By Douglas A. McDonnell, M. Asher Cantrell via Cracked.com
Just about every major event in history has a conspiracy theory attached to it, whether you’ve heard of it or not. It’s just that most of them remain known only to the hardcore “we’ll believe anything” true believers, where others, like the ones below, pick up real traction.
But even among theories like these (which count their believers in the millions), you find that the whole thing is usually based on some embarrassingly simple misunderstanding. For example …
#5. The JFK Assassination Is Explained by How the Targets Were Sitting
The Theory:
“I suspect warlocks are somehow involved.”
If you’ve seen Oliver Stone’s JFK, then you’ll remember the climactic scene in which Kevin Costner “proves” that the Kennedy assassination was a conspiracy by demonstrating the impossible path of Oswald’s shot, which he sarcastically dubs “the magic bullet.”
The problem, according to those who believe in the conspiracy theory, is that Kennedy and Governor John Connally (who was seated in front of him) both suffered a constellation of wounds on their bodies from what the official investigation claims was a single bullet fired by Oswald. For this to be possible, the bullet would have had to curve around in midair several times, in multiple directions.
Since this openly defies the laws of physics, there must have been another shooter on the grassy knoll, or maybe the limo driver did it, or perhaps it was space lasers from a Nazi base on the moon. In Stone’s film and elsewhere, you see it accompanied by a diagram like this:
Our guess? Connally had one of those shoulder magnets that were all the rage back then.
The Simple Misunderstanding:
JFK and Connally weren’t sitting like that.
The people who draw up these diagrams invariably put Connally at an equal height to and seated directly in front of Kennedy. That’s where they’d be sitting if they were two ordinary dudes riding in an ordinary sedan, but the problem is that this sedan happened to be carrying one ordinary dude and the president of the United States.
John McAdams
If only JFK had called shotgun.
The people who are paid to arrange this kind of thing knew who the people in the crowd were really there to see, and it wasn’t Governor Connally. So to prevent Connally from blocking the view of the president, he was put in a little jump seat, which was both set off from and lower than Kennedy’s position. So they were actually sitting like this:
If you think that’s a convenient story trumpeted out to explain away the mysterious curving bullet, don’t just take our word for it. That diagram was drawn from a photograph taken from behind Kennedy (the photographer was “Betzner”) in which you can clearly see that Connally is either a hunchbacked dwarf or in a very strange sitting position:
Or else you can just look at a photograph of the inside of the car:
John McAdams
It’s like someone put a booster seat on the floor or something.
You’ll also notice that Kennedy and Connally weren’t sitting rigid and facing forward like robots, as the conspiracy theorists suggest, but were twisted in their seats and waving at the audience as though, like, they were at a parade of some kind. Rearrange their bodies that way, and the path of the bullet — Oswald’s bullet — goes straight through them. Just like it should.
#4. The Pearl Harbor Conspiracy Relies on a Terrible Understanding of Politics
PhotoQuest / Getty
The Theory:
All of those red coats are really George Washington.
Conspiracy theories didn’t begin with Kennedy. Look back through history and you’ll find that any time some disgruntled foreign agent ever committed an atrocity on American soil, there were people screaming “false flag!” — meaning the government intentionally staged the attack to drum up support for some kind of evil foreign policy, or, at the very least, intentionally let it happen for the same reason.
Take Pearl Harbor. After the Japanese air force launched a surprise attack on the American fleet in 1941, it became a widespread belief among conspiracy authors that President Roosevelt knew the attack was going to take place, but allowed it to go ahead. Why? Quite simply, he had a hard-on for war with Germany, but didn’t have the public support for it. Since Hitler had signed a pact with Japan, war with either of them meant war with both, and allowing everyone at Pearl Harbor to be murdered would give FDR all the public support he needed to enter the war. He could spank Hitler’s ass while still looking like the victim.
The Simple Misunderstanding:
Photos.com/Photos.com/Getty Images
“C’mon, guys, seriously?”
The Tripartite Pact, the pact between Japan, Germany, and Italy, was a defensive alliance only. That means Hitler was under no obligation to attack the United States just because his idiot friends did.
Of course, Germany did declare war after Pearl Harbor, but it had nothing to do with the idea that Hitler’s hand was forced by some deal he had with Japan. Instead, he cited the Lend-Lease Act and American naval activity as his reasons. That’s because Roosevelt was already pissing Hitler off by ordering his destroyers to sink German submarines on sight while at the same time escorting boatloads of weapons and supplies to Hitler’s enemies.
It’s true that Roosevelt was pretty keen to enter the war against Germany … to the point where he actually didn’t want to go to war with Japan because a war in the Pacific would distract him from his German hate-boner.
And speaking of “false flag” attacks …
#3. The World Trade Center Did Not Collapse at “Free-Fall Speed”
AFP / Getty
The Theory:
Al Bello/Getty Images Sport/Getty Images
Because it occurred in the Internet era, the 9/11 World Trade Center attack is the one historical event that has generated more conspiracy theories than the Kennedy assassination. There are tons of equally crazy variations of the theory, but they all come down to the curious way the towers fell.
Conspiracy theorists say the buildings fell at “free-fall speed,” meaning that they didn’t just slowly crumble away or tip over like you might expect, but that the whole damn things just fell down at once, like a house of cards. That, they say, proves that the towers were wired with explosives by the U.S. government. Why else would sturdy skyscrapers just collapse in a puff of smoke like that?
The Simple Misunderstanding:
Jack Hollingsworth/Photodisc/Getty Images
Structural engineering is probably one of those “gut” things anyway.
When somebody tells you that the towers fell at “free-fall speed,” they’re more or less pulling that out of their ass. Or at least, they’re referencing some other conspiracy theorists who pulled it out of their ass. They’re not referencing any kind of scientific theory or measurement; they’re just timing the fall as they watch YouTube videos and declaring that it looks different from how it plays out in their imagination. In other words, they don’t actually know what they mean by “free fall” except that the buildings seem to be falling more quickly than they’d expect from the almost certainly zero controlled demolitions they’ve seen before.
Most of the video of the actual collapse is filmed in Cloverfield-style shaky-cam, but if you watch any of the still-camera footage, you can debunk the free-fall claim simply from the fact that there’s debris coming off the tower that’s falling faster than the tower is. We’ve known that objects free fall at the same speed ever since Galileo dropped some balls off the Leaning Tower of Pisa, so that more or less puts the kibosh on the whole free-fall business.
Michael Loccisano / Getty
She is, however, considered a reputable expert on the Crimean War.
Part of the problem is that the Twin Towers were basically big, featureless rectangles that made it look like the whole thing was falling at once. Conspiracy theorists like Rosie O’Donnell like to rattle off statistics like how the towers fell in nine seconds, which just happens to be free-fall speed. But nine seconds is more likely the amount of time that Rosie put into researching the issue, because if she’d actually timed the collapse, she would have found that the towers took about 15 and 22 seconds to collapse, well short of free-fall speed. But then, that’s why very few engineering graduates cite Rosie O’Donnell as a source.
As for why the buildings collapsed at all, that has to do with the way they were designed and their resulting inability to stand up to the horrific fires caused by the crashes. As for why the buildings weren’t designed to withstand this kind of attack, it’s because the world can only do so much to protect you from unthinkable horrors, and nothing will change that.
Related articles
- From Cracked.com: 5 Conspiracy Theories That Are Shockingly Easy to Debunk (theburningplatform.com)
- Obsession with assassination of JFK has not waned 50 years later (irishtimes.com)
- Cracked writers puts nine seconds of research into conspiracy debunking article (911debunkers.blogspot.com)
- Shocking Claim! Former Nixon Aide Alleges Lyndon B. Johnson Arranged JFK’s Assassination In New Book (radaronline.com)
- The danger behind America’s fascination with conspiracy theories: Opinion (nj.com)
- JFK Assassination Conspiracy Theories w/ Dr. Walt Brown (disclose.tv)
- Yet another film claiming to solve Kennedy assassination, ‘JFK: The Smoking Gun,’ starts filming in Dallas today (thescoopblog.dallasnews.com)
The claim: 80 acres has been converted into a temporary holding camp.What it really is: I’ve taken a look at Topeka using Google maps, and there aren’t many places within the city limits that are empty, nor is there any places that look like a holding camp. Plus, consider that the city has a population of over 127,000 people, it would be pretty hard to hide something like that.
But mathematical illiteracy plays a role in perpetuating not just equation ignorance, but pseudoscience. Not understanding just how much of your life is governed by 
This of course means that over a period of one year, 3.6% of people who dream every night will have at least one dream that matches reality in some way. Consider that for a moment. Even though coincidences like these can drive people to believe in fate, precognition, ESP, etc., using our definition here we can say that these probabilities in large population would produce literally millions of predictive dreams each year! Even if we relax our standards and make a predictive dream a one-in-a-million event, it would still produce thousands upon thousands of predictive dreams each year by chance alone.
By 
The 
by 
It’s a Friday night in 2021, and you’ve had a long, hard day. Your job of stamping codes on malaria pills bound for developing countries is unsatisfying, but until a position in another section becomes open (and assuming you pass the myriad Fairness Tests for it), it’s where you are. Right now, all you want is to be in your Home Unit, off the clock and enjoying Dinner Paste #7 (real meat flavoring is a weekend treat, after all.) The electric bus drops you off at Building 844 in Downtown Zone G12. You walk in and notice it right away. The light in the bathroom. You left it on. Panic grips you as you run to turn it off. Maybe they didn’t notice. Maybe they don’t know.
Then, there were the women. “I could have anyone. And there’s a lot of cute activist girls in Holland and Denmark.” Thrillingly, he was courted by his heroes, Jones and David Icke, the former television sports presenter who believes humanity is being controlled by alien lizards.
In the days following the bombings at the 
Americans have always had the sneaking suspicion that somebody was out to get us — be it Freemasons, Catholics or communists. But in recent years, it seems as if every tragedy comes with a round of yarn-spinning, as the Web fills with stories about “false flag” attacks and “crisis actors” — not mere theorizing but arguments for the existence of a completely alternate version of reality.
My favorite moron is at it again.
The claim: (closed base) now staffed with UN according to some sources.
I’ve done quite a bit of research into “FEMA camps” (which is a conspiracy theory that claims that the government has constructed these 
The claim: Army Depot – 
The claim: This closed airbase still handles a lot of traffic, and has a “state-owned” prison compound on the southern part of the facility.
Hello initiates and welcome to module one of the Illumicorp video training course. I would like to officially welcome you as a member of the team.
Just your occasional reminder that conspiracy theorist radio host and expert false-flag-identifier 
![Ionospheric Manipulation Made Easy: HAARP’s ionospheric research instrument comprises 180 aluminum antenna towers [1] on a 40-acre plot. Together the towers beam radio waves into the ionosphere, which begins about 50 miles up. There, sunlight temporarily strips gas molecules [2] of their electrons, creating charged particles [3]. Scientists tweak HAARP’s signal [4] to stimulate reactions in the lower ionosphere, causing phenomena such as radiating auroral currents, a.k.a. “virtual antennas,” which send extremely low-frequency waves back to Earth. The waves can reach deep into the ocean and could improve submarine communication. At night, the absence of sunlight causes the lowest layer of the ionosphere to temporarily disappear [5]. This allows HAARP to conduct experiments that could lead to better ways to use a process called skywave propagation. Paul Wootton](http://illuminutti.files.wordpress.com/2013/05/haarp_infog.jpg?w=627)
Ever since the 9/11 conspiracy theories started to show up, some people have made accusations that Al-Qaeda itself actually invented many of the 9/11 conspiracy theories, and even bribed certain people within the 9/11 Truth movement to spread these conspiracy theories.
Even before the United States invaded Iraq in 2003, there were claims that the invasion was for nothing more than to get that country’s oil, and almost immediately there were counter claims that these accusations were actually being made up by those opposed the invasions, and even was created as a form of political propaganda (most of those accusations tend to be towards the Democrats and the former Iraqi government, but other groups are accused as well).
4.10.2013 | by 
As authorities scramble to determine who is behind the horrific 
I am that annoying Facebook friend who can smell an Internet hoax a mile away. It’s a skill I had to develop as an entertainment reporter because I often ran across stories or received tips that were about as reliable as the R train on a weekend. My protocol is made up of a few simple questions:
It’s a complex story with many facets, but it that can be summarized like this: At 2 p.m., 
Two weeks after Dahl’s sighting came Roswell, which is arguably the most famous claim of an alien crash landing on earth. After that, the floodgates of UFO sightings opened wide as it seem everyone had a story to tell. But to UFO buffs, the Maury Island Incident started it all.
The Incident is significant in UFO folklore for another reason, too. It’s the first reported sighting a so-called “man in black,” made famous by the series of comic books and movies where men dressed in simple black suits and white shirts show up mysteriously when aliens appear.
Natural disasters can occur anywhere on the planet. Sometimes they’re small scale with no lose of life and relativity little damage. Sometimes they’re huge and kills thousands of people, and even wipe out entire cities an regions.
Today we’re going to delve once again into the depths of conspiracy theories. We’ll take yet another look at the events of the September 11 attacks, this time focusing on the Pentagon, the headquarters of the U.S. Department of Defense in Arlington, Virginia. According to the generally accepted account of what was witnessed and recorded on September 11, 2001, the Pentagon was struck by 
In this sense, “official story” is what we call a weasel word; terminology intended to communicate something other than what the words actually mean. In the strict sense, the official story is the one that’s most authoritative and best supported; but in common usage, it’s only employed when the intent is to cast doubt.
The implication being that Rumsfeld, presumed architect of the false flag attack, was carefully protected by having the plane hit a far-away part of the building.
Less than 100 miles from 
The name alone inspires thoughts of government conspiracies, secret “black” aircraft and 
The caller acknowledged Shearer by name, and specified that they wanted to discuss his UFO sighting, giving exact date and time. Shearer was perplexed as to how they had gotten this information, but refused to let him in. Shearer asked to see some identification, but the visitor ignored him and repeatedly asked to come in. It was almost as if this character could only utter a limited selection of set phrases.
There are a lot of stereotypes that conspiracy theorists believe about skeptics, and for the most part they’re just not true. Most of the time these beliefs are either the result of manipulation, or just misunderstandings.
Skeptics actually do believe in conspiracies. The difference is between skeptics and conspiracy theorists is that the conspiracies that skeptics believe in either have been proven to be true, or has enough evidence (real evidence, not made up evidence) to prove the conspiracy to be true, or at least likely to be true.
As the Christopher Dorner saga winds down, #TeamDorner truthers have taken to social media to push their conspiracy theories about the circumstances surrounding the alleged cop killer’s supposed death on Tuesday.
San Bernardino County Sheriff John McMahon said in a press conference on Tuesday that the manhunt for Dorner was called off after the fire that followed the running gun battles resulting in Dorner being cornered in the cabin.
[...]
As an example, in my video “
While the claims made by conspiracy theorists that the attack was staged, or didn’t even occur in the first place, wasn’t something that fellow skeptics and debunkers like myself were not expecting (in fact, due to the predictability of conspiracy theorists we would have been more surprised if these claims were not made at all) what did surprise us was the sheer amount of slander and harassment (bordering on outright stalking) that has begun to occur.
One of the terms most commonly used by 
as an excuse to curtail our rights, give more power to the global elite and kick off any number of wars. But after the truther theories are 
Today I would like to offer Johnson’s remark as a word of caution to anyone who has encountered the various conspiracy theories that have cropped up in the wake of the Newtown tragedy. Of these there have been several, but I would like to focus on the theory 
Now the ancient historians have told us that Caesar said to Brutus the famous words “
