Conspiracy Theories -- Which Do you believe?

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SirNitram
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Post by SirNitram »

I see RedImperator hasn't heard the Philedelphia Experiment/Manduak Time Tunnel Theory.

God that one cracks me up.
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RedImperator
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Post by RedImperator »

SirNitram wrote:I see RedImperator hasn't heard the Philedelphia Experiment/Manduak Time Tunnel Theory.

God that one cracks me up.
I've heard of that one. That's got so much technobabble mumbo-jumbo that it's successfully obfuscates its own stupidity. The Olympic/Titanic switch is just plain stupid, right out there where everyone can see it.

For Chrissakes, why not just do a sloppy job fixing Olympic and sink her? The entire "switch the ships' names" bit is a completely unnecessary step.
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Post by fgalkin »

RedImperator wrote:
SirNitram wrote:I see RedImperator hasn't heard the Philedelphia Experiment/Manduak Time Tunnel Theory.

God that one cracks me up.
I've heard of that one. That's got so much technobabble mumbo-jumbo that it's successfully obfuscates its own stupidity. The Olympic/Titanic switch is just plain stupid, right out there where everyone can see it.

For Chrissakes, why not just do a sloppy job fixing Olympic and sink her? The entire "switch the ships' names" bit is a completely unnecessary step.
Because they have already recieved their insurance money for the Olympic.

I've actually read a book that claims this conspiracy (don't ask), and according to it, there were actually very few items on board that had the name of the ship. I'm not sure how accurate that claim is, of course.

Have a very nice day.
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Post by Boyish-Tigerlilly »

My father believes that anti-virus software companies hire people to write viruses. Probably because he, like I, can't see what anyone could possibly think they would gain by deleting eight thousand personal hard drives.

Most real conspiracies probably involve either politics or industrial sabotage, ala Watergate.
I think that one is good, but I think best buy does it instead. They probably subsidize programmers to create trojans and spiders to go off into cyberland, sot hat you have to take your computer to someone---preferablythem!

:lol:
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Post by Jim Raynor »

My father believes that anti-virus software companies hire people to write viruses. Probably because he, like I, can't see what anyone could possibly think they would gain by deleting eight thousand personal hard drives.
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Post by RedImperator »

fgalkin wrote:
RedImperator wrote:
SirNitram wrote:I see RedImperator hasn't heard the Philedelphia Experiment/Manduak Time Tunnel Theory.

God that one cracks me up.
I've heard of that one. That's got so much technobabble mumbo-jumbo that it's successfully obfuscates its own stupidity. The Olympic/Titanic switch is just plain stupid, right out there where everyone can see it.

For Chrissakes, why not just do a sloppy job fixing Olympic and sink her? The entire "switch the ships' names" bit is a completely unnecessary step.
Because they have already recieved their insurance money for the Olympic.

I've actually read a book that claims this conspiracy (don't ask), and according to it, there were actually very few items on board that had the name of the ship. I'm not sure how accurate that claim is, of course.

Have a very nice day.
-fgalkin
Did the book also mention that the name of each ship was not merely painted on, but actually made of individual steel letters riveted onto the hull? How about the fact that Titanic had two cabins with private promenade decks that Olympic didn't? Or that even if Titanic's name wasn't on a lot of items, her hull number was, and anyone at Harland and Wollf or White Star would have noticed if the wrong number kept showing up? Or the hundreds of other small details which differered between the ships which couldn't be easily fixed?

EDIT: It turns out, for this asinine conspiracy theory to be true, White Star would have had to have been willing to sink a ship worth $7,500,000 in order to collect $5,000,000 in insurance. Any explanation for that?
Last edited by RedImperator on 2005-03-08 12:56am, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by fgalkin »

RedImperator wrote:
fgalkin wrote:
RedImperator wrote: I've heard of that one. That's got so much technobabble mumbo-jumbo that it's successfully obfuscates its own stupidity. The Olympic/Titanic switch is just plain stupid, right out there where everyone can see it.

For Chrissakes, why not just do a sloppy job fixing Olympic and sink her? The entire "switch the ships' names" bit is a completely unnecessary step.
Because they have already recieved their insurance money for the Olympic.

I've actually read a book that claims this conspiracy (don't ask), and according to it, there were actually very few items on board that had the name of the ship. I'm not sure how accurate that claim is, of course.

Have a very nice day.
-fgalkin
Did the book also mention that the name of each ship was not merely painted on, but actually made of individual steel letters riveted onto the hull?
Yes.
How about the fact that Titanic had two cabins with private promenade decks that Olympic didn't? Or the hundreds of other small details which differered between the ships which couldn't be easily fixed?
I remember it saying something about the decks, but I don't remember what (sorry, it's been a long time)

Have a very nice day.
-fgalkin
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Post by JediToren »

All of the grand conspiracy theories are bogus. That's why all "evidence" for them is either circumstantial or evaporates like a fart in the wind when scrutinized.

I do, however, enjoy reading about them. The fact that human beings believe in such outlandish ideas and expect you to take them seriously is immensley entertaining. Some of the older conspiracy theories, like Roswell and other alien crap, have had time to develope elaborate mythologies that give SF and Fantasy authors a run for their money.

My favorite offshoot of the alien visitation nonsense is the conspiracy that says that aliens are actually dinosaurs who escaped the asteroid in spaceships, and now they want their planet back.

The conspiracy sites that claim that they have travelled through time and battled the evil men in black are great, too.
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Post by Darth Wong »

Conspiracy theories involving grand cover-ups are bullshit.

However, many conspiracies pretty much occur right out in the open, like the Bush Administration greasing the wheels for its big-business friends. Public records exist for these sweetheart deals.
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Post by Civil War Man »

Don't forget the "FDR knew every single solitary detail about the Pearl Harbor attack but let it all happen anyway in order to get the US into World War II" conspiracy.

Granted, the US War Department was pretty much getting the transmissions from Tokyo before the Japanese embassy was, but most people who foresaw a war between Japan and the United States expected the first strike to be at the Phillippines, not Hawaii. Manila is a lot closer to Tokyo than Honolulu is, after all.

The History Channel, while doing documentaries on conspiracy theories, included this particular gem. One historian brought up a good point: most of the people that argue for the conspiracy basically just refuse to believe that the US military could legitimately be ambushed and suffer a major defeat at the hands of a foreign power, particularly a non-white one.
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Post by Franc28 »

Darth Wong wrote:However, many conspiracies pretty much occur right out in the open, like the Bush Administration greasing the wheels for its big-business friends. Public records exist for these sweetheart deals.
Those are not conspiracies so much as plain human stupidity and manipulation of power. And being part of human nature, they fill the annals of history.

As the maxim says, "don't attribute to malice what can be attributed to human stupidity".
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Post by Marksist »

I'm surprised nobody mentioned that guy who came to the N&P forum awhile back with that website that claimed that the US Government planned the 9-11-01 attacks. That the planes colliding into the buildings couldn't have possibly caused them to fall, and it needed government-planted explosives to detroy them.
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Post by PainRack »

Well....... there is that whole Taiwanese conspiracy about the President arranging to be shot just before the elections, so as to gain the sympathy vote.

Some of the points made are quite salient, like how the previously tight security was suddenly relaxed at the motorcade and the timing involved. Some other points like how the Taiwanese police didn't bother to secure the site to catch the assasin or even protect the president from follow up attacks, the foresenic work can be attributed to incompetence and shock.

On the other hand, harry lee the foresenic scientist weighs down against the conspiracy. There is absolutely no proof that the President wasn't shot, or didn't suffer an injury that could had easily inflicted lethal or crippling injuries. He couldn't rule out the possibility of a well trained sniper achieving the shot with the conditions prevailing, but that's stretching credibility a bit.
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Post by spikenigma »

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The Madonna with Saint Giovannino painted in the 15th century

I tend to look at the verifiable facts behined each theory before calling bullshit. I also know that people havce been lying to each other for a long time

Things like Aurora and others are quite interesting to me...
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Post by Nieztchean Uber-Amoeba »

Moon hoax- Absolutely not.

Roswell conspiracy- Dammit, there's something very odd going on at some of these military bases, and the government was definitely hiding something at Roswell, but this kind of theory is really ridiculous. My take? Simply secret aircraft research that didn't work.

Aliens in the sky- Bio-luminescent beings, perhaps? Who knows. Lots of photographs, weird shit where they landed, etc., but I doubt it.

Bigfoot- No!

All the others: No!

Rods- very very weird phenomena. I'm deliberating on this one, actually.
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Post by mr friendly guy »

JediToren wrote:
My favorite offshoot of the alien visitation nonsense is the conspiracy that says that aliens are actually dinosaurs who escaped the asteroid in spaceships, and now they want their planet back.

.
They are called the Voth. :lol:

The idea that dinosaurs evolved and are more technologically advanced than us makes good sci fi though.
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Post by Firefox »

RedImperator wrote:Did the book also mention that the name of each ship was not merely painted on, but actually made of individual steel letters riveted onto the hull?
Actually, the letters were stamped into the steel, and were painted in. Just as bad, however.

There's also smaller differences between the ships, such as vents, skylights, and porthole arrangements, which are apparent on the wreck today. In addition, Gardiner (one of the nuts who perpetuates this theory) doesn't consider exactly how difficult (nay, impossible) it would be to silence thousands of Irish shipyard workers in lieu of such a coverup. If it were attempted, the scuttlebutt would have been across the channel in no time.

(Gardiner also recanted the theory at the end of one of his books, apparently, but later brought it back up! He's out to make money, folks.)
RedImperator wrote:EDIT: It turns out, for this asinine conspiracy theory to be true, White Star would have had to have been willing to sink a ship worth $7,500,000 in order to collect $5,000,000 in insurance. Any explanation for that?
Another reason to dismiss it as bollocks.
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Post by Firefox »

Nieztchean Uber-Amoeba wrote:Rods- very very weird phenomena. I'm deliberating on this one, actually.
Already debunked.
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Post by Nieztchean Uber-Amoeba »

Firefox wrote:
Nieztchean Uber-Amoeba wrote:Rods- very very weird phenomena. I'm deliberating on this one, actually.
Already debunked.
Huh. Thanks.
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Post by Frank Hipper »

The Titanic-Olympic switcheroo is hellatiously stupid, but not near as fucking stupid as this one:
The Titanic - In 1912 the English cruise liner Titanic sank to the bottom the north Atlantic, taking some two-thirds of its passengers to their deaths. The tragedy, the largest cruise liner disaster of its time, was long attributed to an iceburg both by those on the ship and those on board rescue vessels. The ship lay undiscovered for over seventy years until Dr. Robert Ballard of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute led an expedition which successfully located the sunken legend. Subsequent missions to the Titanic thoroughly examined the shattered hull; armed with new evidence came to a startling conclusion: the Titannic had been torpedoed. By 1912 the Germans had perfected the U-boat and had built several prototypes for testing. The German government, with its distrust of England, set to prove the English wrong when they proclaimed the ship "unsinkable." The U-boat slipped quietly into the North Atlantic and came upon the luxury liner. In a stroke of good fortune, the ship happened to pass next to an iceburg; the Germans, realizing that the iceberg would mask their actions, torpedoed the starboard side of the hull. The resulting hull damage sank the Titanic and many of its passengers. Afterwords, the German U-boat slipped quietly back to port and into the shadows of history.
:x

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Post by Mayabird »

Amazingly, no one has mentioned Elvis yet. :shock:

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Post by Dennis Toy »

No one mentioned TWA Flight 800, there are stories that i was shot down by an SA missile. if a SAM hit 800 it would a blown up.

Then there Tupac Shakur, they keep saying he didn't die in Vagas. That actually has some controversy because songs that were previously unreleased keep coming out.
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Post by Civil War Man »

Mayabird wrote:Amazingly, no one has mentioned Elvis yet. :shock:

"Elvis wasn't abducted. He went willingly."
- Ford Prefect in Mostly Harmless, by Douglas Adams
Don't forget this:

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Post by Medic »

Okay, the hilarious thing about the conspiracy theory I'm about to share is that it invokes a certain Simpsons episode moment, so silly that it alone should debunk the conspiracy. Also, I'm surprised no one mentioned it yet. Here goes:

1. The Soviet Union never collapsed, they are in fact plotting our d00m with Red Mercury nuclear bombs that can't be detected when smuggled in the nation (by Muslim extremists) because they don't have uranium. Google "Red Mercury Nightmare" and I think you'll stumble on the hilarity. Other details.
2. The Soviet Union realized circa 1979 that it couldn't compete economically with the US and so initiated a long term strategy of [fake] disarmament to disarm the West. Concurrently, they arm and secretly control Muslim extremists to distract us from the real threat.
3. More details: Bush was so adamant about invading Iraq because Sadam was given red mercury by Russia.
4. The Chinese are in it too. The Destruction of America (tm) will happen with massive terrorist nukings of American cities that will wreak our economy and Russia will follow up with red mercury carpet nuke bombing and wipe us out. Oh and the conspiracy theory also contains massive underground bunkers and a super secret Russian ABM shield on par with what Star Wars / SDI was supposed to be.

Notable mention: the "collapse" of the Soviet Union was of course fake/orchestrated and the KGB coup that failed was of course, meant to fail. Evidence being that KGB coups are typically successful and very well thought out but this one wasn't as it was just a front for the world media to say "OMG! COMMUNISM IS TEH DED!1!!"

Wow. I don't apologize for making anyone dumber as a result of that post.
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Post by JointStrikeFighter »

Well MGS2 had the cool Y2K Patch allowed the evil US to plant there spy program in every computer, I have to admit that was a damn cool conspiracy.

I used to believe in all the UFO conspirfacies, but now i think there crap.
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