22 Bizarre Conspiracy Theories - mental_floss List Show Ep. 323

[@chopperhead2012]

Stanley Kubrick did in fact film the moon landing, but being a perfectionist, he insisted they film on site.

[@waynemarvin5661]

@Conner Wine Yes, but ONLY the first oon landing. All the others were not.

[@nc3136]

Plausible

[@sophieward7225]

I like to think that there's one guy out there who's completely sold on the reptile overlord thing, but he heard the one about electric cars for the first time in this video and went, "Well that seems a little far fetched."

[@SquatchingYou]

M.W. Vaughn I think you're talking about David Icke.

[@Zelmel]

M.W. Vaughn The lizard people thing is also a pretty poorly veiled anti-Semitic thing.

[@johnjhill3]

Zelmel Right. Because of the Jews' scaly grey skin and forked tongues.

[@Zelmel]

John Hill Mostly because the guy who came up with/popularized it is a known hardcore anti-semite and all but said it's about the Jews. Not everything is literal ;)

[@johnjhill3]

Zelmel What a swell sense of humour you have!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[@LazerLord10]

I wonder how accurate the result of 12 million people believing in lizard people is. To be honest, I bet a lot of people just put down 'yes' because it was funny.

[@jamaineelmore5722]

Yea. That's what I was thinking

[@eustacia03]

***** some might have but the reptilian conspiracy theory is actually a thing, a fairly scary thing.

[@Soma2501]

***** V

[@eiragwen]

***** I used to work in a call center and we had a person who regularly called in to warn us about the lizard people.

[@mstrainjr]

***** Exactly! The problem with polls like that is that there are many variables that affect too much for them to be anywhere near an accurate representation of a larger given number of people, in this instance the population of the U.S.

[@tatianatub]

7/11 was a part time job

[@gyrozeppeli1350]

This comment is cursed

[@user-yn9mp4bt3q]

End the Fed And Epstein didn't kill himself 911 was an inside job Bush did it Bring back the troops.🌺

[@dannyboy4648]

Lmao...👏You son of a bitch 👏

[@absoluteindoubt5143]

Badum ttssss

[@PrizeBlancoTV]

HA!

[@ZoggFromBetelgeuse]

I happen to know the alien who crashed the Roswell UFO. Poor guy passed six solar cycles in an military underground facility. He only got out with some help from the Lizard People. Now he has trouble with the Central Galactic Bureaucracy for "illegal contact with planetary natives".

[@KirillGorin]

Don't drink Pan Galactic Gargle Blasters and drive.

[@dennish2400]

back on earth ?

[@rogerdotlee]

Zogg from Betelgeuse Wow. Sounds like life sucks everywhere. Proof that the laws of physics are universal.

[@datman220001]

I though that you had gone home. Nice to see you back on KZbin, any new vids?

[@datman220001]

I though that you had gone home. Nice to see you back on KZbin, any new vids?

[@psypsy751]

Electric cars one seems somewhat plausible.

[@ville307]

MSP Redgrave Making cars run with gas instead of alcohol is now proven fact. Both could have been made and alcohol was better option but big car companies of early 1900s allied with oil companies.

[@lukeo8407]

They did it with steam cars so I don't see why not

[@darklordyonus]

MSP Redgrave Yep, i saw the documentary John mentioned and I can really see the car companies do something like that, hell there is even a part about an American city which used to have an electrical tram system but the city mysteriously opted to get rid of that good system and get fuel powered buses.

[@boarder2k7]

ville307 Alcohol is an okay fuel source, but where would they have gotten it? It doesn't come out of the ground like oil, it is corrosive when there's water in it, it has a lower energy density than gasoline, and in the time of the industrial revolution people were far more interested in eating their food than burning it for fuel. When you factor in the lack of environmental concern defining the era, oil based fuels seem to have been a choice of convenience, not one of nefarious motive.

[@darktrooperdalek7991]

Your right.

[@IoEstasCedonta]

If they'd hired Kubrick to fake the moon landing, he'd have filmed it on the moon.

[@harucanread5310]

Nice.

[@NoTime2Explain676]

IoEstasCedonta and would have done it 100 times

[@Vercalos]

For each scene

[@PanicbyExample]

"one step for man" "well not for you if you don't put inflection where i told you" "one step for man" "buzz get in here... in many generations a movie production company will use you as a toy in a conspiracy riddled microverse of their creation... would you rather be this postmodern superstar or be said to land on the moon" "i get to go to the moon?" "ok neil we'll use the first take i just needed the footage so someone could find it in a hundred years"

[@ohthepeppers]

Illuminati? No, no, no. _Hail Hydra._

[@FullOfMalarky]

Kush did 4/20

[@Darasilverdragon]

***** You. I like you.

[@sunnysund6462]

I knew it

[@AceOfSpades8553]

It was an inside job

[@Ella-jk7rq]

I legit read this as bush did 9/11 *facepalm*

[@FernieCanto]

***** Jet blunts can't melt steel weeds. ... wait, no. Joint fuel can't burn grass beams. ... dammit!

[@taitaisanchez]

HOW ARE YOU ALL BLIND TO THE SNAKE PEOPLE(OR, SNEEPLE)?!

[@starhunter5533]

WAKE UP, SNEEPLE.

[@Keltik0ne]

taitaisanchez Soylent Green is PEOPLE !!!!!

[@joeantkiewicz857]

+Keltik0ne IT IS ALSO DELICIOUS. Seriously, I could never figure out why in that movie where the entirety of society is one great big crapfest, people were that upset that they were eating other people.

[@shutterbuggeraj2167]

Sneeple 😂😂😂

[@WWZenaDo]

Sneeple ruling Sheeple.

[@Ravenclaw1991]

The lizard people conspiracy theory is probably one of my favorites because it never fails to make me laugh. I hadn't heard about half of these. I love conspiracy theories but I've never met anyone that believes any of the huge ones.

[@muizzy]

Ravenclaw1991 Unless you count God.

[@Ravenclaw1991]

mit1mit2mity4 You're just trying to start shit. Religions aren't conspiracy theories..

[@muizzy]

Not trying to start anything, just bringing up food for thought. Also, the Oxford English dictionary states the definition of a conspiracy theory as: "A belief that some covert but influential organization is responsible for an unexplained event." Except for the nuanced choice in the word organization, I'd say that such a definition is argument enough to be able to make the argument.

[@The0Skeleton123]

Ravenclaw1991 No, they are institutionalized Fair tales, but not conspiracy theories.

[@kolaxanthe]

Ravenclaw1991 As a space scientist, you'll be surprised how many people question me about the moon landings. Most are happy to listen to any explanations for anything they don't understand (whether they understand it anymore by the end of the conversation is another matter), but I've met a few people who seem to refuse to listen to any explanations I have to offer.

[@FernieCanto]

My favourite aspect of many of those crackpot theories is that, apparently, the same Evil Masterminds that plan all those conspiracies also happen to give *hints* that they're going to happen... in TV shows and movies.

[@RobloxHacksForMac]

Don't say shape shifting lizards r a conspiracy, it's not a conspiracy, I SAW IT WITH MY OWN THREE EYES!

[@RobloxHacksForMac]

@@Nigel74587 bruh that comment was from four years ago

[@johnackermann766]

I always thought John Lennon was saying (slowly, in a deep voice) "I'm...very....bored".

[@odoloid]

#23: Donald Trump is a genuine conservative.

[@geniusmp2001]

Komatsuzaki More believably, and more in the vein of conspiracy theory: Trump is a secret progressive, and is deliberately sabotaging the Republican party by either winning the nomination even though he's unelectable, or running as a third party candidate to split the right-wing vote and ensure that the Democrat wins.

[@effyvoux]

Matthew Prorok The funny thing is, even though his troll-like behavior may well result in undermining the GOP in either of those ways, I honestly believe he's not trolling, which is one of those "truth-is-stranger-than-fiction" moments. Either that or we have a shadow government with a great sense of humor. ;)

[@geniusmp2001]

El Bug Oh, I'm willing to give him the benefit of the doubt, and accept that he sincerely believes the terrible, terrible things he says. It would just be an awesome plan if he didn't.

[@darktrooperdalek7991]

😱

[@TheJaredtheJaredlong]

Matthew Prorok That's not much of a conspiracy theory; it's more of just a conspiracy. Trump has generally always given political donations to Democratic candidates. The Clintons attended his wedding for christs sake. He runs, says stupid stuff, and the media gives him _all_ their attention leaving little room to cover serious candidates, eventually he gets so much exposure he becomes the face of the Republican party to the uninformed voter. It's brilliant really.

[@Phildog795]

It always gives me a calm feeling when John tells me, "Don't forget to be awesome."

[@campshay19]

jet fuel cant melt steel beams

[@Rowan_A_Boat]

shay campbell But it does bring all the boys to the yard.

[@ToxPhy]

I hereby declare this very drop of jet fuel to be really, really hot!

[@lettersfromhelen]

shay campbell Jet fuel doesn't melt anything, but it does burn & once a fire is started in any circumstance it will burn whatever it can for as long as it can. Peace, Earthlings.

[@thomasn4347]

7/11 was a part time job!!

[@kumaclimber]

But the planes also had that Chem trail stuff. Who knows what temperature that stuff burns at.

[@twilightzone39]

I'm pretty sure that if someone watches mental floss, they have enough common sense to not believe conspiracy theories.

[@sydswayze7357]

Every time I watch these videos, I hug my copy of the fault in our stars.

[@ChefSqunk]

My favorite conspiracy theory I have learned about recently is the Berenstain/Berenstein Bear parallel universe theory. Many people from their childhood remember the children's books being spelled Berenstein but now it is spelled Berenstain, this is from two parallel universes interacting with one another. www.avclub.com/article/how-you-spell-berenstain-bears-could-be-proof-para-223615

[@RobertBass]

My favorite conspiracy theory is the one where the real reason the US invaded Iraq was to seize Saddam Hussein's Stargate.

[@georg9474]

my favorite (probably because of geographical reasons) is the theory the the german city Bielefeld does not exist and is faked by "Them". Everyone that moves to Bielefeld is either one of "Them" or was killed by "Them" and the move to Bielefeld is used to cover it up…

[@ThatMysteriousMan1]

7/11 was a part time job.

[@ryank1273]

And burning soda can't melt plastic beams.

[@PixelOverload]

And yeah, a UFO probably did crash into Roswell, but "UFO" doesn't mean "Alien Spaceship", it means "Unidentified Flying Object" and could be absolutely anything, most likely a foreign experimental aircraft.

[@jeremiaholszewski1844]

Or even a dead pigeon in a body bag dropped from a weather balloon

[@alexlamoreaux5228]

What about the ones claiming that vaccines, GMOs, and gluten (unless you have Celiac disease) are bad?

[@pummisher1186]

My favourite 9/11 conspiracy theory is the "no plane" theory. The idea that all the video footage was fabricated in such a way to hide a tomahawk missile hitting the towers. In the theory, a CGI plane was drawn over the missile. What makes it plausible is when you see videos of the incident slowed down, the wings appear to be passing through objects without getting damage. My thinking is that those video were encoded in MPEG which is lossy. The compression threw away enough information that some portions of the frames are repeated throughout parts. I've done some looking into how MPEG compression works and to me it makes total sense. It is not a 1 2 3 4 frame scenario. Frames are re-ordered in the file when it's played back, the software is told the order of the frames and what differences there are because not all frames are kept intact. If the MPEG compression algorythm detects no difference between frames, that data is reduced to a single frame and played back as to appear that it's in multiple frames. Most time conspiracy people annoy me because they KNOW they're right and if I disagree then I'm "one of them". Get a life...

[@TheFieryFarts]

John Green is clearly Michael Jackson. Who else eats popcorn while reading comments?!

[@mw66683]

"Coast-to-Coast AM" provides all your conspiracy needs.

[@theBarefoot]

***** You have to have something to help keep you awake because it's when you sleep that the government satellites use their mind control radiation effectively. Don't blink!

[@EnzoDraws]

For a conspiracy as huge as the Moon Landing to work, it would involve an effort and elaboration many times bigger in complexity and resources than actually sending people to the moon on a rocket.

[@MattHagner]

Enzo I think the driving force behind that particular conspiracy theory is not that it wasn't financially possible, but that we weren't technologically advanced enough at that point to land on the moon, and then take off again.

[@EnzoDraws]

Matt Hagner yeah, It's the same reason why people also think the pyramids couldn't be built by humans. I believe we highly underestimate humanity, both in the technological sense and in what humanity can achieve by will and desire. When things are so impossible that they're unbelievable, then, welp, people don't believe even if it's in front of them, but everything is "impossible" until the first time someone does it. What drives people to believe in conspiracies is understandable, but not sustainable.

[@aejlindvall]

Enzo Add to that the fact that the Soviet goverment never claimed it was a fake...

[@tedhalligan]

Enzo can i correct one thing you said * will desire and slavery. you can build pyramids and have a football tournament in the middle of a desert if you have those three things.

[@EnzoDraws]

ted h can't argue with that.

[@Bonana360]

Did anyone else think of Silurians when he talked about lizard people?

What? No mention of chem trails?

[@sskspartan]

Martin Drkoš Probably because everybody is starting to suspect they exist

[@FernieCanto]

sskspartan "Everybody".

[@Proctor1986]

Martin Drkoš that's because it's true not a theroy

[@FernieCanto]

Viro.Karma THEROOOOOOOY JEEEENKINNSSS!

[@sskspartan]

Fernie Canto Yes,I mean everybody.The stupidest and the most cowardly will speak up at the end(hell,some may still say silent)

[@aozgolo]

The general flaw in most conspiracy theories is that the theorists are generally far more clever than those whom they prescribe the theory to, despite none of them being aware of this.

[@thedesucomplex4365]

You should have mentioned the Pixar theory! Great episode anyway

[@eddiegruver946]

Tyler Norris that's not a conspiracy so much as a fan theory

[@Crystalvampire66]

Eddie Gruver it also has way more evidence than any of the theories on this list

[@--sql]

Eddie Gruver Fan theories would make a great Mental Floss episode.

[@lgnlint]

Butt Poopington No... they really wouldn't.

[@fetamean]

I remember asking a dentist why exactly they put fluoride in our water supply. He told me that there's not nearly enough fluoride, something like 5 part per million or something of the sort to be toxic to humans, and they noticed an overall benefit to people's teeth. Some places around here in Colorado have petitioned to ban the fluoride in the water supply, because they believe it's toxic, too. It's baffling.

[@jrasset7]

They think it's a vitamin.

[@jaysonrhoton5535]

Conspiracy theory: there is no Meredith…evidence: we've never seen her.

[@theBarefoot]

Jayson Rhoton No. Meredith is John Green's alter-ego, a fiction that exists only in John's head. We've never seen them together, have we?

[@k8lynmae]

She’s been on plenty

[@theBarefoot]

My favorite conspiracy theories all involve the question, "What is a Hank?"

[@SassyForStyles]

as we say in my hometown, JET FUEL CANT MELT STEEL BEAMS

[@notjustanotherguy739]

The best cure for boredom is having a drunk talk with a conspiracy theorist. Lol.

[@Babelfroggy]

If fluoride is meant to make people more cooperative, I would be suing someone as it obviously isn't working!

[@jim0_o]

Did you know that 80% of me believes this channels name is actually Mental Flaws, but because it was felt it needed to hide its sinister purpose of highlighting peoples mental flaws goes under the alias Mental Floss to make the view more complaisant because of the added fluoride.

[@bobertjohnson2264]

You forgot the Berenst(e/a)in problem.

[@kcwidman]

BIG QUESTION IDEA!!! Why does the metric system use metric tones instead of megagrams??? Mega (meaning million) refers to 1 million grams while a metric tone is 1000 kiliograms (meaning thousand, 1000*1000=1000000) or 1 million grams. If we use the "Mega" prefix for thigs like megatones, megajoules, megahertz, megawatts, and megabytes, why don't we use megagrams in place of metric tones???? I would absolutely love it if you could make this a "Big Question" question, it would make my day! Anyway thanks for all the great content and have a nice day! Ps. Also if at all possible, could you put the upper part of the comment, with my name in the video or in the doobly doo, just so that I can prove it was my idea to some friends! Thanks!

[@JWolfe0]

question: why do we forget things? More specifically, why does there seem to be only so much room in our heads for remembering?

[@BeccaMoses]

We're doing a public speaking unit in English and someone in my class is legitimately giving a speech about why the moon landing was faked.

[@unified_kings6877]

+Becca Moses I personally believe the moon landing was real. Though, unlike a lot of conspiracy theories, there is quite a lot of "evidence" to support the faked moon landing. I can see where they are coming from. Mythbusters did an episode on this conspiracy theory and proved it wrong.

[@FreeDjinn]

It's all controlled by the N.H.K. (Nihon Hikikomori Kyokai)

[@briatnker92]

Free Djinn I enjoyed that anime.

[@KillerandUndertaker]

Free Djinn If I ever left my house maybe I would know what that is...

[@dford192]

Free Djinn +1 for the excellent reference to a great show

[@kashu6310]

It's a show? I thought it was a broadcast channel in Japan. Or maybe that NHK stands for something similar?

[@dford192]

Kat Schultz There's an anime called, "Welcome to the NHK" which, yes, takes it's name from the broadcast channel in Japan IIRC.

[@JMTavares7]

Ugh, you forgot my favorite one! The Phantom Time Hypothesis... The years 614AD to 911AD didn't happen!

[@williamsledge3151]

My favorite part of this theory is that for it to happen, the Pope, HRE Emperor and Byzantine Emperor had to convince Arabic writers to make up Muhammad.

[@AmericanOutsider]

that is likely the most halfassed video you've ever done. Interesting title and no content. So disappointed in you, I'm sorry to say!

[@joshuaworden274]

I had a social studies teacher who once told me that early on in automotive history, there was a prototype for a steam powered car that vastly outstripped the early Ford models, but the company that was working on it was purchased by an oil giant and then immediately shut down. However, this same teacher also totally believed that Lyndon Johnson was behind the JFK assassination, so, grain of salt.

[@Hardzinho_Yay]

#15 (Eletric Car) isn't a conspiracy at all. Being true or not, is just an agressive market strategy.

[@briangarrow448]

What is even more important -skeptics need to be skeptical about those who are skeptical.

[@laurasohn8332]

and yet Buzz Aldrin actually punched a guy's lights out for saying that the lunar landing was faked

[@franl155]

Shakespeare: a thing I read decades ago was that Shakespeare was using documents collected in a monastery for his plays, since "no one man could have thought up and written so many" [] Paul McCartney "death": I first heard this way back in the 60s, when Magical Mystery Tour was released as a double EP [Extended Play 45-rpm vinyl record]. The theory was that if you played side 2 of the second disc backwards you'd hear a message saying that Paul had died.

[@Hypershock93]

as a history teacher, i find the idea of conspiracy theories fascinating. My favorite is the protocols of the elders of zion/Rothschild conspiracy (and also kind of the Illuminati) . i just find it utterly fascinating that so many people would rather attribute the progress of mankind to a secret cabal of powerful people than believe their own circumstances

[@SkyeID]

I don't see any pre-rolls. Ad block prevents that annoyance from happening. If I wanted to see ads, then I would just watch TV. I come to the internet because I hate TV and it's advertisements, and I'm glad that there's a way to prevent being tainted with pre-rolls when I'm online. It's impossible to prevent that on TV.

[@ThatsSoRaechel]

Conspiracy of the day: I can't read The Fault in our Stars without hearing your voice as the narration. Lol

[@ian2081]

I once worked with a guy who honestly believed that the internet did not exist. Any time you thought you were using the net, it was just "algorithms." I have no idea what that means.

[@professordodge]

as i was listening to this, my college-bound daughter said "John Green." i love that she knew something i'm just learning. great video!

[@forfluf]

Thank you adblock! Since 99% of ads are not intended for my kind, a non-American. No big loss.

[@danielturner1891]

Frankly, the Denver airport theory is really difficult NOT to believe if you've been enough times, seeing the giant Demon Horse with glowing red eyes, dead children murals, and New World Order plaque

[@Voyhkah]

How sad is it that when he said that 6% of Americans thought the moon landings were fake, my thought was "Thank goodness it's that low"?

[@datonz]

“The main thing that I learned about conspiracy theory, is that conspiracy theorists believe in a conspiracy because that is more comforting. The truth of the world is that it is actually chaotic. The truth is that it is not The Iluminati, or The Jewish Banking Conspiracy, or the Gray Alien Theory. The truth is far more frightening - Nobody is in control. The world is rudderless.” ― Alan Moore

[@CoOpReality]

I'm so happy to see this from you guys! I love conspiracy theories. They're one of the many tools which inspired my curiosity and passion for learning! It's like overlaying a fiction on top of the reality you find comfort in. One of the best ways to inspire curiosity is to challenge everything you believe as truth, no matter how farfetched the concept may be. I swear, people take their imaginations far too seriously sometimes. LOVE IT! :D

[@arielsteinsaltz1956]

The cast of Boy Meets World are presumed to be Illuminati members? That was new...

[@messyhair42]

You're contradicting everything I've learned from Cecil and Intern Hank. This is now how things are taught in my hometown of Night Vale

[@elizabethb5183]

Apparently there are people who so fondly remember the "berenstain bears" as the "berenstein bears" that rather than coming to the conclusion they have misread the name they believe they are in an alternate timeline.

[@wesman246]

Hey John -- I'm a huge fan of yours and have been for quite some time. I routinely enjoy your history-based Crash Course work -- it's phenomenal. I'm writing this because, as someone who genuinely vies to use science and reason in observations to form properly objective perspective, I wish only to share my thoughts, from one brother to another, about a particular point you made in this video -- regarding 9/11. I'm personally entertained by conspiracy theories -- if nothing else I enjoy speculation and fathoming such elaborate possibility -- and when I became aware of the alternative theories about 9/11 years ago, I approached them with much of the same expectation. The long and short of it is that I have spent enormous amounts of my spare time researching something I honestly never expected to think twice about -- after all, it's a day we'd all rather forget as much as we must "always remember". I truly believe -- no, it's more than belief -- I'm compelled to tell you that there is an abundance of hard scientific evidence to suggest that the official explanation for the collapses of the North and South towers at the World Trade Center is wildly inaccurate. I simply can't stress enough just how much I wish you could see it -- I promise you won't regret looking into it. The way I see it, this is easily the biggest mistake since the Gulf of Tonkin incident that sparked the war in 'Nam. Here are a few indisputable facts I encourage you to indepentently verify: 1. No steel skyscraper (10+ stories) in the history of the industrialized world has ever collapsed to due to fire. On 9/11, there were 3 firsts -- one of which, WTC Building 7, a 47-story building, was never hit by an airplane. More on that later... 2. Jet fuel CANNOT melt steel. Proper sources indicate, in lab conditions, such fires can only burn at a maximum of 1800F. Figures upwards of 2400F were reported by FEMA/NIST in their reports. Neither report claimed that the fires melted the structural steel, but early "official" reports did claim this. At best, the fires could only weaken support, and as it was they were heavily oxygen-deprived as seen by the thick, black smoke. However, testimony from NYFD crews indicate that there WAS "molten steel running down the channel rails" and that fires burned underneath the rubble for "weeks", somehow without oxygen, and steel-bottomed/toed boots were melted from the heat during the cleanup. NIST claims they saw no such evidence. Anyway you slice it, jet fuel fires cannot produce such molten steel. 3. NIST claims that WTC 7 was brought down solely from office fires spurned from falling flaming debris from the towers. This is inherently problematic due to the fact that WTC 7, 47-stories strong, fell to the ground, in its own footprint -- the path of greates resistance -- in just 6 seconds. A simple calculation will reveal this is free-fall acceleration, which cannot be achieved in any system with resistance. This building held resistance against its own structural failure, above all else, strictly in the tens if not hundreds of thousands of tons of mass beneath the initial point of failure -- which, logically, coming from a fire could only be an asymmetrical one, which later produced a FULLY SYMMETRICAL collapse into the path of greatest resistance. The short of it -- the building collapsed into itself, pulverizing enormous quantities of resistance to dust AT FREE FALL SPEED. This is not physically possible, and ANY physicist or engineer would be quick to point this out. It was only from inquiries from credible individuals that forced NIST to alter their conclusion, in which they admitted that 7-8 stories experienced free fall acceleration. 4. WTC 1 and 2 also experienced collapse at nearly free fall speeds, but the points of failure were (perhaps deceptively?) at the impact craters of the jetliners. The same physics dilemma exists here regardless of where the failure occurred. Not only did a fire initiate a wholly symmetrcal collapse from an independent, asymmetrical failure (the top block of the South tower had actually rotated 22 DEGREES and begun to tilt back before it began to fall straight downwards into the building below -- into full resistance?!) but the buildings both pulverized themselves to DUST while accelerating THROUGH THEMSELVES at free fall speed. Professor of Physics at Brigham Young Stephen Jones has illustrated this point on many occasions. He also points out that fellow colleague Prof. of Mathematics Cutler wrote a proof demonstrating that it would have taken AT LEAST 40 seconds, just from the mass alone, for the top block(s) to reach the ground.

[@samanthaf7568]

Thanks John for neatly summarising all of the things that keep me up at night! Jeez!

[@dimitreze]

#15 is pretty plausible

[@fireaza]

Man, these theories all sound like something someone who is disillusioned with the fact that real-life major events don't have the thrilling plot-twists of a Hollywood movie have would come up with.

[@RichCale]

I do like the theory about Jesus being married. I personally think it is more plausible than him being a bachelor all his life, given the time he was around.

[@4dolphinsonly]

Anyone else notice that the mental floss theme music is significantly louder than John speaking, to the point where I have to adjust the volume from being uncomfortably loud or softer than conversational volume?

[@VicVonDOOOM]

How is the electric car thing a conspiracy? It's just common sense that large oil companies would do anything possible to prevent alternatively powered vehicles to become a commercial success... anything that runs on anything other than gas or diesel eats directly into their profits.

[@denisesmith8540]

Why not just walk into a public office..... and start yelling random conspiracies at people..... because that’s what I got from this video 🤣

[@LifeofaFatMan]

5:57 But does that body count list include key people that have the ability to expose certain individuals?

[@enderwiggins8248]

YOUR REFLECTION IS THE ONLY THING PREVENTING YOU FROM WALKING INTO YOUR MIRROR

[@sydneyb2378]

Sightings of the supposedly deceased Elvis include the "Full House" episode in which Uncle Jesse supposedly encounters him in a diner. People are so funny.

[@k8lynmae]

Sydney Brown Elvis was in Home Alone too 😉

[@edwardschmidt2584]

I used to know the truth behind The Conspiracy but the fluorine kicked in during my "Eureka" moment.

[@stocktonjoans]

a line from Sgt Peppers... Also includes "introducing, the one and only Billy Shears" Billy Shears was (allegedly) a Paul McCartney look-alike competition winner

[@lapierredave]

Skull and Bones is an ironic conspiracy. E.g. "let's make a secret society that people will freak out about."

[@andrewbryan6301]

My friend was an ER nurse in 1997 in Las Vegas. She said that Tupac is definitely dead. She said he was crying like a baby. And to make sure he was really dead, she went to go see him in the morgue, and also witnessed his autopsy. She saw the saw go through his skull. He's Dead.

[@JoshuaFletch]

I roomed with a guy who thought the moon landing was faked. Absolutely obnoxious and I did not give one singular crap about the whole situation.

[@MorrowSind]

We have been using basically the same combustion engine design that was first put to a vehicle around 1780. They have electrolysis which can used to separate the water molecule into hydrogen and oxygen. I saw it work in a lab. It's a simple model, which lets you use water as fuel, burning off the hydrogen and releasing oxygen into the air. That sounds like a fix all to me. I'm surprised at the percentage: 6% don't believe in the moon landing. I think it's much higher. Maybe, that's the figure that believes Stanley Kubrick was also involved. Great vid. I just signed up. I'll throw you a like as well.

[@johnlipscombdocumentaries]

i can't take your analysis serious with that TOY collection. lol

[@abbyzinger]

My favorite conspiracy theory, which was not mentioned here, is the Berenstein Bears ones.

[@Popsiclejuice]

In the next one he should mention the ever so growing group of people who believe that the Tianjin explosion is fake. Like the entire thing didn't happen.

[@btetschner]

I have never heard conspiracy #21 before, about all sports being fixed.

[@Pokemonlin99]

For Number 2, some people believe that the bullet was made of ice, or the so-called, "Magic Bullet."

[@Coastfog]

I wonder why Uwe Boll hasn't made a movie about the lizard people yet.

[@seatbelttruck]

"Conspiracy. Singular. Reaching back to Ancient Egypt there's been a singular cabal of powerful individuals directing the course of human history. But the common man prefers to believe they don't exist, which aids their success. Global warming. Military upheavals in the third world. Actors elected to public office. The spread of coffee bars. Germs outpacing antibiotics. And boy bands." I didn't realize The Question's theory was actually a thing people believed in real life, but according to this video, that seems to be the case.

[@Weretyu7777]

Funny thing. A flying saucer DID crash in Roswell. However, lettering around the rim and in the cockpit matched Cyrillic lettering(Russian for the uneducated), and the pilots, while malformed, were actually human. This is the actual reason for the cover up.

[@mooncowtube]

There's a mad conspiracy theory that "Princess Diana" is not the correct style for Diana, Princess of Wales, because she wasn't born a princess but only became a princess through marriage. Oh, wait, it's not a conspiracy theory, it's true.

[@AverySometimesReads]

this is super weird bc i was looking up and talking about conspiracy theories right around the same time this was posted

[@thestud2]

My favorite theory is there is no more gold in Fort Knox. Our money isn't backed by gold anymore, why keep it?

[@kiwis365]

What about The Conspiracy- the idea that the government is trying to cover up all of these things by making us think that conspiracy theorists are overly paranoid and eccentric?

[@blitzwinters5687]

I'm surprised Chemtrails didn't make the list.

[@christianisbister9839]

Wait. 1 in 5 Americans think that a UFO crashed in New Mexico? 1 in 5!? Really!? Oh man...

[@myu2k2]

The Electric Car one is the only one on this list that I would scream to high-heavens as being real.... Usually that is involved with people who'd make strives in the field go missing, don't get the proper funding and research, or have been shushed/discredited by the media.

[@DailyBeatings]

Conspiracy at the time was not the electric car itself, but the patent encumbrances for large format nickel metal hydride (NiMH) batteries. The patents were purchased by Texaco just before the Chevron merger in 2001. One of the usage terms of the patent was that NiMH batteries were not to be used in automotive applications with more than 50% power generation from the batteries alone. So hybrids could have the technology, but pure electric cars could not.

[@evangelion243]

"No, Elvis is not dead. He just went home. " Kay MIB XD

[@thepugawsomegamer1722]

The freemasons in the simpsons hid the electric car they also made Steve Gutenberg a star and they rig the Oscar nights