A conspiracy theory is defined as one that attempts to conceal the actual details of an event or chain of events (whether social, political, historical or economic) from the general public, by means of covert action usually employed by a group of political conspirators. The term conspiracy theory probably originated in the 1920s, though it didn’t enter popular usage until the mid 1960s. Nowadays many people hold no more credence in conspiracy theories than they do in urban legends, while others firmly believe that they are real political cover-ups that threaten our social, political and economic freedom. Here is an over view of some of the more popular conspiracy theories that are in circulation today.

 

UFOs and Aliens

The most popular and probably long lasting conspiracy theories involve UFOs and aliens; they have been around for decades and show no sign of abating. Possibly the most common of this group of theories is that aliens are known to exist and that evidence is being suppressed by the government. One of the most famous conspiracy theories of this type involves the Roswell incident of 1947 at which time, some believe, a UFO crashed into a New Mexico dessert. The story arose after rancher, Mac Brazel, found pieces of metal scattered across a wide area of his range land. Because of the unusual nature of the metal, Brazel took some of the pieces to the Roswell authorities. This intrigued intelligence officers and eventually prompted them to remove the debris and send it to Army headquarters in Fort Worth, Texas. The Army command at Roswell issued an initial press release that it had found a “flying disc.” This statement was retracted shortly after. Further press coverage was restricted and at a later press conference, Roswell command announced that officers had misidentified the debris and that it was in fact a downed weather balloon with an attached metallic radar reflector. Public interest in the matter gradually waned until the late 1970’s when Major Jesse Marcel, one of the initial investigating officers, made a public comment on the incident and the UFO story was revived. Over the ensuing years more evidence has been uncovered which suggests that the weather balloon story was a cover-up, and many more people have come to believe that the original “flying disc” story was the true account.

 

A growing number of conspiracy theorist believe that throughout the world there exist a series of mysterious underground tunnels which house secret alien bases. There are a number of speculative lists available which site the locations of the entrances to these tunnels. The locations include Midtown Manhattan, New York City, Casal Paula cave,  Malta, Dulce, New Mexico, Death Valley, California and Mount Shasta, California.

 

9/11

Since the September 11th attacks on the WorldTradeCenter there have been a number of conspiracy theories circulating, which either present a variation or completely contradict the mainstream understanding of the tragic events. One thing they generally have in common is that George Bush and his administration knew about the threat of terrorist attacks before the events actually took place, but refused to take any action. Theorists claim that their purpose behind this was to generate public support for militarization and the expansion of foreign and domestic policies which they could develop to their advantage. Advocate of this conspiracy theory point the finger at the Project for the New American Century, which is a conservative think tank founded in 1997 with the aim of promoting increased American global leadership. Its members include Paul Wolfowitz, Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld.

 

Another version of the 9/11 conspiracy theory claims that the attacks were carried out by the US government themselves in a covert operation which was made to appear as though it was an act of terrorism. Apparently the government’s aim was to invoke the patriotic allegiance of the American people and at the same time turn them against Muslim communities. There are also some proponents who contend that no commercial airliner crashed into the Pentagon and that United Airlines flight 93 did not crash into the empty field just outside Shanksville, Pennsylvania, but that it was shot down.

 

A number of conspiracy theorists also believe that the collapse of the WorldTradeCenter was the result of a controlled demolition. One of the main proponents of this theory is Steven E. Jones, a physicist at BrighamYoungUniversity, who argues that pre-positioned explosives were responsible for the collapse of all three buildings at ground zero. Based on his personal calculations, Jones believes that the bombes were set off after the two plane crashes, as a diversionary tactic. He states that Muslims were probably not responsible for the disaster, though he declines to speculate as to who may have been.

 

Gulf War Syndrome

Almost one million U.S. citizens took part in the Persian Gulf War and it was billed as a battle with few American casualties, yet though relatively few soldiers may have lost their lives on the battlefield, thousands of soldiers suffered from a debilitating and often lethal sickness that came to be known as “Gulf War Syndrome.” One year after the war was over veterans began to complain of symptoms including chronic fatigue, fever, nausea, swollen glands, joint and muscle pain, mood swings, memory loss, severe aggression, insomnia and headaches. By 1993, 2,000 deaths were blamed on the syndrome. To date, the illness has affected between 10-15 percent of U.S. troops involved in the war. More recently, brain cancer, Lou Gehrig’s disease and fibromyalgia have also been linked to veterans.

 

There has been much debate over the possible causes of Gulf War syndrome. One of the most controversial theories is that the illness was caused by experimental testing on our troops. In October 1999, the U.S. Pentagon released a report suggesting that an experimental drug called pyriostigmine bromide may have been connected to the physical symptoms experienced by Gulf War veterans. The experimental drug was given to both U.S. and Canadian troops during the war to protect them form the effects of the highly dangerous chemical nerve agent Soman.

 

It has also been suggested that the symptoms may have been caused by Sarin gas, Agent Orange, anthrax vaccines and even Nutrasweet. There is currently no specific treatment for Gulf War syndrome though cognitive-behavioral therapy may help patients with non-specific symptoms syndromes lead more productive lives by actively managing their symptoms. Gulf War syndrome remains a controversial subject, research is ongoing at various centers throughout Britain and the United States.

 

Concentration Camps in the USA

 

According to this conspiracy theory in the United States, there exists today, more that 600 fully functional locations designed to be used as detention facilities. Though many of the sites are staffed by full-time guards they are all currently empty, so what is their purpose? Conspirators claim that the camps are to be operated by FEMA (Federal Emergency Management Agency) should the government ever need to implement martial law.

 

This conspiracy theory has grown out of a couple of specific events that have taken place over several decades. In 1984, president Ronald Regan established the Rex 84 program (short for readiness exercise 1984). The program was designed by the federal government to test the ability of the emergency services to detain massive numbers of citizens should a serious situation of civil unrest arise. The exercise was conducted during April 5-13 1984 and involved FEMA in association with 34 other federal civil departments and agencies. The combined federal and military agencies ran through a gaming exercise to test combined assistance in civil defense. The potential threat that such a program could pose to civil liberties, if fully implemented, is not taken lightly by many theorists and academic alike. Consequently there are those who believe that Rex 84 was the beginning of a program of mass population control that is currently on its way to fruition.

 

Another disturbing fact that added to this conspiracy theory is that in 2006 the Department of Homeland Security was awarded a $385 million contract to support its Immigration and Customs Enforcement facilities in the event of an emergency. The contract was to develop temporary detention and processing facilities and to expand existing detention and removal programs in the event of a sudden emergency influx of immigrants into the United States.

 

Some believe that the concentration camps will be used to hold illegal aliens; others believe that there will be an American Holocaust and that there are already hot lists of people who will be detained and eventually executed when the time comes. The list of these detention centers covers every state. Many of the facilities are located at military bases though others are listed in closed prison camps, closed air bases, former rail car repair sites and wild life refuges.

 

The New World Order

 

The New World Order conspiracy is a notion that there is a secret group composed of business and political leaders, who are untied for the purpose of forming a one world government. The idea of a new world order was created in the early 20^th century by Cecil Rhodes, founder of the De-Beers diamond company, who advocated that the British Empire and the United States should unite and impose a Federal World Government with the aim of creating world peace. Writer and futurist H. G. Wells was also an advocate for world government.

 

According to theorists there already exist many signs indicating the movement towards a New World Order. Among them are the Illuminati seal on the $1 bill, with the words "Novus Ordo Seclorum" meaning New World Order, murals in Denver international airport and the use of the phrase “new world order,” during numerous political speeches over the last several decades.

 

There are several other names for the New World Order including Illuminati, Fourth Reich, Power Elite, Cryptocracy and High Cabal. The group is said to include important members such as Rothschilds,  Rockefellers, DuPonts, Morgans and a number of European monarchs. Several world organizations such as NATO, the World Bank, the United Nations and the European Union are also often linked with the secret society.

 

The aims of the society include the creation of a one world government and a one-unit monetary system, the reduction of the planet’s population by two thirds, a uniform system of laws under a world court, a global military force to enforce laws, a welfare state to reward obedient citizens while dissidents will be left to starve.

 

Government Mind Control

 

Do we have total freedom over what we choose, or is there a secret project going on right now that we are not aware of which allows the government to manipulate our thought patterns and control our actions? Some conspiracy theorists think so. Although from the early days of our lives we are bombarded with a great flux of social influences, hit with a barrage of propaganda and catapulted into consumerism, we still like to think of ourselves as free thinkers, perhaps we are even more heavily under the influence than we know.

 

Theories of government mind control are not new. After a Senate Intelligence Committee investigation in 1976, thousands of documents involving mind control were declassified through the Freedom of Information Act. These documents included reports of a project named MKULTRA. MKULTRA was a mind control program that began in the 1950s on the order of the CIA This was a ten year program designed to study the effects radiation, hypnosis and drugs on mind control. Mental health patients, prisoners and prostitutes were routinely experimented on during the course of the program. There is no evidence to prove that the CIA or anyone succeeded in controlling anyone’s mind using any of these techniques.

 

More recently thousands of people throughout the United States and Europe believe that their governments are controlling their minds using electrical and neurological devices. The theory of mind control is also linked to the New World Order theory. Advocates believe that the New World government will eventually begin controlling entire populations en masse using HAARP technology. HAARP stands for High Frequency Active Aural Research Program. This is a worldwide reaching program operated by the Navy and Air Force, along with Phillips Labs and other private industries. The main HAARP facility is located in Gakona, Alaska, and they currently have at least 36 sites around the world in operation. HAARP claims that its purpose is to analyze the behavior of the ionosphere- that part of the atmosphere that extends from approximately 70km up to as much as 1500km. It does this by transmitting a beam of focused radio frequency energy into the ionosphere and monitoring the behavior of the area during the test.

 

Conspiracy theorist believe that HAARP will become the control and communications system technology used by the New World Order to ensure maximum compliance from the population, for the purpose of mind control, behavior modification and social punishment. Symptoms of HAARP may include headache, earache, abdominal pain, nausea, confusion, fatigue, memory impairment, toothache, stinging eyes, dramatic change in sense of taste, sudden sensations of heat or cold on various parts of the body, mood swings. Proponents of this theory believe that HAARP is a silent subliminal stimulation system that is capable of such subtle mind control that it can make slaves out of people without them being aware that they are being completely subservient.

In their book Angels Don’t Play This HAARP, Dr. Nick Begich and Jean Manning, describe how HAARP technology has the power to scan the minds and interrogate specifically targeted individuals by means of high frequency radio technology. In their book the authors claim that internal military documents refer to several years of testing of these applications for both global and domestic purposes.

Ultimately we are left to decide for ourselves whether these are true conspiracies or merely urban legends, but perhaps it’s best not to be too quick to mock the gullibility of conspiracy theorists. A recent study found that 60% of the US population believed at least one of the following statements: that weapons of mass destruction have been found in Iraq, that Saddam Hussein worked closely with the September 11 hijackers, and that most people in the world supported the war in Iraq, despite the fact that all these statements are false. However, 80% of people who cited their primary news source as Fox believed at least one of the statements.

 

 

Some of the more off-the-wall conspiracy theories

 

1. Humanity is under the control of reptilian aliens who must consume human blood to survive.
2. Barcodes encode the number 666 and are used by a putative world government to secretly control people.
3. The Nazis landed on the moon as early as 1941, built a moon base there and also made contact with several alien races including the infamous reptilians.
4. The AIDS virus was engineered by the government for the purpose of population control.
5. The earth is hollow and there is a secret race living there.
6. The Illuminati are really a group of beings from a distant planet.
7. Alien bases exist under every volcano on earth.