Top 10 Craziest Government Conspiracy Theories
#10: Mount Rushmore’s Chamber of Secrets
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Conspiracy lovers are focused on a tantalizing fact about Mount Rushmore. There is an 18 foot tall door behind Lincoln’s head that leads to a large secret chamber. It was meant to be called the ‘Hall of Records.” The sculptor, Gutzon Borglum, meant for it to be a repository of all of the country’s greatest historical possessions and an explanation of why the carvings exist. It does currently hold important documents like copies of the Constitution and Declaration of Independence. But the chamber is sealed, leading some theorists to believe it’s the home of secret treasure or evidence of aliens.
#9: Zionist Occupation Government Conspiracy Theory
“The Protocols of the Elders of Zion” was a fictitious document created in Russia in 1903. It spawned more than a century of antisemitic conspiracies and hatred from Soviet Russia to Nazi Germany through today. It spoke of various plans for a secret, behind the scenes effort to conquer the world. The rise of neo-Nazism and ‘alt-right’ hatred in the U.S. has breathed new life into the theories. The Zionist-Occupation Government theory, in particular, was created by an American neo-Nazi in 1976. The idea that ‘Jews control the banks and the media’ is central to the theory: Jews use these hidden hands of culture and finance to control governments. It has gained traction both on the far right and the far left.
#8: Advance Warning of Pearl Harbor
President Franklin Roosevelt understood early on that Hitler’s march on Europe and Japan’s march on Asia would eventually drag America into the conflict. He initiated the Lend-Lease program with Britain and ramped up America’s industrial output. Roosevelt was right: on December 7th, 1941, Japan attacked the U.S. Navy at Pearl Harbor, quickly followed up by a German declaration of war. As early as 1944, people twisted Roosevelt’s attitude towards the war into a conspiracy theory that Roosevelt knew about the attack and let it happen. America First writers, politicians, and generals have argued this theory for decades. From 1941 through 1995, there were ten official inquiries into the attack. While there were some interesting findings, none proved the theory correct.
#7: The US Government Is Run by Reptilians
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Before creating Conan the Barbarian, writer Robert E. Howard wrote the short story “The Shadow Kingdom'' in 1929. It described a civilization of lizard people who used shapeshifting and psychic powers to infiltrate society. Years later, an Occultist named Maurice Doreal wrote about a similar race that lived in the Gobi Desert. Half a century later, a conspiracist named David Icke took these notions and ran with them. He wrote a book titled The Biggest Secret alleging that a civilization like Howard’s was real. His reptilian conspiracy has spread like wildfire since its introduction in 1999. It combined with various antisemitic conspiracy theories and has inspired people all over the world. The Nashville Christmas Day bomber in 2020 cited belief in this theory.
#6: The Federal Reserve Conspiracy
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The U.S. Federal Reserve was formed to help usher America onto the world stage as an economic power. Since its inception, however, the Fed has been the target of conspiracy theories, specifically that “Jews control the banks.” In the Fed’s infancy, car baron Henry Ford was its loudest critic. He wrote a multi-volume anti-Semitic screen called “The International Jew,” starring the Fed as a Jewish tool to conquer America. His notions spread through the years into the modern day Patriot Movement. Both White Supremacists and Black Separatists like the Nation of Islam find significance in the fact that the Fed and the Jewish Anti-Defamation League were founded in 1913.
#5: The JFK Assassination Was an Inside Job
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The assassination of a U.S. President is a momentous historical event. John F. Kennedy was the first, and so far only, president killed in the era of television, making it a worldwide spectacle. Theories surrounding the event have percolated on the fringes for decades. Was Oswald a lone gunman? Could there have been a shooter on the grassy knoll? Who was the man with the umbrella? Was Castro involved, or the Soviets? Was it really the military because Kennedy was going to pull out of Vietnam? Over time, the inside job theory began to eclipse many of the others. Despite the Warren Commission report, these theories have remained, helped along by dozens of books and films like Oliver Stone’s “JFK.”
#4: NASA Faked the Moon Landing
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Most of America and a good portion of the rest of the world stood still the day men walked on the moon. Unfortunately, it didn’t even take a full decade before the achievement was tainted by conspiracy theories. In 1976, a self-published book "We Never Went to the Moon: America's Thirty Billion Dollar Swindle," came out. Two years later, a film titled "Capricorn One" was released. Both detailed an elaborate hoax meant to fool the world. There are theories that the entire Apollo program was fake. Some people think Stanley Kubrick shot the entire landing on a soundstage. The evidence to debunk these theories is overwhelming, yet, the conspiracy persists to this day.
#3: An Inside Job
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On September 11th 2001, al-Qaeda terrorists - in a plan devised by Osama bin Laden - hijacked several planes and crashed them into both the twin towers and the Pentagon. Nine Eleven reshaped the world, leading to multiple wars and The Patriot Act. Though evidence exists, now, showing Saudi involvement, other wild conspiracies spread in the wake of the attack. Online sleuths combed over footage of the attacks again and again. Some claimed that they weren’t planes but missiles that struck the pentagon. Obsession over steel strength and building collapses spread like wildfire, leading to one insane, unproved conclusion: 9/11 was an inside job. The theory persists today, with 2024 presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy breathing new life into them on the campaign trail.
#2: QAnon
Even when conspiracy theories die out, pieces can get picked up, repurposed, and recycled. QAnon is one glaring, horrific example. Starting in 2017, an anonymous alleged member of the government called ‘Q’ dropped conspiracy nuggets onto 4chan. He claimed that a cannibalistic cabal of left-wing Satanists secretly runs the government. QAnon grafts the centuries old antisemitic trope of the blood libel onto American politics. They believe that elites use the trappings of power to traffic children. The purpose? The cabal allegedly harvests adrenochrome from the kids to stay young. Trump, Q says, is fighting this cabal. QAnon dovetailed with Trump’s stolen election claims as well. The January 6th attack included many QAnon members hoping to keep him in power.
#1: The New World Order
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The theory of the New World Order is, in some ways, the catch-all mother of all conspiracies. Many others - including those on this list - are somehow allegedly tied into the New World Order. Powerful Elites are the puppet masters behind culture and politics the world over. They want to slowly and quietly subjugate everyone on earth with the ultimate goal of creating a totalitarian one-world government. Institutions like the WHO, UN, and World Bank are often subjects of this theory, both from the far left and far right. Arguments about ‘losing sovereignty to the international order’ are often tied to the fear of the NWO. Arguments over British sovereignty during the Brexit discussion played directly into these fears. If you think the Illuminati sent some reptilian shock troops to leave a theory off our list, let us know in the comments below!
