Tupac Shakur was only twenty-five years old when he was ambushed while he sat in a parked car on a Las Vegas strip on 7th September 1996. The attack came following the Mike Tyson-Bruce Seldon fight which Shakur had attended. He died in hospital six days later on 13th September.

See Also: 10 Crazy Conspiracy Theories Clouding The Music Industry

Conspiracy theories almost immediately began to fly. Many claimed that he was killed by fellow rapper, Biggie Smalls, who himself would be gunned down several months later. As time went on though, the theories strayed into “Elvis” territory, with claims that the rapper and actor had faked his own death, theories that still circulate today. Here are ten reasons some people firmly believe Tupac Shakur is alive and well . . . somewhere . . .

10 Lock Down At The Hospital

After he was admitted to hospital following the shooting, it is claimed only his mother, very close friends and certain designated medical staff were allowed to see Shakur. Perhaps because of this lock down, people began to speculate there was possibly more going on behind the scenes.

The rapper spent six days fighting for his life, during which time it was said he had to be revived several times, eventually succumbing to internal bleeding as a result of his gunshot wounds.

Perhaps the most controversial statement came recently from author Michael Carlin who claimed that the rap star was likely “finished off” in hospital by persons unknown. Carlin has worked closely with Los Angeles Police Department in researching Tupac’s killing. One thing he claims he is certain of is that the police and medical records regarding the rapper’s death are “bogus!”^[1]

9 The Person Who Performed His Cremation Disappeared

Perhaps one of the most mysterious parts of the Tupac Shakur murder is that the person who performed his cremation has apparently since vanished from the face of the planet.

Close friend of Tupac, and the person who was in the car he was riding in when he was ambushed and shot, Marion “Suge” Knight, reportedly claimed that he paid for the rapper to have a private cremation. Not only has the person in question allegedly disappeared, but the amount that Knight claimed he handed over for his services is also questionable given that it was $3 million. Was this part of the “missing millions” as they came to be known?^[2]

8 Tupac’s Missing Millions

It is claimed that Tupac Shakur was worth a little over $100,000 when he died, which doesn’t make him a pauper by any stretch of the imagination, but when considering the immense wealth he had accumulated from his music and his acting career, it is a drop in the ocean of the money he would, at one time, have surely had.

Furthermore, he had no property in his name when he died and his only possessions appeared to be two cars. There seemed to be concerns about the rapper’s contract with his record label, and exactly how much money he was actually paid, while his record company, the infamous Death Row Records, claimed it was Tupac’s own lavish lifestyle that had left him (relatively speaking) destitute.

Others though have speculated that the “missing millions” may have been discreetly “moved” elsewhere – remember the $3 million paid for the cremation?— in anticipation of a life to be lived out in secret.^[3]

7Detective Claims He Was Paid To Help The Rapper Fake His Death

In September 2015 a former detective, David Myers, made the claim that Tupac Shakur had faked his own death, and what’s more, he had been paid $1.5 million to help the rapper achieve it. Myers made the announcement from his death bed while in critical condition in hospital, stating that he “could not die without letting the world know” and that he was “ashamed” of his involvement. According to Myers, a body double was even arranged to be taken to the morgue in place of Shakur.

It should be noted however, that while this story appeared on several well-known web sites, there does not appear to be a definite source. Myers, if indeed he did exist, also didn’t state why the rap star wished to have the world believe he had died. One thing of interest though is the claim of a body double, particularly when inconsistencies concerning the mortuary records came to light.^[4]

6 Different Height and Weight Records

According to official records there was some discrepancy regarding Tupac’s height and weight as recorded by the mortuary. His driver’s license, as well as various celebrity “measurements” sites, listed Shakur’s height at 5” 10 and his weight at 168 pounds. But the mortuary records showed him to be two inches taller at a straight six feet and at a weight of 215 pounds – considerably heavier.

Could this simply have been sloppy record keeping at the mortuary? It’s certainly a possibility and realistically most likely, but nevertheless it has been a talking point for those who believe there is something being hidden about the rapper’s alleged death.^[5]

5 Alleged Last Photograph Inconsistencies

One of the most famous photographs of the Tupac Shakur murder, was said to be taken in the immediate minutes before his death. It shows him in the passenger seat of a car, with none other than larger than life, Suge Knight driving.

However, eagle-eyed fans and researchers quickly spotted that the date on the photograph was incorrect, and appeared to have been taken on the 8th of September – the day after the shooting had taken place. While in all likelihood the camera was just set to the wrong date in error, some believed the photo had been “set up” to circulate to the media following the rapper’s “death”.

Furthermore it was also pointed out that there didn’t appear to be any keys in the ignition of the car. There were automatic-start cars in 1996, albeit not as widespread as they are now, but to some this was further proof that the photo was staged.^[6]

4 No Bulletproof Vest The Night He Was Shot

Since his shooting in New York several years earlier, Shakur had become increasingly paranoid. He had suspected Biggie Smalls and people close to him to have been behind the shooting on the east coast, and was increasingly convinced that people wanted him dead. So much so that he had taken to wearing a bullet proof vest everywhere he went.

However on this evening, with the “East Coast-West Coast War” in full swing, and despite being in a very public place, he suddenly decided not to wear one. It was rumoured by some that Knight had told the rapper to remove his vest because “it was hot” inside the arena where the Tyson-Seldon fight was being contested – there is said to be footage of this conversation although it certainly doesn’t appear to be widely available. There also appears to be confusion as to whether the rapper had a bulletproof vest on at all that evening, with some sources that Knight and others close to Shakur had tried to insist he wear one that evening but he declined.^[7]

3The Makaveli Conspiracy

Tupac was known to be a huge fan of Italian renaissance man Machiavelli, and was particularly enthralled by his line, “To fool your enemies, fake your death.” For his last album, “The Don Killuminati – The 7 Day Theory” Tupac changed his on-stage moniker to Makaveli and, as he had done in many of his songs before, spoke of how he would fake his own death and then return to enact his vengeance on those that had wronged him.

When Biggie Smalls was himself gunned down only six months later, conspiracy theories began to circulate that perhaps Shakur was making good on his promise. Incidentally, Smalls’ death also remains unsolved.^[8]

2 Tupac Is Alive and Well, and Living In Cuba

This particular theory would be regarded as complete nonsense by even the most enthusiastic conspiracy theorists, particularly the claims that he was “seen” partying with Rihanna recently, were it not for the fact that the rapper does have a genuine connection to the country of Cuba.

His aunt, Assata Shakur, was a political activist and former Black Liberation Army member. She had fled to Cuba in 1979 following her conviction for the 1977 murder of a New Jersey State Trooper and sought political asylum there. Given Shakur’s political awareness, he almost certainly would have been very much aware of his aunt’s situation and possibly her whereabouts.

As Cuba is one of the few countries that the United States (at the time) had no access to, it is an ideal place for anyone who is looking to disappear.^[9]

1 Scores Of “New” Songs Released After His Death

Since his death there has been a litany of new material released by the rapper. This has fuelled speculation from some that Tupac is alive and well and recording new material from afar. It is true that a wealth of new material has seen the light of day in the years following Shakur’s death. What’s more is that these new releases have arguably netted as much profit, if not more, than the rapper managed to while he was alive.

While the theory sounds plausible, the fact is that Tupac was well known for being a seriously hard worker in the studio, sometimes recording several songs in a session – sessions that could last for days at a time. It is not at all beyond the realms of possibility that he would have had hundreds of unreleased tracks waiting in the wings when he died. His estate and any royalties from his music were in the control of his mother, Afeni, until her death in early 2016.^[10]

About The Author: Marcus Lowth—writer at Me Time For The Mind—http://www.metimeforthemind.com/
Me Time For The Mind on Facebook—https://www.facebook.com/MeTimeForTheMind/

The internet seems to run on conspiracy theories. There are so many of them around that you probably have a favorite one of your own. Half of Americans believe at least one medical conspiracy theory, like the FDA, is secretly hiding a cure for cancer. Maybe yours is about who shot JFK. Or if the moon landing was faked. Heck, maybe you think the Earth is secretly flat and the governments of the entire planet have been conspiring to dupe us into thinking it’s round for generations for some reason. 

Out of context, the term conspiracy theory is often used disparagingly. You think of people who believe in conspiracy theories as on the fringe of society, or somehow paranoid and unstable. But numerous conspiracies appeal to people across the board. They don’t adhere to one political ideology. And the fact that some conspiracies are true, like Iran-Contra, bolsters the belief in all the other conspiracies that have not been proven.

Whatever the case, there’s a conspiracy theory for almost everything you can think of and twice as many for stuff you never thought of. But where do these theories come from and how do they gain popularity? Maybe that’s a conspiracy too. Let’s find out. 

How Conspiracy Theories Start

Because so many conspiracy theories take root online these days it offers a unique ability for researchers to discover how these things form and spread. Research has shown that conspiracy theories tend to form very quickly when they’re based around false information, as opposed to genuine conspiracies which take much longer to break down and discover.

While a real conspiracy has many working parts, you can remove any of the elements and the story still makes sense. That’s because it’s a real thing and it really happened. All the ways the conspiracy connects still make sense even if you don’t include this part of that part. However, with a false conspiracy theory, if you remove elements, the entire narrative falls apart because it was never true and doesn’t make sense to begin with.

A good example of how a conspiracy is born is the DMSO conspiracy. This chemical is a waste product of paper production. Manufacturers wondered if it had a purpose and a scientist testing it determined it could be a sort of miracle cure. 

The FDA didn’t want to approve it because this was the 1960s and it happened just after the thalidomide crisis. Drug testing was a relatively new idea, and they were not keen to approve a new drug without proof it was safe and effective. So the FDA would not approve DMSO, which had not been thoroughly tested, and in the media, the story was that the government had banned this miracle cure. Thus, a medical conspiracy is born. 

Conspiracies tend to take root most easily during times of upheaval, confusion, and unrest. In studying over a century of articles and letters in newspapers, researchers found more conspiratorial language and ideas at the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, a time with new technology and new ideas being spread around, and then again as the Cold War took off. In that burst of conspiratorial thinking, people were focused heavily on Communism-related conspiracies. 

While it seems like the US is more inclined to conspiracy, that may just be a result of the prevalence of US media and control of social media spaces. Evidence also shows conspiracy theories are widespread in all cultures, making it a solid and reliable aspect of the human experience in general. 

Why We Believe Them

One of the largest studies ever on who believes in conspiracy theories came up with three tendencies that most believers have. They perceived threats and danger. They rely on their intuition and also express “odd” beliefs and experiences, and finally, they tend to be antagonistic and feel superior to others. We’ll dive into all of that. 

Conspiracy theories often give easy answers to complex questions. Even if the conspiracy is not technically “easy,” it may seem vastly complex. But it can boil down to “the government” or “Big Pharma” or some other nefarious cause behind an issue. That simplicity offers security to many people. They feel better now that they “know” why something happened. It also can offer a sense of belonging because the believer is now a part of this inner circle, the truth holders. That’s a comforting thing. 

Tim Wise, a critical race theorist, defined conspiracy theories as being for people who don’t understand how societal systems work. They take an individualist look at society and expect everything to be reduced to good people and bad people and not large, complex systems. It’s easy for these people to reduce a thing to an evildoer instead of historical and complicated traditions and systems that allow for things to happen a certain way. 

Wise also argues a conspiracy gives comfort in the face of things over which we have no control. This is backed up by additional research suggesting that belief in a conspiracy affords the believer a sense of control that they now know something valuable and unique. 

Research has shown that people who do poorly on critical thinking tests, in particular those related to evaluating arguments, are more likely to believe conspiracy theories. Ironically, when you call a story online out as fake or a conspiracy, that label is actually more likely to get people to read and believe other stories that have not been tagged even if it’s the same false info. 

The American Psychological Association identified a number of personality traits and motivators that can make someone more prone to believe. People who believe strongly in their own intuition may be more inclined to be swayed by a conspiracy theory, as are those who feel a strong sense of antagonism or superiority to others. 

Conspiracies allow people, who are by no means unintelligent, to make sense of things that don’t make immediate sense. They need to understand in order to feel safe, and a conspiracy theory can offer that because it gives an easier answer than something that may not be easy at all. 

While safety is a cushy-feeling motivation, the need to feel superior is also a big factor. People want to feel that they, or the community they identify with, is better. Those who strongly believe are often insecure, paranoid, egocentric, emotionally volatile, and suspicious. 

Conspiracy theories start to take hold of people when they’re young. Obviously, older people are just as inclined to spread a conspiracy around, but if you’re wondering when people start believing in conspiracy theories it seems to be around the age of 14. As teens get older their willingness to believe in conspiracies increases with their age. This trend diminishes somewhat into adulthood and reaches a plateau where it no longer increases.

Oldest Conspiracy Theories

The modern world is full of conspiracy theories. There have been conspiracy theories around COVID-19, Donald Trump’s presidency, Jeffrey Epstein, every war that America has been involved in,9/11, and so on. 

You could, of course, go back in time and find conspiracies about whether Tupac Shakur is still alive, whether Elvis is still alive, if Hitler’s brain is in a jar, if Walt Disney froze his head, and so much more. But where did it all begin?

If there’s a first conspiracy theory you’re not likely to ever find it. The first instance of that specific term in writing was from a column in the New York Times in 1863 discussing European affairs in the US. Another dates back to 1870 in The Journal of Mental Science. These are not where the idea comes from, of course. These are just the first times anyone labeled anything as such.

In reality, we can find conspiracies that date back to the Medieval period. Anti-Judaism conspiracies from that period said that Jewish people had conspired with the devil to take back the Holy Land. King Phillip of France in 1307 produced a conspiracy theory to banish the Templars by accusing them of Satan worship and sexual deviancy. It worked, too, and he had them all arrested within a night. 

In the 1800s, American newspapers were rife with conspiracy theories about politics, religion, and more. The Illuminati, the Europeans, witches, and more were being blamed for all manner of social ills. 

In an online world conspiracy theories may seem more prevalent, but they really aren’t as far as anyone can tell. There’s not a lot of research that has been done to try to compare modern conspiracies to ancient ones, but there is enough to suggest that conspiracies have always been a way of life.

The Spread of Conspiracy Theories

There’s more than one reason for someone to spread a conspiracy theory. It’s possible that the person sharing the information genuinely believes what they’re saying. Your uncle Gary may really believe the Earth is flat, and that NASA has been keeping you in the dark. But there’s a second, more nefarious reason as well.

Some conspiracy theories are hatched, and spread, with full knowledge that they are complete lies. The purpose is to sow discord, paranoia, mistrust, and chaos. There are organizations that employ people solely to be trolls on the internet, to share specific hashtags, and stories, and ideas meant to overwhelm and undermine confidence in governments and institutions. They work tirelessly to spread conspiracies, misinformation, and outright lies.

The purpose for spreading these lies is twofold. One, maybe someone truly believes them and has a change of heart. Conspiracy theories do work to bolster people’s opinions even in the face of evidence to the contrary. A 2022 poll found that 29% of Americans believed Joe Biden won the 2020 election due to fraud. That’s a large number that could have a serious impact.

The other reason for the widespread dissemination of conspiracy theories is to overwhelm and undermine. If social media is flooded with conflicting information all the time, the truth will always be watered down. 

In one study related to the COVID-19 pandemic and associated conspiracies, the authors noted that people who feel a national narcissism which is defined as feeling one’s ingroup, in this case, their nation, is exceptional compared to all others and deserves special recognition, spread conspiracies more readily. 

For a national narcissist, COVID-19 showed the weakness of their nation – and it could be any nation affected by the pandemic. It showed a lack of preparedness and an inability to overcome a challenge. That bred conspiracies blaming other countries, poor government systems, politicians, and healthcare workers. Someone had to be the scapegoat. And these conspiracies spread very fast because it was a time of confusion so everyone, national narcissist or not, wanted an explanation and someone to blame. It allows people to defend their sacred national image, and it’s easy because it supports what they want to believe already, whether it’s true or not.

Online communities allow these theories to breed and spread rapidly and intensely. The information shared reinforces the beliefs of those involved so it’s often never questioned. This is likely something we have all experienced online – you are attracted to online forums and communities that deal with your interests and it’s more enjoyable and affirming to see things shared that support what you already believe and feel to be true. 

The theories born on one forum are picked up and shared on another and another as like-minded individuals want to inform those who they share interests with while also challenging those they feel oppose them. They gain legitimacy when high-profile members of the media, online influencers, and even politicians share them. 

In the modern world, social media has allowed for unprecedented spread of misinformation and conspiracy. These theories can be weaponized, intentionally or otherwise, to harm people like when an armed man who fell for the Pizzagate conspiracy that said a non-existent basement below a pizza restaurant was a place where politicians were worshiping Satan and sacrificing children opened fire on the restaurant.

There’s also a lot of money to be made in spreading conspiracies. In September 2024 a number of high-profile right-wing YouTubers were found to have been getting paid large sums of money to spread conspiracy theories and misinformation on behalf of Russia. These influences had millions of followers each making the spread of the conspiracies incredibly fast and wide. 

Fighting Conspiracy Theories

The consensus seems to be that conspiracy theories are on the rise and are potentially becoming more dangerous. Trying to directly talk someone out of believing a conspiracy theory, even if you have evidence to support your point, rarely works.

There are methods to combat conspiracy theories, but they do take time. One thing is to focus on what people “actually” believe. Conspiracies offer comfort, safety, and explanations for most people. Because a believer likely talks to people and visits forums that bolster these beliefs, they’re inclined to think more people believe the conspiracy than actually do. Learning how few people believe a thing, and how many believe the truth, can help bring people back to reality. 

Generally, to get someone away from conspiracy requires receptiveness, patience, and a willingness to not be defensive. That’s why it will probably never work with a stranger on Twitter, but it can be done.

Antarctica is surrounded by conspiracy theories and ice… lots of ice. Both are unsurprising considering that the continent is the most remote and the least understood on Earth.

It is practically impossible to live there without specialized gear, buildings, and support from humans on a more livable continent. This has made Antarctica the perfect candidate for conspiracy theories ranging from aliens to UFOs, secret government bases, and even some strange pyramids.

SEE ALSO: 10 Fascinating Wonders Of Antarctica

10 Some Ancient Civilization Built Pyramids In Antarctica

In 2016, the internet went wild after three pyramids were discovered in Antarctica. The pyramids measured over 1,220 meters (4,000 ft.) tall, making them about 10 times the height of the famous Great Pyramid of Giza in Egypt. This was strange as there is no record that any ancient civilization existed in Antarctica. Besides, such massive construction would have required unbelievable resources and manpower to complete.

Nevertheless, conspiracy theorists jumped on board, claiming that the pyramids were built by some undiscovered ancient civilization that had lived in Antarctica 100,000 million years ago. They say that Antarctica was at the equator at the time, so living conditions were more tolerable. However, they added that the government is hiding information and has even blocked pictures of the pyramids on Google Earth.^[1]

Scientists counter that the supposed pyramids are either horn or nunatak mountains. A horn is formed after erosion washes down the sides of a mountain, making it appear like a pyramid. Nunataks are a category of mountain that are so tall that they rise above the permafrost covering Antarctica.

According to scientists, the supposed pyramids could not have been built by an ancient civilization because Antarctica was actually at the South Pole 100 million years ago. The ancient civilization part could not be true, either, because the earliest human species appeared two million years ago.

As a result, the so-called pyramids could have only been built by dinosaurs. That is, if they are truly pyramids. However, there is no evidence that dinosaurs built pyramids, either.

9 The Nazis Have A Secret Base In Antarctica

There is a conspiracy theory that the Nazis have a secret base in Antarctica. This idea began after conspiracy theorists discovered that the Nazis had launched an expedition to Antarctica in 1938 which presumably consisted of several military and scientific ships.

While there, the Nazis supposedly discovered several underground caves and rivers and later converted the largest cave into a secret city where they lived with the Illuminati. Some conspiracy theorists speculate that Hitler fled to this secret base after losing the war.

Believers also claim that the Nazis somehow managed to lay their hands on alien technology at the secret base. They exploited this to build the weapons they tested at the smaller caves.^[2]

In truth, the Nazis do not have a secret base in Antarctica. There is no evidence that they made weapons with alien technology or tested any weapon in Antarctica, either. Besides, the Nazis only sent one ship to the region around 1938 in search of new whale hunting grounds. They abandoned the expedition after World War II broke out.

8 The Lost City Of Atlantis Is Under Antarctica

Some conspiracy theorists claim that the fabled Atlantis is under Antarctica. Interestingly, the idea kicked off in the 1950s after Professor Charles Hapgood, a historian, suggested that Antarctica was home to some undiscovered ancient civilization. Hapgood’s belief hinged on the theory that Antarctica was not covered with ice 11,600 years ago.^[3]

Conspiracy theorists claimed that Hapgood was right. However, they added that the civilization was actually Atlantis, which remains covered in ice today. In 1995, Graham Hancock asserted in his study, Fingerprints of the Gods, that the people of Atlantis had migrated from Antarctica to found the Aztec, Mayan, and Egyptian empires.

7 Rectangular Icebergs In Antarctica Were Built By Aliens

Scientists have revealed the existence of weird, almost perfectly rectangular icebergs in Antarctica. They are often huge and are sometimes visible from space. The rectangular icebergs look more man-made than natural. It is almost as if they were neatly carved out of a larger iceberg. That is true, except that they are really natural.^[4]

Scientists call them tabular icebergs. They are naturally formed when part of an iceberg breaks off from a larger one. However, conspiracy theorists do not believe this. They say that the icebergs were either made by humans or aliens.

Some of them also suggest that it could be a secret government facility. Conspiracy theorists hinge their arguments on the fact that perfect shapes rarely exist in nature, which is true. However, scientists have pointed out that not every corner of the iceberg is usually perfect.

The debate rages on.

6 A UFO Crash-Landed In Antarctica

Some conspiracy theorists called “alien hunters” claim to have discovered evidence of an alien UFO that crash-landed in Antarctica. The hunters reached this conclusion after analyzing a suspicious trail, which they found with Google Earth, on the continent’s surface.^[5]

The trail starts from what appears to be the collapsed peak of a mountain. This suggests that the UFO hit the peak as it crash-landed. However, geologists don’t agree. They insist that the trail was caused by an avalanche.

SEE ALSO: 10 Extraordinary Creatures Of Antarctica

5 A Crater In Antarctica Is Actually An Entrance Into The Earth

In January 2019, it was reported that scientists from NASA and the German Aerospace Center had discovered a crater deep under the permafrost of Antarctica.

Although it was only recently reported, the crater was first discovered during an analysis of satellite images of Antarctica in 2006. Scientists think the crater was formed by one of the asteroids that hit the Earth millions of years ago and caused the extinction of the dinosaurs.

However, conspiracy theorists do not think so. They have suggested that the crater is part of the secret Nazi base that we mentioned earlier. Others believe that the crater was discovered during a US Navy operation to find the entrance into the Earth. They think the crater is the entrance.^[6]

4 Google Knows Something We Do Not Know About Antarctica

In March 2018, a pro–conspiracy theory YouTube channel claimed that Google knows some secrets about Antarctica. And it seems like Google is doing all it can to hide that information from us. However, a rebellious Google employee is supposedly trying to reveal the conspiracy to us.

The presenter of the YouTube channel said that a red cross appears whenever he hovers over a location in Antarctica—but only when he has enabled the weather feature on Google Earth. The conspiracy theorist believes that this occurs because an unidentified Google employee wants us to see whatever is hidden there.

The presenter suggested that it could be a UFO base, some secret treasure, or a glitch in Google Earth.^[7]

3 Two Craters In Antarctica Are Entrances To A Secret UFO Base

There are two craters along the coast of Antarctica. Both go deep below the surface into the permafrost as if something had dug its way in. Conspiracy theorists have jumped on board to suggest that the craters are the entrances to a secret government facility, an alien base, or the secret Nazi base mentioned earlier.

Scott Waring, a UFO conspiracy theorist, said that the craters were formed by a UFO buried in the permafrost. He claimed that he spotted the UFO in the original image he viewed on Google Earth. However, he explained that the UFO is no longer visible because Google edited the original image.^[8]

2 Antarctica Does Not Exist

There is a weird conspiracy theory that the whole of Antarctica and the South Pole do not exist. This belief is most common among flat-earthers who claim that our planet is flat. Flat-earthers believe that the North Pole is at the center of the world while the South Pole surrounds the Earth.

According to flat-earthers, Antarctica is actually a thick wall about 30 to 60 meters (100 to 200 ft.) high that surrounds our planet. The wall stops everything from falling over the edge of the Earth. Flat-earthers say we cannot confirm the existence of the wall because world governments and the United Nations have strict no-fly and no-sail zones around Antarctica.

Conspiracy theorists believe that the British Captain Cook is one of the few humans to have ever seen the wall apart from government agents. Supposedly, Captain Cook reported seeing the huge wall during the three voyages he made to Antarctica. The wall covered the entire coastline, and he could not land anywhere because it was just too tall to climb.^[9]

1 The Nazis Hid UFOs In Antarctica

Another conspiracy theory involving the Nazis asserts that they hid UFOs somewhere in Antarctica. The Nazi UFOs have even been linked to the supposed pyramids mentioned earlier.

Believers insist that the Nazis operated a secret UFO in the Antarctic during World War II. US and British forces repeatedly tried destroying the base during the war but were unsuccessful. They only managed to demolish it after dropping an atomic bomb on the base in 1958. Conspiracy theorists claim that the Nazis destroyed a US airplane during this operation.

This idea is regarded as false because the Nazis never had a base or any military interest in Antarctica. As mentioned earlier, they only went to Antarctica with one ship to find new whaling grounds. They did not have enough supplies to build an underground base.^[10]

The so-called operation to expel the Nazis from the secret UFO base was actually a military training to simulate the invasion of the icy cold Soviet Union. This involved 13 ships, 33 airplanes, and 4,700 soldiers. The Nazis did not shoot an airplane down during the training, either, as there were no Nazis.

Lastly, the atomic bomb supposedly used to destroy the UFO base was actually detonated 2,400 kilometers (1,500 mi.) off the shore of Antarctica. Nevertheless, conspiracy theorists insist that the Nazis did have UFOs tucked somewhere in Antarctica and even used the technology to create alien weapons which were then hidden in Antarctica, South America, and the Arctic.

+ A UFO Flew Directly Above A Research Station In The Antarctic

In 2012, there were claims that a UFO was flying over the Neumayer-Station III in Antarctica. A video shot on August 10, 2012, showed an object flying above the research station. Other conspiracy theorists suggested that the object was part of a new weapon the government was creating.

However, it turned out to be a weather balloon. This was evident from the video because the object had the shape of a balloon. Besides, researchers in Antarctica are known to fly weather balloons directly above their research station. Lastly, what sort of alien leaves his saucer flying directly above a research station?^[11]

Panic over Ebola has reached absurd heights, with people paying far more attention to worst-case scenarios than to likely outcomes. However, mainstream media alarmism looks almost reasonable next to some of the more absurd conspiracy theories currently circulating about the disease.

10America Manufactured Ebola

Delaware State University professor Cyril Broderick published a letter in Liberia’s Daily Observer in September accusing the US government of manufacturing the Ebola virus. Broderick alleges that Ebola is a genetically modified organism that America weaponized and tested in Africa under the guise of distributing vaccines. He further names Canada, the UK, and France as being in cahoots with America, with the WHO and the UN somehow involved as well.

For sources, Broderick primarily quotes Leonard Horowitz, an opponent of vaccination who thinks American scientists also invented AIDS. Broderick further quotes some speculative conspiracy theorist article and the book The Hot Zone—a legitimate work of nonfiction that does not actually support his claims.

Delaware State did not fire or discipline Broderick for his wild, reckless claims. The University instead said that the professor has the right to say whatever he wants in his free time. But they made sure to clarify that they do not endorse his letter, and he has no expertise in the subject.

9The Ebola Virus Doesn’t Exist

A former nurse caused a violent uprising at a Sierra Leone hospital when a crowd heard her say that the Ebola virus doesn’t exist at all. The outbreak, she claimed, is really just an excuse for doctors to perform cannibalistic rituals at the hospital.

It didn’t take much to convince the crowd. Many in Sierra Leone and surrounding countries naturally distrust hospitals. Most patients and their families choose traditional healers over foreign doctors and nurses. One woman infected with Ebola was removed from a treatment center by her family and taken to a traditional healer. A search for the woman paid off, but on her way to the nearest hospital, she died in the ambulance.

Toward the end of July, the violence escalated as more people started believing the conspiracy. People threated to burn down clinics and treatment centers and remove the Ebola patients by force. At that point, Sierra Leone had the highest number of Ebola patients, and police officers had to stand guard at the main hospital in Kenema. They hurled tear gas into the crowd and accidentally shot a nine-year-old boy.

This incident also led health organization Samaritan’s Purse to stop their outreach to patients in the area. Their health workers had been attacked by community members after they tried to collect a patient.

8Saltwater Cures Ebola

False claims of cures have been making the rounds in parts of Nigeria. One of these cures is drinking saltwater—which, far from curing any disease, can dehydrate drinkers to the point of death. At least four people died of drinking saltwater in an attempt to protect themselves from Ebola. These people had been healthy and lived hundreds of miles from the nearest outbreak.

The World Health Organization issued a statement to warn people against treatments not given by doctors or nurses. They especially warn against believing anything about remedies that are posted on social media platforms. Patients should instead turn to health centers and doctors.

However, again, many in the affected region heartily distrust doctors and dismiss anything they say as lies. One man even told the Wall Street Journal that since he had never seen anyone die before his eyes of the disease, it must be only a rumor.

7God’s Wrath

In July, more than 100 Christian leaders met in Liberia’s capital of Monrovia to discuss how to respond to the Ebola threat. After a day’s discussion, the group unanimously declared that God was angry with Liberia and had sent Ebola as a plague to punish its people.

He was punishing them for corruption—for homosexuality, among other things. And the absolute best way for the country to respond would be three days of fasting and prayer. The government should join in the observation, said the group, shutting down for the period.

A Liberian Muslim cleric, Salafia Mosque chief imam Sheikh Salah Sheriff, echoed the sentiments. He blamed the outbreak on such sins as homosexuality, fornication, adultery, armed robbery, general wickedness, and disrespect of the authorities—all grave affronts to Allah. Asked, he conceded that followers should follow medical advice to avoid exposure, but to really defeat Ebola, Liberians had to “begin to fear God rather than the virus.”

6Witchcraft

One other rumor infecting parts of West Africa is that Ebola comes from witchcraft. The consequence of this is that people consider Ebola as a total and supernatural death sentence—even though treatment can help stop the spread and sometimes even save sufferers.

For example, when Doctors Without Borders took two sick sisters to an eastern Guinea hospital in July, both totally lost hope. Neither tried to fight the disease. They just lay still and waited for death. But Rose, the 12-year-old daughter of one of the sisters, apparently did not believe in witchcraft. She assured her mother and aunt that all three of them could survive, staying cheerful and ensuring that they all followed the doctors’ instructions. They all did recover, which makes them more fortunate than most.

The other consequence of irrational fear of Ebola is that sufferers become needlessly ostracized. Patients at the hospital, especially children, should ideally receive regular visits from their family. But family members are so scared of the disease that they often refuse to come in, despite doctors’ requests.

At the same time, the persistent belief in witchcraft is putting a serious dent in efforts to stop Ebola in its tracks. Some refuse to get medical help because they believe witches and sorcerers are cursing people and causing them to die. They simply refuse to believe that a virus is to blame for the deaths of patients.

5Doctors Are Purposely Infecting People With Ebola

In some villages, people don’t just think that doctors are useless in fighting the disease. They think that the doctors are actively spreading it, so they avoid or even fight doctors who try to help. This irrational fear may stem from incidents where patients went to the hospital for separate medical issues only to be infected by deadly diseases while there.

In extreme cases, villagers have threatened to kill any medical doctor or assistant who comes to treat patients. In the village of Kolo Bengou, Guinea, townsfolk blocked roads with logs to prevent Doctors Without Borders from entering. As a result, the disease spread further.

The persistent rumors that witch doctors can cure the sick also contributes to a lack of faith in real doctors, hampering effective treatment.

4It Started With An Evil Snake

One story tells of a woman with a bag at the border of Guinea and Sierra Leone. Someone opened the bag and saw a snake inside it, and as soon as they looked at it, the woman died. The person who’d opened the bag died next, and the snake slithered off in the nearest bush. And that was how Ebola entered Sierra Leone.

This odd tale is actually consistent with one part of the true story of Ebola. This outbreak is theorized to have started in Guinea before coming to Sierra Leone.

Those who believe in the Ebola snake say that those who show symptoms don’t have a disease at all. They’ve been cursed.

3Ebola Is Spread By White Demon Worshipers

The above image appeared on a Nigerian website in September. Along with it came a story that seems to combine the worst aspects of several dangerous Ebola rumors.

That anime-style nurse holding the skull is named “Ebola-Chan,” said the site. Cults in Europe and America worship her as a goddess. They perform blood sacrifices at altars to Ebola-Chan and eat the hearts of victims, and in return for their patronage, the goddess spreads Ebola throughout Africa. In league with the cult are doctors who manually infect victims with Ebola while pretending to treat it.

The posting did not come from a concerned Nigerian, despite what it claimed. It was from a user of the image board 4Chan, where Ebola-Chan is a meme. When a 4Chan user sees Ebola-Chan, they’re supposed to say “thank you, Ebola-Chan” and joke about the extermination of all Africans.

It’s uncertain if anyone in Nigeria was taken in by the website, but nearly all Internet hoaxes manage to fool someone.

2An Ebola Bomb

Dr. Peter Walsh, a biological anthropologist at the University of Cambridge, claims that terrorists could build bombs containing a powdered form of the Ebola virus. Such a bomb could kill huge numbers of people in a major British city, Walsh told a UK tabloid. This threat may seem particularly serious in the UK because there is otherwise little reason to expect that the disease will enter the country.

In reality, while bioterrorism is always a possibility, it’s unclear why any terrorist would choose to weaponize Ebola of all diseases. Unlike many diseases, Ebola is neither airborne nor waterborne. It is far less contagious than most other viruses.

1The Ebola Crisis Will Launch The New World Order

Perhaps the strangest conspiracy theory of them all claims that the New World Order elite created the Ebola virus as a means of depopulating the Earth. The number of people who must die to reach a “manageable population” is a staggering five billion.

According to this insane conspiracy, the New World Order elite have three primary ways of ensuring depopulation. These include famine from unsustainable development, war from artificial conflict, and manufactured diseases. The cure for the diseases will only be held by the elite.

The elite created the Ebola epidemic to depopulate Africa, with the rest of the world their next target. The news that Ebola has reached the US and killed a patient in Dallas only fueled the fire around this theory.

Estelle lives in Gauteng, South Africa. She usually loves conspiracies, but these ones are far too crazy.

Everyone loves a conspiracy, don’t they? Hollywood, especially, thrives on them. Sometimes they make them up, and sometimes they’re even part of the conspiracy itself, but when there are so many great conspiracy theories and cover-ups to choose from in real life, it’s easy to see why they don’t often bother.

Top 10 Conspiracy Theories That Were Actually True

Conspiracy movies always involve a “Good Guy” and some “Dark Forces”—usually represented by corrupt businesses and/or self-serving and secret government agencies with far too much autonomy and far too little regulation. In other words, the alphabet agencies, chemical and pharmaceutical companies, and anyone who deals with money.

In the interests of Truth, Transparency, and standing against the latest attack on free speech from Google, which is now banning all conspiracy related content, we have put our feet up, watched a load of films, and come up with the ten greatest conspiracy movies based on real-life conspiracy theories.

Pass the popcorn and enjoy.

10 The Lincoln Conspiracy
1977

In 1865, Abraham Lincoln was shot in the head whilst watching a play at Ford’s Theater in Washington. Coming as it did just at the end of the Civil War, the assassination caused intense feelings across America. John Wilkes Booth, the assassin, was trying to start a new war, in which Lincoln’s assassination would be the flash-point, thus resurrecting the Confederate cause.

This, at least, is the authorised version.

In The Lincoln Conspiracy, director James L Conway put forward a different theory. Instead of being the work of a few fanatical Confederates who could not accept defeat, The Lincoln Conspiracy proposed that the assassination was engineered by powerful government and business forces that opposed Lincoln’s programme of reconstruction in the South.

It even suggested that the man who was so famously shot dead at Garrett’s Farm, Virginia, was not John Wilkes Booth at all, but James William Boyd, a recently released Confederate soldier who had the misfortune of having a similar sounding name to Booth.

The film, which starred Bradford Dillman as the unfortunate Booth, was largely ignored on its release in 1977 but has helped to increase the speculation on the death of a president ever since, and it continues to spark debate.^[1]

9 Capricorn One
1978

In 1969, America sent Apollo 11 to the moon, and Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin became the first human beings to set foot on a different planet (yes, we do know that the moon is not an actual planet, but you know what we mean). The world stopped spinning, and for a brief moment, everyone looked towards the stars (no, not a star either) and watched Armstrong descend that ladder and leave his footprint in the dust of a planetary satellite.

Or did he?

In 1973, a self-published book, written by a man with no experience of space travel, aeronautical engineering, or well, anything, first cast doubt on Man’s Greatest Achievement. The theory that the whole moon landing was a giant hoax gained popularity in 1978 with the release of Capricorn One. The plot of that film was, ostensibly, about a faked space mission to Mars, but conspiracists soon noted that Capricorn One bore an uncanny resemblance to Apollo 11. The movie explained just how a sufficiently motivated and well-funded space agency might have pulled the hoax off.

In the movie, bewildered astronauts are removed from the shuttle just as the countdown begins and driven in secret to a military airbase in the desert. The empty shuttle is launched into space, and news briefings keep the public in the dark while the astronauts fake footage of themselves in space and landing on the Red Planet.

The Fake Moon Landing Conspiracy gained much ground after the release of the movie, which starred Elliot Gould and Josh Brolin (with OJ Simpson as a rather unlikely astronaut), even though, in the film, the hoax is quickly uncovered by technicians at NASA and just as quickly leaked to the press.

That point seems to have been missed.^[2]

8 Z
1969

On May 22, 1963, Greek politician and activist Grigoris Lambrakis was struck over the head with a club by two men after delivering an anti-war speech to hundreds of supporters. His death in the hospital five days later sparked an intense protest against the right-wing Greek government and inspired thousands of Greek youths to form leftist political organisations.

The investigation into Lambrakis’s death revealed a to the army and the police. Investigators and attorneys who looked into the death were relieved of their position or even jailed for a time. Eventually, under extreme pressure, the Prime Minister resigned. In 1974, the military dictatorship in Greece finally ended.

Greek director Costa-Gavras used this premise for his 1969 film Z, which he offered as a modern political thriller. In the movie, an unnamed deputy is killed after a political rally—struck in the head by a passerby in a truck, dying five days later—and the subsequent investigation reveals a conspiracy that the military police and army were involved in the murder.

With charges filed against several officers, it appears that justice will be served. But, alas, that is not the case. The military is ultimately able to overthrow the government in a successful coup and then proceeds to ban modern art, pop music, and even the letter “Z,” a symbol of the young Greek protest movement.

Z won an Oscar in 1969 for Best Foreign Language Film.^[3]

7 Nixon
1996

Like his political nemesis, John F Kennedy, Richard Nixon has been the subject of countless conspiracy theories. And the conspiracy theories about Nixon seem small in number compared to the vast number of conspiracies that Nixon himself believed were being orchestrated against him.

No matter how you look at it, Richard Nixon was a paranoid man.

Having scrutinized the madness surrounding the death of President Kennedy, it seemed inevitable, perhaps, that Oliver Stone would turn his attention to Nixon.

Which was difficult because Nixon was a private (paranoid) man. Stone’s movie opened with a warning that the movie was “an attempt to understand the truth … based on an incomplete historical record.”

The film opens with the break-in at The Watergate building then documents his strange relationships with his staff, his growing secrecy (paranoia), recordings of conversations in his office and over the phone, which he obsessed over and which, in the end, caused his downfall.

Nixon, played by Anthony Hopkins, was portrayed as a brilliant if not a strange (paranoid) man, slowly succumbing to his delusions induced by all the scheming he had done to obtain high office and by the conviction that others were now scheming against him.

While JFK had received mixed reviews from critics, Nixon was considered a tour de force and was nominated for 4 Oscars, including Best Actor for Anthony Hopkins.

Hopkins lost out to Nicolas Cage’s Leaving Las Vegas.

Had he still been alive, no doubt Nixon would have been paranoid about that too.^[4]

6 The China Syndrome
1979

Timing is everything, they say, in the movie business. It certainly was for James Bridges, who directed The China Syndrome, the story of a journalist who discovers that the nuclear power station, which has just had a meltdown, had repeatedly breached its safety procedures.

While that story was entirely fictional, 12 days after the movie’s release, a nuclear disaster occurred at 3 Mile Island. Not only that, but it soon became clear that the nuclear plant had been breaching its own safety procedures for several months. Operators repeatedly manually overrode the faulty cooling systems, which should have been impossible to do.

The parallels between the movie and the “incident” were chilling. The incident no doubt helped the film’s success, with both its stars—Jane Fonda and Jack Lemmon—being nominated at the 1980 Oscars. Unfortunately for The China Syndrome, that was also the year of Kramer vs. Kramer and Apocalypse Now, and while a nuclear meltdown is interesting, it just can’t compete with a “three-sided” love story or “the horror” of Marlon Brando in eye makeup.^[5]

10 Outlandish Conspiracy Theories About The USA

5 The Constant Gardener
2005

John Le Carre is best known for his spy novels, but when he wrote The Constant Gardener, he shifted his focus to the pharmaceutical industry to find the machinations of such companies every bit as brutal as any secret service.

The novel was made into a film, starring Ralph Fiennes, in 2001. Fiennes plays a British diplomat trying to solve the murder of his wife, who had been investigating a drug company that had been testing their TB drugs on poor African women.

Although the film was not a reference to one particular drug scandal, many drug trials were undertaken in Africa, especially for diseases such as meningitis and HIV, where dubious consent was obtained. There are also allegations that even less ethical drug trials were conducted, where subjects were infected with polio and HIV to test vaccines, although this has never been conclusively proved. The film also resembles the plot of the recently released Dark Waters, which highlights the duplicity of an international chemical company and their careless dumping of dangerous chemicals, suggesting that the big companies are still polluting at will and infecting customers and employees with impunity.

The Constant Gardener did win multiple awards, however, including an Oscar for Rachel Weisz.

So there’s that.^[6]

4 The Insider
1999

Michael Mann’s 1999 film, The Insider, told the true story of one whistle-blower’s exposé of the tobacco industry. Russell Crowe played the real-life whistle-blower, Jeffrey Wigand, while Al Pacino co-starred as the documentary maker who broke the story, despite the NDA agreement that protected the company.

Wigand worked as a research chemist for a tobacco company, researching cigarette production with lower levels of tobacco. He claimed that while the company was reducing the amount of nicotine, they also added other chemicals, such as ammonia, to increase the effects of nicotine, thus keeping the customer hooked. As a result of his whistle-blowing, Wigand was harassed by his employers and even received anonymous death threats.

Michael Mann’s film was very well received and was nominated for 7 Academy Awards. Including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor (for Russell Crowe), and Best Screenplay. Crowe was beaten out by Kevin Spacey and American Beauty, as was Michael Mann.

American Beauty scooped Best picture and Best Director too.^[7]

3 The Big Short
2015

Not so much a conspiracy theory as a conspiracy, The Big Short documented the way that banks, stockbrokers, and all-round shysters all got in on the sub-prime mortgage gravy train and bankrupted the entire world in the process.

A film about mortgages would normally be a hard sell and an even harder watch. Mortgages are not interesting.

So, Adam McKay directed it like a slick heist movie.

Which, in a way, it was.

Like Oceans 11, but with less sex appeal and better acting (Don Cheadle’s accent. That’s all we’re going to say), The Big Short managed to explain exactly how sub-prime mortgages worked, why it was inevitably going to crash, and more importantly, how everyone in the banking world knew but were too busy getting their snouts in the trough to care.

The film won multiple awards and was nominated for 5 Oscars, winning 1 for best-adapted screenplay. No bankers were harmed in the making of the movie.

Unfortunately.^[8]

2 The Manchurian Candidate
1962

The Cold War during the 1950s had created a deeply hostile and suspicious atmosphere in international relations. Intelligence agencies of every nation spied on their enemies and their allies alike. John Frankenheimer’s The Manchurian Candidate, released in 1962, summed up this atmosphere of mutual distrust.

The film starred Frank Sinatra and Laurence Harvey as captured soldiers in the Korean War, subjected to brainwashing through hypnosis. Whilst Harvey returns to his dysfunctional and ruthlessly ambitious family, Sinatra begins to have strange dreams.

Realizing that he has been implanted with false memories, Sinatra fears that Harvey has been brainwashed as an assassin and is being manipulated to make him shoot a presidential nominee.

The film heavily references the McCarthy witch hunts of the 1950s, the uneasy international situation, and the distrust of secret government-backed organisations, which seemed to be making up their own rules of engagement, without regard to the Geneva Convention or any other convention, for that matter.

The film even hinted that disreputable foreign governments might seek undue influence in the affairs of other nations by spreading disinformation.

Surely not.^[9]

1 JFK
1991

There are almost as many films about the death of John F Kennedy as there are conspiracy theories about who killed him.

By far the best, however, is Oliver Stone’s JFK. Stone himself described his film as “counter myth,” countering the Warren Commission’s myth about who killed the president.

Stone’s film suggested that, far from a single shooter acting alone, the assassination of JFK was facilitated and encouraged by the CIA. New Orleans District Attorney, Jim Garrison, played by Kevin Costner, suggested that there were 3 shooters and 6 shots fired from the grassy knoll.

The film was not received well by critics, though the public loved it. Many reviews focused on the conspiracy theories rather than on the merits of the film, and Stone himself was severely criticized. An Op-Ed in The Washington Post called him “a man of technical skill, scant education, and negligible conscience.”

Despite the poor reviews, JFK had great popular success. However, far from settling the question of who killed Kennedy, Stone’s film merely added one more theory, or counter myth, to the very large pot.^[10]

If you think we’ve left any great movies off the list, let us know in the comments below!

10 Creepy Pop Culture Conspiracy Theories

Project MK-ULTRA was a series of human experiments conducted by the Central Intelligence Agency from 1953 to 1973, when it was reportedly stopped. Its goal was to create and use methods of mind control, sometimes on people unaware of it. Test subjects were placed in sensory deprivation, given hallucinogenic drugs, allegedly tortured, and even abused sexually as well as mentally. From these experiments, CIA operatives hoped to develop techniques to get criminals and enemy prisoners of war to confess the truth of crimes committed.^[1]

A number of MK-ULTRA experiments were conducted illegally on subjects without their knowledge or consent. Several deaths and lawsuits against the federal government followed. During the Watergate scandal, most of the records of Project MK-ULTRA were destroyed, except for a cache of documents later discovered in a different storage location. Further documents were declassified and released in 2001 and 2008. A complete investigation of MK-ULTRA is therefore not possible, which has sparked many conspiracy theories to this day. Here are ten which you may not have heard of.

10 Alcohol Was Regularly Used In MK-ULTRA Programming

While many have heard of LSD and other powerful hallucinogens being given to MK-ULTRA subjects, they were also prompted or perhaps coerced to drink alcohol at various points in time.

Alcohol can act as a low-grade truth serum, and it also affects a neurotransmitter called glutamate in the brain. Alcohol intoxication slows down the signals traveling along glutamate pathways, leaving many subjects more open to suggestion.^[2]

9 MK-ULTRA May Be Behind The Pharmaceutical Industry

The widespread prescription of psychotropic medications has drawn criticism from theorists who believe it’s a step toward mass mind control.^[3] These drugs include Prozac, Ritalin, and Zoloft. Allegedly, the medications curb “unruly” thought processes and facilitate the effectiveness of propaganda and social engineering.

Similar criticisms have been directed at the use of mood-stabilizing drugs and required vaccines. Some in the anti-vaxxer community make the jump into the conspiracy theory that tiny mind control microchips are embedded in people through vaccines.

8 Alien Abduction May Be A Smoke Screen For MK-ULTRA Programming

People who report alien beings abducting them for experimentation may have been taken for mind control operations instead. With the use of drugs, hypnosis, or other methods, MK-ULTRA programmers allegedly alter the abductees’ unconscious or subconscious minds for their own objectives. Then, false memories of alien abduction are implanted so that the subjects will be discredited once they’re returned.

Outside of alien abductee circles, no one else is likely to believe the victim’s story, even though it’s really a false memory.^[4] According to some conspiracy theorists, the CIA got the technology for implanting false memories from the reptilian race that supposedly lives in secret locations on Earth.

7 There’s A Connection Between Ear Candling And MK-ULTRA

Ear candling is an alternative medicine practice used to remove excess wax from the ear canal. Some conspiracy theorists report they’ve become subjects of remote MK-ULTRA programming due to implants placed in their ear candles. The implants slipped into place in their ear canals as the candles melted down. They report strange buzzing noises that no one else can hear, headaches, and physical discomfort whenever they encounter information that the MK-ULTRA handlers want to steer them away from.

One person has reported finding and cutting one of these implants out of an ear candle before getting the chance to use it. The implant was supposedly shaped like a small, round piece of plastic, yet it moved like mercury when placed in a glass jar. Overnight, the implant also somehow dissolved itself and disappeared. The ear candle conspiracy is just one example of how one can supposedly fall victim to MK-ULTRA programming from the most unlikely and innocent-seeming sources.^[5]

6 Instructions For Creating A Mind-Controlled Slave

In a book titled The Illuminati Formula to Create an Undetectable Total Mind Control Slave, writers Fritz Springmeier and Cisco Wheeler go into detail about exactly how to become an MK-ULTRA “handler.” PDFs of the book can be found online. Instructions include how to select and torture a victim, how to administer specific drugs, how to use hypnosis and behavior modification, and how to manipulate an MK slave remotely.^[6] Exact reasons why such a detailed manual is freely available and who its exact audience is are open to speculation.

The writers claim that knowing the step-by-step formula for creating a mind-controlled slave will actually destroy MK-ULTRA programming. They also write in the book’s introduction that anyone with dissociative identity disorder due to programming is strongly advised not to read it because the consequences could actually be fatal. Early in their book, they indict a long laundry list of people and organizations that allegedly practice MK-ULTRA mind control programming. These include the Mormon Church, the Church of Satan, all branches of the US military, the IRS, and many others.

5 The Origin Of MK-ULTRA Programming Methods Depends On Who You Ask

The extreme trauma, forced drug use, and exploitation of MK-ULTRA subjects follows a prescribed set of steps, and there’s debate among conspiracy theorists where those steps came from. Some believe the notorious Dr. Josef Mengele developed them during his tortuous human experiments in Nazi concentration camps during World War II. He then brought his knowledge to the US and shared it with the CIA as part of what’s known as Operation Paperclip. Others believe reptilians taught the methods to CIA officials, who then became involved in Project MK-ULTRA. Still others believe it’s a combination of both.

Those who insist MK-ULTRA is still going on often tie it to theistic satanism and its secretive cults, echoing the satanic panic of the 1980s and 1990s.^[7] Supposed survivors of mind control-based trauma report that satanic rituals were a regular part of their programming, even including human sacrifices.

4 There’s A Secret MK-ULTRA Base Underground At Ford Hood, TX

According to YouTuber Katy Groves, the CIA and US military have been conducting MK-ULTRA training and ritual abuse on countless children in a subterranean facility located in Central Texas. She describes her life spent as an MK-ULTRA slave who endured terrible abuse and was forced to carry out the same on other children. The end goal was to train her to become an MK-ULTRA programmer and handler. And the underground base at Fort Hood isn’t the only one. Everyone has walked over or driven over one at least once in their life, no matter where in the US they’re located.

Supposedly, these MK-ULTRA programming facilities are behind the large number of children who go missing every year.^[8] There’s a concerted effort to keep the truth covered up by hiding behind a law called the National Security Act. The CIA also reportedly blackmails parents who have committed serious crimes by threatening them with long prison terms unless they sell their children to mind control programmers.

3 MK-ULTRA Has Helped Spawn The Gang-Stalking Phenomenon

Some individuals who report they have been gang-stalked claim it began with remote verbal abuse and harassment, where unknown MK-ULTRA programmers planted very negative thoughts or insults directly into the victims’ brains. The perpetrators could also make them hear the verbal abuse coming from the walls or furniture. For some victims, this escalates into shady, unfamiliar individuals following and threatening them both online and offline in attempts to exert even more mind control over them. The extent of the mind control’s success depends on the individual.

This use of MK-ULTRA is reported to be just one of many concerted efforts to manipulate the actions and mental states of the general population. The subjects more likely to be picked for gang-stalking mind control are those more prone to mental dissociation due to a number of factors.^[9] These can include a history of childhood trauma, certain mental illnesses, or a lot of time spent in meditation. Mind control handlers consider these types of minds to be the most malleable and therefore the easiest to split into different personalities through continued mental trauma over a long period of time.

2 MK-ULTRA May Be Incorporated Into Future Satellite Technology

The US military has reportedly been experimenting with ways to use satellites to manipulate the populations of enemy countries, inducing higher rates of psychological distress or even physical ailments. Other unsettling possibilities include using mind control for desired outcomes of elections on both sides of the aisle.

This use of MK-ULTRA via satellite could possibly be used to quiet subversives and keep the desired leaders in power. It’s especially unsettling to think this might be used to counter supposed “thought crime.”^[10] Another two alleged sources of mass mind control are cell phone towers and the electromagnetic pulses used in the HAARP program, which was allegedly used to control weather patterns as well.

1 Facebook, 4chan, And 8chan Are Rumored To Be Tools Of Mind Control

Using subtle versions of the same gaslighting used in MK-ULTRA trauma-based conditioning, these popular sites are said to be engineered to alter and control their users’ moods, thought patterns, and behavior. The notorious 4chan and 8chan anonymous forums are reportedly secretly owned by the US government, and their content can make some users question their own sanity, even in the face of posted evidence. An unknown number of members on both forums are shills paid to perpetuate this gaslighting.

Data scientists have conducted experiments on Facebook users to track how much their moods and interactions on the social media site changed, and the results were startling. Judging from their subsequent Facebook posts, the test subjects displayed a more pessimistic outlook and even seemed more wary of the future. This kind of social media manipulation could potentially become a digital version of racketeering.

Some theorists also refer to this type of mind control as psychotronic abuse, attacks, or at the very least manipulation. This refers to the use of certain electromagnetic frequencies that have been scientifically proven to affect the human brain. If the mind control operatives could get enough people thinking and despairing over the world’s problems, then the government could present one of their leaders as a solver of those problems if elected to office.^[11]

Pen name of a Las Vegas writer, author of Behind Locked Doors, available on Amazon
Contributor of the bizarre on , currently at work on a second expose book.

Celebrity conspiracy theories are not unknown. Many popular ones still appear from time to time, such as Elvis being alive and spotted by fans, the CIA being behind the murders of various different celebrities, or even Stevie Wonder faking his blindness.

As odd as those may seem, they don’t measure up to other, far more bizarre claims about various celebrities that have garnered popular attention throughout the years. Some of these notions seemingly defy possibility yet are still touted as fact. Whether the following conspiracy theories are true or not is up to the reader to decide.

10 Popular Celebrities Are In The Illuminati

The Illuminati have been the butt of much blame throughout the years. Whether it’s assassinating presidents or the starting of both civil wars and revolutions, the Illuminati have been talked about for years. There is also speculation concerning them infiltrating Hollywood through actors.^[1]

A myriad of celebrities have been linked to this secret society, names such as Nicki Minaj, Billy Joel, Justin Bieber, Madonna, Katy Perry, Paul McCartney, Kanye West and Kim Kardashian, Jay-Z, Angelina Jolie, LeBron James, and several presidents. In some cases, musicians have turned the conspiracy theories into jokes or referenced them in their music as a way to laugh it off. Madonna went as far as to claim that while she’s not in the Illuminati, she does know who they are. Even though there has never been confirmation of any celebrity being a member of the Illuminati, their influence is said to spread far and wide, such as replacing the real Slim Shady, Eminem, during the period he was in rehab with a lookalike after he upset the Illuminati.

Another theory claims that Jay-Z has been a member of the Illuminati for years, using his influence to slowly convert his fans into the thinking of the Illuminati, and this conversion also includes his wife, Beyonce. This is according to a former Republican Congressional candidate from Illinois named Bill Fawell.

9 Rod Stewart Had His Stomach Pumped Due To Semen Ingestion

Reasons why famous people are admitted to hospitals or checked into rehab are their own section of celebrity conspiracy theories. In the case of Rod Stewart, it wasn’t partying or mental illness that caused fans to speculate on a supposed hospital visit. Instead, the theory was spread that Stewart was admitted needing to have his stomach pumped . . . due to it being filled with semen.^[2]

In case you’re wondering if you read that wrong, you didn’t. Rumors spread that Stewart had ingested 3.8 liters (1 gal) of semen after spending a night with some sailors in a bar in San Diego. The supposed experience left him ill and necessitated a trip to the emergency room, where he was said to have had his stomach pumped. The rumor spread quickly and had been circulating for some time before Stewart was asked about it on a talk show in 2012. According to Stewart, the rumor was spread by a publicist he’d fired. In an act of revenge, the now ex-publicist used their contacts to spread the rumor about him.

Stewart isn’t the only celebrity to have such claim spread about him. While the number of gallons may change, the story is similar: A celebrity is checked into an emergency room after ingesting copious amounts of semen during a night out. Elton John, David Bowie, Mick Jagger, Jon Bon Jovi, Lil’ Kim, and Britney Spears have all had similar rumors spread about them.

8 Lindsay Lohan Had A Twin

Lindsay Lohan has flittered in and out of the celebrity scene throughout the years. During her period of trying to separate herself from her Disney-focused fame, Lohan was the topic of many articles due to her slightly irrational words and actions. However, some claim that her behavior did not stem just from wanting to separate herself from Disney but also due to grief caused by Disney killing her twin sister.

According to the conspiracy theorists, Lindsay Lohan did not play the twins in The Parent Trap alone but was actually joined by her twin sister: Kelsey Morgan Lohan. However, after the success of The Parent Trap, Disney tried to push their agenda onto Kelsey, who didn’t fit the build. The conspiracy theories range from Disney killing her by staging an accident to Disney sending her away to live a “normal” life and even that Lohan herself has been staging a real-life Parent Trap-style twin switch, where both Lindsay and Kelsey have been sharing the limelight as Lindsay herself.^[3]

Lohan has never addressed these rumors. However, fans claim that the theory that Kelsey and Lindsay are playing one persona could explain her strange, almost hot-and-cold behavior, her appearances in different countries in seemingly a short period of time, and the differences in “looks.”

7 George W. Bush’s Administration Caused Britney Spears’s Breakdown

Celebrity conspiracy theories have ranged from famous people being members of secret societies to having hidden marriages to even faking pregnancies, but one of the strangest happens to be a celebrity being a cover for a president. Conspiracy theorists claim that pop star Britney Spears was being bankrolled by the Bush administration.

In fact, they have an entire timeline dedicated to detailing how Britney came to work for the White House and how each time the Bush administration would come under fire by the press, Britney would then do something to divert attention to herself and thus away from President Bush.^[4] Many believe this theory was “confirmed” when in a 2003 interview with CNN, Britney was asked if she trusted President Bush, and she claimed that she did. For many, this confirms she was “close” to the president or even working for him by drawing the attention of the public eye, going as far as staging her 2007 breakdown so that some heat would be drawn off the president.

While some of her memorable moments, including her 2007 breakdown, 55-hour Vegas marriage, the birth of her son, and the unforgettable Madonna kiss at the VMAs, do happen to align with some of George W. Bush’s more negative presidential moments, none of it confirms that Britney was being paid by his administration.

6 Melania Trump Is Being Held Hostage

The current first lady has come under fire from many different people throughout the Trump presidency, and while some of it is the regular drama that accompanies being in the public eye, one conspiracy theory is a bit strange. According to some, Melania Trump is being held against her will while her husband continues his presidency. In fact, many conspiracy theorists believe that due to her wanting out, she only makes a few allowed appearances, and the other times we see her, it’s not her but rather a body double in the Trump administration’s employ.

Conspiracy theorists first pointed out on Twitter that Melania looked as if she didn’t want to be there during President Trump’s inauguration. From there, the theory began to spread, with people comparing photos of Melania with those purported to show “Fake Melania,” aka her body double at events. Some have claimed that Fake Melania is being portrayed by a Secret Service agent who looks eerily like the first lady, with similar facial features, haircut, and height, and who notably hides the differences in appearance behind sunglasses and styled hair.

The theory itself is far-fetched and has been not only refuted by President Trump himself but also the office of the first lady and even the Secret Service.^[5] That has done nothing to change the minds of those who believe that the first lady has been replaced.

5 Lady Gaga Killed Someone

Lady Gaga is known for many things: for her vocals, for her eccentricity in both her music and fashion, and, most currently, for her acting ability. What she isn’t known for, however, is for being a murderer—which, according to some conspiracy theorists, is exactly what she is.^[6] According to this theory, Gaga killed a former up-and-coming pop star named Lina Morgana in order to steal her style.

Lina Morgana has been confirmed to be dead—not missing or held captive by the Illuminati. She committed suicide in 2008 by jumping from a hotel balcony. A wrongful death lawsuit was later brought against the hotel. Lady Gaga has never been mentioned in any of these cases, yet conspiracy theorists noted that apparently Morgana had been picked to be one of Gaga’s backup dancers for her performances and was represented by the same agent. The two even recorded a song together named “Wunderland.” They also noted from looking at videos and listening to Morgana’s own music that a similar tone is shared between her and Gaga, almost as if Gaga had adapted part of Morgana’s style.

Even if this were true, there’s a very large gap between stealing and murder—yet theorists don’t think so. Apparently, Morgana, after her death, ceased to exist. Gone were her Wikipedia page and her MySpace information, and little to nothing could be found about her on the Internet. This theory was only heightened when Morgana’s mother, Yana, gave an interview in 2010 in which she claimed that Gaga herself was holding Morgana’s soul captive in order to channel her music and look.

As far-fetched as this theory is, there is no evidence that Gaga was at the hotel where Morgana tragically died—Gaga was confirmed to be filming a music video and then photographed at a concert later that evening. Fans claim that Gaga falling off a building in her music video for “Paparazzi” is a homage to Morgana’s death and her hand in it. Most would say that’s just another bit of Hollywood theatrics. Still, if you share a brief look between the two, the similarities can’t be argued, though it doesn’t confirm that Gaga killed Morgana so that she could achieve fame instead.

4 Katy Perry Is JonBenet Ramsey

Katy Perry is known for many things, such as her singing, her stage performances, her style, and even her love life . . . and also for maybe being a child beauty queen who was reportedly murdered at the young age of six but was actually kidnapped. The theory, as most are, seems far-fetched. Not only were Katy Perry and JonBenet Ramsey born in different years, but the logistics of how JonBenet became Katy involve some stretching of the imagination. Despite their physical appearances being vaguely similar, there has been no physical link between Katy and JonBenet.

This has not stopped the theory from spreading. Conspiracy theorists and fans alike claim that the beauty queen was hidden from the public eye until 2008, when she broke out in the music industry. Why she was hidden isn’t exactly explained; nor is how the age difference—six years—would be necessary in the transformation of JonBenet into Katy.^[7] The theory is mostly based on looks alone, that the apparent similarities between JonBenet and Katy Perry, as well as between both sets of parents, indicate that Katy is, in fact, the dead child beauty queen. Some speculate that she was running from the person who was never caught in JonBenet’s actual unsolved murder.

Still, looks alone can’t make facts, even if they are the only basis for this theory. Eventually, the theory spread so wide that Katy Perry herself was asked about it in 2017 at the VMAs. She seemed startled by the question before denying it. While for some, that would be a definitive answer, others believe it’s part of the cover-up to ensure that her real identity stays safe.

3 Avril Lavigne Is Dead

Known for her grungy hits and teenage attitude, Avril Lavigne rose to fame quickly and enjoyed a fair amount of time in the spotlight before the weight of it all, paired with the sudden loss of her grandfather as well as her parents’ divorce, took their toll on the singer. After a period of riding the wave of her success, Lavigne admitted that she needed some time away from her music and the touring to focus on herself. It was during that time that conspiracy theorists and fans alike began to believe that the real Avril Lavigne was replaced by a lookalike—one who was actually Avril’s friend.

In what seems to be a bizarre series of events, Avril Lavigne went from popular singer, known for her massive hit “Sk8r Boi,” to being replaced by a doppelganger after her suicide in 2003. Conspiracy theorists claim that Avril had been hinting at her battle with depression in her debut album in songs such as “Slipped Away” and “My Happy Ending.” Eventually, her depression became too much, and she took her own life in 2003. Instead of mourning her, however, theorists claim that her record label did not want to lose the success the star was experiencing and replaced her with a doppelganger: her friend, an actress named Melissa Vandella.

Theorists claim that Avril had been using Vandella as a body double beforehand due to their similar looks, allowing Avril to avoid the paparazzi when she was out. After Avril’s death, the diversion only continued, with Vandella now assuming the identity of Avril full-time. Many claim this explains the genre shift from what was “edgy” and “punk” to her current style and her behavior over the years. While the “Fake Avril” has spoken out about her struggles with Lyme disease, fans claim that this, too, is a ruse to keep others from prying deeper into the fact that Avril is actually Vandella and has been since 2003. The similarities between the two are quite obvious, though theorists claim the differences that can be spotted are in the change in Avril’s voice from her pre- to her post-2003 outings, differences in height, missing birthmarks and moles, wardrobe changes, and behavioral differences.

Gawker did a video analyzing the “Fake Avril” and concluded that her behavior was a bit odd—though nerves can also cause someone to act fidgety and unlike themselves. Avril herself has even spoken out against the theory, claiming that she is, in fact, who she says she is.^[8]

2 Beyonce Is Dead

Even though there are no actual facts to support the theories that our favorite celebrities have been replaced by doppelgangers, that doesn’t mean conspiracy theorists are willing to listen. In 2016, a theory hit social media and began to spread about Beyonce that didn’t have to do with her supposed Illuminati ties. Instead, this one claimed that Beyonce was actually killed years ago, and the one we see now is a clone.

This one is as far-fetched as theories come. Apparently, Beyonce died years ago, but her producers and staff had previously stored away some stem cells in case of an emergency. Once she died, they used those stem cells to create a clone of her, or even multiple clones, in order to keep Beyonce’s fame alive.^[9]

Sasha Fierce, Beyonce’s alter ego that she sometimes references in her songs and albums, is said to be, in fact, yet another clone. Theorists claim that it’s obvious that Beyonce is not one clone but many, due to the fact that, at one point, she couldn’t remember her exact due date during her pregnancy. There was also a conspiracy theory that she faked the pregnancy to begin with. Others say it wasn’t a faked pregnancy; one clone was pregnant, but another did the interview.

Of course, some even claim that it wasn’t the producers who made the clone but, you probably guessed it, the Illuminati, who worked with their star member, Jay-Z, to create multiple Beyonce clones to capitalize on her success. They wouldn’t be the first clones by the Illuminati, either, as celebrity Tila Tequila has “admitted” that she is an actual clone that was activated in 2015, and singer B.o.B has made tweets discussing a possible “cloning center.” Perhaps clones truly run the world after all.

1 The Beatles Never Existed

Among all the ludicrously far-fetched and completely bizarre celebrity conspiracy theories, one stands out from the rest: the idea that the Beatles, one of the most recognizable bands of all time, never even existed. Conspiracy theorists claim that the Beatles were not, in fact, made up of four distinct band members but were a conglomeration of actors and models who were used to create a worldwide phenomenon.

The theory is based off the idea that the schedules were too much for one band to keep up with, and because of it, body doubles were used in order to make appearances while still recording music. Differences such as eye and pupil disparities, nose length, height, teeth gaps, missing scars, and chin curvature are cited. In fact, the theory gained enough popularity that a 2009 Italian edition of Wired ran a facial analysis using the Beatles’ appearances and noted that there were differences in the band members’ facial features, Paul McCartney especially. This theory does nothing but fuel the fire that John Lennon is not dead; one of his body doubles was killed.^[10]

It’s even said that McCartney’s ex-wife, Heather Mills, ended up getting divorced from the actual McCartney, or one of them, due to the constant struggles of keeping up the facade. The theory also feeds into another that some of the original Beatles members may have existed but passed away as the band rose to fame, so doppelgangers were put in their place.

The theory itself is so complex that there is a website for it, aptly titled The Beatles Never Existed. The website goes into various different reasons and even methods on how and why the Beatles, or the multiple men who made up the Beatles, were kept in line throughout the years so that the public never became aware of the charade.

As odd as it may seem, the theory still has some fans intrigued. In this case, all you need is proof, and this theory doesn’t have enough of it.

Ted Kaczynski, known to most as the Unabomber, was a genius who used his talents to construct and plant bombs that would lead the FBI around in circles for 17 years.^[1] He was a mathematician-turned-ecoterrorist who used threats to get his 35,000-word manifesto published in The New York Times and The Washington Post. According to many, including his own family, he was a mentally ill loner who had struggled with society since he was in diapers.

But this article isn’t about what the Unabomber is or was. This article is about what might have been. Was Ted Kaczynski part of a brainwashing experiment for the CIA? Were the bombings all part of a government long con? Was he responsible for even more killings than we know? Was he responsible for any murders at all? As we look back through a lens colored by global warming and the encroachment of technology into our daily lives, we have to ask: Was he right?

10 Hives

“Baby home from hospital and is healthy but quite unresponsive after his experience,” Wanda Kaczynski wrote in her eldest son’s baby book on March 12, 1943. Nine-month-old Theodore John Kaczynski had been admitted to the hospital after developing a dangerous case of hives. During his stay, he was subjected to terrifying experiences that were standard hospital procedure at the time. He was stripped nude, restrained in a spread-eagle position, and examined by many people he did not know, and even his parents were kept quarantined from him. This went on for a full month before he was released.

His mother recalled that at first, he would cry and reach out. A hospital photo of his first examination shows him clearly terrified, with tears in his eyes. Soon, this would give way to a chilling lack of response. Children kept in isolation usually develop hospitalism, a condition where the child loses all interest in affection and, in extreme cases, may be permanently damaged or even die.^[2]

Kaczynski did not seem to recover as he aged. Throughout school, he would not play with other children. Some believe that hospitalism and permanent psychological damage are responsible for the crimes that he would go on to commit. While this very likely contributed, it is worth noting that his treatment was standard procedure at the time. Not everyone who was kept in this horrific baby quarantine would go on to become a terrorist. Kaczynski may have just been unlucky.

9 A Psychological Experiment

In 1958, Ted Kaczynski entered Harvard as a studious, painfully isolated, and vulnerable 16-year-old. He had come to feel as if his classmates in high school thought he was a freak, and his family thought very little of him. When he started at Harvard, he stayed in a dormitory for students younger than the average freshman, where most boys kept to themselves. In 1959, he was pulled into a study of stress on the human psyche that was being conducted by psychologist Henry A. Murray.^[3]

Murray’s experiment involved a few steps. First, his subjects would be tasked with keeping an extremely personal diary full of their hopes and dreams. The participants believed that they would use this diary in a series of debates with other students. Second, the students would show up for their debates to find themselves in an interrogation instead. A professional interrogator would use their personal diaries to utterly humiliate them while an EKG machine and camera recorded their reactions. Third and finally, the students would be called back to repeatedly watch the tapes of their humiliation for further observation.

One participant, known in documentation as “Lawful,” was a favorite of Murray’s because of his honesty and responsiveness. He reacted very strongly to the experiment, which gave the psychologist a lot of data to analyze. That particular student was Kaczynski, whose life began to unravel around the time of his graduation at only 20.

8 MK-ULTRA

So, what was the point of Murray’s study? Technically, he was observing human reactions to stress. Not so technically, he may have been developing mind control. The study took place around the same time that MK-ULTRA was being carried out in about 80 institutions throughout the United States and Canada. Murray is suspected to have had ties to the CIA due to his work with its predecessor, the OSS, during World War II.^[4]

Kaczynski himself has debunked this, stating that the experiment was only unpleasant once for about 30 minutes. He was clear that no part of it was torture or mind control. Not to be cliche, but that is exactly what someone under mind control would say. Some think that Kaczynski may have been dosed with LSD at some point in the experiment. MK-ULTRA was very focused on testing drugs to find out which might be useful for mind control.

These experiments were, at first, aimed at members of the CIA. Agents would be drugged with LSD with no warning, resulting in the death of at least one man named Frank Olsen. But experiments using drugs soon spread to civilians. Operation Midnight Climax famously oversaw a small room where agents would watch prostitutes drug men through a two-way mirror while sipping cocktails. One agent, George White, wrote of the job, “Where else could a red-blooded American boy lie, kill and cheat, steal, deceive, rape and pillage with the sanction and blessing of the All-Highest?”

Ethics weren’t exactly high on the list of their priorities.

7 Earth First!

When all was said and done concerning Kaczynski’s reign of terror, three were killed, and 23 were injured by his homemade bombs. He is now serving eight life sentences for this, but a few more intriguing theories fell out in the wash that was his trial. His plea bargain detailed the fact that Kaczynski was an active follower of the Earth First! (EF!) movement, an ecoterrorist group. EF! considered themselves a warrior society charged with using any means necessary to protect Mother Earth against the evils of industrialization. Sounds familiar.

Investigator Barry Clausen, who once infiltrated EF!, was also the one to expose the link between the Unabomber’s activities and the EF! hit list. Clausen actually implicated Kaczynski a year before his arrest, but much of the information that he gleaned from his time in EF! went ignored by his superiors.^[5] Add to that the fact that Kaczynski’s cabin was full of EF! publications and that he had copies of letters written to the organization as well.

Some also suggest that Kaczynski’s involvement with EF! explains why he often wrote to the FBI as if he were part of an organization, using “we” instead of “I” to describe his actions. This, however, could have actually been a clever ploy to draw attention away from himself. He had a reputation as a loner, so representing himself as a group might strike him from the suspect list. Still, many believe that Kaczynski may not have always acted alone in his ecoterrorism, and many wonder if he had a hand in more deaths than police were able to discover.

6 The Tylenol Killer

On September 29, 1982, in Chicago, a string of random deaths shook several neighborhoods to the core. Seven people died, including a 12-year-old girl, and they only had one thing in common with one another—they had all died after taking Tylenol. Police rushed around neighborhoods, using bullhorns to warn citizens and collecting bottles of the medicine. After some testing, it was found that someone had taken bottles of Tylenol, replaced some pills with cyanide, and placed them casually back on the shelf. This is the reason that tamper-proof seals are now required.

Tylenol issued a product recall that cost the company an estimated $100 million but ultimately saved their reputation. The killer was never caught, but the FBI continues to investigate. In 2011, they asked Kaczynski to submit DNA for testing. He agreed, but only on the condition that the FBI not auction off the property confiscated from his cabin. The auctions were set up to benefit his victims and their families, so they refused. In turn, Kaczynski refused to give a swab.

There are a few circumstantial details that likely led to the FBI’s request. The deaths happened near Kaczynski’s parents’ home in Chicago. Robert Wood Johnson and James Wood Johnson, the founders of Johnson and Johnson, fit Kaczynski’s particular quirk of choosing people with nature-themed names as his victims.^[6] Finally, a man who police believe may be the killer was spotted in the background of a surveillance photo. This man (pictured above) resembles Kaczynski.

5 The Zodiac

Kaczynski resembles yet another uncaught serial killer’s police sketch—the Zodiac Killer. Kaczynski set up shop in the Bay Area from 1967 to 1969, while the Zodiac operated there from 1968 to 1969. This time frame even gives Kaczynski time to have settled in before the rampage began. Both were also ruthless killers who enjoyed taunting authorities and used threats against innocent lives to get their writing on the front pages of newspapers.^[7] Oddly enough, both also sent their letters with extra postage stamps to be sure of delivery.

The handwriting samples from their letters have startling similarities. The shapes of key letters are very close, and both use the same phrases often. This includes starting sentences with “so,” “by the way,” and “to prove” while also using double “is” sentences often. Both killers were also described similarly and owned similar items. The Zodiac was described as favoring one leg over the other, while Kaczynski’s brother described him as so pigeon-toed that it affected his gait. Both also used guns with flashlights attached to blind people, rifles, and Winchester Western .22 Super X ammo.

A genius mathematician, Kaczynski would have had the ability to create a complex cipher for the Zodiac’s coded messages. He also has a documented interest in symbols like the Zodiac’s crossed lines on a circle. He once signed a yearbook with a similar symbol and wrote a dissertation on the boundary functions of circles. The unit circle, which is, again, a circle with two crossed lines drawn in the middle, was a particular focus for him. Kaczynski used the Algiz rune to mark a campus where he struck once. The symbol looks like an upside-down peace sign and can represent the life of tree or a great terror. It is, once more, a circle with lines crossing inside it.

While the FBI has tested Kaczynski’s fingerprints against those found at a Zodiac crime scene and found no match, the Zodiac did claim that the police never really had his fingerprints. A writing analysis has shown that the two have different styles of writing. The FBI claims to be fairly certain that Kaczynski is not the Zodiac, but it wouldn’t be the first time that the FBI has fibbed, would it?

4 The Sketch

The famous sketch of the Unabomber doesn’t resemble Ted Kaczynski, especially not when compared to the possible picture of the Tylenol Killer or the sketches of the Zodiac. There were a few sketches of the Unabomber made, though. The first two strongly resembled Kaczynski, but the witness was unsatisfied with the likeness. Seven and a half year later, the FBI brought in Jean Boylan, an expert sketch artist who works from interview rather than composites, to make a new one. The new sketch (the well-known one) was distributed worldwide. After he was caught, people would note that the sketch did not resemble Kaczynski very much.

Boylan and the FBI think that they know why that is. Making a police sketch from a witness statement only hours after the event can be inaccurate, but making one after seven and a half years tests the limits of the human memory a bit. They believe that the witness didn’t remember the face of the Unabomber during her interview but rather the face of the first sketch artist she worked with years before.^[8] The resemblance is striking, unlike the sketch’s resemblance to Kaczynski. The going theory is that she remembered remembering Kaczynski, and that left her with a confused image.

3 The Nathan R. Note

A website called unabombers.com is dedicated to telling the truth about the Unabomber, Ted Kaczynski, and J. Ray Dettling. Their belief is that Kaczynski has been set up for the crime, and the sketches are central to finding the truth. They put forth that the first composite sketches resemble Kaczynski because they are morphed images made with a NASA technique originally designed to reduce atmospheric distortion.

Various similarities between the supposedly morphed sketch and one of Kaczynski’s college photos are cited as evidence, including various lighting quirks and a faint afterimage of the background. In other words, they can tell by the pixels and from seeing quite a few photo morphs in their day. If the image is morphed, that would mean that Kaczynski was set up, and the witness rejected the initial sketch because it looked nothing like the man she saw. But why?

The website preserves a written statement supposedly made by Daniel Pride, a friend of J. Ray Dettling.^[9] Pride opens by talking about the Nathan R. Note, a small memo scribbled on the envelope containing the Unabomber’s announcement of the Epstein and Gelernter bombs before they were detonated. He claims that he is the one who wrote the note while sitting at the desk of J. Ray Dettling, the actual Unabomber.

Pride went on to describe reading the Unabomber Manifesto on Dettling’s computer three years before it would be published and being told by Dettling that it was fiction. Dettling showed great glee whenever the Unabomber was discussed and often argued points found in the manifesto with Pride. He also lived a lavish lifestyle in a palatial mansion, despite his only income being five US patents that traced back to government agencies. The site ultimately alleges that Dettling is the real Unabomber, while Kaczynski was a convenient MK-ULTRA patsy.

2 Insanity

During Kaczynski’s trial, he flatly refused to accept the plea deal offered to him. As part of the plea, he would have to agree that he was insane. Kaczynski felt that this was both untrue and would hurt the validity of his manifesto. David Kaczynski, the brother who turned him in, insisted that Ted was disturbed and shouldn’t be subject to the death penalty. Several, but not all, of the psychiatrists and psychologists who examined Ted diagnosed him with paranoid schizophrenia. Ultimately, Kaczynski would accept the plea but would go on to deny his diagnosis vocally.

There is some evidence to back this up. When he began at Harvard at age 16, a nurse who gave him his freshman year checkup assessed him as stable, well-liked, and a bit shy. For men, the onset of schizophrenia generally hits sometime in the late teens or early twenties.

The onset of schizophrenia usually has a huge negative impact on work, but Kaczynski seemed to do well right up until he quit to go live in his cabin. His personal life was bad, but he did fine at work and study. Schizophrenia also impairs speech and thought, which doesn’t show in his meticulously drafted manifesto. Even the judge at his trial characterized him as lucid, calm, and intelligent.^[10]

So, why the insanity plea, then? For one, it was a smart thing to do. An insanity plea can save a defendant from the death penalty, which any competent lawyer would want for their client. For two, it changed the narrative. Leaving aside his methods, Kaczynski’s manifesto was nothing revolutionary. Most people at the time knew that technology was getting a bit out of hand and worried about what industrialization might do to the environment. We still do. But if Kaczynski was insane, it would hurt his cause and allow many people to dismiss it.

1 A Prophet?

Kaczynski wrote in his very, very long manifesto that technology had caused more harm than good and that it was necessary to tear it all down before it got any bigger. The bigger it got, the worse the fallout would be, he reasoned. He also noted that progress had only made the First World’s rich more comfortable but had made the poor across the world miserable. The manifesto went on to insist that the masses would never willingly give up on progress but would instead hobble along while patching the damaged parts and destroying the planet. Finally, he concluded that a small group of dedicated environmentalists would need to use any means necessary to destroy society.

The first part of this narrative has a lot of truth to it, but the hook is right there at the end. It’s easy to imagine an angry, stressed reader getting to that last bit and suddenly feeling that he or she is one of the chosen who will save the Earth, even if it means killing people. Maybe especially if it means killing people. That is exactly what happened for several groups whose members openly identify as anti-civilization, or “anti-civ.”^[11] Kaczynski is seen as a brilliant hero by anti-civ groups on both sides of the political spectrum—a fact that would no doubt infuriate the anti-left bomber.

Some Kaczynski devotees are more dangerous than others, but the most dangerous one seems to be Individualidades Tendiendo a lo Salvaje, or ITS, which roughly translates to “Individuals Tending Toward the Wild.” This group of Mexican Kaczynski followers have taken after him closely by sending bombs to college campuses and individuals they feel are ruining the environment.

It isn’t just a few fringe groups joining this movement, though. The Kaczynski craze has hit mainstream media as well. Keith Ablow wrote a piece for the Fox News website titled “Was the Unabomber Correct?” in 2013. Ablow decided that Kaczynski was right about many things and may have even been a prophet of sorts.

Paul Kingsnorth, a recovering environmentalist who gave up hope for change, published an essay on the disturbing experience of reading the manifesto for the first time. He wrote that he feared that he might agree with Kaczynski and that this might change his life profoundly. Considering Kaczynski’s methods, that’s a terrifying prospect.

Renee is an Atlanta-based graphic designer and writer.

It’s natural to assume those in power, including celebrities, are involved in evil conspiracies. And they are. But probably not one of these.

10. Billie Eilish is an industry plant

The industry plant conspiracy theory is one of the less esoteric on this list. There are no secretive cabals or shapeshifting monsters, just record labels and corporate fat cats. Basically, an industry plant is an artist presented by their label as a self-made success story when they’re actually manufactured by executives. It’s a charge often leveled at the singer Billie Eilish, whose meteoric rise to fame (following her viral success on SoundCloud) was too much for some to believe.

Like other artists of her generation, she emerged seemingly out of nowhere, complete with a polished image and the perfect sound for viral success. Never mind that she was born into a family of musicians, and, like all of us, has access to industry analytics (YouTube views for instance), allowing her to fine-tune her image overnight. In fact, the internet blurs the line between amateur and professional to the point where there’s hardly a difference.

Of course, music industry executives are by no means squeaky clean. They’re a cynical, predatory, duplicitous bunch. But, as Complex points out, industry plants don’t make much sense. For one thing, those accusing artists of being industry plants are often the same people accusing labels of neglecting their favorites—that is, of not manufacturing them enough. The fact is it takes a lot of time, not to mention money, to manufacture acts out of nowhere. It certainly doesn’t happen overnight—but viral success does. In other words, record labels are far too busy nowadays scooping up artists online to think about making their own.

9. There’s a Kardashian curse

There probably isn’t a sign over each of the Kardashians’ front doors reading “Abandon all hope, ye who enter here” but, according to some, there should be. 

The so-called Kardashian curse ensures misfortune befalls any man who enters their orbit. Scott Disick, for example, Kourtney’s ex-partner, was left with substance abuse issues and the loss of his parents, while Lamar Odom, Khloé’s ex-husband, had a near-fatal overdose in 2015 after struggling with addictions of his own. Meanwhile, Kim’s ex-husband Kris Humphries, although they were only married briefly, saw his NBA career fail post-divorce. And Kylie Jenner’s ex Tyga was plagued with financial problems.

Then there’s Kanye West, who was married to Kim for eight years and has suffered some very public breakdowns. The couple’s divorce in 2022 further fueled speculation—especially as he was ordered to pay $200,000 a month in child support.

8. Beyoncé gave birth to her sister

Beyoncé has been the subject of two very specific, pregnancy-related conspiracy theories. The first, from 2013, says she’s actually Solange Knowles’ mother—not her sister as they would have you believe. According to the Knowleses, Beyoncé was four when Solange was born in 1986. But, according to a birth certificate seen by a Texan civil servant (or a driver’s license seen at Columbia Records), she was actually born in 1974—so she would have been a just-about-childbearing 12. Then there’s Gabrielle Union’s comment that she and Beyoncé have been friends since they were teenagers—even though Union was born in 1972. Even Beyoncé’s mum Tina helped fuel the rumor (albeit inadvertently) by mentioning a family history of birth record discrepancies. Some of her cousins, she said, had their surname (Tina’s maiden name Beyoncé) written down as Beyincé by officials who refused to correct it. In fact, Beyoncé’s grandmother was told that, because they were black, they were lucky to get birth certificates at all. Still, even if Beyoncé is 50 years old, there’s no proof Solange is her daughter.

The other conspiracy theory came the following year, when another Tina—Tina Seals—alleged that she was the mother of Blue Ivy, Beyoncé’s daughter with Jay-Z. Having served as their surrogate, she said, she now wanted custody of the child (then aged 10). To be fair, there was some doubt when Beyoncé was pregnant, given that her baby bump looked fake. In the end, though, Seals’ case was thrown out—as were her other claims against Mariah Carey, Kate Middleton, and the US government.

7. Katy Perry was a child sacrifice

The day after Christmas in 1996, JonBenét Ramsey, a 6-year-old beauty pageant queen, was murdered at her home in Colorado. Nobody was charged, but the case remains open. Police continue to investigate any new lead—except, apparently, the one that emerged in 2015 when YouTuber Dave Johnson said the girl’s death was staged as a sacrifice. It was, he said, a sacrifice “in name only” to “get something” the parents sorely wanted. And “that something,” he said, was for JonBenét “to become a star.” Or more specifically, as it turns out, to become Katy Perry.

The evidence is underwhelming. First, there’s the passable resemblance between Perry and the child—although Perry would’ve been 12 when JonBenét was 6. Then there’s the resemblance between their parents. According to Jonhson, “he [JonBenét’s dad] shaved his head, she [JonBenét’s mother] lost some weight and that’s about it,” There are also, allegedly, clues in Perry’s work.

Needless to say, the singer’s denial didn’t help. When, at the 2017 MTV Video Music Awards, comedian Billy Eichner asked her to blink twice if she was the murdered little girl, she unconvincingly replied “um wait, no, that is not real.”

6. Cardi B is MKUltra’d

Although “conspiracy theory” has come to mean “BS,” the fact is conspiracies happen—even the crazy ones. They’ve always been essential for maintaining power. MKUltra, for instance, was a mind control program (yes, a mind control program) run by the CIA. It ran from the 1950s to 1973. Using controversial techniques like high-dose LSD, brain surgery, and electronic implants, government scientists targeted vulnerable groups—such as mental health patients and prisoners—who couldn’t resist or retaliate. (Just like you see in the movies.)

But what about celebrities? In a way, the MKUltra celebrity mind control conspiracy theory is more plausible than the others on this list. It attributes celebrity quirks (or “glitches”) not to cloning or Reptilian sorcery but to good old-fashioned mind control. Evidence for the claim is thin on the ground but includes Cardi B’s appearance at the 2018 Grammy Awards. Appearing to zone out during a red carpet interview, she was said to be experiencing a glitch in her programming. The strange behavior of Kanye West, Katy Perry, and Kylie Jenner, among others, has also been attributed to mind control.

5. Many celebrities are clones

When a commodity sells, it makes sense to make more of it. Supply and demand. But what if your commodity is a person? According to some, the same rule applies—which is why Hollywood clones its celebrities. Disney Channel stars, including Miley Cyrus and Zac Efron, are actually lab-created clones, they say (despite this story first appearing on the satirical news site The Onion). Evidence centers on their weird and “glitchy” behavior. Cyrus, for example, sticks her tongue out for no apparent reason. Also, she’s been dead several times: in 2008 (hit and run), 2010 (murdered), and 2012 (accidental overdose). Each time, they say, Disney dumped the body and woke the next clone. But while the likeness is close, it’s not quite perfect. Little clues, like altered facial structure, prove she’s not the original.

It’s not just Disney. Other celebrities insured by clones include Béyonce (cloned by the Illuminati, died in 2000); Avril Lavigne (died in 2003, replaced by “Melissa”); Britney Spears (her 2008 breakdown was a glitch); Paul McCartney (dead since the sixties) Megan Fox (because she looks different); and the weatherman Al Roker (who actually admitted he was a clone once on Twitter). Then there’s Bill Gates, who, according to an alleged Ancestry.com page, has been dead since 2013. Also, his wife Melinda was replaced by a male clone, which is why they split up.

Like all clones out of the Illuminati’s clone farms, their purpose is allegedly to further the dark cabal’s interests—just like how bribes work but way more complicated.

4. Taylor Swift is a cloned Satanic priestess

Needless to say, Taylor Swift is another celebrity clone. She is after all the spitting image of the artist Zeena Schreck, former High Priestess of the Church of Satan. The resemblance is uncanny, but it doesn’t stop there. Swift’s work is replete with satanic symbols—at least according to some. Shane Lynch, of the boyband Boyzone, says her Eras Tour, in particular, was rife with demonic rituals, pentagrams, and other occult insignia. She also likes the color red, which, as any suburban religious mother caught up in the satanic panic in the 1980s knows, is a telltale sign of evil. 

There are also the ritualistic chants of the Swifties, her fans, and her occult-style costumes—some of which include hoods. Another mark of the Beast.

Critics of the theory point to Swift’s album 1989, named for her natural birth year, as evidence she wasn’t cloned. But this only shows how little they know about cloning.

3. Justin Bieber is a reptile

That Justin Bieber’s probably a Reptilian shapeshifter goes without saying. But for the hundreds who actually saw him change form, it’s an undeniable fact. It happened at an airport in Perth, Australia in March 2017. Bieber was greeting fans when he briefly revealed his true form, complete with a shrunken head, striped black eyes, a scaly body, and a taller, more menacing stature. After running for the exits, locking themselves in toilets, or jumping in taxis, panicked eyewitnesses were sure of what they’d seen. But somehow nobody caught the moment on film. The story did, allegedly, break on the news site PerthNow—although they deny it. Either way, Buzzfeed picked up on the story and further added fuel to the fire, stoking rumors not only that Bieber is a reptile, but also a devil-worshiping Illuminatus hellbent on establishing the New World Order (as if this one isn’t draconian enough). Specifically, he’s from a Reptilian-Illuminati bloodline known as the Babylonian Brotherhood.

Earlier evidence for this includes a 2014 court appearance in which he blinks to reveal what looks to be a nictitating membrane—the translucent inner eyelid through which crocodiles see underwater.

2. Everyone’s in the Illuminati

The Illuminati was once a society for intellectuals, men of science, political thinkers, and secularists—the sworn enemies of superstition and silliness. Nowadays, thanks to the internet, we all know otherwise: the Illuminati is an occult, sometimes Reptilian menace hellbent on world domination. They needn’t be thinkers today; in fact, they recruit (and clone) some of the most vacuous people on the planet. Madonna, Jay-Z, Lady Gaga, Drake, and Donald Trump are just some of the celebs accused of being members. Usually, this is based on hints they drop themselves—because, for some reason, they’re only allowed to reveal themselves coyly.

Madonna’s halftime show at the 2012 Superbowl, for instance, was permeated, as Gizmodo put it, by “subliminal Satanic-Illuminati-Freemason messages.” Two years later she came out with her not-at-all-publicity-courting song “Illuminati.” Jay-Z also uses occult symbols, including his signature triangle hand gesture, interpreted as an admission of membership. Then there’s the lyrics, like for example those in his 2010 track with Rick Ross, “Free Mason”: “I said I was amazing, not that I’m a Mason… I’m red hot, I’m on my third six, but a devil I’m not.” Béyonce, his wife, is also accused; in fact, she’s often said to be the group’s queen. Her response? “Y’all haters corny with that Illuminati mess.” Denials, however, only fuel the intrigue.

Under the Carters in Illuminati influence, allegedly, are Kim Kardashian (the devil) and Kanye West (the demon), who plan to sacrifice their young child North.

1. Hollywood elites drink children’s blood

The blood-drinking conspiracy theory accuses Hollywood elites of vampirically draining the life force of children. It isn’t new. But A-listers blowing the whistle on it is. In 2017, Mel Gibson was quoted as saying on The Graham Norton Show: “I don’t know how to break it to you gently… Hollywood is institutionalized pedophilia. They are using and abusing kids …. Their spiritual beliefs, if you can call them that, direct them to harvest the energy of the kids. They feast on this stuff and they thrive on it.” Now, if you’re not familiar with The Graham Norton Show, it’s a glitzy, glossy, totally mainstream celebrity chat show. Its default setting, like all the other glitzy, glossy, mainstream chat shows, is to fawn over Hollywood. Gibson continued: “Hollywood is drenched in the blood of innocent children …. I was personally introduced to the practice in the early 2000s. I can talk about this now because these people, the execs, they’re dead now.” Unfortunately, there’s no record of how Norton responded. A little while later, Keanu Reeves is said to have said: “Hollywood elites engage in the ritual abuse of children and the practice of drinking their blood,” adding “Some of these guys carry around bottles of blood [and] call it ‘red wine’.”

The following year, it emerged that Jim Carrey was now blowing the whistle. According to an article from Jasper and Sardine, the actor told an audience that “Hollywood elites eat whole babies for Christmas,” adding: “These people believe the more the child has suffered, the better it tastes …. [and] the negative emotions coursing through the kid’s body, the adrenaline and hatred, will give them special powers.” He’s talking about the alleged but demonstratively bullshit effects of adrenochrome—a chemical there’s no need to harvest from humans.

Whether or not any of this is true remains to be seen. But none of it was actually said either by Gibson, Reeves, or Carrey. In fact, all quotes appear to have come from a single website— YourNewsWire—which, following an avalanche of widely published fact checks, has since rebranded as NewsPunch.

In the wake of HBO’s hugely successful show Chernobyl, the Ukranian power plant has returned to the public eye. We are fascinated once more by the brutal, invisible threat of radiation and the worst man-made disaster the world has ever seen.

On April 26, 1986, Reactor 4 of the Chernobyl Nuclear Facility exploded. The fallout was something the world had never seen. The disaster left many dead and other’s would suffer a grisly demise years down the line.

Radiation from the accident could be measured around the world. Livestock and water supplies were contaminated and tens of thousands of civilians were evacuated from surrounding areas.

The threat of a thermonuclear explosion was very real and Europe came very close to total annihilation. The West was quick to point the finger at the Soviet Union’s incompetence, but is there more to it than meets the eye? In a disaster shrouded in mystery, we look at some other (rather far-fetched) explanations. What do you believe?

10 Humanoid Creature

In the Ivankiv Raion (the district of Ukraine where Chernobyl is located), stories were passed around that a terrifying humanoid creature with red eyes and wings was seen by the nuclear plant’s workers leading up to the accident. This creature was quickly dubbed the Blackbird of Chernobyl.^[1]

People affected by this phenomena experienced harrowing nightmares, intimidating phone calls, and waking visions.

Researchers have since suggested the beast was merely a black stork, an endangered species native to southern Eurasia. The physical description given by witnesses, however, does not match that of a black stork.

The Blackbird is thought to have been a deadly omen warning them of their inevitable fate. A 20-foot bird-like monster soaring through the thick irradiated smoke, never to be seen again.

9 Biblical Prediction

In The Book of Apocalypse (Revelations) 8:10-11, it reads:

“And the third angel sounded the trumpet, and a great star fell from heaven, burning as it were a torch, and it fell on the third part of the rivers, and upon the fountains of waters: And the name of the star is called Wormwood. And the third part of the waters became wormwood; and many men died of the waters, because they were made bitter.”

The Russian word for Wormwood is, yes you guessed it – Chernobyl. Did the bible predict the Chernobyl accident?^[2] The fires of Reactor 4 were likened to a torch by the firemen that attended the scene. It is thought the ‘third trumpet’ refers to the accident itself and the water is bitter due to the radiation.

An angel with a trumpet pressed to her lips stands close to Chernobyl. The sculpture, created by Ukrainian artist Anatoly Haidamaka, is a tribute to the brave firemen and liquidators that lost their lives at the plant.

8 Commune of Immortality

A commune on the island of Gavdos in Greece is made up of Russian scientists and Chernobyl survivors. Cut off from the outside world and completely self-sufficient, the group look to achieve the impossible; immortality.

The group had been around for 10 years before moving to the Greek island. Their founder, Andrei, had been exposed to high amounts of radiation after a voluntary trip to Chernobyl shortly after the blast. He was advised to go to a clinic in Moscow for treatment. He knew full well no pill could save him, so he decided to settle in a small village and live out the rest of his life. He became a farmer. He drank excessively and claims the vodka helped cleanse his body.

Is it a coincidence that Andrei and several other members of the commune all received an extremely high dose of radiation at the plant?

Their methods and progress are unknown but it is strongly believed they are carrying on from where the Soviet Union left off. Have these highly respected scientists lost the plot? Their experience and reputation say otherwise.

7 Weaponized Reactors

There are theories that the Soviet Union destroyed Reactor 4 themselves to gauge the potential of weaponizing the nuclear reactors within the US. This was at a time when both countries were in the midst of the Cold War, any seen advantage was invaluable and there are cases of both sides committing ethically questionable actions in order to gain a leg up against the opposition.

The overwhelming strength of nuclear weaponry was well known, both the US and USSR had vast nuclear arsenals and had extensively researched the devastating effects of radiation throughout the 20th century. A meltdown of a nuclear power plant, however, had never been seen before.

Was it further research on the effects of radiation on the human body?^[3] Many complained that the Soviet authorities did very little, very late to protect civilians from exposure to radioactive contamination.

6 Natural Earthquake

Initially, a study had been taken on by Vitaly Pravdivtsev in 1996 to explore the possibility of an earthquake being responsible for the explosion of Reactor 4^[4] but experts systematically revealed there were over 80 discrepancies in Pravdivtsev’s report. In 1997 a group of scientists from the United Institute of the Physics of the Earth revisited the study and came to an interesting conclusion.

This may have been the first you’ve heard of this, as it is not widely reported, but on the night of the 25/26th April, three nearby geological stations recorded a relatively weak seismic event.

The earthquake in question is thought to have occurred just 16 seconds before the explosion. Quite the coincidence! It is more than possible to conclude that the graphite rods, designed to protect the reactor, failed to insert due to the facility’s lack of protection against vibrations and other seismic movements.

5 Weaponized Earthquake

Following on from above, there is evidence that tectonic weapons were researched and developed both in the Soviet Union and the USA.^[5] It is not known if these weapons were ever successfully deployed but some theorists suggest there is a distinct possibility that a weaponized earthquake isn’t just science fiction.

Pravda, the former official newspaper of the Soviet Union, reported on page 1 on 30 May 1992 that “a geophysical or tectonic weapon was actually developed in the USSR despite the UN Convention”, but that Chief Seismologist Major General V Bochrov of the USSR Ministry of Defence categorically rejected any hints of the existence of tectonic weapons.

Nikola Tesla once claimed a device he had built in 1898 produced earthquake-like effects, but as far as the public is concerned this has never been replicated.

For an area of the world that scarcely sees seismic activity, the use of a tectonic weapon has theorists champing at the bit.

4 KGB Sabotage

Another popular theory is that the KGB was heavily involved. To monopolize Europe’s energy market they supposedly sabotaged Chernobyl’s Reactor 4 themselves to put off other countries from building nuclear power plants.^[6]

Europe’s sources of energy are few and far between so they believed by successfully deterring other countries, they would make Western and Central Europe completely dependent on Soviet oil and gas energy.

Has it worked? Twenty years on, the Soviet Union has dissolved, eg-KGB spy Vladimir Putin rules and Russia seemingly has Europe’s power supply in an iron vice. The German-Russian gas pipeline, built in 2011, is further evidence that Europe’s reliance on Russian energy does not look like stopping any time soon.

3 It Was Aliens

There have been various conspiracies centered on the involvement of extra-terrestrials.^[7] In the days leading up to the accident, there were several eyewitness reports of UFO’s in the area, including a sighting above the plant moments after the explosion.

One witness, Mikhail Varitsky, said this: I and other people from my team went to the site of the blast at night. We saw a ball of fire, and it was slowly flying in the sky. I think the ball was six or eight meters in diameter. Then, we saw two rays of crimson light stretching towards the fourth unit. The object was some 300 meters from the reactor. The event lasted for about three minutes. The lights of the object went out and it flew away in the northwestern direction.

The majority of UFO enthusiasts claim that the extra-terrestrials were there to help prevent any further destruction and to stave off the possibility of a deadly thermonuclear blast.

Pravda, a Russian broadsheet newspaper, formerly known as the official newspaper of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, revealed that a UFO was indeed seen by hundreds of people, hovering above the plant for as long as six hours.^[8]

Pravda has suggested that half of Europe was saved by a UFO. It is believed by some that it decreased the level of radiation by nearly four times, preventing a nuclear blast.

2 Top Secret Radar

The infamous Soviet radio facility Duga-3, dubbed The Woodpecker because of it’s high pitched frequency, was a huge top-secret radar structure a few clicks from the Chernobyl plant.^[9]

In 1976 a powerful radio signal was detected worldwide. The shrill signal came without warning, disrupting radio broadcasts and communication relays worldwide. Rumors at the time suggested it could have been part of Soviet mind-control experiments. The random frequency lasted for 12 years and it got so bad that radio and television manufacturers from across the world had to start re-designing products to prevent interference from the station.

It is unknown exactly what Duga-3 was used for to this day. Most experts believe it was constructed as an early warning system for the Soviet Union’s anti-ballistic missile systems.

In 1989 all signals ceased and the vast structure was left for nature to claim.

It is unknown how much the structure cost to build, but some suggest Chernobyl was orchestrated to distract people from thinking Duga-3 was just another Soviet failure.

1 US Spies

Russia is currently working on a TV show to rival HBO’s ‘Chernobyl’. Albeit hugely successful, many ex-Soviet officials blasted the HBO show, claiming it was inaccurate and slanderous.

The Russian show will be based on a CIA conspiracy,^[10] claiming that US spies triggered the explosion to sabotage the Soviet Union.

The CIA has already admitted to interfering with Russian technology by planting malware in its computer systems, is it possible that this is what happened at Chernobyl?

“One theory holds that Americans had infiltrated the Chernobyl nuclear power plant and many historians do not deny that, on the day of the explosion, an agent of the enemy’s intelligence services was present at the station,” the director of the upcoming Russian show said, AV club reported.^[11]

The Cold War is over you say? I think not.

I’m the kinda guy that applies gentle, soothing pressure to your dog’s body on firework night. Conspiracy fiend. Why has that flower delivery van got a satellite dish on top of it?