Conspiracy Theories

I have always been fascinated by conspiracy theories. The more believable and unexplainable the better. However, I've never really been naive enough to actually believe any of them, or have I? But is it a question of naivety? A conspiracy theory would have you questioning yourself on why you don't believe it. Is it just ill-educated people that believe these conspiracy theories, or extremely well educated people that have outsmarted world leaders and exploited the dominant ideology that they present.

One conspiracy theory that I used to be fascinated by is the 'Paul Is Dead' conspiracy theory, a theory that believes Paul McCartney of the Beatles died in a car accident in 1966 and was replaced by an imposter. The evidence for this theory is a selection of clues in albums released by the Beatles. The story of Paul's alledged death is said to have been revealed through certain Beatles' songs:

• "He didn't notice that the lights had changed" ('A Day in the Life')
• He then crashed (a car crash sound is heard in 'Revolution 9' and 'A Day in the Life').
• He was pronounced dead on a "Wednesday morning at 5 o'clock as the day begins" ('She's Leaving Home')
• Nobody found this out because the news was withheld: "Wednesday morning papers didn't come" ('Lady Madonna').

An example of a visual clue - on the cover of the "Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" album if you hold a mirror horizontally through the middle of "Lonely Hearts" message on the drum on the album cover it reads: "I ONE IX HE <> DIE" - the "I One" is said to mean 11, and so the mesage reads "11 9 HE DIE" or the 9th of November, the date of the accident. The <> is a diamond shape that points straight up at Paul McCartney, demonstrating he had died.

There are a lot more clues to back-up this theory and you can see the full list of clues on this page on the BBC's website.

One of the most popular and most publicised conspiracy theories is the theory that the 9/11 terrorist attack in America was not actually a terrorist attack, but instead an orchestrated attack on it's own people by the US government. At first this seems highly unlikely, why would the US government do this? But with all the evidence that proves it wasn't a terrorist attack, the conspiracy theorists do have a good case.

This clip from 'Zeitgeist, The Movie' shows the 9/11 myth that is commonly believed and deconstructs it to show that there is proof that the attacks were orchestrated or allowed to happen by the US government to create fear and justify the 'War on Terror'. It is a very interesting video and does bring up a lot of interesting evidence to prove that the World Trade Centre buildings were brought down by controlled explosions and that there is no real evidence that proves that Osama Bin Ladan is responsible for the attack.

This clip from 'Zeitgeist, The Movie' proves that it was impossible that a plane could have crashed in to the Pentagon judging by the wreckage. The fact that the CCTV that would have shown what actually happened was confiscated by the FBI is all the proof I need. If a plane crashed in to the Pentagon and the CCTV showed that then why would this footage be confiscated, this seems very suspect to me. So maybe I do believe this? But what can I do about it? Nothing, is the answer.

The full film, 'Zeitgeist, The Movie' can be seen here.

There is a conspiracy theory for pretty much anything, and there is no way we will ever find out if the 9/11 conspiracy theory, or any other conspiracy theory, is true because that's why they are conspiracy theories. Most people just sit back and take what they are spoon-fed by the mass media. If more people thought for themselves and drew their own conclusions from the other sides of the stories, not only the story shown by the media, which is presented as the 'truth'. If this were to happen then maybe people in charge (the world leaders, or whoever they may be, did someone say lizards?) might think again before trying to fool nations upon nations of people.