Conspiracies

Conspiracy

            A conspiracy theory, by definition, is a belief that some covert but influential organization is responsible for a circumstance or event, and as of right now, conspiracy theories are probably more popular in the United States than they have ever been. In my research I set out to see what the popular American conspiracy theories were, why they are so popular, and to try to find a common link between them. Essentially, I wanted to know the reasoning behind them.

        

The wind doesn't blow on the moon.

    The moon landing was a hoax. At least, that’s what some conspirators believe, and believe it or not they have good reasoning. According to a recent Time Magazine column on the moon landing conspiracies, people believe that the United States was beginning to reach a desperate point in the Space Race, therefor they faked the moon landing to show dominance. As for the three astronauts that died while testing equipment: Virgil I. Grissom, Edward H. White, and Roger B. Chafee doubters believe that the government actually had the men assassinated in order to keep the secret from getting out. Also noteworthy is that Stanley Kubrick filmed a film prior to the moon landing that proved that the technology to fake something as major as a moon landing existed in Hollywood. This movie, 2001: A Space Odyssey, has led many conspirators to believe that Kubrick did in fact film the moon landing. I could never leave out the most definitive quote of the moon landing conspirators: The wind doesn’t blow on the moon. According to Time, about six percent of Americans currently claim that the landing was in fact a hoax.

President John F. Kennedy moments before his assassination

            Now it’s time for America’s favorite conspiracy theory, the JFK assassination. President John F. Kennedy was shot, in the head, during a motorcade and there is no question of the validity of that. The conspiracy theories go crazy however when it comes to why or who killed the president. Although there are many, many theories, the one that seems the most possible, at least in the eyes of CNN’s anti-conspirator Dave Perry, is that the CIA actually had the president of the United States murdered. Perry claims that this theory is the only one that he can’t debunk. The argument is that President Kennedy was fed up with the CIA because the agency was trying to kill Cuban Dictator Fidel Castro. Because of this, the CIA feared that the president would disband them. A strange fact that comes from this is that the former head of the CIA, Allen Dulles, was on the Warren

Allen Dulles

Commission. The Warren Commission was appointed to investigate the assassination and found that Lee Harvey Oswald had acted alone to kill Kennedy, which went against what a lot of Americans believed. Another weird fact: Oswald was spotted at the Russian Embassy in Mexico City weeks before the assassination and the CIA knew who he talked to, but not what he said.

            Now, the most controversial conspiracy theory of all time, 9/11. Here are the “facts” as presented by Conspiracy Theorist Alex Jones in his YouTube video “9/11: A Conspiracy Theory” in a very sarcastic tone, if I may add. On the morning of September 11^th, 2001, nineteen men armed with box cutters, directed by a man on dialysis in a cave fortress half-way around the world using a satellite phone and a lap top, directed the most sophisticated penetration of the most heavily defended airspace in the world. The hijackers managed to knock down three buildings with two planes in New York, while in Washington a pilot who couldn’t fly a single-engine plane was able to fly a 757 exactly level to the ground, hitting the Pentagon in the budget analyst office. Oddly enough, at the time of the crash into the Pentagon, staffers were working on a case that involved 2.3 trillion dollars that the defense secretary had reported missing. It was also reported that a hijacker’s passport was found blocks from the World Trade Center crash site. Alex Jones also reports another number of “coincidences” regarding the terrorist attacks, but I believe I have reported enough to state my case. On another note, NFL wide receiver Donte Stallworth did his own research in a Huffington Post Article on the attacks. Stallworth states that people believe that individuals within the U.S.

A common phrase uttered by 9/11 conspirators is that
 jet fuel can not melt steel beams, which is a fact. 

government conspired with Bin Laden decades ago and it is even known that the CIA helped the Mujahdeen leading up to their repel of the 1977 Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, as did Bin Laden. According to the 2006 Scripps Howard Poll, 36% of Americans believe it was “somewhat likely” or “very likely” that federal officials assisted in 9/11 attacks or took no action to stop, because they believed these officials wanted to go to war in the Middle East.

            The most interesting part of my research was finding out why people believed conspiracy theories. As someone who does find them interesting, I’ve wondered what makes some people get so caught up in them to the point that they believe all of history is in fact a conspiracy. According to Scientific American, belief in conspiracy theories now cuts across all genders, races and ages. The New York Times found that the best predictor of belief in a conspiracy theory is the belief in other conspiracy theories. The Times also published that psychologists found that people who believe in conspiracy theories or more cynical about the world and politics in general and tend to have lower self-esteem. They also found that conspiracies are a way of reacting to uncertainty and powerlessness. In my words, this basically means that they believe that people who believe in conspiracies feel as if they get some sort of power out of it. Also, the Times reported that looming threats such as recessions or terrorist attacks cause a part of the brain called the amygdala to jump start the rest of the brain into a state of analytical overdrive, which essentially makes someone start to think hard about anything and hang on to small details. The best quote I found in my research was from a Historian at the University of California – Davis, Kathryn Holmsted “Conspiracy theories wouldn’t exist in a world in which real conspiracy theories did not exist.” Now, with all this being said, it would still be hard to understand a conspiracy theory like 9/11, in which the government killed a lot of our own people. However, our government has hurt us before. From 1932 to 1972, the United States Public Health Service denied potential lifesaving treatment to African-American men with syphilis as part of a study, and in the 1970’s, the CIA tested LSD on psychiatric patients and even hired prostitutes to seduce employees of the agency and trick them into doing LSD.

            After figuring out why people believed in conspiracy theories, I began to wonder what made a good conspiracy theory. Robert Goldberg of the University of Utah states that the keys to conspiracy success are media expertise, passion and appearance as Paul Reveres, and according to Scientific American, a good conspiracy theory contains four parts: 1. A group 2. Acting in secret 3. To alter institutions, usurp power, hide truth or gain utility 4. At the expense of the common good. Goldberg also tells us that conspiracy theories have changed over the years. He states that before the second half of the 20^th century, conspiracy theories were focused on outsiders: Jews, Catholics and Communist. Now, conspiracy theories focus on insiders – government, Wall Street and the military. It is also important to understand that the internet has also played a significant role in the popularity of conspiracy theories. People can now google any possible conspiracy theory and may find it.

       

This just fits

     In closing, I have found this research project to be very fun and even humorous at points and have even made a couple of conclusions of my own. The first being that in order to have a good conspiracy theory in the United States you need to include the country that we are most hostile towards at that given time. This can be seen in the moon landing, JFK, and 9/11 conspiracies. The second is that people will try to stretch anything, and I mean anything into some sort of conspiracy theory. I watched a twenty minute YouTube video that tried to tell me that Back to the Future referenced the Kennedy assassination and even predicted 9/11.

Works Cited

Huffington Post -- found information on why people do still believe in 9/11 conspiracy theories. Also, this website gave information from Robert Goldberg, who explains the keys to a successful conspiracy theory. Written by a NFL player and Tennessee graduate, Donte Stallworth.

Time -- this website provided information on the moon landing. It also gave many theories and reasons as to how or why the the moon landings were a hoax. 

CNN -- gave Dave Perry, an anti-conspirator's point of view on the JFK assassination, provided good facts and evidence into why the only logical conspiracy theory behind the situation was that the CIA had actually assassinated JFK.

Salon -- provided information from previous instances in which the government had intentionally harmed civilians, such as the Tuskegee Experiment, the CIA testing of LSD, and the harassment of MLK by both the CIA and FBI.

Scientific American -- gave statistics on belief in conspiracy theories. Also provided examples of what makes a good conspiracy theory and things that may cause one to believe in conspiracy theories.

New York Times -- best source by far. Gave the most information on why someone would believe in conspiracy theories and what causes a person to believe in a conspiracy theory. The quote from Kathryn Holmsted came from the Times.

9/11: A Conspiracy Theory -- gained information from Alex Jones point of view. This source was the main topic of the paragraph about the 9/11 conspiracy theory. Found it to be very funny