My comment on the 'World's Weirdest/Stupidest Conspiracy Theories'.

http://www.boingboing.net/2007/09/25/list-of-the-worlds-w.html

1. Stephen King killed John Lennon.
Proposed by Steve Lightfoot.

I only wish this were true – the sheer randomness factor wins. I knew a guy once, who told me that as a kid he went to the Kings famous Halloween parties, apparently he lived nearby somewhere in Maine I think; he told me that the only thing scarier than a good Stephen King horror story was Stephen Kings wife. True story. Of course just previous to telling me that the guy in question was going on and on about how Americans could make and sell anything – he used the example of Iguana sandwiches - and that the world would eat them because they were told to by the Americans. But thats neither here nor there.

Mrs. King

Likeliness Rating: Unlikely.
In Summary: More likey Mr Kings Wife.



2. WWII was staged. It never really happened. The Illuminati employed elaborate special effects, stage magic, and phony journalism to scare the world into pacifism.
Proposed by Donald Holmes.

My Granddad was there. I know this, because he talks about it, at length, irrespective of if you want him to or not. I have heard many a tale from the 'conflict what we had with the Germans from 1939 to 1945' and believe every word of it. Indeed, my Grandfather told me an amusing story just the other day over dinner involving a cunning German infantryman who had on being captured decided to tell my Granddads regiment, on mass, ie. shouting, as he was being led away as a POW, that the German's had hidden 'treasure' in one of the fields. A fantastic way to cause some chaos in the enemy ranks if ever I heard one!

Naturally, the allied troops were up for some looting, so they all organised themselves independent of their officers and started digging.

I can just imagine the Captain of the company wandering into eye shot of the scene – 100 or more troops randomly digging in a field irrespective of standing orders.

Captain: Sargeant?

Sarge: Yesir?

Captain: Why are they digging so?

Sarge: Don't know Sir, Maybe someone lost a boot Sir.

The mind boggles.

The allied troops eventually found lots of loot in the end, the German wasn't lying – even more cunning. But they had to give it back and got a dressing down for it. Shame – what ever happened to the spoils of war?

Anyway, either this theory is complete bollocks or my Granddad is really 'selling the lie' and has been for 60 years. I don't think my granddad is in the Illuminati, or indeed, in any way affiliated with it – I am not sure he knows what it is, I'd phone and ask but he'd probably want to talk about the war. My father and the new world order... different story, but that's neither here nor there either.

Likeliness Rating: Very, very, unlikely.
In Summary: Lay off the hard drugs Mr Holmes. Get the saucepan off your head. They are not coming to get you at this time.


3. The doomed Franklin Expedition was sent to the Arctic not only to find the Northwest Passage, but to secretly investigate UFO sightings that had been reported since the 1700s. The men were captured, experimented upon, and eaten by giant aliens.
Proposed by Jeffrey Blair Latta.

I wasn't expecting to read something like this (ie. so completely, amusingly, bizarre) in this particular list. So I had to do some research.

And by research, I mean I Googled it.

http://www.ric.edu/faculty/rpotter/owen_latta.html – this review of the source origin of the theory rubbishes it better than I ever could. Well, while I am busy with other things at any rate. The book, is a waste of time.

A few things not specifically mentioned by the above slating spring immediately to mind though;

If Aliens had been going there and wandering around at Victory Point since the 1700s why would they need to experiment on the Franklin Expedition? I am almost absolutely sure you can do pretty much everything that can be done with a human body/mind in 300 years – so surely experimenting in this case == torture in which case that's pretty inconsistent with every other UFO abduction report ever – for all intensive purposes humans don't appear, generally, to warrant the attention that a good torturing inspires. We're lab rats. Unless we're suggesting that the aliens did it “for a laugh”. In which case, twisted, inconsistent, and possibly even Freudian.

Now the eating is pretty odd but is consistent with some of the more 'lunatic fringe' (can you have a lunatic fringe of a lunatic fringe? I digress...) of the Reptilian theory – some “researchers” claim the Reptiles need us for food – personally I think this is a misconception of the Reptilian need for blood, but there you go – that's all fodder for a different article. Anyway...

Likeliness Rating: Unlikely.
In Summary: Doesn't make a lot of sense, not even, apparently, when you've read the guys entire book on the subject. Fail.


4. The 1939 War of the Worlds radio broadcast was a psychological warfare study funded by C.D. Jackson on behalf of the Rockefeller Foundation, designed to find out how Americans would react to an enemy invasion. Funny... in a trailer for his mockumentary F is for Fake, Orson Welles did say the WoW broadcast had "secret sponsors".
Proposed by Daniel Hopsicker.

Now this I can believe.

I don't think there'd be anything technically illegal about doing this either, it was after all a radio broadcast and how the general idiot population reacts to it is generally not the fault of the broadcaster.

The answer to the question posed by such a study incidently, at the time, would in this case be; very badly. I believe the radio broadcast caused nothing short of gun-toting-mass hysteria.

As for Welles suggestion that the play had “secret sponsors” - I can't take anything that Unicron says that seriously to be honest.

Orson Welles played Unicron in the original Transformers Movie.

Likeliness Rating: Likely.
In Summary: Wouldn't come as a massive surprise to anyone. But, if this were the case, why wouldn't they admit it now some 50 odd years later?


5. Aspartame, fluoride, genetically modified foods, and vaccines are used specifically to keep us sick and open to suggestion, and/or as part of a secret depopulation plan designed by the world's elite.

If this is true, they are doing a pretty bad job.

The population of the Earth has spiralled since the inception of the inoculation for a start (or we are told it has, and there is some pretty convincing evidence). Are genetically modified foods actually killing us? I doubt it – I read somewhere that on average potatoes have always been more carcinogenic that a lot of things we attribute to causing cancer – it's just a matter of believing what we are told at any one given time (I'm sure I'll be trolled on that). Although on saying that maybe that's an example of something keeping us open to suggestion? Creepy.

Likeliness Rating: It's possible I suppose.
In Summary: Live like a Quaker for a few years, if you notice a difference in your general well being, it's true. You could also mimic the experiment in “The Village”. That'd work.


That's all for now, I may well do some more off the big list from the original source site: http://swallowingthecamel.blogspot.com/2007/08/worlds-weirdeststupidest-conspiracy.html if I get bored tomorrow!