Inspired by the GQ thread on people believing that the Sandy Hook murders were a hoax perpetuated by the U.S. government in anticipation of gun control measures.
Seems pretty unlikely…but have you heard any conspiracy theories that were even madder? That have been proposed seriously by someone, not as a joke. I’m a student of history, so my favourites involve monkeying around with chronology. The one I especially like is the “Phantom time hypothesis”, which posits that everything between the years 613-911 A.D. never occurred, and that Charlemagne was invented in a conspiracy.
Nah. That “phantom time” conspiracy theory is interesting, but for a CT to really play, it’s got to have some element of fear to engage the paranoia of the tinfoil-hat crowd, like “UN troops are massing in the Bermuda Triangle in preparation for taking over America”. It also needs a ridiculously fantastic element, such as “Handicapped spaces are painted blue because that’s the color of the UN army’s helmets, and those spots are where they’ll park their tanks when they seize key buildings.” Also, any really good CT should involve the Illuminati, the Knights Templar, or the Jews.
Far and away, my favorite is David Icke’s theory that the world is run by a conspiracy of shape-shifting lizards, the membership of which includes Queen Elizabeth, George Bush, and Boxcar Willie (well, obviously).
The Phantom Time hypothesis is nothing compared to the New Chronology, which asserts, in brief, that human civilization is only about 1,000 years old, Russia/Turkey is the cradle of civilization and all the stuff that supposedly happened in Rome/Greece/Egypt/the Mideast actually happened there, and that mainstream history was invented in the 16th century by the newly-founded Roman Catholic Church (which had just finished inventing the Bible at the Council of Trent) in order to affirm their legitimacy.
I’ve always been fond of the “Planet X” CT, where some dark planet called Nemesis was supposed to come out of the depths of space and wreak havoc on Earth.
I think the original date was in 2003…any day now…
But for pure bat-guano crazy, I have to concur that Icke’s lizard-men is probably the best of the worst.
I came in here to mention this one. Obviously you are one of the lizard people, and that’s how you beat me to it.
Just looked at your link. Geez, I didn’t know his theory was that nutso. I knew he thought the Queen and some others were reptilians, but reptilians from the constellation Draco, looking for monatomic gold?
I have a soft spot in my heart for the “President invokes martial law, enforced by U.N. troops in silent helicopters with all the signs and fencing and stuff stored neatly in Wal-Marts all over the country.” I like it because 1) it’s been going on for at least 30 years, and it doesn’t matter who’s President b) helicopters are pretty damn loud and c) with all the people in this country who work at and shop at Wal-Mart, no one has ever seen all the stuff that’s supposedly being stored there.
I must admit, I kind of admire the sheer tenacity of the “President X is going to suspend the constitution” theory. Like some kind of hyperactive monkey, it effortlessly jumps between right-wing & left-wing whackjobs, depending on who the current president is.
I don’t know about this one. Maybe not barcodes, but in this day & age, the idea of an artificial “something” being forced on the populace so that everyone can be tracked at all times is becoming disturbingly plausible.
It’s like my own pet theory that the firey destruction described in Revelations is a nuclear war. Maybe someone in the First Century couldn’t conceive of how such destruction might happen, but these days it’s really not so hard.
I worked with barcodes for a few months in my internship and I love any excuse to talk about them. This one is pretty easy to debunk, though, as the bars supposedly representing “666” in this image aren’t even identical, let alone valid digits.
I like the one that Michelle Obama is actually a transsexual named Michael Robinson, who played middle linebacker for Oregon State before his procedure.
But I also really like the conspiracy theory that Stevie Wonder isn’t really blind. It’s all just an elaborate ruse, apparently.
I like the theory because it is completely and utterly pointless. If 9/11 was an inside job, that would be an incredibly important fact to know. If the world’s leaders really were reptillians, we should find that out immediately and deport them back to their own planet. If JFK was killed by the CIA, every citizen should be aware of that so that we have some idea of how dangerous our government can be.
If Stevie Wonder can actually see … our lives are exactly the same either way. It really doesn’t matter at all. I’m amused that there are people out there who spend time worrying about it.
Chemtrails is pretty up there, also lizard people.
A guy I knew in the Army (who I had considered a friend until this revelation) once told me, completely seriously, about “spiritual warfare” and how God and the Devil were waging war with each other behind the scenes here on Earth. He then explained that all the other world religions were being led by demons, or if not by actual demons, people being controlled by actual demons. Dude had books on it and everything. This one takes the cake for me.
