Top 10 Paranormal Conspiracy Theories

The Denver International Airport has been the source of conspiratorial speculation since it was built in 1995. There are theories that it belongs to the New World Order or the Illuminati. Still others think that it’s filled with Nazi iconography and is a secret Nazi base. One of the airport’s main artistic flourishes, a giant statue of a blue horse, is the main subject for many conspiracies. The statue did, in fact, kill its sculptor Luis Jiménez when it fell on him. That and the statue’s glowing red eyes have earned it the nickname 'Blucifer. ' Some paranormal theorists think that Blucifer is Satanic or is associated with the horsemen of the apocalypse. Still others believe that it sits atop the gateway to Hell.

The US and Soviets each sought out Nazi research and technology after World War II. That search extended to the occult. The Nazi think tank known as The Ahnenerbe was tasked with digging into history to ‘prove’ the superiority of the Aryan race. The Ahnenerbe had a branch devoted to the study of the occult. After the war, both the Soviets and Americans seized The Ahnenerbe's research. Both countries pointed to the others’ work as justification for a psychic arms race. The Americans allegedly put telepaths on subs. The Soviets supposedly worked on mind control rays. These rumors fueled competition and led to a psychic arms race that lasted the entirety of the Cold War.

The man behind "Ripley's Believe It or Not" once named Brunswick Springs the “eighth wonder of the world.” There are six separate streams, each supposedly with a different mineral content, that come together. For centuries, people have lauded the springs’ healing powers. As the story goes, the local Abenakis always knew of the healing properties in the water. In 1748, they brought a wounded white soldier from the French & Indian War there to heal him. When he subsequently tried to bottle the waters for profit, an altercation causing casualties led to them cursing it. Rumors spread and developers moved in. Between 1860 and 1931, there were four attempts to build a luxury hotel by the springs. Before a single guest booked a room, each hotel burned to the ground under mysterious circumstances.

The town of Ong’s Hat, New Jersey has appeared on maps of the area since 1778. At the turn of the 20th century, the population dipped and the town was all but abandoned. In the 1980s, a writer named Joseph Matheny made the town the setting for an alternative reality game, or ARG. He published a book that claimed that some Princeton scientists used the town as a home base for experiments in interdimensional travel. The story spread through mailing lists and early pulp zines. When the internet cropped up, it moved to chat rooms and message boards. When Matheny came out to claim the story as a work of fiction, theorists claimed he was just being pressured by the government.

The Kremlin was originally completed in 1495 and for over six centuries has been the home of tsars, emperors, and presidents. Any citadel that old - especially one that’s seen rebellion and murder - would be the source of ghost stories. The Kremlin is no exception. There have been tales for years of ghostly apparitions wandering the halls. Ivan the Terrible supposedly haunts the Kremlin’s bell tower; his footsteps, heavy with the grief of having murdered his own son, sometimes echo throughout the corridors. Sightings are so common that specific ghosts now represent different portents. If Tsar Nicholas the Second shows up, some kind of doom is not far behind.

Skinwalker Ranch in Ballard, Utah is ostensibly one of the weirdest places in America. If you name a paranormal event, the chances are good Skinwalker Ranch has a connection. There have been sightings of everything ranging from UFOs to werewolves. In the 1990s, the ranch’s owners, the Shermans, spoke to the media about all its strange occurrences. They had witnessed strange lights in the skies and many of their cattle were mutilated. The Shermans found crop circles in their pasture. Their farm gained notoriety in conspiracy circles and is currently the home of a paranormal reality show.

In the 1970s, the US military began to conduct psychic research. Eventually, the Defense Intelligence Agency launched a series of secret projects that would eventually consolidate and be known as the Stargate Project. Based at Fort Meade, one of their purposes was reportedly to develop a team of psychic spies. Stargate focused heavily on remote viewing, which is a type of ESP to see and hear someone miles away. The unit was very small, topping out at around twenty soldiers. A supposed early success occurred in 1976; an administrative assistant named Rosemary Smith allegedly used ESP to locate a downed Soviet Spy Plane. The team was allegedly also the first to discover the construction of a Soviet Typhoon class of submarine.

The town of Bahla rests at the edge of the Arabian Desert in Oman. It’s home to a sizable fort that’s an UNESCO world heritage site. It’s a tourist attraction, but it also spooks the locals. There are residents of Bahla who believe that its recent restoration has led to an uptick of paranormal activity. Specifically, that it is haunted by evil Djinn. Some old stories have the fort first getting erected by the Djinn in one night. More modern stories range from creepy to downright terrifying. Fires seemingly without origin pop up in the middle of the desert during chilly winter nights. Residents and visitors have spoken of Djinn hauntings and possession. If the locals are right, the fort may have been best left as a ruin.

Located at the University of Alaska in Fairbanks, the High-frequency Active Auroral Research Program (HAARP) studies the ionosphere. It began as a joint operation between the Air Force, Navy, DARPA, and the University. Given the tens of millions of dollars spent to build the facility and its relatively remote location, HAARP is at the heart of many conspiracies. Theorists believe that it’s also the home of particle beam weapons, mind control, and weather modification. If there was a plane crash, super storm, or drought in the last twenty years, the chances are good someone blamed the High-frequency Active Auroral Research Program. Unfortunately for the theorists, as of 2015 HAARP belongs to the University of Alaska alone.

In the late 1980s and early 1990s, a deeply-held fear gripped America’s heart. People, especially those of the Christian faith, saw satanic cults and devil worshippers behind every corner. Local news broadcasts had obligatory segments on a non-existent problem spreading through the heartland: a network of satanists were kidnapping and abusing the young. Dozens of people were tried for crimes they didn’t commit. Some were acquitted, but others, like the West Memphis Three, went to prison for years. Long before reaching mainstream popularity, Dungeons & Dragons was the target of the conspiracy. It was thought to be a means to lure children. The game’s creators feared for their own safety. None of it was real, but the conspiracy destroyed lives. The conspiracy was revived a generation later in the form of QAnon.