Conspiracy Theories -- Which Do you believe?

[Tommy J]

In the News topic I posted an article about how the European moon probe will be photographing hopefully the Apollo landing spots and hopefully dispel the decades old conspiracy that it was all a hoax.

It got me to thinking of the popular urban legends do you believe any of the conspiracy theories? If so, which one and why.

Here's a couple that I do and don't believe:

Moon Hoax -- absolutely not. We went there and everything leads us to believe it happened. The nuts talking about this as a hoax need professional help.

Aliens at Roswell -- no. If government cannot keep major political secrets like Watergate what leads us to believe that a massive conspiracy involving thousands of people would produce not one shred of evidence.

Aliens in the sky -- Not sure. Just because the government has admitted the are some unexplainable events documented by credible people like airline pilots.

JFK, grassy knoll -- I don't believe it was a grand conspiracy but I do believe that Oswald did not act alone. Whether it was the Mafia or a rogue part of the government is uncertain in my mind.

Aids introduced by US govt -- not at all. Absurd to think this.

Bigfoot -- absurd

Vampires -- absurd

Ghosts -- despite thousands of people claiming to see them, scientists cannot document one controlled experiment to prove their existence. So NO.

[Montcalm]

Aliens at Roswell -- They need to stop changing the story,every time they come with a silly explanation...(Its a weather balloon,no it was crash dummies)

Aliens in the sky -- Again weather balloons or the Venus story,if someone says it was the size of a football field,then tell me is Venus the size of a football field?

JFK, grassy knoll -- See Babylon 5 for explanation

Bigfoot -- Its a truck with big wheels.

Vampires -- Bats:D

Ghosts -- Maybe its in peoples mind.

[Junghalli]

None of them. They're all the inventions of people desperate to pull some kind of meaning from random events.

[Firefox]

The Moon landing and Holocaust conspiracy theories bug me the most. How people can assume that great numbers of people could be involved in the grandest coverups in history (scientists, engineers and manufacturers in one, millions of people in another) is mind-boggling.

A lesser-known one that irks me is the Olympic-Titanic switch theory.

[Petrosjko]

ShepZAIA, of course.

Actually, I hate conspiracy theories. They're a pet peeve of mine.

When it comes to reality, conspiracies are always smaller and much less spectacular than conspiracy theorists would ever realize. They get downright pathetic, really. Something about cloak and dagger that just turns people into clowns, I swear.

[Lord Revan]

Well most conspiracy theories I know of underestimate the power human studity and incompatence , underestimate the difficulty of keep large number of people from spilling the Beans or both.

so I have strong disbelief for all of them.

[Stofsk]

My brother assures me that Oswald couldn't have acted alone, and then proceeds to tell me that using a rifle like Oswald did couldn't have been done yadda yadda yadda. I start ignoring him when he begins with the CIA not likeing Kennedy or what the fuck.

Conspiracy Theories: I want proof. That's all I ask. Preferably proof without holes big enough for me to put your head through them.

Take the moon landing 'conspiracy'. When you watch something off the television which wastes an hour of your time it is not 'proof'. Thus, it should not be used as a compelling argument.

Aliens at Roswell and in general: why? Just... why?

JFK: I actually don't have that much trouble believing Oswald acted with support, but that's a long way from saying "OMG it woz teh CIA!!@!1"

AIDS: First time I've ever heard THAT one...

Bigfoot: Who cares? Even if it's true. Who... cares...?

Vampires, Zombies, the Living Impaired (Undead, Ghosts): Just an excuse to throw out rational explanations. For instance, I've been assured that there is a medical condition that causes a lot of the features that vampires supposedly have (IE, sensitivity to sunlight, iron deficiency, there were others) but as I said, this is a rational explanation but people leap onto the word vampire! Ghosts and so on? Well shit, if YOU were dead wouldn't you want to tell as many people as possible? "Get me outta here!" Would be the first thing I would try to say.

Another thing that bothers me is the legend surround Bruce Lee, his son Brandon Lee, and the tragic circumstances behind their separate deaths. Now, was there a conspiracy involved in their untimely deaths? Who the FUCK knows? Can their deaths be attributed to accidents and negligence? Yes. Is this enough for the conspiracy theorists? No...

[Rye]

Moon Hoax - This conspiracy theory is just silly. I'm sure with the amount of time NASA've put into pretending they went there has far exceeded the actual amount required to get there.

Aliens at Roswell/at all - Nah, just ridiculous the amount of extra things we have to make up to make any aliens visiting us scenario work. It's just not believable. UFOs aren't aliens, I don't know what they are, but I'd guess weird bioluminescant terrestrial lifeforms befoer aliens.

JFK- LHO definately did shoot him, and I think the mafia did contract him to do it, what with him being shot and all.

Aids introduced by US govt - fucking silly.We've seen the originator organism and have other versions of it getting around via bushmeat. Some people just want to blame the US for everything.

Bigfoot - bigfoot himself was admitted to be a hoax by the guy that did it, iirc. Yeti, however, I'm not too sure about. There've been footprints in the himalyas, along with unidentified simian hair (iirc after being looked at by the woman involved in the dingo-baby thing in australia a while ago).

Zombies - zombies were originally people drugged to have a severely apparently fatal low metabolism, buried, dug up and then taken to work on plantations and be permentntly drugged. Apparently this did actually happen. The ghouls of hollywood are a cinema friendly corruption of the local mythos that developed from the drugged people.

Ghosts - definately something, my vote is for electrical anomalies interfering with peoples' perceptions, I think electricity has a lot to do with it, anyway.

911 conspiracies - no, just no. The only conspirators were the psychoes from a dying faith who acted in desperation and got lucky with the amount of devastation they caused.

Holohoax - repugnant neonazi apologia, just truly disturbing that people think that the nazis didn't kill like 12 million people in the camps, and it's an elaborate deceptino by the jews.

[Jim Raynor]

There's another version of the AIDS conspiracy theory that says that the virus doesn't even exist, and that all the sickness is either made up BS or the side effects of the medication that supposedly treats it. There's actually people trying to "raise awareness" of this, including the rock band the Foo Fighters. Someone even came on this board a while ago arguing this crap.

I hate all conspiracy theories. Anytime ANYTHING happens, some insane conspiracy theorist will try to bend it so that it fits his own fucked up world view, without bothering to come up with any actual proof. There was a thread here a couple months ago with a link to a site that claimed the Southeast Asian tsunami was caused by underwater US nukes. That same site Bali nightclub bombing was actually caused by a sophisticated US "mini nuke" buried underground (because we all know that's an easier way to blow up a building than using a cheap, normal bomb ). The scariest thing was that this guy actually had long, detailed, pseudoscientific explanations of these theories. He didn't just jump to a dumbass conclusion, he actually seemed to know a minimal amount of physics (enough to BS) and put in a lot of effort to write his articles. Does anyone have any idea how the mind of a conspiracy theorist works?

[Petrosjko]

Does anyone have any idea how the mind of a conspiracy theorist works?

Step one: Arrive at conclusion. Example- "The US government had to be behind the tsunami!"

Step two: Create bizarre theory to arrive at conclusion. Example- "The aliens were going to announce their presence and gift all of mankind with their superior technology in Thailand, so the US government detonated a nuke under the ocean in order to create the tsunami and prevent that from happening!"

Step three: Go online.

That's the best approximation I can come up with. It really is a bizarre and labrythine world they inhabit.

[Mayabird]

The conspiracy theories I "believe" are all pretty obscure and small scale, and I only believe them for purposes of humor, much like how I'm a polytheist for purposes of humor (that being said, the sports gods are all total dicks. You hear that, American football god? No sacrifices of cheerleaders to you! HA!).

[fgalkin]

The only conspiracy theory I believe in involves Vladimir Putin and buildings in Moscow blowing up.

Have a very nice day.
-fgalkin

[Petrosjko]

The only conspiracy theory I believe in involves Vladimir Putin and buildings in Moscow blowing up.

Have a very nice day.
-fgalkin

*cough*Yuschenko*cough*poison*cough*.

[fgalkin]

It's not a conspiracy theory if most people believe that it's true.

Have a very nice day.
-fgalkin

[Petrosjko]

It's not a conspiracy theory if most people believe that it's true.

Have a very nice day.
-fgalkin

It may not be an example of a conspiracy theory, but it probably makes a damn good example of a real-world conspiracy.

Conspiracy theorist version- Paul Wolfowitz takes the mind-control ray he borrowed from Adolph Hitler, who stole it from the Zionist Banking Consortium, and used it to take control of the head of the... what is the KGB this week, anyway?

Anyway, he takes control of the head of the (Insert three letters here), causing him to activate the long-buried stasis-cell entombed clones of Otto Skorzeny that the K had buried away back in the day, awaiting any threat of resurgent Ukrainian seperatism.

Utilizing the matter transport ray acquired from grueling anal-probe torture sessions of gray aliens, they teleport a quantity of dioxin into Yuschenko's drink, causing him to go to flinders and as it happens collapsing the stock of a small Wall Street startup that specialized in Ukrainian imports.

Wolfowitz, who made 3.12$ USD by selling the stock short twirls his mustache and laughs all the way to the bank.

Realistic version- Somebody wanted Yuschenko dead or disabled enough to get him out of the picture. So they probably hired third-party talent to do the job. Said third party talent probably flipped or inserted a waiter into the dinner, who then spikes the soup and voila.

No super-duper fantastical bullshit.

[Plekhanov]

The only conspiracy theory I believe in involves Vladimir Putin and buildings in Moscow blowing up.

Have a very nice day.
-fgalkin

That one does seem to have a good deal of evidence to back it up and the way he's taking Russia (even setting aside Chechnya) at the moment seems to add credence to the belief that he'd be capable of such an act.

Can't think of any others that I subscribe to.

[Plekhanov]

I've never actually read anything about it myself but you do hear rumours about the death of Pope John Paul I. Anybody know if there's any substance to this?

[Quadlok]

Don't know if this is technically a conspiracy theory, but I think their were some relatively advanced (read, living in cities, stoneworking) civilizations back before the end of the last ice age, with most of the evidence covered either by the rising sea level or the expansion of the Sahara desert. Bimini road and all that.

[Montcalm]

I've never actually read anything about it myself but you do hear rumours about the death of Pope John Paul I. Anybody know if there's any substance to this?

If i remember correctly he died 33 days after getting the job,as for what killed him i'm not sure maybe a hearth attack

[Vicious]

My favorite conspiracy theory is the "Aliens are visiting the Earth" ones. While I would say it is likely that some forms of life exist outside of Earth in the universe (it's fucking huge after all) and some of them are probably intelligent, I can't see them coming to Earth. The reason: We're too fucking stupid. Who's gonna trek across the stars, burning the ol' Hyperdrive (or whatever they use) to come visit us? We're fucking backwards hillbillies to anyone who can reach us. The only reason I could see them coming to Earth is to show their children how stupid life can be sometimes.

As for the point of them wanting to "enlighten" us with their advanced wisdom and knowledge, we're prone to shoot first and ask questions later. After all the B-movies involving aliens, don't you think most people will scream NUKES as soon as the aliens contact us. That's assuming they want to enlighten us. Maybe they're heartless bastards, maybe they feel like shooting fish in a barrel or maybe they just like killing, but I see them roasting us, or just fucking with our minds for the hell of it, as way more likely than them landing and attempting to gift us with uber tech. Of course, them laughing their asses off at us as they zip away to somewhere that isn't so backwards seems the most likely possibility.

As to the rest of the Conspiracies mentioned, they are, all of them, bullshit. We did go to the Moon, the Holocaust happened and LHO did indeed kill JFK. Whether Lee had help, that's debatable, but I refuse to believe it was a CIA hit without firm proof.

[Franc28]

There is no way I can believe in any conspiracy. For one thing, bucreaucrats are not competent enough to build a highway, let alone maintain a conspiracy for dozens of years without one credible whistleblower.

[Morilore]

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.

[RedImperator]

A lesser-known one that irks me is the Olympic-Titanic switch theory.

I'm a Titanic afficionado and I've never heard of this one. I can't even imagine...are they saying White Star, for some reason, secretly switched the names of the ships, and that's really RMS Olympic rusting at the bottom of the Atlantic?

[Montcalm]

A lesser-known one that irks me is the Olympic-Titanic switch theory.

I'm a Titanic afficionado and I've never heard of this one. I can't even imagine...are they saying White Star, for some reason, secretly switched the names of the ships, and that's really RMS Olympic rusting at the bottom of the Atlantic?

It was mentioned a few years ago.

[RedImperator]

A lesser-known one that irks me is the Olympic-Titanic switch theory.

I'm a Titanic afficionado and I've never heard of this one. I can't even imagine...are they saying White Star, for some reason, secretly switched the names of the ships, and that's really RMS Olympic rusting at the bottom of the Atlantic?

It was mentioned a few years ago.

I just looked it up. Apparently, it was supposed to be an insurance scam. According to the theory, Olympic was so badly damaged after she collided with HMS Hawke in 1911 that White Star decided to arrange an accident and collect the insurance money rather than pay to repair her. For some reason I can't quite follow, this involved doing a slipshod repair job on Olympic, and secretly switching every single item on board with the ship's name with an identical item from Titanic, then sending Olympic out into the Atlantic as Titanic on 10 April, 1912, where E. J. Smith would sink her near some rescue ships that would just "happen" to be nearby. Unfortunately, they hit an iceberg before they got to the sinking spot, and 1500 people froze to death in the middle of the Atlantic.

This may well be the stupidest thing I've ever heard.