Although X-Files told us that we should want to believe in UFOs and conspiracy theories, some of them are so ridiculous and common sense-defying that we just cannot bring ourselves to trust the tiniest bit of them. As luck would have it, you’re just about to see for yourself what we are rambling about here. This is our glorious list of conspiracy theories - from believable, to hilarious, to plain outrageous, these stories will either make you laugh or want to dig deeper.
Of course, this list just wouldn’t do without some of the most popular conspiracy theories, like the one about the iceberg, JFK, or mister Dillinger’s death. However, if you’re somewhat of a connoisseur of these tall tales, you’re also bound to find some new stories here that were shared on Reddit by people from all walks of life. And if you’re here purely for entertainment, there are also some pretty funny conspiracy theories that will amuse you in their absurdity. Yet, who knows, it might just be that the crazy conspiracy theories are, in fact, the ones that are real…
Now, before we burst from anticipation to read these famous conspiracy theories, we should all probably just scroll down below and check them out, shall we? Once you are done reading them (and there are loads to read through - great material for a cold winter’s evening!), vote for the conspiracy theory that made you doubt your own beliefs or made you laugh until your tummy started hurting. And after that, share this article with your friends!
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"Our politicians want us divided against each other to keep us from turning on them."
This isn't a conspiracy theory, this is in many ways the truth. All governments, in every country, try to keep control of their people. In some of them it's extreme, in others is more subtle. I'm not saying it isn't possible to make a change, and that democracy failed everywhere, but that in a lot of places where democracy is supposed to be still a thing, in reality people have little to no power to change something, and governments are actively working to keep the situation in that way
"Modern art that sells for millions is a way for criminals to launder money. I refuse to believe someone paid over 100k for a banana duck taped to a wall. Someone is using that grift to launder their drug money or something."
I read that as banana duck and now I can’t escape that image.
Same. And google did not disappoint me banana-duc...d2b11d.jpg 
It's also a tax dodge for the rich. Rich person pays artist 25k to slap something together. Art appraiser contact of rich person values art at x million dollars. Rich person donates art to gallery, gets huge tax deduction.
All art is a good way to shift wealth from one country to another without much red tape.
There is actually money loundring done by selling books. Find a non-fiction e-book in Amazon that has a tzillion pages, but no reputable publisher, cost hundreds if not thousands of dollars and it has only sold maybe two copies? That's for money loundring. No-one has ever read, or will ever read, that book.
it may have happened occasionally, but is not how art is sold and purchased.
It's duct tape, not duck tape. Sorry, it's my OCD talking. It should be CDO, really.
Can't tell if this is a joke or not. I apologize if you're being serious, but making jokes about mental illness isn't ok.
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I just read that Beanie Babies (mostly worthless) are used for money laundering.
In some cases. In other cases, people who have lots of money, no taste, and a massive need to be noticed will buy absolute sh!t just so they can say that they have this "unique" item. That being said, I wouldn't be surprised if some of those overpriced "art" works were indeed part of money-laundering scheme. However, it would need to be for lots and lots of money, since many people would have to be paid off. So if the all of the buyer are unknown, buying millions of dollars worth of crappy art, through the same art dealers, same art critics, and the artists are either connected to one another, or they were poor and unknown prior to selling a banana taped to the wall, yes, it sounds like money laundering.
Dont under estimate what people would be willing to pay for a gratuitous display iof wealth.
How about the ones who buy a painting, have it digitized, then destroy the original?
My sweet summer child... The Fine Art industry has *always* been a grift and laundry industry.
I read where mobsters hold paintings not for display but as an investment
and a way for the wealthy to avoid taxation, hmm, actually that's the same thing!
Look at all those that buy things like NFTs. All those dumb boredapes for example and that one that paid millions of some random guy that took a picture everyday for many days. Some people just got so much money that they are careless with how they spend it, just because they can.
The banana/duct tape thing is not modern art, it's contemporary, huge difference. Also, conspiracy theory or not, the artist got the reaction he wanted from people from the dynamic caused by the banana an everything that ensued. The artist himself is known for his humorous take on controversial topics and people, so... a bit if digging about him wouldn't hurt.
Auto part stores are fronts. My city of 42,000 has 5 auto part stores. I refuse to believe that a small city is supporting 5 auto part stores.
Not actual criminals, but wealthy people. This is how they get their tax breaks and whatnot. There's an episode of Adam Ruins Everything that discusses this. The money that's being laundered is the billions of dollars of tax payer money being sent to Ukraine.
"There is only one yawn on earth and it constantly travels from person to person…"
"Celebrities aren't actually giving their kids absurd names, they just aren't publicizing their legal names."
I thought this is an obvious thing. Or at least I hope it is because I wouldn't want to walk around my whole life being named Storm, North, Apple or Bear Blue. Those weird names get the most attention from the media and they don't have to public the real names.
"The woman's clothing industry is a conspiracy. Winter cardigans are intentionally thin so they have to buy more to layer them, no pockets so they have to buy bags."
"That there are people rich enough to disappear. There must be some billionaires we've never heard of."
"Disney's frozen is only titled like that so when you Google "Disney frozen" the movie comes up instead of conspiracy theories."
"Adam Sandler makes movies as an excuse to go on vacation with some friends."
"Yuri Gagarin was not the first man in space, just the first man to live through it."
Even that may depend on your definition of space and some of the early hot air balloonist
"Facebook and Google are monitoring everything you type, post, and say. There are so many stories of people talking about, say cats, and getting ads for cat food within an hour. They never searched for cats or cat food then or in the past, just said the word a few times. "Reply All" did a podcast episode debunking this theory, but all it boiled down to was an email from Facebook stating they didn't do this."
I recently went out with a friend and we talked about a specific movie. I googled it to look up some actor and than closed the tap. The next day I turn on my work pc that isn't connected to my private smartphone. I open amazon.com (logged in with the company account, not my personal one) to order some office stuff and BOOM amazon.com offers me a blue ray of this exact movie I was talking about - coincidence? I don't think so.
"During Hurricane Katrina, the Murphy Oil refinery in St. Bernard parish, just outside of New Orleans, had a container rupture and leak oil on a lot of the surrounding neighborhood, including my grandparent's and aunt/uncle's houses. After the cleaning up the land was deemed uninhabitable and the oil company was able to purchase all the land for very, very cheap. Many people that were affected and in the area believe that the oil company did it on purpose, and I tend to believe them."
There's a similar theory about all the forest fires in California - that they are somehow perfectly aligned with a planned high-speed train route. Who knows.
"Starbucks trains its employees to spell names wrong on coffee cups to get pictures of their brand on social media."
That's a fact, I think. I recently went to starbucks and said my name is Kate. This is a short form of my real name so pretty easy right? What was written on my cup? CASSIDY! It wasn't busy or loud so there's no way she just misheard me. She did this on purpose 100% because no one is that incompetent.
"Toothpaste and shampoo commercials show using way too much of the stuff. You need a pea-sized bit of toothpaste but the ads always show it covering the entire brush and then some."
During the '80s and the '90s, America became convinced that here was an underground network of Satanists working to kidnap and torture children. While none of it was real, the theories destroyed many lives and livelihoods.
"The "coup attempt" in Turkey was faked in order for Erdogan to consolidate his power and purge the opposition."
"Planned obsolescence everywhere in the industry. If everyone stopped replacing their cars and smartphones, imagine the."
"I believe that there are people richer than the people we know as the richest people in the world."
I see no reason why I'd want to advertise wealth if I was wealthy, beyond certain improvements in quality of life which can be pretty obvious for people to observe. But beyond that, you're just inviting scrutiny and ill intent from people.
"Mattress firm is some sort of giant money laundering scheme. They are everywhere and always empty. I remember seeing 4 mattress firms all on each corner of an intersection once, there is no way there is such a demand for mattresses."
I have said this for years. We have about 12 mattress stores within a 6 block radius where I live. I believe that they are drug fronts and use the mattresses for bringing the drugs in and when they occasionally sell a non-loaded mattress, they use the business to launder money.
"That laundry detergent companies suggest using more detergent per load than necessary in order to force people into buying more often."
Well, joke's on them, I just dump in too much and don't pay attention to the bottle anyway.
"The CIA killed Marilyn Monroe because Kennedy had been disclosing classified information to her."
"The government had a hand in creating and/or popularizing some of the more outlandish conspiracy theories in order to make questioning the official story seem inherently crazy by association."
"That Sprite changing their bottle from green to clear doesn't actually help the environment, they are just doing it cuz their green bottles in the water are immediately recognized."
"The CIA first gave black communities drugs in the 70s as an experiment."
"Lip balm makes your lips dependent on lip balm. Just seems the more you use it the more you need to use it. Not sure if that's an actual conspiracy but that's the best I can come up with on a Monday morning."
You can develop an addiction to lip balm, but it's more likely to be a behavioral addiction (like addiction to gambling or shopping) rather than a chemical addiction. Alternately, you may be irritating your lips by licking them immediately after apply lip balm or using lip balm with ingredients that may irritate your skin or even cause an allergic reaction, such as eucalyptus or salicylic acid. https://www.webmd.com/skin-problems-and-treatments/lip-balm-addiction
"Pope John Paul I was assassinated for trying to uncover corruption in the Vatican Bank. He's the only Pope whose body was cremated and I believe it was done to hide the evidence of being poisoned."
He was very old and sick. One can say that he was assassinated to make room for the next one but not for the corruption. There’s a theory that Pope Benedict retired because he didn’t feel strong enough to fight said corruption.
Even if you haven't heard about Centralia, Pennsylvania, you have probably still heard about Centralia, Pennsylvania. It's the most infamous ghost town in probably whole world because of its underground fires burning there indefinitely since 1962. Although the origin of the fires is known, it still didn't deter people from coming up with their own juicy explanations.
It started as a controlled fire at a nearby rubbish dump that wasn't properly contained and spread to the coal mines under the town. Pictures of smoke coming from every hole in the ground are eerie. There's a fire that's been burning under the Jharia coal fields in India for even longer! https://strangesounds.org/2020/02/jharia-underground-fire-death-disease-videos-pictures.html
Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated in Memphis, but some think there is more to the story. On April 4, 1968, Martin Luther King Jr. stepped out onto his balcony at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee, and was shot. The civil rights leader died at the Memphis Hospital at 39 years old. The killer, James Earl Ray, was caught and pleaded guilty a year later. However, many people, including King's own children, do not believe Ray acted alone.
"Elon Musk is actually a Martian who has been exiled to Earth and he's just trying to find his way home."
"Trader Joe's parking lots are terrible and small to make the store seem like it's always busy."
See, though, that seems like it would have the opposite effect they want- making less people want to go in.
"CSI television shows purposely over play the forensic capabilities of various law enforcement departments to help project an image of total competence."
This is most media depicting police and military performance. In order to gain access to equipment, filming locations, subject matter experts, uniforms, etc., from any sort of organization, filmmakers agree to make those organizations look good. It saves the producers loads of money in exchange for some artistic oversight. One major example of this is Forrest Gump: the platoon Forrest joined was meant portray Project 100,000, in which Robert McNamara drafted 320,000 men who did not meet the minimum qualifications (mental or physical) for military service. In the book, all of Forrest Gump's platoon mates were mentally handicapped. The US Army didn't want to look bad on screen and offered the scriptwriters use of military equipment, uniforms, and soldiers to play extras in exchange for removing problematic parts of the script. https://bigthink.com/the-present/story-behind-mcnamaras-morons/
"Michael Jackson was chemically castrated as a pre-teen, which is why his singing voice remained so high pitched, and a major contributor to many of his other odd behaviors as an adult."
"New Coke was a cover for switching to high fructose corn syrup."
"The Colombian government is actively performing criminal activities in all the country in order to remain rich."
It's July 4, 1947 in Roswell, New Mexico. Mac Brazel went out to his sheep pasture only to find unusual objects, like metal sticks, foil pieces, and paper scraps strewn around the area. Not knowing what it was, Brazel called the police and soon enough armored vehicles showed up to pick up the litter. This, of course, sparked some awesome theories about UFOs.
"Snapchat selfie filters get sent and stored to the NSA for facial recognition."
Note: this post originally had 79 images. It’s been shortened to the top 35 images based on user votes.
I'm a bit disappointed no one mentioned the Tunguska Impact! A massive explosion in Siberia in 1908, blasting trees for eight hundred square miles. It was probably a meteor impact, but theories abound that it was an underground mine explosion, military equipment tests gone wrong, a spaceship crash landing, a demon uprising, or a secret underground civilisation being destroyed by the Tsar. https://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2008/30jun_tunguska/
There ya go: thats what i came here for!
Load More Replies... Half of these weren't conspiracies; they were either proven fact or someone saying "yeah, a lot of conspiracy theories exist about _____, but I'm not going to describe any of them."
Come on, Nikki. I've seen you on here for ages. You really believe Bored Panda is interested in facts or accuracy??? Nope. Sigh. :/
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My two favorite ones are , 1) Based on mostly ear measurements Walt Disney & Adolph Hitler as well as Kermit Roosevelt & Charles Coughlin were all the same person. Also Roy Disney & Joseph Goebbels were the same man. Also Jimmy Carter is actually JFK & Rosalynn Carter is actually Jackie Kennedy. Among other famous people. and 2) Some mountain ranges, flat top mesas & structures like The Devil’s Tower are actually giant petrified tree stumps from long ago harvested gigantic silicon forests and the trees we have today are the equivalent of bushes and shrubs.
Kermit the frog's last name is roosevelt? TIL
Load More Replies... Not a theory, but fact. My cat spy on me all the time and send reports back to its headquarter. He films me and they store it all in a secret place, so they some day can control every human
Scanning for Titanic bs...none found. Phew, no having to go on an unskippable cutscene about the history of the Titanic and how much bs that theory is this time!
Some have theorized that cell phone and computer biometric data (facial recognition, finger prints, retina scans) were paid for by US law enforcement and intelligence agencies to develop a database of biometric data by encouraging people to volunteer for it. Rumor is, they talked about having people do it as part of getting a driver's license or other official documents (national ID etc), and people balked, so they made it part of social media and passed it off as personal security and ease-of-use.
Here's a true one: Exxon is not chiefly an oil extraction company. They refine imported oil, chiefly from nations with nationalized industry and centralized governments. American domestic oil companies are much less famous, because in a free market, prices commoditize reducing profit. The more Exxon rallies opposition to oil extraction, the more money they make. That's why the funded all those nature programs about how evil mankind is. In fact, I can't say it was deliberate, but the Exxon Valdez disaster was the most profitable thing that ever happened to them. They're not alone: carbon trading was invented by Enron.
Exxon Mobil is about twice the size of any other U.S. oil company... but is only the fourth largest domestic producer of U.S. oil. They produce less than 6% of U.S. oil. In fact, U.S. oil is one of the less consolidated manufacturing industries, with the top 10 firms producing only half of the oil. And that's not counting the companies that dig the wells, manufacture the equipment, etc. (Halliburton, Schlumberger, Nabors, CGG, Baker Hughes, etc)
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Conspiracy theory: BP is a US-controlled entity with carefully curated articles designed to sway the public opinion on controversial topics.
Conspiracy theory; you're a BP agent assigned to make us think that this idea is dumb by saying it's a conspiracy theory
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I'm a bit disappointed no one mentioned the Tunguska Impact! A massive explosion in Siberia in 1908, blasting trees for eight hundred square miles. It was probably a meteor impact, but theories abound that it was an underground mine explosion, military equipment tests gone wrong, a spaceship crash landing, a demon uprising, or a secret underground civilisation being destroyed by the Tsar. https://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2008/30jun_tunguska/
There ya go: thats what i came here for!
Load More Replies... Half of these weren't conspiracies; they were either proven fact or someone saying "yeah, a lot of conspiracy theories exist about _____, but I'm not going to describe any of them."
Come on, Nikki. I've seen you on here for ages. You really believe Bored Panda is interested in facts or accuracy??? Nope. Sigh. :/
Load More Replies... My two favorite ones are , 1) Based on mostly ear measurements Walt Disney & Adolph Hitler as well as Kermit Roosevelt & Charles Coughlin were all the same person. Also Roy Disney & Joseph Goebbels were the same man. Also Jimmy Carter is actually JFK & Rosalynn Carter is actually Jackie Kennedy. Among other famous people. and 2) Some mountain ranges, flat top mesas & structures like The Devil’s Tower are actually giant petrified tree stumps from long ago harvested gigantic silicon forests and the trees we have today are the equivalent of bushes and shrubs.
Kermit the frog's last name is roosevelt? TIL
Load More Replies... Not a theory, but fact. My cat spy on me all the time and send reports back to its headquarter. He films me and they store it all in a secret place, so they some day can control every human
Scanning for Titanic bs...none found. Phew, no having to go on an unskippable cutscene about the history of the Titanic and how much bs that theory is this time!
Some have theorized that cell phone and computer biometric data (facial recognition, finger prints, retina scans) were paid for by US law enforcement and intelligence agencies to develop a database of biometric data by encouraging people to volunteer for it. Rumor is, they talked about having people do it as part of getting a driver's license or other official documents (national ID etc), and people balked, so they made it part of social media and passed it off as personal security and ease-of-use.
Here's a true one: Exxon is not chiefly an oil extraction company. They refine imported oil, chiefly from nations with nationalized industry and centralized governments. American domestic oil companies are much less famous, because in a free market, prices commoditize reducing profit. The more Exxon rallies opposition to oil extraction, the more money they make. That's why the funded all those nature programs about how evil mankind is. In fact, I can't say it was deliberate, but the Exxon Valdez disaster was the most profitable thing that ever happened to them. They're not alone: carbon trading was invented by Enron.
Exxon Mobil is about twice the size of any other U.S. oil company... but is only the fourth largest domestic producer of U.S. oil. They produce less than 6% of U.S. oil. In fact, U.S. oil is one of the less consolidated manufacturing industries, with the top 10 firms producing only half of the oil. And that's not counting the companies that dig the wells, manufacture the equipment, etc. (Halliburton, Schlumberger, Nabors, CGG, Baker Hughes, etc)
Load More Replies... Conspiracy theory: BP is a US-controlled entity with carefully curated articles designed to sway the public opinion on controversial topics.
Conspiracy theory; you're a BP agent assigned to make us think that this idea is dumb by saying it's a conspiracy theory
Load More Replies... 