Conspiracy theories you agree with

[Jux]

Don't believe in any conspiracy theories, though one of the more interesting one's I heard about was the Dr. Mary's Monkey conspiracy theory. It has some ties to the JFK conspiracy theory too I think.

 

[Shocksplicer]

- How Oswald was rather conveniently killed himself before he could stand trial also by someone supposedly acting alone

Now you're completely making up facts. Oswald didn't kill himself.

Read what he wrote again.

OT: Not really, I think that believing in things without irrefutable evidence is just dumb.

 

[Frankster]

Im inclined to believe the US might have had more then a big part in the Syrian uprisings and that Gaddafi was a much more popular leader in his country then we've been led to believe in the west.
In particular he is made out to be an eccentric cook so was rather easy to hate him, yet when you see him in african leaders summit the guy actually had some very brave and bold ideas. Heck the guy even predicted to an extent the arab spring revolt long before it happened: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SGwHOWUPKuo

Hardcore mode: im even inclined to believe reason he "had to go" was to do with the guys dream of making a new currency in africa based on gold (which the usa lacks) that would have been a massive threat to usa economical interests.

Source: some of my syrian friends observations and statements aswell as vids they linked to me that has caused me to somewhat doubt the story we've been sold in the west.

 

[Tiamattt]

Not as neat or as scary as the posts here, but for me there's a theory among a lot of the NBA fans that the game is rigged, mainly by having things like referees + other officials do some rather shady things to make sure the league earns the most money.

Personally I wish I can say for certain that it's 100% baloney, but every now and again the league will do some extremely questionable things that'll make me wonder.....

 

[DanDanikov]

Conspiracy theories are a natural result of general skepticism, general ignorance and mass hysteria.

It's natural to doubt, we may be a pretty gullible species at times, but at least some of the time we have a bullshit filter trying to flag stuff up.

The problem is that, on top of that, we're also generally pretty stupid- we don't know much about most things but we like to pretend we do. I have no way to know what happens when something like a plane hits a building, I can't really give an informed opinion on that. So, sometimes our intuition will be plain wrong and we'll get false positives.

Add to that confirmation bias and charismatic people presenting their bad intuitions as 'fact' with hand-picked evidence that supports their point of view, you end up with a vicious cycle of hysteria over something that has no real basis, only a self-sustaining presupposed conclusion.

The problem with most conspiracy theories, in my mind, is usually intent- 'Don't attribute to malice what you can to stupidity'. Big organisations are stupid and slow. They can't do anything that well and it always takes a while to do them. Sometimes they will try to do malicious, cunning and evil things, but anything like that on a big scale there's a large potential for getting found out or slipping up. The more people involved, the more likely it's bull that they pulled off such a wide-reaching conspiracy and nobody said anything about it. Whistle-blowing seems to be cool these days, so you can bet your front teeth that if people could come forward about such things, they would be by now.

 

[DarkRyter]

George Bush really doesn't care about black puppets.

 

[Something Amyss]

This year we've seen that the conspiracy theorists were correct about rather extreme government surveillance of it's civilian population with the whole NSA thing, and many of the Xbox One conspiracy rumours about always on connections and used game fees turned out to be absolutely correct as well.

So fellow Escapists, what conspiracy theories do you agree with, either partially or fully?

We;ve had evidence of Government surveillance since Hoover and wider metadata surveillance since the 70s (when it was first contested in court). The programs that are currently under fire were acknowledged in some form shortly after 9-11.

Not a conspiracy theory.

Similarly, the Xbox One stuff was all "rumours," not conspiracy theories. The only conspiracy theories I've come across relying on the Xbone were the ones where Microsoft was contacted by the NSA to manufacture a console that would spy on the American public.

A whole Boeing 757 essentially vaporized into molten rubble and dust.

And that's completely untrue. Well, not completely. There was a 757, and there was rubble and dust. The notion they claimed the effective destruction of an entire plane is a lie framed by carefully selected, cropped and framed shots to further the notion that there was no plane. That's the problem with conspiracy theories: they start with an idea and work backwards to justify it.

 

[piinyouri]

That there are in fact cord gnomes who when I'm not around, will take a couple of perfectly untangled cords and cables and produce a rubber/plastic knot the likes of which I have no interest in fixing.

Stay out of my cable tub you little nincompoops.

 

[Extra-Ordinary]

Skip to 1:00. If JonTron is scared of Mothman, he has to be real.

OT: Ones I do believe in are more supernatural then political, also cause I hate politics.

Aliens, BigFoot, and recently Mermaids.
I don't exactly remember but there was a recent program that got footage of people in a submarine trying to find Mermaids.
During they got its attention with strange whale like noises they recorded to see if they can attract one.
It got quiet, an *BOOM* creepy webbed hand appearing on the side window. Oh yeah, then the government came in and tried to disprove the evidence.
I'm sorry but that sounds too real.

Edit: Found the recent mermaid vid, turns out it was taken near Greenland.

Spoiler

Chills. Everywhere.

This is going to be pretty off-topic for the thread itself but oh well.

First off, let me just say the cryptids that interest me are the one's we can capture. I find aliens and ghosts boring now because we're not going to get close to an alien until they decide to land their saucers (unless that Roswell thing is true) and we're not going to catch a ghost because we keep forgetting our proton packs.

Anyway.

On the Mothman: Oh my goodness, I had Jontron's exact same sentiments when I was younger. I wanted to hunt down other cryptids, but Mothman, hoo boy. I spent many hot summer nights with my window closed because I was scared I would hear him speak to me or see him or something. I remember walking to the bus stop early in the morning, and I live in a pretty wooded area, being terrified thinking he was going to pick me up and fly away. Nothing ever happened, no sightings, no nothing. I was a really paranoid teenager, it was bad. Now I'm a paranoid adult walking home at night and scaring myself of the idea of a very real animal trying to kill me. Not to say he doesn't exist, but
Mothman and bigfoot might exist.
Bobcats and bears definitely do.

Now.

On the Mermaid: Ah! You can see it's face! That is creepy man. I see the comments section is basically a 50/50 between people calling absolute BS and people saying it's 100% real. Real or not, I don't know, but I'm with wwediva101love (who I'm going to assume is a girl) in the comments who phrases my thoughts quite well:
"I bet not even 50% of the ocean is discovered so this might be real"
That's basically how I approach most non-supernatural cryptids: it might just be an animal we haven't fully discovered yet. And with how unexplored the sea is, it's not hard to think that there's probably a lot of stuff down there that we don't know about.
Fact is often stranger than fiction, as it were.

P.S. I should not have watched that at midnight. Now I'm seeing all of these "ALIEN CAUGHT ON TAPE" thumbnails and I know I'm going on one of my late-night link escapades and creep myself out and not be able to sleep.
Look what you did, Xcell.

 

[Anezay]

I tend to prescribe to Hanlon's razor: Never attribute to malice what can be adequately be explained by stupidity.
So many conspiracies tend to work on the assumption that everyone involved is some kind of blend of Sauron and Hitler. In the meantime, I present for your reading pleasure, a few of the more common ones.
http://www.cracked.com/article_20466_5-conspiracy-theories-that-are-shockingly-easy-to-debunk.html

 

[Hazy992]

I don't think I've ever heard a single conspiracy theory and thought it was true. I find them stupid at best, and outright offensive at worst.

Or I could be a pedantic ass and refer to the actual criminal definition of a conspiracy, a plan by two or more people to do something unlawful in the future, and say I believe in something that actually happened, like the Gunpowder Plot or something. But then I'm totally not a pedantic ass

Oh trust me. When it comes to conspiracy theorists, you are FULLY justified in being an asshole to them. They really, really do deserve it.

Like this guy:

http://www.revisionism.nl/Moon/

Who claims that THE MOON is a hoax.

WHAT?! When I saw that link I thought it was just another Moon Landing conspiracy thread, but he doesn't think THE MOON is real?! HOW?!

That's almost as batshit crazy as Time Cube.

 

[Undomesticated Equine]

All conspiracy theories have to many facets for me to truly believe them, and especially the 9/11 conspiracy theories.

That said, of all the conspiracies that exist, the conspiracy about the plane that hit the Pentagon has always been very intriguing.

Watch this video, it has some stupid bits being a conspiracy video but it is easily the most well made conspiracy video I have ever watched and to top it off has some of the best music ever, Fight Club music!.

[link]http://www.pentagonstrike.co.uk/flash.htm[/link]

Takes a while to load but it is a flash movie it will have the best resolution available.

I have never taken the time to look up each quote and each fact listed but the pictures all look legitimate and i doubt that they would openly quote CBS or the Pentagon in such an open manner.

Seriously watch the video, I want to know what others think of it.

All the other conspiracy theories have been too examined, the JFK assassination has been examined so many times that many of the theories are provably untrue, Oswald was a marksman, they proved that it wasn't a magic bullet trajectory, it was a straight shot, and it isn't implausible that someone with marksman training would be able to make that shot.

If an aeroplane hits the ground or any solid object at 853 km/h, 237 m/s, or 460 knots it will turn into million little pieces do not expect to find any part of it that would be recognizable. Not exactly same conditions but this is only of the crashes that i remembered that involved high speed impact. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pacific_Southwest_Airlines_Flight_1771

The plane struck a rocky hillside, leaving a crater less than 2 feet deep and 4 feet across, presumably where the landing gear struck the ground.

They put in quotes of people who know, excuse the expression, jack shit about aircraft crashes and they will certainly convince some and make others doubt because they only saw few crashes on news and there are always bits and pieces left that are recognizable as a wing or stabilizer but those are usually much slower crashes. Commercial airliner is built to withstand 5-6 g's while the pentagon impact generated at least 100 times more.

 

[Quaxar]

I also thoroughly believe that the United States Knew about Pearl Harbor and allowed it to happen.

And you think they did this because...?

I'm going to reply again tomorrow if I remember. It's late now and I was about to go to bed. I'll sum it up, though.

After WWI the American public had no stomach for war. The United States governement wanted to join the war for several reasons. They intercepted a Japanese radio transmission with information of the attack. If the United States were attacked, without warning, they woud appear like victims and the people would rally to fight their attackers.
Proof would be that there were no air craft carriers at Pearl Harbor during the attack, the most precious naval asset. They got them out of there before the attack.

Waiting for your detailed reply but I'm still gonna go ahead and give you some thought on that.

True, the gouvernment had some motivation to join the war after the Nazis kept disturbing their supply runs to Britain but at the same time they were doing peace talks with the Japanese, that of course turned out to be baloney and a cover for the attacks, but still if there was one thing the US didn't think of it was a Japanese attack as close as Hawaii during peace negotiations no less. And don't forget the general public was still trying to stay out of the conflict in Europe, not the least because of pro-Nazi lobbying by wealthy people like Henry Ford, and had Germany not declared war first on the US just 4 days after Pearl Harbour it still would've been questionable if the public could have been swayed.

Also true that there was an encoded warning of an approaching Japanese fleet, which managed to avoid decryption until the day after the attack but that was more of bad luck than deliberate action. But let's go with it and say the gouvernment had managed to translate it the same day, which would've been November 28th, then that indeed would've been the day the USS Enterprise went out to transport planes to Wake to improve defense of the base there and a week before Lexington went off to do the same for Midway, but by an order that already arrived two days prior and from Admiral Kimmel, not Washington. Hardly enough time to fabricate the elaborate backstory they had for loading 25 fighters.
The USS Enterprise was already scheduled to be out from Nov 28 to Dec 5 and the USS Lexington was scheduled to be patrolling the immediate area of Pearl Harbor beginning Dec 5th, schedules that had been criticized for being too publicly accessible before, and the third Pacific Fleet carrier, the USS Saratoga, was just coming from a modernization in the Seattle wharf, docking in San Diego on Dec 7th to pick up her air group; had a storm not delayed Enterprise by two days she would have been expected to be docked and likely devastated.
The specific fleet schedule dates were the least suspicious time to pick to secretly supply two island bases much nearer to the Japanese without raising suspicion by going off schedule since they'd be expected to leave port anyway. And would it not have been much more risky to send two of the three Pacific carrier groups westwards towards the approaching Japanese with only a light escort?

And lastly note that the USS Enterprise did actually return the day of the attack and lost seven planes in the defense of Pearl Harbor. Also, following the attack Enterprise (who was still 200 miles away) and Lexington (who was 400 miles towards Midway already) were immediately ordered to seek out and engange the six Japanese carriers despite being outnumbered and unable to support each other should they really have met them. To say that the Pacific Fleet carriers were "safe" at any time during the whole thing is sheer lunacy.
Never mind that Pearl Harbor was a failure for the Japanese anyway since they only destroyed two ships and no base infrastructure despite overwhelming and surprising the US.

EDIT: Should read documents properly the first time, ironed out a few inaccuracies. Saratoga actually had no role in this and Lexington left on her scheduled date, not together with Enterprise. My bad entirely.

 

[Leemaster777]

I believe that the American government is covering up evidence about extraterrestrial activity on Earth.

But allow me to clarify. I'm NOT saying that they've made contact with alien life. I'm not saying they have a spaceship hidden in Area 51. I'm not saying they've got an alien body hidden in a secret lab somewhere. I simply think they have SOME kind of concrete (or nearly concrete) evidence of alien life, that they AREN'T sharing with the general public.

I don't even think they're going out of their way to suppress new information. They just have SOMETHING that they found (be it something as simple as a photograph), that they haven't shared with the public, and now that it's been Top Secret for so long, they aren't inclined to share it at this point.

 

[Westaway]

The American public doesn't actually need to be on board with a war for Congress to declare it. And there are more ways--better ways--to sway public opinion than by allowing a portion of your military to be killed. Propaganda was not an unknown thing.

A "portion" is an extreme overstatement. No doubt, obviously, that propaganda is effective at swaying public opinion, but there were some extreme anti-war sentiments in the United States. Had the United States preemptively struck the Japanese, Americans would have been in uproar. They did not see WWII as their fight.

When?

It is generally known that the Japanese "purple" and "IJN" codes had been more or less broken. It is obviously impossible to know exactly when the code was broken. A reasonable estimate would probably be a day before, though I'll obviously admit I know next to nothing regarding military radio transmissions.

The same would also happen if the US were actually attacked without warning.

It would be considerably more effective to be caught unaware, as opposed to a large military standoff.

That's not "proof". That's "interpreting the evidence to fit the conclusion".

I already said it was a brief summary, I'm aware correlation != causation, yada yada. Someone else has quoted me, and I'm going to thoroughly explain my stance when replying to him.

 

[Westaway]

snip

Now, I'm going to get a couple things right out of the way before I get into this. To be honest, I don't particularly care if I'm wrong. It doesn't affect me at all. Secondly, why I came about believing this. Note, this is not an argument or proof of any kind. In grade 11, I had a history teacher who had studied military history for over ten years at various schools. Mostly McGill (in Montreal), if I remember correctly, but also visiting some ivy league schools to study. Now, as I type this out, I'm realizing how ludicrous this claim seems, especially considering how I went to a public school. This man, Adrian Nunes, had actually spent the majority of his career in business, after graduating. He was pretty old when I had him a teacher, and he said "I'm only here for fun". He just liked teaching kids shit, I guess.

Anyways, he was pretty into conspiracy theories, few of which I believed, though he was pretty knowledgeable. The conspiracy we're talking about right now is one of them. He explained it pretty briefly, but it seemed logical enough to me, so I looked it up on the internet later that night and I was convinced.
Clearly, it's very possible I'm wrong. I've never put much thought into the whole thing beyond that night of research, and I'll admit I've forgotten some of the evidence in the first place. Regardless, I do believe it is a sound theory which I will stand behind for the time being.

So let's go, I suppose. The idea that the code was deciphered the say after is unverifiable, as are claims it was deciphered the day before. The information is secret. However, the USA deciphering program had access to both "purple" and "IJN" frequencies. Claiming it was deciphered the day after is perfect for the government; they were working on it, so the public doesn't lose complete confidence, and it came shortly after, but they were still caught unawares. I believe they HAD deciphered the transmissions before the attack.

The claim I made earlier about battleships, I believe, still holds water, despite the Enterprise and the Lexington being on scouting (expendable) missions. Those were only two. The rest were on the west coast. Whether or not they knew about the attack itself, it has been confirmed by the US military that Pearl Harbor had been warned about a possible attack. If they truly wanted to defend themselves, they would have had several at Pearl Harbor. I've also heard before that it was battleships, not aircraft carriers, that were regarded at the most precious naval asset. Although that may have been true for certain countries (mostly those who could not afford them so therefor downplayed their importance) the USA clearly put an emphasis on their importance. As I previously mentioned, the Enterprise was on recon, an expendable position. It may have returned, but it was not seen as important.

I have to do some more work now, but I'm sure what I've posted so far gives a lot to refute and or argue about.
For reference, I'm still in the middle of investigating this Wikipedia article and the citations it's giving:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pearl_Harbor_advance-knowledge_conspiracy_theory
It's an article that gives evidence for both sides, though it leans towards my position. Obviously Wikipedia articles of this kind are not the best sources of information, so I've been mostly sticking to their citations and using the paragraphs as context.

 

[Quaxar]

Clearly, it's very possible I'm wrong. I've never put much thought into the whole thing beyond that night of research, and I'll admit I've forgotten some of the evidence in the first place. Regardless, I do believe it is a sound theory which I will stand behind for the time being.

At least you're honest and don't expect everyone to believe your incoherent babbling about "the man" without any proof or source like... someone else would. I'm actually surprised he's stayed out of here.
And just for clarity, I didn't mean you with the incoherent babbling. I appreciate you admitting you stand by it despite not knowing much about it.

So let's go, I suppose. The idea that the code was deciphered the say after is unverifiable, as are claims it was deciphered the day before. The information is secret. However, the USA deciphering program had access to both "purple" and "IJN" frequencies. Claiming it was deciphered the day after is perfect for the government; they were working on it, so the public doesn't lose complete confidence, and it came shortly after, but they were still caught unawares. I believe they HAD deciphered the transmissions before the attack.

I think we're thinking of different messages. I meant the very real <url=http://www.ibiblio.org/pha/timeline/411128acno.html>encoded telegraph from the Chief of Naval Operations as presented in the Hart Inquiry. Nothing to do with any Japanese signals, especially since the Japanese had strictest radio silence, even physically disabling communication equipment.
But I suppose it is unverifiable if you want to chose to believe that statements made by the involved decoders are questionable.

The claim I made earlier about battleships, I believe, still holds water, despite the Enterprise and the Lexington being on scouting (expendable) missions. Those were only two. The rest were on the west coast.

I don't know, at the time of the Pearl Harbor attack the US only had 7 true carriers (Enterprise, Lexington and Saratoga in the Pacific and Yorktown, Hornet, Wasp and Ranger in the Atlantic) and wouldn't launch the new Essex class for another year, so I wouldn't consider any of them expendable for their abundance.

Whether or not they knew about the attack itself, it has been confirmed by the US military that Pearl Harbor had been warned about a possible attack. If they truly wanted to defend themselves, they would have had several at Pearl Harbor.

Are you talking about the Opana Point Radar? Indeed they had a radar contact an hour before the attack but assumed it was a B-17 after talking to the Fighter Information Center, but that whole system was completely new and actually just in training, the Info Center only had two officers and wasn't even set up fully and nobody had much experience with radar interpretation yet. You can hardly blame them.
You can also read the whole Hart Inquiry interrogations of the involved parties <url=http://ibiblio.org/pha/myths/radar/index.html>here if you're ever interested or bored enough.

Also, several what? I think I'm missing a word there.

I've also heard before that it was battleships, not aircraft carriers, that were regarded at the most precious naval asset. Although that may have been true for certain countries (mostly those who could not afford them so therefor downplayed their importance) the USA clearly put an emphasis on their importance. As I previously mentioned, the Enterprise was on recon, an expendable position. It may have returned, but it was not seen as important.

Yes, at that time both the US and the Japanese were followers of the outdated Mahan doctrine. Until the demonstration in Pearl Harbor the US regarded their carriers mostly as scouts and the Japanese Empire never really managed to detach their submarines from the fleet, designing and using theirs as fleet auxillary instead of independent long-range war machines.

Which really just supports the point that it wasn't passively allowed as the Navy would have tried to save the destroyers instead of the stupid carriers. In reality on that day they had even more battleships docked than the weeks before.

 

[shootthebandit]

I dont know about the butterly thing, the fairly distinctive three winged tail is used in powered flight but not really in nature, and if they were trying to imitate nature one would think it would have the rear fin extending below the main body as well.

My hypothesis with nothing to back it up: Maybe a model of a toy that the owner used to play with when they were younger, a lot of youngins play with these things today made out of simple light woods

Maybe it was an ancient toy as well that we really cant find examples of due to the wood being so light and degrading into nothing so quickly. I know I was thrilled by something I could throw that would just glide along for a ways, dont see why kids in the past wouldnt have the same interest after seeing birds and such.

Certainly not a toy. Assuming the egyptians did have a basic understanding of the principles of flight. Their design has a low aspect wing (short and fat) which wouldnt glide at all. where as the design you showed has a high aspect (long and thin) high aspect is is what you want for a long stable flight with lots of lift ideal for gliding Low aspect is designed for high speed maneouverability. If the egyptians new about high speed propulsion id be amased

Also look at the detail on the wing. And theres a few spirals on the front which to me represent a butterflys antennaes/feelers or whatever you call them. Perhaps they are not trying to imitate the butterfly but merely designed the trinket to have some of its features