These conspiracy theories were later proven to be 100% true! Welcome to WatchMojo, and today we’re looking at true conspiracies that emanated from the '90s, as well as those that were confirmed to be accurate during the decade.
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00:00 Anybody who knows me knows it's not true.
00:02 Welcome to WatchMojo, and today we're looking at true conspiracies that emanated from the 90s,
00:07 as well as those that were confirmed to be accurate during the decade.
00:11 My angle is that the American government knew drugs were put on the streets.
00:15 This guy is about 3 feet, 3 and a half feet tall.
00:22 There's the large black eyes, the pear-shaped head.
00:26 For decades, many have insisted that the government knows more about extraterrestrials than they're letting on.
00:32 While alien life has yet to be confirmed,
00:34 a 1997 study exposed the government's less-than-honest track record.
00:38 Historian Gerald K. Haynes revealed that during the Cold War,
00:42 the CIA and Air Force cooked up numerous false explanations for UFO sightings.
00:46 While this was partially to ease UFO paranoia,
00:49 it was mainly to conceal the existence of the government's secret spy planes.
00:53 It seems certain that the high security is not to keep people from wandering into some area where they could be hurt.
01:00 It is designed specifically to protect whoever or whatever is inside the complex at Groom Lake.
01:07 Haynes found that manned reconnaissance flights accounted for more than half of UFO sightings in the U.S. throughout the 50s and 60s.
01:13 Whether or not the remaining UFOs were visitors,
01:16 this report gave conspiracy theorists growing up on the X-Files fuel to keep watching the stars.
01:21 [Music]
01:28 Number 9. Study 329
01:30 "Ceroxat was only licensed for adults,
01:33 but doctors can prescribe any medicine if they think it will help their patient.
01:38 It's called off-label prescribing."
01:40 Between 1994 and 1998, a clinical trial was conducted for the antidepressant paroxetine,
01:46 also known as Paxil and Ceroxat.
01:48 Pharmaceutical giant GlaxoSmithKline deemed the drug safe for youths, citing study 329.
01:54 Paroxetine wasn't officially approved, however.
01:57 That didn't stop GSK from illegally promoting the drug to doctors between 1998 and 2003.
02:03 "Given the high placebo response rate,
02:06 are these drugs an acceptable first-line therapy for depressed teenagers?"
02:10 Many patients were prescribed the drug,
02:12 although in numerous cases, it was found to have the opposite effect, leading to self-harm.
02:17 In 2001, a medical journal revealed that study 329 had been ghostwritten by a PR firm
02:22 that the drug company hired, misleading consumers about paroxetine's effects and underplaying side effects.
02:28 Pleading guilty, GSK would pay a record $3 billion,
02:31 with Paxil being just one of their products that violated the False Claims Act.
02:35 "They said mistakes had been made and that procedures had been changed.
02:39 What critics said is too little, too late."
02:41 Number 8. The Gay Bomb
02:43 "The project was abandoned in the planning stages."
02:46 "Of course it was. It would have been expensive, impractical,
02:49 and offensive to both the red states and the gay or blue states."
02:52 In the history of gay panic, the 90s remain one of the most bizarre decades to look back on.
02:57 Society reached the pinnacle of face palming in 1994 when the US Air Force sought to weaponize gayness.
03:03 How? With a quote-unquote "gay bomb."
03:06 It sounds like something from South Park or Family Guy.
03:09 But the Sunshine Project uncovered documents revealing Ohio's Wright Laboratory
03:13 proposed a non-lethal chemical weapon that could create a shared attraction among enemy soldiers.
03:18 This would supposedly cause confusion, giving America the upper hand.
03:22 Even into the early 2000s, there was still a push to produce such a weapon
03:27 with a proposed $7.5 million budget.
03:29 Are you surprised this came from the same decade that gave us Don't Ask, Don't Tell?
03:33 "You said something about homos in the military.
03:36 Was the gentleman referring to the many thousands and thousands of gay people
03:41 who have put their lives on the line in countless wars defending this country?
03:45 Was that the group of people that the gentleman was referring to?"
03:48 7. Steven Glass' Tall Tales
03:51 "These people who I lied to were my friends, and I betrayed them at every step.
03:54 And that required lying about who I was as a person, lying about every aspect of my life."
03:58 "To your family, to your girlfriend?" "Absolutely."
04:00 Joining the New Republic in 1995,
04:03 Steven Glass gained a reputation for his colorful stories that left readers saying,
04:06 "Wow, you can't make this stuff up."
04:08 Adam Pennenberg of Ford's thought otherwise,
04:11 questioning a 1998 story in which Glass claimed that a 15-year-old
04:15 landed a job at the very Silicon Valley company he had hacked.
04:18 Doing some digging, Pennenberg found no evidence of the company or the hacker's existence.
04:23 New Republic editor Charles Lane soon found other holes in Glass' story,
04:27 which was ultimately deemed to be fabricated.
04:30 "You fake Sims. You faked the website. You faked all those voicemails.
04:35 Restle, Hyre, Gort. It's all crap."
04:38 It was just one of at least 27 New Republic articles written by Glass
04:42 that were grounded in falsehoods.
04:44 As the conspiracy came to light, Glass lost his job in journalistic integrity,
04:48 pursuing a paralegal career.
04:50 "I think somehow I did terrible, terrible things, which I deeply regret,
04:54 and I've come to be defined by them."
04:56 After nearly 30 years in politics,
05:01 Bob Packwood's reputation started to deteriorate in late 1992.
05:05 The Washington Post published an article in which 10 women alleged
05:08 that the Oregon senator had made unwanted advances towards them.
05:11 Although Packwood had recently been re-elected,
05:14 this marked the beginning of the end,
05:16 with another 19 women eventually speaking out against him.
05:19 Packwood's diaries were seen as a potential smoking gun,
05:22 but when he turned the material over,
05:23 it appeared that numerous details had been edited.
05:26 Despite his best efforts to cover his tracks,
05:29 many of Packwood's comments still came to light,
05:31 painting a disturbing portrait that corroborated the reports of harassment.
05:35 With his expulsion from the Senate imminent,
05:37 Packwood chose to resign in 1995.
05:40 "As I cast my vote on the floor, I thought about how exciting it must be
05:44 for a young woman barely my daughter's age
05:47 to have a U.S. senator's tongue down her throat."
05:51 "We permitted narcotics.
05:56 I mean, we were complicitous as a country
05:59 in narcotics traffic at the same time
06:02 as we're spending countless dollars in this country
06:06 to try to get rid of this problem."
06:07 Throughout the Nicaraguan Civil War,
06:09 it was speculated that the CIA aided the Contras in the trafficking of cocaine.
06:13 This opened a gateway to the U.S.,
06:15 with cocaine becoming especially widespread among Los Angeles gangs.
06:19 Although the matter had been investigated during the 1980s,
06:22 it didn't make a ton of headlines until 1996,
06:25 when journalist Gary Webb wrote a series of articles
06:27 claiming that the CIA had contributed to the rise of cocaine distribution in the U.S.
06:32 "What the CIA wanted to do was to fight a war that Congress didn't want.
06:37 And the ripple effect of that would happen in South Los Angeles
06:39 and other American cities where that was a mistake."
06:41 The government and several media outlets conducted investigations
06:44 determining that the CIA didn't conspire to sneak drugs into the country.
06:48 However, it was confirmed that the CIA indeed knew about the smuggling,
06:52 helping to keep the Contras off the DEA's radar.
06:55 "As they explained to me, that this would enable them to gain the traffickers' confidence,
07:01 keep their informant cool,
07:03 and it would result in future seizures of larger quantities of drugs."
07:07 Number 4. Harding vs. Kerrigan
07:09 "The attack on Kerrigan brought home to Tanya
07:12 just how vulnerable a public figure can be.
07:15 The surroundings in Detroit suddenly took on a frightening tone."
07:18 Of all the Olympic sports, figure skating is the last one you might expect to turn violent.
07:23 People saw just how cold the ice rink could turn in 1994
07:27 when skater Nancy Kerrigan was attacked with a baton.
07:30 "I'm scared. I'm so scared."
07:33 The culprit? Shane Stant, who conspired with bodyguards Sean Eckhart and Jeff Galuli,
07:38 the latter of whom had recently divorced fellow skater Tanya Harding.
07:42 At first, Harding rejected claims that she had any involvement in the conspiracy.
07:46 After Harding accepted a plea deal, however,
07:49 her knowledge of the attack and cover-up came to light.
07:52 Although Kerrigan's right thigh quickly recovered,
07:54 her rival's skating career never did.
07:57 Harding was banned from U.S. figure skating,
07:59 while the others involved in the conspiracy received prison time.
08:02 "Your Honor, I don't have an education.
08:07 All I know is skating. That's all I know."
08:10 Number 3. Royal marriage troubles
08:13 "So, were they in love?"
08:15 "Of course."
08:16 If there's one thing the royal family has always excelled at,
08:19 it's maintaining a facade in the public eye.
08:22 The illusion that was Charles and Diana's happy marriage began to shatter
08:25 after the Princess of Wales authorized a biography
08:28 claiming that her husband had engaged in an affair with Camilla Parker Bowles.
08:32 Diana, her true story, was among the most talked-about books to hit shelves in 1992.
08:37 Although, it would be another two years until Charles admitted to the affair
08:41 in an interview with Jonathan Dimbleby.
08:43 A year after that, Diana opened up about her affair with James Hewitt
08:47 during a Panorama interview.
08:48 With nothing left to hide, Charles and Diana officially divorced in 1996,
08:53 one year before the People's Princess' tragic death.
08:56 "I'm not moving from this spot until they come to me!"
09:01 Number 2. The Nayyida testimony
09:03 "They took the babies out of incubators.
09:08 Took the incubators and left the children to die on the cold floor."
09:12 In October 1990, a 15-year-old known to the public only as Nayyida
09:16 testified about the horrors that she allegedly witnessed in Kuwait
09:19 at the hands of Iraqi soldiers.
09:21 Various politicians, including then-President George H.W. Bush,
09:25 referenced Nayyida's heartbreaking testimony while backing Kuwait during the Gulf War.
09:29 Holes in Nayyida's statements began to materialize in 1992
09:33 after she was identified as the daughter of Saud al-Sabah,
09:36 a Kuwaiti ambassador to the U.S.
09:38 It was revealed that al-Sabah made his daughter deliver false testimony.
09:42 "She's a member of the Kuwaiti royal family, related to the Emir of Kuwait.
09:47 And when she testified, her father was sitting close by."
09:50 Al-Sabah had also conspired with Citizens for a Free Kuwait
09:53 in an effort to promote America's involvement in the war.
09:56 Although the conspiracy was unraveled, the war had already ended,
09:59 with Iraq retreating from Kuwait following America's intervention.
10:03 "I want to emphasize that Kuwait is our mother and the Emir our father."
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10:21 Number 1. The Clinton-Lewinsky Affair
10:25 "I thought, well, maybe he'll notice me again.
10:28 And notice me he did."
10:33 The Clinton administration inspired an assortment of conspiracy theories.
10:37 While a good chunk of them remain unfounded,
10:39 one would rock Washington, D.C. with its legitimacy.
10:42 25 years after Richard Nixon's "I am not a crook" line,
10:45 President Bill Clinton made an equally infamous statement that would come back to haunt him.
10:49 "I did not have sexual relations with that woman, Ms. Lewinsky."
10:55 Whereas Nixon resigned before he could be impeached,
10:58 Clinton's perjury charges placed his presidency in jeopardy.
11:01 While Clinton was ultimately acquitted,
11:03 he did confess to having a, quote,
11:05 "improper physical relationship with the former White House intern as more evidence surfaced."
11:10 It was the scandal that rocked the 90s,
11:12 arguably having a ripple effect that impacted politics into the 21st century.
11:17 "Indeed, I did have a relationship with Ms. Lewinsky that was not appropriate.
11:21 In fact, it was wrong."
11:23 Which conspiracy keeps you awake at night decades later?
11:26 Share your theories in the comments.
11:28 Check out these other clips from WatchMojo.
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