Conspiracy Theories
The world’s most controversial events, and the complex beliefs behind them. From Bigfoot sightings to bitcoin takeovers, alien landings to assassinations, who’s shaping the narrative — and why? Conspiracy Theories is a Spotify Podcast. New episodes Wednesdays.Watch episodes and more on YouTube: www.youtube.com/@ConspiracyTheoriesPodcast
Episodes
Fake News and Forgeries: How MI6 Manipulated Americans
As Germany conquered Europe in 1940, the UK desperately needed foreign reinforcements. When the American people hesitated to help, MI6 conspired to secretly change their minds. But how far did the influence go? Conspiracy theories suggest t…
Helena Blavatsky: The Most Interesting Woman in the World?
Most of what we know about Helena Blavatsky’s life seems improbable. In her 59 years on Earth, she was a young Russian aristocrat. A Parisian circus performer. A concert pianist in England. A clairvoyant. A medium. A telepath. An author. A …
The Gerry Irwin Incident
Driving through the remote Utah desert on the way back to his military base, 23-year-old Private Gerry Irwin witnessed what he thought was a plane crash. He pulled over and ran off into the darkness to help the survivors… and woke up in the…
The Smurl Family Haunting
In 1973, Jack and Janet Smurl move into a modest duplex in West Pittston, Pennsylvania, hoping for a fresh start. What follows is more than a decade of escalating disturbances: strange smells, disembodied voices, levitations, physical assau…
The 600 Lives of Fidel Castro
When Fidel Castro overthrew Cuba’s dictator in 1959, the Communist leader and provocateur quickly became a threat to the U.S. government. The CIA has been proven responsible for at least eight plots against Castro’s life. Despite the creati…
TWA Flight 800: The Plane That Exploded Mid-Air
On July 17th, 1996, about 13 minutes into a direct flight from New York to Paris, TWA Flight 800 exploded in mid-air, killing all 230 people on board. An extensive investigation concluded that the most likely culprit was a mechanical issue.…
Australia’s Area 51
First, they said Pine Gap was for space research. Then, it was a weather station. It’s now called a defense base, but Australians often refer to it as their country’s Area 51. Some suspect the facility is housing alien life and giant UFOs t…
Was the “Pirate King” also the King’s Spy?
In 1695, “The Pirate King” Henry Every pulled off a heist, evaded a global manhunt, and vanished with his newfound treasure. He was never found…or was he? A new theory suggests the King of England not only knew what happened to Henry – he h…
Japan’s Evaporated People
Imagine you wake up tomorrow and the person you depend upon most in this world is gone. No trace, no goodbyes, just vanished. Then, you find out they planned their disappearance — and have no intention of returning. In Japan, this phenomeno…
What’s Under the Pyramids of Giza?
Earlier this year, Dr. Corrado Malanga and Dr. Filippo Biondi claimed they’d made a massive discovery at the Giza Complex in Egypt. Using Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) data, combined with their own new technology, they said they’d located …
Time-Slipping Through Europe
We can’t hop in a time machine and set it to a specific year…yet. But what if we can unwittingly slip through time, briefly, to another year – with no control over when or where it happens? There have been multiple documented cases of alleg…
Secret Nazi Bases in Antarctica
Did Germany secretly establish a base in Antarctica prior to World War II? In 1947, the U.S. Navy launched the largest expedition to the southernmost continent ever attempted. Some believe they were hunting Nazis. And the idea that the Germ…
The (Faked?) Death of an Argentine Tycoon
“Power is having impunity.” In January 1997, a photojournalist is found murdered on the side of the road in General Madariaga, Argentina. The investigation into his death becomes a cultural flashpoint, exposing a sprawling conspiracy with t…
Who Shot Vincent Van Gogh?
For over a century, common belief was that Vincent Van Gogh died by suicide. But in 2011, two Pulitzer Prize-winning biographers suggested the art world had it all wrong, and Vincent covered up his own homicide. Keep up with Conspiracy The…
Untraceable Poison? The Bogle-Chandler Mystery
On New Year’s Day in Sydney, Australia, two dead bodies are discovered near a river. Dr. Gilbert Bogle and Margaret Chandler are married – but not to each other. And both of their spouses have strong alibis.They’re found just hours after dy…
Fluoride + Communism = Mind Control?
Fluoride and its presence in public water has become a hot-button issue in the United States. More and more communities and government officials are rethinking whether the benefits fluoride provides our teeth outweigh its potential health r…
Are Octopuses Aliens??
In 2018, a peer-reviewed article published in Progress in Biophysics and Molecular Biology suggested the theory that octopuses could have extraterrestrial origins. As in, they’re not regular Earthlings. The 33 scientists who authored the pa…
New Age Conspirituality
American New Age culture isn’t all crystals and Tarot cards. A New World Order? The Aryan race? Alien-human hybrids? Throughout history, New Age belief systems have so often been blended with wild, and sometimes dangerous, conspiracy theori…
Three Men Escaped Alcatraz, Evaded the FBI, and Lived Secret Lives
Alcatraz was designed to be inescapable. But in 1962, three men broke out. The FBI concluded the inmates died in the San Francisco Bay. But some family members are convinced they made it out alive – and lived secret lives for decades. Keep…
The Kinross Incident: Did a UFO Abduct an Entire Jet?
In 1953, an Air Force jet took off from Michigan’s Kinross Air Force Base in pursuit of an unknown aircraft, or bogey. As the jet approached the mystery aircraft, the two dots representing them on a radarscope appeared to merge – just befor…
Buried Gold: How the FBI Got Involved In a Treasure Hunt
A legend tells of a cache of Civil War-era gold buried somewhere in the hills of Elk County, Pennsylvania. Over the past few decades, treasure hunters have descended upon the community of Dents Run to seek their fortune – and to find out if…
The Short Reign and Mysterious Death of Pope John Paul I
In the early 1970s, when he was still an Archbishop, Albino Luciani caught wind of a shady banking scheme involving Italian banker Roberto Calvi and the Vatican. Years later – and just 33 days into his tenure as Pope John Paul I – he was fo…
The Assassination of Malcolm X Pt. 2
After Malcolm X was assassinated, three men were arrested. Despite holes in the investigation and the prosecution’s case, all three went to prison. In the years that followed, people close to Malcolm insisted there was more to the story. Bu…
The Assassination of Malcolm X Pt. 1
Malcolm X’s radical ideas about racial justice won him many followers, and spawned just as many enemies. When Malcolm X was assassinated in 1965, three men were promptly arrested. But for decades, questions have lingered about whether the r…
UFOS, Occultists, Murder Schemes: The Deaths of Miguel and Manuel
Brazil, 1966. Two men in suits were found dead on a hill, surrounded by odd notes, and wearing lead eye masks. With no sign of violence, police were baffled. Theorists linked the men to occult rituals, criminal conspiracy, and maybe even al…
The Dark Truth Behind Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas
In 1973, author and activist Oscar Zeta Acosta told his son he was getting on a boat, and would see him soon. But Acosta was never seen again. Theories range from a drug deal gone wrong, to a faked death, to an FBI assassination.Keep up wit…
Murder in Antarctica?
In May 2000, 32-year-old Australian astrophysicist Rodney Marks died suddenly on an Antarctica base after falling ill just 36 hours earlier. The National Science Foundation (NSF) released a statement saying he most likely died of natural ca…
"My Lady Jane" and the Real Conspiracy to Take the English Throne
Teenager Jane Grey was never supposed to be Queen of England. But in 1553, a complex conspiracy put her on the throne. A year later, another conspiracy led to her death. Historians call Jane a pawn, but she may have been a conspirator herse…
Argentina's Death Flights
In 1976, a military coup led to an authoritarian regime in Argentina. The military and its new leader, Lieutenant General Jorge Rafaél Videla, then launched a campaign to eradicate political dissidents. Thousands of Argentine citizens were …
The Great Hunger of Ireland: Natural Disaster or Man-Made Genocide?
In the mid-19th century, British-occupied Ireland lost roughly one-third of its population during a years-long catastrophe known as “The Great Hunger” or, “The Irish Potato Famine.” In the years that followed, some have wondered if the trag…
JFK Revisited: FBI Finds 2,000 More Documents
In early 2025, the FBI announced that they had found more than 2,000 new records related to John F. Kennedy’s assassination. What do they include? Why did it take so long to find them? How many will be made public? The world waits to find o…
The Dead Minister Who Lived
When youth minister, husband, and new father Wesley Barrett Cox goes missing in rural Texas in 1984, authorities and his family assume he’s the victim of foul play. But after more investigation, some law enforcement officials think Cox inte…
The Fall of the Georgia Guidestones
In the summer of 2022, an explosion destroyed the granite monument known as The Georgia Guidestones. Modeled after Stonehenge, the structure was built in 1980 and backed by a mysterious group of sponsors led by pseudonymous figure RC Christ…
The Colossal Reach of the Tartarian Empire
An alternative-history conspiracy theory has been taking root on YouTube and Reddit forums. It alleges that a long-enduring, advanced society called Tartaria built much of our perennial architecture worldwide. After a catastrophic mudslide …
I Fought the Law: The Death of Bobby Fuller
In 1966, Bobby Fuller was a rising rockstar. His eponymous band and their song "I Fought the Law" was climbing the charts when he suddenly died. As is the case with many rockstars, theories about his death abound. Was his death really an ac…
Roswell of Texas: The Aurora UFO
In 1897, locals of Aurora, Texas reported a UFO had crashed in their town. They supposedly discovered the body of an extraterrestrial, buried it in the cemetery, and never spoke of it again. Decades later, an Aurora resident claims the whol…
The Mysterious Death of the Manson Family Lawyer
In 1969, the Manson Family disrupted the “Summer of Love” when they murdered multiple people across a two-night span in Los Angeles. After Charles Manson and his followers were caught later that year, one of the strangest and most highly-pu…
Curse of the Crying Boy
On September 4, 1985, a British tabloid published a story attributing dozens of fires to a painting of a crying boy that had been mass produced in the 50s. After each fire, nothing survived but the painting, unscathed. Was the painting curs…
The Death of Ned Doheny
Ned Doheny, the only heir to one of the world's richest oil baron was found shot to death next to his childhood friend and secretary Hugh Plunkett in 1929. Investigators at the time ruled it a murder-suicide. But to this day, the crime is a…
Death on Aconcagua
In 1973, eight Americans attempted to summit Aconcagua, the highest mountain in the western and southern hemispheres. Only six returned. Sounds like the notoriously deadly mountain collected two more victims.Or maybe that’s just what the ki…