# Conspiracy theories -- confirmed
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/conspiracy-theories-confirmed/506184
**Category:** Factual Questions
**Created:** [August 12, 2009, 3:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/conspiracy-theories-confirmed/506184 "2009-08-12T15:10:20Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@SmashTheState](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SmashTheState)
#### Post date: [August 12, 2009, 3:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/conspiracy-theories-confirmed/506184/1 "2009-08-12T15:10:20Z")
I’m going to try to get the snake to bite its own tail. When I’m arguing on SD, I’d like to have a list available of so-called “conspiracy/crackpot theories” which turned out to be perfectly correct. In order to qualify, it should be a view which was espoused by either a small group or a single individual, and it should be a view which was widely ridiculed by either the large majority, the powers-that-be, or the “professionals” in the associated field.
Examples with which I am already familiar would be Copernicus’ claim that the Earth was round, Pasteur’s germ theory of sickness, the burning of the Reichstag, the fake Polish attack on Germany, and the sinking of the USS Maine.
Can anyone provide more examples with citations?
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### Author:  [@Lemur866](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lemur866)
#### Post date: [August 12, 2009, 3:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/conspiracy-theories-confirmed/506184/2 "2009-08-12T15:16:17Z")
> [@SmashTheState](#):
>
> …Copernicus’ claim that the Earth was round…
:dubious:
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### Author:  [@SmashTheState](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SmashTheState)
#### Post date: [August 12, 2009, 3:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/conspiracy-theories-confirmed/506184/3 "2009-08-12T15:18:41Z")
> [@Lemur866](#):
>
> :dubious:
Yes yes, I know, it should have been Ptolemy’s claim that the Earth was round, Copernicus’ claim that the Earth orbited the Sun. So can you provide any additional examples so I can use them on you the next time you flick one of your :dubious:s at me?
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### Author:  [@Shagnasty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shagnasty)
#### Post date: [August 12, 2009, 3:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/conspiracy-theories-confirmed/506184/4 "2009-08-12T15:21:41Z")
The involvement of the CIA combined with the United Fruit Company (now Chiquita Banana) in government affairs and wars in Central America for decades going back to the 1940’s was very real. The most famous one was the Contras versus the Sandinistas in Nicaragua in the 1980’s but that was just the tail end of it. The term banana republic derives from that practice but most of it was hush, hush while the CIA was doing it.
Likewise, the Iran-Contra Affair was a true conspiracy involving at least the CIA and the military and is related to the above activities in Central America. The CIA sold arms to Iran to fund the Contras in Nicaragua. The legal proceedings confused most of the public but it was like something out of a bad novel.
A few people knew about it on the outside but the general public did not until the legal proceedings started.
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### Author:  [@Lemur866](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lemur866)
#### Post date: [August 12, 2009, 3:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/conspiracy-theories-confirmed/506184/5 "2009-08-12T15:24:01Z")
OK, that wasn’t quite cool.
Thing is, a lot of these supposed stories of how they laughed at Galileo and the Wright Brothers are myths, in the same vein as the story of George Washington chopping down the cherry tree. They were invented for didactic purposes.
You need to be careful which conspiracy stories are true and which aren’t.
Like for instance, the Maine. I don’t think this is a good example. It’s a fact that the Maine exploded, and it’s a fact that it was blamed on the Spanish, and it’s a fact that this was used to whip up war fever. But the conspiracy angle is weak, because nobody really knew why the Maine exploded. Nowadays the consensus view is that it was probably an accident, but that’s because there was no incentive for the Spanish to sabotage the ship. But nations do stupid counterproductive things all the time. No one knows for sure, and since we’re unlikely to collect more evidence on the sinking, it will probably remain one of those unsolved things forever. We can speculate, we can construct a plausible theory, but we’ll never really know.
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### Author:  [@scr4](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/scr4)
#### Post date: [August 12, 2009, 3:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/conspiracy-theories-confirmed/506184/6 "2009-08-12T15:25:44Z")
Wikipedia says a “conspiracy theory” is “any theory which explains a historical or current event as the result of a secret plot by usually powerful Machiavellian conspirators, such as a ‘secret team’ or ‘shadow government’.” That’s very different from what you’re describing in the OP.
If you’re just looking for a case where the mainstream establishment was proven wrong, that happens every time a major scientific discovery is made. It takes a lot of evidence before a new theory becomes widely accepted.
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### Author:  [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)
#### Post date: [August 12, 2009, 3:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/conspiracy-theories-confirmed/506184/7 "2009-08-12T15:29:16Z")
> [@SmashTheState](#):
>
> and the sinking of the USS Maine.
Given that the cause of the [sinking of the Maine](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Maine_(ACR-1))is still regarded as unsolved, it’s going to be difficult to resolve which view is “perfectly correct.”
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### Author:  [@AK84](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AK84)
#### Post date: [August 12, 2009, 3:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/conspiracy-theories-confirmed/506184/8 "2009-08-12T15:29:20Z")
The “Unfortunate Affair” in Israel.
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### Author:  [@Polycarp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Polycarp)
#### Post date: [August 12, 2009, 3:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/conspiracy-theories-confirmed/506184/9 "2009-08-12T15:30:07Z")
Not a conspiracy theory, per se, but a “crackpot theory” that proved true: Wegener’s ‘continental drift hypothesis’ was held to be valid by only a lunatic fringe of geologists and geophysicists when I was a kid in the 1950s. After being transmogrified into plate tectonics, it is today the received wisdom about earth history.
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### Author:  [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)
#### Post date: [August 12, 2009, 3:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/conspiracy-theories-confirmed/506184/10 "2009-08-12T15:32:20Z")
That the Bush administration was lying about Iraq having Weapons of Mass Destruction, having connections to 9/11 and being an imminent threat to the United States.
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### Author:  [@Shagnasty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shagnasty)
#### Post date: [August 12, 2009, 3:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/conspiracy-theories-confirmed/506184/11 "2009-08-12T15:34:45Z")
> [@Lemur866](#):
>
> Wright Brothers are myths, in the same vein as the story of George Washington chopping down the cherry tree. They were invented for didactic purposes.
Actually, the Wright Brothers doubt about their accomplishment isn’t quite a myth. They were very secretive about their planes for at least three years after Flyer I and had already gone through several generations of them by 1906 when they were forced out of the closet so to speak about what they had already accomplished. In demonstration flights against the competition, they literally flew rings around them. Even then, it took very drawn out legal battles to be acknowledged as the inventor of the airplane. Flyer I was sitting in a museum in England then because people in the United States didn’t realize the significance and men like Langley wanted to keep it that way.
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### Author:  [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)
#### Post date: [August 12, 2009, 3:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/conspiracy-theories-confirmed/506184/12 "2009-08-12T15:35:05Z")
> [@scr4](#):
>
> Wikipedia says a “conspiracy theory” is “any theory which explains a historical or current event as the result of a secret plot by usually powerful Machiavellian conspirators, such as a ‘secret team’ or ‘shadow government’.” That’s very different from what you’re describing in the OP.
>
> If you’re just looking for a case where the mainstream establishment was proven wrong, that happens every time a major scientific discovery is made. It takes a lot of evidence before a new theory becomes widely accepted.
I’d agree that two rather different things are being asked for in the OP:
1. Instances of a prevailing scientific theory being proved wrong. Happens all the time. (Newtonian physics, anyone?)
2. Conspiracy theories explain historical events rather than scientific facts. By their nature they are not as susceptible to proof or disproof, so here it is going to be very difficult to establish which view is “perfectly correct.”
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### Author:  [@Cisco](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cisco)
#### Post date: [August 12, 2009, 3:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/conspiracy-theories-confirmed/506184/13 "2009-08-12T15:35:14Z")
> [@SmashTheState](#):
>
> I’m going to try to get the snake to bite its own tail. When I’m arguing on SD, I’d like to have a list available of so-called “conspiracy/crackpot theories” which turned out to be perfectly correct. In order to qualify, it should be a view which was espoused by either a small group or a single individual, and it should be a view which was widely ridiculed by either the large majority, the powers-that-be, or the “professionals” in the associated field.
>
> Examples with which I am already familiar would be Copernicus’ claim that the Earth was round, Pasteur’s germ theory of sickness, the burning of the Reichstag, the fake Polish attack on Germany, and the sinking of the USS Maine.
>
> Can anyone provide more examples with citations?
Thing is, you could find 10,000 of these that are ‘perfectly correct,’ and it still wouldn’t make any other CT correct. I don’t get why people think that if Hitler burnt down the Reichstag or Johnson blew the Gulf of Tonkin incident out of proportion, then there were bombs in the World Trade Center. One does not follow the other.
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### Author:  [@IAmNotSpartacus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/IAmNotSpartacus)
#### Post date: [August 12, 2009, 3:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/conspiracy-theories-confirmed/506184/14 "2009-08-12T15:43:00Z")
> [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](#):
>
> That the Bush administration was lying about Iraq having Weapons of Mass Destruction, having connections to 9/11 and being an imminent threat to the United States.
Sorry, I thought we were talking about conspiracy theories that turned out to be true?
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### Author:  [@Fubaya](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fubaya)
#### Post date: [August 12, 2009, 3:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/conspiracy-theories-confirmed/506184/15 "2009-08-12T15:43:56Z")
I can’t find it but there was a thread here on this same subject a while back and IIRC, it had a whole bunch of confirmed theories.
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### Author:  [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)
#### Post date: [August 12, 2009, 3:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/conspiracy-theories-confirmed/506184/16 "2009-08-12T15:45:28Z")
> [@IAmNotSpartacus](#):
>
> Sorry, I thought we were talking about conspiracy theories that turned out to be true?
That did turn out to be true. I’m saying that the Bush administration really did conspire to lie, not that Iraq was guilty of anything it was accused of.
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### Author:  [@Simplicio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Simplicio)
#### Post date: [August 12, 2009, 3:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/conspiracy-theories-confirmed/506184/17 "2009-08-12T15:49:05Z")
I think a lot of the OP’s examples are kind of weak. The reasons for the Sinking of the Maine are still debated, the Reichstag fire was probably set by der Lubbe as per the offical story (albeit, not as part of a wider Communist plot, as Hitler claimed), the Polish attack on Germany is certainly not true, but I’m skeptical that even at the time many people belived it. The idea that the world is round predates both Copernicus and Ptolemy.
I don’t really know anything about the development of Germ theory, so I’ll let someone else opine on whether there was much official push-back to Pasteur.
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### Author:  [@IAmNotSpartacus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/IAmNotSpartacus)
#### Post date: [August 12, 2009, 3:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/conspiracy-theories-confirmed/506184/18 "2009-08-12T15:50:55Z")
> [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](#):
>
> That did turn out to be true. I’m saying that the Bush administration really did conspire to lie, not that Iraq was guilty of anything it was accused of.
“I see,” said the blind man; to the deaf dog, who said, “What?”
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### Author:  [@Rhythmdvl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rhythmdvl)
#### Post date: [August 12, 2009, 4:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/conspiracy-theories-confirmed/506184/19 "2009-08-12T16:00:43Z")
Cigarette companies. Massive amounts of research on addiction and making cigarettes more addictive, kept silent for years.
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### Author:  [@HorseloverFat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HorseloverFat)
#### Post date: [August 12, 2009, 4:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/conspiracy-theories-confirmed/506184/20 "2009-08-12T16:08:03Z")
> [@](#):
>
> I think a lot of the OP’s examples are kind of weak.
Seconding this. Having skepticism or disinformation about something is not the same as that thing being a conspiracy theory, as its generally understood to mean. Secrecy isnt conspiracy. The KFC recipe isnt a conspiracy theory. Your closeted co-worker’s love life isnt a conspiracy theory. Resistance to new ideas is not a conspiracy theory. etc. 20 July plot to overthrow Hitler was a conspiracy that people theorized about. USS Maine and Wright brothers? Not so much.
A part of me is really biased against the OP as real conspiracy nutters hold up some of those examples as proof that their pet conspiracies could be true, because if youre so loose with the term, conspiracies happen at the time.
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