Conspiracy theories start out as far-fetched concepts and ideas that very few people claim, and even then it feels like the people behind these ideas have one or two bolts loose.
But that’s not always the case. Sometimes what looks like a conspiracy has a chance of becoming real. Not because it’s some sort of self-fulfilling prophecy, but rather because someone wasn’t really crazy after all.
Redditors have been sharing conspiracy theories that turned out to be as real as the moon landing or Bigfoot. The now-viral AskReddit post was so successful that it even got 17,000 upvotes with engagement from readers generating over 7,600 comments.
We’ve filtered out the best of the best responses from the Reddit post and meticulously crafted a curated list which you can vote, comment, and simply enjoy down below. And don’t forget to share some of your conspiracy theories turned reality in the comment section below!
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throwingplaydoh said:
Apple purposefully slowed down existing phones when they released a new model to get more sales.
cheif702 replied:
The craziest part is that other companies have been doing similar malicious things for decades. There was a massive agreement in the 40s by lightbulb companies to start making their light bulbs burn out faster, but pass the new designs as innovation. They did it because they had essentially made the best thing they could at the time with the technology they had, and people didn't need to keep buying lightbulbs. I think it's called planned obsolescence.
Treestroyer said: Scientology’s invasion on the US government. Project Snow White.
ForgotMyNameAh replied: Scientology is scary. An untaxed/unregulated cult that has so much money and resources that have to buy buildings and leave them empty so it they don't have as many billions in their accounts. Hiding assets. Have turned at least one town into a ghost town by buying buildings for "offices" or something. Having no actual use, and leaving towns full of empty buildings.
They will spy on you by moving people in next door. They have so many lawyers, politicians, police, influential celebrities in their pocket.
I think the former face of scientology said they sent people to knock on every door in his neighborhood to "warn" them he's a pedophile.
The power, reach and money is terrifying.
Oh-Oh-Ophelia said:
The tobacco industry silencing scientists and creating false studies to say smoking isn't harmful several decades ago.
jefftak7 replied:
Soda companies did the same thing with sugar.
Koupers replied:
The Automotive and Oil companies have been doing the same thing with Climate change since at least the 1970s.
camr0se4 said:
Britney Spears being silenced and abused for years
Hausgebrauch replied:
Yeah, I gotta admit that the #FreeBritney movement started out as the usual internet b******t, where fans with an unhealthy obsession overanalyzed every little thing and said in all seriousness things like: "Her dad hired a lookalike that is now posting videos on Instagram for her, so that we think she is happy!" or "She blinks in a certain way, that means, if you divide the number of blinks by seven, add her birthdate and use the Kellog's decoder ring from 1964 on it, she needs help!", but then the right people took a rational look at it and it turned out there really was something going on and now she actually is free again.
Not quite free. Her conservatorship has been hiven to someone she trusts rather than her father. She is technically still classified as unable to make her own decisions. I have a friend in a wheelchair who requires a nurse for daily cleanings but has been able to get out of her conservatorship, so there is NO reason Brittany should be in one Edit: Apparently there has been some fresh news about the conservatorship fully ending, and I hope its true. Im not even a Brittany fan and I am digusted by how long its taking to finish all the court stuff.
People in Toronto's Gay Village thought there was a serial killer targeting the local gay population. They went to police and the concern was dismissed. Turns out it was a serial killer.
And the police were astonished! "How can that be? We didn't know anything about it! We can assure you that we're very thorough in our investigations!"
I’m an engineer (semi related to the story), a guy I worked with years before the Snowden realization would tape over his laptop camera, disable mics, etc. He was thought to be a crazy tinfoil conspiracy guy. Turns out he worked on some small portions of black projects much earlier in his career and started doing this ever since those years.
Amurp18 said:
Social media websites shadow-ban opinions they disagree with
Impressive-Hunt-2803 replied:
Facebook whistleblowers have come out admitting right-wing media and right-wing politicians are being allowed to post things that would get other people banned because they're popular and get a lot of interactions, which makes Facebook money.
The bans are heavily lopsided, as facebook algorithms and some key figures in facebooks management favour right-wing media.
Right-wingers *complain* about getting banned more, but the numbers don't add up, not according to any available data. Not according to any metric besides the feelings of fox news commentators. But because their feelings don't care about facts, it's easy to ignore.
How about when Johnson and Johnson knew that their talc powder had too much asbestos in it which can cause cancer and they kept selling it to be used on babies. They're still getting sued for mesothelioma and ovarian cancer (lots of women used it on their lady parts).
The CIA used military personnel with diagnoses of everything from depression to PTSD and even schizophrenia as guinea pigs for experimental medicines and treatments. They once gave a group of mentally ill men massive doses of LSD and left them all in a room for several days just to see what would happen. One survivor wrote that he spent those days perceiving the other men as living corpses and that the walls were covered in blood. There is no accurate number for how many people were killed or otherwise traumatized for life.
Project MKUltra began in 1953 and continued for 20 years, only finally being dismantled in 1973.
The CIA overthrew the democratically elected government of Iran to install a Shah, who was more friendly to the US in the 1950s.
Wazula42 said:
Oil and car companies suppressing green energy, buying and dismantling public transit, and burying grim climate data
alonelygrapefruit replied:
I have a personal conspiracy theory for ya. The oil and gas industry is paying moderators of big subreddits to allow propaganda posts they write about carbon footprints and personal climate responsibility to stay on the front page. I've seen so many suspicious highly upvoted posts about how to reduce your carbon footprint and about how individual consumers are the problem. We know that the idea of a carbon footprint was invented by the oil and gas industry to shift blame from them on to the average consumer, so I'm very suspicious about posts promoting the idea. It is very possible that these posts are innocent and just people repeating the idea that was pushed to them but it all just seems too convenient for the oil and gas industry.
Wait till he finds out what General Motors did to the electric cable car and other public transportation in the early 1900's.
One you’ve never heard of. There were tales at my high school of “The 100 Hall”, where all the halls with numbered rooms and lockers started at 200 and went up, so there was no 100 hall. The wild story was that it’s underground, built to be a bomb shelter with stored non-perishables, and had entrances in the auditorium and gym.
Turns out, absolutely true. The one aspect of it that didn’t pan out was the attached tunnel that led to the science building at the local university.
If you went to a U.S. school built between 1950 to 1970 the chances are high that it had a fallout shelter below it. Here is an article with pictures of one but they were fairly common due to fears during the cold war. https://www.insider.com/inside-a-cold-war-fallout-shelter-under-a-school-in-dc-2019-2
Haven't seen anyone talk about Malcolm X's assassination. An NYPD former officer talked about how NYPD and FBI worked together to get his bodyguards removed so that an assassination could take place.
The FBI and local law enforcement stalked, harassed, and blackmailed MLK Jr.
They tried to get him to kill himself. They assassinated a leader of the black panthers in Chicago and then concocted bogus criminal charges against all the witnesses of the murder to lock them up and discredit them. They had undercover LEOs infiltrate basically every single social justice movement and had a whole playbook based around how to make those movements look more radical/violent/dangerous than they actually are to discredit them. Undercover officers and confidential informants at protests throw bricks or try to start violence. Local law enforcement, prosecutors, and the FBI all lied to judges, juries, grand juries, legislatures, and congress saying they never did things like this.
People had to break into an FBI field office and steal documents to prove they were actually doing this stuff and had to keep their identities secret for decades so they wouldn’t be prosecuted or persecuted for their actions. And the FBI and local law enforcement still do this stuff but everyone acts like they don’t.
COINTELPRO will change the way you look at media, government, and law enforcement
The problem here is MLK, Jr. was a black progressive. If he was a white conservative trying to overthrow democracy and replace it with a fascist dictatorship, he would probably be alive and free today.
74BMWBavaria:
The FBI tracking Ernest Hemingway. He became paranoid that they were tracking him. Turns out they were watching him.
Well he lived in Cuba and I believe was on good terms with Castro.
NotBobNRoss replied:
He also worked as a spy for the soviets in WWII, as well as the OSS (WWII CIA for those who don't know what the OSS is).
President Nixon was so paranoid at the end of his administration that people dismissed out of hand his claim (on tape) that the Pentagon was spying on him. Turns out, they were doing exactly that.
I always talk to John from the NSA whenever I'm feeling lonely, right John? Mark and he are such good listeners.
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Government spies on everyone. It's been proven over and over but as long as you pay your taxes and be quiet , they'll leave you in peace. They're all corrupt.
At that point Nixon was wandering around the White House drunk out of his mind and talking to the portraits of past Presidents. So yes they were watching him because they were afraid he'd do something crazy, like order a nuclear launch in a fit of paranoia while blind drunk. Both the Secretary of Defense and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs told their military subordinates not to do anything Nixon ordered them to (including a nuclear launch) without their OK.
no president is really in charge. It's a temporary job. The military-industrial complex really runs things.
Wasn't Nixon secretly recording all his own phone calls and meetings out of paranouia what ultimitely brought him down? Oh yeah, and being too drunk to talk to Russia in the middle of a potential nuclear war incident. And don't forget the Watergate burglary. Who was spying on who?
Just because you are paranoid, does not mean that they are not following you.
You mean the most powerful organisation in the world spied on the most powerful person on the world ? They'd just be stupid not to. They are not right to do it, but ones gotta survive y'know ?
Odd-Jupiter said:
That various governments recorded, analyzed, and stored every single piece of digital information, anyone shared with anyone else.
For you younger people, this used to be one of those tinfoil hat conspiracies.
Eligius_MS replied:
I can remember when it first started to become known there were people who would argue they didn't care because they had nothing to hide and weren't guilty. Most of the ones I still know are the most rabid about gov't going too far these days. Kinda like former smokers can be the worst anti-smoking people.
The Echelon Program.
I'm amazed this one doesn't come up more, it was treated as a real tin-foil-hat looney conspiracy theory for years, I remember it being mentioned in a couple of films in the 90s (i think by crazy conspiracy theorist type characters).
Then Snowden blew his whistle and I was amazed how many details were right.
Well, no one really knew about it until I believe the 90’s, so there would’ve been no theorizing, but in the early 60’s the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff drew up a plan called “Operation Northwoods” in which they planned on staging and committing terror attacks across the U.S., only to turn around and blame it on Cuba in order to justify an invasion.
The proposal was thoroughly and completely rejected by JFK.
And yet they've done just that numerous times. Committed "false flag" events. Not large scale mind you, but small things that rile up people and get them hating one group or another.
Crashgate. In a nutshell...
Fernando Alonso is starting the 2008 Singapore Grand Prix from... quite a bad position, actually. The normal strategy when in a competitive car starting at the back is to load her up with fuel, and go as far as you can into the race before pitting. Weirdly, Alonso is instead one of the first to pit. The only possible way this can work is if the Safety Car comes out due to how the rules are enforced.
Well, exactly one lap later, Alonso's teammate has a big crash into the wall, and brings out the Safety Car, allowing Alonso to go on and win. At the time, many were accusing Alonso's Renault team of fixing the result due to how convenient it was for the Safety Car to come out at exactly the right time after the other car crashed. But hey, that's just a coincidence, right?
It wasn't a coincidence. It turned out Alonso's teammate was indeed told to crash by the team principal to benefit the team by scoring a win. This all came out in 2009, after the 2nd driver lost his seat for not being quick enough.
Couldn't y'all at least have found a Formula One car for this? Geez!
False flags. There are conspiracy theorists that call 9/11 a false-flag attack, and while they’re definitely wrong about that (probably), false flag attacks themselves are not unprecedented. Operation Northwoods was proposed inside the US Department of Defense that didn’t come into fruition, but it called for CIA operatives to commit terrorist attacks against US citizens / Cuban immigrants / US military sites in order to justify going to war with Cuba. The US government is on record for considering the possibility of attacking its own soil to further their interests.
An attempted false flag attack that actually happened that I could think of was by the Israeli government in the Lavon Affair. The Israeli government had Egyptian Jews plant bombs in Egyptian/American/British-owned civilian target with the intent of blaming it on Egyptian communists, the Muslim Brotherhood, etc., with the hope that American/British governments would think the Egyptian Nasser government was unreliable for their financial support. Thankfully no one died as a direct result of the bombings and the spy ring was later uncovered, but what made this false flag event special enough for me to remember was that the surviving Israeli agents of this event were later honoured by the Israeli government, which I thought was really messed up given that the UK and the US are allies with the country.
people forget that WW2 was started by Hitler when he staged a false flag operation against a German radio station. He had polish speaking plainclothes german agents take over a radio station & broadcast in polish. Also the US getting involved in the Vietnam war was all based on a supposed attack by North Vietnamese on a US warship off the coast of N. Vietnam. It was all bogus. Prez Johnson and the people who did this never had any accountability. They are all burning in hell now, but it would have been nice to see an impeachment or two. (The Gulf of Tonkin incident (Vietnamese: Sự kiện Vịnh Bắc Bộ), also known as the USS Maddox incident, was an international confrontation that led to the United States engaging more directly in the Vietnam War.)
In Super Mario Bros. 3, he wasn’t actually rescuing the princess again, was a stage play.
[Writer's Note: this conspiracy pertains to how the game opens up with a curtain rising on the title screen, the blocks are "bolted" as if it was a set, the end of every stage is an end of an act and the stage, and other aesthetic details, and Mario is actually Wario in disguise.]
But the government is my kind and loving friend always looking out for what is best for me and the country. They just want to keep us safe, and they know what is best.
Watch it! That sarcasm is gonna get you spied on!
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I think the best conspiracies slide under the radar because 90 percent of conspiracy theories are so insane that nobody is willing to take the real ones seriously.
So you're saying conspriracy theories are... false flags for real conspiracies!
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Barry Goldwater claimed the US govt bugged his campaign office for his 1964 Presidential run and would only make important phone calls from a payphone at least half a mile a way and would only host high level meetings outside his campaign office. In 1974 a former CIA agent provided documents that this was true, but was ignored. Then in 2014 the documents were declassified and found the Johnson used both CIA and FBI assets (CIA legally cannot operate in the US) to bug the Goldwater offices, as well as had agents infiltrate his campaign to steal documents. These were later passed onto the Johnson election team. Interestingly the 1974 Whistleblower first informed Nixon of this in 1970 and we now know was the inspiration behind Watergate, inspired by what Johnson did, just without govt resources.
I'll just wave to CIA and NSA right now and get it over with for the day. *waves*
Yes I have a running joke when I do a call to say "Hi dear friends from the feds" when the call starts.
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Russia is not planning to invade Ukraine. Russia' top three exports are all oil and petro based. Russia set up near Ukraine the first week of December. Since then oil prices have gone up over 50%. The second largest export for the USA, oil. The USA has also benefited by selling weapons. Increased oil prices will help drive down spending and slow inflation. It will also hamper growth in large emerging countries still mainly dependent on oil, like China.
There is so much corruption and evil going on in this country. People being taken advantage of and intentionally hurt by their government. Then to make matters worse, some of our own people are so fooled they don't even see it. Just think of all the stuff that is coming to light. It should give you chills to think of all the stuff we are not aware of, that is going on. People really do need to be concerned and taking this stuff seriously. Because it affects every single one of us in one way or another. Unfortunately at this point I believe that's all we can do is be concerned. Because any good change we want to happen will only be met with more backlash and people fighting against their own self interest. Which only proves how dire the situation is for of all of humanity.
This is an easy one. US govt only acts in the interests of capital. Therefore, if you do not represent a threat to capital, you won't be bothered. Threats to capital include the following: persons having oil not under US control. Persons with socialist/communist tendencies. Persons who are not white and straight (probably because they have socialist tendencies). Easy. This is why for example the US brought "democracy" to Iran and Syria and Iraq but not to Zimbabwe. It's about what value the place or group has to US economy. Let's put it this way. Ask yourself: HOW do they profit and WHO profits? If the answer of HOW is they don't profit (literally don't make money), and if the answer of WHO is white people, then it's not really a conspiracy. IF however the target is brown people and it will get money for rich white americans, then it's probably real. SO, from this you can deduce that covid can't be a conspiracy to eliminate white americans, simply because the target is wrong.
For decades, Japan would protest at the UN that North Korea was kidnapping Japanese citizens off beaches. North Korea eventually admitted that this was true, and that several of the people they had kidnapped were still alive. Dozens had died. One was married to an American who had defected during the Korean war. They were all eventually repatriated to Japan.
The US gov't was also spying on John Lennon and Jane Fonda. The police ignored the serial killer preying on women in Vancouver's lower east Side. The mounties kept files on Rita MacNeil because she was a feminist. The American Gov't was secretly dosing mental-health patients in Canada.
Whoa..... boredpanda posted something anti-gov? usually they are good little bootlickers.
Cool list, but a lot (most?) of these weren't conspiracy theories, but shady practices that we're uncovered through media investigations or years of research.
Most of these - aside from being a little obvious - are not quite the reveal I think they might have intended to be.
oh don't forget the best one. That Covid was created in a lab and that mandates are not helpful. 2 years ago people thought it was crazy... now even CNN admitted it.
Were most of these ever conspiracy theories? Things people said were happening while the majority of people didn't believe them? Or were they just things no one outside the government knew about at the time? Anyone taking this as proof of their conspiracy theories on covid, please tell us why all the governments of the world would band together to invent a pandemic, make a mess of their economies and cause large proportions of their voters to hate them. What's in it for them and how could they possibly get away with it without at least one world leader speaking out?
My favourite conspiracy theory was that there was a deep network for right-wing extremists in several police and government organisations in Germany that were systematicly working to prevent persecution of neo nazi terrorists. Well, I think today that would be called just a sound "theory", without the conspiracy part.
I have a big one for covid vaxx. But ya'll call it anti vax. You're about to be shook with this one. By 2023 latest you will know and know that us conspiracy theorists were right.
Liberals conspiring to frame trump as a Russian conspirator. Treason!
I'm glad we were able to have this conversation. I've been looking into various "conspiracy theories" all my life. It started in school when a social studies teacher told us that he would teach us the curriculum, but also the truth. Now, on to the moon. Even as a child, I questioned that whole farce. Many more highly educated people than myself have looked into this, and found it to be very questionable that the moon event happened as we are told. Doesn't help that NASA"lost" all the data regarding the biggest accomplishment in history, and therefore absolutely cannot support their claims at this time. I encourage anyone curious to look into this for themselves, and see the relevant Stan Kubrick involvement. I will caution you up front though, that there is a ton of typical foil hat s**t out there muddying the water, but you can independently look at other people's findings and see what you think. At the very least it's interesting, due to the depth of this rabbit hole.
Sigh. It is about probable cause. WHY would a government want to do XYZ that you allege they are trying to do with vaccines? There is zero logical reason to either kill off, or sicken, your bulk population who VOTE YOU IN. HOWEVER, toppling developing nations to steal their oil or strategic location makes 100% sense and is therefore probable cause.
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But the government is my kind and loving friend always looking out for what is best for me and the country. They just want to keep us safe, and they know what is best.
Watch it! That sarcasm is gonna get you spied on!
Load More Replies... I think the best conspiracies slide under the radar because 90 percent of conspiracy theories are so insane that nobody is willing to take the real ones seriously.
So you're saying conspriracy theories are... false flags for real conspiracies!
Load More Replies... Barry Goldwater claimed the US govt bugged his campaign office for his 1964 Presidential run and would only make important phone calls from a payphone at least half a mile a way and would only host high level meetings outside his campaign office. In 1974 a former CIA agent provided documents that this was true, but was ignored. Then in 2014 the documents were declassified and found the Johnson used both CIA and FBI assets (CIA legally cannot operate in the US) to bug the Goldwater offices, as well as had agents infiltrate his campaign to steal documents. These were later passed onto the Johnson election team. Interestingly the 1974 Whistleblower first informed Nixon of this in 1970 and we now know was the inspiration behind Watergate, inspired by what Johnson did, just without govt resources.
I'll just wave to CIA and NSA right now and get it over with for the day. *waves*
Yes I have a running joke when I do a call to say "Hi dear friends from the feds" when the call starts.
Load More Replies... Russia is not planning to invade Ukraine. Russia' top three exports are all oil and petro based. Russia set up near Ukraine the first week of December. Since then oil prices have gone up over 50%. The second largest export for the USA, oil. The USA has also benefited by selling weapons. Increased oil prices will help drive down spending and slow inflation. It will also hamper growth in large emerging countries still mainly dependent on oil, like China.
There is so much corruption and evil going on in this country. People being taken advantage of and intentionally hurt by their government. Then to make matters worse, some of our own people are so fooled they don't even see it. Just think of all the stuff that is coming to light. It should give you chills to think of all the stuff we are not aware of, that is going on. People really do need to be concerned and taking this stuff seriously. Because it affects every single one of us in one way or another. Unfortunately at this point I believe that's all we can do is be concerned. Because any good change we want to happen will only be met with more backlash and people fighting against their own self interest. Which only proves how dire the situation is for of all of humanity.
This is an easy one. US govt only acts in the interests of capital. Therefore, if you do not represent a threat to capital, you won't be bothered. Threats to capital include the following: persons having oil not under US control. Persons with socialist/communist tendencies. Persons who are not white and straight (probably because they have socialist tendencies). Easy. This is why for example the US brought "democracy" to Iran and Syria and Iraq but not to Zimbabwe. It's about what value the place or group has to US economy. Let's put it this way. Ask yourself: HOW do they profit and WHO profits? If the answer of HOW is they don't profit (literally don't make money), and if the answer of WHO is white people, then it's not really a conspiracy. IF however the target is brown people and it will get money for rich white americans, then it's probably real. SO, from this you can deduce that covid can't be a conspiracy to eliminate white americans, simply because the target is wrong.
For decades, Japan would protest at the UN that North Korea was kidnapping Japanese citizens off beaches. North Korea eventually admitted that this was true, and that several of the people they had kidnapped were still alive. Dozens had died. One was married to an American who had defected during the Korean war. They were all eventually repatriated to Japan.
The US gov't was also spying on John Lennon and Jane Fonda. The police ignored the serial killer preying on women in Vancouver's lower east Side. The mounties kept files on Rita MacNeil because she was a feminist. The American Gov't was secretly dosing mental-health patients in Canada.
Whoa..... boredpanda posted something anti-gov? usually they are good little bootlickers.
Cool list, but a lot (most?) of these weren't conspiracy theories, but shady practices that we're uncovered through media investigations or years of research.
Most of these - aside from being a little obvious - are not quite the reveal I think they might have intended to be.
oh don't forget the best one. That Covid was created in a lab and that mandates are not helpful. 2 years ago people thought it was crazy... now even CNN admitted it.
Were most of these ever conspiracy theories? Things people said were happening while the majority of people didn't believe them? Or were they just things no one outside the government knew about at the time? Anyone taking this as proof of their conspiracy theories on covid, please tell us why all the governments of the world would band together to invent a pandemic, make a mess of their economies and cause large proportions of their voters to hate them. What's in it for them and how could they possibly get away with it without at least one world leader speaking out?
My favourite conspiracy theory was that there was a deep network for right-wing extremists in several police and government organisations in Germany that were systematicly working to prevent persecution of neo nazi terrorists. Well, I think today that would be called just a sound "theory", without the conspiracy part.
I have a big one for covid vaxx. But ya'll call it anti vax. You're about to be shook with this one. By 2023 latest you will know and know that us conspiracy theorists were right.
Liberals conspiring to frame trump as a Russian conspirator. Treason!
I'm glad we were able to have this conversation. I've been looking into various "conspiracy theories" all my life. It started in school when a social studies teacher told us that he would teach us the curriculum, but also the truth. Now, on to the moon. Even as a child, I questioned that whole farce. Many more highly educated people than myself have looked into this, and found it to be very questionable that the moon event happened as we are told. Doesn't help that NASA"lost" all the data regarding the biggest accomplishment in history, and therefore absolutely cannot support their claims at this time. I encourage anyone curious to look into this for themselves, and see the relevant Stan Kubrick involvement. I will caution you up front though, that there is a ton of typical foil hat s**t out there muddying the water, but you can independently look at other people's findings and see what you think. At the very least it's interesting, due to the depth of this rabbit hole.
Sigh. It is about probable cause. WHY would a government want to do XYZ that you allege they are trying to do with vaccines? There is zero logical reason to either kill off, or sicken, your bulk population who VOTE YOU IN. HOWEVER, toppling developing nations to steal their oil or strategic location makes 100% sense and is therefore probable cause.
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