McCartney/Lavigne

One of the Beatles (think it was Paul?) had secretly died and their album art and music were laced with hints, including messages you could hear if you played the records backwards. Some people took this quite seriously.

IThinkThingsThrough

Weirdly enough, today, there is a very similar conspiracy theory concerning Avril Lavigne. Lavigne is a Canadian singer who was real big in the early 2000s and, according to the CT, died sometime around 2005 and was replaced by an impersonator. Depending on the version of the CT, the impersonator is either a fan or a close friend of Lavigne who looks a lot like her.

JimmyTheOtherCat

Wait, So, This ISN'T Real???

That you had a "permanent record" at school where they recorded everything you did and it would follow you your whole life. That's now the job of social media.

RonSwansonsOldMan

Holy sh*t yes! Everything in school, even in cartoons, the dreaded PERMANENT RECORD!

SmallTownJerseyBoy

This Is How Conservatives Think

Satanic messages inserted into rock music. The messages could only be heard if you play the album backwards but when played normally your subconscious mind would somehow absorb these messages and that's how Satan would take over your life. There were apparently huge satan worshipping covens all over the place, kidnapping children for rituals.

Today we'd probably call it "Satangate".

MomOf2cats

The World Keep Turnin Girl

Various "the world is going to end on (this specific date)" typically predicted by a cult leader. I remember those in my childhood and teens, but don't think I've heard of any more since the Jim Jones cult mass murder/suicide. I guess that kind of a prediction these days is a good way to get yourself investigated.

aeraen

Pseudo-Science Now

Before the internet there wasn't much of a bandwagon to jump on. Conspiracy theories were for weirdos and enthusiasts. But there were a lot of really idiotic rumors about celebrities, like that one about Marilyn Manson having a rib removed so he could perform autofellatio. With the advent of Internet, people began to act like experts on every f*cking thing, but back then it was mostly, "well, I heard that...". Someone might think that Elvis was still alive, but they couldn't spew out all these pseudo-scientific factoids, like they do now.

balticromancemyass

Adults Are Usually More Gullible Than Kids

Here in South Africa when I was around 8 we used to get these "tazzos" (small, plastic circular disks) with Pokémon on them in packs of chips.

They were huge collectable for us kids and we all loved them until a newspaper published a story about the devil (the ACTUAL DEVIL) coming out of a tazzo and killing a little girl.

It started massive outcry that those tazzos were satanic and demonic and a bunch of other BS.

I still don't know how every adult who read it wasn't like "this is so dumb" and ignore it.

SuperAwesome420

At Least You Came To Your Senses

I worked at a club in Florida during the early 80's. They provided housing, but it was like living at the Y with shared bathrooms, etc. Everyone was pretty chill with the gay guys who worked there until one of them got hep C and thanks to all the AIDS rumours, a bunch of us kinda got freaked out. The Health Dept came in and gave us all shots, and we weren't entirely sure what was happening. I have to shamefully admit that I steered clear of him until i came to my senses

lobstah

You Scared Sis

Bigfoot, the Abominable Snowman and the Loch Ness Monster. There seemed to be countless specials about these guys during the '70s. Oh, and UFOs. Lots of grainy pictures of UFOs.

My brother was totally into all of these. I, on the other hand, was a paranoid little girl. Every creak, every shadow in my ancient home was attributed to aliens. When I was dragged on camping trips, I preferred to hold my bladder all night than risk encountering Bigfoot. Geographically, I was spared the Abominable Snowman and the Loch Ness Monster, but they all contributed to the myth of these strange creatures.

One of our favorite family stories is the time I slept walked early on a Saturday morning and headed downstairs to watch cartoons. Unbeknownst to me, my father had been sleeping on the sofa that night. I came down, saw a being on a sofa, and my sleep-addled mind "saw" an alien. I did what any 8-year-old would do - I screamed like a banshee and told the household there was an alien on the sofa. My brother reacted like any alien-obsessed 10-year-old - he came barreling down the steps while I was trying to run up the same steps. My father sat up wondering whether a murder was being committed in front of him. My mother probably threw up her hands and wondered how she managed to be stuck in such a crazy family.

TooOldForACleverName

People Are Dark AF

Around 2005 there was an advert in the UK for Frosties cereal.

There were crazy rumours going round for a couple of years that the boy in it had killed himself due to bullying because of how bad the advert was, and even crazier ones that he was actually dead to begin with - that he was CGI'd in, and that his singing had been stitched together from home clips.

Lemoncheesecake93

Scare Tactics

Whenever a kid disappeared near my old school, every single adult would blame "an old gang that kidnapped kids for organ harvesting, then, after luring and killing the kid, they would throw the body with no organs, naked in the streets".

Whenever this happened there was always a classmate who would say: "My mom told me that this people have been kidnaping children since she was our age".

No real proof about this "gang" appeared, so i always assumed that this was fake or a parents/schools strategies to "teach" kids to don't accept candy from strangers.

We also had the "if you play this song backwards, you will listen to the real message", with songs like "Asereje", "Pulcino pio (spanish version)". Shakira having a few ribs removed from her body, because you can't move your hips the way she does *You Can't*.

Yu Gi Oh! cards being satanic or cursed, because of boobs and weird drawings.

Pokémon being... you guessed it, satanic or cursed.

And my favorite, and old curse killing government members who were involved on Simon Bolivar's body exhumation.

SyuusukeFuji