11 Conspiracy Theories and Shady Rumours

Oh, I do love a good Conspiracy Theory with my cuppa!

Who doesn’t? Mysteries are always better with more twists, turns, and worldwide take-overs!

Basically, a conspiracy theory is: A bunch of information collated and examined by an individual, group, magazine, society (the list goes on) and questioned as to whether the mainstream story in a disputed case is actually factual or if it is a cover-up for something far more sinister from a government, secret group or alliance, rather than an individual isolated act. Think Area 51.

You’ve probably read a few before, I’m sure, and maybe pictured some slightly off-beat, geeky-nerd type, huddled in front of a laptop (wearing a tin foil hat probably) with a background of newspaper clippings taped to the wall and connected via thumb tacks and a string line. Perhaps I’ve watched too many episodes of the X-Files in my youth?

I do like that there are some alternative definitions of “conspiracy theorist” nowadays:

someone who has seen through the bullshit (David Icke);
someone who questions the statement of known liars (unknown)

Makes it all a little bit juicier…

We live in an age of an endless supply of data at our fingertips, all of our wonders and queries can mostly be satisfied by a click of a button (high-five Google) and we naturally accept that most of this information is accurate.

So what about the parts that are a bit dodgy?

Conspiracy Theories, love them or loathe them, they’re out there!

1. Elvis The King

It’s not a conspiracy theory piece without Elvis. This is known.

Music legend Elvis Presley died on 16 August 1977 – or did he? If the latest conspiracy theory is to be believed, the King of Rock and Roll faked his own death and now works as a groundsman in his Graceland Estate.

Grainy footage of a bearded man has been posted on YouTube by “The Shadow”, who claims the figure is an 81-year-old Elvis.

While some say the claims are “idiotic” and Elvis should be left to “rest in peace”, the belief that the King is out there looks unlikely to fade away.

2. MH370 and MH17 Are The Same Planes

To most people, the two tragedies looked like a terrible coincidence, but to conspiracy theorists, there are no coincidences and MH370 and MH17, were, in fact, the same plane. Yikes!

Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 disappeared on 8 March 2014 and has yet to be found despite an extensive search operation. Just over four months later, on 17 July 2014, another Malaysia Airlines flight, MH17, crashed in eastern Ukraine, near the Russian border after apparently having been shot down by a missile.

Worldtruth.tv is one of the many sites that argue that MH370 was hijacked and flown to US military base Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean. The “US propaganda machine” then staged the shooting down of MH17 so that the Russians would lose credibility.

The theory fails to explain why the same propaganda victory could not have been achieved, assuming it was desired, simply by shooting down any passenger aircraft over the Ukraine-Russia border.