11 Seriously Bizarre Conspiracy Theories

There's absolutely nothing wrong with having an inquiring mind full of healthy skepticism, nothing at all.

Politicians and journalists lie to us all the time, after all, and it's useful to be able to pick apart the truth from the porkies.

Unfortunately, combine that with too much internet, a dollop of boredom and maybe forgetting to take your meds, and suddenly you're living in a world where the government is literally trying to kill, maim or spy on you at every turn.

Who knows, maybe we are under the thumb of a race of secret alien overlords, maybe there is something in the water that's making us all brain-dead and compliant, but the Tin Foil Hat Brigade just make it so difficult for us to want to believe them.

That and the fact that if you even do a bit of moderate thinking for less than five minutes, most of the theories unravel faster than a wooly jumper caught on a barbed wire fence.

Okay, sometimes the conspiracy theorists get it right. The idea of the existence of Mafia started out as a conspiracy theory, as were the dangers of asbestos.

We'll give them those ones, even a stopped clock is right twice a day after all, but there are a few out there that we simply cannot and will not believe...

So you know how the government are out to get us for no apparent reason? Well, one of their favourite ways to "get us" is by streaking the sky with very visible, very obvious trails of toxins and hoping that none of us would mention it.

Apparently those fluffy white trails that aeroplanes leave behind are actually what is known as "chemtrails". Theorists disagree as to what these trails are for exactly, but one thing they all seem to be able to agree on is that it's all the government's doing.

Some believe that they are weather-controlling materials that are being sprayed into the atmosphere. Others believe that they are full of "nano-fibres" that are designed to be breathed in by humans where they will cause damage and health problems - this is either a form of population control, or a ploy to sell you pharmaceuticals.

Another popular theory surfaced in 1996, claiming that they were full of some kind of neurotoxin, designed to slow down the brain and make us stupider, presumably in the hope that we would continue to vote the "right" people into power.

This would, of course, require the government, whichever government that might be, to be in cahoots with every single aeroplane manufacturer as well as all airlines and the "scientists" who claim that the trails are just made up of condensation as the hot fumes from the jet hit the cold air.

"Condensation", yeah right.

Wake up, sheeple, the government are actually inefficiently poisoning you for a series of not-entirely-clear reasons via the medium of high-altitude aircraft.