Browse Conspiracy Theories

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 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 claim that Earth is hollow, with inner surfaces, inhabitants, or openings at the poles. Versions include the 17th-century scientific proposal by Edmond Halley, 19th-century Symmes Hole theory, and 20th-century Nazi/UFO-adjacent versions.

The claim, based on a 1984 packet of allegedly leaked documents, that President Truman in 1947 established a secret committee (Majestic 12 or MJ-12) of 12 scientists and military officers to study recovered UFO craft from Roswell.

A secret senior society at Yale University, founded 1832. Claims of Bush-family/CIA pipelines, elite control of US foreign policy, and occult initiation rituals are partially supported by documented facts and partially fabricated.

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.

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.

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.

TWA Flight 800 (Boeing 747) exploded and crashed off Long Island on July 17, 1996, killing all 230 aboard. The NTSB ruled the cause was an ignition of flammable fuel-air vapor in the center wing fuel tank. Claims of a Navy missile strike or terrorist attack have persisted.

Claims that the US Air Force HAARP (High-frequency Active Auroral Research Program) facility in Gakona, Alaska is used for weather modification, earthquake generation, or mass mind control.

Claims that a secret US military base at Camp Hero in Montauk, New York ran experiments on time travel, mind control, teleportation, and contact with extraterrestrials from 1971 to 1983.

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.

Claims that Denver International Airport (opened 1995) houses an underground New World Order bunker, hosts occult murals, and that its dedication capstone contains coded Freemason messages.

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 1997 death of Diana, Princess of Wales in a Paris car crash has spawned decades of conspiracy theories alleging assassination by British intelligence, the Royal Family, or other state actors — most forcefully championed by Mohamed Al-Fayed, father of Dodi Fayed who died in the same crash.

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 phenomenon where large groups of people share a vivid but false memory of historical events, objects, or media — coined by researcher Fiona Broome in 2009 after noticing many people falsely remembered Nelson Mandela dying in prison in the 1980s.

An annual private conference of ~130 political leaders, corporate executives, academics, and media figures that meets behind closed doors. Founded 1954, often alleged to be a shadow world government coordinating global policy.

The claim that the US Navy conducted an October 1943 experiment at the Philadelphia Naval Shipyard that made the destroyer USS Eldridge temporarily invisible and teleported it to Norfolk, Virginia — with horrific effects on crew members.

An annual summer retreat held at a 2,700-acre private campground in California's redwoods since 1878, attended by business executives, politicians, and cultural figures. Centered on the "Cremation of Care" ritual — an allegorical pageant involving a 40-foot owl effigy.

The 1947 crash of a high-altitude Project Mogul balloon near Roswell, New Mexico that was briefly described by the US Army as a recovered "flying disc" before being reclassified as a weather balloon — and later, in 1994, as a classified Soviet nuclear-test surveillance balloon.

A sophisticated computer worm discovered in 2010 that sabotaged centrifuges at Iran's Natanz uranium enrichment facility — later confirmed to have been developed jointly by the US (NSA/CIA) and Israel (Unit 8200) under Operation Olympic Games.

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.

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.