10 Wild Conspiracy Theories Spreading Online
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2014-04-28 15:54:36 UTC
If you want to start a rumor, whisper to a few friends.* If you want to launch a conspiracy theory, shout to the Internet.
*But don't. That's mean.
The worldwide web is home to a ton of wacky and creepy theories about everything and its alien mom. Think the JFK assassination was an insider job? Paranoid that Amelia Earhart couldn't just disappear? Well, you might be a conspiracy theorist. The good (or bad) news is there are thousands of people online just like you.
From the downright depressing to the pleasantly quirky, here are 10 conspiracy theories that have spread like wildfire on the web. (As with everything on the Internet, take them with a grain — or actually, with all the salt —you can.)
It's hard to make something as big as a plane disappear, but on March 8, 2014, Beijing-bound Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 completely dropped off the radar. Despite investigations from dozens of countries, the Boeing 777 did not turn up, seemingly vanishing without a trace. The only thing left to do was speculate — a lot.
Gaining an incredible amount of traction is the theory that the flight landed on Diego Garcia, a small British island in the Indian Ocean. The island has allegedly been used by the CIA to detain and torture suspects. Malaysian officials have denied this theory, but that doesn't stop people from whispering.
Google controls hundreds of Internet tools and properties we use every day. However, quite a few folks believe Google is actually Skynet, the fictional artificial intelligence hellbent on destroying humanity in the Terminator series.
Google propelled the comparison after buying Boston Dynamics, an engineering company that has created robots for the Pentagon. Numerous sites (GQ , Business Week and The Huffington Post , to name a few) were quick to draw the comparison, but theories existed long before the BD purchase; the blog googleisskynet has been around since 2006, speculating Google will soon control us all.
A vigil is held for victims of the Sandy Hook shooting.
As with tragedies before it, the Sandy Hook shooting attracted plenty of wild theories. In 2012, a 20-year-old man named Adam Lanza walked into the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., and fatally shot 20 children, six adults and then himself. Before that, he sought out his mother and killed her.
The event shook the nation as one of the deadliest mass school shootings by a single person in U.S. history.
But the Internet had its doubts, especially over on the blog Memory Hole . A lengthy list on the site claims the shooting was a total hoax, for a number of reasons: Lanza was too frail to carry multiple weapons and too inexperienced to successfully kill so many people. The site also posits Lanza might not have been a real person to begin with. It says the photos from the day (like this one) were staged by actors, and that people knew about it ahead of time, sending out tweets before the event occurred.
In an episode of Mad Men, character Megan Draper (wife of Don) is seen wearing a teeny white t-shirt emblazoned with a red star. It just so happens to be the same shirt worn by '60s actress Sharon Tate in a photo shoot for Esquire magazine. And the daughter of the man who took that photograph is a fan of the show, and immediately tweeted at Janie Bryant, Mad Men's costume designer.
Bryant replied that, yup, the shirt was inspired by Tate, who unfortunately is known for being gruesomely murdered by Charles Manson. Redditors connected the dots and concluded that Megan (who plays an actress on the show) is also headed for Tate's fate. The show's creator, Matt Weiner, piped up about the theory, saying Draper wasn't going to die...yet.
This is the Internet's favorite theory. Beyoncé. Jay Z. Miley Cyrus. Kanye West. Taylor Swift. Your mom, probably. Literally everyone is allegedly in the Illuminati, especially if he or she is a powerful pop star. What is the Illuminati, you ask? An occult secret society that rules the world and will eventually establish a New World Order.
"Signs" include throwing up hand signals, like Jay Z's diamond, which some believe is actually a covert reference to the "all-seeing eye," an alleged Illuminati symbol. Supposed Illuminati references also pepper music videos, like "Run This Town," the Jay Z/Kanye/Rihanna smash in which the trio wore all black in a post-apocalyptic society. Jay also raised eyebrows with goat skull imagery in "On To the Next One." Katy Perry wedged in plenty of symbolism in her "Dark Horse" video, which The Wire combed through.
Theories have also combed live shows for Illuminati rituals. Apparently Taylor Swift's 2012 American Music Award and 2013 BRIT Award performances were rife with religious symbolism. And what about that time Kanye embarrassed her at the 2009 MTV Video Music Awards? It was a staged ritual, because all incoming Illu-members have to be embarrassed in front of their peers as initiation. The same theory applies to Miley Cyrus' much-hyped 2013 VMA performance.
In 1996 a Boeing 747 crashed close to Long Island, N.Y., killing all 230 people on board. The TWA Flight 800 incident was a tragic occurrence caused by a fuel tank explosion, according to an investigation by the National Transportation Safety Board. However, theorists smelled something fishy and turned to the Internet to find similarly minded folks.
What's impressive is only 20% of adults were using the web at the time, making the theory groups more tight-knit and determined. Multiple theories on what "really" happened abound, but the most popular is that it was a friendly fire cover-up by the U.S. military.
Miley Cyrus, Britney Spears and Kanye West are all just government puppets, claim some theorists. They believe celebrities behave badly simply to divert attention away from politicians and national matters.
Remember Britney Spears' meltdown in 2007? Some say it was all just a front for the Bush administration, to grab headlines and distract the public. Barack Obama also apparently uses this ploy with Miley Cyrus (her VMA performance) and Kanye West, to get people talking about things other than politics. Weirdly enough, that theory was served up by Jonathan Davis, the lead singer of metal band Korn, in an interview with TMZ.
Toy figures of Sully and Boo from 'Monsters, Inc.'
Even if you don't frequent the dark corners of the web where conspiracies lie, you've probably heard this wild Pixar theory. Humor website Cracked was the first to host the idea that all Pixar movies exist in the same universe. That idea really caught on with John Negroni, who fleshed out the theory with an incredibly detailed post on his website. Here are some quick facts for the TL;DR crowd:
Brave is the first and last film in the epic timeline. The animals in the film have been bewitched to have human-like behavior.
...Which explains why the rat from Ratatouille can cook. The animals in the Pixar universe are evolving.
Charles Muntz, the villain in Up learns about the evolved animals, inspiring him to create a collar that translates dogs' thoughts.
Syndrome, the evil villain from The Incredibles, developed the artificial intelligence that would evolve years later to give inanimate objects sentience. That's why the toys in Toy Story are alive.
Monsters, Inc. is the most futuristic film in the series. But how do we get back to Brave? Duh — Boo, the human child from Monsters, Inc., is actually a time-traveler, which makes her...the witch from Brave who started all of this.
Some people just have good genes...or vampire blood coursing through their veins. Pharrell, the singer/songwriter/producer extraordinaire is 40 years old, but still looks like he's 20, mostly thanks to his perfect skin. How does he do it?! people wondered, scratching their heads in disbelief.
Then, this vintage, decades-old photo popped up on the Internet of a man who looks just like the singer.
Half-joking, half-serious, the Internet lit up with memes and theories that the star is a vampire. For the record, he's denied it in interviews, saying "How do I stay so young-looking for a 40-year-old? I wash my face."
Pharrell joins the rank of other celebs with old photo twins. Nicolas Cage, Jay Z and Keanu Reeves have all been put up for questioning, too.
In the Harry Potter universe, Ron Weasley is typically regarded as Harry's sidekick and best mate, a sometimes bumbling but ultimately lovable foil to the boy who lived. But HP fans like to make everything intertwined, exemplified by this theory: Weasley and Albus Dumbledore, the regal headmaster of Hogwarts, are one.
Basically, Weasley is a time-traveler sent back to live the rest of his days as Dumbledore. The similarities are all there: tall, slender figures, long, pointy noses and red hair (though Dumbledore is famously silver-haired, flashback scenes in the book describe him as having auburn locks).
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Topics: conspiracy theories, Conversations, US & World, Watercooler, web culture
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