10 Conspiracy Theories That People Are No Longer Believing

In case you missed it, the world's in a bit of a state currently. Not only is the most powerful country in the world facing an historic election (aren't they all?), a pandemic is raging globally, randomly picking off civilians. At the same time, unarmed African Americans are continuing to be shot or just flat murdered by police, and those trying to not engage in a full-on culture war have stoked the fires of old wounds, sticking points and paranoia to forward their agenda.

Meanwhile, Tiktok witches are working jointly to hex both the moon and sun.

This all started, arguably, with a lame attempt to incite the right. Weaponizing nostalgia for a once great country that eventually renders its population bereft of hope sells. As a result, a lot of folk turned to conspiracies, no matter how outlandish. It's not the first time conspiracy theories held far too much sway over the general public, it's simply more widespread thanks to the nature of the internet.

From the confused, angered masses, a Qanon faithful suspected Hillary Clinton and John Podesta were running a Satan-worshipping pedophile ring in a D.C. pizza parlour's basement. He walked into the establishment with an AR-15 and opened fire. There was no basement.

Of course, tell that to Qanon, they're sure it was cemented up by then.

If all this seems out of whack, it means only that you are sane, and probably wouldn't have fallen for these old classics when they were en vogue.

It's surprising how easy it is to develop a conspiracy theory. There's sometimes little effort made to connect the dots and, when there are none, they fill in the gaps with madness.

This van, belonging to one Steve Lightfoot, appeared on the streets of Maine in the early '90s. Initially, people assumed it was an elaborate prank, and it would have been a great one to pull at the height of King's miniseries popularity in Maine, his home turf.

Sadly, Lightfoot was deadly serious, and it started to get picked up as the zany story of the week on local news. The theory appears to come from little more than the idea that, add a few pounds, Stephen King vaguely resembles a young Mark David Chapman. The noticeable major difference is King's rather pronounced upper lip and brow, which would require cranial restructuring.

Chapman's whole history, including the infamous nod to Catcher in the Rye, is a complete fabrication, claims Lightfoot. And the evidence has been there all along, hidden in cryptographic messages in Richard Nixon's book The Real War and back issues of Time and Newsweek. Nixon and Reagan arranged for a minorly successful writer (King was actually a pretty big success by 1980) to be the trigger man. Lightfoot's reasons are vast and a little confusing, mainly based around Lennon's anti-war propaganda.

It's not easy to pass judgment on some of these; in fact, it's downright impossible and counterproductive. This is lazy even by lunatic standards. Zero Lyndon LaRouches.