5 Most Insidious Conspiracy Theories
of 2014
Ripped from the headlines, these
fabrications were spread by politicians, pundits and social media.
http://www.alternet.org/5-most-insidious-conspiracy-theories-2014?page=0%2C3
Photo
Credit: Glynis Sweeny
December 5, 2014 |
Conspiracy
theories are like bellybuttons, everyone has one but some are just out there
more than others. This year, the Internet was rife with vile gossip and wild
beliefs; I couldn’t even possibly list all the wacky new chemtrail and
illuminati theories in just one article. And let’s just quickly drive a stake
through the rumors that Ebola victims are rising from the dead, reptilians disguised as humans run the U.S.
government, and Pharrell, Keanu Reeves and Madonna are actually vampires.
I’ve
found that the conspiracy theories spread most widely — and the ones that
seem plausible to many, unfortunately — are those based on current
headlines and often propagated by public figures such as politicians,
celebrities and media figures. They travel by word-of-mouth at light speed and
become “a known fact.” These theories are often believed by those who assume
there must be a coherence behind world events and occurrences don't
just happen randomly. Using that as our criteria, here are the most insidious
conspiracy theories of 2014.
1. MH370 landed
at a U.S. military installation.
The continuing lack of firm evidence about the fate of the missing Malaysian
Airways jetliner has conspiracy theorists wagging their tongues. Speculation
ranges from alien abduction to the airplane entering into a lost dimension.
This speculation has been, in part, spurred by the inexplicable sequence of
flight events leading to the plane’s disappearance and the nonstop coverage of
the story by the news networks, particularly CNN, whose anchors even began
to entertain wild theories on
the air while there was little news to report.
Ironically,
CNN conducted a poll months after MH370 disappeared from radar in
March. It found that some 10% of Americans believe that “space aliens, time
travelers or beings from another dimension” played a part in the airliner's
disappearance. Moreover, 21% of poll respondents believe that at least some of
the people on the flight survived and they may have landed or crash-landed in
some remote area.
One
of the more popular theories is that the plane landed on Diego Garcia, a small
British atoll in the Indian Ocean where the U.S. operates several strategic
military facilities. Conspiracy theorists have long contended that the
site has been used by the CIA for “black ops” missions, including the
detainment, interrogation and torture of terrorists and political enemies.
Inspired
by conspiracy blogger Jim Stone,
theorists continue to insist that MH370 was diverted to Diego Garcia because some
“high-value” targets were on the flight from Kuala Lumpur to
Beijing. Some believe the plane was diverted to keep 20 employees
of Freescale Semiconductor from arriving in Beijing, because they
held U.S. intelligence secrets the CIA feared would fall into the hands of the
Chinese government. Other versions of the conspiracy theory say that the
Freescale employees had been working on a drone smaller than a housefly that could
used in biochemical warfare.
Conspiracy
theorists, however, cannot seem to agree on the ultimate fate of the plane’s
crew and passengers. Some speculate they have all become permanent detainees on
the island, while others claim that only the high-value targets on the
plane were spared and could even be secretly working on U.S. defense
projects from Diego Garcia.
To
further solidify their Diego Garcia theory, conspiracy theorists quickly
acknowledged a claim found on the Internet that an American passenger, Philip
Wood, sent GPS coordinates and an image over a cellphone text
message, proving the plane had landed on the atoll. Not long after the Philip
Wood theory was introduced it was quickly debunked by numerous tech-savvy Internet users who
now believe the origin of the text was likely some tomfoolery by users
of 4Chan, an Internet subculture site.
2. MH370 and MH17
were the same airplane. Unhappy
that the Diego Garcia theory didn’t pan out, other conspiracists
were quick to jump on the
notion that MH17, the Malaysian Airways airliner widely assumed to
be shot down over the Ukraine by Russian-backed separatists in July, was
actually MH370 and the passengers on that plane were actually the
corpses from the missing plane.
5 Most Insidious Conspiracy Theories
of 2014
Ripped from the headlines, these
fabrications were spread by politicians, pundits and social media.
Continued
from previous page
This
theory took hold on Twitter only minutes after news broke of the Boeing 777’s
mid-air explosion and crash and later spread like wildfire on YouTube. The theory is that the first
Malyasian airliner was hijacked and taken to a secret destination for
storage, where it was rigged with explosives. It was then flown over
the Ukraine/Russian border where it was blown up to implicate one
party in the ongoing civil war. Some speculate that the CIA was behind this
elaborate “false flag” plot, while others point to the New World Order — a
shadowy power elite that secretly controls the world — as staging
this to instigate a third world war.
While
both planes were Boeing 777s, MH17 was built in 1997
and MH370 five years later, and there are subtle differences in the
designs of the planes. Proponents of the idea that the planes were
switched say the photographs they saw of MH17 show a newer
version of the Boeing 777 with an extra window behind the second exit.
The
theory was further promoted by pro-Russian rebels who told the media that the
bodies they saw in the wreckage soon after the crash had been dead for many
days. The separatists also claimed their passports were “pristine” and looked
like they had been planted on the bodies.
Aviation
bloggers, many of them pilots themselves, were quick to debunk the extra window
theory, and the pro-Russian separatists have not been the most trustworthy
sources with other information about the shooting down of
the MH17, making their claims dubious at best.
Conspiracy
theorists are fond of arguing that it's naïve to accept coincidences.
It seems more naïve to assume that any organization or government
would have the necessary resources and competence to steal an airplane without
a leaving a trace, keep it hidden for four months during a massive search
operation, and later substitute it for another plane many witnesses saw
take off from Amsterdam earlier that day after being boarded by its
passengers.
3.
The feds blanketed the South with fake snow.
After the Polar Vortex created uncharacteristically Arctic-like conditions in
the South in the early months of the year, several websites and YouTube
videos pushed a conspiracy theory that
the white stuff falling from the sky was not snow, but a plastic impostor
engineered by the federal government for nefarious reasons that were never
really explained.
A
spate of videos cropped up in January and February showing people
unsuccessfully trying to melt this snow with their butane lighters. Instead of
becoming water, the snow changes to a gas with the remaining solid becoming
tinged with black. In some of the videos, the video bloggers claim the snow
gives off a toxic smell. They insist it’s not real snow, but a chemical
geo-engineered by the government and dumped on southern states for nefarious
reasons.
Except
it wasn’t. Meteorologist Mike Stone, who works for CBS affiliate WTVR, explained that what
the video bloggers reported was nothing unusual.
“When
you heat something like this, it goes from a solid to a gas. It’s called
sublimation. It doesn’t go from a solid to a liquid, i.e. melting,” he said.
Meanwhile,
other YouTube users posted their own videos debunking the fake snow reports.
“Bottom
line, if you don’t want to waste five minutes watching this video, butane burns
dirty. The smell is not from the snow, the black on the snow is not because
it’s plastic; it’s because of the butane,” said one video blogger.
Many
of the videos attempting to expose the snow conspiracy have either been taken
down or made private since we first reported this in February, but geo-engineering conspiracy
sites are still promoting the myth of plastic snow.
5 Most Insidious Conspiracy Theories
of 2014
Ripped from the headlines, these
fabrications were spread by politicians, pundits and social media.
Continued
from previous page
4.
The Ebola outbreak is a government plot. Conspiracy
theorists like to blame President Obama for a lot of crazy things, but this one
takes the cake. Soon after the Ebola outbreak in Africa began to make headlines
in August, websites were quick to accuse the Obama administration of all sorts
of crazy things that would together lead to some totalitarian dystopia for the
U.S. It was an amazingly intricate plot: First the government would use
misinformation about Ebola to lull the American public into a false sense of
security; then they would use the disease for deliberate population control,
impose martial law and the survivors would be given a mandatory Ebola vaccine
that would contain an RFID chip to track everyone’s whereabouts. The only
thing that seems to be missing from this string of theories is President
Obama’s Nehru jacket and Persian cat.
Let’s
begin with Sen. Rand Paul, who likes to play the card that he’s a board-certified ophthalmologist whenever
a healthcare issue comes up. Sen. Paul got this parade of crazy rolling when he
insinuated the Ebola virus was metamorphosing into an airborne virus and that
the government knew of it and was covering it up. Even when public health
officials contradicted him, Paul declared that Americans shouldn’t trust
government types and that Ebola was a highly communicable disease despite their
assurances.
Paul
even called Glenn Beck’s radio show to
warn that the world was on the verge of a worldwide pandemic and that Ebola is
“an incredibly transmissible disease that everyone is downplaying, saying it’s
hard to catch.”
Sen.
Paul layered on the crazy, telling a CNN audience that the Obama administration
was deliberately dishonest with the public and that people can get
Ebola just by being near someone who has the disease. "If someone has
Ebola at a cocktail party they're contagious and you can catch it from
them," he said.
Not to
be outdone, other conservatives began to insist that Ebola could become
a bioterrorist threat, even weaponized, according to Fox News. Some
conservative websites conflated the dual messages of government mistrust and
virus weaponization to mean that the Obama administration would use
the virus against large U.S. cities. Freedom Outpost, a popular
Tea Party news site, said that “Obama is free to have
the weaponized version released on the population centers, and he
will also shut down certain parts of the power grid in these highly infected
areas. This will create a pandemic fast.”
The
site claimed the Obama administration’s ultimate and nefarious goal is to
create martial law, a theory it shares with Naomi Wolf. The progressive
author and journalist also claimed that Obama was using the disease as a
convenient pretext for martial law. On her popular Facebook page, which
has more than 100,000 likes, Wolf has insisted that the Ebola crisis is being engineered. “Ebola
here or 'here' means excuse for mass lockdowns,” says Wolf.
This
rant is nothing new for Wolf, who has insisted for nearly a decade that the
country is on the verge of martial law. But on September 5, she went on
an unhinged Facebook rant, insisting that the decision to bring
Rick Sacra, an aid worker in Western Africa, back to the U.S. for
treatment was a deliberate step toward totalitarianism.
Sacra,
a UMass Medical School faculty member who contracted the disease
working in Liberia, never did infect anyone in the U.S. and was
released from a Nebraska hospital weeks later.
Why
would President Obama want to create national chaos and impose martial law?
Because his administration had the cure all along, say his critics,
and they want to force people to get the vaccine. But according to conspiracy
theorists, there’s a little catch; with the injection comes the insertion
of an RFID chip, which will allow the government to track your every
movement.
5 Most Insidious Conspiracy Theories
of 2014
Ripped from the headlines, these
fabrications were spread by politicians, pundits and social media.
Continued
from previous page
The
Obama-mandated RFID chip is based on the well-traveled theory that
the Affordable Care Act would mandate those in the program to have electronic
trackers implanted under their skin. Not only will one's movements and
activities be monitored, the chip will have direct access to its host's bank
account for Obamacare payments. But like Y2K, this conspiracy
theory came and went, only to be supplanted by this new, more
nefarious conspiracy theory about forced vaccination.
It
began when the National Report, a
mock-news website that somehow manages to fool most of the people most of the
time, reported that a CDC whistleblower exposed a heinous plan to use the
pandemic to implant RFID technology through a life-saving vaccine.
Unfortunately, this theory was picked up by Chicken Littles on social
media before other news sites could expose it as a hoax. It continues to make
the rounds.
5.
The Scottish independence referendum was fixed. Soon after the Scottish independence referendum failed in
mid-September, conspiracy theories by some disappointed pro-independence Scots
started to fly on social media. Some claim the vote was suppressed, while
others say the results were rigged. These theories continue to gain
momentum, and as result, a Change.org petition demanding a new vote now has
more than 100,00 signatures.
The
leaders of the “Yes” (Independence) campaign and the referendum’s
officers accept the results of
the vote and refute all accusations of
irregularities. Not a single voter
or poll officiant raised a red flag during the well-scrutinized
polling, verification, vote counting and adjudication processes.
The
first conspiracy of the referendum originated in Russia, a
country not really known for running a tight electoral ship. Its government
observers said the referendum " did not meet international standards," because
the counting rooms were in aircraft hangars with observers watching from the
perimeter. The Russian observer, Igor Borisov, complained in his report
that the U.S. and Great Britain had browbeat the Russians over their
voting procedures in the past, so the complaint appeared to
be little more than a rhetorical tit-for-tat for Western criticism of
Russian elections. Besides, Russian president Vladimir Putin was anxiously
rooting for Scotland to gain its independence, as the Kremlin apparently saw a
successful referendum as a way to rationalize its impulsive takeover of Crimea
from the Ukraine earlier in the year.
The
other "proof" conspiracy theorists provide are two short videos, one
of a supposed election worker using a writing tool to mark on one sheet of paper and another of
a woman moving two ballots from
the “yes” pile to the "no" pile and one ballot from the “no” pile to
the “yes” pile, perhaps to correct a mistake she had made. The second
video was played in a loop to make it seem like the woman was
actively shuffling votes, the first video shows a standard
counting procedure, says referendum officials.
Never
one to back down from a conspiracy theory, Naomi Wolf joined the fracas,
claiming to have spreadsheets that could prove the referendum was
rigged. On her Facebook page, Wolf wrote that she had the names of
400 Scottish voters who say they did not have a Unique Identifying Number, or
a barcode, on the back of their ballots that are used to prevent
impersonation. Oddly, there was no record of any person bringing this
to the attention of a referendum official as balloting took place.
Still,
Wolf eventually presented 500 names of those who said the backs of their
ballots were blank. But on Vice, Scottish freelance writer
Liam Turbett voiced his doubts about
Wolf’s allegations:
"As
it happens, I know my ballot paper did have a barcode, but I can’t
remember many other details about voting, like what color the wallpaper was or
the kind of pen I used. People generally go to the polling station to
vote rather than play tedious memory games, so it seems astonishing
that lots of voters have suddenly remembered a fairly minor detail
about what the reverse of their ballot looked like."
5 Most Insidious Conspiracy Theories of 2014
Continued from previous page
Later, Wolf's protest, as well as those of others, was rejected by Lawyers for Yes, a legal group that supported Independence. On examining the evidence presented by Wolf the group said that “of the 3429 ballot papers rejected at the 32 local counts,
not one was rejected on the ground that the back was blank or anything
like this.” Further, Lawyers for Yes stated that the allegations were an
“impressive collection of misunderstandings, conspiracy theories, and
legal howlers...usefully collected by Naomi Wolf...”
Responding to criticism about her energetic role in
propagating conspiracy theories, Wolf wrote on her Facebook page, "All
the people who are attacking me right now for 'conspiracy theories' have
no idea what they are talking about… people who assume the dominant
narrative MUST BE TRUE and the dominant reasons MUST BE REAL are not
experienced in how that world works."
Australia could boost Ukrainian energy security with coal, uranium
SYDNEY
Dec 11 (Reuters) - Australia could export coal and
uranium to Ukraine to help ease Kiev's over reliance on Russian
energy exports, Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott and
Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko said on Thursday.
Russia has this year annexed Ukraine's Crimea peninsula and given support to separatist rebels in eastern Ukraine, driving relations between Moscow and the West to the lowest point since the Cold War.
Last month Russia suspended coal supplies to Ukraine, a blow to domestic energy suppliers who are struggling with a severe lack of raw fuel for power plants due to the conflict in the industrial east.
Abbott, who has been among the most vocal critics of Russian President Vladimir Putin's actions in Ukraine following the shooting down of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17 in July, proposed Australian commodities as a secure alternative.
"Australia is an energy super power and energy security is very important to Ukraine, particularly given its current vulnerability to supply," Abbott said.
Poroshenko, who is on the second day of a three-day state visit to Australia, signalled Ukraine's interest in importing both coal and uranium.
"We discussed today the possibility of co-operation in the sphere of nuclear energy," he told reporters. "There is the possibility for Ukraine to buy Australian uranium for our nuclear power stations."
Russia has been accused of using its enormous energy reserves as a weapon against former Soviet republics, and Ukraine is eager to diversify supply to avoid more disruptions.
Ukraine had been set to rely on Russian coal to get through the current winter after the war disrupted supplies to thermal power plants (TPP), which provide around 40 percent of the country's electricity.
Australia and Russia signed a bilateral agreement in 2007 enabling uranium exports, but Abbott halted the trade earlier this year in retaliation over MH17.
Australia, which has no nuclear power plants of its own, is one of the world's top exporters of uranium, mining 7,529 tonnes of uranium in fiscal 2011/12, worth A$782 million ($653.83 million), according to government figures.
Australia is the world's second biggest exporter of thermal coal, after Indonesia. ($1 = 1.1960 Australian dollars) (Additional reporting by James Regan in SYDNEY; Editing by Michael Perry)-http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/12/11/australia-ukraine-energy-idUSL3N0TV03K20141211
Russia has this year annexed Ukraine's Crimea peninsula and given support to separatist rebels in eastern Ukraine, driving relations between Moscow and the West to the lowest point since the Cold War.
Last month Russia suspended coal supplies to Ukraine, a blow to domestic energy suppliers who are struggling with a severe lack of raw fuel for power plants due to the conflict in the industrial east.
Abbott, who has been among the most vocal critics of Russian President Vladimir Putin's actions in Ukraine following the shooting down of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17 in July, proposed Australian commodities as a secure alternative.
"Australia is an energy super power and energy security is very important to Ukraine, particularly given its current vulnerability to supply," Abbott said.
Poroshenko, who is on the second day of a three-day state visit to Australia, signalled Ukraine's interest in importing both coal and uranium.
"We discussed today the possibility of co-operation in the sphere of nuclear energy," he told reporters. "There is the possibility for Ukraine to buy Australian uranium for our nuclear power stations."
Russia has been accused of using its enormous energy reserves as a weapon against former Soviet republics, and Ukraine is eager to diversify supply to avoid more disruptions.
Ukraine had been set to rely on Russian coal to get through the current winter after the war disrupted supplies to thermal power plants (TPP), which provide around 40 percent of the country's electricity.
Australia and Russia signed a bilateral agreement in 2007 enabling uranium exports, but Abbott halted the trade earlier this year in retaliation over MH17.
Australia, which has no nuclear power plants of its own, is one of the world's top exporters of uranium, mining 7,529 tonnes of uranium in fiscal 2011/12, worth A$782 million ($653.83 million), according to government figures.
Australia is the world's second biggest exporter of thermal coal, after Indonesia. ($1 = 1.1960 Australian dollars) (Additional reporting by James Regan in SYDNEY; Editing by Michael Perry)-http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/12/11/australia-ukraine-energy-idUSL3N0TV03K20141211
No Uranium Stockpile Shipment out of Iran: AEOI Chief
December 09, 2014 - 16:27
TEHRAN (Tasnim) - Head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI) Ali Akbar Salehi made it clear on Tuesday that the country will not transfer any shipment of uranium to any country for conversion into fuel for nuclear reactors.
“We will not give any fuel to anybody, and we are not planned
to transfer any fuel out of the country,” Salehi told reporters in
Tehran on Tuesday.
He made the comments in reaction to media speculations that Tehran would transfer part of its uranium stockpile to Russia as part of a final, comprehensive nuclear deal with world powers.
In November, The New York Times claimed that under a proposed agreement, Russia would convert the uranium into specialized fuel rods for Iran’s Bushehr nuclear power plant.
Iran and the Group 5+1 (Russia, China, the US, Britain, France and Germany) wrapped up seven days of intensive nuclear talks in Vienna on November 24 without securing a long-awaited comprehensive deal.
They decided to extend talks on Tehran’s peaceful nuclear program for seven more months.
On November 24, 2013, Iran and the G5+1 (alternatively known as the P5+1 or E3+3) signed an interim nuclear deal in the Swiss city of Geneva.
The Geneva deal (the Joint Plan of Action) came into effect in January and expired in July, when the parties decided to extend negotiations until November 24 in the hope of clinching a final deal that would end a decade of impasse over Tehran’s peaceful nuclear energy program.
http://www.tasnimnews.com/English/Home/Single/583617
He made the comments in reaction to media speculations that Tehran would transfer part of its uranium stockpile to Russia as part of a final, comprehensive nuclear deal with world powers.
In November, The New York Times claimed that under a proposed agreement, Russia would convert the uranium into specialized fuel rods for Iran’s Bushehr nuclear power plant.
Iran and the Group 5+1 (Russia, China, the US, Britain, France and Germany) wrapped up seven days of intensive nuclear talks in Vienna on November 24 without securing a long-awaited comprehensive deal.
They decided to extend talks on Tehran’s peaceful nuclear program for seven more months.
On November 24, 2013, Iran and the G5+1 (alternatively known as the P5+1 or E3+3) signed an interim nuclear deal in the Swiss city of Geneva.
The Geneva deal (the Joint Plan of Action) came into effect in January and expired in July, when the parties decided to extend negotiations until November 24 in the hope of clinching a final deal that would end a decade of impasse over Tehran’s peaceful nuclear energy program.
http://www.tasnimnews.com/English/Home/Single/583617
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