"Conspiracy theories were created by the government, man. So they can cover up what they're really doing!"
Lies are the fairytales of the 21st century. Between Alex Jones' InfoWars, the Zeitgeist films and the Joe Rogan Experience, it's little wonder that our generation is full of paranoid minds.
Statements like "Stanley Kubrick directed the moon landings" and "the Illuminati controlled New World Order writes all of Rihanna's records" are pretty pedestrian these days.
If – like us – you're a tin foil hat wearing skeptic; don't worry. There are still plenty of undiscovered mysteries in the world that you can dwell on.
Here are just a few of the best and most bizarre. Don't go too far down the rabbit hole though. You never know where you could end up...
The Mandela Effect
A term that was popularised by the writer and “paranormal consultant” Fiona Broome, the Mandela Effect is an attempt to explain shared false memories as real ones.
According to Broome, when two or people share a "memory", even a false one, they are in fact only experiencing reality from a 'different timeline' or 'alternative universe'.
The theory originated out of a discussion as to whether or not Nelson Mandela died in prison. To this day, many people in South Africa still claim to have memories of the announcement of his death during the '80s. He died in 2013.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=puJpSz21Ru4
Alex Jones is Bill Hicks
What better way for them (don't ask me who "them" are) to control us but to infiltrate our underground media?
Insane babble machine Alex Jones is America's most prominent voice in the conspiracy world. But many people are suggesting that Jones himself is a CIA plant or evil demonic space alien that was sent here to control us.
Just goes to show: if you get popular for conspiracy theories then your fans will eventually get suspicious!
Of course, Alex Jones has admitted to being Bill Hicks. But that's exactly what he would say...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=31UrDpfM2Lc
Large Hadron Collider
By now you've probably heard of the LHC, the enormous machine that's buried deep under the surface of the earth because it constantly runs a complex experiment which involves smashing two invisible, sub-atomic particles together at a million miles an hour.
Well, actually those aren't scientists down there, they aren't trying to discover the Higgs particle either, they're trying to take over the world.
Why else would CERN be surrounded by giant statues of Shiva the destroyer? And why is it all so classified and shady, huh? Explain that...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v_fbG8M0oyM
Project MKUltra
Back in the 1950s during the build-up to the Cold War, the CIA and various other intergovernmental agencies were frantically searching for ways to control the human mind.
MK Ultra, often referred to as the CIA's brainwashing program, was the code name given to an illegal program of experiments on human subjects, designed and undertaken by the United States.
Today the experiments are proven to have actually taken place. But who did they train unwilling assassin? Conor McGregor?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Df7IRf-4X4E
The Disclosure Project
One lone Mexican farmer claiming to have seen bright lights in the sky above Ciudad Juarez isn't going to have many people taking.
But written, recorded and verbal testimony from more than 1,000 pilots, police officers and politicians might do the trick.
Dr Steven Greer, a retired American medical doctor and ufologist who founded the Center for the Study of Extraterrestrial Intelligence ( CSETI), claims to have compiled just that.
The resulting footage is some of the most compelling record evidence for the existence of aliens. Ever.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R6QNzH4x1rY
Tupac/Elvis/Paul McCartney/Hitler is alive
One of the greatest myths in music history has been whether Paul McCartney died in a car crash and was replaced with a double in the 60's.
Of course, if you believe that, then you have to believe that Elvis is still living in a complex network of tunnels and caves underneath his Graceland home and that Tupac Shakur never got shot.
Meanwhile, after WWII, Hitler escaped capture and fled to Argentina to live out the remainder of his twilight years in safety. These ones usually rely heavily on symbolism making them hard to disprove.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FCRmEqcXZ8I
Fluoride in your tap water
Let's get one thing straight, the governments of the world literally put fluoride in our tap water. Most admit it openly, claiming that the chemical doesn't affect the appearance, taste or smell of drinking water and that they only add it to the public water supply to reduce tooth decay.
As you would expect, many others disagree. Fluoride has been shown time and time again to be a neurological suppressant. Are they feeding us drugs in the water to keep us calm or to keep us dumb so we don't rise up and overthrow them (again: not sure who "them" are)?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H3IjmufPTow
The Reptilian Elite
Reptilians are purportedly a reptilian race of hybrid humanoids which have continuously cropped up to play a prominent role in fantasy, science fiction, ufology, and conspiracy theories over the past few year.
Anyone lucky enough to have been made familiar with the work of David Icke will know that he believes many space lizards are actually ruling over us today, for example the Queen and Barack Obama.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=62XImc79D7k
Chemtrails
For some it's just water vapour. For others its cohesive proof that the powers that be want you dead. I mean, If I ran the world I could probably think of about a hundred better ways to kill off a population that slowly releasing chemicals out of plane engines.
But that's the true evil genius of the Illuminati, right? They hide in plain sight. According to chemtrail "experts" (if such a thing can exist), chemtrails are easily spotted as the linger in the sky for a long time and don't evaporate like the typical contrails an aeroplane will leave behind.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mcZaJEMsSwM
The Saddam Hussein Stargate
What's more believable: a bunch of corrupt Western plutocrats invaded Iraq to take the oil or we liberated Iraq from Saddam Hussein because he was about to blow up the whole world and disappear through his private Stargate.
Oh, you didn't know that he had a Stargate? Yep. That one from the TV show. The Ziggurat (or Great Ziggurat) of Ur meaning "temple whose foundation creates aura") is a Neo-Sumerian ruin found in Babylon in modern day Iraq.
Strangely enough, the site is still not open to the public and is home to a nearby military base... Hm...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wXlsuUcS8ac
The Hollow Earth
Not be confused with Flat Earth Theory or Holographic Universe Theory (both equally brilliant and ridiculous in their own right, by the way), The Hollow Earth theory is the idea that our planet is home to ancient alien life living right beneath our feet.
Instead of a hot molten core made of lava (that's what they wanted you to believe in school, remember?) the centre of the planet is actually filled with giant underground cities where our overlords (or maybe that should be 'underlords') watch and control our ever move. Seems legit, right?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=21Z-4IoCdWU
This article originally appeared on JOE.co.uk
