# The Stupidest Conspiracy Theories Of All Time **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [October 12, 2017, 12:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-stupidest-conspiracy-theories-of-all-time/798632 "2017-10-12T12:46:46Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![snfaulkner](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/snfaulkner/32/433_2.png) [@snfaulkner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/snfaulkner)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2017, 4:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-stupidest-conspiracy-theories-of-all-time/798632/61 "2017-10-13T04:30:06Z")
> [@Flyer](#): > > People who say this sort of thing completely miss the point. The government didn’t, and couldn’t, keep things like that secret. Rather, they’ve managed to set up an environment in which the majority of people actively decide to not believe those stories, because of the supposed ridiculousness of the subject material. Ummm…so are you saying the subject matter isn’t ridiculous? ---
**Author:** ![Shagnasty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9dc877/32.png) [@Shagnasty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shagnasty)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2017, 4:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-stupidest-conspiracy-theories-of-all-time/798632/62 "2017-10-13T04:38:48Z")
I think the version of 9/11 conspiracy theories that denies the planes and passengers ever existed or that they were somehow involved in the plot is pretty far up there. I would say the same about the Sandy Hook shootings being a false flag operation and the kids didn’t exist. Not only is it wrong, it is actively damaging to the families that lost loved ones. Some of it was broadcast on national television in the case of 9/11. It takes a lot to believe that could somehow be faked. I used to think that most conspiracy theorists were just joking or trolling but then I got to know my aunt again about 10 years ago. She is one but she has a Master’s degree, her husband is an MD and she is crazy as a shithouse rat and always has been. She believes in everything from ear candling to literal ghost writing. She attends both Bigfoot and UFO abduction conferences without any sense of irony and is quite active in those circles. She is also very wealthy and can mange money better than almost anyone but she will fall for almost any conspiracy theory. It is like someone once told her an open mind was a good thing and she listened until her brains fell out but she isn’t a dumb or irresponsible person overall in the least. I am convinced that most conspiracy theorists have a yet unnamed mental illness that they can’t help. There are some that try to take advantage of them in the media and don’t believe what they are saying but many of them really do. They literally can’t see how ridiculous their beliefs are just like a colorblind person can’t understand the difference between certain shades of completely different colors. It is maddening and bizarre but I don’t think that most of them can help it. ---
**Author:** ![AI\_Proofreader](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/8dc957/32.png) [@AI\_Proofreader](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AI_Proofreader)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2017, 5:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-stupidest-conspiracy-theories-of-all-time/798632/63 "2017-10-13T05:46:40Z")
> [@Grumbacher\_Red](#): > > That there is some child sex slave ring on the Moon. Or Mars. The fun thing about this one is that it tends to be a belief held by the same people who have been saying the Moon landings were faked / all space travel is faked / the Earth is flat. So… we’re both way more advanced that we appear and have off-world colonies, and also far less advanced that we appear and can’t leave Earth at all. Similarly, chem-trail believers also tend to be global warming deniers. So… you’re willing to believe the government is poisoning the air intentionally with no obvious motive since they’re affected as well, but not willing to believe that corporations are poisoning the air incidentally because of a profit motive? A key characteristic of hard-core conspiracy theorists seems to be the ability to hold two competing beliefs at once without seeing the contradiction. ---
**Author:** ![Asuka](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@Asuka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Asuka)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2017, 7:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-stupidest-conspiracy-theories-of-all-time/798632/64 "2017-10-13T07:32:09Z")
> [@AI\_Proofreader](#): > > The fun thing about this one is that it tends to be a belief held by the same people who have been saying the Moon landings were faked / all space travel is faked / the Earth is flat. There’s actually been studies done that show Moon Landing Conspiracy theorists tend to be left wing mainly due to two factors. Most right wing people think they’re real because it was seen as a major accomplishment by the US and thus is beneficial to their Amero-centric (or in other countries Western-centric) world view. Also the fact one of the key spreaders of Moon Landing denial-ism was the Soviet Union who obviously were angry America got there first, thus felt it was beneficial to spread rumors we didn’t actually land on the Moon and all that money that went to it was used for CIA black projects. More Democrats believed in the Moon Landings being fake than Republicans last time they asked there was a large poll about it. In addition if you look at countries with the highest beliefs in Moon Landing Denial-ism they tend to be the more left-wing European countries. ---
**Author:** ![Asuka](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@Asuka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Asuka)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2017, 7:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-stupidest-conspiracy-theories-of-all-time/798632/65 "2017-10-13T07:34:07Z")
> [@Shagnasty](#): > > I think the version of 9/11 conspiracy theories that denies the planes and passengers ever existed or that they were somehow involved in the plot is pretty far up there. I would say the same about the Sandy Hook shootings being a false flag operation and the kids didn’t exist. Not only is it wrong, it is actively damaging to the families that lost loved ones. Some of it was broadcast on national television in the case of 9/11. It takes a lot to believe that could somehow be faked. The craziest 9/11 conspiracy theory was that all four flights after hijacking were landed at a secret military base in New England where the passengers were all forcibly disembarked and loaded into a waiting unmarked passenger jet which was flown over the ocean and sunk into the ocean far away from land. Then the now empty passenger jets were loaded with explosives and flown into the buildings. ---
**Author:** ![Robot\_Arm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/robot_arm/32/18280_2.png) [@Robot\_Arm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Robot_Arm)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2017, 8:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-stupidest-conspiracy-theories-of-all-time/798632/66 "2017-10-13T08:53:23Z")
> [@Asuka](#): > > The craziest 9/11 conspiracy theory was that all four flights after hijacking were landed at a secret military base in New England where the passengers were all forcibly disembarked and loaded into a waiting unmarked passenger jet which was flown over the ocean and sunk into the ocean far away from land. Then the now empty passenger jets were loaded with explosives and flown into the buildings. Why bother to swap the passengers onto new planes and crash the originals into the WTC and Pentagon? Just paint your new planes to match the ones the passengers are on, fly the passengers out to sea, load the new, repainted planes with explosives and crash those. Honestly, it’s like the conspiracy theorists aren’t even trying anymore. ---
**Author:** ![Gyrate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gyrate/32/3588_2.png) [@Gyrate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gyrate)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2017, 10:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-stupidest-conspiracy-theories-of-all-time/798632/67 "2017-10-13T10:44:14Z")
> [@Wallaby](#): > > I’ll just leave this right here. [Rainbow Conspiracy](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_c6HsiixFS8) _Why are there so many…conspiracies about rainbows…and what’s on the other side?.._ Normally I say “Never read YouTube comments” but some of the comments under that video are really quite funny. ---
**Author:** ![Lemur866](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lemur866/32/434_2.png) [@Lemur866](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lemur866)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2017, 4:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-stupidest-conspiracy-theories-of-all-time/798632/68 "2017-10-13T16:39:54Z")
> [@Asuka](#): > > The craziest 9/11 conspiracy theory was that all four flights after hijacking were landed at a secret military base in New England where the passengers were all forcibly disembarked and loaded into a waiting unmarked passenger jet which was flown over the ocean and sunk into the ocean far away from land. Then the now empty passenger jets were loaded with explosives and flown into the buildings. Huh? That doesn’t make any sense, even from a conspiracy theory point of view. Why should the Illuminati care if the passengers are on the plane or not? Thing is, some 9/11 conspiracy theories at least make a certain sort of sense. Like, “Let it happen on purpose”. Cheney knew the attack was coming, and let it happen, PNAC style. Or they made it happen. The CIA or Mossad or whoever recruited the hijackers, and they flew the planes into the buildings. Or that the last plane wasn’t crashed when the passengers tried to attack the cockpit, but shot down by the air force who then covered it up. Those are at least consistent with the laws of physics and the known facts and the video evidence. But any conspiracy theory that supposes that the planes didn’t actually fly into the buildings? Or that the planes flew into the buildings but that’s not what destroyed the buildings? That’s just really really really stupid. Thing is, if you’re an Illuminatus planning your first operation of this sort, what’s your plan? OK, we’re going to make it look like Islamic terrorists hijacked some planes and flew them into the WTC and the Pentagon. Now, how do we accomplish this nefarious operation? I don’t know, how about recruiting some Islamic terrorists and have them hijack some planes and fly them into the WTC and the Pentagon? That operation is going to be so much simpler than things involving planting explosives, switching planes, holograms, cruise missiles, and dumping wreckage into the ocean. The closer the actual operation is to the cover story, the easier it is to cover up. The farther the operation diverges from the cover story, the harder it is to cover up. So why not make the cover story match the actual operation? A bunch of guys hijacked some planes and flew them into the buildings! Oh no! Let’s go invade the Middle East and destroy America’s freedom in the name of security and give more money to Haliburton! See how simple that conspiracy is? And the beauty of it is, that it looks like a bunch of guys hijacked some planes and flew the into some buildings, because that’s what we had our patsies do! ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2017, 8:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-stupidest-conspiracy-theories-of-all-time/798632/69 "2017-10-13T20:11:15Z")
> [@Robot\_Arm](#): > > Why bother to swap the passengers onto new planes and crash the originals into the WTC and Pentagon? Just paint your new planes to match the ones the passengers are on, fly the passengers out to sea, load the new, repainted planes with explosives and crash those. > > Honestly, it’s like the conspiracy theorists aren’t even trying anymore. In the novel Shibumi the British stage a hijacking in order to kill some terrorists, and to keep the hijack story going, kill all the passengers. ---
**Author:** ![Smapti](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/smapti/32/17938_2.png) [@Smapti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smapti)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2017, 1:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-stupidest-conspiracy-theories-of-all-time/798632/70 "2017-10-14T01:20:01Z")
> [@kunilou](#): > > My favorite is that the President let the United Nations station silent “black helicopters” and troops all throughout the Ozarks ready to take over the country at the direction of the New World Order, and that “Road Closed by Martial Law” signs were stashed an the loading docks of Wal-Mart stores. > > The reason I enjoy this one so much is that I first heard it while George H.W. Bush was President, and then again for Clinton, Bush 43 and Obama, making it the most bi-partisan conspiracy EVER. You can couple that with “President (Name) is going to cancel the election!”, as I’ve heard it for every president since Clinton, and it was probably in use before that. ---
**Author:** ![I\_Love\_Me\_Vol.I](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/i_love_me_vol.i/32/521_2.png) [@I\_Love\_Me\_Vol.I](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/I_Love_Me_Vol.I)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2017, 1:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-stupidest-conspiracy-theories-of-all-time/798632/71 "2017-10-14T01:38:39Z")
> [@Annie-Xmas](#): > > BTW, Hillary is a lesbian who has had about 100 abortions. I cannot begin to tell you what’s wrong with that one. Now, just because a woman is a lesbian doesn’t mean she can’t get pregnant. In the case of the known lesbian and baby-hater Hillary Clinton, she got artificially inseminated over a hundred times… just so she could have them all aborted. In the third trimester!!! ---
**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:** [October 14, 2017, 1:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-stupidest-conspiracy-theories-of-all-time/798632/72 "2017-10-14T01:45:34Z")
> [@FairyChatMom](#): > > Any conspiracy involving “The Government” always assumes that “The Government” is some sort of monolithic, lock-step, hive-mentality, super-secretive, all-powerful entity capable of pulling off all sorts of nefarious plots. > > I was a federal employee for 37 years (including time on active duty) and in a couple of my jobs, I held pretty high-level security clearances. I worked in the Pentagon for 30 months. At various times, I worked with people from a number of intelligence agencies. Never once in those 37 years did I experience any organization in lock-step with anything. What conspiracy whack-jobs fail to consider is that “The Government” is full of people who pretty much mirror the public at large, since they come from the public at large. > > It’s not an organization that people join because of shared interests or goals. For many, if not most, it’s a job like any other job. They show up, do what they have to do, collect their pay, and eventually quit, retire, or die at their desks. :eek: Some are dedicated, some are barely competent, some are total wastes of oxygen. Considering that, how could anyone believe that enough of them will conspire together to execute these occurrences without anyone else finding out?? > > In conclusion, the idea that “The Government” is capable of conspiracies is the biggest conspiracy theory of all! That’s just the surface government. It’s a cover. The real government is behind the scenes. > [@Smapti](#): > > You can couple that with “President (Name) is going to cancel the election!”, as I’ve heard it for every president since Clinton, and it was probably in use before that. It goes all the way back to Washington. Jefferson had just recently invented the internet so it wasn’t that widespread. ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2017, 1:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-stupidest-conspiracy-theories-of-all-time/798632/73 "2017-10-14T01:56:11Z")
> [@I\_Love\_Me\_Vol.I](#): > > Now, just because a woman is a lesbian doesn’t mean she can’t get pregnant. In the case of the known lesbian and baby-hater Hillary Clinton, she got artificially inseminated over a hundred times… just so she could have them all aborted. > > In the third trimester!!! Oh my G-d! ---
**Author:** ![LongTimeLurker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/45deac/32.png) [@LongTimeLurker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LongTimeLurker)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2017, 9:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-stupidest-conspiracy-theories-of-all-time/798632/74 "2017-10-14T09:42:09Z")
> [@FairyChatMom](#): > > I saw some of that documentary, and it was pretty appalling. I was just a kid for many of those years, and I was still naive enough to believe that the government existed to take care of us. But it’s a different world in a lot of ways and I don’t know that it could happen in the same way today. People seem more willing to leak, or be careless, and then there’s social media, where it’s easy to be anonymous and report about certain things going on. > > So while small groups may be in cahoots, it’s certainly not “The Government” as a whole. Or is that splitting hairs? In reality, the vast majority of government employees are people trying to pay their bills. Yeah, 9/11 wasn’t used as an excuse to attack/invade another country under false pretenses. Iraq deserved to be invaded because they may have had cylindrical objects in their country. Not really a conspiracy theory, more like a government lying to the population so our government can give billions of taxpayer dollars to ‘contractors’ that donate millions to campaign funds. No conspiracy here, just plain in your face raping of taxpayers to keep the status quo in DC. ---
**Author:** ![Cicero](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cicero/32/3594_2.png) [@Cicero](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cicero)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2017, 10:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-stupidest-conspiracy-theories-of-all-time/798632/75 "2017-10-14T10:51:03Z")
Obviously the JFK conspiracy springs to mind. (as has been mentioned). If you ever read “Your Are Not So Smart” the contention they put forward is that people argue from ignorance not from fact- such as there is ample evidence of moon landings but people ignore that. ---
**Author:** ![igor\_frankensteen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/839c29/32.png) [@igor\_frankensteen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/igor_frankensteen)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2017, 1:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-stupidest-conspiracy-theories-of-all-time/798632/76 "2017-10-14T13:55:34Z")
I think that the label “stupidest” was a bad choice. Not just because I have disliked it since I was a child, but because it’s so imprecise. It’s basically just a slang way of saying that you don’t like something and are eager to be childishly rude about it, but not say anything really meaningful about it. Lots of conspiracy theories fail the internally-consistent test. That doesn’t make them “stupid,” just absurd, or simply defective. Some of the conspiracy theories offered so far, are not conspiracy THEORIES, they are complete fictions. Lies made up BY CONSPIRATORS to accomplish some other goal. That would include the Obama is from Kenya theory. The Kenya story isn’t the conspiracy. The conspiracy is what took place to try to make the general public take the Kenya story seriously. The Salem Witch trials were not Conspiracy Theories at all. There may have been various people scheming on the sidelines as a part of the mess, but the mess itself wasn’t a conspiracy. The Kennedy Assassination conspiracies were/are a mixed bag. Like some of the UFO conspiracy stories, some were triggered by actual conspiracies which were correctly recognized AS conspiracies, just not correctly seen through, until much later. For me, looking for “stupid” conspiracy theories, would mean looking for the ones that were totally unnecessary. The ones where no one NEEDED or WANTED an alternate explanation, but where at the same time, the conspiracy theory wasn’t JUST a paranoid delusion of a mentally ill person. The category we seem to have here, are the ones where it was possible for some kind of conspiracy to have been at work, but the one that was presented was absurd. ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2017, 3:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-stupidest-conspiracy-theories-of-all-time/798632/77 "2017-10-14T15:58:35Z")
> [@igor\_frankensteen](#): > > I think that the label “stupidest” was a bad choice. Not just because I have disliked it since I was a child, but because it’s so imprecise. It’s basically just a slang way of saying that you don’t like something and are eager to be childishly rude about it, but not say anything really meaningful about it. . . . “Stupid” is like “obscene.” We may not be able to define it exactly, but we certainly know what we mean, and can point to examples. And…why isn’t it meaningful? The greater the contra-factuality of an idea, the “stupider” the idea is. Also, scope contributes. The “flat earth” idea is stupider than “there are messages encrypted in the Great Pyramid’s dimensions,” solely on the basis of scope. The former alters the entire structure of our reality; the latter is just an arcane claim which doesn’t even necessarily contradict known facts. (Also, my definition is pretty loose. I allow almost all Urban Legends to be called Conspiracy Theories also, because, almost by their nature, they entail someone knowing something but working to keep others from knowing it. “Secret knowledge” theories – ancient astronauts, the super carburetor, “the second shooter” and others – would entail conspiracies of silence.) ---
**Author:** ![Rick\_Kitchen](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rick_kitchen/32/522_2.png) [@Rick\_Kitchen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rick_Kitchen)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2017, 6:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-stupidest-conspiracy-theories-of-all-time/798632/78 "2017-10-14T18:22:59Z")
The Kennedy assassination documents are supposed to be declassified as of October 26 … ---
**Author:** ![JohnT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnt/32/15048_2.png) [@JohnT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohnT)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2017, 6:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-stupidest-conspiracy-theories-of-all-time/798632/79 "2017-10-14T18:36:38Z")
Then the TRUE involvement of Ted Cruz’s father will be revealed! ---
**Author:** ![HelenGawn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/a88e4f/32.png) [@HelenGawn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HelenGawn)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2017, 8:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-stupidest-conspiracy-theories-of-all-time/798632/80 "2017-10-14T20:55:19Z")
> [@MaxTheVool](#): > > \*t doesn’t take any specialized knowledge to realize how little sense it makes for a young pregnant woman in Hawaii to fly to Kenya, have her baby, and fly back… And give him the same African Muslim name as his father. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-stupidest-conspiracy-theories-of-all-time/798632.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-stupidest-conspiracy-theories-of-all-time/798632.md?page=5)