Bit obsessed about reading conspiracy theories at the moment, with those surrounding 9/11 capturing my attention the most probably due to my own academic work in this area. Some are just downright hilarious such as this:
Reptilian shape-shifting aliens: David Icke argues that reptilian, shape-shifting extraterrestrial humanoids are responsible for the 9/11 attacks. According to Icke, a reptilian global elite is behind all things that occur in the world. Those who Icke accuses of being reptilian shape-shifters include such notables as George W. Bush. Icke has also called the Anti-Defamation League "an Illuminati front." According to Stephen Lemons of the Phoenix New Times, "Icke is part of a virulent strain of anti-Semitism that runs throughout the 9/11 conspiracy crowd." Icke's theories are rejected by 911blogger.com and other conspiracy theory sites.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/9/11#Conspiracy_theories
Whats the most outrageous conspiracy theory you have come across 9/11 or otherwise?
Conspiracy Theories
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Conspiracy Theories
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CocoaButter
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The fruit loop
According to the practitioners of the fruit loop, 19 Arabs took over the four planes by subduing the passengers and crew through the use of guns, knives, box cutters and gas, and then used electronic guidance systems which they had smuggled on board to fly the planes to their targets.
The suspension of disbelief required for this outrageous concoction is only for the hard core conspiracy theorist. For a start, they conveniently skip over the awkward fact that there weren't any Arabs on the planes.
If there were, one must speculate that they somehow got on board without being filmed by any of the security cameras and without being registered on the passenger lists. But the curly question of how they are supposed to have got on board is all too mundane for the exciting world of the conspiracy theorist.
Who's on first?
With vague mumblings that they must have been using false ID (but never specifying which IDs they are alleged to have used, or how these were traced to their real identities), they quickly bypass this problem, to relate exciting and sinister tales about how some of the fictitious fiends were actually searched before boarding because they looked suspicious.
However, as inevitably happens with any web of lies, this simply paints them into an even more difficult corner. How are they supposed to have gotten on board with all that stuff if they were searched? And if they used gas in a confined space, they would have been affected themselves unless they also had masks in their luggage.
“Excuse me sir, why do you have a boxcutter, a gun, a container of gas, a gas mask and an electronic guidance unit in your luggage?”
“A present for your grandmother? Very well sir, on you get.”
“Very strange,” thinks the security officer. “That's the fourth Arabic man without an Arabic name who just got on board with a knife, gun or boxcutter and gas mask. And why does that security camera keep flicking off every time one these characters shows up? Must be one of those days I guess...”
Asking any of these basic questions to a conspiracy theorist is likely to cause a sudden leap to the claim that we know that they were on board because they left a credit card trail for the tickets they had purchased and cars they had rented. So, if they used credit cards that identified them, how does that reconcile with the claim that they used false IDs to get on to the plane?
But by this time, the fruit loop is in full swing, as the conspiracy theorist tries to stay one jump ahead of this annoying and awkward rational analysis. They will allege that the hijackers' passports were found at the crash scenes. “So there!” they exalt triumphantly, their fanatical faces lighting up with that deranged look of one who has just experienced a revelation of questionable sanity.
Hmm? So they got on board with false IDs but took their real passports with them? However, by this time the fruit loop has been completely circumnavigated, and the conspiracy theorist exclaims impatiently, “Who said anything about false IDs? We know what seats they were sitting in! Their presence is well documented!”
And so the whole loop starts again. “Well, why aren't they on the passenger lists?”
“You numbskull! They assumed the identities of other passengers!” And so on...
Finally, out of sheer fascination with this circular method of creative delusion, the rational sceptic will allow them to get away with this loop, in order to move on to the next question, and see what further delights await us in the unraveling of this marvelously stupid story.
“Uh, how come their passports survived fiery crashes that completely incinerated the planes and all the passengers?”
The answer of course is that its just one of those strange coincidences, those little quirks of fate that do happen from time to time. You know, like the same person winning the lottery four weeks in a row. The odds are astronomical, but these things do happen...
This is another favourite deductive method of the conspiracy theorist. The “improbability drive,” in which they decide upon a conclusion without any evidence whatsoever to support it, and then continually speculate a series of wildly improbable events and unbelievable coincidences to support it, shrugging off the implausibility of each event with the vague assertion that sometimes the impossible happens (just about all the time in their world).
There is a principle called “Occam's razor” which suggests that in the absence of evidence to the contrary, the simplest explanation is most likely to be correct. Conspiracy theorists hate Occam's razor.
According to the practitioners of the fruit loop, 19 Arabs took over the four planes by subduing the passengers and crew through the use of guns, knives, box cutters and gas, and then used electronic guidance systems which they had smuggled on board to fly the planes to their targets.
The suspension of disbelief required for this outrageous concoction is only for the hard core conspiracy theorist. For a start, they conveniently skip over the awkward fact that there weren't any Arabs on the planes.
If there were, one must speculate that they somehow got on board without being filmed by any of the security cameras and without being registered on the passenger lists. But the curly question of how they are supposed to have got on board is all too mundane for the exciting world of the conspiracy theorist.
Who's on first?
With vague mumblings that they must have been using false ID (but never specifying which IDs they are alleged to have used, or how these were traced to their real identities), they quickly bypass this problem, to relate exciting and sinister tales about how some of the fictitious fiends were actually searched before boarding because they looked suspicious.
However, as inevitably happens with any web of lies, this simply paints them into an even more difficult corner. How are they supposed to have gotten on board with all that stuff if they were searched? And if they used gas in a confined space, they would have been affected themselves unless they also had masks in their luggage.
“Excuse me sir, why do you have a boxcutter, a gun, a container of gas, a gas mask and an electronic guidance unit in your luggage?”
“A present for your grandmother? Very well sir, on you get.”
“Very strange,” thinks the security officer. “That's the fourth Arabic man without an Arabic name who just got on board with a knife, gun or boxcutter and gas mask. And why does that security camera keep flicking off every time one these characters shows up? Must be one of those days I guess...”
Asking any of these basic questions to a conspiracy theorist is likely to cause a sudden leap to the claim that we know that they were on board because they left a credit card trail for the tickets they had purchased and cars they had rented. So, if they used credit cards that identified them, how does that reconcile with the claim that they used false IDs to get on to the plane?
But by this time, the fruit loop is in full swing, as the conspiracy theorist tries to stay one jump ahead of this annoying and awkward rational analysis. They will allege that the hijackers' passports were found at the crash scenes. “So there!” they exalt triumphantly, their fanatical faces lighting up with that deranged look of one who has just experienced a revelation of questionable sanity.
Hmm? So they got on board with false IDs but took their real passports with them? However, by this time the fruit loop has been completely circumnavigated, and the conspiracy theorist exclaims impatiently, “Who said anything about false IDs? We know what seats they were sitting in! Their presence is well documented!”
And so the whole loop starts again. “Well, why aren't they on the passenger lists?”
“You numbskull! They assumed the identities of other passengers!” And so on...
Finally, out of sheer fascination with this circular method of creative delusion, the rational sceptic will allow them to get away with this loop, in order to move on to the next question, and see what further delights await us in the unraveling of this marvelously stupid story.
“Uh, how come their passports survived fiery crashes that completely incinerated the planes and all the passengers?”
The answer of course is that its just one of those strange coincidences, those little quirks of fate that do happen from time to time. You know, like the same person winning the lottery four weeks in a row. The odds are astronomical, but these things do happen...
This is another favourite deductive method of the conspiracy theorist. The “improbability drive,” in which they decide upon a conclusion without any evidence whatsoever to support it, and then continually speculate a series of wildly improbable events and unbelievable coincidences to support it, shrugging off the implausibility of each event with the vague assertion that sometimes the impossible happens (just about all the time in their world).
There is a principle called “Occam's razor” which suggests that in the absence of evidence to the contrary, the simplest explanation is most likely to be correct. Conspiracy theorists hate Occam's razor.