Ah, conspiracy theories. If you were to have asked me about conspiracy theories a year ago, all I would have told you about were the videos my boyfriend made me watch about celebrities being in the illuminati and the famous “Bush did 9/11.” Recently, I have learned about and become fascinated with different conspiracy theories that have made me question a lot of things. Here are five conspiracy theories you need to know:
1. The Mandela Effect
Do you remember the T.V. show many of us watched growing up that starred a family of bears? If you thought of the Berenstein Bears, you’d be right, except it’s actually the BerenstAin Bears. This is known as the Mandela Effect. The Mandela Effect was named after Nelson Mandela who many remember dying in jail, but he didn’t. A Mandela Effect is something in the past that many people remember happening, but didn’t actually happen. Theorists believe that many of these things did happen in the past, but someone or something went back in time and tweaked something, and that had a domino effect and changed the past. Examples of the Mandela Effect are in the movie Star Wars, one of the most quoted scenes was when Darth Vader said to Luke, “Luke, I am your father.” Remember that? Yeah, it never happened. If you look back, Darth Vader actually just says, “I am your father.” Another example is in Snow White, everybody and their mother remembers the evil queen saying “Mirror, mirror on the wall,” except it was really, “Magic mirror on the wall.” Crazy, right?
2. The Murder of Jonbenet Ramsey
Many remember the heart wrenching case of a 6-year-old girl getting murdered in her own home in Denver, Colorado on Christmas Eve. Although a conviction was never made, there are many conspiracies on her family setting up the murder. The most sought after conspiracy in this case is that someone in the family killed Jonbenet. There are many forms of this conspiracy, some of which conspiracists believe that someone in the family inadvertently hurt Jonbenet and tried to cover it up by making it look like she was murdered. Many believe this because there was very questionable evidence discovered in the case. One example is the ransom note; in the ransom note, the writer asked the family for $118,000, which was exactly how much of a raise Mr. Ramsey had just received from his job. Also, the ransom note showed similarities in Mrs. Ramsey handwriting and the note.
3. “Bush did 9/11”
A phrase that many have heard. Many conspiracists believe that the government was behind the 9/11 terrorist attacks and staged them so that the nation would have a reason to go to war against Iraq. Conspiracists believe the World Trade Center collapsing was actually planned by placing bombs inside the building like a demolition and that was the actual cause of the buildings collapsing. Conspiracists also argue a plane did not actually crash into the pentagon because the hole in the pentagon was only 16 feet wide where as a commercial airplane is 125 feet long.
4. Fake moon landing
The 1969 moon landing was a pivotal moment in the United States’ history. As Neil Armstrong said, “That’s one small step for man, and one giant leap for mankind.” Some reasons for this conspiracy was when a picture of the landing surfaced of a rock on the moon with a “C” carved into it. Conspiracists have brought up the idea that the whole moon landing was actually filmed on a movie set and made to look as if the United States had made it to the moon before the Soviet Union in the space race. Because of this, many believe that the “C” rock was actually just a prop in the whole production and that is why it has a perfectly carved “C” on it.
5. Pokémon Go
Pokémon Go was an app created the summer of 2016 and spread like wildfire. The app makes users Pokémon trainers in real life. To use the app you have to walk around and find nearby Pokémon, Poké-stops and trainer gyms. Since you use the app by walking around, the app is constantly using your location and can see where you are. Because of this, some believe the app was actually created by the CIA to track where people are at all times. Another theory is that all the big-name cell phone companies such as Verizon and AT&T funded the making of the app since it uses so much of a phones data so that users would have to pay for more data.