25 weirdest internet conspiracy theories
From Louis Tomlinson's baby to what's really going on with the Moon
It’s healthy to have both an inquisitive and sceptical mind, but there is a fine line between conspiracy and lunacy. The internet giveth and taketh; here are the theories that fall on the wrong side of that line.
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, 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.
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 Silicone 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, 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 a body double has been continuing her campaign ever since.
Wearable tech is just one step on a road to letting companies control our brains
We could write an entire book on the conspiracy theories believe by David Icke - but he's already done that for us. In his latest work Phantom Self, he outlines how smart technology is all a ploy to get humans to happily insert microchips into their heads.
"The human brain is a biological computer. It blatantly is. It’s a biological version of a computer system. If you look at the brain, it processes information in the form of electrical activity. If you can get technology into the body and hack in to the biological information processing system, you can remotely dictate someone’s sense of reality."
Michael Jackson is still alive
If you refuse to believe that it was the Iranians that killed him (you'll see), 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.
The Moon isn’t real
We didn’t land on it, the tides aren’t affected by it, in fact it doesn’t even exist. It’s a hologram, according to theorists, for reasons unknown. The collective ‘they’ are just trying to mess with us. Of course, serial conspiracy theorist David Icke has something to say about it, but this YouTuber claims there’s proof.
CERN Built a Star Gate to Awaken the Egyptian God Osiris
No, the Large Hadron Collider’s aim is not to further our understanding of atomic particles, it’s a portal to awaken Osiris, god of death. If you’re interested in reading more, here’s ten minutes of your life you won’t be able to get back.
Dinosaurs helped build the pyramids
The ancient Egyptians built the pyramids to inspire awe, instead they blew the minds of theorists and remain one of the most debated structures in the world. This particular theory comes from a school in Malta called the Accelerated Christian Academy. The director simply states “Of course the dinosaurs existed. It is mentioned in the Book of Job. They were used to help build the pyramids”. His school closed in 2012.
The US government tried to poison the people of Georgia with fake snow
To be fair, it was weird when it snowed in the southern states in America. But it’s nothing that a meteorologist couldn’t have explained. Residents claimed that the snow didn’t melt the way it should, and that it smelt like chemicals, so clearly the government was trying to kill them.
The Earth is hollow
Yep. We’ve gotten over the fact it’s not flat, so it must be hollow. Cue X-Files music. Apparently the centre of the earth can be accessed via a portal at the South Pole and NASA and multiple governments have been hiding it from us. It’s so well camouflaged that even David Attenborough didn’t see it on his travels.
Denver airport is the gate to hell
Anyone who has had to deal with the TSA could believe that any airport in the U.S is hell on earth. However, New World Order truthers believe that Denver International Airport is the epicentre of all evil. There are many utterly ridiculous reason why here.
Robin Williams was an Illuminati sacrifice
Not even the Illuminati would have the heart to deprive the world of Robin Williams. However, given that a Family Guy episode featuring Williams and a failed suicide attempt aired coincidentally at the same time as the actors death was announced. Theorists went nuts, but even the key Illuminati researchers called bull.
The two Malaysian aircraft crashes were the same plane
The disappearance of Malaysia Airlines MH370 and the shooting down of MH17 had theorists instantly drumming out keyboard diarrhoea. According to this theory, the USA and the Ukraine needed to increase public support against the rebels in Eastern Ukraine and Russia. To this end, they made MH370 disappear mid-flight over the Indian Ocean, smuggled it halfway across the world, remodeled it into an exact double of MH17, and then destroyed it in the air, framing the rebels for the incident.
President Obama was sent to Mars as a college student
According to Andrew Basaigo and William Stillings, there’s a lot that’s being hidden about the college years of President Barack Obama. They claim that he – along with themselves – were chrononauts in the employment of DARPA while they were in college. Their mission? To walk into a top secret ‘jump room’ and walk out onto Mars. The best bit about this is the fact that they say Obama’s name back then was Barry Soetero.
Carmex adds fibreglass into their lip balm
There must be a reason it’s so addictive, it must be spiked with bits of fiberglass so that it cuts your lips and you must buy Carmex again and again. Talk about brand loyalty. Despite being proven false, people claim that the big company’s bucks are keeping the truth mum.
Michael Jackson was killed by the Iranian government
The day that the king of pop died, Twitter 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.
The 2010 shark attacks in Egypt were caused by Israel
When shark attacks killed tourism on Egyptian beaches, the government scrambled for an unnatural explanation. Following divers reports that there were sharks in the water with GPS tags, the finger was immediately pointed to Israel, who must have created bionic shark spies.
The Nazis are regrouping in Antarctica
With UFO’s, might we add.
The dark ages never happened
Forming the basis of this theory is the difference between the Gregorian and the Julian calendars. In theory, when the Gregorian calendar was introduced in 1582, there should have been 13 days difference between it and the Julian calendar – one for each 100 years it had been around. But it was only 10 days off… So, clearly, 300 centuries that we thought did happen, didn’t.
WWII was staged
Those wretched Illuminati terrified us all into submission. Or so says David Richards who argues "the official story of WW2 collapses like a house of cards" under minimal scrutiny, although he offers no explanation as to why thousands of GCSE history students have failed to reach the same conclusion.
Apple pay is the mark of the beast
Christianity was onto Apple Pay long before the tech giants, they just forgot to trademark it. According to theorists, the fingerprint driven system is a sign of the Mark of the Beast. We’ll refer you to the image on the left to see the source of this ridiculousness and here for a hilarious analysis.
Cats are spies sent to Earth by aliens
The crux of this is that cats have been around forever, they always land on their feet, sleeping cats often jolt out of slumber (to receive transmissions from the mothership), if you hold back a cat’s ears they look rather alien like (ahem, green eyes too might we add), and there is no scientific explanation for a cat’s purr. Further reading here. First internet domination, then the world.
Daniel Lee doesn’t exist
To give you a bit of context, Daniel Lee is a South Korean rapper and according to the internet he does not exist.
Homer Simpson has been in a coma for 22 years
Reddit is a petri dish for conspiracy theories. And according to Reddit user Hardtopickaname (the struggle is real), Homer Simpson has been in a coma since April 1993 and every episode since then has all been in Homer’s imagination. This would explain why the characters never age, and why the episodes have become more farfetched in recent years.
The Queen is a cannibal
Yes, you read that right. Cultural philosopher Hubert Humdinger (a remarkably apt name) sparked this theory by allegedly explaining Queen Elizabeth II’s famous energetic personality in a 1973 article: “She must eat human flesh to be so vivacious. There is an immense amount of spiritual energy in human muscle.” This was then followed up by a number of stories that raise the question that all of these conspiracies do – what the actual eff?
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