Government & Politics Theories

Claims that ballots are routinely destroyed, dumped, or manufactured to alter election outcomes.

Claims that large-scale noncitizen voting changes U.S. election outcomes.

Claims that Ukraine, rather than Russia, hacked the DNC or hid a physical server to frame Russia in 2016 election interference investigations.

Claims that the Jade Helm 15 military exercise was preparation for martial law or hostile takeover of US states.

The false claim that Barack Obama was not born in the United States and was therefore ineligible for the presidency.

Claims that FBI agents or informants orchestrated the January 6 attack rather than participants who planned and executed it.

Claims that Dominion voting machines or coordinated ballot fraud changed the 2020 US presidential election outcome.

Claims that FEMA maintains secret detention camps for political dissidents or mass internment.

Claims that 15-minute city urban planning is a plot to confine residents to districts.

Claims that Bill and Hillary Clinton arranged suspicious deaths of political associates and witnesses.

The July 17, 2014 destruction of Malaysia Airlines flight 17 (Boeing 777) over eastern Ukraine, killing 298 people. The Dutch Safety Board investigation and Joint Investigation Team (JIT) concluded the aircraft was shot down by a Russian-owned Buk surface-to-air missile system from a field in Russian-separatist-controlled Donbas.

The October 1, 2017 mass shooting at the Route 91 Harvest country music festival in Las Vegas, which killed 60 and wounded over 400 — the deadliest mass shooting in modern US history. Various conspiracy theories claim multiple shooters, ISIS involvement, MGM/security cover-up, or government-directed false-flag operations.

The documented failure and subsequent cover-up of the police response to the May 24, 2022 mass shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, where 19 children and 2 teachers were killed. Officers waited in the hallway for 77 minutes while the shooter remained in a classroom with surviving children and their mothers pleading outside.

The July 20, 1993 death of Deputy White House Counsel Vincent Foster in Fort Marcy Park, Virginia, officially ruled suicide by five separate investigations. Conspiracy claims allege murder by the Clintons or a cover-up of connections to Whitewater or Hillary Clinton.

The Bush administration's 2002-2003 claim that Saddam Hussein's Iraq had operational ties to al-Qaeda, used as a central justification for the 2003 US invasion. The 9/11 Commission, Senate Intelligence Committee reports, and a 2006 Pentagon IG report all concluded no such operational relationship existed.

The false claim that the April 15, 2013 Boston Marathon bombing was staged by the US government or involved "crisis actors" rather than being conducted by the Tsarnaev brothers. The real bombing killed 3 people and injured 260+.

The July 16, 1999 crash of a small aircraft off Martha's Vineyard piloted by John F. Kennedy Jr., killing him, his wife Carolyn Bessette, and sister-in-law Lauren Bessette. Conspiracy claims allege assassination by the Clintons, a senior Kennedy family cabal, or staged disappearance — the latter a QAnon staple.

The long-documented relationship between Panamanian dictator Manuel Noriega and the US Central Intelligence Agency, including his role as a paid CIA asset (1967-1988) while simultaneously trafficking cocaine, running intelligence operations, and aiding US anti-communist operations in Latin America.

The US military's use of Agent Orange herbicide in Vietnam (1961-1971) and the decades-long effort by the VA and chemical manufacturers to deny connections to veteran illnesses — cancers, type 2 diabetes, Parkinson's, peripheral neuropathy.

The December 21, 1988 bombing of Pan American World Airways Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, killing 270 people. Attribution to Libyan intelligence officer Abdelbaset al-Megrahi via 2001 conviction; sub-dispute over whether Megrahi was the primary perpetrator or a scapegoat for a broader Libyan or Iranian operation.

The cluster of unexplained chronic symptoms affecting ~25-32% of 1990-91 Gulf War veterans, and the decades-long VA resistance to acknowledging it as a distinct service-connected condition.

The October 2, 2018 assassination of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi inside the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, Turkey. The US Intelligence Community's February 2021 declassified assessment concluded Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman approved the operation.

The false claim, most prominently promoted by Alex Jones and Infowars, that the December 14, 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in Newtown, Connecticut was staged by "crisis actors" to justify gun control legislation. The shooting killed 20 first-graders and 6 adults.

A satirical movement launched in 2017 by Peter McIndoe claiming that all birds in the United States were exterminated by the CIA between 1959-2001 and replaced with surveillance drones. Designed as parody, it was widely shared without the satire being recognized.