Buckle up for a wild ride through the most outlandish conspiracy theories the internet has to offer! We're diving deep into the top secrets people believe the US government is desperately trying to keep under wraps. From alien encounters to mind-control plots, prepare for a journey into the world of conspiracy theories.
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00:00It's a mystery wrapped in a riddle, inside an enigma!
00:03Welcome to WatchMojo, and today we're counting down 20 pieces of confidential information
00:08many think the government is hiding. Keep in mind, the spread of misinformation can
00:13have profoundly harmful consequences, so take all of these with a massive grain of salt.
00:18I don't know if you've done your own research,
00:20but my mate Paul sent me a video that exposes the whole thing.
00:25Number 20. Obama's birth origin.
00:27I don't have a regret. A few mistakes, yes. Everybody makes mistakes.
00:31Was the birth charisma mistake?
00:32When you have a... Oh, now you're bringing that up.
00:37When Barack Obama ran for president in 2008, many Americans, without reason,
00:42began to question his birthplace. He was born in Hawaii in 1961,
00:46only two years after it became a U.S. state. Many believed his birth certificate was forged,
00:52and that he was actually from Kenya. Donald Trump was a famous promoter of this discredited theory.
00:57There's overwhelming evidence that he was indeed born in Hawaii.
01:01A 2015 study explored the motivations behind this, and found a strong correlation between
01:07anti-black attitudes and believing Obama is a Kenyan. All in all, the theory is quite far-fetched,
01:13and it's been proven to be motivated by racially driven ideologies.
01:16What about Obama?
01:22What about it?
01:23Number 19. Subliminal advertising.
01:26They spend billions of dollars on TV advertisement, and then they sit there
01:29and use subliminal messages to suck your children's minds out. And I know what I'm
01:33talking about because I went to junior college for a semester, and I studied psychology,
01:36so I'm right in there. I know what's going on.
01:39Advertisements that are flashed in pieces of media can be short enough that we don't
01:43consciously notice them, but just long enough that the message enters our brains unconsciously.
01:48In 1957, James Vickery spliced frames saying,
01:52drink Coca-Cola into movies, and claimed it drove sales higher. He later admitted to having
01:57fudged the results, so there's no credibility in his work. However, there have been other
02:02studies examining the idea. The results are mixed, with no conclusive evidence for or
02:07against its effectiveness. Some think the government is using this technique to control
02:11us, a theory with no credible evidence. Additionally, the FCC banned the practice in 1974.
02:18But this won't faze the tinfoil hatters, who likely view it as just a cover-up.
02:23Timmy, where's Lassie?
02:24She's out in the orchard, Ma. Peaches are coming in mighty early this year.
02:29Smoke.
02:29You know what they say, Timmy. Early peaches, long summer.
02:33Smoke.
02:36What's that, Lassie?
02:37Are you smoking yet?
02:38Number 18. Who Killed MLK Jr.?
02:41The FBI prepares to send Dr. King an anonymous package,
02:45containing a document that will come to be known as the Poison Pen Letter.
02:51In 1968, Martin Luther King Jr., one of the greatest activists of all time,
02:56was shot by James Earl Ray, and died one hour later. Ray quickly pleaded guilty,
03:01but only a few days later, he went back on his claim, saying it was a forced confession.
03:07The situation got even more suspicious when it came to light that the FBI was blackmailing King
03:12into taking his own life. In 1999, a jury in a civil trial found that there was some
03:18credibility to the conspiracy, although critics thought the evidence lacked rigorous cross-examination.
03:24Also, Ray's story is quite inconsistent, hampering his credibility.
03:29So, some in America wanted him out of the picture,
03:32but it's unclear what links they went to so that it happened.
03:36Number 17. Wanting People to Eat Bugs.
03:39Wow, it's got a gazillion feet. Yep, down the hatch.
03:44In March 2023, Thierry Boudet, a far-right Dutch politician,
03:49tweeted an image of him pouring bugs onto the floor, captioned,
03:52We will not eat the bugs. Apparently, some believe the upper echelon of society
03:57is seeking to make everyone else eat bugs.
04:00The U.S. Food and Drug Administration allows minor quantities of bugs in food,
04:05because it's almost impossible to avoid them ending up in food products.
04:09Also, some organizations have promoted them as a sustainable food source,
04:13encouraging their consumption. The anti-bug phrase soon popped up on 4chan,
04:18with users overlaying it onto images of Greta Thunberg.
04:22Now, it's no longer just a meme, and many genuinely believe the theory, including Tucker Carlson.
04:28As long as we're switching from ribeye to cicadas, we might as well make it good.
04:32Number 16. Bin Laden is Still Alive.
04:35Several sources now that the President of the United States will announce in just moments
04:39that the United States has the body of Osama bin Laden.
04:43Osama bin Laden used to be America's number one enemy, the founder of Al-Qaeda,
04:47and the man behind the September 11th attacks. In 2011, he was finally killed by U.S. Navy
04:53SEALs at his compound in Pakistan, despite numerous first-hand accounts,
04:57and the Al-Qaeda confirmation of his death. Some believe it was a lie, and he's still out there.
05:02This is because there was initially a lack of physical evidence publicly available,
05:07although there's equally little evidence he is still alive.
05:10He was also buried at sea, which fueled further speculation.
05:14The CIA regrets not releasing photos of the corpse, since it encouraged these theories.
05:19It also doesn't make sense why America would spare one of its biggest enemies.
05:24Tonight, I can report to the American people and to the world that the United States has
05:30conducted an operation that killed Osama bin Laden, the leader of Al-Qaeda.
05:34Number 15. Reptilians run it all.
05:37Wertheimer's hardware? Run by the Illuminati.
05:40Lizard people.
05:41Lizard people?
05:42Jefferson, Einstein, Beyoncé. How do you think we got the pyramids?
05:45Reptiles include animals like turtles, crocodiles, lizards, and snakes.
05:50And many humans keep reptiles as pets.
05:52Some conspiracy theorists wonder if we own the lizards, or if they own us.
05:57This is the reptile conspiracy theory, which at least 12 million Americans claim to believe.
06:03Found in some science fiction stories, it was given new life by David Icke,
06:07a notorious Holocaust denier.
06:09He claims to believe an alien race of shape-shifting lizards hijacked the Earth.
06:14Supposedly, they control world politics to create, quote,
06:18negative energy, which is their primary source of nutrition.
06:21It's an outlandish theory with no real evidence existing anywhere.
06:25And it was the most amazing, but also sort of bizarre situation to look down at your body
06:35and see it morph from your human form.
06:38Number 14. Hiding a cure for cancer.
06:41Breakthrough in what could be a major game-changer.
06:4314 patients with advanced rectal cancer are in remission after taking the same drug.
06:48It's a small trial, but so far it had a 100% success rate.
06:53Our next entry becomes extremely silly after rubbing two brain cells together
06:57and thinking about it for more than a minute.
06:59Many people think we already have a cure for cancer, and the government is hiding it.
07:04It's supposedly to make money profiting off cancer patients.
07:07It can be debunked quite easily, since some of the wealthiest people have died from cancer.
07:12If society's elite class has a cure, why don't they use it to cure their cancer?
07:17Additionally, many countries across the globe have nationalized healthcare services,
07:22which don't make any profit at all.
07:24These nations have even less motivation to withhold the cure,
07:27making this an extremely ludicrous theory.
07:29Yet many still believe it regardless.
07:32Carter, you've discovered the holy grail of modern medicine.
07:34Why the hell would you keep it buried like this?
07:36I'll tell you why.
07:37Because there's far more money to be made in treating a disease than in curing it.
07:41Number 13. Television is used to control your mind.
07:44She was a part of some study in college.
07:47MKUltra.
07:49Yeah, that's the one.
07:50In the 1950s and 60s, the CIA experimented with mind control in Project MKUltra.
07:56It was widely unethical and became public knowledge in 1975.
08:00Its existence has fueled fears about large-scale population control,
08:04and approximately 17% of Americans believe this is happening via TV.
08:09It's also been fueled by Operation Mockingbird,
08:12a covert CIA operation aimed at spreading pro-US and anti-Soviet propaganda in the Cold War.
08:18It's unclear if America is still trying to literally mind control the public.
08:23However, news programs can be biased,
08:25and can be a powerful tool for influencing public opinion.
08:28So it's perhaps a valid topic of concern,
08:31though to what extent it may happen remains debated.
08:34And on the flip side of this, Michael,
08:35having lived through and reported through this period of American history,
08:39are you less likely to trust what you're told by the CIA or other government agencies?
08:43Number 12. Vaccines are dangerous.
08:45The measles outbreak in Washington state is spreading,
08:49and there are now cases in at least nine states.
08:51Michigan has not been impacted yet,
08:53but the CDC is warning the outbreak is only expected to get worse.
08:56Are vaccines causing more harm than good?
08:59That's what some people would have you believe.
09:01The anti-vaccine movement has been around for decades,
09:04but didn't really become prominent until the 1990s,
09:07when an article claimed that there was a link between autism
09:10and the combined measles, mumps, and rubella, MMR, vaccine.
09:14While this study has since been widely discredited,
09:17it has resulted in parents choosing not to vaccinate their children,
09:20which in turn has caused an increase in diseases like the measles.
09:23Conspiracy theorists would have you believe that government officials
09:27are behind this vaccine poisoning to support the lucrative pharmaceutical industry
09:32or control the population.
09:34But this seems highly unlikely.
09:36I got a list of dozens of studies.
09:38I could spend a long time just reading them to you,
09:41but I don't think it's going to make any difference.
09:43Number 11.
09:44AIDS was engineered to reduce certain populations.
09:49You've tested positive for HIV,
09:55which is the virus that causes AIDS.
09:58Sticking with the topic of diseases,
09:59this well-known theory claims that the government,
10:02and specifically the CIA,
10:04created HIV to reduce the population of gay men and African Americans.
10:09This theory stems from the fact that at its beginning,
10:11the virus appeared to affect those specific groups more so than others.
10:15While African Americans and homosexual men have been the victims of prejudice
10:19and injustice for many years,
10:21it's hard to believe that the government would create a deadly disease
10:24to eliminate these groups, regardless of the era.
10:27However, it wouldn't be the first unconscionable thing the government's done.
10:31Scientists believe that HIV originated in West Central Africa,
10:35where a similar virus was found in chimpanzees and gorillas.
10:39Number 10.
10:40Anyone can be a secret government informant.
10:44Does Big Brother exist?
10:47Of course.
10:48You may be a secret informant without even knowing it.
10:51Seriously.
10:52In 2008, Congress passed the FISA Amendments Act,
10:55which gave the government the authority to surveil Americans' international communications.
11:00The Freedom of Information Act required the government to release FISA documents,
11:04but they withheld the identities of electronic communication service providers
11:08that provided information,
11:10stating that these businesses would be harmed
11:12if their customers knew they were giving information to the FBI.
11:16So essentially, your cell phone provider could be allowing the FBI to surveil your activity,
11:21and you will never know about it.
11:23Inside the U.S., 3.1 billion emails and calls.
11:28It's not including any of the telecom companies.
11:30Number 9. Banks, specifically Goldman Sachs, control the government.
11:35A's, zero.
11:37B's, zero.
11:38Double B's, zero.
11:40Triple B's, zero.
11:44And then that happens.
11:46What is that?
11:49That's America's housing market.
11:51The government released reports outlining what caused the financial crisis of 2007 and 8.
11:56And as most of us already know, things like faulty regulations,
12:00toxic mortgages, and a basic failure of the system were primarily to blame.
12:04However, were those in charge of such predatory practices
12:08prosecuted and punished for their crimes?
12:10Not in the United States.
12:12White-collar criminals in Iceland, for example,
12:15were sent to jail for their roles in the economic crisis.
12:18But in the U.S., not only were these financial figures not held accountable,
12:22they were given jobs within the government itself.
12:24This causes many conspiracy theorists to suspect that the government is controlled by banks,
12:29and specifically, Goldman Sachs.
12:31Banks took the money the American people gave them,
12:33and they used it to pay themselves huge bonuses and lobby the Congress to kill big reform.
12:38And then they blamed immigrants and poor people.
12:40Number eight.
12:41The Earth is flat.
12:42And the Earth is...
12:44Flat.
12:45Flat.
12:45The Earth is flat.
12:46My reality, my senses tell me that the Earth is flat and stationary.
12:49The idea of a spherical Earth has been supported by overwhelming evidence for thousands of years,
12:54stemming from observations, experiments, and logical reasoning.
12:58Despite this fact, many individuals think it's flat.
13:02It's one of the silliest theories, and goes against basic observations in nature,
13:06like the sun setting and rising, lunar eclipses, mirages, constellations changing in hemispheres,
13:13ships disappearing over horizons, etc.
13:15The concept of a round Earth goes back at least to the 6th century BCE,
13:20so it's peculiar that flat Earth nonsense persists.
13:23It can be attributed to a combination of distrust in authorities and scientific illiteracy,
13:29rather than some kind of solid proof that supports the idea of a flat Earth.
13:33Somebody asked me, what if it turned out wrong?
13:35What if it was wrong?
13:36What if you, you know, would you feel this sense of guilt
13:39if all of a sudden it was proved to be a globe?
13:41Number seven.
13:425G caused COVID.
13:44Well, the coronavirus has proven difficult to contain,
13:48so is much of the misinformation about it.
13:50One such myth claims the virus is being spread
13:53through the newest generation of wireless technology.
13:565G is the newest form of cellular network technology,
13:59which is a type of non-ionizing electromagnetic radiation.
14:03For some bizarre reason, millions of people worldwide began to believe it caused COVID.
14:09The theory is incredibly whimsical, and has zero evidence at all supporting it.
14:13It's also perplexing that people would be fearful of non-ionizing electromagnetic radiation,
14:19a label also used to describe visible light.
14:22If the theory is true,
14:24why have humans been safely living with visible light for thousands of years?
14:28It comes from a fundamental misunderstanding of high school science,
14:32which teaches viruses spread via physical contact, not through photons.
14:37This is unequivocally a new virus as opposed to something related to 5G.
14:43Number six.
14:44The U.S. government distributed illegal substances themselves.
14:48Did the CIA work with and protect major drug traffickers?
14:52Yes, absolutely.
14:54The government has been called a lot of things.
14:56Murderers, racists, and now drug dealers.
14:59In the late 1990s, Gary Webb, a Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter for the San Jose Mercury News,
15:06wrote a series of articles that linked CIA agents in Central America to drug rings in Los Angeles.
15:12Webb claimed that the government protected its Nicaraguan allies
15:15and allowed them to sell cocaine to black residents in South Central LA.
15:20Why would they do this?
15:22Allegedly, so the CIA-backed terrorist rebel group the Contras could receive funding
15:27and so the government could carry out their plot to destroy inner-city black America.
15:32What did the CIA say to you in jail?
15:35What did I know about cocaine being trafficked by the Contras?
15:40Which, you know, I didn't really know about the Contras.
15:42Number five.
15:43Chemtrails are dangerous.
15:45Now, if you see graffiti like this in your neighborhood,
15:48you can suspect your DNA is being targeted
15:51by a release of aluminum into the atmosphere through chemtrails.
15:55Many conspiracy theorists suggest that the government is poisoning us somehow,
15:59whether to keep us docile and controllable or to support pharmaceutical companies.
16:04Could they be using airplanes to do it?
16:07Some people believe that the traces left in the sky by planes
16:10are not simply condensation trails, but actually chemical agents,
16:15which are distributed to control the population.
16:17This claim has been widely dismissed by scientists around the world,
16:21who have repeatedly stated that there is nothing irregular about these trails.
16:25Still, this theory has plenty of prominent supporters,
16:28including Smashing Pumpkins frontman Billy Corgan.
16:31Based on our highly credible experts and scientific approach to chemtrails,
16:36we can verify the chemtrail conspiracy is false.
16:41Number four.
16:42The moon landing was faked.
16:43Not one piece of so-called evidence that the conspiracy theorists put forward
16:48has ever stood up to peer review scrutiny.
16:51Right, but obviously it is fake,
16:52because how could they have landed on the moon if the moon isn't real?
16:56Nearly half a century later,
16:57and people still don't believe that we actually sent people to the moon.
17:01On July 20th, 1969,
17:03Apollo 11 crew members Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin
17:06became the first people to walk on the moon.
17:09This effectively ended the space race,
17:11a competition between the Soviet Union and the United States.
17:14Of course, many people believe that the landing was staged
17:18to ensure that the U.S. got the upper hand on their Cold War rivals.
17:21Others believe that it was simply used as a distraction
17:24from the disastrous Vietnam War.
17:26Wow, Neil Armstrong!
17:28Hey, wait a minute.
17:29You're supposed to be on the moon.
17:31I just saw it on TV.
17:32Oh, there's a tape delay and solar winds.
17:41Number three.
17:42Who killed JFK and why?
17:44People got to know.
17:45People got to know why he was killed.
17:48Because he was a communist.
17:51In Dallas, Texas, on November 22nd, 1963,
17:54Lee Harvey Oswald assassinated American President John Fitzgerald Kennedy.
17:59While the Warren Commission claimed that Oswald acted alone,
18:02many people believe the president was murdered for a far bigger reason.
18:06While there are dozens of theories regarding the assassination,
18:08with blame being placed on the Soviets, the Cubans, and even the mafia,
18:12one theory suggests that Kennedy's vice president,
18:15Lyndon B. Johnson, may have been involved.
18:18Johnson has been accused of disliking the Kennedys
18:21and was worried that he may be dropped from the Kennedy ticket in 1964.
18:25But more importantly, Kennedy conspiracy theorists think
18:28the government is aware of what happened and have consistently covered it up.
18:32And once you conclude the magic bullet could not create all seven of those wounds,
18:36you have to conclude that there was a fourth shot and a second rifleman.
18:42And if there was a second rifleman,
18:45by definition, there had to be a conspiracy.
18:48Number two.
18:49The whole story behind 9-11.
18:51It's a different kind of detonation.
18:54They would not leave detonator cords and devices
18:57as they do in traditional, more economical detonations.
19:02This is a very different kind of operation.
19:04When the Twin Towers were attacked on September 11, 2001,
19:08many people immediately believed that this was something more than an act of terrorism.
19:13Similar to the attack on Pearl Harbor,
19:15some claim that the U.S. government had ample warning about the attacks
19:19but chose to ignore them so they would have a motive for initiating a war in the Middle East.
19:24Others believe that the towers collapsed as a result of a controlled demolition,
19:28which once again, the Bush administration could use to support invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq.
19:34There's a lot of circumstantial claims, a lot of innuendo,
19:37a lot of whack-a-mole, which you explain one thing away and they mention something else,
19:41and it never ends.
19:42But the reality is, this far out,
19:45no one has been able to provide a single piece of evidence
19:48that those buildings were explosively demolished.
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20:06Number 1. Aliens exist.
20:08That wasn't a dream, Carmen. Those were visitors.
20:11No, it was just a dream. My mom said so. Visitors are real.
20:14Yeah, they abduct people and they mutilate cows.
20:16Shut up, you guys. You're just trying to make me scared. And it's not working.
20:20Whether it's Area 51 or the Roswell crash,
20:23we seem to have an obsession with alien conspiracy theories.
20:26In 1947, a United States Air Force surveillance balloon crashed near Roswell, New Mexico,
20:32but some people would have you believe that it was actually an alien spacecraft.
20:36If it was a spacecraft, it was likely moved to Nevada's Area 51,
20:41where theorists claim that the U.S. government examines alien technology and houses alien life
20:46forms. Although documents have revealed that Area 51 was actually used as a testing location
20:52for spy planes, people still believe that this is all just a cover-up for the existence of
20:57extraterrestrial life. You expect me to believe
21:02that a flying saucer came down and took your friend away to outer space?
21:09That's the truth, mister. That's exactly what happened.
21:12What do you think are the most far-fetched things people think America is hiding?
21:16Tell us in the comments.
21:17You were part of a campaign to delegitimize a president of the United States? Matters, no?
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