Friday, July 27, 2012

5 Conspiracies made against Conspiracy Theorists

It is not to uncommon for conspiracy theorists themselves to be accused of being involved in a conspiracy of some sort. While accusations of being involved in a conspiracy are usually are usually made by other conspiracy theorists, they sometimes actually made by skeptics as well.

Here is a list of five conspiracies that conspiracy theorists are sometimes accused of:

5. Conspiracy theorists are dis-information agents for the government

One of the most common accusations that conspiracy theorists make against other conspiracy theorists is that they are working for the government, or some "New World Order" type group, and that they are intentionally publishing dis-information about a conspiracy theory in an attempt to either confuse people, or discredit an entire conspiracy theory. Some conspiracy theorists have even accused other conspiracy theorists of making up entire conspiracy theories as a part of a giant dis-information campaign.

4. Conspiracy theorists are dis-information agents for our enemies

Some people have accused some conspiracy theorists of basically being traitors, and that they are spreading conspiracy theories as part of a dis-information campaign for either a government that isn't on the friendliest terms with us, or certain terrorist groups that wish to see our destruction, or at least lesson or end our involvement in certain areas of the world.

3. Political propaganda promoters

Often times conspiracy theorists are accused making up conspiracy theories, or 
exploiting certain conspiracy theories, and using these theories as political propaganda in order to help certain political parties, or politicians, gain more power. Normally these accusations are made against conspiracy theorists who tend to promote conspiracy theories that are seen as being politically one sided, and these accusations tend to be made by people who are on the opposite end of the political spectrum that a certain conspiracy theory is typically associated with, although this isn't always true.

2. Radical political propaganda promoters


Many conspiracy theorists are often times accused of, or are known to have what is considered to be radical political beliefs, and even being part of groups and organizations that promote radical political beliefs, and that they make up conspiracy theories in order to help promote their political views. These accusations are not just made by other conspiracy theorists, but also by skeptics, and organizations like the 
Southern Poverty Law Center that monitor such groups as well.

1. Exploiting conspiracy theories for selfish 
purposes

Some conspiracy theorists, especially those who have made money from promoting conspiracy theories, have often times been accused of exploiting conspiracy theories for selfish purposes. While normally such accusations are made against people who sell and promote products that are targeted towards people who believe in conspiracy theories, these accusations are also made against some conspiracy theorists who appear to only be promoting certain conspiracy theories for attention seeking purposes, which in itself may not be an actual conspiracy, it is a form of deception.

Tuesday, July 24, 2012

Embarrassing Conspiracy Theories: Water Fluoridation

Ever since the 1970's the United States, along with several other countries, has been putting fluoride in the public water supplies in an effort to reduce tooth decay, and ever since there has been controversy. While some of the controversy concerns some legitimate reasons, such as cost, and effectiveness, and some safety concerns. Others concerns tend to be just outright conspiracy theories.

The two main conspiracy theories concerning water fluoridation is that the fluoride in the water is causing peoples' intelligence to lower, and that it's causing people to become infertile. The reason why conspiracy theorists believe this is because fluoride is a poison, and that any amount of fluoride, no matter how small the amount, is dangerous to humans.


First, if water fluoridation did cause infertility, then why hasn't the birth rate and population gone down? Also, the fact is, is that poisons don't infertility. Genetics, disease, radiation, and injuries to reproductive organs causes infertility.


Second, while our intelligence "might" be lowering (and this is an issue of debate) it's more likely the result of the lowering of educational standards, and possibly some peoples' distrust in science.


It is true, fluoride
 can kill a person, but only if it's consumed in a large enough amounts. The amount varies from person to person, but usually it's somewhere between 5 to 10 grams.

It would be impossible to consume even a fraction of fluoride through drinking water from public water supplies to cause a person any harm. This is due to the fact that the water has diluted the fluoride so much that it renders it to the point where it is harmless.


It should also be noted that fluoride, even in larger, but non-lethal amounts, does not cause infertility, or lowering of intelligence. It can cause leg pain and incomplete stress fractures, and also stomach irritation and sometimes even ulcers. The amount of water you would need to drink at one time in order to cause the leg and stomach problems would be so much that it's physically impossible to do. You would either be physically unable to continue to drink, or you would dry drown.

Friday, July 20, 2012

5 Famous UFO/ET Hoaxes that some people still think are real

Ever since the UFO phenomenon began back in the 1950s, there has been a huge amount of reported sightings of UFOs, along with photos and videos of these so called UFOs, and even contact with aliens.

As it turns out, many of these sighting, and photos and videos, are actually mis-identified natural phenomenon, or mis-identified man made objects. Of course, it also turns out that some of these UFO sighting, and photos and videos, are not as simple something that has been mis-identified, but are actually man made hoaxes, many of which are still believed by some people to be real.

Here are what I consider to be the top five most famous UFO/ET hoaxes that some people still believe are real:

5. Alien Autopsy

There are actually several so called alien autopsy films making their way around the internet claiming to show an actual alien autopsy, but the one that I'm talking about specifically is the now infamous film that had it's own television special called "Alien Autopsy: Fact or Fiction". From the beginning, many people were skeptical of the film, believed the answer was fiction.

Well, it turns out it was in fact, fiction.

Ray Santilli and Gary Shoefield, two of the people who helped create, release, and promote the footage, admitted in 2006 that the footage was indeed fake, although for some reason they then claimed that the film was a "reconstruction" of an earlier film they claim to have seen, but deteriorate right after they viewed it...

There are also a lot of people who still think the film is real, but that maybe because they haven't heard that it was fake, or they refuse to accept the truth.

4. The Johnathan Reed video

In 2002 a claim made by a man named Dr. Johnathan Reed start circulating around the UFO community that back in 1996 Dr. Reed encountered an alien in the woods near his home, and that it killed his dog. After this alleged attack, instead of running away, he hit the alien in the head with a large branch. After all this, he still managed to get out his video camera, video tape the alien, the alien's apparent space craft, get the half alien dead alien back to his jeep, take it home, and continue to examine it in his garage while still video taping..

While many people considered this footage to be quite extraordinarily, there were many others who were skeptical from the beginning, and deemed it to be a hoax. And it turns out they were right.

In 2010 a team from the television show "Fact or Fake: Paranormal Files" investigated this video. Not only were they able to duplicate the video also exactly like the original, they also did a voice analyse stress test on Dr. Reed as well from an interview he gave the investigators. The test indicated that he was most likely being deceptive about his video.

Despite the show's investigation, many people still refuse to accept the fact that the video is a fake, and even claimed that the show was misleading about the facts.

3. Billy Meier's photos and videos

Billy Meier's photos and videos of UFOs from the 1970's are considered within the UFO community to be some of the best evidence of UFOs ever, but many skeptics, including those within the UFO community itself, consider his photos and videos to be fake.

Many of Meier's photos and videos of the UFOs he claimed to have taken have been duplicated over the years by skeptics, and many people have noted problems with his photos and videos as well, indicating that they are most likely fake. His ex-wife has even claimed that all of his alien visitations he claims to have had are made up, and that the UFOs in the photos and videos look like several models he made out of house hold items. He has also been unwilling to hand over any physical evidence that he claims to have for testing.

In spite of the fact that there is just so much evidence that all of his photos and videos are fake, he still claims that they are genuine, and he still has a lot of supporters who think so too.

2. The McPherson Tape

In 1989 a very low budget, found footage genre film commonly known as "The McPherson Tape" premiered to the world, and many people in the UFO community saw this film as being not only real, but as proof that aliens were actually abducting humans.

The film's creators soon after came clean about the film, even producing photos of the alien costumes and the "spaceship". There was even a remake of the film that premiered in 1998 that even has an alternate ending.

Despite all of this, there are many people who still believe that the film is real, and that the "family" in the film (all of whom are actors who aren't even related to each other) are being frightened by the government and being forced to claim that the footage is fake.

1. Crop Circles

For over 30 years crop circles have been appearing around the English countryside, and eventually this  phenomenon spread around world. At first, many people thought that the the circles were being created by aliens, because it was claimed that humans could not have created such designs large designs over night, and bend the crops in the way that was done, but in 1991 two people by names of Doug Bower and Dave Chorley came forward and admitted that they had created many of the crop circles in England, and even showed the media how to make a crop circle.

Since then many people around the world have been making crop circles on their own. Some have even made videos of themselves making these crop circles, even very complex ones, and then posting those videos online. Some people have even been caught making crop circles, and have faced legal issues because of it.

Yet, there are still a lot of people who believe that crop circles are made by aliens. In fact, there is even a group of people called Cereologist who study crop circles, and usually claim that most are made by aliens, and that the videos of people showing how to make crop circles are part of a conspiracy by the government to make people believe crop circles are a hoax.

Tuesday, July 17, 2012

Embarrassing Conspiracy Theories: Drones were what really hit the WTC towers and the Pentagon on 9/11

One of the many conspiracy theories about the 9/11 attacks is that the jets that flew into the World Trade Center towers, and the Pentagon, were not manned at all, but were actually un-manned drones.

One of the theories is that the planes had all been shot down somewhere in the Atlantic ocean and quickly replaced with the un-manned drones, or that they had been secretly landed somewhere, and that the crews and passengers had simply been made to "disappear".

The biggest problem with both of these theories are that not only would they require thousands of people who work for the NTSB and various airport air traffic control unions to be in on the conspiracy, it would also have to get perhaps thousands of other people within the military and the government to never talk about it to anybody. This is so improbable and illogical, that many people considered both theories to be theoretical impossible.

Also, in regards to the theory that the planes had been shot down and replaced with drones, even if the government had managed to get thousands of people to basically keep silent on this, the odds of no body actually witnessing any of the planes being shot down, even over the ocean, is really very low, and eventually debris from the planes would have washed up on shore.

Of course, debris washing up on the shore would have been very difficult to happen in the first place, since none of the four planes that were hijacked ever flew over the ocean. In other words, it would have been impossible for no one to have witnessed any of the four planes being shot down, crashing to the ground, and quickly being replaced with drones.

Another problem with this theory is United Airlines flight 93, which crashed into the middle of a field in south-western Pennsylvania, and not into a major government building. If it was a drone, and un-manned, then why didn't it hit any important buildings, and just crashed into the ground? Also, why were bits and pieces of human remains, and the type of humans remains you would find at a violent, high speed plane crash site, found at the crash site?

Besides the fact that this theory ignores that there are no eye witnesses to any of the planes being allegedly shot down, it also ignores the fact that phone calls from people on board those planes were made to loved ones on the ground, telling their loved ones that the planes they were on had been hijacked, and that some of them had even called their loved ones very soon before impacting the World Trade Center towers, or the Pentagon, or that field in Pennsylvania.

Friday, July 13, 2012

5 Reasons why People keep Believing in Debunked Conspiracy Theories


I've wondered why do people still believe in certain conspiracy theories, even after they have been totally debunked, or proven to be logically improbable.

From my observations of conspiracy theorists, I believe that there are five main reasons why some people still believe in conspiracy theories, even after they have been debunked.

Here are those five reasons:

5. Misinformation

Some people keep believing in conspiracy theories simply because they haven't seen the correct information on certain incidents, or groups, and they might not bother to actually do any research on such things either, or, they have relied on and believed the misinformation for so long, they end up rejecting any factual information, because they believe that it is in fact, not factual.

4. Bigotry

Some people continue to believe in debunked conspiracy theories simply because they are bigots, and any conspiracies that involves people of certain races, or religions, or ethnic groups that they don't like, in their minds, must be true, because their bigoted minds won't allow them to think rationally about people who are different from them.

3. Distrust

Many people continue to believe in conspiracy theories simply because of distrust in either the government, or corporations, or certain political parties, or secret groups, or whatever, and they just can't get past their distrust to see the truth.

Most of these people tend to have grown up in environments where they are taught to distrust in people or groups with power. Other times this distrust comes from personal, negative experiences, with either the government, or a large business, or certain groups.

2. Stubbornness

There are some people out there who actually don't believe in conspiracy theories, but continue to proclaim belief in conspiracy theories, simply because they're to stubborn to admit they were wrong.

Sometimes this stubbornness is not simply because of ego, but because of the fear of losing friends that they have made within conspiracy theorist community, or losing contact with family members who might also believe strongly in conspiracy theories, or just the fear of being said "I told you so" by skeptics and debunkers.

1. Mental Illness

Sadly, some people just can't believe that a conspiracy theory isn't real, even if the conspiracy theory itself sounds so crazy, that most other conspiracy theorists wouldn't believe it, simply because their mind doesn't work right.

Because mental illness can prevent a person from thinking rationally, and or critically, and makes them either uncontrollably paranoid, or delusional, it might be impossible to change their belief in a conspiracy theory, unless of course they are given mental health treatments, and even that might not be enough to stop their belief in conspiracies.

Tuesday, July 10, 2012

Embarrassing Conspiracy Theories: Ancient Aliens Cover-up

Ever since the History Channel show "Ancient Aliens" premiered, many of the people who are interviewed on the show (mind you they tend to be the same people) assert that not only were we visited by extraterrestrials in the past, but that historians and archaeologist, along with the government, are covering up the evidence.

The belief is, is that the leadership within historian and archaeologist community, along with the government, is hiding this knowledge of ancient extraterrestrial visitation in order to keep the status quo, and to prevent chaos from what might happen if it was revealed that certain histories in many peoples' religions were in fact false.

While some people might question their beliefs if such information did come out, many people would try re-work their beliefs to fit this new information, or they would reject this information outright and claim it to be itself a part of a conspiracy to destroy Christianity. Just take a look at how evolution is viewed in this country. Some people have accepted it, some reject it, and most have work evolution their beliefs, which tends to be called theological evolution.

Many ancient alien "experts" also assert that fear by threats of ruining someone's career is what is mainly used to keep such information suppressed, and that some historians and archaeologists careers have been ruined already, because they would not give up on their belief that aliens visited the planet in the past.

Most historians and archaeologists who's careers have been ruined, didn't get them ruined because they publicly stated that aliens visited us in the past. Their careers were ruined because they wouldn't give up on a theory that has been discredited and proven to be completely untrue. This doesn't just apply to historians and archaeologists who believe in ancient alien visitation, it applies to anything in archaeology that's been disproved.

Besides the fact that evidence they present on that show about ancient alien visitation is highly speculative at best, and is usually completely false due to a profound misunderstanding by people who don't understand history and don't know what they are talking about, they also present no evidence that information about ancient aliens either exists, or is being suppressed at all.

Now I won't say that aliens never visited us in our past, because there is no evidence to support that we never were visited at all in the distant past, but, there is also no evidence to support that we have been visited by aliens in the past either.

Friday, July 6, 2012

8 Ways to tell a Conspiracy Theorist is really a Fraud

As I have been observing conspiracy theories, and by extension, conspiracy theorists themselves. From my observations I've noticed that some of them may not be entirely truthful in what they believe, and that some of them may be out right frauds.

Here are eight ways to tell if a conspiracy theorist is a fraud:

1. Constant self promoter

It's one thing for a conspiracy theorist to promote the conspiracy theories they believe in, it's quite another for a conspiracy theorist to constantly promote their own materials and media concerning conspiracy theories they allegedly believe in.

The fact is, is that some people do make money off of promoting conspiracy theories, and some fraud conspiracy theorists do realize they can make lots of money creating and pedaling books and videos about conspiracy theories.

2. Tells people to ignore facts

While most legit conspiracy theorists will usually ask a person to examine all of the facts before asking you to conclude that they are right, a fraud conspiracy theorist will tell you to ignore any facts other then the "facts" that they present. Some even go so far as to call real facts disinformation. This is done as a way to discourage people from actually examining real facts, and by doing this a person might stop believing a certain conspiracy theory, and thus stop believe the fraud conspiracy theorist.

3. Constantly making up stuff

A fraud conspiracy theorist constantly makes up stuff, and then discards certain "information" when no one believes it any more, or no one really cares about it any more.

One of the main reasons this is done is because it keeps people coming back, wanting "new" information.

4. Claims to be withholding information until a later date

Many fraud conspiracy theorists claim they have "secret information" that they claim they are withholding until a later date. Most of the times this "information" isn't even revealed at all, or the "information" that is revealed is actually false and made up, and sometimes not even new at all, just reworded.

5. Presents known fraud media as real

Some fraud conspiracy theorists will take documents, photos, and videos that are known to be fraudulent, some that were even created as a hoax in which to point out how gullible some conspiracy theorists are, and present such media as real and legit. Sometimes a fraud conspiracy theorist will even create the fraud media themselves.

6. Claims persecution, but presents no evidence

Many fraud conspiracy theorists claim they are being persecuted, but present no evidence what so ever that they are being persecuted, whether it be official legal documents, photos or videos showing they a being persecuted, or other credible eye witness backing up the claims of persecution.

7. Lying about credentials

Fraud conspiracy theorists will often times lie about their credentials, such as lying about military service, or about their education, or their expertise. This is done in order to make it seem that they know what they are talking about when they are discussing a conspiracy theory, and in hopes that the conspiracy theory they promote will seem more valid.

8. Unable to pass a lie detector test

One of the most likely ways to tell if a conspiracy theorist is a fraud is that they are unable to pass a lie detector test concerning the conspiracy theories that they promote, or they are unwilling to take a lie detector test concerning the "information" they present, or concerning whether or not they believe in what are promoting in the first place.

Tuesday, July 3, 2012

Embarrassing Conspiracy Theories: The Pentagon was hit with a Missile on 9/11

One of the 9/11 conspiracy theories that some people believe, is that the Pentagon was hit by a missile, and not a Boring 757.

Most people who do believe this, believe a missile must have hit, because they believe that with not much piloting training, a person could not actually fly a jumbo jet into the side of a building that's only a few stories high, and that the damage to the building doesn't appear to them as the type of damage that jumbo jet would do.

First, it's actually not as difficult to learn how to fly a plane as many people might believe. In fact many people say that learning how to fly a plane is like learning how to drive a car.

Also, you have to remember that the Pentagon is an old concrete and steel building, and that buildings from it's time period were built stronger then they are today.

A section of the outer ring of the building is the only part of the building that completely collapsed, and the shape of the section that collapsed is like that of a large object plowing into it.

A missile would not have caused the type of damage done to the building. A missile would have either have caused less damage, or the damage would have been more severe. Plus a missile would not have caused the fires to the sides of the collapsed area, as burning jet fuel from the fuel tanks in the wings of a jumbo jet would have.

Another argument is that the building should have had more damage done to it because of the wings. Again, you have to remember the building is built stronger then many modern buildings, and that the wings are not the strongest parts of a plane, plus the wings are where the fuel tanks are. When the jet hit the building, the fuel tanks exploded, causing the areas to the sides of where the fuselage impacted to start burning.

Beside the fact that the damage caused to the Pentagon could only have been caused by the impact of a jumbo jet, and not by a missile, it also makes no sense that the military would purposely attack it's most important military facility, and in the process, possibly hinder it's ability to fight a war. The conspiracy theorists also ignore the fact that every person who witnessed the impact, says it was a jumbo jet that hit the building, and not a missile, and that plane wreckage was found in the impact area.