Misdirection

“If the government are planning a conspiracy they first fund a really terrible movie about the government doing it. So anyone discovering the truth will be told “you just described the plot of a lousy 1980s film that went straight to VHS” and laughed at.” — Star_machine2000

Red Herrings

“Conspiracies are being actively manufactured and promoted as a way to hide actual bad stuff. These days it is hard to actually hide something – a single leak and everything is all over the internet next day. However if you make sure that internet is full of conspiracy theories, it is easy to dismiss any leak as ‘more nutjob stuff’. If MK-Ultra leaked today, would anybody except for most hardcode conspiracy theorists believe it?” — ping500

JFK was accidentally killed by his own guard

“Whether it is true or not, I believe it is entirely possible that JFK wasn’t shot by an assassin, but by a jumpy Secret Service agent who discharged his gun by accident.

There was a documentary on this on Netflix (IIRC) a few years ago and while I’m not sure if it’s true, I believe it is entirely possible.” — KnockMeYourLobes

The government doesn’t want us to be healthy

“People are taught wrong information about nutrition on purpose.” — Elventroll

Epstein

“I could believe that Epstein would kill himself. I could believe that the guards had been online not doing their job of checking on him. I could believe that the cameras in a very important prisoners cell went out of service.

There is no possible way all these things happened on their own at the exact same time.

M16 had a saying Once is happenstance Twice is coincidence Three times is enemy action.” — lanceluthor

Edward II faked his death

“I believe Edward II escaped and went to Italy. He was not laid to rest at his very public funeral. His son, Edward III, had reason to believe his father was alive and there is some truth to the Fieschi letter. Mostly I think Edward III’s relations with the Pope convinced me. I also think the circumstances of the funeral arrangements were pretty suspicious. The variety of deaths Edward II was rumored to die don’t exactly convince me he died at Berkeley Castle. Oh and there’s a part of Italy with an oral tradition that they once had an English king for some years.” — DumDumGimmeYumYums

Grass instead of gardens

“I believe that the societal norm of the “American lawn” was propagated to keep us from growing food on our property and keep us consuming.” — DaveFarted

Ocean Aliens

“There’s a whole culture of semi intelligent life forms on the deepest and darkest parts of the sea, its just that like the space we cant reach it yet, they haven’t developed enough to reach us as well.” — owlsknight

Big hot dog

“Hotdog companies and hotdog bun companies agreed to sell non matching amounts of their products. When you finish all of your hotdogs you will still have buns left over so you will go buy hotdogs for those buns. Thus perpetuating a never-ending cycle of hotdog eating.” — ruhrohiroh

The designer purse industry

“Women’s pockets are so small to help the fashion industry push purses as a necessity and justify high end / designer ones too.” — whyykai

Scientology has dirt on Tom Cruise

“People like John Travolta and Tom Cruise would love to leave scientology, but the “church” has something really dark on them. Whatever it is, will probably come to light only after their passing, if then.” — Sockcucker69

They know everything

“That there are many companies and governments who could easily get a full report on everything about you, and I mean EVERYTHING.

From the basic stuff like where you live where you are NOW and where you work. But also who your friends are, your relationships with them. And a detailed description of your personality.

On a tv series about different popular beliefs they made an episode where they just took the information about a guy they could find online and used it to manipulate him. The got an actor to pretend he was an old friend of the person and that they went to the same school. Only using info they could easily look up online.

The info a tech company or a government could get on you Is wayyyy more detailed.” — throwaway-20701

Pants pooping

“Paul Pierce DEFINITELY did poop his pants during game one of the 2008 NBA finals and faked a knee injury to be escorted off the court. I would bet my life on it.” — Doheenz

Most art is fake

“I don’t necessarily “believe” this, but I’ve always speculated that a lot of priceless artwork and historical documents are actually replicas or copies.

Firstly, war. Paintings and statues are low on the list of things that war endangers and ruined, but regardless the combination of intense fighting, strategic bombing, and general chaos would cause quite a lot of cultural and scientific damage. Artwork looted or destroyed by invading soldiers, archives lost to bombs, and so on.

A lot of countries hide their national treasures away in times of crisis, but who’s to say that what came back was the real deal?

Obviously a painting by a world-famous artist using a very specific technique would be very hard to fake, and I don’t think that every art scholar in the world is paid off in some grand conspiracy. Rather, I just think that either A. the national treasures never left their vaults. or B. that some national treasures actually were lost to history but in denial or pride they were replicated.

I do think museums are mostly legitimate, and replica or not the history surrounding any given artifact is something I don’t doubt, but I do think a few things are warning flags:

Things that are so insanely valuable it’d be idiotic to expose them to the public with anything less than military levels of security (i.e. the US Constitution or Declaration of Independence).

It can’t be closely examined or touched.

The item in question would not be hard to replicate (i.e. a piece of pottery or a photograph or a piece of paper is easier to make than a painting by one of the greatest artists ever)

Again, I don’t exactly believe this, but it is something I’ve always thought about. The idea of keeping a national treasure out in the open with just a pane of bulletproof glass has always seemed stupid to me, so either the US Constitution as displayed in the National Archives is fake or people are stupid.” — JackMorin

The real rich hide themselves

“There are people who are more wealthy than jeff bezos, but stay anonymous.” — dragon75teeth

Weapons testing

“The US military has tested biological weapons in the Korean war. Not as a large-scale deployment, but a small-scale field test that got blown out of proportion by communist propaganda.

The US Joint Chiefs of Staff issued orders to start “large scale field tests … to determine the effectiveness of specific BW [bacteriological warfare] agents under operational conditions” in 1951. Moreover, the US has captured researchers and assets from Japan after World War 2. They had the will and capacity to conduct such an operation in Korea.

Also, consider the fact that the Americans seriously considered the use of nuclear weapons against China during the Korean war. The use of chemical weapons after Korea (Vietnam war and Agent Orange) also suggested that the US is more than willing to use WMDs against its adversaries.

As for China/North Korea supposedly fabricating evidence in international investigations, I believe that the communists were trying to blow it out of proportion and secure the moral high ground. Keep in mind that China bought a large amount of medical supplies from the USSR and sent them to the frontlines despite the fact that the Chinese forces were running out of food and ammunition. If it was all a communist hoax, why would the communists, under terrible logistical pressure, still insist on transporting disinfectants to the frontlines instead of actually useful gear?” — bustead