Popular conspiracy theories claim that familiar events conceal hidden plots: the Moon landings were staged, Oswald had help, or a secret elite controls governments. Some begin with real secrecy or reporting errors, then treat those facts as proof of something larger.
These 13 entries trace each claim’s origins and compare it with the documentary record. They span centuries, showing how stories that predate social media gained new ways to spread.
In This Article
- 1. The Moon Landing Hoax
- 2. The JFK Assassination
- 3. The Illuminati, Freemasons and a New World Order
- 4. Roswell and Area 51
- 5. 9/11 as an Inside Job
- 6. QAnon
- 7. Shakespeare Did Not Write Shakespeare
- 8. Project Blue Beam
- 9. The Flat Earth
- 10. Chemtrails
- 11. Vaccines Cause Autism
- 12. Paul Is Dead
- 13. The Death of Princess Diana
- Key Takeaways
- Frequently Asked Questions
- Recognize the Claim, Check the Evidence
1. The Moon Landing Hoax
Apollo 11 landed on July 20, 1969. Bill Kaysing’s self-published 1976 book We Never Went to the Moon popularized the claim that NASA filmed the landings on Earth.
The supposed photographic clues have ordinary explanations. Astronauts twisted the flagpole, making the flag move without air resistance to damp it. Short exposures captured the bright surface but not faint stars. Uneven ground and wide-angle lenses explain differing shadow angles.
The six landings returned about 842 pounds of lunar material. The Soviet Union tracked the missions, and observatories still use Apollo retroreflectors. NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter photographed landing hardware and astronauts’ tracks in 2009.
2. The JFK Assassination
John F. Kennedy was shot on November 22, 1963. Jack Ruby killed Lee Harvey Oswald two days later, preventing a trial. The Warren Commission concluded in 1964 that Oswald acted alone.
Alternative accounts implicate the CIA, the Mafia or a second gunman on the grassy knoll. In 1979, the House Select Committee on Assassinations found a probable conspiracy, relying mainly on a police recording interpreted as capturing another shot.
The National Research Council’s 1982 Report of the Committee on Ballistic Acoustics concluded that the sounds attributed to gunshots were recorded about a minute after the shooting. The film JFK later helped prompt the 1992 records act, releasing millions of pages.
3. The Illuminati, Freemasons and a New World Order
Adam Weishaupt founded the Bavarian Illuminati in 1776. Bans on secret societies broke it apart by the mid-1780s. In 1797, Augustin Barruel and John Robison published books blaming the French Revolution on Illuminati and Freemasons, turning a defunct organization into an enduring villain. The conspiracy claim alleges that the Illuminati survived suppression and continue secretly directing world events, sometimes through Freemasonry.
Writers associated with the John Birch Society used “New World Order” to describe an internationalist conspiracy during the 1960s–1980s. Pat Robertson’s 1991 book helped establish that meaning in popular culture.
Some versions draw on antisemitic propaganda. The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, published in Russia in 1903, purported to reveal a Jewish domination plot. According to the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, Henry Ford’s Dearborn Independent began a 91-part series based on it in 1920. In August 1921, The Times exposed extensive copying from an unrelated French satire. The Nazis later used the forgery as propaganda.
4. Roswell and Area 51
In July 1947, Roswell Army Air Field announced it had recovered a “flying disc.” Brigadier General Roger Ramey, commanding the Eighth Air Force in Fort Worth, Texas, subsequently identified the debris as a weather balloon. The Air Force’s July 1994 report dates the story’s revival as a UFO incident to 1978–1980.
A 1994 Air Force report concluded that the recovered material was consistent with balloon equipment and most likely came from Project Mogul, a classified program intended to detect Soviet nuclear tests.
Later accounts placed alien craft at Nevada’s Area 51. A CIA history released in 2013 confirmed the base’s use for U-2 and other spy-plane testing, which explained many reported sightings.
5. 9/11 as an Inside Job
Claims that the U.S. government planned or permitted the September 11 attacks often focus on World Trade Center Building 7, which collapsed despite not being hit by a plane.
BBC News reported its collapse about 20 minutes early. The BBC attributed its premature report to confusion.
The National Institute of Standards and Technology’s report NIST NCSTAR 1A, Section 2.4, describes a probable collapse sequence in which uncontrolled fires caused thermal expansion in WTC 7’s steel framing, displacing a girder from its connection to Column 79. Cascading floor failures left the column insufficiently supported; it buckled, triggering progressive collapse. NIST found that North Tower debris ignited fires and that damaged city water mains cut the supply to lower-floor sprinklers. The absence of a plane strike did not mean the building was undamaged.
6. QAnon
QAnon began on 4chan in October 2017. An anonymous poster called “Q” claimed government clearance and described Donald Trump secretly battling a child-trafficking cabal of Democrats, Hollywood figures and financiers.
The promised “Storm” of mass arrests never arrived. Followers reinterpreted failed predictions as codes or tests, allowing the movement to persist.
QAnon absorbed the earlier Pizzagate allegation, which prompted a man to fire a rifle inside a Washington pizzeria. Participants in the January 6, 2021, Capitol attack displayed QAnon symbols. Its child-abusing elite narrative echoes the older cabal stories discussed above.
7. Shakespeare Did Not Write Shakespeare
Authorship theories claim that Shakespeare’s background made him incapable of writing the plays. Proposed substitutes include Francis Bacon, Christopher Marlowe and Edward de Vere.
J. Thomas Looney’s 1920 book Shakespeare Identified promoted de Vere, the Earl of Oxford. Yet de Vere died in 1604, before the accepted dates of The Tempest and other plays.
Contemporary evidence supports Shakespeare: Ben Jonson named him in print, and actors who worked with him compiled the 1623 First Folio.
8. Project Blue Beam
Quebec journalist Serge Monast promoted Project Blue Beam in the 1990s. He claimed NASA and the United Nations would use space-based holograms to fake the Second Coming and impose one world religion.
Monast’s writings and lectures do not establish that such a program existed. His account borrows the global-regime framework described earlier, but describing a supposed operation is not evidence that NASA or the United Nations planned it.
9. The Flat Earth
The Flat Earth Society’s FAQ alleges that NASA’s photographs are untrustworthy and that astronauts have been bribed or coerced into supporting a false account of Earth’s shape. The alleged coordinated concealment is the conspiracy claim.
Samuel Rowbotham’s 1849 pamphlet “Zetetic Astronomy” argued that observations along an English canal disproved Earth’s curvature. Atmospheric refraction, however, can bend light over water and make distant objects appear higher.
Evidence for a spherical Earth long predates spaceflight. Around 240 BC, Eratosthenes estimated its circumference using shadows in two Egyptian cities. Ships disappear hull-first over the horizon, and Earth casts a round shadow during lunar eclipses.
Online video gave the older flat-Earth movement renewed attention in the 2010s.
10. Chemtrails
Chemtrail believers interpret aircraft trails as secret chemical or biological spraying. A speculative 1996 Air Force paper, “Weather as a Force Multiplier: Owning the Weather in 2025,” helped fuel the claim without describing an operating program.
Contrails form when exhaust water vapor freezes in cold, humid air. Lingering trails indicate moisture, not a secret cargo.
In the 2016 study “Quantifying expert consensus against the existence of a secret, large-scale atmospheric spraying program,” published in Environmental Research Letters, 76 of 77 atmospheric chemists and geochemists reported that they had not encountered evidence of such a program.
11. Vaccines Cause Autism
Andrew Wakefield and colleagues’ 1998 Lancet paper discussed 12 children and suggested a link between MMR vaccination and autism. Brian Deer’s investigation, detailed in The BMJ in 2011, documented altered patient data and Wakefield’s undisclosed payments for work supporting litigation against vaccine manufacturers.
The Lancet retracted the paper in 2010, stating that its claims about consecutive referrals and ethics approval were false. Britain’s General Medical Council removed Wakefield from the medical register that year.
Subsequent large studies have found no link. A 2019 Statens Serum Institut study of 657,461 Danish children, “Measles, Mumps, Rubella Vaccination and Autism: A Nationwide Cohort Study,” published in Annals of Internal Medicine, found no increased autism risk after MMR vaccination, including among children at higher risk of autism. The conspiracy claim recasts contrary evidence as collusion between regulators and drug companies. British MMR vaccination rates fell after the original paper’s publication.
12. Paul Is Dead
In 1969, rumors claimed Paul McCartney had died in a 1966 crash and been replaced. Callers to Detroit disc jockey Russ Gibb helped spread the story that October.
Fans treated McCartney’s bare feet on Abbey Road and supposed backward recordings as clues. He answered the rumor in a Life interview that November and continued performing for decades.
The theory illustrates circular reasoning: assume a hidden substitution, then reinterpret ordinary details as confirmation.
13. The Death of Princess Diana
Diana died after a Paris car crash on August 31, 1997, alongside Dodi Fayed and driver Henri Paul. Dodi’s father, Mohamed Al-Fayed, alleged a royal-family plot carried out by British intelligence.
Operation Paget, the Metropolitan Police inquiry, reported no evidence of murder in 2006. A British inquest returned an unlawful-killing verdict in 2008, attributing the deaths to grossly negligent driving by Paul, who had been drinking, and pursuing photographers.
Dates identify emergence or a milestone, not necessarily the first allegation.
| Claim | Origin year or milestone | What the evidence shows |
|---|---|---|
| Moon landings staged | Uncertain; 1976 book | Samples and images support Apollo. |
| JFK conspiracy | 1963 onward | NRC rejected acoustic evidence. |
| Secret elite rule | 1797 books; later variants | Illuminati survival unsupported; Protocols forged. |
| Alien cover-up | 1947; 1978–1980 revival | Mogul likely; Area 51 tested spy planes. |
| 9/11 inside job | 2001 onward | NIST identified fire-driven WTC 7 collapse. |
| QAnon | 2017 | Promised mass arrests never occurred. |
| Shakespeare substitution | Uncertain; 1920 Oxford book | Contemporary records support Shakespeare. |
| Project Blue Beam | 1990s | Monast’s allegations do not establish a program. |
| Flat-Earth cover-up | Uncertain; 1849 precursor | Independent observations establish curvature. |
| Chemtrails | Uncertain; 1996 paper | 76 of 77 experts found no evidence. |
| Vaccine–autism collusion | 1998 MMR paper | Large studies find no MMR–autism link. |
| McCartney replaced | 1969 popularization | Supposed clues do not establish substitution. |
| Diana murdered | 1997 onward | Paget found no murder evidence. |
Key Takeaways
- A genuine secret does not establish every allegation attached to it.
- Project Mogul illustrates the distinction: the Air Force identified a classified balloon program as the most likely source of the Roswell debris.
- Apply that distinction to reporting mistakes and unanswered questions, too. Discuss what a particular piece of evidence establishes without attacking the person who finds it persuasive.
Frequently Asked Questions
How is a conspiracy theory different from a documented conspiracy?
Evidence establishes a documented conspiracy: Watergate’s break-in and cover-up led to Richard Nixon’s resignation in August 1974. By contrast, popular conspiracy theories may treat missing evidence as proof of successful concealment, making unsupported claims resistant to contradiction.
Did conspiracy theories exist before social media?
Yes. The Illuminati allegations and McCartney replacement rumor described above circulated through books, broadcasts and personal networks. Social media increased their speed and reach; it did not create the underlying habit of attributing events to hidden plots.
Why can uncertainty make conspiracy explanations appealing?
A 2017 research review by Karen Douglas, Robbie Sutton and Aleksandra Cichocka identified desires for understanding, security and control as possible attractions. But wanting control is not the same as gaining it: the review found little evidence that conspiracy beliefs satisfy those needs, and some experiments found reduced feelings of autonomy and control.
Why do some conspiracy narratives spread more widely than others?
A familiar event and a clear villain make a story easy to repeat, especially when it fits existing distrust. QAnon also shows how reinterpretation sustains a narrative: followers turn failed predictions into further mysteries.
What harms can follow from treating unsupported allegations as facts?
The vaccine and Pizzagate examples show consequences for health and physical safety. The Protocols demonstrate how fabricated accusations can support persecution. Such claims also target identifiable people, exposing them to blame without evidence of wrongdoing.
Recognize the Claim, Check the Evidence
Across these examples, the key question is what the evidence actually supports. Oswald’s death prevented a trial; it did not establish the identity of another conspirator. A gap in the record remains a gap until evidence fills it.
Use the same approach in conversation. Ask what convinced someone, then examine one specific claim together, such as the flag’s movement in Apollo footage. Keeping the discussion narrow makes the evidence easier to assess.