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Which Conspiracy Theories Do You Believe In and Why?


Gorn

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This was an interesting story but ultimately unconvincing. The second group of lights were flares dropped by a military aircraft and the video taken of the lights shows that.

The first group, which apparently travelled horizontally across the sky and some claim were part of a large, V-shaped object, sound far more interesting, but curiously no video or convincing photographs have been produced despite the sighting being allegedly widespread. This is annoying because the aircraft sounds like a B-1 bomber, but without photographic evidence that possibility cannot be investigated more thoroughly.
 

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JFK was shot from the front.

 

There is some convincing evidence that this is the case (Kennedy's head being flung backwards is convincing and the counter-arguments are bizarre), although the "man on the grassy knoll" theory has some significant flaws to it, such as no-one spotting the alleged second shooter despite several eyewitnesses noting the fenced-off knoll, the number of people in the area and the fact that Oswald was spotted by eyewitnesses, despite being in a far less visible position.

The other issue, which has always been a problem for the second gunman theory, is that a highly-trained sharpshooter (which Oswald was, despite some risible attempts to paint him as incompetent) armed with that class of weapon could easily hit a target travelling below the vantage point. Adding a second shooter to "make sure" of the job would be both overkill and would massively risk the danger of exposing the conspiracy, as well as making the "cover story" (of Oswald as a lone gunman) much less convincing. 1960s ballistics technology was not as good as today but it was pretty developed.

In addition, a conspiracy choosing Oswald as the shooter was a stupid idea, as the guy was bizarrely unhinged (as his half-arsed defection to the USSR and subsequent return, partially because he missed going bowling, shows). I get the argument that they needed someone dumb enough to shoot the President in the first place but Oswald was way too unreliable to choose. In addition, his attempted shooting of Edwin Walker suggests he was capable of going solo on such a mission.

But I agree that the incident was full of holes and it's likely something larger was going on.

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Jack Ruby's murder of Oswald before he could be put in front of a courtroom is amazing conspiracy fodder.  Especially given his reason for doing so was something along the lines of to spare Mrs. Kennedy the grief of a drawn out trial.  It's completely suspicious and bizarre. 

That said, you would think that if the CIA (or whoever) wanted to get rid of Oswald before he could talk there would have been much better available methods for doing so.  If they were indeed aware of the plot they could have dispatched Oswald at the scene and claimed he was killed in a police shootout, they could have arranged to have him killed (or commit suicide) while in jail, yet their chosen method is a Dallas nightclub owner and a public shooting?  One that was broadcast to the entire country, no less.  I think if the gov't conspiracy was sophisticated enough to take out the President and keep it quiet they would have likely built in a mechanism for tying up the loose end that was Oswald a little bit more neatly. 

But who knows, maybe Oswald foresaw that and took his own precautions or maybe the world is just a really strange place and Jack Ruby really did shoot Oswald for the reasons he said he did.  Apparently the people who knew Ruby did not think he had any significant criminal connections.  

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7 minutes ago, S John said:

That said, you would think that if the CIA (or whoever) wanted to get rid of Oswald before he could talk there would have been much better available methods for doing so.  If they were indeed aware of the plot they could have dispatched Oswald at the scene and claimed he was killed in a police shootout, they could have arranged to have him killed (or commit suicide) while in jail, yet their chosen method is a Dallas nightclub owner and a public shooting?  One that was broadcast to the entire country, no less.  I think if the gov't conspiracy was sophisticated enough to take out the President and keep it quiet they would have likely built in a mechanism for tying up the loose end that was Oswald a little bit more neatly. 

If you're familiar with CIA's various and often ridiculous attempts to assassinate Castro around that time, then it's clear they weren't necessarily all that sophisticated nor discerning. Not incidentally, the attempts also make clear CIA was not above outsourcing hits to the mob, including Trafficante, who has been linked to Ruby - albeit circumstantially.

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5 hours ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

That would certainly explain a lot.  Bender, lord do I love that man killing robot.

For most of my life, I did not believe in God. The idea of some benevolent, omnipotent creator always seemed somewhat ludicrous to me.

And Yet.

Science hasn’t the foggiest as to the cause of Creation. The moment they invoke infinity, their equations mean nothing. Maybe the Big Bang theory leads directly to God. Who can say? Science certainly can’t rule it out. 

And WTF is up with Solar Eclipses? The odds of our only moon being 400 times smaller than the Sun, which also happens to be 400 times further from Earth, are bonkers enough. But that this amazing cosmic coincidence should occur on the one planet in the Universe where people are able to witness the results? Well, that’s the sort of thing that makes you wonder. The sort of thing that makes you want to keep an open mind.

Having said that, the first time I heard about the Phoenix Lights was from a friend, and I dismissed him out of hand. Thanks to JJ and Emmerich and Spielberg, I knew what would have happened if a spaceship the size of a couple of football fields had slowly made its way across the state of Arizona. We would have heard about it.

The next time I saw my friend, he gave me a DVD of this movie, and asked me to watch it with an open mind.

There are a lot of UFO nuts out there. People like this guy, giving credence to every crackpot alien theory, lending weight to the idea that anyone who signs up to the Extra-terrestrial Hypothesis is two sandwiches short of a picnic. But Out of the Blue is a measured, intelligent look at some of the most compelling UFO cases. Along with the Phoenix Lights, it examines The Rendlesham Forest Incident, the JAL 1628 Incident, and The Alderney Sighting. It also features the UFO Disclosure Press Conference at the National Press Club in DC.

Of all UFO sightings, the general thinking (according to the USAF) is that 95% can be explained by conventional means, and are easily dismissed. But to dismiss the case of the Phoenix Lights is to dismiss the thousands of people who witnessed them. And it wasn’t just lights. Hundreds of people reported seeing an enormous, v-shaped craft gliding silently above them, blotting out the stars.

You’d also have to dismiss Arizona’s 911 operators who reported having to deal with call after call from frightened citizens. People would generally not be frightened by military flares, especially in close vicinity to an Air Force base.

Ten years after the event, Fife Symington, Governor of Arizona at the time, had this to say.

"I'm a pilot and I know just about every machine that flies. It was bigger than anything that I've ever seen. It remains a great mystery. Other people saw it, responsible people. I don't know why people would ridicule it."

Well, in 1997 that’s precisely what Symington did. So concerned was his administration by the rising panic, he called a press conference and wheeled out his Chief of Staff wearing a goofy alien mask and made a big joke out the situation. He has since issued a statement saying that he regrets the whole thing. Though, probably not as much as Frances Barwood, a Phoenix city councillor who was hounded out of office by her colleagues and the media after launching an investigation into the lights.

I get your aversion to the possibility that UFOs are not of this world. It's only natural considering the conditioning. The Media treats everything UFO-related as a joke. And who can blame them? The idea that there are craft, completely beyond our control, flying about in our airspace, would be utterly terrifying to many people. This is certainly the view of the US Military, and largely explains the cover-up.

Anyway, here is an example of a government that is not afraid to tell the truth. It's the COMETA report, prepared for the French Government in 1999 by a bunch of scientists and military officers. The conclusion of their study was that for the 5% of unexplainable cases, they could not rule out the extraterrestrial hypothesis.

Make of that what you will.

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19 minutes ago, Spockydog said:

Science hasn’t the foggiest as to the cause of Creation. The moment they invoke infinity, their equations mean nothing. Maybe the Big Bang theory leads directly to God. Who can say? Science certainly can’t rule it out. 

Bring that over to the atheism thread, if you like. :P

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I have so many conspiracy theories that I enjoy - 

  • Knights of the Golden Circle
  • Putin is dead and has been replaced by a body double
  • Aliens are real and our govt. has been in communication with them for years
  • Amelia Earhart was taken prisoner by the Japanese and was actually a spy

I could go on for days.  I'm not sure I actually believe any of them, but I don't totally rule them out, either.  I'm very cynical and distrusting of the world in general, and don't normally share my pet theories.  But I like you people.

 

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On 2017/11/28 at 2:26 AM, Spockydog said:

For most of my life, I did not believe in God. The idea of some benevolent, omnipotent creator always seemed somewhat ludicrous to me.

And Yet.

Science hasn’t the foggiest as to the cause of Creation. The moment they invoke infinity, their equations mean nothing. Maybe the Big Bang theory leads directly to God. Who can say? Science certainly can’t rule it out. 

And WTF is up with Solar Eclipses? The odds of our only moon being 400 times smaller than the Sun, which also happens to be 400 times further from Earth, are bonkers enough. But that this amazing cosmic coincidence should occur on the one planet in the Universe where people are able to witness the results? Well, that’s the sort of thing that makes you wonder. The sort of thing that makes you want to keep an open mind.

Having said that, the first time I heard about the Phoenix Lights was from a friend, and I dismissed him out of hand. Thanks to JJ and Emmerich and Spielberg, I knew what would have happened if a spaceship the size of a couple of football fields had slowly made its way across the state of Arizona. We would have heard about it.

The next time I saw my friend, he gave me a DVD of this movie, and asked me to watch it with an open mind.

There are a lot of UFO nuts out there. People like this guy, giving credence to every crackpot alien theory, lending weight to the idea that anyone who signs up to the Extra-terrestrial Hypothesis is two sandwiches short of a picnic. But Out of the Blue is a measured, intelligent look at some of the most compelling UFO cases. Along with the Phoenix Lights, it examines The Rendlesham Forest Incident, the JAL 1628 Incident, and The Alderney Sighting. It also features the UFO Disclosure Press Conference at the National Press Club in DC.

Of all UFO sightings, the general thinking (according to the USAF) is that 95% can be explained by conventional means, and are easily dismissed. But to dismiss the case of the Phoenix Lights is to dismiss the thousands of people who witnessed them. And it wasn’t just lights. Hundreds of people reported seeing an enormous, v-shaped craft gliding silently above them, blotting out the stars.

You’d also have to dismiss Arizona’s 911 operators who reported having to deal with call after call from frightened citizens. People would generally not be frightened by military flares, especially in close vicinity to an Air Force base.

Ten years after the event, Fife Symington, Governor of Arizona at the time, had this to say.

"I'm a pilot and I know just about every machine that flies. It was bigger than anything that I've ever seen. It remains a great mystery. Other people saw it, responsible people. I don't know why people would ridicule it."

Well, in 1997 that’s precisely what Symington did. So concerned was his administration by the rising panic, he called a press conference and wheeled out his Chief of Staff wearing a goofy alien mask and made a big joke out the situation. He has since issued a statement saying that he regrets the whole thing. Though, probably not as much as Frances Barwood, a Phoenix city councillor who was hounded out of office by her colleagues and the media after launching an investigation into the lights.

I get your aversion to the possibility that UFOs are not of this world. It's only natural considering the conditioning. The Media treats everything UFO-related as a joke. And who can blame them? The idea that there are craft, completely beyond our control, flying about in our airspace, would be utterly terrifying to many people. This is certainly the view of the US Military, and largely explains the cover-up.

Anyway, here is an example of a government that is not afraid to tell the truth. It's the COMETA report, prepared for the French Government in 1999 by a bunch of scientists and military officers. The conclusion of their study was that for the 5% of unexplainable cases, they could not rule out the extraterrestrial hypothesis.

Make of that what you will.

Yes, the UFO issue is one that I find incredibly intriguing. One the one hand I understand all the criticisms about aliens flying for lightyears through the void of space, only to come and anally probe a few crackpots, or mutilate some cattle. Sure, it is easy to mock. But on the other hand, there are some very intriguing cases that do seem to be difficult to explain.

The RB-47 incident is sometimes described as the best UFO case of all time. I was led to it by accident, by Dr. James Woodward (the inventor of the Mach Effect) in his Breakthrough Propulsion Workshop presentation at Estes Park last year. The relevant comments start at about 40 minutes and end at about 44 minutes. (linked below, hopefully with the correct timestamp inserted for you).

 

Quite fascinating. His presentation wasn't about UFO's at all, but towards the end, in the Q&A session, he got sidetracked into a brief comment on the issue by a question on what a future Mach Effect Spacecraft might look like.

 

 

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4 hours ago, Free Northman Reborn said:

Yes, the UFO issue is one that I find incredibly intriguing. One the one hand I understand all the criticisms about aliens flying for lightyears through the void of space, only to come and anally probe a few crackpots, or mutilate some cattle. Sure, it is easy to mock. But on the other hand, there are some very intriguing cases that do seem to be difficult to explain.

It's a lot harder to explain the former than the latter. Thus, the mocking.

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That some UFOs might be vessels of a far more advanced civilization operating under some kind of Star Trek prime directive is the one theory that I've never managed to completely rule out since many people whose expertise is hard to doubt (like astronauts or airline pilots) have come out over the years with troubling accounts.
I don't think there's any conspiracy to cover it up though. I think the military is just as baffled as we are. And at the end of the day it's always perfectly possible that even the most troubling cases are only the result of natural phenomena.

False flag operations and other shadowy conspiracies are a thing though. But I believe it's kind of a waste of time to try and figure out what they are as it's easy to get paranoid and overestimate governments' ability to hide these things from the public (I really doubt they can pull off something like assassinating a US president for example).
I think it's better to focus on the confirmed historical examples, especially since they show that secret services are far less impressive than we'd think. When you start digging in stuff like the Church committee report you realize that most conspiracies can be quite amateurish.

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I think the funniest conspiracy theory I've ever heard is that Coke was behind the assassination of MLK jr. That's a special level of silly.

Personally the only one that I believe in is that LHO did not act alone. There may or may not have been another shooter, but I find it awfully hard to believe that he pulled it off by himself. It also doesn't help that the people who led the investigation by and large did not like JFK. Also, the bullet that supposedly caused 7 wounds and hit multiple bones. How was it not damaged?

I saw one funny Youtube video that tried to link Bush I to the assassination, but I can't find it now. Great video to watch for a baked 20 year old kid in college. 

And if you want the mother of all conspiracy theory videos, just check out Zeitgeist

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14 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

I think the funniest conspiracy theory I've ever heard is that Coke was behind the assassination of MLK jr. That's a special level of silly.

Wait...Coke as in Coca-Cola?  I'm assuming that's what's meant, but it'd be better - and very possible - if it was the other coke.

15 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

I saw one funny Youtube video that tried to link Bush I to the assassination, but I can't find it now.

Assuming the basis was he ran CIA for a whole year?

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9 minutes ago, dmc515 said:

Wait...Coke as in Coca-Cola?  I'm assuming that's what's meant, but it'd be better - and very possible - if it was the other coke.

Yeah, something to do with MLK calling for a boycott of Coke after he learned that they were stealing water from Africa to make their product. It made no sense whatsoever. 

9 minutes ago, dmc515 said:

Assuming the basis was he ran CIA for a whole year?

 That was one of many things. There was a memo the day of the assassination written by J. Edger Hoover saying Bush came to his office and tried to tough guy him. Also a ton of crap about secret societies and earn his way up the chain. The movie also intimated that Dubya was behind the murder of JFK jr. for the same reasons. It was entertaining, I'll give it that, and it had the needed elements to make a great conspiracy theory video (i.e. just enough facts to make it seem true and a lot of shadowy stuff most people have never heard about so it becomes believable). I know it was associated with Alex Jones' Loose Change, but I can't find it. I'll post it if I can (fyi, there are a lot of videos with the same theme, so it's kind of hard to root it out). 

Haha, I found it right after I hit post.

Go drink a ton of whiskey and give it a watch when you're bored. It really isn't half bad for what it is. 

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11 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

The movie also intimated that Dubya was behind the murder of JFK jr. for the same reasons. 

Dubya killing John John is awesomely stupid.

12 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

Go drink a ton of whiskey and give it a watch when you're bored. It really isn't half bad for what it is. 

Already on the way!  Don't tell my chair I'm drinking while data collecting.  I don't need a DCUI on my record.

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6 hours ago, Free Northman Reborn said:

Yes, the UFO issue is one that I find incredibly intriguing. One the one hand I understand all the criticisms about aliens flying for lightyears through the void of space, only to come and anally probe a few crackpots, or mutilate some cattle. Sure, it is easy to mock. But on the other hand, there are some very intriguing cases that do seem to be difficult to explain.

Not difficult to explain. Impossible to explain. And that’s the thing. There’s so much UFO-related bullshit out there, most people have no idea of the simple truth that lies beneath it all.

There is more evidence for aliens than there is for the existence of God.

The  Phoenix Lights should have been a major global news event. Fuck, it should have been the story of the century. Instead, there was a few days of mildly jocular local coverage, followed by … crickets.

Another incident that should have been all over the news, at least in the UK, was The Alderney Incident. In a nutshell, Captain Ray Bowyer, a commercial aircraft pilot, was forced to land his plane after witnessing two massive objects, each about a mile wide, in the sky over Alderney. These objects were seen by all his passengers, as well as the captain of a nearby airliner. Guernsey Air Traffic Control also had the object on radar.

Here's the transcript of his communication with ATC:
 

Quote

 

Capt. Ray Bowyer: Do you have any traffic, ah, can’t really say how far, but at my 12:00, ah, level? I’ve got a very bright object, ah… I couldn’t say how far. Extremely bright, yellow, orange object straight ahead. Ah, very flat platform. Looking at it through binoculars as we speak.

Guernsey Ground: Airline 544, Roger. I do have a primary contact now, a very faint primary contact just to the left across your 11:00 at this time, at a range of about four track miles.

Capt. Ray Bowyer: Roger. I’ve got a definite contact at my 12:00, a very bright object looking, well, like a cigar.

Blue Island Air Pilot: Guernsey Ground, this is 832. Zone asked us to look if we could see an object which is, ah, being seen by A-line at the moment. We’ve got something at 08:00 resembling the description.

Guernsey Ground: 832, Roger. What range would you estimate that target?

Blue Island Air Pilot: Around about a similar range to Alderney from us now.

Capt. Ray Bowyer: Well, looking through binoculars as I am now, there’s a second one just appeared behind the first one from where I am. Roger 544. Just confirming that all the passengers can see this aircraft. I’ve got the island visual. It’s dead ahead. Can’t say how far. Probably five miles, but it’s staying the same size. Ah, looks to be off to the north, north-west cost of Alderney.

Guernsey Ground: Blue Line 544, would you like to descend?

Capt. Ray Bowyer: Please. I better had go down.

 

For me, this is one of the most compelling cases we have. I challenge anyone to listen to the man speak and come up with a terrestrial explanation for what he, his passengers, Air Traffic Control, as well as the captain of another passenger jet, all saw in the sky over Alderney that morning.
 

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12 minutes ago, Week said:

Someone needs to read The Three Body Problem for a primer on Dark Forest Theory. :P

Mockery aside, I know all about Dark Forest Theory. And that's what makes incidents like The Phoenix Lights all the more troubling.

 

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Just now, Spockydog said:

Mockery aside, I know all about Dark Forest Theory. And that's what makes incidents like The Phoenix Lights all the more troubling.

 

With the current state of things, I welcome the destructive universal self-defense of intelligent beings. Counting down the minutes until the photoid hits.

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There are phenomena that are real enough and not explained by physics. Ball lightning is one such mystery. There is no plausible theory for how and why it comes but it does exist. I have even witnessed it once, along with a good part of the town I live in. It was very spooky to see it and I was probably one of the few to understand what it was. For other people I imagine it sure looked like a UFO was hovering by a transformer, stealing our electricity., probably to power up those anal probes.

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Not sure if this counts as a conspiracy or not, but I think there is a decent chance that the interstellar asteroid which just came through our solar system is an alien spaceship of some kind, the 10 to one ratio, the using the suns gravity to accelerate, and back to that highly unusual shape, I really think it was something. It's a pity it seems we'll never know for sure. 

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