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20 of the internet's craziest conspiracy theories

The truth is out there

20 of the internet's craziest conspiracy theories

By Shortlist Team

01 February 2019

Lizard people. The Illuminati and the New World Order. Rihanna is the devil. 9/11 and JFK. Yawn. All those theories are just so pedestrian.

We’ve scoured the internet for the craziest (and therefore best) conspiracy theories that the human race’s hive mind can muster.

Nothing you’ve watched on TV, seen in the night sky, walked about on during the daytime, learned in school or listened to on the radio is as it seems.

Prepare to be faced with the ultimate series of exposées…

See our list of Best Rock Star Biographies

The Beatles never existed

Forget the old chestnut that Paul is dead, that's amateur hour stuff. How about this one: from the moment they began, The Beatles were a fake band staffed by a revolving cast of (almost) identical actors. The buggers! Luckily, one website has set out to shine a light on the physical discrepancies between each stand-in member. If you often find yourself reading sentences like, "It's interesting to note that there were different shapes, sizes and styles of eyebrows over the years," and nodding vigorously, then this is the website for you.

Barack Obama could control the weather

There he is, look, casting a bit of fog over Wyoming!
During both his terms, it was alleged that President Obama deliberately manipulated the weather to deflect attention away from the White House in times of scandal. In May 2013, after a mile-wide tornado struck Moore, Oklahoma and killed 24 people, right-leaning broadcasters and internet “truthers” suggested the USAF had caused the disaster on purpose to distract from a series of governmental controversies.

The Earth is flat

The Flat Earth Society was established in the early 1800s by the English inventor Samuel Birley Rowbotham and remains at the very forefront of 11th Century thinking. ‘Zetetic Astronomy’, as the society prefers to call it, has had to explain away many threats to its principles over the years. Things like manned missions to the moon, satellites, photographs of the (round) Earth from space, and endless series of Prof. Brian Cox’s inspirational TV shows. Still, they’ve got 121,000 likes on Facebook, and celebrities who’ve expressed anti-sphere sentiments include B.o.B, Shaquille O’Neal and Freddie Flintoff.

Saddam Hussein had a stargate

The theory that the second Gulf War was waged in order to close a stargate owned by Saddam Hussein, thus preserving the ambitions of the New World Order and preventing an alien invasion of Earth is not exactly widespread. However, if you study the picture above closely, it looks suspiciously like Saddam could be saying, “Stargate? Yeah mate. It’s out the back. Wanna have a look?” And that’s evidence enough for us. (It’s also as much evidence as this website has.)

Saved By The Bell was a vehicle for the Illuminati

Turns out that teen high school comedy Saved By The Bell was riddled with hidden messages endorsing Satanism. This website exposes the true intentions of the show’s creators and its stars, as well as the hidden message in the theme tune. What a giveaway! Despite the Illuminati being all-powerful space lizards who control the world and everything in it, they couldn’t find it in their scaly little hearts to reward the guy who played Mr. Belding with a movie career. Some gratitude, eh?

Hitler is still alive

The advent of the internet hasn't just cooked up new conspiracy theories, it's also accelerated existing ones. "Hitler is still alive" rumours have circulated since the 1970s, fuelled by the fact that his crony Josef Mengele hid in South America. Stories like this one, however, speculate the 125-year-old Hitler has been responsible for various world disasters, including 9/11 and the 2010 Gulf oil spill, which happened on his birthday. Other theories say he died in 1984 in Brazil, aged 94. Or in Argentina , aged 73.

The Large Hadron Collider is a device for awakening an Egyptian god

Rather than a multi-national cooperative to further our scientific knowledge of atomic particles, the Large Hadron Collider is in fact a multi-dimensional portal intended to awaken Osiris, the Egyptian god of death. This website explains how it works in further detail. We’ll take it as read that the author is a scientist.

n.b. Specsavers have a range called Osiris, too. Maybe they’re in on it?

The moon doesn’t exist

It’s no good looking at it, night after night. The moon doesn’t exist. It’s a hologram, put there by persons unknown. Of course, serial conspiracy theorist David Icke has a theory. There are also countless YouTubers keeping an eye out, one of whom has gone as far as “looking at it regularly for a year”.

Jay-Z is a time-travelling vampire

There are vast regions of the internet devoted to explaining why Jay Z is part of the Illuminati. Hence when this photo, which was taken in New York in 1939, appeared a few years ago, he was accused of being a time-traveller. And a vampire. This video lists other old-time celebrity lookalikes/temporal anomalies, as well as suggesting that Hollywood stars don’t age because they’re the immortal bloodsucking undead. Not because they’re stuffed with botox, then?

Time Cube: today is four days at once

Question: If someone described themselves as "The Wisest Human", "The Greatest Mathematician", and "The Greatest Philosopher" would that put you off? Might you think them abit of a big-head? How about if they had a website that ranted in massive fonts about a concept where four days happen at once, all the while constantly pointing out that you're too stupid to understand it? Why not click here and see how you feel.

The Earth is hollow

Don't give up, readers. We're halfway through this list. We can make it to the end. Dig deep. Well, not too deep. You see, the Earth is hollow and accessible via portals at the north and south poles. Luckily though, it's quite habitable down there, providing excellent living quarters for the lost Viking colonies of Greenland and the Nazis, while "aliens" are in fact just visitors from the subterranean yonder.

Dinosaurs helped build the pyramids

“Of course the ‘dinoceros’ existed,” Pastor Vince Fenech told MaltaToday in 2007. “It is mentioned in the Book of Job. They were used to help build the pyramids…”
Fenech was director of the Accelerated Christian Academy in Mosta, Malta, until its closure in July 2012. Rather sadly, given its thrilling sci-fi curriculum, the school closed due to its having no students enrolled. This website reports that a pyramid discovered in the Ukraine dates from the Jurassic period. Imagine a T.rex holding a spade. You can’t. Its hands were too little.

Siri can predict the apocalypse

Amazing as it may seem, given that it can’t do anything else you actually ask it to do, Siri can predict the apocalypse. Or did, anyway. When asked in 2013, “What day is 27th July 2014?”, Apple’s cheery assistant supposedly replied, “The opening of the gate of Hades”, aka The End Of The World. That date is now ages ago, and the gate to Hades remains closed. Say what you like about the maligned MS Office paperclip, but at least Clippy didn’t claim that the end was nigh.

Hunter S. Thompson was murdered

There are plenty of murder conspiracy theories out there, but the suggestion that Hunter S. Thompson was killed by someone other than himself is a lesser-known one. The theory goes that the Fear And Loathing author was working on a piece about the World Trade Centre when he was taken out by a government assassin.

Denver Airport is the home of all evil

Another nugget from the New World Order truthers: Denver International Airport is the epicentre of World Evil. Because World Evil needs somewhere where it can just relax and be itself. Away from the daily grind of all that bad doing. Handily, there are cryptic signs all over the airport to remind enlightened travellers of the evilness they’re traversing. For more insight, you may enjoy this comprehensive piece.

Louis Tomlinson's baby is fake

One Direction star Louis Tomlinson and partner Briana Jungwirth introduced the world to their newborn son Freddie in January 2016. Except, according to conspiracy theorists, it wasn’t his baby. Freddie isn’t real, but rather the latest strand spun by One Direction’s PR team to ensure that Louis’ relationship with Harry Styles isn’t revealed to the world. Read through this summary and prepare to have all scepticism eroded by mountains of evidence. Sorry, “evidence”.

We all live in the Matrix and billionaires want to break us out of it

Now this might sound like an elaborate ploy to help rekindle The Matrix box set sales, but as far as we can tell neither Warner Bros. nor Keanu Reeves are behind it. The New Yorker’s Tad Friend claims that many people in Silicon Valley are obsessed with the idea that we’re all living in a Matrix-like simulation, and some are taking that obsession a stage further: “Two tech billionaires have gone so far as to secretly engage scientists to work on breaking us out of the simulation.”

Here’s hoping Mark Zuckerberg is ‘The One’, yeah?

Hillary Clinton is actually dead and was replaced by a body double

Let’s be clear about this - Hillary Clinton did not die from a bout of pneumonia that saw her cancel various parts of her presidential campaign tour in September 2016. But when an ABC news anchor accidentally says she did die, and you hand a series of blurred photos to the internet’s legions of Trump supporters, you can build a pretty convincing case that it was a body double that continued her doomed campaign.

Michael Jackson was killed by the Iranian government

The day that the King of Pop died, Twitter briefly broke from the influx of RIP tweets which knocked #IranElection off the trending top spot. According to some pundits, this prevented Iranian protesters from using the service to organize protests against President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s manipulation of the recent election, effectively killing the movement’s momentum. Clearly, Ahmadinejad was responsible. That would make him, just like MJ, both bad and dangerous.

Michael Jackson is still alive

If you refuse to believe that it was the Iranians that killed him, perhaps you’ll be convinced that MJ is actually still alive. Proof? His own daughter Paris Jackson took a photo of him. Seriously.

What do you mean you don't see him? He's right there in the back seat, stacked under that pile of clothes wearing his iconic hat. Believe, man. Thriller Vol.2 to drop next year.

(Images: Rex, Allstar)