# Non-Americans: What are your country's own conspiracy theories? **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [March 8, 2015, 5:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/non-americans-what-are-your-countrys-own-conspiracy-theories/714540 "2015-03-08T17:34:10Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![An\_Gadai](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/d6d6ee/32.png) [@An\_Gadai](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/An_Gadai)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2015, 9:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/non-americans-what-are-your-countrys-own-conspiracy-theories/714540/61 "2015-03-11T21:39:47Z")
> [@Leo\_Bloom](#): > > In Defence of Conspiracy Theories: With Examples from Irish and International History and Politics[Paperback] > Brian Nugent (Author) That links back to this thread. ---
**Author:** ![MrSBaldrick](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/87869e/32.png) [@MrSBaldrick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrSBaldrick)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2015, 10:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/non-americans-what-are-your-countrys-own-conspiracy-theories/714540/62 "2015-03-11T22:13:14Z")
> [@mbh](#): > > Why do the Israelis want Patagonia? So, … essentially Lebensraum then? [or is it too soon?!!] :dubious: ---
**Author:** ![eschereal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eschereal/32/18939_2.png) [@eschereal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eschereal)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2015, 10:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/non-americans-what-are-your-countrys-own-conspiracy-theories/714540/63 "2015-03-11T22:21:43Z")
> [@Steken](#): > > Second place goes to the [MS _Estonia_](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MS_Estonia) disaster in 1994. Huh. That one is just too obvious. They renamed the ship. ---
**Author:** ![dougrb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/76d3ee/32.png) [@dougrb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dougrb)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2015, 12:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/non-americans-what-are-your-countrys-own-conspiracy-theories/714540/64 "2015-03-12T00:29:12Z")
> [@Loach](#): > > How about the one where the evil brewmaster places mind control drugs in his beer and ships it off to an Oktoberfest celebration? I saw a documentary about that! ---
**Author:** ![kambuckta](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/53a042/32.png) [@kambuckta](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kambuckta)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2015, 12:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/non-americans-what-are-your-countrys-own-conspiracy-theories/714540/65 "2015-03-12T00:37:55Z")
> [@Slow\_Moving\_Vehicle](#): > > According to Bill Bryson, Melbourne erected a memorial to Holt: a public swimming pool. Yet more evidence of Australia being one of the coolest nations on the globe. It’s still there. I used to attend school swimming carnivals at the [Harold Holt Pool!](http://www.stonnington.vic.gov.au/explore-stonnington/sport-and-recreation/harold-holt-swim-centre/) 😃 ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2015, 12:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/non-americans-what-are-your-countrys-own-conspiracy-theories/714540/66 "2015-03-12T00:41:02Z")
> [@smithsb](#): > > I’m American but Latin America has always had CTs about US involvement in local political upheaval - easily believed because a number of them proved to be true. Most outlandish is HAARP project causing cancer among various socialist leaders. See also HAARP causing earthquakes, floods, pestilence, etc… around the world. > > If it was that “good”; why did it get shut down? Or was it shut down? If wiki is to be believed, HAARP has been shut down and is being dismantled. It was an experiment after all. No mention of the much larger fully functional replacement system that CTers are certain got built somewhere \*they \*don’t want us to know about. :eek: :rolleyes: ---
**Author:** ![kayaker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kayaker/32/441_2.png) [@kayaker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kayaker)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2015, 1:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/non-americans-what-are-your-countrys-own-conspiracy-theories/714540/67 "2015-03-12T01:57:57Z")
> [@An\_Gadai](#): > > That links back to this thread. Need more proof than that?! ---
**Author:** ![Kropotkin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kropotkin/32/18045_2.png) [@Kropotkin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kropotkin)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2015, 2:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/non-americans-what-are-your-countrys-own-conspiracy-theories/714540/68 "2015-03-12T02:48:34Z")
Well, in 1868, a lot of people thought D’Arcy McGee, one of the fathers of Canadian confederation, was assassinated as part of a Fenian plot, but I don’t think think anyone has been worked up it since about 1869. I have had people at public talks in Canada go off about the Illuminati, black helicopters, and the gold standard, (sometimes all at once) but these aren’t “Canadian” as such. ---
**Author:** ![thelurkinghorror](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/7c8e57/32.png) [@thelurkinghorror](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thelurkinghorror)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2015, 4:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/non-americans-what-are-your-countrys-own-conspiracy-theories/714540/69 "2015-03-12T04:45:48Z")
> [@](#): > > 1. Fluoride in the water because mind control or something. Last time I was in Portland, Oregon was during the last vote on fluoride. Fun times. I don’t think we have it here, but for the more cromulent reason that they don’t feel it’s necessary to implement and pay for. > [@](#): > > My friends in Belfast have heard loads of them but I can’t think of any right this minute. > [@An\_Gadai](#): > > I can think of a few Irish conspiracy theories although US ones are probably more popular due to their seeming world historical importance. In NI there’s that common rumor that the police were providing support, materiel, membership, and even straight whacking people for (Protestant) paramilitary groups… …ah wait that isn’t a theory. ---
**Author:** ![Velocity](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/velocity/32/18006_2.png) [@Velocity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Velocity)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2015, 5:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/non-americans-what-are-your-countrys-own-conspiracy-theories/714540/70 "2015-03-12T05:36:54Z")
There are people in Taiwan who are convinced to this day that the 2004 attempted assassination of Chen Shui-Bian (president of Taiwan at the time) was deliberately staged as a sympathy ploy to win votes. (The shooting took place shortly before the election, and Chen, who many thought would lose the election, surprisingly ending up winning reelection by a razor-thin margin.) ---
**Author:** ![Wallaby](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/dc4da7/32.png) [@Wallaby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wallaby)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2015, 6:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/non-americans-what-are-your-countrys-own-conspiracy-theories/714540/71 "2015-03-12T06:01:07Z")
> [@Askance](#): > > [Australian Prime Minister Harold Holt](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harold_Holt) disappeared in 1967 while swimming. At a notoriously dangerous beach. In a heavy surf. While on strong painkillers, possible morphine. He had already got into trouble skindiving twice that year in the same area. > > The body was never found. Clearly, the only possible explanation was that he swam out to meet a Chinese submarine! You do know that his driver was found dead only a few days later? And that there never was a will? And that LBJ supposedly had said threatening things about Holt (over Vietnam war issues) only a few weeks before? At least that’s what I heard. My Grandfather (who was one of the founding members of the West Australian Communist Party back in the 1920s) could hold forth for ages about Holt, Menzies and the whole gang. When Kerr sacked Whitlam, I have no doubt he would have burst several blood vessels (he certainly did, talking about it later:p). Probably the other great political CT (other than the Holt and Whitlam ones) was when the Australian aircraft carrier _Melbourne_ collided with the US destroyer \*Evans \*- the subsequent enquiry (run by the yanks, of course) basically hung the Australian skipper out to dry, when it was clearly the fault of the _Evans_. ---
**Author:** ![Weirofhermiston](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/e274bd/32.png) [@Weirofhermiston](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Weirofhermiston)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2015, 10:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/non-americans-what-are-your-countrys-own-conspiracy-theories/714540/72 "2015-03-12T10:07:00Z")
> [@eclectic\_wench](#): > > …Some Irish people do borrow conspiracy theories from elsewhere - Jim Corr of The Corrs believes that September 11th was an inside job, for example - but we’re not very good at coming up with our own. It’s Ireland, people have died for the Corrs. ---
**Author:** ![Loach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/loach/32/350_2.png) [@Loach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Loach)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2015, 11:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/non-americans-what-are-your-countrys-own-conspiracy-theories/714540/73 "2015-03-12T11:26:52Z")
> [@dougrb](#): > > I saw a documentary about that! Take off! ---
**Author:** ![Gedd](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gedd/32/4938_2.png) [@Gedd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gedd)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2015, 5:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/non-americans-what-are-your-countrys-own-conspiracy-theories/714540/74 "2015-03-12T17:02:39Z")
> [@LSLGuy](#): > > If wiki is to be believed, HAARP has been shut down and is being dismantled. It was an experiment after all. > > No mention of the much larger fully functional replacement system that CTers are certain got built somewhere \*they \*don’t want us to know about. :eek: :rolleyes: You must work with the same guys I do! Do they warn you about contrails too? ---
**Author:** ![skdo23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a5b964/32.png) [@skdo23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/skdo23)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2015, 5:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/non-americans-what-are-your-countrys-own-conspiracy-theories/714540/75 "2015-03-12T17:13:28Z")
I’m an American, actually, but I remember that during the debates in various European countries (mainly Great Britain) regarding the Maastricht Treaty there were accusations from the fringes that the EU was basically a reattempt by the Germans to conquer Europe and establish a Fourth Reich. ---
**Author:** ![Hari\_Seldon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hari_seldon/32/5173_2.png) [@Hari\_Seldon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hari_Seldon)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2015, 11:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/non-americans-what-are-your-countrys-own-conspiracy-theories/714540/76 "2015-03-12T23:12:53Z")
> [@Northern\_Piper](#): > > Posting from Canada; I can’t think of a Canadian CT, off-hand. Believing that Stephen Harper is fit to govern? Holocaust denial is hot in Europe. So is The protocols of the elders of Zion. There are anti-vaxxers everywhere. ---
**Author:** ![ctnguy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@ctnguy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ctnguy)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2015, 11:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/non-americans-what-are-your-countrys-own-conspiracy-theories/714540/77 "2015-03-12T23:56:29Z")
> [@MrDibble](#): > > The “Blacks secretly have a plan to round up and kill all the Whites as soon as Nelson Mandela dies” one. It even led to [this Dope thread](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=238983). (Liberal use of “Nigger” trigger warning!) That’s the most common South African CT, I suppose. We also have the [_Helderberg_](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_African_Airways_Flight_295#Conspiracy_theories) conspiracy theories, in which the claim is that a South African Airways flight that crashed was secretly carrying military goods which caused the fire. And of course there are the “CIA created HIV” class of theories, popular with Thabo Mbeki, though those didn’t originate in South Africa. Edit: and the [Vela Incident](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vela_Incident), which one might or might not call a conspiracy theory. ---
**Author:** ![MEBuckner](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mebuckner/32/2896_2.png) [@MEBuckner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MEBuckner)\ **Post date:** [March 13, 2015, 1:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/non-americans-what-are-your-countrys-own-conspiracy-theories/714540/78 "2015-03-13T01:12:21Z")
> [@eclectic\_wench](#): > > I’ve been trying to think of an Irish one, but we don’t really do conspiracy theories. Perhaps we could make one up, then? I fairly often see [armored cars\* with the word GARDA on them in big red letters](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Garda_armored_car_Ypsilanti_Township_Michigan.JPG) driving around here (Atlanta, Georgia, USA), and I always wonder if the Irish cops are moonlighting or what. \*The [kind that pick up cash from grocery stores for delivery to the bank](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armored_car_(valuables)), not [these](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armored_car_(military)). So, the CT would be that the Irish cops are moonlighting. See, the 2008 financial crisis hit Ireland especially hard, and so the Irish police had to do _something_ to get a bit of extra cash to keep the lights on at the police stations back home. So, they set up a for-profit branch of the Garda over here in the States. (Of course the financial crisis has eased a bit; but, some of the Garda kind of _like_ driving armored cars in America, since over here we let 'em run around with guns and stuff.) ---
**Author:** ![thelurkinghorror](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/7c8e57/32.png) [@thelurkinghorror](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thelurkinghorror)\ **Post date:** [March 13, 2015, 1:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/non-americans-what-are-your-countrys-own-conspiracy-theories/714540/79 "2015-03-13T01:16:11Z")
Garda is a Montreal company so it’s obviously a Fenian-Quebecois conspiracy to take down English financial institutions by swiping pennies at a time. Clearly. ---
**Author:** ![Steken](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e274bd/32.png) [@Steken](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Steken)\ **Post date:** [March 13, 2015, 7:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/non-americans-what-are-your-countrys-own-conspiracy-theories/714540/80 "2015-03-13T07:03:06Z")
> [@thelurkinghorror](#): > > Garda is a Montreal company so it’s obviously a Fenian-Quebecois conspiracy to take down English financial institutions by swiping pennies at a time. Clearly. And it’s being run by [Louis Riel](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louis_Riel). He never died, see. Simply went into hiding. And this is his long-overdue revenge on the English… [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/non-americans-what-are-your-countrys-own-conspiracy-theories/714540.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/non-americans-what-are-your-countrys-own-conspiracy-theories/714540.md?page=5)