7 conspiracy theories that are maybe/definitely real
Who doesn’t love a few good conspiracy theories to keep life interesting? We, for one, are fans of just about anything that goes bump in the night, and love a good good spine-tingling conspiracy. Thanks to the internet, mystery and intrigue blossom rapidly, and crowd-sourced conspiracies are more commonplace than ever.
With this in mind, and our comfort blankets at the ready, let’s take a look at some of the wildest and weirdest conspiracies on the internet.
1There are weird monsters in the national parks.
So this first one was posted on one of the most famous subreddits for scary stories, r/NoSleep. A search and rescue officer working for the U.S. Forest Service, in a park which he chooses not to name, creates a series of posts chronicling the strange experiences he’s had in the parks.
From creepy staircases in the middle of the woods, to people who turn up miles from where they ever could have walked on foot, these conspiracies will shake you to your core. What is the U.S. government hiding in our national parks? We may never know.
2There’s an underground bunker beneath the Denver airport.
There are tons of posts online about this one. Here’s the gist: The Denver airport cost $4.8 billion to build, but no one really understands why it was so expensive. The airport fell behind on its construction schedule by 16 months, and terrifying post-apocalyptic art adorns the airport’s interiors and exteriors. From a sculpture that seems to depict the four horsemen of the apocalypse, to scary dystopian murals, the airport is a total mystery.
Oh, and the airport’s dedication plaque contains both New World Order references and masonic imagery. People believe that the reason it went over budget and took so long to build is because it contains an underground bunker for the world’s elite, in case of natural disaster. What do you believe?
3Nobody actually lives in North Dakota.
Okay, this is a Rare Conspiracy Theory. I haven’t heard many people discussing this one, but I skimmed through it on a Reddit thread once, and I just found someone’s high school newspaper article about it (LOL). If you want to get into conspiracies, you have to start accepting that you are just not going to have great sources, but it’s all a part of the fun.
This theory implies that North Dakota doesn’t actually exist, or rather, no one lives there and it’s actually a giant military base (maybe even the real Area 51). The author of the article claims that he was driving across the South Dakota border into North Dakota, and he saw a “Welcome to Canada” sign fifty feet past the border. Does North Dakota as we know it exist? Maybe not.
4We never landed on the moon.
When Buzz Aldrin and Neil Armstrong set foot on the moon in 1969, they may have been on a movie set. Some believe that Stanley Kubrick helped to fake the moon landings in the U.S. government’s attempt to “beat” Russia during the Space Race. So, why do people believe this? It’s that footage of Buzz Aldrin holding the American flag, as it waves in the wind. Some believers claim that in the vacuum of space, wind would be impossible. There would never have been a waving flag on the surface of the moon. What do you think? Frank Ocean even buys this one.
5The Titanic’s sister ship, The Olympic, was the one to actually sink.
Theorists believe that The Olympic, The Titanic’s sister ship, was the one that actually sank in 1912. Many believe that an insurance scam is to blame. This one’s quite complicated, so I’ll let you read it for yourself, but basically there’s an age-old switcheroo, followed by some sketchy money moving. There’s even a first-person written account of the trade-out. So SPOOKED.
6JFK was killed by conspiracy.
According to a 2013 survey conducted by the non-partisan group Public Policy Polling, 51% of Americans believe that JFK was killed by conspiracy. Many researchers have pointed out inconsistencies in the official investigation, which have led people to believe there may have been a cover up. Many witnesses died shortly after the assassination, and Lee Harvey Oswald, who was arrested for the murder, was shot and killed before any conviction was made. This case is perfect for conspiracy enthusiasts: very few witnesses, no guilty party to talk to, and heavy government involvement.
7A UFO totally crashed in Roswell, New Mexico.
In the same poll referenced above, 21% of Americans believed that a UFO crashed in Roswell. The evidence seems pretty strong for this one. In 1947, an Air Force hot air balloon crashed on a ranch in Roswell, New Mexico. Pretty standard, right? Wrong. Many believe that the hot air balloon was actually a cover-up for what really happened: a UFO crash. This theory has been pretty thoroughly debunked, but tons of conspiracies that have been debunked have turned out to be true.
