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7 Insane Conspiracies That Actually Happened

By Ned Resnikoff, Peter Hildebrand March 5, 2008 1,638,402 views
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#3.
The Tuskegee Experiment

The Plan:
Sometimes referred to as the Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment, the idea was that the United States government was going to monitor the effects of syphilis and perform experiments on those who had a developed form of the disease. That doesn't sound so bad, right? Well you're a terrible person for thinking that, because the experiments were exclusively performed without consent, and on the very poor, mostly illiterate black males.

These men weren't told that they had syphilis and were denied proper treatment for their disease. Because that would have skewed the results, you see. But hey, at least the government promised free burials to those who died.

How did that work out?
The study (started in 1932 in Tuskegee, Alabama) eventually rounded up 400 black men in a move that would inspire Rage Against the Machine-esque lyrics for years to come. But, contrary to conspiracy enthusiasts, they did not actually give people syphilis, they just examined the symptoms of people who already had the disease. Then, things got out of hand:

Doctor 1: "Darn. I'm afraid that we might not get the numbers we want for the next part of this study."

Doctor 2: "Why is that?"

Doctor 1: "Because it involves administering a painful and dangerous spinal tap for no medical reason."

Doctor 2: "Hmm ... Well, why don't we just underline the word "Free" and tell them that it's a special treatment for their symptoms."

Doctor 1: "But, wouldn't that be a horrible lie?"

Doctor 2: "A horrible what?"

When there was a national campaign to use penicillin to stamp out the disease, those in the study were denied access. If they complained loudly enough, they were given a placebo and then sent back home to die. But not before scientists poked and prodded them for the remaining years of their life.

It took until 1972 for someone to blow the whistle on all of this. That's 40 years. And that's after Peter Buxtun, the whistle blower, went to the Center for Disease Control, which told him that they would absolutely end this barbaric experiment, just as soon as they completed the last stage of the study. That stage involved studying the corpses of the subjects, and of course they couldn't do that quite yet because some were stubbornly still alive.

Buxtun then found a more receptive audience:

As a result, in 1974 they passed the National Research Act, which finally closed the apparent loophole in American law that said it was OK for mad scientists to kill people in their experiments.

#2.
Operation Snow White

The Plan:
Some time during the 1970s, the Church of Scientology decided that they'd had enough. Their religion about magic space aliens in a volcano wasn't getting the same respect as the religion about the magic bearded man whose dad made us all out of mud 6,000 years ago. Instead of converting to a slightly less silly religion, they did what any of us would have done and decided to destroy every single document that made their religion look bad, presumably including a trip into the future to destroy every copy of Battlefield Earth.

How did that work out?
Disturbingly well, at least for a little while. Apparently, the Church of Scientology managed to perform the largest infiltration of the United States government in history. Ever. With all the people who have wanted to get their dirty little hands on incriminating records, the United States of America was finally duped by the people who came up with Dianetics. So those billions of dollars we put into national security annually are clearly well spent.

Anyway, somewhere around 5,000 of Scientology's crack commandos wiretapped and burglarized various agencies. They stole hundreds of documents, mainly from the IRS. No critic was spared, and in the end, 136 organizations, agencies and foreign embassies were infiltrated.

When all of this hit the fan, the Church naturally denied it. Then they kidnapped one of the operatives arrested for stealing documents and prevented him from testifying. These days, the Church of Scientology generally refuses to talk about Operation Snow White, except to say that they "purged" those who were involved. They won't say what the guilty parties were involved in, and those who were purged still hold high ranking offices in the Church, but goddamn it, they were purged for their involvement.

#1.
Project MKULTRA

The Plan:
Don't be fooled. Project MKULTRA isn't the misspelled secret recipe to McDonald's newest hamburger. It was actually a series of CIA experiments in which they tried to figure out how to control your mind. Over a hundred sub-projects were authorized under the MKULTRA heading, though the documents on many of those have been destroyed.

How did that work out?
If you listen to late night talk radio, then you've probably already heard of Project MKULTRA. Paranoid schizophrenics from coast to coast like to call in to recount their harrowing tales of psychic violation at the hands of the CIA. Turns out the schizophrenics got something right though, because Project MKULTRA was an actual series of experiments started on April 13, 1953.

You can decide for yourself whether or not the late-night radio callers are actually victims of these experiments, though we would like to suggest that if they are all telling the truth, it's strange that the CIA would only experiment on nocturnal conspiracy-nuts.

The project started out as a response to rumors of Communist mind control being used on American prisoners from the Korean War. Afraid of being left in the enemy's pseudo-scientific dust, the CIA quickly jumped on the mind control bandwagon. However, they got their procedures wrong in one crucial aspect; instead of experimenting on enemy prisoners that the national media wouldn't miss, they decided to go ahead and start jamming probes and shooting drugs into unwitting United States citizens.

Did we mention that these experiments resulted in at least one death? Or that experiments done on people seeking treatment for minor psychological issues (such as anxiety) often caused them to suffer permanent comas and/or incontinence? Or that the CIA themselves admitted that the experiments made no scientific sense?

The project was eventually found out, and the CIA was given a stern talking to.

As far as anyone can tell, they were unable to succeed in finding a way to control the way people act or think. Though we'd probably say the same thing if they had succeeded.

If you liked that, you're probably the sort of paranoid mental case who'd enjoy our rundown of The 5 Creepiest Urban Legends That Happen to be True. And even if you hated that article, and hate urban legends, you're guaranteed to have fun watching a stupid person pull a palm tree down on top of their truck.



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396 Comments

dallasdeckard, you forgot to add that charles darwin goes on to say soemhing along the lines of "and im going to prove it to you"

6/29/2009 10:46:29 PM
monkseatcheese

Isn't MKULTRA also responsible for giving the world LSD?

6/28/2009 8:31:56 PM
cornflakes

Very interesting article, but in the Gunpowder Plot section "British" and "Britain" etc. should be replaced with English, England, etc. since the events happened over a century before the Union of the Parliaments, and only the year after the Union of the Crowns - between 1603 and 1707 Scotland and England shared the same monarch, but both nations were still sovereign and had their own parliaments.

Although James VI & I would start trying to promote the idea of "Great Britain" very quickly, it was far off being official and even further off winning the hearts of the people. (And it's looking increasingly likely that Scotland is going to be independent again in the next few years.)

Operation Ajax was also interesting, and it reminded me of an interview I read in a book a few years ago. A reporter in Baghdad shortly before the Iraq war was told by a local that the US should install another - but benevolent - dictator in Iraq rather than try and force democracy. Make of that what you will. But I do wonder; over 50 years ago all you needed was guerrilla troops, anti-Mossadegh propaganda and tons of bribes to overthrow a government, and now we need an all-out war and occupation?

Fair enough to say that Operation Ajax did not work out in the long term, but it's difficult to argue that Iraq has been an outstanding success story.

6/28/2009 9:14:00 AM
Arkesane

This article has no references! Tut tut. I totally didn't notice that the first time I read it.

3/7/2009 10:53:35 AM
Pedgerow

anti-West Islamic Republics can go eat a dick.

2/1/2009 9:12:52 PM
asskicker

Were the f**k is V when you need him.

2/1/2009 9:10:48 PM
asskicker

religion is for retards. cue retard jabbering:

1/14/2009 7:23:10 PM
davo

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"Saw's End: A Dangerous Burden," by TwistedSaw55

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Having learned that Hoffman is Jigsaw’s apprentice, Jill Tuck is on his trail. Will Hoffman escape yet again, or will the games finally come to an end? Either way, their lives will be forever changed when they learn the truth of Jigsaw's ultimate plan! Nothing is as it seems!

htt p ://www .fan fiction. net/s/4637854/1/Saws_End_A_Dangerous_Burden

1/8/2009 5:01:06 PM
TwistedSaw

Hang on King James was Scottish and Guy Fawkes night is celebrated in Scotland as well! Remember the Scots, Or have some bagpipes!

12/31/2008 5:22:12 PM
ScotsGard

The one thing I continually think when I read about "conspiracies of today" is.. Where's the solution? Because undoubtably there's never one given, and because of that sometimes conspiracies comes off as fear-mongering antics from your neigborhood teenager after he's stopped taking his medication... All I'm saying is, proof is fine, but if people want to broadcast conspiracy theories, they'd better have solutions, too.

12/31/2008 10:37:55 AM
devolutionary

Here are some other conspiracies that actually happened.
You can read the post but it includes Cointelpro, Opperation Gladio, The Snitching System, and more.
http://www.gangstalkingunited.com/forum/research/conspiracies-1/#p149

12/19/2008 4:43:58 AM
gangstalking

I heard the news earlier at -- http://www.ukwealthymen.com/---@ , where celebrities, pro athletes and wealthy singles mingle. Many wealthy people are talking about it there.

12/10/2008 5:49:14 AM
alicehuang007

LOL'd at the pics of Prescott Bush, Britain, and Lord Monteagle

12/6/2008 5:43:16 PM
PalinIsNotAMILF

im pretty sure this story is actually old. go to http://stuffididlastnight.com for full details

11/15/2008 5:02:47 PM
dontbugme3

"To suppose that the eye with all its inimitable contrivances for adjusting the focus to different distances, for admitting different amounts of light, and for the correction of spherical and chromatic aberration, could have been formed by natural selection,...still sounds more plausible than magic tho doesent it?!

11/4/2008 6:55:00 AM
outterthisworld

Sheep, that's all we are sheep...

11/2/2008 2:16:53 AM
dajzi

DallasDeckard, despite your and mine similar feelings towards scientology, I'm going to have to prove you wrong with you assertion.

First of all, religion, by definition, is the belief and worship of a superhuman, controlling power. So I guess calling evolution a religion is dead wrong.

Second, after that quote you put in to make your statement seem "right" Darwin continues with around three pages on how it is plausible the eye has evolved from a simple eyespot to the complex eye we share, using various species known at that time to give examples.

Third, as a response to your statement on how we couldn't have come from singled cell organisms, I going to admit that I don't fully understand how it happens, but from what I have gathered, it started when single celled organisms started to colonize to in order to complete tasks that where harder for just one cell, as more and more cells started to colonize, the cells started focussing on specific tasks based on what was easier for them to due. From there, things started to kick off when multicellular organisms started to increase in size and complexity. Now remember, I don't know much about the evolution of single celled organisms to multicellular, but if you are interested in finding out, you can find many scientific papers online detailing this.

10/19/2008 8:11:09 PM
MizPiz

Actually, Chef and Katrina, Jarhead is right. Scientology is actually an extremely dangerous cult that has stolen billions of dollars form its members and 100+ of them have either committed suicide due to what they have done to them or have been killed by them. And before you say, "People give both money and their lives to almost all religions" let me just say those are all voluntary. Members have to pay anywhere from 100k to x million dollars for classes to "better yourself". There's also the forced labor (for lack of better phrase) that give between $3-$7 an hour, the members barely get any food or water from the "church", members can't make contact with people outside of the church, and did I mention the torture chambers. So, Katrina, it seems more like that Scientology is more like the Nazis, and that letting them continue to operate is a crime against humanity.

10/19/2008 7:39:15 PM
MizPiz

What you didn't write about Operation Snow White is that the Church of Scientolofucknoids actually succeeded in getting the IRS to re-classify their religion and basically give them a special status that exempts them from any investigations. This is STILL on the IRS books to this DAY. They are exempt from any IRS legal action. They have had suits brought, but they simply pull out the "Get Out of IRS Jail Free" card and that is that. Some speculate that they still have significant dirt on some high ranking IRS folkage and this is why the "addendum" to the IRS tax code is not erased. Check it out yourself, it's still included in the IRS tax code.

Oh, and I can think of something sillier than a "bearded God dad" making man from dust, it is man having a common ancestry with primordial ooze. The only "bearded man" that has spawned a silly religion is Charles Darwin, and if he were alive today and could examine the incredible complexity of any single-cell organism (or a single cell for that matter) he would immediately denounce natural selection as it pertains to the belief that we evolved from single-cell organisms.

Darwin himself confessed, "To suppose that the eye with all its inimitable contrivances for adjusting the focus to different distances, for admitting different amounts of light, and for the correction of spherical and chromatic aberration, could have been formed by natural selection, seems, I freely confess, absurd in the highest degree."

Something to think about.

(Charles Darwin, "On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life," 1859, p. 155.)

10/17/2008 8:39:53 PM
DallasDeckard

...as far as I've always known, the gunpowder plot is pretty common knowledge... Remember, remember, the 5th of Novemeber...?
I knew Scientology would be up the top somewhere.


Also, Huh, you a Bill Bryson reader? ;)

9/25/2008 6:58:21 AM
Rykan

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