagination, haven't they?)

The conspiracy theory I have most time for worrying about personally is that artificial sweeteners are somewhere between "kinda unhealthy" and "carcinogenic mind-control death chemicals", forced knowingly upon the American and consequently worldwide public by D. Rumsfeld.

Obviously this one is missing from the list because, ahem, it is perfectly sensible and not at all batshit, despite anti-sweetener pages generally being a click or two away from a) global warming denial, b) Masonic chemtrail antidepressant NWO, or c) websites hailing herbal wonder panaceas that The Man does not want you to know about to combat giant skin-insects nobody else can see.

(Aspartame and Acesulfame-K make my head and gut hurt. This seems not a good thing. I think food and medical trials could do with a little more regulation, but don't actually see a conspiracy.)

Where is Jill Dando/Bosnian Secret Service band?

That would have got my vote

But that's only coz there was no fun Masonic sh*t in there to amuse me. (Masons have rather lost their hold on the public imagination, haven't they?)

I know you hate football, Kate, but you could have a field day with the Masonic conspiracies pervading Scottish football, and referees in particular.

Hrrrmmm, see that's something you could interest me in. Tell me that there are interesting parallels between secret masonic handshakes and scottish referee hand signals!

Um, it's not conspiracy theory that sweeteners are bad for you! There's loads of perfectly decent scientific evidence for that. Don't know about mind control, tho. But there's loads of evidence that aspartame decomposes when heated into some pretty nasty potentially brain-damaging chemicals.

But then again, life causes cancer, doesn't it? etc. etc.

I find many of these theories utterly implausible. But in a way I don't understand the virulent reaction against them that one encounters, for instance on this thread. If you don't believe a theory, OK, don't believe it; maybe even produce some evidence for that disbelief. Does one's response need to be any fiercer than that?

Plausible, to me:

-- John F Kennedy was murdered by the Mob/Expat Cubans/CIA etc -- surely this is quite mainstream, not a bonkers belief at all? In fact I'll vote for it here.

-- Jews control Hollywood and the worldwide financial system -- well, there are two different claims here. In fact Hollywood in its early days certainly did contain a proportion of rich and powerful Jews, possibly because they were fleeing anti-semitism elsewhere (in America as well as the rest of the world). It probably still does. It would probably be true to say that some people of Jewish descent do indeed wield significant power and influence in Hollywood. I don't see any reason, though, to think that they pursue a 'Jewish agenda' in any way, in their film-making. They are probably to be distinguished from the Israel Lobby that Mears and Walsheimer have described (is that just a conspiracy theory? I don't think so: I think it's true).

It is also true that some Jewish people have exercised significant influence on finance, and have been involved in or owned some of the richest corporations in the world, in the last century at least. I'm not sure that this should be a pejorative claim.

-- Scientologists control Hollywood (and are working on the financial system) -- Scientologists probably DO want to control Hollywood, and probably are trying to work on the financial system, though I imagine their success is limited. Certainly it would seem that there are more powerful and influential Scientologists in Hollywood than elsewhere. Various significant actors are Scientologists, whereas I have never met one in real life.

-- Pope John Paul I was murdered by the Mafia/CIA etc -- don't know much about this, but from the little I do know I think it could be true

-- Dr David Kelly was murdered by MI5/British government -- I don't particularly think that this happened, but it was a very murky affair and this might have happened; though I don't really understand the motives involved.

You don't really understand the motives involved behind this thread.

"I still have trouble grasping how the nerve-center of our country's national defense system can get hit by a known-hijacked plane without any attempt at interception for the 41 minutes that it was known to be hijacked post-WTC attacks."

No-one had ever intercepted a hi-jacked plane because such planes were never ever flown into buildings before. Someone would have have to have ordered the killing of all the people on that jet based on what?

While there is some evidence that the CIA was aware of a possible tactic of flying planes into buildings who knows who/what was in place to be able to get authorisation to scramble a jet, make a decision that this jet was going to be crashed into the WTC/Pentagon then order the pilot to shoot it down, all the time not knowing the hi-jackers intentions. I think the best info they had was that they said they had a bomb. Not to mention that shooting down could have led to more casualties on the ground

lol @ pinefox bemused at anti-semitic conspiracy theories

Aspartame = bad is not a conspiracy theory in itself but seems to be a favourite "oh, and by the way..." of people who want to tell you about the other conspiracies listed on this thread. I don't know whether the FDA-Rumsfeld thing counts as "OMG conspiracy" or just "hello capitalism" but makes a pretty good starting point for the former.

To be honest I haven't read up on some of these because I realised I'm far too likely to believe this sort of thing and try not to give it brain-time any more in case I do. A loose assortment of vaguely detailed "facts" that I haven't heard specifically rebuffed is too enticing for my brain. "This guy lists specific timings and quotes people I've never heard of, there must be something in it!"

And once you try to google counter-arguments for them all you're in a hall of mirrors of people out-batshitting each other, like the time I was looking for rebuffs of the moon landing hoax stuff and found some website of "duh, of course it's not a fake: [list of intricate scientific details] oh, and also, how else would top secret joint US and USSR cabal have built their pyramidal glass dark-side-of-moon palace for mind control and alien communication?"

Ha ha, I guess the problem is, that Aspartame = bad for you functions kind of like a gateway drug. Once you find out that the government lied to you about one thing, what's to stop them from lying to you about anything or everything?

And down the rabbit hole you go.

Lots of these "conspiracies" there is a sense of something unexplained or odd or underhanded at the bottom of them. And for the pattern-forming brain, well, it's hard for some people to know where to stop.

Coupla old school conspiracies:

Princes in the Tower
Man in the Iron Mask

One new school conspiracy:
Family in the Gutted Shropshire Mansion

David Davis Resignation

dom temp ban

Chaki Tombot Rant

doomie's novel

The Maracas Affair

ghostbusters 2 existed to try and help noo yorkans be friendlier

disappearance of ILX::OZ thread

Tesla coil used in secret invisibility experiments!

ongs hat!

GOD SAVE THE QUEEN KEPT AT NUMBER 2 IN JUBILEE WEEK PEOPLE

Wire denied opportunity to perform "Outdoor Miner" on TOTP by EMI record hyping scandal

and Crass kept off the number one position by every other record in it, during the Falklands 'campaign'

1. Bob Krasnow adding phasing effects to "Strictly Personal"
2. Lou Reed remixing "Heard Her Call My Name" to make his guitar more prominent.

But seriously though:

http://digilander.libero.it/massimoxsempre/paul_is_dead_mag.jpg

Fluoridated water

http://www.bisleyonline.net/content/view/15/55/#boy

S OTM OPE POE

Board 77

The whole conspiracy theory game used to be a kind of fun hobby, (I used to rather enjoy keeping track of them, because I was interested in how the human mind could put together patterns) but now it's turned into some kind of mass hysteria post-9/11.

I actually don't think 9/11 is to blame; if it weren't for the internet, 9/11 truthers would be as obscure as the rest, and it'd be fun to report that there were actually people who believed this insane story about that awful day - you'd be like "oh, go on, nobody actually believes that" and then I'd produce some weird pamphlet somebody handed me at a political rally or something. The internet has kind of ruined these things by making it easier for them to acquire mass; a couple of crazy people believing something stupid can be really funny, but a group of them reinforcing one another's delusions and shouting people down is maddening.

and then it'd be like "not only do people believe this; organized groups of people believe this" and you'd be like "well, that's fucking depressing"

if it weren't for the internet, 9/11 truthers would be as obscure as the rest

hmm, my friend who rarely uses the net now wholly believes the 911 was an inside job because of some dreadful channel 4 docu. You could argue that the programme only existed because of the net tho ?

the truth is out there

omg he should play the joker

capone's hitman guy in the untouchables

haha YES

i honestly couldn't blame someone for believing elements of the 9/11 conspiracy, outside of the real hardcore frootloops. in times of yore, conspiracy theories used to be for the credulous but now they're for the cynical, at least where the US government is concerned, and who can blame people for that cynicism?

mind you, i still believe Marilyn Manson is that kid from the Wonder Years, so...

i remember getting shot down big style by some hardcore metal fan for even suggesting that one

my favourite conspiracy detail is the widely disseminated assertion that all members of a particular ethnic group who worked in the World Trade Center took the 11th of September off. I can just about imagine people thinking that 11-9 was some kind of government plot, but you would have to be seriously deficient in the reasoning stakes to believe something like that.

lol @ pinefox bemused at anti-semitic conspiracy theories
-- DG, Thursday, 28 August 2008

?? What part of what I said was inaccurate, DG? I am not at all bemused at the idea that anti-semitism exists. It does, and it has produced terrible damage and destruction in the world. I actually said that insofar as early Hollywood did contain some powerful Jewish members, this might partly be a result of anti-semitism that had in effect forced those people out to CA and that new industry.

I don't think that the much-discussed account of the Israel Lobby in the US is an anti-semitic conspiracy theory. I think it is a convincing account of how certain interests hold too much political power in the US and how this has damaged world peace and perhaps even US national interests. Again, what part of this view do you think is untrue?

It is also true that some Jewish people have exercised significant influence on finance, and have been involved in or owned some of the richest corporations in the world, in the last century at least. I'm not sure that this should be a pejorative claim.

the perjorative claim is that jews control world banking not that there's the odd guy called solly who works for barclays

What I said had nothing to with people who 'work for Barclays'. All kinds of people work for Barclays. I said it *is* true that a small number of Jewish people (ie: not the vast majority of Jewish people, many of whom have been very poor) have been involved at the top level of very high finance, at least in the past. The names of some of the world's biggest companies arguably demonstrate this. Again, to understand this, one would have to make a historical inquiry into how Jewish people have indeed, over a very long history, often been involved with finance. I suspect, again, that it must be partly a result of anti-semitism which excluded them from other areas. But this is doubtless a complex question on which should not comment too lightly without knowing and understanding more. I don't think one should make vague, incoherent sneers like the one you made above, either, about such a sensitive issue.

i don't think one should make vague incohent attempts to find kernels of truth in rampant racist horeshit but hey ho

Another question one could ask is: who *does* control world banking or (a slightly different issue, perhaps) the world economy?

And whoever they are (I don't really know, but I imagine they are largely male and very few of them are black or from the developing world), are we in favour of them and the way they influence the world for their own interests and in ways largely unknown to us?

And if we're not, are we guilty of producing a 'conspiracy theory'?

These questions, by the way, have nothing to do with anti-semitism; like I say, I don't know who might be in this group, but I would imagine that a majority of them are white / caucasian and non-Jewish. Whoever they are, is not their ethnicity that is objectionable about them. Arguably, it is their actions that are objectionable.

where is "The gays run Hollywood"?

As for big stuff like who runs the economy, no conspiracies required. Winks, nods, campaign contributions.

I voted for the JFK one, I mean he was certainly murdered by somebody.

The 9/11 and the "faked" moon landing ones annoy me the most, govt-did-9/11 becuase it lets a bunch of people who didn't do their jobs properly off the hook, and because I want the time i spent watching those bullshit "documentaries" back, moon landing because it takes one of humanity's greatest achievements and turns it into cruft for paranoid nutjobs. Sad.

I would watch Crufts if it had a paranoid nutjob class.

Maybe JFK will win this poll.

Dr Morbius, is it true that gay people run Hollywood?

Gay Jews

The Double Whammy

Gay Jews from Mars

p: Given that American movies get worse every year, very likely.

Another question one could ask is: who *does* control world banking or (a slightly different issue, perhaps) the world economy?

I'm not really convinced that anyone controls the world economy, or at least no coherent clique or group exercises executive control over it.

They are all named in the final episode of The Prisoner. Every third letter of every word in the screenplay.

I tend to agree, Vicar, your caution sounds wise. Yet it remains true that some individuals and groups have vastly more influence over these things than others. And I imagine that these individuals and groups very often interact and co-operate. I imagine, too, now I think of it, that however badly things are going for other people, these people always come up roses and even richer than they started.

I'd go for Area 51, mainly because I want it to be true.

I'd quite like the Aliens built the Pyramids one to be true.

oh yeah, that's a close second.

So by it's abscence, the face on Mars must be true!

I think the one I'd most want to be true is "Global warming is a scam perpetrated by climate scientists". But, not for funny reasons or anything.

I imagine they are largely male and very few of them are black or from the developing world

http://www.allbusiness.com/banking-finance/banking-lending-credit-services-mortgage/5902796-1.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/01/business/01generation.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

More than all of these conspiracy theories, I dislike when people believe that the government never lies and people in positions of authority are always trustworthy.
I imagine there are people who still believe that watergate, My Lai, Iran-Contra, etc never happened.

http://i.cnn.net/cnn/2003/SHOWBIZ/Music/09/03/cnna.spears/story.britney.cnn.jpg

I actually don't think 9/11 is to blame; if it weren't for the internet, 9/11 truthers would be as obscure as the rest, and it'd be fun to report that there were actually people who believed this insane story about that awful day - you'd be like "oh, go on, nobody actually believes that" and then I'd produce some weird pamphlet somebody handed me at a political rally or something. The internet has kind of ruined these things by making it easier for them to acquire mass; a couple of crazy people believing something stupid can be really funny, but a group of them reinforcing one another's delusions and shouting people down is maddening.

Yeah, I totally dig and concur. Actually, though, one of the main things that pisses me off about the 'truther' movement is it has kind of ruined many nights of my beloved Coast-to-Coast AM. They'd still be on that show; I'd still be baffled and irritated at night as I listened to Noory concurring with them as I fall asleep. This is a silly main beef, but it's true! It was great the other night when they had an extensive talk about 'Bigfoots' again.

The plural is Bigfoots! How could you not love that?

I have found the more far-out the topic of Coast-to-Coast is, the better I sleep! So truthers mean a bad night's restlessness.

its got to be bigfeet, no? I'm disappointed.

More than all of these conspiracy theories, I dislike when people believe that the government never lies and people in positions of authority are always trustworthy.

Where are these people?

its Them. you know, Them.

In my parents' house. They're called my parents. (I'd been looking for my biological parents for YEARS and it turned out they were just in the living room and kitchen!)

Another question one could ask is: who *does* control world banking or (a slightly different issue, perhaps) the world economy?

The number one problem I have with banking conspiracies (whether it's Big Oil, the Rothchilds, the Illuminati, or whoever) is that they don't account for some basic sociology. People and companies in similar economic power groups will act similarly. No smoke-filled room is necessary.

Actually, though, one of the main things that pisses me off about the 'truther' movement is it has kind of ruined many nights of my beloved Coast-to-Coast AM. They'd still be on that show; I'd still be baffled and irritated at night as I listened to Noory concurring with them as I fall asleep.

I still miss Art Bell.

I'd go for Area 51, mainly because I want it to be true.

Sadly, I think the only thing there are vast piles of toxic waste leftover from whatever exotic materials were used to build Aurora, etc.

The UFO followers haven't really updated their story in 60 years. They're always pounding the same drum - ETs in spacecraft from another planet. If there's anything non-human to this (and I don't doubt that people see unidentified things in the sky) I suspect that it'll be *so* weird that we'll all feel like the confused Flatlanders.

ITS NOT ALIENS AT ALL THEY'RE TIME TRAVELLERS FROM OUR OWN FUTURE!!!¬!

How did we get this far in the thread without mentioning Skull And Bones?

Has anyone been to Roswell? They have a COW in their zoo. It is pretty incredible.

MOO! la vaca, la vaca vaca vaca vaca

Anyone know that song? I was singing it as "MOO! la roca!" until my bud pointed out roca means 'rock.' "You retard, rocks don't say moo!"

la vaca vaca vaca vaca

YOU SEE YOU SEE ROSWELL REALLY EXISTS AND THERE ARE MONSTERS!!ABBOTT HAS PROOF!!

dan i. has a point though, these theories are so blatantly stupid that they risk making us dismiss ANY account of ppl in power acting in collusion to make something bad happen. i.e., few would argue that the bush administration went out of its way to deceive the country about the danger posed by saddam, but i've heard serious ppl -- new york times columnists! -- argue that it's foolish and conspiratorial to argue that bush et al didn't sincerely believe that iraq posed a threat.

yes, but on the other hand they may or may not be part of the conspiracy which may or may not be ridiculous.

who can tell? we are but small automata tapping away in our little boxes.

I never feel like admitting this to people because I don't like to get in big hoohaws over it but I feel like yeah AIDS probably is man-made.

I would also like to believe in Hollow Earth, that's where the Grey's live.

I believe Jews are responsible for Hebrew National franks.

And I thank them.

wheres the conspiracy that suggests that human energy can effect the world around us (etc)? mioto water crystals

dan i. has a point though, these theories are so blatantly stupid that they risk making us dismiss ANY account of ppl in power acting in collusion to make something bad happen.

Aye. Appointing Henry Kissinger as head of the 9/11 Commission isn't exactly the work of a totally innocent party.

wheres the conspiracy that suggests that human energy can effect the world around us (etc)? mioto water crystals

I recall that some of them have moved on to quantum mind theories.

I just typed an entry casting doubt on climate change, and it hasn't appeared. Bloody scientist illuminati.

But don't respectable scientists, well, Roger Penrose at least, give some credence to quantum mind theories?

Hands off, lizards. Climate change on is the only one which seems at all plausible, and even then I wouldn't call it conspiracy, just a mistake that became fashionable and is now being reinforced by all sorts of cognitive biases. It's not like history isn't full of such errors.

Plus, I had an environmental textbook from the 80s of which the very first line was something like 'Now that manking is facing the initial stages of a new ice age...' so forgive me for being a bit sceptical here

Quantum mind stuff and Mioto crystals go in the "weird science" bin, not the "conspiracy theory" bin. Lots of respectable scientists attached to weird theories: orgones, etc.

lol did u guys miss the thread last week where captain lorax was trying to push that stuff

Hands off, lizards. Climate change on is the only one which seems at all plausible, and even then I wouldn't call it conspiracy, just a mistake that became fashionable and is now being reinforced by all sorts of cognitive biases. It's not like history isn't full of such errors.

Plus, I had an environmental textbook from the 80s of which the very first line was something like 'Now that manking is facing the initial stages of a new ice age...' so forgive me for being a bit sceptical here

yeah this is hell of otm, when i form opinions about science i tend to weigh my 80s-era enviro textbook against the opinion of thousands of climatologists from around the world

Well, I suppose Penrose's theories are more like "consciousness is mysterious and we don't understand it, quantum mechanics is mysterious and we don't understand it - THEY MUST BE RELATED!!!" rather than any of the "WOW PEOPLE CAN CONTROL CRYSTAL GROWTH WITH THE POWER OF THEIR MINDS!!!" bs.

Funny 80s "look out for new ice age!" hysteria is often used to make contemporary warnings about global warming appear foolish or premature, but the scientific support for global warming is much stronger than it ever was for global cooling. We know warming is happening, even the most ardent sceptics (along with the politicians who have most to lose) are beginning to accept this. The only real questions that remain have to do with why it's happening, whether it's "natural", what if anything can be done at this point to halt or reverse it, and how big a role human behavior and industry have played in the change.

fuck you guys I can totally control crystal growth with the power of my mind

fuck you guys I can totally control crystal growth with the power of my enormous pituitary gland

and the help of a qualified physician you mean

Key thing about the global cooling/ice age theory was that it was a handful of papers which promoted the theory and which was then picked up and distorted by the media. Scientists have known about co2's effect on climate since the 50's and predicted global warming as early as 1967.

yeah, but ismael klata's textbook said it was coming, so who knows whos right??

Well the crystals (that our positive or negative energy influences) is the size of a few molecules so you better get a large telescope to do the mioto water crystal experiment yourself.

But anyone can do his rice experiment (negative thoughts make the jar of rice get more moldy quicker than the positve-thoughts-rice-jar)... And all the youtubes for this show positive results. Mioto's work, although seeming unbelievable, has been 10 years strong and I haven't seen any real proof that he is wrong yet.

I have two jars of rice at home, one of which is more moldy than the other. Guess which one I put the happy thoughts in? That's right, the moldy one! QEmotherfuckingD.

And all the youtubes for this show positive results.

-- CaptainLorax

Now, now, those are clearly peer-reviewed youtubes.

Anyway, global warming may well yet suddenly induce a new Ice Age (killing off Gulf Stream, etc). Klata's textbook may be right yet!

The other thing about conspiracy theories is they usually seem to suggest a much higher level of competence than people are capable of. I mean look at the obvious Bush govt messing with truth/justice, etc: this stuff is obvious and unsubtle and cack-handed. Inability to stop 9/11 attacks earlier - cack-handedness and confusion. Not heeding Pearl Harbour warnings - cack-handedness and confusion. There's no conspiracy, it's just people not that great at their jobs. Surprise surprise.

faux-incompetence is part of the conspirators plans, brah!

they be fucking sneaky

no Philadelphia experiment no credibility

http://www.unmuseum.org/philex.jpg

Trying to skim through this whole thread made me do a double take - I thought j0hn said "fuck you guys I can totally control crystal METH with the power of my mind."

wheres the conspiracy that suggests that human energy can effect the world around us (etc)? mioto water crystals

That's not a conspiracy theory, it's just stupid.

But congrats on finding the weirdest trolling point ever, Cpn Lorax.

the size of a few molecules so you better get a large telescope to do the mioto water crystal experiment yourself.

telescope

best part, I totally missed that

I can change the size of my telescope using my mind

I can change the size of my telescope using a blow dryer.

the proper execution of the mioto experiments wouldn't allow any partiality at all. to do the experiment there would have to be no confounding variables. when someone says "I can wish all day on an internet random number generator (0,1) and the results will be 50/50... the problem with that experiment is that the generator isn't pure - from being on the internet. Thats what a lot of the rice and experiments fail from. Impurity in the construct that the experimenter fails to see.

dfhgalerlghaaorlnhnertjklw5upanlrk

5upanlrk sowej fewjow terter ape ape ape

a bird in the hand is worth two in your bush

i think CaptainLorax is talking about the conspiracy where the US government uses propaganda films like what the bleep do we know to turn us all into listless hippies with nothing better to do but stare at glasses of water all day

the ability of any of you to believe in anything extraordinary is extraordinary.

I could see a man flying past your eyes and you all would argue the physics of an illusion before thinking it was possible...

http://www.theonion.com/content/node/39512

"Things fall not because they are acted upon by some gravitational force, but because a higher intelligence, 'God' if you will, is pushing them down," said Gabriel Burdett, who holds degrees in education, applied Scripture, and physics from Oral Roberts University.

Burdett added: "Gravity—which is taught to our children as a law—is founded on great gaps in understanding. The laws predict the mutual force between all bodies of mass, but they cannot explain that force. Isaac Newton himself said, 'I suspect that my theories may all depend upon a force for which philosophers have searched all of nature in vain.' Of course, he is alluding to a higher power."

Depends. Does said man sport a red cape and spandex? (xp)

that has nothing to do with a flying man looking in your window or an alien abducting you... then you might argue in favor of the extraordinary quantum physics experiment results from people like mioto.

dude you are so fuckin high all the time

thats why i think these things possible. i'm also positive and optimistic

congrats on finding the weirdest trolling point ever, Cpn Lorax.

i think CaptainLorax is talking about the conspiracy where the US government uses propaganda films like what the bleep do we know to turn us all into listless hippies with nothing better to do but stare at glasses of water all day

http://www.zeek.net/i/goat1.jpg

That's one of the best Onion articles of all time.

I had never heard of 'chemtrails' but I just looked it up and that shit is HILARIOUS. Sets an example for all other conspiracy theories.

Yeah, weather control as a conspiracy theory kind of lost its steam (ha ha) a while back there. But it's nice to know that chemtrails have filled that particular void.

i think CaptainLorax is talking about the conspiracy where the US government uses propaganda films like what the bleep do we know ILX to turn us all into listless hippies with nothing better to do

This is true. I should do me some work today. I need to be writing some subqueries today and ILX is keeping me from it!

::SHAKES FIST AT ILX LIZARDS::

Wait shit this is a good one, is it too late to add that?

I can change the size of my telescope using my mind

So that's what you call it these days.

I could see a man flying past your eyes and you all would argue the physics of an illusion before thinking it was possible...

omg i know, what fools!

I'll be long in the cold, cold earth afore ILX can make ME into a hippie!

Impurity in the construct that the experimenter fails to see.

guyz....

http://www.mactonnies.com/lizardeyes.jpg

http://rayboy.org/uploads/v_l.jpg

they're remaking v!

i only just noticed the closing date of this poll.

people are discussing 911 and wall street conspiracy theories in my office this morning, i just want to put my head on the desk and go to sleep.

some guy keeps hassling me to read all this guy's books

STFU some guy

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

I thought it was pretty well accepted that Oswald was a patsy and that the US knew about Pearl Harbor ahead of time

how is it that fire and debris from one building could knock down another made of STEEL?

the debris was made of KRYPTONITE

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

Oh my god eight people voted for the AIDS thing?

Can we get quincie in here?

whole lotta retards

Most plausible =/= plausible

Can we get quincie in here?
"yeah???"
http://timstvshowcase.com/quincy6.jpg

who's that one mobster who claimed to confess to killing jfk on his deathbed? apparently they whacked him for cracking down on their activities even though they helped him get into office through the teamsters.

Barcodes are intended to control people

how the fuck does this work?

Barracudas are intended to control people

"Jews control Hollywood," is a CONSPIRACY to you people? OMG HAHAHAH WTF

Get one copy of Variety, jebus

Barcodes are intended to control people

Only people that get barcode tattoos!

I am kind of upset the entire Atlantis mythology was not mentioned but perhaps it is there in spirit. Most New Agers/Conspiracy Theorists tend to tie it into pretty much all the other ones.

i don't get how ppl think the aids one is plausible.

"Jews control Hollywood," is a CONSPIRACY to you people? OMG HAHAHAH WTF

― Vichitravirya_XI, Sunday, September 28, 2008 9:27 AM (9 hours ago) Bookmark

"and the worldwide financial system," jebus.

fuck, I'm obsessed with lizard people now, because of this thread. Did you know Kris Kristofferson is supposed to be one??

The only man I've known to believe AIDS is manmade was a Mennonite!

how do the Mennonites and the Mormons roll?

i bet someone here knows.. i am looking for the Wikipedia article about a man who hi-jacked a plane, got the money and then took off and jumped. he disappeared forever.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D._B._Cooper

thanks! :)

On February 10, 1980, Brian Ingram, then eight years old, was with his family on a picnic when he found $5,880 in decaying bills (a total of 294 $20 bills),

(...)

it was proven that the money found by Ingram was part of the ransom given to Cooper(...)

Ingram was eventually allowed to keep $2,860 of this money. On June 13, 2008, in accordance with Ingram's wishes, the Heritage Auction Galleries' Americana Memorabilia Grand Format Auction in Dallas, Texas sold fifteen of the bills to various buyers for a total of more than $37,000.[38]

HAARP project scientist busted for fraud - pleas out with the Feds http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2013/05/haarp-fraud/

DoD shuts down HAARP
http://www.ktoo.org/2014/04/14/haarp-research-facility-shut/

Shutting it down is obviously the perfect cover.

I feel like HAARP has taken the place of scientific Climate Change theories. Like for many libertarian types, they can just point to crazy weather and say it proves HAARP did it rather than Al Gore.

the other night I had someone telling me that the Rockefellers engineered the feminist movement to take people's attention away from the ~real~ issues.

Because the anniversary is in the news I spent some time going down the rabbit hole of Boston Marathon Bombing conspiracy weirdos. Which led to the amusing spectacle of infowars/alex jones types arguing **with each other** over whether Jeff Bauman and other victims were actors or not. Some came down firmly on the side of these people OBVIOUSLY being actors, others were of the opinion that this was so obviously a false flag operation by the US intelligence community that introducing the idea of "crisis actors" was unnecessary.

It's scary to think that probably 10% of the people around you at any given time are absolutely shithouse-rat crazy.

There is a conspiracy (of course) that the recent lost Malaysian airplane was actually piloted by remote and steered off course to a remote location, to later be used in a FF. Because that is so much easier than just using a random plane no-one has ever heard of.

Jesus, just the comments in that link ET posted.

9/11 too low imo

"I had a feeling [the shooter, Larry Steve McQuilliams] was a white man, and you can be sure the hostile aliens who really control the country are going to use this against US," wrote "Volodyamyr."

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/12/white-supremacists-worry-austin-antigovernment-shooting-will-harm-their-reputations/

via Ned, probably somewhere else on ILE

Others, like “FatherOdin,” agreed, claiming that “once the media picks up this story we will once again hear nonstop about how all Whites are racist, anti-government, violent threats to America.”

...

“The Federal Government is anti-white! The Federal Government is a lawless out of control violent mob! The only solution to the Federal Government is secession!”

isn't advocating secession a violent anti-government threat to America I am confused

So now that Mercedes is apparently vulnerable to the same types of hacking as GM, Jeep, etc. I'd love to see a proof-of-concept hack on the C250 that Michael Hastings was driving.

You mean like, could it be hacked back then? Not following

The big talks at both Black Hat and Defcon hacking conferences were all about car hacking remotely:
http://www.wired.com/2015/07/hackers-remotely-kill-jeep-highway/
http://www.eweek.com/security/slideshows/black-hat-defcon-put-car-hacking-web-privacy-on-center-stage.html
http://www.technologyreview.com/news/540441/carmakers-accelerate-security-efforts-after-hacking-stunts/
http://www.extremetech.com/extreme/212251-todays-car-hacks-bmw-chrysler-mercedes-benz-on-ios
http://www.zdnet.com/article/how-to-hack-a-corvette-with-a-text-message/

The upshot is that these vulnerabilities are more common and far easier to exploit than what was previously thought. Would love to know if a 2013 Mercedes C250 (what Hastings was driving) can be hacked and taken over similar to what the conspiracy theory dictates - lock the door, floor the gas, and disable the brakes.

None of which proves anything of course. There are far easier ways to knock people off the playing field than a remote-controlled car hack, but I've always thought that the circumstances around it were interesting.

Thanks for the comprehensive reply, Elvis

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N8MNiMARh5c

Geocentric theory is coming back fwiw.

Might as well link this here, too. Why have a cruise for fans of one conspiracy theory when you could do them all?

http://www.divinetravels.com/ConspiraSeaCruise2016.html

(here's the donotlink for those not wanting to contribute to their google results: http://www.donotlink.com/gamz )

Note the guest list.

Is it safe for them all to be on the same boat? Bit of an easy target for the illuminati / lizard people / alien overlords / big pharma / Jews who run the government.

Aha! Andy Wakefield! So good to see you again

Discussion about this on the Jenny McCarthy vaccination thread

chem-trails is out of the running, looks like. sad!

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/16/science/scientists-just-say-no-to-chemtrails-conspiracy-theory.html

well of course the scientists would say that

I only read about this deal for the first time last night: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_Norwegian_spiral_anomaly

hard to find a non-"enhanced" image of what ppl said they saw: there's a youtube clip from (i think) CNN which is p poor quality but does have a wtf omg element once they zoom the camera in enough (= smoky but very orderly rotating spiral in the distant sky)… explanations = russians (rocket misfire), HAARP (chemtrails machinery malfunction), aliens (portal left open by mistake), more and worse if you google far enough

(it was retweeted last night by the ordinarily super-factual and gorgeous @StormHour, i think bcz a follower noticed SH had just tweeted a pic of s storm from the same part of tromsø, and commented with a link)

HAARP's new owner holds open house to prove facility 'is not capable of mind control'
http://www.adn.com/alaska-news/science/2016/08/24/haarps-new-owner-holds-open-house-to-prove-facility-is-not-capable-of-mind-control/

The University of Alaska Fairbanks now owns and operates the High-Frequency Active Auroral Research Program and invites the public to an open house Saturday. This is interested visitors' chance to learn about the scientific mission and research at the Gakona facility, which was transferred last year from the U.S. Air Force to UAF.

UAF officials are hoping for a high turnout.

"We hope that people will be able to see the actual science of it," said Sue Mitchell, spokesperson for UAF's Geophysical Institute, which operates the facility. "We hope to show people that it is not capable of mind control and not capable of weather control and all the other things it's been accused of."

'come to our mind control facility to allow us to implant in your mind the idea that we're not capable of mind control'

they must think we're fuckin idiots, man *adjusts tinfoil hat*

scientist doesn't understand how conspiracy theorists think

'Oh, so you hid all the evidence and then invited people?'

lately i've been trying to delve more into conspiracy theories from outside the english-as-a-first-language world. some of them are pretty good. there's the vietnamese conspiracy theory that ho chi minh died and was replaced by a chinese sleeper agent. and of course the great russian conspiracy theory that historians just made up a thousand years of history.

the jfk conspiracy theory is the one that everyone everwhere seems to believe and it's one of the most tedious and boring ones i can imagine. because the basis of it is stupid old "great man" theory, the belief that somebody as important as the president couldn't be killed by a lone nut.

i spent some time recently looking at the david icke forums and discovered they seem firmly pro-brexit, presumably because it's striking a blow against the reptilian-controlled new world order

Little do they realize the bitter irony that cutting off their noses to spite their faces makes them indistinguishable from their reptilian overlords.

I missed the David Kelly stuff, whats the consensus on what happened there?

This Rashid Buttar cat keeps popping up on youtube with a covid conspiracy theory. But its NOT the 5G one, in his one its something to do with Bill Gates wanting to force vaccines onto everyone, something about depopulation, and something else about RFD chips. I guess its an extension of the anti-vaccine movement?