On a scale of “0 to 10” (“0” being patent nonsense, “5” being “Hmmm… maybe they have something there”, and “10” being patent truth), how legitimate are the following conspiracy theories, in your opinion. Comment further, should you wish.
More than one person was involved in the death of JFK
The moon landing was fake
An alien spaceship crashed near Roswell, New Mexico
The US Government had prior knowledge or actively participated in 9/11
The “face” seen in a photo of the surface of Mars was created intelligently
The death of Princess Diana was not accidental
OOOOkkkkkkay…GO!
Okay, I’ll go first. I’ll say:
More than one person was involved in the death of JFK
8
The moon landing was fake
0
An alien spaceship crashed near Roswell, New Mexico
2
The US Government had prior knowledge or actively participated in 9/11
3
The “face” seen in a photo of the surface of Mars was created intelligently
2
More than one person was involved in the death of JFK
7
The moon landing was fake
0
An alien spaceship crashed near Roswell, New Mexico
0
The US Government had prior knowledge or actively participated in 9/11
Prior Knowledge: 7
Actively Participated: 0
The “face” seen in a photo of the surface of Mars was created intelligently
0
The death of Princess Diana was not accidental
2
-I think the evidence is very strong that someone else was involved in the Kennedy assassination.
-Most of the strongest arguments about the moon landing being faked are based on armchair analysis of photographs and judgments based on them which are not supported by professional photographical analysis.
-I think it likely the government knew something prior to 9/11. My opinion is it was something along the lines of “the FBI had some vague information about a terror attack on the United States, but did not know the participants, date, or specifics.”
-The “face” thing has been shown to be the result of less sophisticated photography than is currently available. Higher quality imaging of the site shows it to simply be a mountains region.
Zeroes across the board. For all the hype about conspiracy theories, nary a one has come to pass. Until the time comes that one turns out to be true I will continue to be extraordinarily skeptical.
Although I do believe that life likely exists elsewhere in the universe.
As Martin Hyde stated, it greatly depends on what you mean by prior knowledge. Actively participated: 0. Prior knowledge that something like what happened might be on the terrorist’s radar:8. Prior knowledge that terrorists from Saudi Arabia were in the country practicing taking over planes with boxcutters and were going to go live on 9/11: 0.5, and even if that turns out to be the case, I don’t think that it is something that the President personally had knowledge of.
0
3
Oddly enough, that aligns pretty closely with Martin Hyde’s response, which goes to show that belief in particular conspiracy theories don’t seem to have any natural basis in political leanings.
Actually, a great many have come to pass (but none that were recognized as conspiracies until after the fact). Conspiracies do exist in real life, you know. And at present, America is dealing with the consequences of several.
More than one person was involved in the death of JFK:
Only one person shot him.
The moon landing was fake
0, countless threads done showing why.
An alien spaceship crashed near Roswell, New Mexico
There was a crash, although it was a secret balloon project to detect Soviet nuclear activity in the atmosphere.
The US Government had prior knowledge or actively participated in 9/11
0 for actively participated; depends on what you mean by “prior knowledge.” They knew Osama Bin Laden was determined to strike inside the U.S., as per the famous presidential daily briefing that led to Rice squirming in her seat. That’s about it, though.
The “face” seen in a photo of the surface of Mars was created intelligently
0, especially due to the later photos showing it to be just a hill.
The death of Princess Diana was not accidental
0 as far as I know, although maybe I shouldn’t rate this one because I don’t know much about it. What’s the conspiracy, though? It was a car accident.
Well, from what I gather, the idea behind this is that the driver was induced with a very bright flash of light to crash while pressed by pursuers to drive into a dangerous tunnel. It’s alleged that the seat belts were tampered with to prevent usage, and so on…
The U.S. government did not carry out 9/11, There is no face on Mars, We landed on the moon, Princess Di was killed in an accident, No aliens have crashed at Roswell or anywhere else.
Did “someone else” help Oswald kill Kennedy? Probably not, but maybe there was someone he talked to, planned things out with, who knows. The U.S. government was certainly not involved, nor were the mafia.
Did the U.S. government have foreknowledge of 9/11? Almost certainly not, but I suppose it’s slightly more plausible than most 9/11 theories. Really though I think the blunders that allowed 9/11 to happen were the result of incompetence, not malice.
So zero for almost all of them, but maybe a 0.5 for the last two.
More than one person was involved in the death of JFK
7
The moon landing was fake
are you sure we can’t use negative numbers? 0
An alien spaceship crashed near Roswell, New Mexico
3
The US Government had prior knowledge or actively participated in 9/11
prior knowledge (generic): 7-8
prior knowledge (specific, that would have allowed them to prevent it): 1
activity: 0
The “face” seen in a photo of the surface of Mars was created intelligently
0, there are good photos of that formation from other angles and different lighting that pretty clearly disprove that notion
First, I wouldn’t give a zero to anything that doesn’t violate physical law.
More than one person was involved in the death of JFK : Never paid close enough attention to make a judgement; before my time.
The moon landing was fake : 2. Doesn’t violate any physical laws, but the chance of doing so successfully without the USSR noticing and spreading the word are miniscule.
An alien spaceship crashed near Roswell, New Mexico : 2. It’s possible in theory, and I find it plausible that the government would try to keep it secret. I doubt that they could keep it secret for this long. I also doubt that an alien craft would crash. In fact, if there are aliens in this system who don’t want to be seen, I seriously doubt the government or anyone would know it.
The US Government had prior knowledge or actively participated in 9/11 : 7, 4 respectively. I’d be surprised if they didn’t have a good idea it or something similar wasn’t going to happen. The G-8 summit having anti-aircraft defenses, some Bush officials refusing to fly commercial jets before 9-11 ( Ashcroft IIRC ), Bush ignoring any and all warnings ( “you’ve covered your ass, now go away” )the fact that 9-11 was exactly what the PNAC people said they needed. As well, it makes for a very practical conspiracy; only a few people at the top need to participate, and all they need is to do nothing; that’s highly unlikely to be provable, and it’s very deniable. It’s like my rich uncle changing his will to make me sole heir and him turning up the next day murdered with an axe; it’s not proof that I was involved, but I know who the cops would look at first.
OTOH, I don’t see them arranging 9-11 without getting caught. Far more people would need to be involved, evidence would likely be left around. If Osama hadn’t gotten around to it, I wouldn’t have been at all surprised if they would have tried to arrange a 9-11 of their own, however.
The “face” seen in a photo of the surface of Mars was created intelligently : 1. As said, it’s facelike appearance was only an artifact of the angle and technology; I don’t give it a zero, because it’s possible that it was still artificial. Of course, that could be said of just about anyplace; I’d rate it at the same likelyhood as Mt Everest being an alien artifact.
The death of Princess Diana was not accidental : I never really cared enough to pay close attention to the whole affair.
Awwwww… come on… maybe they didn’t keep the photovoltaic transduction fluid pumps lubricated. I’ve seen it a million times… Or maybe they let their “Universe Positioning System: Wormhole Edition” subscription expire.
But really, if a jet can crash into a swamp full of alligators, then…
Then we have primitive technology compared to interstellar travellers. Who would be way, way, way past us.
As well, if they wanted to keep themselves secret, and for some odd reason wanted to fly around in person instead of using, say, insect sized spybots, why wouldn’t they have installed a self destruct ? Or swooped down and picked up the supposed bodies ?
I’ll see your insect-sized spybots, and I’ll raise you a:
Well, maybe the self-destruct mechanism itself was broken too, hey? How 'bout that! If they’ve got a crashing spaceship on their hands, it’s not much of a stretch to assume that whatever is causing the crash could also cause their self-destruct mechanism to fail… And as far as the likelihood of their buddies swooping down for a cadaver run, well, maybe they were lost and alone…
kind of like a couple of alien kids takin’ the neighbors Galaxy Hotrod 5000 out for a joyride while on a couple of pangalactic Gargle Blasters and just…wham, wrong turn in sector Beta Nu 2930. Don’t drink and fly, you’ll end up an earth government conspiracy :eek:
A friend of mine and I did this. We “borrowed” his Mom’s car, took it for a joyride at 3AM in the local construction zone and high centered it on a berm. We couldn’t get it off the berm for the LIFE of us. So, we… smashed all the widows out and lit it on fire!! :eek: to make it look like it was stolen. Of course, my buddy forgot to take his duffle bag out of the trunk and he torched all of his textbooks and binders for high school :smack: :smack: :smack:
More than one person was involved in the death of JFK: 7
“Involved” meaning planning, arranging, financing and cleaning. I think Oswald was the only gunman.
The moon landing was fake: 0
An alien spaceship crashed near Roswell, New Mexico: 0
The US Government had prior knowledge or actively participated in 9/11
Prior knowledge that ‘something’ was going to happen: 9
Prior knowledge of that particular attack: 2
Participation: 0.5
The “face” seen in a photo of the surface of Mars was created intelligently: 1
The death of Princess Diana was not accidental
Not entirely accidental: 6
A deliberate hit: 2
Re: Diana. I kinda like the theory that the motorcyclists were Mossad agents trying to get embarrassing photos to discredit Diana’s anti-landmine campaign, but that the actual crash was unintentional. As my friend said, “they were just trying to smear her.” My response: “They did.”