Browse Conspiracy Theories

The 1950s-60s marketing of thalidomide (sedative, anti-nausea for pregnant women) by Chemie Grünenthal (Germany), Distillers (UK), and Richardson-Merrell (US) despite internal knowledge of risks, resulting in ~10,000 birth defects worldwide and a major documented corporate cover-up.

The April 2016 leak of 11.5 million documents from Panamanian law firm Mossack Fonseca revealed an international network of offshore shell companies used by politicians, celebrities, and criminals for tax evasion, money laundering, and concealing ownership.

The April 20, 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil rig explosion in the Gulf of Mexico killed 11 workers and released ~4.9M barrels of oil — the largest marine oil spill in history. BP, Transocean, and Halliburton's cost-cutting and safety failures are documented; allegations of regulatory capture and concealment of spill volume are partly supported.

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 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 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 concealment by Boeing of the Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System (MCAS) from pilots and regulators, which caused two fatal crashes — Lion Air 610 (October 2018, 189 killed) and Ethiopian Airlines 302 (March 2019, 157 killed) — and led to a 20-month global grounding.

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 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 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 2014-2019 lead contamination of Flint, Michigan's drinking water following a cost-saving switch from Detroit water supply to the Flint River, and the systematic suppression of evidence by state officials.

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 fabricated antisemitic text, first published in Russia in 1903, claiming to document a Jewish plan for world domination. Extensively proven a forgery — plagiarized from Maurice Joly's 1864 Dialogue aux enfers entre Machiavel et Montesquieu (a satire about Napoleon III, not Jews).

The claim, popularized by British writer David Icke from 1999 onward, that a race of shape-shifting reptilian humanoids from Alpha Draconis secretly rule the Earth by posing as political and royal elites including the British Royal Family.

The claim that the antiparasitic drug ivermectin is an effective COVID-19 treatment being suppressed by pharmaceutical companies, regulators, and hospitals to protect vaccine profits.

The false claim that the MMR vaccine causes autism, originating in a fraudulent 1998 study by Andrew Wakefield published in The Lancet, which the journal formally retracted in 2010 after investigation revealed data manipulation and undisclosed financial conflicts.

The false claim that a child sex-trafficking ring linked to Democratic Party officials operated out of Comet Ping Pong pizzeria in Washington DC, based on misreadings of John Podesta's hacked 2016 emails.

A UK-based political consulting firm that harvested Facebook data of up to 87 million users through a personality quiz app, then used the data for psychographic targeting on behalf of the Trump 2016 campaign and Leave.EU.

A sprawling conspiracy movement originating on 4chan and 8chan in October 2017, centered on anonymous "Q" posts alleging that a cabal of Satan-worshipping pedophile elites controls government, media, and finance, and that Donald Trump is leading a secret war to expose them.