Some conspiracy theories never die, and the top 10 enduring narratives continue to captivate the public despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary. In this roundup we explore each lingering myth behind some of history’s most heartbreaking catastrophes.

Why the Top 10 Enduring Conspiracy Theories Matter

10 The Titanic Never Sank

The legend of the RMS Titanic is etched into popular consciousness. Over a century ago the liner met a tragic fate, and ever since movies, songs, and stage productions have kept the disaster in the spotlight.

One persistent narrative claims the ship that sank was not the Titanic at all, but its sister vessel, the Olympic, swapped in a convoluted insurance fraud orchestrated by J.P. Morgan, the White Star Line’s magnate. The Olympic had suffered two serious mishaps shortly after its 1911 launch, allegedly leaving it heavily damaged and threatening the company’s finances.

According to believers, the two ships were switched, so the Olympic—disguised as the Titanic—was the one that met its watery end in a deliberately staged disaster, while the actual Titanic continued sailing under the Olympic’s name.

Robin Gardiner explored this claim in his 1998 work Titanic: The Ship That Never Sank?. He pointed out that early photographs showed the Olympic sporting 16 portholes versus the Titanic’s 14, yet the vessel that embarked on its maiden voyage actually displayed 16, matching the Olympic’s count. Gardiner also noted rumors among dockworkers that the alleged insurance scam caused some to refuse employment aboard the ship.

Proponents also cite a handful of high‑profile passengers who reportedly canceled their reservations just days before departure, including J.P. Morgan himself, as “proof” that something was amiss.

9 UFO Prevented Blast At Chernobyl

In April 1986, a safety test at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant went catastrophically wrong, sparking a massive steam explosion and an open‑air graphite fire that raced toward the third generating unit. As the situation deteriorated, operators gradually reduced the unit’s capacity, eventually shutting down the emergency cooling system in a desperate bid to halt the reactor.

Nevertheless, an energy‑control officer refused to permit the shutdown of the fourth generator. Consequently, the fourth unit was annihilated by searing steam. Fortunately, it did not detonate, even though it housed roughly 180 tons of enriched uranium—a blast of that magnitude could have devastated half of Europe.

Two years after the disaster, a new theory surfaced: witnesses claimed a UFO hovered over the fourth reactor for at least six hours, allegedly diluting radiation levels fourfold. Those accounts suggest the unidentified craft was the sole factor that turned a potential nuclear explosion into a thermal blast.

8 The Indian Ocean Tsunami Was Caused By A Nuclear Experiment

Even nature’s most devastating events sometimes attract conspiratorial explanations. Shortly after the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, rumors began to circulate that the disaster was not wholly natural.

The theory, rooted in certain Muslim communities, alleges that the tsunami was the byproduct of a secret nuclear experiment conducted by India with the backing of the United States and Israel. Reported newspaper accounts at the time claimed India had acquired nuclear technology from these nations and was testing “destruction” capabilities aimed at densely populated zones.

Supporters of the narrative point to the fact that the highest death toll occurred in heavily populated Muslim regions of Southeast Asia, using this geographic concentration as further “evidence” of a deliberate, weaponized event.

7 The BP Oil Spill Was Caused By ‘Eco‑Warriors’

The 2010 Deepwater Horizon explosion in the Gulf of Mexico enraged millions, especially those with a strong environmental conscience. The disaster sparked a massive volunteer response aimed at cleaning up the oil‑slicked waters and protecting wildlife.

Because the rig sank on Earth Day, a wave of speculation emerged that eco‑terrorists—self‑styled “eco‑warriors”—had sabotaged the platform to protest offshore drilling. Adding fuel to the fire, President Barack Obama ordered a SWAT team to the scene, a move that conspiracy enthusiasts argued resembled a response to a terrorist attack.

Other fringe explanations include a North Korean torpedo strike, a Russian political message, a covert U.S. operation, and even divine retribution for perceived diplomatic slights against Israel.

6 Flight 587 Crash Was Deliberate

Just two months after the 9/11 attacks, American Airlines Flight 587 met a tragic end minutes after taking off from JFK Airport, crashing in Belle Harbor, Queens, and claiming 265 lives.

The official investigation concluded that wake turbulence from a preceding aircraft caused the first officer to over‑use the rudder, which ultimately snapped off the vertical stabilizer. The resulting loss of the tail section and both engines led to the fatal impact.

Within days, a conspiratorial article by Geoff Metcalf appeared on WND, asserting the crash was no accident. Metcalf claimed the plane had been sabotaged and consulted an experienced pilot, who said he had never heard of a single aircraft losing its tail and both engines simultaneously.

Metcalf’s piece also referenced eyewitness accounts of fire appearing on the fuselage before the tail and engines detached, and he quoted another veteran pilot who dismissed turbulence as an improbable cause, bolstering the sabotage theory.

5 White Widow Was Killed During Kenya Mall Attack

Whenever a terrorist incident unfolds, a torrent of conspiracy theories follows. After Kenya’s 2013 Westgate mall siege, officials declared that all attackers had perished, yet some contended that certain gunmen escaped, and that the whole hostage narrative was fabricated.

The Kenyan foreign minister further stoked speculation by suggesting that the notorious “White Widow” Samantha Lewthwaite—a British‑born extremist—was among the assailants. He noted that a British woman had been involved and referenced Lewthwaite’s prior terrorist activities. Adding to the confusion, the Kenyan interior minister claimed that some militants had disguised themselves in women’s clothing.

Adherents of this theory also argue that Lewthwaite may have been killed during the siege, citing reports that a pair of soldiers told Reuters a white female was among the dead militants.

4 Port Arthur Massacre Was A False Flag Operation

In April 1996, 28‑year‑old Martin Bryant traveled from his Hobart home to the historic Port Arthur site in Tasmania. He first killed the owners of a guesthouse before moving on to the main complex, where he opened fire on patrons in cafés, gift shops, and a car park, ultimately taking 35 lives.

Almost immediately, a fringe narrative emerged claiming the entire massacre was fabricated. Supposed “proof” included allegations that senior Port Arthur staff were forewarned and left for a seminar, and that the Royal Hobart Hospital had drafted an emergency plan just two days before the shooting.

Proponents also point to a World Press Convention held in Hobart at the time, arguing that the event was staged to ensure extensive media coverage. They assert the tragedy was engineered solely to pave the way for stricter gun legislation in Tasmania.

In early 2017, One Nation candidate Peter Rogers sparked controversy by publishing a website article insisting the Port Arthur incident was a hoax, further cementing the false‑flag claim in the public imagination.

3 Spanish Influenza Was Caused By Vaccinations

The 1918 influenza pandemic raged for two years, killing millions worldwide, especially healthy young adults. Estimates suggest the virus claimed up to five percent of the global population at the time.

Conspiracy proponents, however, argue that no virus existed at all. Instead, they claim the massive death toll resulted from a clandestine vaccination program that poisoned countless individuals. They point to the Fort Dix soldiers, alleging they received a “vaccine bomb” in 1918, while the civilian population remained unvaccinated and ostensibly spared.

These theorists further contend that the disease struck vaccinated soldiers seven times more frequently than unvaccinated civilians, and they cite cases of infantile paralysis among troops as “evidence” of vaccine‑induced side effects.

2 New Orleans Levees Were Bombed During Hurricane Katrina

When Hurricane Katrina struck in 2005, it breached New Orleans’ levee system in multiple locations, flooding over 70 percent of the metropolitan area. Conventional analyses attribute the most severe breaches to soil failure and structural weaknesses.

However, residents of the devastated Ninth Ward assert a different story. Some testified before the House Select Committee on Hurricane Katrina, claiming the levees were deliberately bombed to facilitate ethnic cleansing and constitute an act of genocide.

Prominent figures such as Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan and filmmaker Spike Lee have voiced support for the bombing theory, with Lee stating he finds it plausible that a coordinated effort aimed to remove Black residents from the city.

The claim gains a historical echo from 1927, when levees were indeed bombed to preserve certain city sections, an action that resulted in the flooding of Black neighborhoods.

1 HAARP Caused The Haiti Earthquake

The High‑Frequency Active Auroral Research Program (HAARP) has long been the centerpiece of numerous conspiracy narratives, accused of manipulating weather, triggering natural disasters, and even mind‑control experiments.

Consequently, it was a natural leap for some to blame HAARP for the devastating 2010 Haiti earthquake. Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez publicly asserted that HAARP—or a similar clandestine program—had been employed as a tectonic weapon to “create” the quake, a claim that dominated Venezuelan media coverage.

Additional theorists contend that the United States was conducting weather‑control tests that went awry, suggesting the intended target was Iran, not Haiti, and that the misfire resulted in the catastrophic earthquake.

Estelle, a resident of Gauteng, South Africa, notes that the Haiti disaster continues to fuel speculation about secret weapons and covert scientific experiments.

Almost everyone goes through some sort of a ‘phase’; a double‑denim craze, that fleeting Mohawk, growing your own chilli peppers, or even weekly colonics. Yet a handful of these passing fads evolve into lasting trends, movements, or subcultures, complete with their own jargon, rituals, and sometimes a quasi‑religious aura. Below you’ll find the top 10 enduring clubs, hobbies, and identities that have survived the test of time and show no signs of fading away.

Why These Top 10 Enduring Subcultures Matter

10 Goth

Who could have guessed that goths would still be haunting the scene two whole decades into the 21st century? Their apparent immortality isn’t a coincidence – it’s almost poetic that the go‑to aesthetic for outcasts and non‑conformists has become one of the most widespread, long‑lasting subcultures of the 20th and 21st centuries. Goths, however, remain blissfully indifferent to the world, caring only about the occasional shortage of that coveted ‘midnight onyx’ lip gloss.

The movement sprouted in the 1980s, branching off from the splintered English punk scene. Its longevity can be traced to an eclectic visual palette that pulls from a dizzying array of sources: 1950s monster movies, German expressionist cinema, the brooding poetry of Edgar Allan Poe, Victorian fashion, and even darker strands of European folklore, African, and Caribbean voodoo. This melange gives goth a timeless quality – it isn’t the fleeting “new black” but rather the perpetual black of cultural history.

9 Hacker Culture

The Matrix is real, we all know that by now. 2020 stripped away any remaining speculation – reality can’t be any crazier or more random. Hackers, a venerable community living on the digital fringes of civilization, have been aware of this for quite some time.

At its core, hacker culture is about inventively solving tough problems, especially within software systems. Imagine coaxing an old‑school dot‑matrix printer into playing a melody – that’s the kind of quirky ingenuity hackers thrive on. Emerging in the early 20th century and evolving alongside the free‑software movement, this subculture perhaps stands alone on the list as the only one capable of reshaping the world in a truly meaningful way. If the material world is a simulation, then hackers are its most skilled programmers.

8 The New Age Movement

“This is the dawning of the Age of Aquarius,” crooned The 5th Dimension in 1969. We’re still waiting, hippies.

From crystal healing and reflexology to the revival of ancient divination practices such as I Ching and astrology, the New Age movement is a sprawling, loosely‑held belief system that somehow endures. It embraces everything from Atlantis lore to ancient‑alien theories, acting as a one‑size‑fits‑all alternative to both organized religion and hard‑core science. While the movement’s claims often clash with empirical evidence, its followers genuinely believe in the power of pressurized rocks and celestial alignments. Despite occasional bad apples, the New Age crowd rarely displays overt malice – they’re more eccentric than dangerous.

7 Furries

Don’t click away! This subculture is often linked to creepiness, yet it boasts a surprisingly rich history. First, a quick myth‑busting: furry fandom isn’t solely about sex – that’s a stereotype that only applies to a minority.

The roots of furry fandom trace back to the underground comix scene of the late 1970s. By 1983, the term “furry” described fans of anthropomorphic animals in sci‑fi, cartoons, and comics. They began congregating at expos and conventions, and by 1990 had established early online communities that have flourished into the 21st century. Members often create and wear “fursuits” – elaborate animal costumes – and for roughly 37 % of them, the experience includes a romantic or sexual dimension. Whether you adore cartoon critters or simply appreciate the creativity, the furry world offers a vibrant, if occasionally misunderstood, community.

6 Gopniks

You’ve certainly spotted them – the squat‑sitting, tracksuit‑clad youths with cheap vodka and a fondness for slavic beats. Gopnik culture is essentially a regional flavor of a universal subculture that surfaces wherever sportswear brands, easily modifiable hatchbacks, and electronic music intersect.

In Britain they’re often labeled “chavs,” in South Africa they’re part of Zef culture, and similar vibes echo through US hip‑hop scenes and the Latin American “cholo/chola” phenomenon. Whether called “street culture,” “working‑class drop‑outs,” or “gutter stargazers,” these groups share a common thread: young, often under‑educated individuals from lower‑class neighborhoods, perceived by mainstream society as bordering on loutish or criminal behavior. Their shared aesthetic – tracksuits, squatting, and a rebellious attitude – makes them instantly recognizable worldwide.

5 Naturism

Millennia ago, humanity walked naked – the natural state for every creature in the animal kingdom. Of course, early humans faced a brutal world of sabre‑toothed cats, poisonous splinters, and volcanic eruptions, which likely contributed to short lifespans.

Organized naturism began in the British Raj in 1891 with the inaugural club, the “Fellowship of the Naked Trust,” founded by a Bombay judge named Charles Crawford. Since then, pamphlets, documentaries, and philosophical treatises have spread the stripped‑back lifestyle worldwide. Today, Croatia stands out as a naturist hotspot, with nudist tourism accounting for roughly 15 % of its post‑Yugoslav tourism market – a lucrative industry that proves nudism isn’t merely a hippy‑ish pastime, but a serious economic driver.

4 Surfer Culture

“Yeeeew! Look at that gnarly swell coming in! This is gonna be radical, dude.” The surfer lexicon, once the domain of a tiny clique, now permeates mainstream English, proving the cultural reach of this niche hobby.

Surf culture arguably originates in native Hawaiian tradition, with Duke Kahanamoku – an Olympic gold‑medal swimmer and Hawaiian native – championing the sport abroad. In 1912 he introduced surfing to Southern California, and two years later he demonstrated it in Australia at Sydney’s Freshwater Beach. From that laid‑back debut (“You wanna see me ride a wooden plank from the islands? No sweat, brah!”) emerged a global phenomenon influencing fashion, slang, film, and lifestyle, all built around the endless pursuit of the perfect wave.

3 Punk

Who doesn’t love being spat on by a skinny yob with a safety pin through his nose? Punks adore that raw, confrontational energy, and they’ve spawned countless offshoots, musical genres, and political movements, cementing themselves as perhaps the most influential cultural wave of the latter half of the twentieth century.

Punk, according to Patti Smith, is fundamentally “freedom.” Joe Strummer added that it’s about “attitude” and “truth.” Chuck Klosterman observed that punk also embraces a certain laziness – style over substance: “You didn’t even need to know how to play your instrument, just how to plug it in.” Sid Vicious epitomized this ethos, turning nihilism into a fashion statement. At its core, punk is rebellion, honesty, and a distinct visual code – ripped jeans, mohawks, safety pins – that instantly identifies its adherents. Its ever‑evolving nature ensures it will persist unless society collapses into totalitarianism or absolute anarchy.

2 Outlaw Motorcycle Clubs

“My most basic credo is: I never said freedom was cheap. And it ain’t. It’s the highest‑priced and most precious commodity in my life.” – Sonny Barger, author, actor, and Hells Angel.

Veterans returning from war often struggle to reintegrate into civilian life – a challenge that dates back to the 1940s and perhaps even earlier. Fighter pilots, fresh from dogfighting over Europe or the Pacific, found ordinary life dull compared to the adrenaline of aerial combat. Their answer? Forming outlaw motorcycle clubs, tearing across American highways on roaring Harleys, and rejecting the constraints of the American Motorcycle Association. While some of these clubs have devolved into organized crime syndicates, involved in drug trafficking and contract killings, the romantic allure of unbridled freedom on a steel horse remains compelling.

1 Ferroequinology

We’ll close with perhaps the most pulse‑racing, in‑your‑face, tear‑it‑all‑down subculture on the list.

Train spotting. Not the gritty heroin‑addicted world of the film “Trainspotting,” but the earnest hobby of cataloguing, photographing, and obsessively discussing locomotives. Ferroequinologists – a term derived from Latin “ferro” (iron) and “equine” (horse) – are the ultimate rail enthusiasts.

These aficionados, known variously as rail fans, anoraks, gunzels, or foamers, serve a practical purpose: British Transport Police regularly solicit information from them, and companies like BNSF rely on spotters to flag irregularities, enhancing railway safety. So while the pastime might seem frivolous, it plays a real‑world role in keeping tracks secure. And no, we won’t feed them to the furries.

The pages of astronomy books are packed with old mysteries. Thanks to the advancement of technology, experts can now look back and solve some of the gnarliest space mysteries on record. From the sudden appearance of a “star” 900 years ago above China to the truth about the famous Wow Signal, here are ten cosmic enigmas that have finally been cracked.

10 Antarctica’s Missing Iron Meteorites

Some space mysteries exist on Earth. One such riddle can be found in Antarctica. This frosty corner of the globe is where most meteorites are recovered. This abundance has nothing to do with location but instead with color differences. It’s easier to spot dark cosmic debris against the white expanse of this region than in places with forests or sand dunes.

Thousands of space rocks enter our atmosphere every year, so one might think that every type of meteorite can be found in Antarctica. Not so. The snow-covered continent is strangely empty of iron meteorites.

The mystery lasted for decades until 2016. That year, UK researchers released a study that suggested Antarctica has plenty of iron meteorites—they are just well hidden. Their iron content ensures that these meteorites become hotter than other space rocks when they enter our atmosphere. Once they impact ice or snow, they’ll burrow under the surface (melt their way down, really) and completely disappear from sight. Antarctica probably has a treasure trove of iron-rich meteorites; we just can’t see them.^[1]

9 No Green Comet Tails

Astronomers have never recorded a comet with a green tail. This was odd because many comets develop radiant green heads as they fly closer to the sun. What was stopping the color from spreading to their tails? Interestingly, this question went unsolved for 90 years.

Since the 1930s, researchers suspected dicarbon could explain the whole thing. Dicarbon is a chemical that forms when the organic matter on the comet’s head reacts to sunlight, causing the green color. Unfortunately, sunlight also destroys dicarbon, which could explain why the chemical never survives long enough to reach a comet’s tail.

In 2021, this theory was proved in an amazing way. Scientists had to recreate the process, and that was no easy task. Dicarbon only exists in extreme places (like space), and it’s also a volatile chemical. In a world first, they created dicarbon, and while inside a vacuum chamber, it was brought into contact with gas and lasers to simulate the conditions in space. The lasers, in particular, proved that the sun’s radiation ripped apart the dicarbon before it could turn a comet’s tail green.^[2]

8 The Mystery of Jovian Lightning

Ancient astronomers theorized for centuries that the largest planet in the solar system had lightning, but it wasn’t confirmed until 1979 when NASA’s Voyager 1 spacecraft hurtled past Jupiter. However, apart from confirming an old suspicion, Voyager 1 also discovered that Jovian lightning only appeared near the planet’s poles. In comparison, Earth’s lightning is more common among the equator.

It took another flyby to understand why lightning bolts avoided Jupiter’s midriff like the plague. In recent years, the craft Juno buzzed Jupiter and identified heat as the reason why lightning never zings the planet’s equator.

Earth catches the brunt of the sun’s warmth around the equator which fuels rising hot air—the very thing that lightning needs to form. The process is reversed on Jupiter in a peculiar way. Once sunlight makes Jupiter’s equator toasty, the world’s upper atmosphere stabilizes in such a way that it suppresses rising warm air. For this reason, lighting strikes freely at the poles where there is no atmospheric stability, and heat from inside the planet pushes hot air upward.^[3]

7 A Strange Light Show

In 2022, the James Webb Telescope beamed back a fantastic photograph to Earth. It showed a bright light at the center of several rings. Cutting through the rings were eight spikes of light that radiated from the center outward, almost creating a spiderweb effect. When the bizarre but beautiful image hit social media, people had one question, “What the heck is this?”

Researchers quickly determined that the spikes were a “fault” on the telescope’s part. It tended to produce such anomalies when photographing bright objects in space. Since the spikes weren’t real, that left the unusual concentric circles around the star.

A closer look revealed that the “light” came from two stars. They orbited each other in an eight-year cycle, and each time the stars came close to each other and moved away again, that’s the moment when they produced dust and threw out another ring.^[4]

6 The Glowing Blobs

In 2000, astronomers stumbled upon a bizarre space… thing. Billions of light-years from Earth floated a blob. It was as big as a galaxy and also glowed as brightly as one. But here’s the mystery—the giant space bubble had no stars, only hydrogen gas. So, what caused it to shine so brilliantly?

All told, about 30 blobs were eventually discovered. However, it wasn’t until dozens of astronomers, countless telescopes, and advanced simulations came together that their light source was revealed. Unexpectedly, stars were involved—but in a very unusual way.

As it turns out, these mammoth orbs are star factories. Deep inside the blobs, fresh stars are being produced at a rate 100 times faster than those born in our Milky Way galaxy. For some reason, nearby galaxies also pour star-forming materials into the chaos. But the actual light comes from the moment when new stars are born. In that instant, the stars exude a burst of bright ultraviolet light, which scatters in the hydrogen gas, causing the blob to glow.^[5]

5 A 900-Year-Old Mystery

In 1181, Japanese and Chinese astronomers noticed a difference in the night sky. A new light had appeared, shone as brightly as Saturn, and stayed for six months. The description given by these early star gazers provided modern researchers with enough reason to believe that they were describing a supernova. This celestial explosion became quite famous in scientific circles, mostly because nobody could find any trace of it.

In 2021, roughly 900 years after the mystery of the missing supernova began, the origins of the so-called “Chinese Guest Star” were finally discovered. The ancient reports stated that the light had appeared between the Chinese constellations of Huagai and Chuanshe. In this region were a star and nebula thought to have been created when two White Dwarf stars merged. Such an event is known to trigger supernovas and the location, description of the light, and the age of the nebula all fit the events of 1181.^[6]

4 That Time When Betelgeuse Blinked

Stargazers are very familiar with Orion. This star constellation is also known as “the hunter,” and Betelgeuse is the red supergiant that marks Orion’s eastern shoulder. The star is among the most luminous in the night sky, so when it suddenly dimmed in September 2019, astronomers quickly noticed. For a while, the fading continued, and by February 2020, Betelgeuse had dimmed by an unprecedented 35 percent.

Although the star regained its former brilliance, experts were at a loss. Nobody could explain why the red giant had “blinked.” Putting their best guesses on the table, researchers theorized that the dimming was the result of a dust cloud or a drop in temperature. During a multinational attempt, researchers combed through observatory data and satellite images and realized that both theories were correct.

Betelgeuse had ejected a massive cloud of gas from its innards, but it wasn’t until the star’s photosphere started to cool that the gas condensed into dust. This dusty atmosphere temporarily cloaked the star’s light. ^[7]

3 The Lunar Fireball Photograph

In 1953, Dr. Leon Stuart from Oklahoma photographed an event on the Moon. He believed that the gigantic fireball he captured was a plume of vaporized rock. If true, that would make him the first person to witness and document a lunar impact. It became known as “Stuart’s Event,” but nobody, not even astronauts or space probes, could find the crater.

Yet, the photograph proved that something had happened on the Moon in 1953. In 2003, NASA researchers analyzed the image and calculated that the object would’ve left a fresh-looking crater up to 1.24 miles (2 kilometers) across. Taking cues from the lunar landscape, they searched a grid of roughly 22 miles (35 kilometers) using photographs taken in 1994 by the lunar-orbiting Clementine spacecraft.

Incredibly, the NASA team found Stuart’s crater. It was smaller, measuring 0.93 miles (1.5 kilometers) across, but it was fresh, had the right appearance, and was also located in the middle of the famous photograph. The size of the crater also matched the estimated energy output of the impact, which would’ve been 35 times stronger than the atomic bomb that had devastated Hiroshima.^[8]

2 The Impossible Twin Galaxies

No two galaxies are alike. Keeping this rule in mind, scientists were blown away when they discovered identical twin galaxies in 2013. The pair even sat next to each other, making it immediately obvious that they were freakishly similar. The odd phenomenon became known as Hamilton’s Object.

No theory made sense until someone suggested, in 2015, that gravitational lensing might be responsible. This rare phenomenon is bonkers. When large celestial bodies line up in a row, they can actually curve light and space-time in such a way that when astronomers view the objects through telescopes, they appear closer than they really are. Very often, they also produce mirages of themselves. The result? The illusion that two identical objects are sitting side by side.

When researchers looked closer at the setup that might be causing Hamilton’s Object, they discovered that between Earth and the “twins” sat a massive cluster of galaxies. The latter is causing the duplicate effect, but in reality, Hamilton’s Object is a single spiral galaxy.^[9]

1 Origins of the Wow Signal

In 1977, a legendary mystery was born. Astronomer Jerry Ehman captured radio waves from space that were unlike anything he’d ever seen before (or anyone else, for that matter). He wrote “Wow!” next to the printed signal, and the name stuck. Even today, the Wow Signal is touted as proof of alien contact or, at the very least, an unsolved mystery. In truth, the origins had already been discovered in 2017.

Researchers from St Petersburg College suspected that comets might be the culprits. More specifically, a pair called 266P/Christensen and 335P/Gibbs. Both were enveloped in clouds of hydrogen gas. This detail is important because hydrogen naturally emits 1420MHz. This was the same radio frequency the “alien” signal emitted.

The telescope that picked up the Wow Signal was pointing at a specific group of stars in the Sagittarius constellation, and both comets were confirmed to have been in the area at the time. A closer look also revealed that 266/P Christensen was probably the comet that sparked the 40-year-old mystery. When its radio signals were compared to those from the Wow Signal, they were a match.^[10]

The top 10 of the world’s most enduring conspiracy theories.

10. Electronic Banking.

The Theory of Electronic Conspiracy is said to be a variant of modern New World Order conspiracy theories. According to some conspiracy theorists, virtual money – credit and debit cards – was created by a “secret group” that plans to dominate the world.

The plan, according to theorists, is to completely eliminate paper and coin currency so that citizens rely solely on electronic banking. Once that goal is achieved, the “secret group” will cause a worldwide electronic blackout, which will simultaneously erase everyone’s bank account information, thus creating chaos and panic. The alleged motivation behind the plot is the reintroduction of slavery into the modern world. The benefactors vary – depending on which theory you subscribe to.

9. Secret Societies Control the World.

If you were really a member of the global élite, you’d know this already: The world is ruled by a powerful, secretive few. Many of the rest of us peons have heard that in 2004 both candidates for the White House were members of Yale University’s secretive Skull and Bones society, many of whose members have risen to powerful positions. But Skull and Bones is small potatoes compared with the mysterious cabals that occupy virtually every seat of power, from the corridors of government to the boardrooms of Wall Street.

Take the Illuminati, a sect said to have originated in 18th century Germany and which is allegedly responsible for the pyramid-and-eye symbol adorning the $1 bill. They intend to foment world wars to strengthen the argument for the creation of a worldwide government (which would, of course, be Satanic in nature). Or consider the Freemasons, who tout their group as the “oldest and largest worldwide fraternity” and boast alumni like George Washington. Some think that despite donating heaps of cash to charity, they’re secretly plotting your undoing at Masonic temples across the world.

Or maybe, some theorize, the guys pulling the strings aren’t concealed in shadow at all. They might be the intelligentsia on the Council on Foreign Relations, a cadre of policy wonks who allegedly count their aims as publishing an erudite bimonthly journal and establishing a unified world government — not necessarily in that order.

8. Landing on Moon.

According to conspiracy theorists, the moon landing that the world watched unfold live on July 20, 1969, was a hoax orchestrated by NASA and other key organizations. Theorists believe that the surface Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin walked upon was not a celestial body but a man-made soundstage.

Proponents of the conspiracy theory insist that the technology of the time was not sufficient enough to pull off such a feat. They claim that environmental obstacles alone – cosmic rays, radiation belts and solar wind – would have made the trip impossible.

As evidence of their belief, theorists point to photographs and video that were taken during the mission, which they claim contain several oddities; including inconsistent shadows, identical backgrounds and the lack of any visible stars.

Why fake the landing? Theorists claim the United States sought not only the prestige of the event, but also monetary gain.

In 2008, Adam Savage and Jamie Hyneman, stars of the TV show MythBusters, examined several of the myths related to the moon landing. Upon conducting a variety of controlled tests with a team of scientists at a NASA training facility, they concluded that a conspiracy did not exist.

NASA puts little effort into debunking the claims, looking at them as ludicrous; however they did, in July 2009, use the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter to take a photo of the Apollo 11 landing site, which they say shows remains of the 1969 landing site. Despite efforts to debunk the myths, conspiracy theorists stand by their claims.

7. The Reptilian Elite.

They are among us. Blood-drinking, flesh-eating, shape-shifting extraterrestrial reptilian humanoids with only one objective in their cold-blooded little heads: to enslave the human race. They are our leaders, our corporate executives, our beloved Oscar-winning actors and Grammy-winning singers, and they’re responsible for the Holocaust, the Oklahoma City bombings and the 9/11 attacks … at least according to former BBC sports reporter David Icke, who became the poster human for the theory in 1998 after publishing his first book, The Biggest Secret, which contained interviews with two Brits who claimed members of the royal family are nothing more than reptiles with crowns.

See also; Top 10 World’s Biggest Secrets of All Time!.

The conspiracy theorist and New Age philosopher, who wore only turquoise for a time and insisted on being called Son of God-Head, says these “Annunaki” (the reptiles) have controlled humankind since ancient times; they count among their number Queen Elizabeth, George W. Bush, Henry Kissinger, Bill and Hillary Clinton and Bob Hope. Encroaching on other conspiracy theorists’ territory, Icke even claims that the lizards are behind secret societies like the Freemasons and the Illuminati. Since earning the dubious title of “paranoid of the decade” in the late 1990s, Icke has written several books on the topic, including his latest work, The David Icke Guide to the Global Conspiracy, while operating his own website — complete with merchandise and advertisements.

6. The CIA and AIDS.

Since the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention first reported the HIV/AIDS epidemic in 1981, rumors have persisted that the deadly virus was created by the CIA to wipe out homosexuals and African Americans. Even today, the conspiracy theory has a number of high-profile believers. South African President Thabo Mbeki once touted the theory, disputing scientific claims that the virus originated in Africa and accusing the U.S. government of manufacturing the disease in military labs.

When she won the Nobel Peace Prize, Kenyan ecologist Wangari Maathai used the international spotlight to support that theory as well. Others insist that the government deliberately injected gay men with the virus during 1978 hepatitis-B experiments in New York, San Francisco and Los Angeles. Still others point to Richard Nixon, who combined the U.S. Army’s biowarfare department with the National Cancer Institute in 1971. Though the co-discoverers of HIV — Dr. Robert Gallo of the National Cancer Institute and Dr. Luc Montagnier of the Pasteur Institute in Paris — don’t agree on its origins, most members of the scientific community believe the virus jumped from monkeys to humans some time during the 1930s.

5. Holocaust Revisionism.

Despite overwhelming evidence and an admission and apology from Germany decades ago, revisionists continue to claim that nearly 6 million Jews were not killed by Nazis during the Holocaust. Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, for one, has called the Holocaust a “myth” and suggested that Germany and other European countries, rather than Palestine, provide land for a Jewish state.

Unlike Ahmadinejad, most revisionists do not deny that Jews were interned in prison camps during World War II; rather, they argue that the number of deaths was greatly exaggerated. Gas chambers are a particular sticking point: Holocaust deniers say they were purely a rumor or, if they indeed existed, were not powerful enough to kill — though evidence and history indicate otherwise. And the photographs of emaciated and dying Jews? Attorney Edgar J. Steele, a revisionist, says, “All those pictures of skinny people and bodies stacked like cordwood were actually of Czechs and Poles and Germans [who] died of typhus, which was rampant in the camps.”

4. Area 51 and the Aliens.

We may have Tang thanks to the space program, but who gave us such innovations as the Stealth fighter and Kevlar? Aliens, of course. Conspiracy theorists believe that the remains of crashed UFO spacecrafts are stored at Area 51, an Air Force base about 150 miles from Las Vegas, where government scientists reverse-engineer the aliens’ highly advanced technology. Fodder for this has come from a variety of supposed UFO sightings in the area and testimony from a retired Army colonel who says he was given access to extraterrestrial materials gathered from an alien spacecraft that crashed in Roswell, N.M. Some believe that the government studies time travel at Area 51, also known as Groom Lake or Dreamland.

See also; 10 Undeniable Signs That Prove Aliens Exist.

The government has developed advanced aircraft and weapons systems at nearby Nellis Air Force Base, including Stealth bombers and reconnaissance planes. And the government’s official line — that the details of Area 51 are classified for purposes of national security, is only seen as further proof that the military is hiding aliens or alien spacecraft.

3. The 9/11 .

Not since the JFK assassination has there been a national tragedy so heavily imprinted in American minds. or that has given rise to quite as many alternative explanations. While videos and photographs of the two planes striking the World Trade Center towers are famous around the world, the sheer profusion of documentary evidence has only provided even more fodder for conspiracy theories.

A May 2006 Zogby poll found that 42% of Americans believed that the government and the 9/11 commission “concealed or refused to investigate critical evidence that contradicts their official explanation of the September 11th attacks.” Why had the military failed to intercept the hijacked planes? Had the government issued a “stand down” order, to minimize interference with a secret plan to destroy the buildings and blame it on Islamic terrorists? In 2005, Popular Mechanics published a massive investigation of similar claims and responses to them. The reporting team found that the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) did not have a history of having fighter jets prepped and ready to intercept aircraft that had gone off route. And while the team found no evidence that the government had planned the attacks, lack of proof has rarely stopped conspiracy theorists before.

2. The JFK Assassination.

President John F. Kennedy was assassinated on Nov. 22, 1963, struck by two bullets. one in the head, one in the neck, while riding in an open-topped limo through Dealey Plaza in Dallas. Lee Harvey Oswald was charged with killing him, and a presidential commission headed by Chief Justice Earl Warren found that Oswald acted alone. But that conclusion hasn’t passed muster with the public. There are countless conspiracy theories surrounding the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.

A 2003 ABC News poll found that 70% of Americans believe Kennedy’s death was the result of a broader plot. The trajectory of the bullets, some say, didn’t square with Oswald’s perch on the sixth floor of the Texas School Book Depository. Others suggest a second gunman, perhaps on the grassy knoll of Dealey Plaza, participated in the shooting. Others believe in an even broader conspiracy. Was Kennedy killed by CIA agents acting either out of anger over the Bay of Pigs or at the behest of Vice President Lyndon Johnson? By KGB operatives? Mobsters mad at Kennedy’s brother for initiating the prosecution of organized crime rings? Speculation over one of history’s most famous political assassinations is such a popular parlor game that most people have taken the rumors to heart: just 32% of those polled by ABC believe Oswald carried out the killing on his own.

1. Bermuda Triangle.

Is there a mysterious force that causes ships and planes to disappear in the Bermuda Triangle, or is this just another far-fetched theory? For hundreds of years people have told stories about strange happenings in the Bermuda Triangle.

See also; Top 10 Terrifying Mysteries of Bermuda Triangle.

Also known as the Devil’s Triangle. The Bermuda Triangle is Located in the western part of the North Atlantic Ocean. It covers roughly 500,000 square miles of the ocean, with apexes in Bermuda, Florida and Puerto Rico. There is no mistaking that a large number of vessels have gone missing in the area. however the explanation for those disappearances is where the conspiracies come into play. According to theorists, supernatural elements are responsible for the disappearances. Some say extraterrestrial beings are to blame, while others point to the mythical lost continent of Atlantis.

The U.S. Coast Guard and other experts familiar with the triangle discount supernatural elements as being responsible. Instead, they point to the fact that the triangle is situated in a heavily traveled area of the ocean. They say that the number of incidents that occur there are no greater than those that occur in other parts of the ocean. They feel that any number of natural occurrences including tropical storms and rogue waves could be responsible. Also, they point to the possibility of pirates and mechanical failures. In regard to the compass problems, experts say that there are no unusual magnetic anomalies in the area and cite the fact that all compasses have natural magnetic variations.

Regardless of whom you believe, one thing remains certain. The Bermuda Triangle will undoubtedly continue to remain a source of mystery and intrigue.