Strangest conspiracy theories: from JFK to 'hollow earth'

The world is run by evil lizards, the Moon is hollow and Paul McCartney died in 1966. 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.

And not everyone who enjoys conspiracy theories takes them seriously, said the magazine. In a study last year, researchers planted a made-up claim that Canada "had an elite army of genetically engineered, super-intelligent, giant raccoons" among a list of genuine conspiracy theories, and found that some participants still said they believed it was true, suggesting they were "insincere responders" – or, to put it more plainly, trolls.

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

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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 The Independent. 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.

It's not entirely fictitious, either. The Illuminati was a real secret society, founded in 1776 by Adam Weishaupt, a professor of law at the University of Ingolstadt, Bavaria. He called it the Order of the Illuminati (literally the "illuminated ones"). Weishaupt believed that society should "no longer be dictated by religious virtues", said the BBC. Instead, he wanted to create a "state of liberty and moral equality where knowledge was not restricted by religious prejudices".

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.

With the arrival of the internet, it became the "least secret secret society in the universe", wrote philosopher Julian Baggini in The Guardian. Suddenly, associated symbols of the Illuminati, such as the so-called Eye of Providence, pentagrams, goats and the number 666, were seen everywhere by conspiracists – in music videos, celebrity hand gestures and even hidden clues concealed in political speeches by presidents.

The Earth is hollow (and so is the Moon)

What lies at the centre of the Earth? Thanks in large part to the 17th-century astronomer, Edmond Halley, some conspiracists believe that it is, in fact, hollow. Halley proposed the theory to explain some unusual compass readings in 1692, said BBC Science Focus.

Even back then, the idea of a hollow Earth was "hardly a new one", said Wired, which noted that "it appears in folklore the world over, not to mention elsewhere in Europe in Halley's time". Science fiction writer Jules Verne explored the idea with his 1864 novel "Journey to the Centre of the Earth".

In 1798, the reclusive scientist Henry Cavendish put "the final nail in the coffin" of the hollow Earth theory, said Science Focus, demonstrating with an experiment that the Earth's density meant that it was mostly solid.

But what about the Moon? As early as 1901, science fiction writers including H.G. Wells imagined that the Moon was hollow and inhabited by aliens, said Dazed. The theory gained ground in 1969, during the Apollo 12 Moon landing, when scientists discovered that the Moon could "ring like a bell", according to Popular Mechanics.

While there is good, firm, scientific reasoning to suggest that the Moon is not hollow, it is true that there is still much we don't know about it. "Our understanding of the Moon's interior remains rudimentary and is limited," said Nasa geophysicist Terry Hurford in 2020. And in 2024 a study in the scientific journal Nature Astronomy revealed that there are hundreds of openings on the surface of the Moon.

Paul McCartney is dead

"The biggest hoax in rock & roll history" blew up in 1969, said Rolling Stone. It was the "Paul is dead" theory.

Beatles legend has it that Paul McCartney died in a car accident in 1966, at the height of the band's fame, and that the other three band members covered it up by hiring someone who looked and sang like him. "But the guilt eventually got to them," said Time, and they began "hiding clues in their music" to let fans know what had happened.

The "Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" album is, Beatlemaniacs claim, awash with "Paul is dead" clues such as the lyrics to "A Day in the Life", which featured the line "He blew his mind out in a car" and the phrase "Paul is dead, miss him, miss him," which becomes evident only when the song is played backwards. Lennon also appears to mumble, "I buried Paul" at the end of "Strawberry Fields Forever" although he later denied there was any hidden meaning in the lyrics and what he was actually saying was "cranberry sauce".

Most famously, there is the "Abbey Road" album cover in which John Lennon, dressed in white, leads a "funeral" procession across the street. Ringo follows in black as a mourner with George in jeans at the back, representing a grave digger. Paul McCartney is barefoot, because, as some had it, he would have no need of shoes in the afterlife.

The man himself took reports of his death in his stride. McCartney recalled that he received a call from someone at his office saying "Look, Paul, you're dead", to which he replied "Oh, I don't agree with that."

We're living in a simulation

"There is no spoon," a young boy famously tells Neo in the 1999 hit film, "The Matrix", alluding to the idea that we're all living in a simulation and reality is not what we think.

It might sound far-fetched but "philosophers, physicists, technologists and, yes, comedians" have all wrestled with the idea, said Scientific American.

The specifics of simulation theory emerged from a 2003 paper by philosopher Nick Bostrom, now head of Oxford University's Future of Humanity Institute. Titled "Are You Living in a Computer Simulation?", the paper argued that future generations might have mega-computers that could run numerous and detailed simulations of their forebears. The odds are, Bostrom said, that we are products of that simulation and may be living "among the simulated minds rather than among the original biological ones".

The theory has picked up some notable believers along the way. Elon Musk, the owner of SpaceX, Tesla and X, has stated that the odds that we are actually living in "base reality" – namely the physical universe – are billions to one.

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.

Grainy footage of a bearded man posted on YouTube by "The Shadow" claims the figure is an 81-year-old Elvis. In the caption for the video, which has been viewed over 2.3 million times, The Shadow wrote: "He raises his 2 fingers to the top of his left head as a proof of life signal. In Chaldean Numerology the numerical value of V sign in Numerology is: 9. Proof of life!!!…he told us he is alive with the simple V sign. Number 9 ,'I'm Alive'. He is giving us a clue that he knows we are all there watching him and to his most loyal fans that he is indeed with us."

While some say the claims are "idiotic" and Elvis should be left to "rest in peace", the belief that the King is out there looks unlikely to fade away.

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.

Alternatively, of course, scientists could shun the research and read Erich von Däniken's seminal book "Chariots of the Gods?", which makes the argument that "many ancient megastructures such as Stonehenge, the Egyptian pyramids, and the Moai heads of Easter Island were built using know-how passed down from God-like aliens to mankind", said The Independent.

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

The elite are lizard people

The "reptoid hypothesis" is a conspiracy theory which advances the argument that reptilian humanoids live among us with the intention of enslaving the human race. It has been championed by former BBC sports presenter David Icke, who believes the likes of Bob Hope, members of the royal family and former US presidents George W. Bush and Bill Clinton are part of the "Anunnaki". This reptilian race supposedy came to earth to harvest the "monatomic gold" that gives them their powers, which include the ability to shapeshift into a human form.

Critics have accused Icke of anti-Semitism, alleging that his talk of reptiles was a coded reference to Jewish people – but he has insisted that the lizards to which he has referred are literal, not metaphorical.

King Charles is a vampire

Like all good conspiracy theories, this one actually has a crumb of basis in fact. According to genealogy records, King Charles is believed to descend from Vlad the Impaler, the inspiration for Bram Stoker's "Dracula". First revealed in Iain Moncreiffe's 1982 book "Royal Highness: Ancestry of the Royal Child", the King can trace his lineage back through his great-grandmother Queen Mary, the consort of George V, to Vlad IV, the half-brother of the notorious ruler.

In 2017, it was reported that Charles was offered the honorific title of 'Prince of Transylvania' because of his links to the region and promotion of Transylvania as a tourist destination. The king has even appeared in a promotional video for the Romanian National Tourist Office, joking "Transylvania is in my blood".

All this has proved fertile ground for conspiracy theorists who claim, like the rest of the royal family, King Charles is not all that he seems and may in fact have more in common with his infamous ancestor than just a drop of blood.

Harper's Bazaar says that one of the reasons this theory carries weight is because the disease porphyria is present among the royals. Porphyria is an iron-deficiency disease that makes skin sensitive to sunlight.

Finland doesn't exist

"Finland" is actually part of the Baltic Sea and people who claim to live there are really from eastern Sweden, western Russia or northern Estonia, according to a theory born on Reddit in 2016. What began as a joke quickly gained traction online, spawning numerous subreddits and websites explaining why Russia and Japan made up the fictional country in 1918.

"The notion goes that the two nations created Finland so that Japan could fish the sea that truly exists there without any environmental complaints or repercussions," said Vice. "The fish that are caught are then shipped via the Trans-Siberian railway (the real reason it was built by the way) from the Eastern Russian coast to Japan under the disguise of Nokia products."

But surely other countries would have cottoned on to this by now? Yes, they have, according to theorists, but they've agreed to keep it a secret and allow "Finland" to serve as a model for a better world. "No real country could so consistently place first in education, healthcare, gender equality, literacy rates, national stability, the least corrupt government in the world, freedom of the press," reads the theory. "It's a concept for countries and people to aspire to."

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.

The truth is out there... at Area 51

In 1947 claims that an "alien spacecraft" had landed in Roswell, New Mexico, were dismissed by the US military, which said the alien craft was merely a weather balloon.

Ufologists believe the spacecraft was taken into Area 51 – a division of Edwards Air Force Base – and the US government has been researching alien technology and life forms on the site ever since.

Video footage of an alleged "alien autopsy" has been shown to be fake, but Area 51 is known to be a secretive and heavily guarded base. The reasons, however, may be more earthly than the conspiracy theories suggest: the U-2 spy plane, and several other top-secret aircraft, were developed and tested here.

The Moon landings were a hoax

Our fascination with the Moon has arguably never been stronger, with national space programs and private companies racing to reach the lunar surface. Nasa's ongoing Artemis missions follow on from the Apollo missions of more than 50 years ago – which gave birth to one of the most notorious conspiracy theories of all time.

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.

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.

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.

The Hat Man cometh

Beware the Hat Man – a tall, dark, shadowy figure who may appear as you try to sleep, often lurking in the doorway. Those who have seen him say he wears a wide-brimmed hat, similar to a fedora, and his effect is fairly terrifying: "When people see him they feel paralysed, unable to speak, a crushing sense of breathlessness," said Quartz.

Reports of the Hat Man first began appearing online in the late 2000s, and there is now a dedicated blog, The Hatman Project, on which people can compare their experiences.

People who see the Hat Man "aren't crazy, or lying", said Quartz. Reports of shadowy figures, demons and witches go back to ancient times. Rather, it's all part of a phenomenon known as a "shadow person" which scientists attribute to sleep paralysis. During REM sleep, the brain makes the body immobile, so that you don't hurt yourself or others while dreaming. For sleep paralysis sufferers, "something goes haywire in the processor", said Vogue, and while the brain exits REM, the body does not.

There might also be a more prosaic explanation for the Hat Man – cough medicine. It's claimed that taking too much of the antihistamine drug diphenhydramine, which is included in products to relieve symptoms of a cold and allergies under the brand name Benadryl, can result in sightings of shadow people.

Grand Unified Conspiracy Theory

To the most dedicated conspiracy theorists, none of these plots on their own is sufficient to explain the sustained malevolence of the world in which we live. Instead, each one is a manifestation of what RationalWiki describes as "an interlocking hierarchy of conspiracies", in which all the world's events are controlled by a single evil entity.

It is a complex and self-reflexive premise: if it is correct, then it must be the case that awareness of the Grand Unified Conspiracy Theory is itself a part of the conspirators' plan – and so, of course, is this list…