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Opinions are fun. My friends tell me I am someone with lots of opinions and that's fine since I don't get mad at others when they disagree with me. In this same spirit I am interested in hearing yours views as long as you are able to share your views without boiling over. I look forward to hearing from you. I tend to write in the form of short essays most of the time, but contributions do not need to be in this same format or size. Some of the content here will date itself pretty quickly, other content may be virtually timeless, this is for the reader to judge.

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Why conspiracy theories?                                                                                    

Posted at: Jan/08/2014 : Posted by: mel

Related Category: People, Society,

One of the fascinating things with the internet is the wealth interesting thing you can read about. There are a number of news sites that provide instant access to global events. The science sites where new ideas are shared and discoveries are open for peer review are one of my favorite internet stops. Of course, there is an abundance of sites specializing in the gossip and embarrassing photos of public personalities; I have never had much interest in learning which reality TV personality just ended a 72 day marriage. One of the more fascinating applications of the internet is its use in propagating rumors, innuendos and conspiracy theories. While the open discussions on the implications of the newly verified Higgs-Boson particle appear to have had a very short life span (like the Higgs-Boson itself), our fascination of even the most obtuse conspiracy theories seems persistent and resilient regardless of how far-fetched they may seem.

Conspiracy theories are alternate theories for an already explained event. Most times, conspiracy theories seek to explain significant events as being driven by some secret group or entity with ulterior motives. In many cases, conspiracy theories are driven by some hidden distrust of a group such as Catholics, Masons, Mormons, Jews, the Illuminati, the Secret Service, the NSA, the mafia, government groups or political parties and their special cadre. When something big happens that makes us feel vulnerable, it is often easier to assign responsibility to a group we know very little about or distrust than accept that it “just happened.”

In truth, some events do turn out to be conspiracies concocted by a select group for nefarious purposes. The Watergate scandal of the 1970s involved a sitting US President along with 43 other people, many of whom were top administration officials. The purpose of the break in was to garner campaign intelligence steering the outcome of a presidential election. The criminal actions and a subsequent cover-up led to a near impeachment and Nixon’s resignation as President. The Iran-Contra conspiracy was potentially the greatest threat to American democracy of its time. A cabal of zealots in the White House basement conspired to sell arms to terrorists, and then use the profits to fund a war in Nicaragua, even though Congress had explicitly prohibited the use of U.S. funds for this war (in truth the goal was noble enough: attempting to get American hostages released). Effectively, U.S. officials were able to sell government property at a profit and secretly use the profits to fund their own pet causes and projects against the expressed wishes and oversight of the people’s elected representatives. It would be hard to imagine anything that more fundamental to undermining the foundations and principles of American democracy.

The following is a short list of some of the western hemispheres more enduring conspiracy theories of the last 50-70 years.

Pearl Harbor was allowed to happen – Believers theorize that President Franklin Roosevelt provoked the Japanese attack on the US naval base in Hawaii in December 1941, knew about it in advance and covered up his failure to warn his fleet commanders. He apparently needed the attack to provoke Hitler into declaring war on the US because the American public and Congress were overwhelmingly against entering the war in Europe. Theorists believe that the US was warned by the governments of Britain, the Netherlands, Australia, Peru, Korea and the Soviet Union that a surprise attack on Pearl Harbor was coming. Supporting this is the knowledge that the Americans War Department had intercepted and broken nearly all the important Japanese codes in the run up to the attack. Admiral Kimmel, Commander of the Pacific Fleet stationed at Pearl Harbor was assigned the bulk of the responsibility for the 2404 American deaths from the attack. I have my own theories here that I will save for another essay.

Shakespeare was somebody else - Who really was the English language's greatest and most prolific writer? Among the numerous alternative candidates that have been proposed are Francis Bacon, Christopher Marlowe, William Stanley and Edward de Vere are the most popular alternatives. Theorists believe there is a lack of evidence proving that the actor and businessman known as Shakespeare was responsible for the body of works that bear his name. Very little biographical information exists about Shakespeare. Many of the theorists are driven by the doubt that any one individual could be the sole author of such an extensive body of work.

Elvis Presley faked his own death – There is a persistent belief that "the King" did not die in 1977. Many fans persist in claiming he is still alive, that he went into hiding for various reasons. This claim is allegedly backed up by thousands of so-called sightings. The main reason given in support of the belief that Presley faked his death is the confusing arguments about the spelling or misspelling of his middle name on his grave. Two tabloid newspapers ran articles covering the continuing "life" of Presley after his death, in great detail, including a broken leg from a motorcycle accident, all the way up to his purported "real death" in the mid 1990s. Obviously, if you have been to Las Vegas you know that Elvis sightings are very common.

Princess Diana was murdered - Despite numerous official inquiries that found no evidence of a plot by MI6 or any other entity to murder the princess and Dodi Fayed in 1997, heated speculation continues. The theory is that rogue elements in the British secret service decided that Diana's relationship with Fayed constituted an embarrassment to the monarchy and the British state. A plot was hatched in which a white Fiat Uno carrying agents was sent to blind and disorientate driver Henri Paul as he sped through the Paris underpass pursued by photographers. The theory continues that Paul's blood was switched with a sample from someone else who had a substantially higher blood/alcohol level. There is no evidence to support this, but for Diana’s supporters, her death as a mere accident is unacceptable.

The Jesus conspiracy - The theory that launched a blockbusting novel (The Da Vinci Code), a film of the same name and a plagiarism battle in the courts (with the authors of the Holy Blood and Holy Grail). There appears to be millions who believe in the theory that Jesus married Mary Magdalene, had one or more children, and that those children or their descendants immigrated to southern France. Once there, they intermarried with the noble families that would eventually become the Merovingian dynasty, whose special claim to the throne of France is championed today by a secret society called the Priory of Sion. Obvious, 2000 years of intrigue, war and secrecy have not helped to dispel this theory.

The NASA moon landings were faked - People who think that the Apollo moon landings were not all that they seemed at the time believe that NASA faked some or all of the landings. Some of the theories surrounding this subject are that the Apollo astronauts did not land on the Moon; NASA and other government organizations intentionally deceived the public into believing the landings did occur to cover up technical failures identified late in the process that they did not want to admit to. Many believe NASA destroyed or tampered with evidence, including photos, telemetry tapes, transmissions, and rock samples and they continue to actively participate in the conspiracy to this day. Those who think that NASA faked some or all of the landings base their theories in part on photographs from the lunar surface which they claim show camera crosshairs partially behind rocks, a flag planted by Buzz Aldrin moving in a strange way, the lack of stars over the lunar landscape and shadows falling in different direction. Despite detailed independent scientific rebuttals that have been published over the years, many people still believe the moon landings were a hoax as part of the Cold War posturing by the United States.

A flying saucer crashed near Roswell New Mexico – This is the event that started more than 50 years of unidentified flying objects (UFOs) theories. Something did crash at Roswell, New Mexico, sometime just before July 7, 1947; initially the US authorities stated explicitly that this was a flying saucer or disk - as shown by the splash story on that day's Roswell Daily Record. Numerous witnesses reported seeing metallic debris scattered over a wide area and at least one reported seeing a blazing craft crossing the sky shortly before the crash. In recent years, witnesses have added significant new details, including claims of a large military operation dedicated to recovering alien craft and aliens themselves, at as many as 11 crash sites along with alleged witness intimidation. In 1989, former mortician Glenn Dennis claimed that he was involved in alien autopsies which were carried out at the Roswell air force base. The US militaries efforts at repeatedly changing its side of the story has not helped dispel the persistence of a presumed conspiracy. Within hours of the army telling reporters that it had recovered a crashed saucer, senior officers insisted that the only thing that had fallen from the sky had been a weather balloon. A 1995 Air Force report concluded that the recovered material in 1947 was likely debris from a secret government program called Project Mogul, which involved high altitude balloons meant to detect sound waves generated by Soviet atom bomb tests and ballistic missiles. The government continues to generate reports, each one conflicting with the others. I am a strong believer that we are not alone in the universe, but I also struggle to believe any alien traveler would knowingly stop at our backwards little planet.

The assassination of John F Kennedy - The 35th President of the United States was shot on Friday, November 22, 1963, in Dallas Texas at 12.30pm. He was fatally wounded by gunshots while riding with his wife in an open motorcade. The ten-month investigation by the Warren Commission of 1963 to 1964 and the US House Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA) of 1976 to 1979, along with other government investigations concluded that the President had been assassinated by Lee Harvey Oswald acting alone. Doubts persist over the official explanation and the conclusion that Oswald was the lone gunman firing from the Texas Book Depository overlooking Dealey Plaza. 8mm film footage of the event supports the belief that at least four shots were fired conflicting with the three that the Warren Commission claimed. The moments of impact recorded on the grainy film suggests that at least one of the shots came from a completely different direction than those supposedly fired by Oswald. Many believed that several shots were fired by gunmen hiding behind a picket fence on a “grassy knoll” overlooking the plaza. These theories are further fueled by the list of documented enemies the President had including Cuba, the CIA, J. Edgar Hoover, the Kremlin leadership and the mob. In 1979, the HSCA found both the original FBI investigation and the Warren Commission Report to be seriously flawed. The HSCA also concluded that there were at least four shots fired and that it was probable that a conspiracy existed. However, later studies, including one by the National Academy of Sciences, have called into question the accuracy of the evidence used by the HSCA to support its finding of four shots. Clearly, contradicting reports only feeds the engine that drives conspiracy buffs.

September 11, 2001 - Thanks to the power of the web and live TV broadcasts, the conspiracy theories surrounding the events of 9/11 persists. A large group collectively called the 9/11 Truth Movement - cite evidence that an airliner did not hit the Pentagon and that the World Trade Centre could not have been brought down by an airliner’s impact and burning aviation fuel alone. Scientific and engineering journals have published studies and analysis that consistently support the argument that heat from the jet-fuel based fires would structurally weaken the towers leading to a progressive cascading collapse. Other theories point to the notion of a government conspiracy in which squib demolitions were used to bring the towers down. The vague reasons center on Bush administration foreign policy and American hegemony. These persistent theories have frustrated al-Qaeda who have repeatedly claimed responsibility for organizing and executing the coordinated attacks using commercial aircraft and don’t want their efforts dismissed.

The Kennedy assassination is typical of the driving force behind many conspiracies theories. Considering the importance of the President of the United States, it is difficult to imagine a man of such insignificance as Oswald acting alone to plan and execute a Presidential assassination. It is incredibly unsatisfying to believe so consequential an act could be perpetrated by Oswald alone. Assigning an unidentified sinister force to be the masterminds attempting to subvert the republic is oddly comforting.

Psychologist say that people who tend to believe in conspiracy theories are the same ones who feel threatened by the notion of “random events.” Conspiracy theories always have someone in charge and that counters that notion of large scale events happening randomly. Of course, anytime information is overtly withheld, such as the Warren commission restricting access to the autopsy photos of JFK the fires of conspiracy are fanned.

There is always the possibility that all of the above conspiracy theories are true and based upon a cool and rational analysis of the available evidence. The only reason that some people do not believe in them might be because they have not looked at the evidence and instead, like mindless sheep, have simply accepted the lies told to them by the establishment. While this seems unlikely, in the Internet driven age of continuously rolling information, it can be difficult to separate fact from opinion and speculation. In this mire of information, randomly leading to unsupported conclusions and speculations is often the result of being first to publication. Being first to publication does unfortunately also mean that those theories are easier to digest because they do not conflict with any previous ideas.

One of our greatest strengths as a species is our ability to find patterns and connections in complex data, and to perceive cause and affect relationships between events. The problem is that we sometimes see or seek patterns where they are not really there. Clearly, it can be comforting to know that a major event has a large and complex cause. I suspect that those people most prone to accepting conspiracies theories would also show higher levels of paranoia. It is not just a distrust of government and official institutions; they are also less likely to trust their neighbors and colleagues at work. If you have ever been the victim of a crime you are aware of the feeling of being powerless and at the mercy of uncontrollable external forces. Belief in conspiracies; whether the CIA or the Illuminati gives an illusion of understanding and control. It is also undeniably satisfying to believe that one is in possession of secret knowledge about the way things “really are” that others are too stupid or misguided to believe.

Whether you are considered a believer in conspiracy theories is really moot; what matters is your ability to apply rational skepticism to the events of our world. In a democracy, it is essential that the citizens examine and question the official version of events. Nevertheless, reasonable skepticism does not entail the wholesale rejection of all officially reported versions of events. Sometimes, big things really do happen because of the actions of small individual’s, events or groups. Examine what you hear and read, and don’t accept a notion merely because it was the first one you heard. Sometimes our lives do make a sudden left turn for the most mundane of reasons.

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