6 Flat-Out Crazy Conspiracy Theories (That Really Happened)

6

A Sinister Sect Of Freemasons Effectively Took Over Italy

Few organizations are as synonymous with conspiracy as the Freemasons. But while the most nefarious act of your local Masonic order is, like, fudging their bowling league results on occasion, that was not the case for 1980s Italy. That's when the downfall of a dirty banker led authorities to a list of nearly a thousand members of the clandestine masonic lodge Propaganda Due (P2) -- a list which included cabinet ministers, dozens of members of parliament, hundreds of high-ranking military and police officials, the heads of Italian intelligence, and the country's most influential businessmen.

P2's goal was to install a shadow government able to "exert anonymous and surreptitious control" over Italy. The organization's "Plan For Democratic Revival" called for the infiltration of the government, media, and trade unions. And ... damned if they didn't pull it off. P2 unduly influenced the Italian government, as well as effectively controlled the nation's press, burying such stories as the inconvenient revelation that P2 member Umberto Ortolani was financing South American death squads.

P2 was led by former Mussolini torture goon and self-proclaimed lifelong fascist Licio Gelli. First rising to Masonic power in the '60s, by 1980, Gelli hosted regular meetings of Italy's top generals at his private villa, where he exercised substantial political influence. After the lodge helped Juan Peron return to power in Argentina, a former Italian prime minister witnessed Peron "kneel in front of Gelli." Perhaps more disturbingly, Venerable Master Gelli was even an honored guest at Ronald Reagan's inauguration.

When P2's activities came to light in 1981, it led to the immediate resignation of Italian Prime Minister Arnaldo Forlani and his entire P2-infested cabinet. At least two implicated political figures attempted suicide. Gelli himself hightailed it to Switzerland, but was later extradited and convicted on charges of bank fraud. Oh, and also for helping to cover up the 1980 bombing of a Bologna train station by Italian neo-Nazis, which killed 85 people and wounded hundreds more. Plus they probably ruined game night down at the lodge for at least a decade.

5

Northern Ireland's "Satanic Panic" In The '70s Was Orchestrated By The British Military

The cutely named Satanic Panic broke out in the early 1970s in Northern Ireland, when newspapers began reporting occult activity throughout the country (more than 70 such articles were published in the last four months of 1973 alone). Yes, pretend devil worship was definitely Northern Ireland's biggest religious problem at the time. And as it turned out, that's precisely how the British government wanted it.

4

A Major Election Turned On Russian Meddling ... In 1920s England

In 1923, Ramsay MacDonald was the first member of the socialist-leaning Labour Party to become British Prime Minister. And as you'd expect, the establishment freaked right the fuck out. After a vote of no confidence by the House of Commons, MacDonald was forced to call another election just a few months later, in which the Conservatives ran on a platform of "Comrade MacDonald will nationalize all kittens and send your children to toil in the potato mines."

As luck would have it (for the Conservatives), shortly before the election, British Military Intelligence intercepted a letter signed by Soviet official Grigory Zinoviev, which asserted that plans to replace the hands of Big Ben with a hammer and sickle were proceeding exactly as planned. After consulting with MacDonald, head of MI5 Vernon Kell agreed that the letter should remain secret. And so, of course, The Daily Mail published it four days before the election, under the headline "Civil War Plot by Socialists' Masters," with the subheads "Moscow Orders To Our Reds" and "Great Plot Disclosed."

Daily Mail
"To be fair, this is like not even in the top 1,000 stupidest headlines we've published."

3

Bolivia Was Overthrown By Nazis And Coke Traffickers

Klaus Barbie, a Nazi known as the "Butcher of Lyon," was lent a helping hand by the U.S. intelligence community as thanks for his assistance with their anticommunist efforts. Assuming the identity of Klaus Altmann, Barbie (yes, that is what we're going to call him for the entirety of this entry, for what we hope are obvious reasons), was secreted away to Bolivia in the '60s. He continued to serve evil there, teaching the lackeys of military dictators that electricity was the best way to torture people. So good.

Come 1980, Bolivia was barreling toward democracy. The government-in-waiting promised to crack down on cocaine trafficking, a policy that didn't sit too well with Bolivia's cocaine traffickers. By this time, Barbie was "security consultant" to Roberto Suarez Gomez, Bolivia's "King of Cocaine." Barbie recruited an army of right-wing maniacs for Suarez, who fashioned themselves "the fiances of death" (we assume that sounds more badass in Spanish). Led by neo-Nazi Joachim Fiebelkorn, a close acquaintance of none other than Licio Gelli, the fiances (yes, that is what we're going to call them for the entirety of this entry, for what we hope are obvious reasons) would've been cut from a Bond film for being too over the top. There was a fugitive Italian terrorist, a white Rhodesian mercenary, and an aging SS veteran known for bludgeoning prisoners with the butt of his rifle. And, as if this story weren't ridiculous enough already, their main job was to stand around with bazookas and shoot down Colombian transport planes if they attempted to escape without paying.

2

The Osage People Were Murdered For Oil Fortunes ... By Their Own In-Laws

As with most Native American tribes, the 19th century was a bit of a rough spot for the Osage. Pushed from reservation to reservation, their numbers steadily depleted, until the tribe's chief finally chose a shitty chunk of Oklahoma in 1870 and called it home. He chose that particular shit-chunk based solely on the fact that it was so very shitty that no white man would ever want it. Then, in the 1920s, an amazing twist of fate: That land turned out to be sitting atop a vast wealth of oil. The Osage were suddenly among the wealthiest people on planet Earth.

1

Lockheed, Bribery, Explosive Jets, The Japanese Mafia, Fake Priests, And ... Softcore Porn?

The Lockheed F-104 "Starfighter," developed in the 1950s, was light years ahead of its time. Unfortunately, it also had a tendency to spin irrevocably out of control at the slightest provocation. Yes, this so-called "missile with a man in it" had its problems. But Lockheed wasn't about to accept "assured fiery death" as a deterrent, not with boatloads of cash on the line. And so they embarked on a massive campaign to bribe foreign officials into buying their supersonic casket.

And it worked. West Germany alone bought almost a thousand of them (300 of which crashed, killing 116 pilots). Bribery soon became Lockheed's default means of doing business. They truly outdid themselves in Japan, where they teamed up with yakuza don and bona fide Class-A war criminal Yoshio Kodama to influence the government's purchases. In order to funnel funds to Kodama, Lockheed employed the services of Wall Street firm Deak-Perera, which in turn employed a defrocked priest to smuggle mounds of cash between Hong Kong and Tokyo inside baskets of oranges. Deak-Perera suddenly collapsed in the '80s, after its founder was randomly shot dead in his Wall Street office by a mentally ill homeless woman, because apparently we live in a David Lynch film.