A
conspiracy is defined by law as
an agreement by two or more persons to commit a crime, fraud, or
other wrongful act. While in the strictest sense a "
conspiracy theory" is a theory about a
conspiracy, the term usually refers to a theory that attributes the
ultimate cause of an event or chain of events (usually political,
social, pop cultural or historical events), or the concealment of
such causes from public knowledge, to a secret and often deceptive
plot by a cabal of powerful or influential people or organizations.
Proven historical conspiracies (e.g. the conspiracy to assassinate
U.S. President
Abraham Lincoln and
members of his cabinet in 1865) are not discussed in this article.
This
list of conspiracy theories is a list of some
of the most prevalent conspiracy theories which have not been
recognized as true by most mainstream academics. In some cases,
rebuttals have been offered to counter the theories; in other cases
the theories have merely been summarily dismissed.
New World Order
This conspiracy theory claims that a small group of international
elites controls and manipulates governments,
industry and media organizations worldwide. The primary tool they
use to dominate nations is the system of
central banking. They are said to have funded
and in some cases caused most of the major wars of the last
200 years, primarily through carrying out
false flag attacks to manipulate populations into
supporting them, and they have a grip on the
world economy, deliberately causing
inflation and
depression at will. Operatives
working for the New World Order are said to be placed in high
positions in government and industry. The people behind the New
World Order are thought to be international bankers, in particular
the owners of the private banks in the
Federal Reserve System and other
central banks, and members of the
Council on Foreign Relations,
Trilateral Commission and
Bilderberg Group.
The New World Order is
also said to control supranational and global organisations such as
the European Union, United Nations, World
Bank, International Monetary Fund
and the proposed North American Union. The term
gained popularity following its use in the early 1990s, first by
President
George H. W. Bush
when he referred to his "dream of a
New World Order" in his speech to
the
United States Congress on
September 11, 1990, and second by
David Rockefeller in a statement to the
United Nations Business Council in
September 1994, sometimes cited as evidence that the New World
Order had a motive for carrying out the
September 11, 2001 attacks:
"We are on the verge of a global transformation. All we
need is the right major crisis and the nations will accept the New
World Order."
The
concept of this shadow government pre-dates 1990; it is accused of
being the same group of people who, among other things, created the
Federal Reserve Act (1913), supported the Bolshevik Revolution (1917), and supported the rise of the Nazi Party in Germany
, all for
their own agenda. The
World Bank
and national
central banks are said to
be the tools of the New World Order; war generates massive profits
for central banks because government spending (hence borrowing at
interest from the central banks) increases dramatically in times of
war.
Many
conspiracy theorists believe that Denver
International Airport
is the western U.S. headquarters of the New World
Order, and a massive underground base and city is believed to exist
underneath the airport. Reasons for this include the airport's
unusually large size (larger than some major cities), distance from
the Denver,
Colorado
, city
center, and the set of bizarre murals depicting burning cities,
gas-mask wearing soldiers, girls in coffins, Masonic symbols and strange writing.
Federal Reserve System
The New World Order is said to control the wealth of nations
through central banks, via the issuance of currency. The
Federal Reserve System is the central
bank of the United States, created in 1913. There is a theory that
the Federal Reserve System is designed to transfer wealth from the
poor and middle classes of the United States to the international
bankers of the New World Order.
False flag operations
False flag operations are covert
operations conducted by governments, corporations, or other
organizations, which are designed to appear as if they are being
carried out by other entities. Numerous conspiracy theories have
developed suggesting that false flag operations have been carried
out throughout the 20th century, and the secrecy of the true nature
of the events have been maintained by successful cover-ups. The
following are some attacks that are believed by some to be examples
of false flag attacks:
- On
February 27, 1933, the Reichstag building
was subject to an arson
attack; as a result, it is seen as the pivotal event in the
establishment of Nazi
Germany.
- Pan Am Flight
103 conspiracy theories.
- The
1993 World
Trade Center bombing
was orchestrated by the Federal Bureau
of Investigation
.
- Martin Bryant,
the perpetrator of the 1996 Port Arthur
massacre
, is said to have been framed, and that the massacre
was engineered by the Australian
government in order to facilitate gun
control.
- Former
GRU officer Aleksey
Galkin , former FSB officer
Alexander Litvinenko and other
defectors from the Russian government and security services have
asserted that the 1999 Russian apartment bombings, which
precipitated the Second Chechen
War, were false flag operations perpetrated by the FSB, the
successor organization to the KGB
.
- Many 9/11 conspiracy
theories have been presented to explain the September 11, 2001 attacks, many
of them claiming that individuals in the United States government
knew about the attacks beforehand and purposefully allowed them to
occur, or orchestrated the attacks themselves, as a pretext for the
"War on Terror", wars in Afghanistan and
Iraq, increased militarization, expansion of the police state, and other intrusive foreign and
domestic policies by which they would benefit. Proponents point to
the Project for the
New American Century, a conservative think tank that argues for
increased American global leadership, whose former members include
ex-Secretary of Defense Donald
Rumsfeld, former Vice President Dick
Cheney and several other key Bush administration figures.
A 2000
report from the group stated that "some catastrophic and catalyzing
event — like a new Pearl Harbor
" would be needed as a pretext for carrying out
their plans for "United States global hegemony" in the 21st
century. The 9/11 Truth
Movement is the self-bestowed name of those who seek the
purported "truth" about 9/11.
- It is
theorized that the 2004 Madrid
train bombings were not carried out by a local group of
Islamist radicals, as the judiciary indictment
states, but by a group which in various versions includes the
Basque terrorist group ETA, socialist government
officials, police forces, foreign secret services, the Spanish
secret service, a powerful media group and members of the judiciary
in different combinations. A lighter version accuses the government
and police forces of cover up.
-
Rumours and conspiracy theories about the July 2005 London
bombings allege that intelligence services were behind the
attacks.
Wars
The motivations for nations starting, entering, or ending wars are
often brought into question by conspiracy theorists. Munitions
suppliers are often blamed for devising, coordinating and
precipitating the events that lead nations into war, either in part
or
in toto. According to this view, there is
always a party within a nation that benefits from war, on whatever
pretext: the suppliers of weapons and other military material.
President
Dwight Eisenhower
referred to this source of potential
conflict of interest as the
military-industrial complex.
President
Abraham Lincoln is known
to have made a similar observation near the close of the
American Civil War.
Related is the allegation that certain wars which are claimed by
politicians to be in the national interest, or for humanitarian
purposes, are in fact motivated by the conquest and control of
natural resources for commercial
interest.
In the Spanish-American War, the explosion of
the USS Maine prompted
the United States annexation of Puerto Rico, the Philippines
, and Guam
.
Opponents of the war, such
as
Mark Twain and
Andrew Carnegie, claimed that it was being
fought for
imperialist motives.
In recent times, wars in the
Middle East
such as the
Gulf War and the
invasion of Iraq have been described
as wars for
oil. In many cases, critics
have accused the U.S. of engaging in
realpolitik in the cynical sense of
political action without regard for principle or morals. A war
planned for economic gain can be seen as a conspiracy in the
conventional sense of a secret plot — particularly when the public
is presented with false pretexts for war. It has been suggested
that war is a perfect way of distracting citizens, as an electoral
tactic, from difficulties facing the current administration. This
premise is the basis of the film
Wag the
Dog, and the George Orwell novel
1984. Some have claimed that this
was the motivation behind the
Falklands
War.
At that time the National Reorganization
Process, the right-wing dictatorship that ruled Argentina
between 1976 and 1983, was facing increasing
discontent among the population and this may have contributed to
the decision to invade the Falkland Islands
.
Coups d'état
Governments, particularly the United States government, have been
accused of carrying false flag
coups
d'etat, in order to install friendly governments in foreign
countries.
Some of these have since been acknowledged -
such as Operation Ajax (1953), a
covert coup to topple the democratically elected leaders of
Iran
. Some other coups that some believe may have
been actively supported by the United States government include the
following:
Official Conspiracy Theories
Some conspiracy theories have been advanced by governmental
organizations for transparently political reasons.
Assassinations
Conspiracy theories sometimes emerge following assassinations of
prominent people.
The best known is the assassination of John F.
Kennedy
(1963), which has caused a number of conspiracy
theories to develop. Central to this theory is the claim
that the injuries received by Kennedy and Governor John Connally
could not have been caused by a lone gunman behind the motorcade
and to the right. This theory was popularised by the
Oliver Stone movie,
JFK. Three polls conducted in 2003 suggest
that there is widespread disbelief among the U.S. public about the
official story of a lone gunman between 68% and 83%.
The assassinations of
Robert F.
Kennedy,
Martin Luther King, Jr. and
Malcolm X are also the subject of conspiracy
theories. In many cases, it is asserted that a "
Manchurian candidate" may have been
used. Often evidence for such theories includes the reactions by
individuals and government agencies following the events, such as
the creation of biased commissions to conduct official
investigations. The question of "Who benefits?" is also often
asked, with conspiracy theorists asserting that insiders often have
far more powerful motives than those to whom the assassination is
attributed by mainstream society. Earlier examples of
assassinations about which there are conspiracy theories include
those of
Abraham Lincoln and
Archduke Franz
Ferdinand of Austria. The assassinations of historical figures,
such as
Eric V of Denmark, remain
subject to conspiracy theories.
More recent examples include those of
Sheikh Mujibur Rahman,
Carrero Blanco, Benigno Aquino, Jr., Olof
Palme
, Yitzhak
Rabin, Alexander
Litvinenko, Tupac Shakur and
Benazir Bhutto.
Some deaths that are officially recorded as accident, suicide or
natural causes are also the subject of some conspiracy theories.
Examples
include the car crash that killed Diana,
Princess of Wales
and Dodi Fayed in 1997,
the death of John F. Kennedy Jr.
in a plane crash in 1999, and the death of Senator Paul Wellstone in a plane crash in
2002. Other examples include: the suicide of Deputy White
House Counsel
Vincent Foster; the
plane crash that killed United States Secretary of Commerce
Ron Brown; the
Mayerling Incident; and the deaths of
U.S. Presidents
Zachary Taylor and
Lyndon B. Johnson, Władysław Sikorski, James Forrestal, British political leader
Hugh Gaitskell, Australian prime
minister Harold
Holt
, James P.
Brady, New Zealand prime minister
Norman Kirk,
Jimmy Hoffa and
David Kelly. There are also
theories about untimely deaths of celebrities, such as
Marilyn Monroe,
Sam
Cooke,
Brian Jones,
Jimi Hendrix,
Janis
Joplin,
Jim Morrison,
Elvis Presley,
Bob
Marley,
John Lennon, and more
recently
Michael Jackson.
There are also theories that some
assassination attempts
have been carried out by secret conspiracies, in some cases
failures but in other cases entirely staged events. The motive for
staging an unsuccessful assassination attempt can be to augment the
popularity of the person involved; public opinion polls tend to be
boosted by unsuccessful attempts on the life of a prominent
politician. There have been numerous
unsuccessful attempts to assassinate U.S.
Presidents. Some of them, such as the attempted assassinations
of
Gerald Ford,
Ronald Reagan and
George H. W. Bush
have aroused suspicion from conspiracy theorists that the events
might have been staged.
Clinton Body Count
The
Clinton Body Count, as it is popularly known, is a conspiracy
theory that Bill Clinton, while he was
president and before, was quietly assassinating his associates
(ostensibly anyone who got in the way of his career, such as
Vince Foster) was started in
retaliation the Bush Body Count (which ostensibly had various
members of the Bush family responsible for events like JFK
assassination
and the October
surprise merrily killing lesser co-conspirators on their
way). The Clinton Body Count is a list of about 50-60
associates of Clinton who have died "under mysterious
circumstance". The list began circulating over the Internet
starting in the mid-1990s.
The list grew out of a 1993 list of about 24 names prepared by the pro-gun lobby group American Justice Federation which was led by Linda Thompson. The list was posted to the group's Bulletin board system. Snopes.com has debunked this list, noting 1) many of those claimed to be assassinated actually died from very well documented accidents that leave no possibility of assassination 2) a political figure who becomes President of the United States will have a loosely defined circle of "associates", and many of these associates are in dangerous positions (police officers, pilots, soldiers) or older men in high stress jobs (therefore at greater risk of dying of stress related disease or suicide).
Technology and weapons
Suppression of technologies
- Avro Arrow—Cancellation of this
system.
- Termination of
rocket experiments at Cuxhaven.
- Vril Society Conspiracy which suggests that
a secret form of energy, called "Vril", is used
and controlled by a secret subterranean society of matriarchal
socialist utopian superior beings. The theory also claims that Nazi
Germany used this technology to create advanced aircraft (flying
saucers).
- A typical suppressed invention story is that of the incredibly
efficient automobile carburetor, whose inventor was supposedly killed
or hounded into obscurity by petroleum companies desirous to
protect their business from an engine that would make their product
obsolete. It has been claimed that the Elsbett diesel engine running on plant oil had to
put up against unfair competition practices.
- The documentary Who
Killed the Electric Car? alleged that electric car technology has been largely
suppressed by big oil and gas firms. The first suppression of such
occurred shortly after the turn of the 20th century (in 1899 the
world's land speed record was set by an electric car at
65 mph); the second time was in 1913-1914 when the same
interests sabotaged Henry Ford's and Thomas Edison's attempt to
produce an 'inexpensive' electric car. This activity, and further
industry conspiracies to rid the U.S. of the electric trolley system and electric trains, are documented in
the book Internal Combustion, by Edwin Black.
- Nikola Tesla has
been the object of several conspiracy theories, with claims
relating to revolutionary energy generation and distribution
technologies which may or may not have been utilised by "HAARP
", an American military-funded research
program. While the technology Tesla discovered was real and
exists today, his discoveries have often been linked to such
pseudoscience as Wilhelm Reich's
"orgone" generator which was supposedly
suppressed by the
establishment.
- The Phoebus cartel set up in 1924
certainly seems to have stopped competition in the light bulb
industry for some years, and has been accused of preventing
technological advances that would have produced longer-lasting
light bulbs. However, the Phoebus cartel also features in Thomas Pynchon's fictional Gravity's Rainbow, which has led some
to blur fact and fiction.
- Free energy
suppression
Development of weapons technology
- Montauk Project
-A continuation of the Philadelphia Experiment, The
Montauk
Project
would put government trained psychics (Duncan
Cameron) into a program with the intent of mind control, time
travel, and even mental manifestation. Although denied by
the government, a few (Preston
Nichols, Al Bielek) have given
lectures and written books on the subject.
- High Frequency Active Auroral Research
Program
theory claims that HAARP could be used as
directed-energy weapon, weather control, earthquake induction device and/or for mind control
- Philadelphia Experiment-
An attempt to turn a ship invisible that allegedly caused severe
harm to onboard crewmembers.
- It
has been speculated that the 2004 Indian
Ocean Tsunami
may have been caused intentionally by a "tsunami
bomb" - a nuclear weapon detonated in
a strategic position under the ocean. Some reason that the
technology is at least feasible since research into such technology
has been conducted by the military as far back as World War II.
According
to declassified files, top-secret "tsunami bomb" experiments
utilising explosions to trigger "mini-tidal waves" were conducted
off the coast of New
Zealand
in 1944 and 1945. The U.S. Defense
Department had even expressed concern about earthquake-inducing
technology in warfare well before the 2004 disaster. In 1997
Defense Secretary William S.
Cohen stated, "Others are engaging
even in an eco-type of terrorism whereby they can alter the
climate, set off earthquakes, volcanoes remotely through the use of
electromagnetic waves. So there are plenty of ingenious minds out
there that are at work finding ways in which they can wreak terror
upon other nations. It's real, and that's the reason why we have to
intensify our efforts, and that's why this is so important."
- Chemtrail theory: Clouds behind
aircraft, having the general appearance of contrails, but alleged to be chemical spraying
performed for some secretive purpose.
Weapons testing
- Peter Vogel's
book The Last Wave from Port Chicago argues that the
Port Chicago
disaster
was an accidental detonation or intentional test of
a nuclear weapon on ships manned by (mostly African American) U.S.
sailors.
- A
ubiquitous and persistent rumour in Cameroon
has it that the Lake Nyos carbon dioxide
disaster
of 1986 was
caused by the U.S. or French (depending on the version) military
testing a secret bomb in the lake.
- According to some theories the crashes of
Arrow
DC8
and TWA800
were caused
by a secret electromagnetic directed-energy weapon.
- Contention lingers over the continuing
after-effects of secret British
nuclear testing at Maralinga
, South
Australia
during the
1950s.
- Shortly after the 2004 Indian Ocean
tsunami took place, the Al-Osboa' newsweekly in
Egypt
alleged that the tsunami could have been caused by
an Indian nuclear experiment in which Israeli and American nuclear
experts participated. Al-Osboa' further alleged that
India
, in its heated nuclear race with Pakistan
, has acquired lately sophisticated nuclear know-how
from the United States and Israel, both of which "showed readiness
to cooperate with India in experiments to exterminate humankind,"
beginning with the heavily populated Muslim regions of southeast
Asia, where the bulk of casualties took place. This claim
was reported by other newspapers, some commenting on its
possibility and others dismissing it.
Surveillance, espionage and intelligence agencies
Particular technologies of surveillance and control arouse concern
that has bordered upon, or crossed over into, conspiracy theory.
These are technologies being developed by governments which are
intended to intrude into the privacy or harm the persons of
citizens, particularly dissenters. Conspiracy theories of this sort
cast government agencies as pursuing vast technical powers in order
to spy on people, control their minds, or otherwise suppress an
alienated populace.
The plausibility of establishing such
surveillance capabilities, by technical means or by a widespread
network of informants, should perhaps be viewed in the context of
events in former Eastern bloc
countries, particularly the activities of the East German
Stasi before the fall of the
Berlin
Wall
. The various services provided by
Google have also been considered to invade people's
privacy, thus enabling intelligence agencies to monitor their
activities.
Many governments use
intelligence
agencies to promote national policies in secretive ways — in
several cases including the use of sabotage, propaganda, and
assassination.
Intelligence agencies, such as the Central Intelligence Agency
(CIA), KGB
, MI6
, BND
, Inter-Services Intelligence,
Internal Security Act (ISA) and Mossad, are a
common element of political conspiracy theories precisely because
they are known to participate in some activities similar to those
described in conspiracy theories.. Indeed, conspiracy
theories about espionage agencies go back at least as far as the
1600s, with allegations the English spymaster
Robert Cecil was
responsible for the
Gunpowder plot of 1605.
Some examples include the
Pine Gap
satellite tracking system in Australia, which is believed by some
to be a global database used to track individuals
Big Brother style, and
the
Government Warehouse, which
is a conspiracy that alleges that the government has secret
warehouses which contain articles that they do not want people to
know about.
Numerous
theories have been put forward surrounding Korean Air
Lines Flight 007
, a Boeing 747 that was shot down by the Soviet
military after it strayed into prohibited airspace in 1983.
These theories started in a
Cold War era of
heightened tensions and mutual distrust, and have been fanned by
subsequent misinformation, deception, suppression of evidence and
political events.
Media
DTV Transition
Some theorists claim that forced transition to
Digital television broadcasting is
practical realization of
"Big
Brother" concept. They claim that miniature
cameras and
microphones are
built in
Set-top boxes and newer TV sets
to spy on people. Another claim describes use of
mind control technology that would be hidden in
the digital signal and used to subvert the mind and feelings of the
people and for
subliminal
advertising.
Medicine
The subject of suppressed-invention conspiracy also touches on the
realm of medical quackery: proponents of more unlikely forms of
alternative medicine are known
to allege conspiracy by mainstream doctors to suppress their cures.
Such conspiracies are often said to include government regulators,
to the extent that a legal decision may be relevant. Some medical
conspiracy theorists argue that the medical community could
actually cure supposedly "incurable"
diseases such as
cancer (like
the noted
Luigi di Bella's medicines)
and
AIDS if it really wanted to, but instead
prefers to suppress the cures as a way of extorting more funding
from the government and donors, as well as from the patients
themselves. The costs for long-term treatment are generally higher
than for a one-time cure. Other medical conspiracies charge that
pharmaceutical companies are in league with some medical
practitioners to 'invent' new diseases, such as
ADD,
ADHD,
HSV
and
HPV.
Drug legalization
Activists and spokespersons for legalization of drugs (especially
marijuana) have long espoused a
theory that government and private industry conspired during the
first half of the 20th century to outlaw
hemp,
allegedly so that it would no longer provide inexpensive
competition to
pulp paper and synthetic
materials.
William Randolph
Hearst is often pointed to as one of the businessmen
responsible due to his involvement in the printing industry and his
eminence in the public eye. An extensive study on the subject has
been done by
Jack Herer in his book
The Emperor Wears No
Clothes.
Diet
This type of theory posits that, with the help of the food industry
and the United States
Food
and Drug Administration (FDA), the medical industry is
generating billions in drug and treatment revenue from consumers
who have become unhealthy as a result of poor or incomplete diet
guidelines from the FDA. It is claimed that as long as the medical
industry's dietary research studies are accepted and enforced as
the measure, they will continue to suggest a minimum calorie intake
above the actual healthy level, and will also continue to suppress
any findings of the greater benefits of
fasting and other
calorie restriction type diets, and as
long as the consumer continues to eat at the level suggested by the
FDA, the incidence of obesity will continue to rise and the medical
industry will continue to profit. Thus, it would be self-defeating
for the medical industry to produce a cure for the many services
that they depend on to generate revenue from unhealthy dietary
practices of their customers.
Creation of diseases
There are claims that
AIDS is a
man-made disease (i.e. created by scientists in a laboratory).
Some of these theories allege that
HIV was
created by a conspiratorial group or by a secretive agency such as
the CIA. It is thought to have been created as a tool of
genocide and/or population control. Other theories
suggest that the virus was created as an experiment in biological
and/or psychological warfare, and then escaped into the population
at large by accident. Some who believe that HIV was a government
creation see a precedent for it in the
Tuskegee syphilis study, in which
government-funded researchers deceptively denied treatment to black
patients infected with a sexually transmitted disease.
It has been claimed that the CIA deliberately administered HIV to
African Americans and
homosexuals in the 1970s, via tainted
hepatitis vaccinations. Groups such as the
New Black Panther Party and
Louis Farrakhan's
Nation of Islam assert that this was part of
a plan to destroy the black race. Others claim that it was
administered in Africa as a way of crippling the development of the
continent.
There have been suggestions that either the HIV virus or a
sterilizing agent has been added to
polio
vaccines being distributed by the
World Health Organization in
Nigeria. Since these claims have been in existence, there has been
a marked increase in the number of polio cases in the country,
because Muslim clerics have urged parents not to have their
children vaccinated.
Water fluoridation
Water fluoridation is the
controlled addition of
fluoride to a
public water supply to reduce
tooth decay. Although almost all major
health and dental organizations support water fluoridation, or have
found no association with adverse effects, efforts to introduce
water fluoridation meet considerable opposition whenever it is
proposed. Since fluoridation's inception in the 1950s, opponents
have drawn on distrust of experts and unease about medicine and
science. Conspiracy theories involving fluoridation are common, and
include the following:
- Fluoridation is part of a Communist or
New world order
or Illuminati plot to take over the
world. This notion is mentioned, with comical effect, in Kubrick's Dr.
Strangelove
- Fluoridation was designed by the military-industrial complex to
protect the U.S. atomic weapons program from litigation.
- Fluoridation was pioneered by a German chemical company to make
people submissive to those in power.
- Fluoridation was used in Russian prison camps and produces
schizophrenia.
- Fluoridation is backed by the aluminum or phosphate industries
as a means of disposing of some of their industrial waste.
- Fluoridation is a smokescreen to cover failure to provide
dental care to the poor.
Fluoridation researchers are accused to be in the pay of corporate
or political interests as part of the plot. Specific
anti-fluoridation arguments change to match the spirit of the
time.
Global warming
Many writers have claimed that the theory of human-caused
global warming is a deliberate fraud,
perpetrated for financial or ideological reasons, most notably
Michael Crichton in "State of Fear."
Peak Oil
There are theories that the "
Peak Oil"
concept is a fraud concocted by the
oil
industries to increase prices amid concerns about future supplies.
The oil industry is aware of vast reserves of untapped oil,
according to these theories, but it deliberately refuses to utilize
them in order to maintain the illusion of scarcity.
Parallels have been drawn between this and the
diamond industry, where it is recognized that a
monopoly cabal maintains an illusion of scarcity of diamonds in
order to increase their value. Such an idea was featured
prominently in the novel
Shock
Wave by
Clive Cussler.
The
alleged presence of large quantities of oil has led to increased
interest in the Western world in a theory of the origin of oil that
was popular in the 1950s and 1960s in the Soviet Union
and Ukraine
—the Abiogenic
petroleum origin theory.
Secret societies
Ethnicity and race
Armenian International Conspiracy
Samuel A. Weems (December 12, 1936— January 25, 2003) was
a writer and a disbarred lawyer in Arkansas
, United States.In his book,
Armenia: The
Secrets of a Christian Terrorist State (2002), he stated
that the
Armenian Genocide was a
gigantic fraud designed to "fleece" Christian nations out of
billions of dollars. He also claimed that the
Armenian Church was a "state
owned" entity that organizes and funds terrorist (including
ASALA) attacks and that Armenians had
"infiltrated" the United States.
That book states that Armenian Diaspora communities in the
United States and throughout the world are actually "colonies:"
political bases intended to gain money and support for Armenian
Republic. The books also claims Armenia is
founded on land stolen from Muslims and that Armenians have
perpetrated enormous massacres against
Turks and
Azeris, both
recently (in the
Nagorno-Karabakh
war) and in the past. He has been quoted as saying "The
religion of the Armenians is fake"and that his research shows "that
there is clearly an Armenian Master Plan that generates Armenian
hate around the world." Prior to his death in 2003, he was
preparing to write a second book claiming the international
Armenian community collaborated with and supported
Nazi Germany.
The book, along with essays and homemade videos by Weems, have been
criticized as racist and
Anti-Armenian by the
Armenian Assembly of
America.The book is available in several online bookstores in
United States and Europe.
It has also been translated in Turkish and distributed in Turkey
.
Belief in
an "Armenian International Conspiracy," that ethnic Armenians are attempting to change history and
hide certain facts for political gain, can also be encountered in
Azerbaijan
, which has clashed with Armenia over Nagorno Karabakh, a de
facto independent republic, officially part of
Azerbaijan. Many Azeris believe that the
Sumgait pogrom, where ethnic Azeris massacred
Armenians during the dissolution of the Soviet Union, was in fact
intentionally
provoked by Armenians for propaganda purposes. Actual
proponents of the "Armenian International Conspiracy" are scarce,
and said theories are rarely found outside Turkey and Azerbaijan,
countries which have histories of conflict with Armenians. The
conspiracy also garners little if any support from scholars, as
there exists ample historical evidence that shows the existence of
Armenia before the arrival of Turks into Anatolia.
Jewish world domination
The Protocols of
the Elders of Zion are widely considered to be the
beginning of contemporary conspiracy theory literature.The
Protocols are an
antisemitic
literary forgery that purports to
describe a
Jewish plot to achieve
world domination.
-
1905 Stolypin's investigation -A secret investigation ordered
by the newly appointed chairman of the Council of Ministers
Pyotr Stolypin came to conclusion
that the Protocols first appeared in Paris
in
antisemitic circles around 1897–1898. Even though he himself
was anti-Semitic, when Nicholas II
learned of the results of this investigation, he requested: "The
Protocols should be confiscated, a good cause cannot be defended by
dirty means." Despite the order, or because of the "good cause,"
numerous reprints proliferated.
-
1921 Exposure in The Times - in 1920, the history of
the concepts found in the Protocols was traced back to the
works of Goedsche and Joly by Lucien
Wolf (an English Jewish journalist); was published in London in
August 1921; and was similarly exposed in the series of articles in
The Times by its Constantinople
reporter, Philip
Graves, who took his information from Wolf's work.
- 1934-1935
The Berne Trial - In 1934, Dr. Alfred Zander, a Swiss
Nazi, published a series of
articles accepting the Protocols as fact. He was
sued in what has come to be known as the Berne Trial. The trial began in
the Cantonal Court of
Bern
on October 29, 1934. On May 19, 1935, the
court, after full investigation, declared the Protocols to
be forgeries, plagiarisms, and obscene literature.
- United States Congress, Senate. Committee on the Judiciary.
Protocols of the Elders of Zion: a fabricated "historic"
document. A report prepared by the Subcommittee to Investigate the
Administration of the Internal Security Act and Other Internal
Security Laws (Washington, U.S. Govt. Printing Office, 1964).
The text takes the form of an instruction manual to a new member of
the "elders," describing how they will run the world through
control of the media and finance, and replace the traditional
social order with one based on mass manipulation.
Scholars generally
agree that the Okhrana, the secret police of the Russian Empire
, fabricated the text in the late 1890s or early
1900s. Among the most notable early refutations of
the Protocols as a forgery were
a series of articles printed in The
Times of London
in
1921. This series revealed that much of the material in the
Protocols was plagiarized from
earlier
political satire that did not have
an anti-Semitic theme. Since 1903, when the
Protocols
appeared in print, its earliest publishers have offered vague and
often contradictory testimony detailing how they obtained their
copy of the rumored original manuscript.
The text was popularized by those opposed to Russian revolutionary
movement and was disseminated further after the
revolution of 1905, becoming
known worldwide after the 1917
October Revolution. It was widely
circulated in the
West in 1920 and
thereafter. The
Great Depression
and the rise of
Nazism were important
developments in the history of the
Protocols, and the
hoax continued to be published and circulated
despite its debunking, becoming "a lie that would not die."
Continued usage of the
Protocols as an anti-Semitic
propaganda tool substantially diminished
with the defeat of the Nazis in
World War
II. It is still frequently quoted and reprinted, and is
sometimes used as evidence of an alleged Jewish
cabal, especially in the
Middle
East.
Arab-Israeli relations
Daniel Pipes has written a book and
many essays in which he asserts that there is a prevalence of
conspiracy theories throughout the Arab and Muslim world.
Conspiracy theories in the Arab and Muslim worlds, he claims,
largely blame Israelis or Jews for many problems facing the world.
Some of these include the following:
- The
Islamist organization Hamas states in their charter that The Protocols of the Elders
of Zion accurately describe the Zionist plan to take over
Palestine, and that the Freemasons,
Lions Club, and the
Rotarians
are organizations promoting "the interest of
Zionism." It accuses those
organizations, and the "Zionist invasion" in general, of being
"behind the drug trade and alcoholism in all its kinds."
- On several occasions, Palestinians have claimed that the
Israeli government has used nerve gas
against them, and then suppressed the evidence of such.
- Some
Arabs, mostly Egyptians, believe that Israelis engineered the crash
of EgyptAir
Flight 990
in 1999. Others insist that the US is
covering up for Boeing, the airplane's manufacturer.
- The
1997 Asian Financial
Crisis was popularly attributed to Jewish speculators by
Malaysian
and Indonesian
commentators and some government
figures.
- Like some others worldwide, many Arabs and Muslims believe that
the September 11, 2001
attacks were allowed or caused to happen by parts of the U.S.
government (e.g., CIA) and/or Jews.
Richard Landes and some other pro-Israel
advocates maintain that Muhammad
al-Durrah, a 12-year-old Palestinian boy reported to have been
killed in the Gaza
Strip
by Israeli forces in September 2000, was not in
fact killed and the entire incident was staged by Palestinian
cameramen (see Pallywood for more on this
conspiracy theory).
"Babylon" and racist oppression
Some
Rastas maintain that a white
racist patriarchy ("Babylon") controls the world in order to
oppress the African race.
They believe that Emperor Haile Selassie of Ethiopia
did not die when it was reported in 1975, and that
the racist, white media (again, "Babylon") propagated that rumour
in order to squash the Rastafari
Movement and its message of overthrowing Babylon. Other
Rastafarians, however, believe in peace and unity, and interpret
Babylon as a metaphor for the established "system" that oppresses
(or "downpresses," in Rasta terminology) groups such as Africans
and the world's poor.
Eurabia
Italian
journalist Oriana Fallaci and
British-Egyptian writer Bat Ye'or, author
of Eurabia: The Euro-Arab
Axis, proposed a conspiracy they said was hatched between a
cadre of French
elites
within the European Economic
Community and the Arab League in the
mid-1970s to form a strategic alliance against the United States
and Israel, and to turn Europe into an appendage of the Islamic
world.
Arab-fascist axis
Radio talk show host
David Emory claims
that Nazi leader
Martin Bormann never
died and has built a global empire involving, among many others,
the
Bush family,
Hassan al Banna,
Grover Norquist,
Meyer Lansky, and
Michael Chertoff.
Paranormal
Evil aliens
A somewhat different version of this theory maintains that humanity
is actually under the control of
shape-shifting alien reptiles, who require
periodic ingestion of human blood to maintain their human
appearance.
David Icke has been a devoted
proponent of this theory. Reportedly the Bush family and the
British Royal Family are
actually such creatures, and
Diana, Princess of Wales was aware
of this, presumably relating to her death. David Icke's theory,
which encompasses many other conspiracy theories, is that humanity
is actually under the reptillians; with evidence ranging from
Sumerian tablets describing the
"
Anunnaki" (which he translates as "those
who from heaven to earth came"), to the
serpent in the
Biblical Garden of Eden,
to child abuse and water fluoridation. This theory has been the
subject of several
books.
Extraterrestrials
A sector of conspiracy theory with a particularly detailed
mythology is the
extraterrestrial
phenomenon, which has become the basis for numerous pieces of
popular entertainment, the Area 51
/Grey Aliens conspiracy, and
allegations surrounding the Dulce
Base. It is alleged that the
United States government conspires
with extraterrestrials involved in the
abduction and manipulation of citizens. A
variant tells that particular technologies, notably the
transistor — were given to American industry in
exchange for alien dominance. The enforcers of the clandestine
association of human leaders and aliens are the
Men in Black, who silence those who speak out
on
UFO sightings. This
conspiracy theory has been the basis of numerous books, as well as
the popular television show
The
X-Files and the movies
Men in Black and
Men in Black II.
The X-Files
based the plots of many of its episodes around urban legends and
conspiracy theories, and had a framing plot which postulated a set
of interlocking conspiracies controlling all recent human
history.
There are
claims about secret experiments known as the Montauk
Project
conducted at Camp Hero
, Montauk, New York
. Allegedly, the project was developing a
powerful psychological war weapon. The project is often connected
to other alleged government projects such as the
Philadelphia Experiment and
Project Rainbow, both of which involved the
use of the
Unified field theory
to cloak vessels. Experiments involving
teleportation,
time
travel, contact with extraterrestrials, and
mind control are frequently alleged to have
been conducted in the camp.
Preston
B. Nichols has authored five
books on the subject, including
Montauk Project: Experiments in
time.
Religion
Apocalyptic prophecies
Apocalyptic prophecies, particularly Christian
apocalyptic and
eschatalogical claims about the
end times, the
Last
Judgment, and the
end of
the world have inspired a range of conspiracy theories. Many of
these deal with the
Antichrist.
This Antichrist, also known as
the Beast 666, is supposed to be
a leader who will create a world empire and oppress Christians
(and, in some readings, Jews as well). In apocalyptic conspiracy
theory, some person from current events is alleged to be the
Antichrist, and some supranatural organization is alleged to be the
Antichrist's world organization of evil.
Countless historical figures have been called "Antichrist" in their
times, from the Roman emperor
Nero to
Ronald Reagan to
Javier Solana. At times, apocalyptic
speculation has mixed with
anti-Catholicism to yield the
interpretation that the reigning
Pope is the
Biblical Antichrist. A more recent conspiratorial interpretation
sees the Antichrist as a world leader involved with the United
Nations, who will create a
one world government (aka New
World Order) and establish a single monetary system. The latter is
identified with the
Mark of the
Beast, which the
Bible states that people
in the end times will need in order to conduct trade.
Two
nations often involved in apocalyptic conspiracy theories are
Israel
and
Iraq
. The former is the location of both the
Temple
Mount
and Armageddon (Megiddo),
places seen as important in prophecy. The latter is the
ancient location of Babylon
, which also figures in the Book of Revelation. During the
Gulf War, some suggested that
Saddam Hussein had ordered the excavation and
repopulation of the city of Babylon, thus casting Saddam as an
Antichrist figure.
Other interpretations have held that
"Babylon" in the Book of
Revelation refers to another mighty nation, such as the Roman Empire, the Vatican (in Rome) and the
Catholic Church, or more recently the Soviet Union
or the United States of America
.
Bible conspiracy theory
Bible conspiracy theories
posit that much of what is known about the
Bible, in particular the New Testament, is a
deception. These theories variously claim that Jesus really had a
wife,
Mary Magdalene, and children,
that a group such as the
Priory of
Sion has secret information about the
bloodline of Jesus, that Jesus did not die
on the cross and that the carbon dating of the Shroud of Turin was
part of a conspiracy by the Vatican to suppress this knowledge,
that there was a secret movement to censor books that truly
belonged in the Bible, or the
Christ
myth theory, proposed for example in
Zeitgeist, the Movie as a means of
social control by the Roman Empire.
Miscellaneous
- Nature
Several theories are advanced regarding the cause and aftermath of
Hurricane Katrina.Because of its
ineffectiveness, the International Commission for the Conservation
of Atlantic Tunas (ICCAT) is often jokingly referred to as
"
International
Conspiracy to Catch all Tuna".
- Advertising
There is a theory that the famous "computer vs. human"
chess game - between Russian grandmaster
Gary Kasparov and IBM's Deep Blue computer -
involved cheating by
IBM, to ensure they would
achieve a victory that would be widely publicized. This theory is
argued by the documentary
Game Over: Kasparov and the
Machine.
Another conspiracy theory related to advertising is that
The Coca-Cola Company intentionally
changed to an inferior formula with
New
Coke with the intent of driving up demand for their classic
product, later reintroducing it for their financial gain.
Alternatively, people believe the switch was made to allow
Coca-Cola to reintroduce "classic" Coke with a new formulation
using less expensive
corn syrup.
- Space
Theorists claim
that some or all of the
Apollo moon
landings were "staged" in a
Hollywood
movie or other studio either because they never happened or to
conceal some aspect of the truth of the circumstances of the actual
landing.
Soviet space
program conspiracy accusations suppose that some failed
human spaceflights in the USSR
occurred but were concealed by the government.
Also some
theorists claim that China
secretly
tried a manned
spaceflight in the winter of 1978/1979 but it was a
failure.
- Communism
Since the
mid-1970s, a variety
of conspiracy theories have emerged centering around British
Labour Party
Prime Minister
Harold Wilson. These range from
Wilson having been a Soviet agent, to Wilson being the victim of
plots by right-wing members of the civil service.
Żydokomuna is a theory that Communism in
Poland during the
Cold War was controlled
by Jews. There is a theory that
Lech Wałęsa was an informer of the
SB, communist
secret police in Poland.
Some extreme anti-Communists have claimed that many popular
clothing companies have been selling "Marxist Pants" which are
intended to convert consumers to
Marxism
- Celebrities
In October 1969, a rumour began circling that
Paul McCartney, one of
The Beatles, died in a car crash in late 1966
and was replaced by a lookalike. Proponents of the theory, which is
commonly referred to as the
Paul is
dead hoax, cite "clues" in the form of peculiar album
covers, possible symbolism in strange lyrics, and
backmasking. There have been many purported
sightings of Elvis Presley over the
years since his death in 1977. Several conspiracy theories have
developed suggesting that he is still alive.
Kurt Cobain, singer and guitarist of Nirvana was
suggested to not to have committed suicide, but was in fact
murdered. Some people believe that
comedian
Andy Kaufman faked his own death. Some
believe
Tupac Shakur also faked his
death.
- History
- Some New Chronology theories,
such as the Phantom time
hypothesis of Heribert Illig and the Fomenko-Nosovsky
chronology, claim that the conventional dating of historical events
is incorrect, and that the historical timeline has been purposely
distorted by powerful interests.
- Sports
The
“Frozen Envelope Theory” suggests that the NBA
rigged the 1985 NBA Draft Lottery so Georgetown
University
standout Patrick Ewing
would land with the New York Knicks,
who had the first pick in that year’s draft. Conspiracy
theorists argue that the
New York
Knicks' envelope was placed in the freezer so that when
NBA commissioner David Stern reached into a bowl containing the
envelopes of all the teams participating in the
draft lottery, he would be able to identify
the
Knicks’ envelope by its being colder than
the others.
The death of Phar
Lap, the champion New
Zealand
and Australian racehorse, was purported to be a
deliberate poisoning. There are also several theories
concerning the disappearance of the champion racehorse,
Shergar.
- Electronic banking conspiracy
The
Theory of Electronic Conspiracy is said to be a
variant of modern New World Order conspiracy theories. The theory
consists of the belief that a secret group has attempted for
centuries to reach worldwide dominion, even if the result by design
would be world destruction. According to this theory, the worldwide
dominion has been planned from antiquity and follows the following
phases:
- The substitution of precious
metal-based coin currency by paper
currency. This process began in the Renaissance, with the beginning of the use of
tickets which allowed for people to have a
tangible good (such as silver or gold pieces)
by paper—a more virtual, but comfortable, medium which the state
was committed to provide the equivalent amount of precious metal if
such was required.
- The appearance of virtual money, with credit cards: money approaches wholly virtual
status. Money is no longer a tangible paper- or metal-based object
but rather a series of numbers recorded in magnetic stripes.
- The proliferation of Internet and
Electronic commerce: credit
cards are no longer required in order to purchase or sell goods and services from an
Internet-connected computer.
- The concentration of the worldwide bank into few
hands, by means of continuous international banking
fusions.
- The worldwide implementation of an electronic identity card.
- The great worldwide blackout. A tremendous disaster
will take place when, after a great electrical blackout on a
planetary scale, the data of all electronic accounts erase
simultaneously. After this event, chaos and poverty will
immediately ensue throughout the planet; and civilization will
revert to its primitive forms of slavery to
survive. This is the last aim of the "secret organization" which
has spent centuries guiding this process. The worldwide blackout
will be preceded by partial blackouts that would only be tests and
"signals" to communicate that different phases of the process are
being fulfilled. An example of these partial blackouts would
be those that have been produced almost simultaneously in different
parts around the world; and, at the beginning of the 21st century,
shortly after the September 11, 2001 attacks: the blackouts in the
United
States
, Canada
, Australia, and the United Kingdom
.
References
- Dictionary.com
- The Criminalization of the State Michel
Chossudovsky 3 February 2004
- The Criminalization of the State Michel
Chossudovsky 3 February 2004
- 9/11: Cheney's crime, not a "failure"
- The Money Masters: How International Bankers Gained
Control Of America
- Secrets of the Federal Reserve
- Terror-99
- Prima-News
- Butler, Smedley. "War is a Racket" Accessed 02-02-2008.
- An ABC News random
telephone poll
found that just 32% (plus or minus 3%) of Americans believe that
Lee
Harvey Oswald acted alone in the assassination of John F.
Kennedy, while 68% do not believe Oswald acted alone. GO.com The "Discovery Channel" poll (sampling
method not given) reveals that only 21% believe Oswald acted alone,
while 79% do not believe Oswald acted alone. The "History Channel" poll, (self-selected
responses) details that only 17% of respondents believe that Lee
Harvey Oswald acted alone in the assassination of John F. Kennedy,
while 83% do not believe Oswald acted alone. The History Channel
- nydailynews.com
- Colorado Media Matters
- Conspiracy Nation -- Vol. 3 Num. 55 circa 1995
- alt.rush-limbaugh 1998 usenet posting
- American Justice Federation at
www.nizkor.org
- Snopes.com: The Clinton Body Count
- The Vril Society, the Luminous Lodge and the
Realization of the Great Work
- Phillips Academy Andover
- Viewzone Magazine
- The New Zealand Herald
- DefenseLink News Transcript: DoD News Briefing:
Secretary of Defense William S. Cohen
- Nexus magazine
- The Tom Bearden Website
- The Tom Bearden Website
- Hip Hop News - Independent Media Only for News
Ignored and Under Reported
- Hacked
Your System Core-Project at [www.anthraxattacks.net The Anthrax
Attacks, 9/11, & War]
- DTV Mind control - From David Icke's
website
- Illuminati News - The Real Reason Hemp is Illegal
- See in particular Leonard Horowitz's 1996 book Emerging
Viruses. More at Leonard Horowitz.
- San Francisco Bay Area
- Alex Jones’ Prison Planet
- The Brotherhood, Stephen Knight, Granada 1984, Prologue page
1
- Arkansas Legal Ethics
- Weems, Samuel A. 2002. Armenia: secrets of a Christian
terrorist state. The Armenian Great deception series, v. 1.
Dallas: St. John Press.
- Press Center
- Ermeni Araştırmaları Enstitüsü
- On a Train Going Nowhere
- Svetlana Boym, "Conspiracy theories and literary ethics:
Umberto Eco, Danilo Kis and The Protocols of Zion,":
Comparative Literature, Spring 1999.
- P. Stolypin's attempt to resolve the Jewish question
by Boris Fyodorov
- The Protocols of the Elders of Zion: A Proved
Forgery by Vladimir Burtsev (Paris, 1938) p.106
(Ch.4)
- The Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion
- John Spargo, "The Jew and American Ideals." Harper &
Brothers Publishers New York 1921 p. 20-40.
- UNISPAL United Nations Economic and Social
Council, Dissemination of racist and anti-Semitic hate material on television
programs (Retrieved Sept 2005)
- The Hidden Hand: Middle East Fears of Conspiracy
- Egyptians Growing Angry Over Suggestions of Copilot
Suicide
- US probe of EgyptAir crash: media brands Arab doubts as
"wild speculation"
- "Caught in the Mohammad al-Dura crossfire". Jerusalem
Post, October 12, 2007
- Questions about Rastafari
- Rastafarianism
- Il nemico che trattiamo da amico - Corriere della
Sera
- David Icke Interview: Aliens among us
- Revealing Apocalyptic Prophecy and the End of
Time!
- Katrina's Flights of Fancy
- Snopes.com
- The Marxist Pants
- Books.google.com
- Estulin, Daniel. «Hacia una sociedad sin dinero en efectivo»,
La verdadera historia del Club Bilderberg, Barcelona,
Planeta, 2005, ISBN 8484531570, pages: 175-233 .
Further reading