The mother of all conspiracies
With the passing of time, political and non-political conspiracies can be proven to be real. Some conspiracies flame out just because people forget them. Then there is the improbable lot that endure — no matter how far-fetched or preposterous they may seem.
Now, you may think this column is about the simmering conspiracy theories following the recent presidential election. No way. If you’re looking for an opinion on current political brawling, perhaps you might want to read other columnists.
Conspiracies of all sorts date back to the dawn of civilization. In the United States they are as American as apple pie. It seems new speculations creep into our daily lives at a dizzying rate.
Time magazine once cited nine conspiracies as among the “most enticing.”
At the top of the magazine’s list were supposed secret plots around the JFK assassination and the 9/11 attack on the Twin Towers. Conspiracy theorists continue to differ on what caused those two tragedies.
Other events on Time’s list were the Holocaust of World War II and the moon landings. Some have labeled both as “fake.”
Time magazine also cited conspiracies I was unfamiliar with. One avowed that Paul McCartney from the Beatles had died. Theorists claimed his death in 1966 had been covered up and an impersonator stepped in to take his place. Another conspiracy swirling around was that the Beatles never existed.
So, who is that Paul imposter still belting out songs worldwide? And who but the Beatles incorporated elements of classical music and traditional pop we remember and still love listening to?
My favorite Time magazine selection was about the Reptilian Elite. That was also news to me. Supposedly these outer space visitors have arrived to enslave us. Living secretly in our midst they are purported to be blood-drinking, flesh-eating reptilian humanoids. So, were we to be their prey?
The Reptilian Elite Clan reminded me of a 1959 Twilight Zone TV episode, “To Serve Man.” Extraterrestrials arrived and duped every country into believing their harvesting technology would wipe out worldwide hunger. Instead it was a ruse to fatten humans to make them more appetizing at the aliens dining room tables.
Other stories suggesting conspiracies I came across maintained that Michael Jackson was really the same person as La Toya. That Blue Ivy is not really Beyonce’s baby. And that Britney Spears is credited for singing one song that her backup performer sung. We are indeed a nation with great imaginations.
Unproven conspiracies go far beyond our U.S. shores and back into the long ago past. History is riddled with wild hearsays. The Roman Emperor, Nero, was believed to have had firebug tendencies and supposedly set Rome on fire. Dan Brown’s novel, “The Da Vinci Code,” popularized that Jesus was married to Mary Magdalene.
Bandied about also is that Queen Elizabeth I, ruler of England from 1558 to 1603, was really a man. Moreover, Christopher Marlowe allegedly wrote the plays and sonnets attributed to William Shakespeare. I once read a book about the Marlowe/Shakespeare controversy. More recently as we entered 2000 a conspiracy being touted was that the “Y2K bug” would cause the collapse of civilization. I recall being fixed to my TV the evening of Dec. 31, 1999 bracing myself for the clocks to strike at midnight. Just in case! Are proclamations with conspiratorial slants always false? No. Often there is more than a speck of truth to them. For example, was the Dalai Lama once a CIA agent? As it turns out, the United States paid him a six-figure salary in the 1960s.
And did our government OK mixing poison in alcohol during Prohibition? Supposedly between 1926 and 1933 the United States did push manufacturers to use poison in alcohol to dissuade bootleggers from turning it into moonshine.
At the outset of this piece I implied that I’m not a political columnist. And I’m not. But I couldn’t help myself from commenting on one current suspected conspiracy. Which might fall into the improbable lot category and could conceivably endure.
It’s that a giant computer somehow changed certain votes in this November’s U.S. presidential election. It’s as if there were a futuristic device wrangling its super-powered rays through safeguards to alter the future. Perhaps technology will advance one day to the point where a computer is capable of such a feat. My guess is that it’s highly unlikely today.
So, for now, this assertion about one computer playing havoc with our voting apparatus countrywide reigns as my choice for the mother of all conspiracies.