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Hey Thoughty2 here, conspiracy theorists are often mocked and called tin-foil hat wearing
loonies, but whatever people may say, they have got the occasional thing correct. And
sometimes the truth is even scarier than speculations and theories. These are the terrifying conspiracy
theories that turned out to be true.
1. We start with the conspiracy of the MKUltra project. The theory goes that between 1950
and 1973 the CIA carried out top secret and disturbing mind control experiments on US
citizens. Unfortunately the theories turned out to be very true. In 1995 President Clinton
actually issued a formal apology on behalf of the US government for the atrocities they
committed. The experiments carried out as part of the MKUltra project were highly illegal.
All the test subjects where unwilling and the experiments involved drugs, electronics,
hypnosis, sensory deprivations, verbal and *** abuse, and torture. To distance the
project from the US government the CIA subcontracted the work to 80 different institutions, including
universities, hospitals and prisons. 20,000 classified MKUltra documents were uncovered
to the public in 1977 under the Freedom of Information act, which confirmed people's
suspicious. However the director of the CIA, Richard Helms had most of the more damming
MKUltra files destroyed in 1973, so much of what happened during the experiments is still
unknown to this day.
2. Next up is the great diamond conspiracy, during the late 1870s when huge diamond mines
were opened in South Africa it was suspected that the diamond supply was actually far greater
than advertised and the price of diamonds had been artificially inflated, conspiracy
theorists believed that diamonds were actually worthless. Well, they couldn't be closer to
the truth. Until the 19th century diamonds were only found in very small quantities in
riverbeds in India and the jungles of Brazil. However, in 1870, huge diamond mines were
found in South Africa and diamonds were soon being mined by the truck load. Very soon the
market was flooded with an excessive amount of diamonds. The British investors who funded
the diamond mines soon realised that the price of diamonds rested solely on the fact that
they were so rare. If too many diamonds came into the market their price would plummet,
diamonds would no longer be a precious stone and their investment would be worth nothing.
So what did they do? The investors realised they had to restrict the supply of diamonds
to keep the prices high. So in 1888 the handful of British diamond mine investors banded together
into a single entity to form a cartel, called De Beers Consolidated Mines. In one fell swoop
they had completely monopolised the diamond market worldwide. The global selling price
of diamonds was now completely under their control. The De Beers corporation achieved
this by stockpiling massive quantities of diamonds in London warehouses and only releasing
a tiny amount into the market each year to create an illusion of scarcity. But De Beers
soon realised that only wealthy individuals were buying their diamonds because the prices
were so high. So they needed a way to encourage the working and middle classes to buy diamonds.
So in 1938 they came up with one of the greatest scams of the modern day, they invented the
diamond engagement ring. De Beers utilised the newly emerging medium of motion pictures
to plant the idea in the heads of young men worldwide that the only stone acceptable for
an engagement ring is a diamond. They paid Hollywood movie studios to include scenes
in their movies of young men proposing to their loved ones with a diamond engagement
ring. They also launched a massive advertising campaign with the slogan "a diamond is forever".
The campaign was an enormous success. Before their campaign only 10% of engagement rings
sold worldwide had diamonds on them, after the campaign 80% had diamonds. In a short
few years the De Beers company had artificially inflated the global price of diamonds and
brainwashed the entire world into thinking that these worthless hunks of carbon are the
only way to propose to a woman. To this day their mass manipulation is still deeply rooted
in society.
3. The Gulf of Tonkin incident was a major event in 1964 that was one of the biggest
contributing factors to the start of the Vietnam War. However conspiracy theorists say the
event never actually happened. The story goes that the US destroyer ship USS Maddox engaged
three North Vietnamese Navy torpedo boats in the Gulf of Tonkin near Vietnam, as part
of a US intelligence patrol. The Maddox fired an incredible 300 shells. That much is true.
However in 2005 a study by the NSA revealed that there weren't actually any Vietnamese
naval vessels present during the incident whatsoever. USS Maddox was firing at nothing.
In 1965, President Johnson actually said "For all I know, our Navy was shooting at whales
out there."
4. Next up is the conspiracy theory that between 1932 and 1972 the US Public Health Service
were deliberately not treating syphilis patients as part of a clinical study to see what would
happen to syphilis patients if left untreated. Unfortunately, this turned out to be very
true. 399 rural African American men were chosen by the US Public Health Service who
were suffering from syphilis, the health service never even informed these men that they had
a sexually transmitted disease, and they never offered them treatment of any kind, despite
the treatment for syphilis being widely available. The victims were simply told they had "bad
blood" and their symptoms were inevitable. By the early 1970s, 128 of the 399 men had
died of syphilis, 40 of their wives had contracted the disease and 19 of their children had been
born with congenital syphilis.
5. Next up is the theory that the joint chiefs of staff of the US military created plans
to create fake acts of terrorism against US citizen on US soil in a Cuban false flag attack
to persuade the American public to support the war against Cuba. It's completely true
and the official documents can be found online. The plan which was drawn up by the US military
involved shooting down innocent Americans on the streets. Planes full of innocent people
being hijacked and shot down, and other extremely violent bouts of terrorism taking place against
the American public in Washington D.C., Miami, and elsewhere across the US. The plan was
approved and ready to go into action, but thankfully President Kennedy rejected it.
6. Perhaps one of the most well believed conspiracy theories is that your government is spying
on you. We've all had that paranoid feeling at some point in our lives, that someone,
somewhere is watching us. Maybe it was George Orwell's 1984 that started it all off or just
a general distrust of the government, but whatever started the theories, the scary truth
is, your government is watching you, and it's not just in America that it's happening. In
recent years there have also been disturbing reports of other countries spying on their
own citizens, such as France, Germany, China, Russia, Syria, New Zealand, Canada and the
United Kingdom. Of course the most well known of these spying scandals was when former NSA
employee, Edward Snowden released sensitive government information, revealing the frightening
extent of the NSA's spying activities on American citizens, under it's surveillance program,
codenamed PRISM. Thanks to these revelations, we now know that the scope of the NSA's eavesdropping
is even larger that what conspiracy theorists originally believed. But of course, all this
spying is necessary to protect us from the likes of terrorists, is it not? Well not exactly,
a report by the Washington Post found that 90% of the sensitive data being collected
by the NSA's surveillance programmes is from Internet users with absolutely no connection
to terrorist activities. Making their spying activities downright illegal.
7. For a long time it's been theorised that professional wrestling is fake and the outcomes
of the matches are determined beforehand. It's always been a popular theory, until recently,
when it was confirmed to be true. in 2013 a mysterious reddit user called Dolphins1925
who claims he has a contact inside the World Wrestling Entertainment company, started posting
the results of pay-per-view wrestling matches online, before they actually took place. He
posted the results of 38 matches, all of which he got correct. Which proved once and for
all that pro wrestling, well at least in the case of WWE matches, are as many suspected,
setup.
8. Between 1920 and 1933 in the US was the alcohol prohibition. For a whole 13 years
alcoholic beverages in any form were banned. As you would expect, this proved very hard
to enforce. A lot of people were secretly making their own alcohol in their homes. The
FBI were finding it increasingly more difficult to stop people drinking. Then suddenly, people
started dying from drinking alcoholic beverages, many theories popped up that claimed the FBI
was intentionally poisoning liquor to deter people from drinking it. It's frightening
to believe, but the theories were absolutely correct. The FBI's idea was that by adding
potentially fatal impurities to liquor it would demonise alcohol in the eyes of the
general public and stop people from wanting to drink. Of course they didn't tell the public
about their nefarious plan, they let the consequences of the poisoned liquors do all the talking
for them. The FBI added substances such as kerosene, chloroform and acetone to bottles
of liquor, and people started mysteriously dying of what many believed was simply alcohol
poisoning.
9. It's long been believed by conspiracy theorists the world over that the world is run by a
group of rich men in powerful positions and that they meet up every year to discuss secret
plans, one such theory is that the world's elite meet up once a year in the middle of
the woods and worship a giant owl effigy. Well turns out it's true, it's called the
Bohemian Grove. It's a 2,700-acre campground located in the woods of Monte Rio, California.
Once a year Bohemian Grove is host to a two week event involving some of the most powerful
men in the world. During the event they get drunk, put on strange plays in the woods and
burn an effigy in front of a giant owl statue. However little is known about the event and
what exactly is discussed by the rich and powerful is kept top secret. Women aren't
allowed to attend. Famous Bohemian Grove members have included: *** Cheney, both George Bushes,
Ronald Reagan, Richard Nixon, John Major, David Rockefeller, former C.I.A. director
William Casey, the former CEO of IBM, Thomas J. Watson and many more.
10. And finally. Conspiracy Theorists believed that the CIA invented a heart attack gun that
can be used to assassinate people without a trace. Turns out this is terrifyingly true.
The weapon does exist, it was developed in the late 1960s. The gun was designed to be
completely untraceable. It fires a tiny bullet about 3 millimetres wide that is made entirely
of ice. This ice bullet has a lethal shellfish toxin frozen inside it. Upon entering the
target the bullet would leave only a tiny red dot on the skin, and the bullet itself
would quickly melt, leaving no trace at all. The shellfish toxin causes a heart attack
regardless of the target's physical fitness. The toxin itself denatures quickly, meaning
an autopsy is unlikely to find any traces of it. It is a perfectly, untraceable James
Bond style weapon. However it's existence was confirmed in 1975 when Senator Frank Church
was forced to reveal the gun to a subcommittee whom were investigating the CIA's illegal
activities. Because assassinating someone on the streets who doesn't pose a significant
threat to the state is illegal, even for the CIA. Even though its existence is now undeniable
theorists believe it is still being used by the CIA to this day. Andrew Breitbart may
very well have been a victim, he was a media mogul whom published derogatory stories about
Barack Obama. He promised that he would shortly publish proof that Barack Obama's presidency
was illegitimate. But he never got to do so, because shortly afterwards on the 1st March
2012 he suspiciously collapsed dead from a heart attack whilst walking in a Los Angeles
neighbourhood, despite being of relatively good health. Another possible victim of the
heart attack gun was Mark Pittman, a financial journalist who sued the American Federal Reserve
for mishandling taxpayer's money. However before the case could come to a conclusion
Pittman died of a heart attack in very similar circumstances as Andrew Breitbart.