Part of the reason conspiracy theories are so tempting to so many people is that sometimes, they turn out to be terrifyingly accurate.
One Reddit user asked:
What's the strangest conspiracy theory you heard that actually turned out to be true?
We're absolutely not encouraging, condoning or supporting any currently popular conspiracy theories, but we all need to be honest with ourselves. Current outlandish conspiracy theories seem plausible to some people because past outlandish conspiracy theories were factual:
Mind Control
Project Mk ULTRA, aka CIA mind control program.
That stuff is terrifying.
- [Reddit]
One of the people believed to be a researcher involved in MKUltra was Henry Murray, a famous psychologist and professor at Harvard. He was responsible for developing the field of Personology and developing some early profiling tests.
He's also partially responsible for driving the Unabomber off the deep end.
During the 50's and 60's, he was commissioned by the US government in order to condition pilots in case they get captured if their planes get shot down so they don't reveal secrets under torture. Unfortunately, he tested these theories to fine tune them on students which meant just screwing with them.
In a separate experiment, which the Unabomber was a victim of, worked like this - students were instructed to write an essay summarizing their personal philosophy on life and underlying principles, then went into a room expecting to debate philosophy with a fellow student. They instead faced an interrogation by a far more experienced opponent, whose sole purpose was to attack and ridicule their beliefs at length. Since one of the main goals of the experiment was to induce stress and upset the subject as much as possible, it's not surprising that many students came out feeling traumatized.
A Little LSD
lsd GIF
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Operation Midnight Climax
Us government hired sex workers to dose "johns" with LSD to test mind-control capabilities. Then, they expanded the program to dose citizens at restaurants and other public places.
Sex workers and LSD sounds like fun... Until you murder a 12-year-old girl and have no memory of it. Yes this actually happened to one of the victims.
If you're someone who's never done psychedelics and get dosed without you willing.. Man depending on the dosage I can only imagine what the toll on the psyche be...
It could cause a total breakdown if you thought it was just you going insane.
- whazzah
Leave Britney Alone
The #FreeBritney conspiracy.
I saw so many people on Instagram especially that were just convinced that all her weird Instagram videos were cries for help because she was being controlled by the scenes and thought it was kind of a ridiculous theory, but with everything that came out in her court cases in the later half of 2020, it seems like all of that was actually correct.
Britney Spears really was in an abusive overbearing conservatorship for over a decade.
I heard the court ruled in favour of the father because he has increased the value of her assets... So they couldn't say he was a bad at looking after her interests.
Basically, Britney Spears isn't a "legal adult" anymore. You know how kids can't take care of their own stuff and have to have their parents make decisions for them? That's basically what happened to her. Her father is her guardian (meaning he gets to control her money, legal stuff, everything about her life), and there's no real way for her to free herself because she doesn't have the legal options to do that, nor do they think she's supposed to be allowed to decide that ("She's mentally ill, what does she know?" type of reasoning).
She was put in that kind of situation in ~2007 when she had a severe mental health episode, since it was believed that she couldn't take care of herself due to her mental illness. Her family takes advantage of her vulnerable position and takes control over everything in her life, including locking her up, censoring her, pushing her to do stuff she doesn't want to, and making sure she can neither leave nor ask for help. The only reason we know about it is because her fanbase noticed subtle cries for help and other signs that something is wrong. It was a huge thing, and the story was more or less confirmed shortly after.
She's not even asking for freedom. She's just asking her father to be removed as conservator, not for the conservatorship to be ended entirely.
CIA vs JFK
The CIA proposed "Operation Northwoods" to JFK.
It was a literal false flag attack on American soil perpetrated by Americans but framed up to start a "popular" war with Cuba. The CIA wanted to kill Americans (shooting down passenger planes, gunning down people in the streets, etc.) and blame Cuba as an excuse to start a war.
It was around this time and Bay of Pigs that Kennedy supposedly said he would "smash them into pieces and scatter them to the wind." (Meaning the CIA)
That was a man with convictions... and giant brass balls, to be honest.
- sbbart62
The way I remember hearing it is someone came to him about Operation Northwoods as a way to instigate a war with Cuba or the Soviets or both. Kennedy was horrified and he kind of lost it and decided to try and take down the CIA.
That goes in to the conspiracy that the CIA was involved with his assassination shortly after
Vietnam
The rumor that the Gulf of Tonkin Incident (which is what got the US involved in the Vietnam Was) was fake turned out to be true.
It wasn't "fake" so much as a big embellishment. It was obviously still cynical and dishonest, but it wasn't an entirely fabricated incident, which I think it is often taken to be.
There were two incidents, the first on was nv troops firing upon us ships and the second was just a storm, So they are partially correct.
The official line from those in command during the incident was "playing with ourselves in the dark".
OK Buddy Sure
Seth Meyers Ok GIF by Late Night with Seth Meyers
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Some customer I talked to somehow ended up on a rambling tangent about how he was part of a mission in the Vietnam War, where they were controlling the weather on the Ho Chi Minh Trail.. Yeah, okay buddy, sure.
I looked it up later and it turns out Operation Popeye actually happened.
Martha
I didn't hear about this because I wasn't born at the time, but Martha Mitchell whose husband was involved in the Watergate Scandal.
She tried to tell people but was called crazy and mentally ill and her husband and others eventually had her drugged and held hostage in a hotel for months. Later almost all the things she claimed were confirmed to be true.
Mental health professionals have to be aware of the Martha Mitchell Effect.
- slychd
Unarmed and Unprovoked
Not the strangest but the British army murdered 14 unarmed civilians during a peaceful civil rights march in my city, Derry, northern Ireland in 1972. The official line for years was that the victims were armed and had attacked the soldiers first.
The Sun "newspaper" in the UK printed a story the next day portraying the soldiers as heroes and the victims as terrorists. The government eventually admitted about 10 years ago that none of the victims were armed and the killings were not provoked.
Makes it hard to believe anything the government or media say.
- Mouts93
Black Farmers
The Pigford case where the USDA systemically eliminated Black farmers because of racism in the 80s and 90s.
None of the people involved were punished. The agency targeted and eliminated Black farms, paid the highest civil rights lawsuit in history out of taxpayer money, and those responsible are still employed or collecting a government pension.
It's disgusting.
I've never heard of this lawsuit wtf?
This is mind bogglingly recent.
Medical Experiments
The Tuskegee Study of Untreated Syphilis in the Negro Male was ethically horrendous.
When the study began (1932), there was no established treatment since the relevant antibiotics did not exist, so the idea of following a cohort of untreated subjects to see what happens to them was a reasonable idea.
However, the subjects were misled about their diagnosis, what the study was doing for them, and how long the study would last.
And then later, when antibiotics became available that could treat syphilis effectively, the study continued without providing that treatment and just let the disease "run its course."
- ToxDocMD
There's also a lingering fear of vaccination in African immigrant populations due to forced sterilization and other medical experiments that happened historically.
Gay Frogs
"Chemicals are turning frogs gay!"
Not quite true, but close.
It turns out if you dump a bunch of (now banned) chemicals into the habitats of amphibians, which determine sex through hormones rather than chromosomes, then they can spontaneously change gender or be hermaphroditic.
Alex jones "they are turning the frogs gay". While his assertion that the goverment is trying to turn frogs gay an purpose is probably not true. The commonly used herbicide atrazine can turn male frogs into females and render them infertile
Civil Rights Leaders
COINTELPRO.
Basically, the FBI was conducting surveillance and running disinformation campaigns against civil rights leaders in the 50/60s, and were at least in part responsible for the assassination of Fred Hampton and possibly MLK.
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I can't definitively say I've come face to face with the spirits. But I have had some unsettling feelings in the dark. Shadows are just shadows sometimes, but who can be sure.
I hear it...
Nbc Wings GIF by HULUGiphy"I was helping my dad clean my grandma's house after she passed and I went in and was trying to find a song in my phone and before I could I heard a cough plain as day come from down the hallway where her room was. She died of lung and throat cancer it was pretty crazy."
Running Past...
"When I was 5 I remember getting home from my grandpa's birthday party. For context my mom was pregnant with my brother at the time, so my parents had already bought his crib. I woke up in the middle of the night to find a women in a white dress and long black hair standing over my brother's crib. I managed to wake up my dad so he could take me to the bathroom. When I got back it was still there. It was only until morning when it disappeared. Every now and then I see a glance of what I assume is that thing running past the backyard."
The Cat
"My best friend and his wife had moved to a new apartment. I came over to visit a few times, and each time I'd see the motion of a cat in my peripheral vision. Not the image of a cat, but a sense of how a cat moves. Anyway, one day I finally cracked some joke about the ghost cat in the place and his wife was instantly saying "See! See! I told you we had a ghost cat!"
"excuse me"
"I worked graveyard shift in a dementia ward for 4 years and it was anything but quiet. I was working with a nurse one night when we both heard a resident say "excuse me." We looked around and no-one was there. I checked on the resident in question and she was fast asleep in her own room. Many of us also experienced someone whistling in the ward late at night and one nurse even managed to catch a video of it happening. It was unnerving to say the least."
Clueless
Skeleton GIFGiphy"I once saw someone short walk by me in my house. They walked into the laundry room which only has one way in. I walked into it behind them and they where gone. I thought it was my little brother but I went to his room and he was asleep. I still have no clue what that was."
- ImBolio
Now was everyone here positive they were sober? Just asking. Those are certainly spooky moments. I'd like some video footage please. Continue...
Reflections
ghost library GIFGiphy"I was up at 3am when I was maybe 7 or 8. I looked out the window and saw a woman in a white dress run across my yard. I could see through her. She was transparent like the reflections on the window."
"you alright?"
"So, my work place is haunted. I was having a really crap day, and as a cleaner, it's normal that me and my co worker will be the only ones left at night. So I was standing on the second floor, leaning on the banister for the stair case, when I heard this male voice say in my ear "you alright?" Clear as day. I turned around so fast and nobody was there and it scared the hell out of me."
- Rex-the-
Watching Me
"I remember as a young kid I usually use to sit in my bed and watch tv with my room door open while the adjacent guest bedroom next to mine would always have the door shut. I always remember seeing that door fully open and close by itself multiple times a day very slowly and gently. Never really bothered me much now that I think about it… but there were other creepier experiences I had in the same house that made me feel uncomfortable like I was being watched."
Betsy
"I went to the Betsy Ross House as a really little kid in the early 90s. Normal house but I was confused why the tour guide never talked about the woman on the chair crying at the edge of the bed in Betsy Ross's bedroom. So I asked about it. No one else saw the woman at the edge of the bed. I figured it was just a wax museum since there was a wax statue of a man in uniform rolling bullets in the basement."
"Years later, I was looking at haunted Philadelphia tours to go on with a friend and the Betsy Ross House was on it. I was like "woah! I was there!" and looked into it some more. Turns out there is a woman at the end of the bed crying and a uniformed man in the basement that people have reported seeing. There is no way that 8 year old me would have known about either of these things."
hello kitty...
hello kitty lol GIF by Animation Domination High-DefGiphy"I had this hello kitty Balloon In my bed room, it had a string and weight on it. So it was late, I had the lights on just Sitting on my bed. The Balloon turns, faces my door, slowly floats into my hallway and turns and floats into my sister's room. To this day I am scared of balloons."
They are among us and they like Hello Kitty. I'm probably rattling the paranormal cages and they'll come for me next, but I'm ready. I feel like this thread has prepared me.
Boo!
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