17 Stories That Sound Like Conspiracies, But Aren't

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17 Stories That Sound Like Conspiracies, But Aren't

When it comes to conspiracy theories, the truth is often stranger than fiction.

Published 1 year ago in Creepy

When it comes to conspiracy theories, the truth is often so much stranger than fiction. While flat earthers may ramble on about our (not-so) disc-shaped planet and Q-Anon-ers move the goal post after being debunked for the umpteenth time, a whole lot of bizarre conspiracies — ranging from clandestine biological warfare testing to the CIA dosing test subjects with LSD — have gone on under all of our noses.

From the United States' cheese reserves to Scientology's Operation Snow White, here are 17 things that sound like conspiracy theories that are completely true.

1
“The UK government secretly tested biological weapons on its own coastal towns to see how far they could make it inland.”

2
“The Greenbrier Bunker. People love conspiracies about huge underground complexes built for the rich and famous to survive nuclear fallouts (think Denver airport), and that's exactly what Greenbrier is. The bunker was built under the Greenbrier Resort for congresspeople to escape to, and was kept a secret for 30 years, even though people suspected ("why's there a 7,000 foot air strip for a town of 3,000 people?"). For the entire time it was functional, every congressperson was assigned a bunk. These days you can take tours, and I'm sure we'll hear about the next bunker once it's defunct.”

3
“Operation Snow White Basically, during the 70s the Church of Scientology was concerned with all the bad press surrounding them and all the other dirt on them that could be released. So they used a huge number of contacts that they had in various US government agencies to destroy all negative information about the church of Scientology and L. Ron Hubbard. The crazy thing is, they succeeded with much of the plan before they were caught. There was a ton of negative info on Scientology in the 70s, possibly enough to destroy the church, and it'll never see the light of day because they used their huge influence to have it destroyed.”

4
“The pentagon has an insane number of bathrooms because as they were building it, the segregation of bathrooms ended.”

5
“Many prisons in the US are private, for-profit companies. They get paid by the head, and also employ the prisoners for pennies per hour to do work like telemarketing. You've probably talked to a prisoner on the phone without realizing.”

6
“The CIA fed unreasonable amounts of drugs to people to document the effects and search for new weapons. I can't imagine taking heroic doses of LSD and then getting grilled by government scientists for days.”

7
“The McDonalds PR machine tried to ruin Stella Liebeck’s life. That coffee was so hot it melted her clothing to her skin. People still believe she was at fault. I turn it around and ask how they’d feel if a parent accidentally spilled coffee on their child that was so hot it melted the child’s clothes to her/his body. Somehow it usually wakes people up.”

8
‘“A main ingredient in the flavor of Coca-cola still only comes from processing cocoa leaves into cocaine. The extract goes to the Coca-cola flavor profile, and the cocaine that is produced as a by-product gets sold to the health industry for medicinal use. There is only one company in the US authorized to do this that has had a special arrangement with the DEA for nearly 100 years.”

9
In 2017, Apple admitted that they intentionally slowed older iPhones without informing customers. Though the company said this was to help preserve battery life, some speculated this was to encourage people to purchase newer models.

10
“Government Surveillance: Whistleblower Edward Snowden revealed in 2013 that the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) was conducting mass surveillance on citizens, collecting data from internet communications, phone calls, and other sources.”

11
“That the Ministry of Information in the UK spread misinformation that eating lots of carrots could improve night vision during WWII. They made this up to confuse the Germans. They had a new radar tech that allowed them to pinpoint German bombers from greater distances than before, and the carrot story was a ruse. That said, I don't know what's true on the internet these days, so I'm half waiting for the comment that this story in itself was a ruse…”

12
“The Stolen Generation in Australia. Up until the f—ing 19[70s] the Australian government, euthanized, sterilised and ripped children from their parents in order to try to "civilise" the native Aboriginal people by educating the black out of them.”

13
“The United States has a 1.4 billion pound stockpile of cheese stored in caves in Missouri.”

14
“The U.S. Public Hearth ‘Service’ chose not to treat 400 African-American with syphillis in Alabama so they could study the progress of the disease if untreated.”

15
“Winston Churchill had a plan called "Operation Unthinkable" to invade the Soviet Union in a surprise attack immediately after the end of WWII. His plan was finally shot down when it was learned that the Soviet troops remaining outnumbered allied troops 3:1.”