7 Bizarre Conspiracy Theories You'd Probably Never Believe

7. The Dark Ages Never Happened

Ever done something so embarrassing that you refuse to accept what happened was real? Whether through stubborn denial or an heroic amount of alcohol, you've pretty much scratched that day out of your mind and called it a write off - after all, if you deny that it ever happened, how can anyone else prove it? (Outrageous amounts of hard evidence and witness testimonies notwithstanding.) Now imagine doing that on a much grander scale, and attempting to wipe out an entire era of human history, for example. Imagine writing books about it and you've got some interesting explaining to do. Developed in 1991 by German historian Heribert Illig, this theory suggests that the period between AD 614 and 911, known as the Dark Ages, is either dated wrong (best case) or just plain never happened in the first place (worst case). Illig proposed that there is very little evidence that dates back to the alleged time period. He also suggests there has been a massive cover up utilising misinformation and downright forgery. He also proposed that when the Gregorian calendar was introduced in 1582, there should have been a variant of around thirteen days between this and the Julian calendar, introduced by Julius Caesar. The discrepancy, instead, shows there is a period of approximately 300 years that has gone unaccounted for in the Gregorian calendar. If that is true, that's quite a miscalculation. Either that or Pope Gregory and his crew had one hell of a blackout session.