11 Seriously Bizarre Conspiracy Theories

As conspiracy theories go, shape-shifting, hyper-intelligent reptilian beings that control life on Earth is a pretty good one.

David Icke has made reasonable success of himself by coming up with increasingly batsh*t conspiracy theories after arthritis ended his football career. It was during some New Age treatment for his arthritis that Icke fell in with the "woo" crowd and some years later he was "visited" by some "spirits" (read: had a couple of hallucinations) and began a long and distinguished career in paranoid ramblings.

His most famous theory is that almost all of the powers-that-be are shape-shifting lizards bent on controlling the human race. Amongst those accused of being lizard people are Bill and Hillary Clinton, the Queen of England and (weirdly) Bob Hope. Oh, and they're all paedophiles as well.

Some people have claimed that Icke's indictments on lizard people is actually a thinly veiled anti-Semitic attack, and that when he says "shape-shifting lizard-people", he really means "Jews". 

Icke has claimed that this is completely untrue and that when he says "shape-shifting lizard-people", he literally means "shape-shifting lizard-people" (better to be crazy than anti-Semitic, we guess).

Another excellent sound bite from Icke is that the London 2012 Olympic Opening Ceremony was actually an audacious Satanic ritual designed to harness the negative energy of the underworld. 

Weirdly, Icke has been less clear as to, er, why our reptilian alien overlords would hold a satanic ritual thinly veiled as a sporting event, or indeed why a highly-evolved alien race of lizards would worship a devil figure from the Abrahamic religions.