Weird conspiracy theories: from JFK to 5G

The Illuminati still rule the world, the Moon landings were fake, and Elvis is alive and working as a preacher. When it comes to conspiracy theories, there is no shortage of weird and wacky “alternative truths” out there. But although it is easy to dismiss conspiracy theories as “unhinged beliefs held by a small number of paranoid idiots”, said New Scientist, they are in fact the product of normal human psychology.

“Once someone has fallen down the rabbit hole”, said The Observer, “everything becomes evidence confirming that belief system”. In the 21st century, this inclination is exacerbated by social media algorithms that create echo chambers, reinforcing existing beliefs by pushing similar messaging.

Here are some of the most intriguing and bizarre conspiracy theories.

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5G phone mast towers are dangerous

Conspiracy theories centred on phone towers and other forms of wireless communication have “existed as long as the technologies themselves”, said Popular Science. Covid gave the paranoia a new twist, leading to “ludicrous claims” that 5G microchip implants were placed in “fake vaccines”.

For believers, however, the idea that 5G frequencies are “actively harmful” to human health goes much further. One of the most prolific anti-5G campaigners, Sean Aaron Smith, admitted six counts of arson in a US federal court, attacks motivated by his belief that the masts are a “linchpin of a globalist plot to zombify humanity”, said Wired.

In July, police were forced to engage in “proactive patrolling” around 5G network masts in west Belfast following arson attacks in the area, feared to be fuelled by online chatrooms, said the BBC. Since 2023, there have been 16 arson attacks on 5G towers in this area alone.

The government controls the weather

UK weather can often feel unpredictable and erratic, but some people believe there is “nothing random about it”, said BBC News. Conspiracy theorists have argued that climate change is a hoax for years, but a new theory is gaining followers.

This one “alleges that the government is supposedly controlling both weather and climate for sinister purposes”. Especially in the wake of unusual or extreme weather events, conspiracy theorists allege the government is using geoengineering and weather modification methods to orchestrate the weather.

“Although it may sound like science fiction, the US government once engaged in serious research into weather weapons and other hostile environmental modification technologies” but later “halted its pursuit”, said the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. Despite a lack of evidence that any government is engaging in weaponised weather control, “disinformation campaigns are most successful when they can attach themselves to a kernel of truth”, so weather modification speculation has struck a chord with conspiracy theorists.

One of the main proponents of this claim is US congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene, who wrote in an X post: “Yes they control the weather”, after Hurricane Helene struck North Carolina “particularly hard”, said The Economist.

The Illuminati conspiracy

For the “powerless and frustrated”, it can be “pretty compelling” to believe the story that the “establishment is ruled by a corrupt elite and that we are but innocent pawns in their sinister game”, said Indy100. Enter the Illuminati – a powerful elite secret society influencing the world, and one of the longest-running and most widespread conspiracy theories of all time.

Conspiracy theories began almost the moment the secret society was banned, by Karl Theodor, the Duke of Bavaria, in 1785. In 1797, Jesuit priest Augustin Barruel claimed the Illuminati were behind The French Revolution, and the order was the “bogeyman” of the fledgling US republic, according to AP News.

Even today, the myth rages on, as society becomes susceptible to the idea of a “world-dominating” elite, the Illuminati “has never really left people’s minds”, and still “infiltrates” popular culture across the world, said HistoryExtra. Despite the longevity of the organisation, and the rumours that surround them, “most historians believe the original group only gained moderate influence”.

The Moon landings were a hoax

Our fascination with the Moon has arguably never been stronger, with national space programs and private companies such as Elon Musk’s SpaceX racing to reach the lunar surface.

Neil Armstrong’s giant leap kicked off one of the most persistent conspiracy theories of the 20th century – that the 1969 landings, and all those that followed, were faked by Nasa and that no human being has ever set foot on the surface of the moon.

Moon landing sceptics take issue with the apparently waving flag in the famous photo, when the Moon has no atmosphere, and therefore no wind. The flag’s position can be explained by astronauts exerting force on it while posing for the photographs, meaning that it would continue to move with no atmospheric resistance.

Other points of contention are the lack of stars, and the fact that the footprint does not match the boot of the pictured astronaut. Both of these can be explained by light pollution from the Sun and the Earth, and a larger “lunar overshoe” not included in the image.

Even though there is substantial evidence to the contrary (including Moon rocks brought back to Earth and manmade objects left on the Moon) some remain adamant that film director Stanley Kubrick was hired to produce the footage after his experience on “2001: A Space Odyssey”.

The JFK assassination was a cover-up

In January, President Donald Trump signed an executive order to release thousands of classified documents related to the assassinations of President John F. Kennedy, his brother Robert F. Kennedy and civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. It was music to the ears of those who have long believed that a cover-up exists around JFK’s death.

Two months later, he backed up his promise, though experts at the time “doubted the new trove of information” would “change the underlying facts of the case”, said The Guardian. Some of the main reports included handwritten notes of a 1964 interview questioning Lee Wigren, a CIA employee, about “inconsistencies in material” about marriages between Russian women and American men.

Some documents also referred loosely to “various conspiracy theories” suggesting that Oswald left the Soviet Union in 1962, with the express intention of assassinating JFK.

In November 1963, John F. Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas, Texas. Lee Harvey Oswald, a former US Marine who defected to the Soviet Union before returning to the US, was accused of the crime but was shot dead before he could stand trial. But was he just a scapegoat? Did the real killers get away with murder? No official investigation was able to definitively confirm a conspiracy, but theories implicating everyone from the KGB to Jackie Kennedy continue to circulate.

Elvis is alive

Music legend Elvis Presley died on 16 August 1977 – or did he? If one conspiracy theory is to be believed, the King of rock ’n’ roll faked his own death and now works as a groundsman in Graceland.

Despite assertions that Elvis Presley has “most certainly left the building”, fans still believe that he “faked his death” to remove himself from public life and “escape fame”, said People. “There’s been so much that’s untruthful out there,” Elvis’ ex-wife Priscilla told the outlet. “Things like Elvis is still alive and hidden somewhere… I wish he was still alive.”

One leading theory is that a preacher from Arkansas named Bob Joyce may be Elvis, or “at least a doppelgänger who bears an uncanny resemblance”, said International Business Times. Believers claim Joyce has “striking similarities in his appearance, voice, and mannerisms”, linking him to the music star. His sons, too, look “eerily” like the singer.

Joyce’s protestations to the contrary, and the fact that he was born in 1952 – 17 years after Elvis – have done nothing to dissuade Elvis-death sceptics.

Aliens helped build Stonehenge

In 2024, the science journal Nature revealed that the six-tonne Altar Stone at Stonehenge came from the northeast of Scotland, and not Wales like the rest of the monument’s bluestones. It was a fascinating revelation, not least because it reignited the question: how were the stones – some weighing 45 tonnes – transported and arranged to where they sit today?

Without basic transportation technology, such as wheels (which were invented more than five centuries later), there is no obvious answer to how the biggest stones were moved.

Much of what scientists do know about the construction of Stonehenge is from educated guesses and constantly evolving research, the most recent of which suggests that in fact two of the largest boulders that make up Stonehenge have always been “more or less” where they sit today.

If not aliens, then perhaps giants. One of the earliest names for Stonehenge was Chorea Gigantum, which has been interpreted by some as “giants’ dance”, said Dazed, and “lends a (very small) amount of credibility to the idea that giants used to roam the Earth”.

Jesus married Mary Magdalene

Sometimes the best conspiracy theories are the oldest – and prove they existed well before the invention of the internet. For those who take the stories of Jesus Christ as matters of historical fact, there remain some aspects of his life that are highly contentious. Central among these is Mary Magdalene. The Gospel of Phillip, discovered in 1945, and still disputed by religious scholars, refers to Magdalene as Jesus’ koinonos, a Greek term for “companion” or “partner”.

While there is scant evidence elsewhere in the scriptures to support the claim that Jesus and Magdalene were married, this has not stopped a host of theories springing up.

Most famous of these is undoubtedly Dan Brown’s “The Da Vinci Code” which also wraps in conspiracy shibboleths like the Illuminati, Opus Dei and the Knights Templar for good measure.

Dismissed as a heavily fictionalised thriller, it could be that Brown was nearer to the truth than even he knew after a 1,500-year-old manuscript unearthed at the British Library appeared to reveal Jesus not only married Mary Magdalene but had two children with her. Dubbed ‘The Lost Gospel’, it also made the startling claim that the original Virgin Mary was Jesus’ wife and not his mother.