Lets face it, people are paranoid—it’s only natural. We are suspicious of authorities, of cover-ups, of celebrities, and generally that’s a good thing.
But every once in a while a ludicrous idea starts bouncing around, and we get swept up in spite of ourselves. Suddenly the Freemasons and the Illuminati are controlling the world, Paul McCartney is an imposter, and the government is housing aliens in army warehouses.
1947: Roswell
After an alleged flying saucer crashed into the Roswell farm in 1947, people were ready for aliens. Whatever it was that actually crashed in Roswell, New Mexico, it provided the spark for countless theories about UFOs to come.
1950s: Area 51 and water fluoridation
The Nevada test and training agency has been the subject of much scrutiny since its inception. The large support of this conspiracy comes from the government’s insistence on such secrecy about the place, while the extensive aircraft developments by nearby Nellis Airforce base also add fuel to spaceship warehouse myths.
The practice of water fluoridation, adding fluoride to public water to prevent tooth decay, became commonplace in the ‘50s and it wasn’t long after, that people began to theorize. The most popular belief is that water fluoridation is part of a New World Order plan to make the population complacent, protect the United States’ atom bomb, and to generally take over the world.
1963: The assassination of John F. Kennedy
While it’s generally believed that Lee Harvey Oswald shot the president, Jack Ruby’s murder of Oswald added more confusion to the case. Besides the CIA and KGB theories, polls in 2003 found 70 per cent of Americans believed there was a broader plot involved.
1966: Paul is dead
Perhaps one of pop culture’s biggest theories is that Paul McCartney died in 1966 and was replaced by an imposter. Alleged evidence includes the strange isolation in album covers, the only red square on the Let It Be album cover and the lack of shoes and general funeral attire on the Abbey Road album cover. There were also alleged backtracking claims, where songs say “Paul is dead, miss him,” or “I buried Paul.”
1969: Moon landings
Perhaps one of the more persistent conspiracies is that the moon landings were faked. There are many claims against the integrity of the video, suggesting the flag’s wave was wind-based or lighting inconsistencies. Some even suggest Stanley Kubrick was involved after his work on 2001: A Space Odyssey.
1980s: Evil psychologists
Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard became deeply suspicious of psychologists, and eventually decided they must be planning to form a world government in partnership with the Soviet Union. Scientologists would later go on to claim that psychiatry was in fact a practice first developed in Nazi concentration camps.
1998: The reptilian elite
BBC sportscaster David Icke spearheaded this rather specific conspiracy. that the world is controlled by lizard people who run, well everything. Members of the Royal Family, American presidents, Brad and Angelina . . . everyone who is anyone is allegedly in this clan. Not to be outdone by other secret societies, he firmly accused them of being behind the Freemasons and Illuminati.
1996: Chemtrails
Suspicious sky watchers theorize that the contrails left behind aircrafts are, in fact, chemical trails being left in the sky for some unknown but sinister purpose.
2001: 9/11 Truthers
The most recent of large conspiracies is that 9/11 was an inside job. From the lack of military action to various architectural questions, people have been picking at the suspicious details of this tragedy for years. Many believe the attacks were orchestrated to initiate war in the Middle East for oil.
Sources:
The Telegraph
Time
Radar Online
