10 Historic Conspiracies That Turned Out to Be REAL

Top 10 Historic Conspiracy Theories That Turned Out To Be True

Welcome to WatchMojo, and today we’re counting down our picks for the Top 10 Historic Conspiracies That Turned Out to Be Real.

For this list, we’ll be looking at the most shocking conspiracies from times past that were eventually exposed.

Which of these were news to you? Tell us in the comments!

#10: Faked Gulf War Testimony

In 1991, the US Congress voted on whether to authorize military intervention in the Gulf, as a response to Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait. It was a close thing, but the Senate gave George Bush Snr. the backing he needed. To justify their decision, seven Senators cited the testimony of a 15 year old volunteer nurse and refugee named Nayirah. She had given a harrowing account of premature babies taken from incubators by Iraqi soldiers and left to die. However, it was all propaganda. Nayirah was actually the daughter of the Kuwaiti Ambassador to the US. She had been drafted in as part of a PR campaign run by an American firm working for the Kuwaiti government.

#9: The First Lady President

After President Woodrow Wilson suffered a stroke in October 1919, he was left incapacitated, and never fully recovered. But the extent of his health issues were kept secret. So who was running the country? Behind the scenes, Wilson’s wife, Edith, had stepped into the breach, deciding what matters to bring to the President. It’s been argued that this made her, in effect, the first acting female president of the USA. Ironic really, as American women weren’t even allowed to vote until the following year. When discussing her seventeen month stewardship, Edith downplayed her influence, saying that “the only decision that was mine was what was important and what was not.”

#8: UFO Investigations

The US government may not be investigating UFOs at Area 51. But that doesn’t mean that official research isn’t happening somewhere. Project Blue Book, which ran from 1952 and 1969, was public knowledge. But in 2017, it was revealed that from 2007 to 2012, the US government also funded an unpublicized investigation called the Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program, to the tune of $22 million. In 2020, we learned of another UFO program, the Unidentified Aerial Phenomena Task Force. Its findings included photos and videos of UFOs that experts have struggled to explain.

#7: Project SUNSHINE

With the advent of nuclear bombs and the Cold War, the American government funded a slew of studies on the effects of radiation. They included giving radioactive pills to pregnant women; feeding radioactive tracers to children with intellectual disabilities; exposing soldiers and prisoners to radiation; and body snatching. The latter was part of a program called Project SUNSHINE. Bodies, and parts of bodies, particularly those of children, were obtained from hospitals in the U.S. and Europe, without the consent of families, to study the effects of nuclear-testing around the globe. According to the transcript of a secret 1955 meeting, Atomic Energy Commission commissioner Dr. Willard Libby felt that by doing so, doctors and scientists were “serving their country”.

#6: Operation Berkshire

The health risks associated with smoking are now common knowledge. A causal link between smoking and cancer was first demonstrated in the 1950s. However, for decades, the heads of tobacco companies tried to muddy the waters. In 1976, seven of the world's major tobacco companies conspired to promote ‘controversy’ over the effects of smoking in ‘Operation Berkshire’. They funded alternative research, helped spread misinformation, and encouraged consumers to doubt the science, delaying action to protect people’s health. Today, many activists have drawn a parallel between the strategies of Big Tobacco and fossil fuel companies with regard to climate change.

#5: Operation Paperclip

While the U.S. condemned the aggression and atrocities of the Nazi Party during the Second World War, they were also recruiting and protecting the minds that helped orchestrate them. Operation Paperclip was a U.S. intelligence operation that poached over 1,600 scientists from Nazi Germany. Many of them were ex-Nazi party members and former leaders. In secret, they were set to work for Uncle Sam. Wernher von Braun, a big player in the creation of the Apollo Space programme, had previously managed a workforce picked from concentration camps. And the prestigious Strughold Award was discontinued in 2013, after the revelation that its namesake was connected to human experiments during World War II.

#4: The Gulf of Tonkin Incident

In August 1964, a confrontation took place between North and South Vietnamese naval forces. Two days later, there were reports of another attack, this time involving US forces in the Gulf of Tonkin. This alleged second attack provided an excuse for U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson to escalate American involvement in the Vietnam War. However, it never happened. The evidence for the confrontation was sketchy, based on communications that had been wrongly interpreted. Nevertheless, the incident was reported as fact and used to drum up public support for deploying U.S. conventional forces. Johnson privately admitted: “for all I know, our navy was shooting at whales out there.” The truth was only confirmed in 2003 by former United States Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNamara.

#3: MKUltra

There’s no evidence that the government is trying to control your mind with fluoride, 5G, or so-called chemtrails. And wearing a tinfoil hat is just going to make you look silly. However, the have been CIA experiments in mind-control. In the 50s and 60s, the CIA became paranoid that the Soviets were pioneering “brain perversion techniques” for interrogation. So through a top-secret program, MKUltra, the CIA conducted and authorized experiments on unwitting victims, including patients, prisoners, veterans, and even orphans. These often featured psychoactive drugs and electroshock therapy. In Canada, many of the victims of British psychiatrist Donald Ewen Cameron at McGill University suffered permanent effects. "We don't know how many people died,” said journalist Stephen Kinzer, “but a number did, and many lives were permanently destroyed."

#2: Watergate

Conspiracy theorists appear to have multiplied in recent decades and the Watergate Scandal of the 1970s certainly didn’t help matters! On June 17, 1972, burglars hired by Republican President Richard Nixon’s reelection campaign were caught breaking into the Democratic National Committee headquarters at Washington, DC. In response, Nixon attempted to cover-up the involvement of his administration, obstructing justice at every turn. Audio recordings revealed his complicity however and, facing impeachment, he resigned in August, 1974. To this day, his name is synonymous with political corruption and ‘dirty tricks’.

#1: Operation Condor

From 1975 to 1989, this US-backed campaign saw right-wing dictatorships in South America coordinate to repress and terrorize citizens deemed politically dissident. It’s estimated that 60,000 people died, many of them kidnapped, tortured, and killed. Hundreds of thousands were imprisoned. In the 1990s, then President Bill Clinton declassified documents relating to US involvement, much of which went through the CIA. The American government provided military aid, planning and training, including on torture techniques. The idea was supposedly to “eliminate Marxist terrorist activities.” The victims included union leaders, peasants, nuns, monks, students, and teachers.