Buckle up for a wild ride through history's most shocking conspiracies that turned out to be true! From government experiments to corporate cover-ups, we're diving deep into the real-life stories that sound too crazy to be believed.
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00:00:00Because people have got to know whether or not their president's a crook.
00:00:03Welcome to WatchMojo, and today we're counting down our picks for the top 75 conspiracy theories
00:00:08from the realms of history, politics, science, and more that turned out to be at least somewhat real.
00:00:14At one point, the commander of the ship said, we're not certain of the attack.
00:00:17Another point, they said, yes, we're absolutely positive.
00:00:21Number 75. An illegitimate child.
00:00:24On May 9, 2011, Arnold Schwarzenegger and his wife of 25 years, Maria Shriver,
00:00:29separated. Immediately, people began speculating.
00:00:33A week ago, their 25-year marriage, including seven years as the first couple of California,
00:00:39came to an end with a whimper.
00:00:41There was a rumor that Schwarzenegger had fathered an illegitimate child
00:00:44with his longtime housekeeper, Mildred Baena. Turns out, this rumor was accurate.
00:00:49Just one week after the announcement,
00:00:51the Los Angeles Times revealed that Schwarzenegger's secret son was born in the mid-90s.
00:00:56More than a decade ago, he secretly fathered a child with a household employee.
00:01:01Shriver suspected this and confronted Baena, who confirmed the story.
00:01:05She then approached Schwarzenegger, leading to their separation.
00:01:09It's just one of the disastrous situations that I've created,
00:01:14and it's the worst thing that I've ever done.
00:01:16Number 74. Stormbreaker.
00:01:19Merchandise has delivered many a movie spoiler, and that was the case with Avengers Infinity War.
00:01:24It was rumored that Thor would eventually wield Stormbreaker,
00:01:28a dwarven axe capable of summoning the Bifrost Bridge.
00:01:31Did it have a name?
00:01:34Stormbreaker.
00:01:36Yeah, it's a bit much.
00:01:37A Funko Pop of Thor was leaked shortly before the movie's theatrical release,
00:01:41and wouldn't you know it, he was wielding Stormbreaker.
00:01:44Another Lego playset spoiled the Nidavellir subplot,
00:01:47complete with the auxiliary pod of Benatar and Groot holding the handle of Stormbreaker.
00:01:52Needless to say, some viewers were not surprised
00:01:55when Thor finally got his hand on the legendary weapon.
00:01:58I told you. You'd die for that.
00:02:03Number 73. So Many Additives.
00:02:07Processed foods might be convenient,
00:02:09but are often loaded with salt, sugar, preservatives, and additives.
00:02:12New research shows that highly processed foods can be as addictive as smoking and alcohol.
00:02:18Just think about that.
00:02:19Over 10,000 additives are allowed in the United States.
00:02:22Some are banned overseas.
00:02:24For example, potassium bromate, which is used as a flour improver,
00:02:29has been linked in animal products, such as milk and dairy.
00:02:32Potassium bromate, which is used as a flour improver,
00:02:36has been linked in animal studies to cancerous tumors,
00:02:39and is banned in Canada, the UK, and EU.
00:02:42It's not just potassium bromate, but many other chemicals and substances
00:02:47that are banned here in Europe over health concerns, but considered safe by the FDA.
00:02:53Another common additive is TBHQ, used to prevent spoilage in oils and fats.
00:02:58Some studies have found that very high doses are carcinogenic,
00:03:02although other studies have concluded the opposite.
00:03:04The chemical used to extend shelf life is found in hundreds of processed foods.
00:03:09When it comes to additives, one fast food treat isn't going to kill you,
00:03:13but there are lots of reasons not to recommend overconsumption.
00:03:17Number 72. Destroyed Props.
00:03:20With its thought-provoking story, pioneering visual effects, and incredible art direction,
00:03:252001 A Space Odyssey is director Stanley Kubrick's magnum opus.
00:03:30Open the pod bay doors, Hal.
00:03:34I'm sorry, Dave. I'm afraid I can't do that.
00:03:37Most of the props and miniatures have never been seen again.
00:03:40That's because Kubrick had them destroyed.
00:03:43It sounds like a conspiracy theory about an auteur director doing something eccentric,
00:03:48but in this case, the story is real.
00:03:50What are you talking about, Hal?
00:03:52This mission is too important for me to allow you to jeopardize it.
00:03:57Yup, Kubrick had everything destroyed after filmmaking was complete
00:04:01so that other filmmakers and studios couldn't steal his creations.
00:04:05However, a few items survived, including the Ares 1B translunar space shuttle,
00:04:10which sold in 2015 for $344,000.
00:04:15Dave, this conversation can serve no purpose anymore. Goodbye.
00:04:21Number 71. Not-so-egg-cellent.
00:04:24What came first, the chicken or the egg sandwich?
00:04:28It's irrelevant, isn't it?
00:04:28Causality.
00:04:29Stupid. The chicken, obviously.
00:04:31Well, where did the chicken come from?
00:04:32Well, it came from the...
00:04:35While this treat is a staple on most fast food menus,
00:04:38the eggs used in these meals can be more processed than you'd like to imagine.
00:04:43Rumors have claimed that McDonald's uses fake eggs in their sandwiches, but this is untrue.
00:04:48We crack so many eggs every single day that our crew members have become real experts at it.
00:04:53They use real eggs along with preservatives,
00:04:56which used to be prepared in liquid margarine until the company switched to butter.
00:05:00But some companies do add various other hard-to-pronounce ingredients.
00:05:05For example, the egg omelette at Subway includes a
00:05:08premium egg blend that contains propylene glycol,
00:05:12a liquid used in antifreeze that's common in packaged foods.
00:05:16If you just want eggs in your eggs, you're better off preparing them at home.
00:05:20Is this all the eggs we have?
00:05:22Yes. What are you making?
00:05:25Eggs.
00:05:26Number 70. Los Narcos Satanicos.
00:05:29To the outside world, Adolfo de Jesus Costanzo was just another
00:05:33face in the crowd of the Mexican Gulf Cartel.
00:05:36The underworld, however, knew the truth.
00:05:38Costanzo and his followers were a dangerous group.
00:05:41In 1989, the world discovered that the Cuban-American crime lord led an occult gang.
00:05:47Dubbed Los Narcos Satanicos by the media, Costanzo and his followers killed at least 16 people,
00:05:54including one American student, as part of a ritual sacrifice.
00:05:58Authorities say that the devil worship and human sacrifice practiced here
00:06:01may be a brand of voodoo or black magic that comes from the Caribbean and Cuba.
00:06:05Many of their bodies were discovered on his ranch.
00:06:08With the authorities on their tail, the gang fled to Mexico City,
00:06:12where Costanzo instructed one of his followers to shoot him.
00:06:15The rest of his group were arrested and sent to prison.
00:06:19Number 69. Expired meat.
00:06:22Sure, selling expired meat isn't the norm, but this case still freaks us out.
00:06:26Ugh, what's that smell?
00:06:27It's either bad meat or good cheese.
00:06:29In 2014, local reporters caught workers at a factory in Shanghai, China,
00:06:34repackaging expired beef and chicken.
00:06:37Some of the meat was a year past its expiration date.
00:06:44Reporters also filmed workers throwing food that had fallen on the floor into processing machines.
00:06:49The supplier provided meat to McDonald's, KFC, and Pizza Hut in China.
00:06:54A Chinese court issued millions in fines and sentenced 10 employees to jail time.
00:07:00Factory owner OSI Group, an American company based in Aurora, Illinois,
00:07:05declared the verdict unjust.
00:07:07Maybe they were just hangry. Care for some expired meat?
00:07:18Number 68. Synanon.
00:07:20Synanon began as a drug treatment center founded by Charles Diedrich in 1958.
00:07:31The rehabilitation program soon morphed into an alternative community
00:07:35that practiced a truth-telling game in which members were ridiculed as a form of therapy.
00:07:40This game quickly became a tool for Diedrich to brainwash his members into slave labor
00:07:45and unusual practices like shaving their heads and undergoing mass sterilizations.
00:07:50It didn't take long for rumors from ex-members to filter out into the general public.
00:07:55The world at large learned about the cult when Diedrich and some of his members
00:07:58were implicated in the attempted murder of one of their critics.
00:08:03That came to a head when attorney Paul Morantz was almost killed by a rattlesnake
00:08:07placed in his mailbox. Chuck Diedrich and two other members were convicted of conspiracy to
00:08:11commit murder. Facing a long list of crimes, including tax fraud, Synanon shut its doors in 1991.
00:08:19Number 67. I'm melting.
00:08:22Legend has it that if you leave Chicken McNuggets out for too long,
00:08:25they won't just warm up, they'll completely melt into a puddle.
00:08:32Oh, what a world, what a world. Who would have thought a good little girl like you could
00:08:37destroy my beautiful kitchen? We can't confirm this ourselves, but there is a possible explanation
00:08:43for this claim. McDonald's nuggets are breaded white chicken meat, along with some other
00:08:47ingredients. According to Eat This, Not That, many of the ingredients are water-based binding agents,
00:08:53which could apparently cause the nuggets to break down when left out in the elements.
00:08:57Does anyone want to grab a spoon?
00:09:00Why do you think they call these things McNuggets?
00:09:02Number 66. Spider-Man.
00:09:05Fans were over the moon when the MCU started introducing the idea of the multiverse.
00:09:10Who the hell are you? I'm Peter Parker.
00:09:13That's not possible. I am Spider-Man in my world.
00:09:17The excitement reached a fever pitch when, in December 2020, Collider reported that Andrew
00:09:22Garfield and potentially Tobey Maguire would appear in the upcoming No Way Home. However,
00:09:27Spider-Man Tom Holland was adamant that they were not in the film,
00:09:31and Garfield repeatedly denied his involvement. Of course, few believed them.
00:09:36I just have this sense that...
00:09:40that he needs my help. Our help.
00:09:42And sure enough, they had substantial cameos in the movie,
00:09:46adding buckets of nostalgia to the adventure.
00:09:48Like, does it just come out of your wrists, or does it come out of anywhere else?
00:09:53Only... only the wrists.
00:09:54Number 65. Suspect Salads.
00:09:58If you're at the drive-thru line and you think you're making a good choice by choosing a salad,
00:10:02you're certainly not alone.
00:10:04I ordered you the spinach salad. I hope that's okay.
00:10:06However, that salad may just be as unhealthy as a cheeseburger and fries.
00:10:11It sounds impossible, but hear us out.
00:10:13I'm listening.
00:10:14If you take a close look at the calorie count on the various salads from popular fast food
00:10:18restaurants, especially if you're adding creamy dressing and crispy chicken, it may really shock
00:10:24you. Not to mention the intense amounts of sodium that these meals can have in them.
00:10:37Number 64. Brangelina.
00:10:40In the mid-2000s, Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie starred in Mr. and Mrs. Smith,
00:10:45an action comedy about married assassins ordered to kill each other.
00:10:49Don't! Come on!
00:10:51At the time, Pitt was in a very public relationship with Jennifer Aniston, whom he married in 2000.
00:10:58One thing he always, Brad, would always say to me is,
00:11:00you know what, we're just gonna just do the best we can.
00:11:02But they separated in January 2005, and a few months later, Pitt accompanied Jolie to Kenya.
00:11:09This led to speculation that they were now a couple, which was confirmed when Jolie announced
00:11:14she was pregnant with Pitt's child, who was born in May 2006.
00:11:18It also led to allegations that Pitt had an affair with Jolie while still married to Aniston.
00:11:23Jolie denied this, while admitting that she did fall in love with
00:11:26Pitt while filming Mr. and Mrs. Smith.
00:11:30Number 63. Calorie mayhem.
00:11:33Calories aren't bad. A calorie is a unit of energy, and you need energy to live.
00:11:38Did you know that the food you eat becomes energy?
00:11:40Boom. That's spaghetti. Nachos. It's a cookie.
00:11:46All foods have calories. In fact, that's kind of what makes it food.
00:11:51However, eating not enough or too many calories can be unhealthy.
00:11:54How many calories will go into your body when you consume this particular product?
00:11:58A 2013 study from Harvard Medical School found that participants
00:12:02underestimated the calorie content of fast food.
00:12:05Depending on various factors, most people require between 2,000 and 2,500 calories a day.
00:12:16Some fast food meals, especially trios, actually contain over 2,000 calories.
00:12:22As of 2018, major fast food chains in the U.S. have to list calories on menus.
00:12:28It's a good idea to pay attention to them.
00:12:30Number 62. Nixxiom.
00:12:33Nixxiom was a self-help organization that ultimately
00:12:36turned into a cult run by co-founder Keith Raniere.
00:12:39It's a vanguard. Thank you to Vanguard.
00:12:42Nixxiom quickly gained popularity, building its strength to around 700 members at one point.
00:12:48As a group, collectively, we can buy in bulk and we can save a lot of money.
00:12:52Realizing their cult-like nature, some of those individuals left the group
00:12:56and reported their practices to investigative journalists.
00:13:00It would take a 2017 article by the New York Times to publicly reveal
00:13:04that Nixxiom's self-help brand was a front for racketeering and sex trafficking.
00:13:08Honestly, your eyes looked dead. It was very much that feeling of a sociopath.
00:13:12Raniere and former Smallville actress Allison Mack enslaved female members
00:13:17and even branded some of them with his initials.
00:13:20Both were sentenced to prison, although Mack was released in 2023.
00:13:24Number 61. Horse meat scandal.
00:13:28If you say nay to eating horse meat, well, it may already be too late.
00:13:32Especially if you've eaten at Taco Bell's in the UK.
00:13:35You wanna do something fun? You wanna go to Taco Bell?
00:13:39In 2013, scandal rocked Europe's food industry
00:13:42as investigations discovered horse meat in various beef products.
00:13:46In some cases, horse meat made up only a small percentage of the product,
00:13:50but in others, it made up 100%.
00:13:53They feed us horse meat with traces of jockey meat!
00:13:56In Taco Bell's case, the scandal only affected three outlets in Britain.
00:14:00Taco Bell quickly apologized and stopped selling ground beef from that supplier.
00:14:05Apparently, the product never hit their United States chains,
00:14:08so, American eaters, you seem to be in the clear.
00:14:11I would like you to accompany me to Taco Bell.
00:14:15Number 60. The Branch Davidians.
00:14:17The Branch Davidians began as an extremist sect of Seventh-day Adventism in the 1950s.
00:14:23By the early 1990s, after years of living below the radar,
00:14:27they finally drew the attention of the FBI.
00:14:29The feds had received intel suggesting that they were a doomsday cult.
00:14:33The prophets were all given a vision of our time, brethren. You understand that?
00:14:38David Koresh, their messiah, was stockpiling illegal weapons
00:14:42and holding underage wives at his compound in Waco, Texas.
00:14:46On February 28, 1993, ATF agents raided the compound at Waco,
00:14:51but were met with heavy resistance.
00:14:53I recall stepping out of the truck. Almost immediately, I start hearing pops. Pop, pop, pop.
00:14:59They were never able to determine who really shot that first shot.
00:15:02This kicked off a 51-day siege that ended in the ranch being engulfed in flames.
00:15:07Nearly 80 people died. The Waco siege gave birth to an extremist movement
00:15:12that inspired both the Oklahoma City bombing and the modern-day American militia.
00:15:17Number 59. The Number of Ingredients in Chicken McNuggets.
00:15:22Are chicken McNuggets made out of gross pink slime? No, they are not.
00:15:26Sorry, McDonald's truthers. The main ingredient is white, boneless chicken.
00:15:31This pink goop? A photograph that has snaked around the internet with the caption,
00:15:36can you guess what McDonald's food item this is?
00:15:39In 2016, McDonald's removed artificial preservatives from the cooking oil used for McNuggets.
00:15:44Until then, listed ingredients had included the additives dimethylpolysiloxane,
00:15:49an anti-foaming agent, and TBHQ.
00:15:52Starting with whole chickens, the breast meat is set aside to make McNuggets.
00:15:57McNuggets do, however, contain many other ingredients, around 40.
00:16:01Science experts told CNN that McDonald's seems to be giving the straight scoop,
00:16:06though of course there's nothing healthy about all the fat and salt in McNuggets.
00:16:10A lot of this comes from the batter, which includes various leavening agents.
00:16:14Number 58. The Snyder Cut.
00:16:172017's Justice League had a notoriously difficult production.
00:16:25Director Zack Snyder had to step away from the director's chair due to the tragic death of his
00:16:30daughter, after which Joss Whedon reshot much of the movie. The budget balloons to $300 million.
00:16:36Cinematographer Fabian Wagner estimated that only 10% of the material shot with
00:16:41Snyder made it into the film. Unimpressed fans called for the release of a Snyder Cut.
00:16:54As it turned out, Snyder did have a cut, which he kept on a hard drive and never expected to
00:16:59release. Well, as fan demand grew, he was given the budget to expand it into a four-hour epic,
00:17:05released on HBO Max. For the most part, the version was deemed superior to Whedon's theatrical cut.
00:17:11That's why I brought you together.
00:17:16Number 57. Burger Longevity.
00:17:19Do McDonald's burgers never rot? This rumor has been swirling around for quite some time,
00:17:24after folks noticed their abandoned meals held up suspiciously well.
00:17:28So we have a question from Mark H. from Saskatoon. He wants to know, why do your burgers not rot?
00:17:32The reason that this phenomenon occurs doesn't have anything to do with the chemicals used in
00:17:36the cooking process, but is instead due to the burger's preparation as well as the heat
00:17:41conditions of where it is left out. By the time the burger is served, it is already pretty dry
00:17:46because of all the toasting and steaming. So if you keep it in the open air for a long time,
00:17:59it will continue to dry and harden instead of growing any mold. The more you know.
00:18:07Number 56. The People's Temple.
00:18:16Jim Jones founded the People's Temple in Indiana in 1954. It began as a progressive church.
00:18:23Jones supported civil rights and operated homes for the elderly and institutions for
00:18:28mental health treatment. The People's Temple was thought to be close to an egalitarian utopia.
00:18:33Rumors about its true nature soon began to circulate. In 1974, hoping to escape media
00:18:39scrutiny, Jones moved his community to Jonestown, a compound in Guyana.
00:18:44And he took in a lot of people who were disenfranchised, and they loved him. And he
00:18:49mesmerized them. Former members warned authorities that Jones was preparing a mass death. In 1978,
00:18:56Congressman Leo Ryan led a delegation with journalists and staffers to Jonestown.
00:19:01He and three of his delegates were murdered on the orders of Jones,
00:19:05who then fed a poisoned drink to his followers. Over 900 people were killed.
00:19:11Number 55. Non-vegetarian fries.
00:19:14Who knew potatoes weren't vegetarian? Well, they are, but not when you deep-fry them in beef fat.
00:19:20Vegans and vegetarians might assume that deep-fried potatoes are a safe pick.
00:19:24But if you're noshing at a McDonald's in the States, that's not the case.
00:19:28This is exactly what McDonald's was blamed for doing in the US and Canada.
00:19:32In 1990, they had announced that they were switching from beef fat to vegetable oil,
00:19:36but continued to use beef for flavoring purposes.
00:19:39Well, that's whether this seemingly nondescript ingredient contains
00:19:43any beef. Beef has always been key to the distinctive flavor of McDonald's fries.
00:19:47In the early 2000s, several vegetarians and Hindus who don't eat beef for religious reasons
00:19:53filed a lawsuit against the fast food company.
00:19:56Meanwhile, in early May, Harish Bharti, a Hindu lawyer from Seattle,
00:19:59launched a class-action lawsuit against McDonald's, quipping,
00:20:02They say billions and billions served. I say billions and billions deceived.
00:20:07McDonald's apologized and ended up settling the lawsuit,
00:20:11donating $10 million to vegetarian and religious groups.
00:20:15Number 54. The Manson Family
00:20:18Citizens of Los Angeles were aware of the Manson family,
00:20:21and dismissed them as hippies or a Hollywood curiosity.
00:20:26Go shopping, go to work, go home, go shopping. And it was really a drag.
00:20:31And then Charlie blows in, and he just changed everything. And I dropped it all.
00:20:36Their true nature was, however, much more insidious.
00:20:39Celebrities like Angela Lansbury had warned of the dangers of the group
00:20:43after their children were almost recruited, but were seemingly ignored.
00:20:46By the late 1960s, Charles Manson had almost 100 followers,
00:20:51forcing amphetamines and LSD on most of them.
00:20:54We believed that we were cleansing ourselves spiritually.
00:20:58The goal was to achieve an inner harmony.
00:21:02Hippie culture papered over a Christian doomsday cult, preparing for an apocalyptic race war.
00:21:07Manson radicalized his members into carrying out crimes ranging from vandalism to assault.
00:21:12Their spree culminated in 1969 with a series of murders,
00:21:17including the horrific killing of actress Sharon Tate.
00:21:21Number 53. Buried in the Desert
00:21:24In December of 1982, Atari released E.T. the Extraterrestrial, based on Spielberg's iconic movie.
00:21:37The game was notoriously terrible and sold poorly, resulting in the video game crash of 1983.
00:21:43An urban legend circulated that unsold cartridges of the game were buried in a New Mexico landfill.
00:21:50We are going to start digging in a minute.
00:21:52The claim originated in a 1983 article in the Alamogordo Daily News,
00:21:57which claimed that Atari had buried a large assortment of items.
00:22:00This story was finally confirmed in 2014, when buried cartridges were excavated from the landfill.
00:22:07One of them is now on display at the Smithsonian.
00:22:10The legend was so awesome, like, it's kind of a shame to finally figure it out, right?
00:22:14Like, I think it was almost better to be the legend of what it was.
00:22:16Number 52. Heaven's Gate
00:22:19Marshall Applewhite and Bonnie Nettles founded a new church in 1974.
00:22:23Unlike other churches, Heaven's Gate believed that they could get to paradise
00:22:27by hitching a ride on an alien spacecraft.
00:22:30In 1975, they convinced about 20 others to give up all their possessions,
00:22:35abandon their families, and disappear.
00:22:38People in the world who thought that I had completely lost my marbles, they're not right.
00:22:45Walter Cronkite covered the disappearance on CBS Evening News, giving the country a dire warning.
00:22:51The group vanished from thought and memory for years.
00:22:54Your only chance to survive or evacuate is to leave with us.
00:23:04They lived off the grid, traveling the country and camping.
00:23:07In March 1997, they made headlines for the first time in 22 years.
00:23:12Timed to coincide with the appearance of the Hale-Bopp comet,
00:23:15the group assembled in a house in San Diego, where they all ended their own lives.
00:23:21Number 51. Order of the Solar Temple
00:23:24The Order of the Solar Temple began as a New Age spiritual movement in 1984
00:23:30and amassed followers from Canada, Switzerland, and France.
00:23:33The Order transformed quickly into a doomsday cult,
00:23:36raking in members and cash with their dark new philosophy.
00:23:40I actually believed that I was superior to most other people on this planet,
00:23:46that I had been chosen.
00:23:48According to the group's founders, Joseph DiMambro and Luc Jaret,
00:23:52the world was set to end sometime in the mid-90s.
00:23:55As a result, many of the members took their own lives or were killed during that period.
00:24:01In October 1994, police found bodies of the group's followers in burnt buildings
00:24:06in Switzerland, France, and Canada.
00:24:08In all, between September 1994 and March 1997, 74 members of the cult lost their lives.
00:24:16This was not a simple happening, but an apocalypse,
00:24:20the plan for which had been developed over a very long time.
00:24:24Number 50. Colombia's Falsos Positivos
00:24:27We paste this poster to represent the 6,402 false positives,
00:24:35the wrongly named false positives.
00:24:37Eastern Colombia and Western Venezuela are dangerous regions,
00:24:41mostly controlled by gangs and guerrillas. Residents live in constant terror of assassination
00:24:46or torture. The Colombian military has been waging war against FARC guerrillas in the region
00:24:51for years. Recently, they'd racked up major victories, having broken FARC's back in the
00:24:56region. Those victories have been tainted by decades of rumors about government atrocities,
00:25:01dating all the way back to the late 1980s. In 2015, those rumors were proven to be true.
00:25:06The Colombian military kidnapped and killed thousands of innocent men and boys. The
00:25:12military would kidnap civilians, dress their bodies as FARC guerrillas, and claim victories
00:25:17in the war on drugs. Families who lost loved ones were pointing the finger of blame
00:25:22at the president at the time, Alvaro Uribe.
00:25:24Number 49. The Levan Affair
00:25:27Israeli False Flags
00:25:29Many conspiracists falsely see Israel as a hidden hand in world affairs.
00:25:33Every once in a while, though, the conspiracies are true. In 1954, Israel launched Operation
00:25:39Susannah, a false flag operation to blow up relations between Egypt and the U.S. and Britain.
00:25:45Israeli intelligence recruited Egyptian Jews to plant bombs inside civilian targets like movie
00:25:51theaters, libraries, and American educational centers. They were meant to explode after
00:25:56closing to avoid casualties. The plan was to blame local militant groups like communists
00:26:01or the Muslim Brotherhood. If successful, the British would be forced to maintain
00:26:05occupation of the Suez Canal. The plot, since known as the Levan Affair, failed before it began,
00:26:11and several conspirators were arrested.
00:26:14Number 48. The Philadelphia Experiment
00:26:17The 1984 film, The Philadelphia Experiment, is based on an urban legend. Supposedly,
00:26:22in October 1943, merchant marine Carl M. Allen saw the USS Eldridge turn invisible and disappear
00:26:30from the Philadelphia Naval Shipyard. It allegedly teleported to Virginia and back,
00:26:42with harrowing effects on the crew. Most of the story has been debunked,
00:26:46but researcher Jacques Vallée claims that it may hide some truth.
00:26:50He argues that the Eldridge was confused with the Engstrom, which was docked nearby. The Engstrom
00:27:04reportedly underwent a procedure to decrease its magnetic field, making it quote-unquote
00:27:09invisible to torpedoes. It may have also traveled to Virginia and back in a single day via the
00:27:15Chesapeake and Delaware Canal. Imaginative retellings then warped the facts into the
00:27:20improbable Philadelphia Experiment. Number 47. Money Laundering and
00:27:40Terrorism Finance at BCCI Bank of Credit and Commerce International,
00:27:50BCCI, was an international bank created by Pakistani financiers in the early 1970s.
00:27:57Its purported goal was to be an alternative to Western banks for so-called third-world countries.
00:28:03They had an anti-colonial mission to break Western barriers to finance for third-world nations.
00:28:10In truth, BCCI was a Ponzi scheme for its executives. Worse, BCCI engaged in widespread
00:28:25money laundering. The bank was the premier laundering institution for dictators the world
00:28:29over. The leaders of Iraq, Panama, and the Philippines all watched their money at BCCI,
00:28:39as did Latin American drug lords. BCCI drew the criminal roadmap used by international
00:28:45financiers to this day. By the time BCCI closed down, they had stolen almost $10 billion.
00:28:57Number 46. Abuse in Hollywood There have been rumors and accusations of
00:29:02sexual abuse in Hollywood for decades. Often, they involved powerful men with the power to
00:29:06break or make careers. While some, such as Roman Polanski, were exposed, the misconduct of others
00:29:15basically remained an open secret. In the 2010s, dozens of victims came forward with accusations
00:29:21against several prominent public figures, in particular Bill Cosby and Harvey Weinstein.
00:29:26The accusations against Weinstein launched the hashtag MeToo movement,
00:29:30which revealed horrible abuses inside Hollywood and beyond. It confirmed the worst suspicions
00:29:36that many people had about how the entertainment industry often functioned.
00:29:50Number 45. Gas companies knew about climate change
00:29:54From sugary sodas to cancerous cigarettes, corporations have long seeked to suppress
00:29:59harmful truths about their products. But rather than impacting personal health,
00:30:03this one had global implications. Beginning in the 1970s, oil and gas giant ExxonMobil put its
00:30:09money behind climate change research, funding groups that dismissed human-caused global warming
00:30:15while knowing it existed. They even had a hand in the Global Climate Coalition,
00:30:27which fought the Kyoto Protocol, a treaty that pledged to lower greenhouse gas emissions.
00:30:32ExxonMobil's climate denial continued through the 80s, 90s, and 2000s, first admitting that
00:30:38global warming posed an environmental threat in 2007. To this day, climate change's treatment
00:30:44as a debate instead of a consensus can be traced back to the lobbying of fossil fuel companies.
00:30:58Number 44. Breakfast is not the most important meal of the day
00:31:02It's magically delicious, but how about nutritious?
00:31:11While there are plenty of legitimate health benefits to starting the day with a balanced
00:31:15breakfast, that hasn't always been the reason it was pushed so hard.
00:31:19The idea of breakfast being good for health, especially weight loss, has persisted for over
00:31:25a century. After meat-heavy breakfasts went on the decline due to their digestive difficulty
00:31:30during the Industrial Revolution, James Caleb Jackson and John Harvey Kellogg changed the game
00:31:36with flaked corn cereal. As Seventh-Day Adventists, they believed that a bland diet
00:31:42could aid in abstinence and ward off impure thoughts. Furthermore, emphasizing cereal
00:31:56potentially helped the US government in their meat-rationing efforts during World War Two.
00:32:01So, don't worry too badly the next time you miss out on a breakfast of champions,
00:32:05it just might be a clever marketing tactic.
00:32:08Number 43. The CIA drugged citizens without their knowledge
00:32:15As part of a larger program on mind control in the 1950s and 60s, the CIA set their sights on an
00:32:21unlikely population to test the effects of LSD – clients of sex workers.
00:32:26The CIA wanted to understand more about brainwashing. It had money and it was ready
00:32:30to fund experiments. By paying ladies of the night to lure in unsuspecting men,
00:32:35the agency was able to study how the substance could affect people who didn't know they'd taken
00:32:39it – more specifically, whether they were likely to give up compromising information.
00:32:44Hey sugar, you looking for a date? As the sex workers drugged their patrons,
00:32:48CIA consultant George White would analyze their behavior from behind a one-way mirror.
00:32:53What is the extent of these brainwashing experiments?
00:32:58How did the CIA become involved in such far-reaching and disturbing research?
00:33:03Of all the shady CIA experiments, this one quite possibly has
00:33:07the wildest codename – and that's saying a lot – Operation Midnight Climax.
00:33:13Number 42. The Oak Ridge Experiments
00:33:16One of the most difficult aspects for a psychiatric patient is getting anyone to
00:33:20believe you when you speak about the atrocities happening in a hospital.
00:33:27Oak Ridge, in Penatanguishene, Ontario, Canada, was a maximum security psychiatric facility.
00:33:33By the 60s, the authorities drastically changed the way they treated patients.
00:33:37Instead, they initiated various experiments. Led by Dr. Elliot Barker, such treatments included
00:33:43giving patients LSD, putting them in an artificial womb, and placing them in a small room.
00:33:48But more concerning, some patients were given authority to treat other patients.
00:33:58By 1983, the government forced Oak Ridge to close, and it was later demolished. In 2023,
00:34:0327 former patients were awarded $9 million in damages for the horror they experienced.
00:34:19Number 41. The Dalai Lama's Links to the CIA
00:34:26In the early 1950s, Chinese forces annexed Tibet. After a failed Tibetan revolt in 1959,
00:34:33the Dalai Lama escaped and set up a government in exile. Chinese officials have tried to cast
00:34:38him as a Western pawn. Tibetan rebels were fighting for their homeland. However, the CIA
00:34:43did fund their efforts throughout the 1960s. These pictures show the Dalai Lama and his
00:34:48entourage escorted by resistance fighters, making their way south into guerrilla-held territory.
00:34:53At the time, the CIA was doing their best to disrupt world communist governments.
00:34:58Governmental documents showed the spy agency was handing Tibetan forces $1.7 million a year.
00:35:04We are united in detesting communist slavery. We know that the cost of freedom is high,
00:35:10but we are determined to preserve our freedom no matter what the cost.
00:35:15With inflation, that's $17.4 million in 2023. From this figure, the Dalai Lama was personally
00:35:21getting an annual fee of $180,000 from the CIA. That's the equivalent of $1.8 million in 2023.
00:35:29Reportedly, he contributed most of it to his government in exile.
00:35:33Number 40. The FBI watched Ernest Hemingway
00:35:37Near the latter half of his life, legendary author Ernest Hemingway was treated several
00:35:41times in hospitals for his mental health. He believed the FBI was watching him,
00:35:46cataloging his every move. Most people wrote it off as paranoid delusions. Many friends
00:35:51believed that this belief of constant surveillance led to Hemingway's untimely passing in 1961.
00:35:57And so the idea of Ernest Hemingway having done anything with the Soviets,
00:36:02especially having been recruited by the Soviets, was really difficult for me to absorb.
00:36:07However, in the 1980s, the Freedom of Information Act showed the Feds had done
00:36:12just that. They reportedly had a file on him detailing the writer's trips to places such as
00:36:17Cuba, where he had created an amateur spy network against fascism during World War II. It also
00:36:23showed that FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover was distrustful of Hemingway and the information
00:36:28he passed on in Cuba. Number 39. Beaming messages
00:36:33If we told you that the US government had looked at beaming messages directly into our brains,
00:36:37you'd probably be concerned about us. However, this is a real thing, weirdly. Uncovered due to
00:36:43the Freedom of Information Act, the report known as the Bioeffects of Selected Non-Lethal Weapons
00:36:48became public knowledge. Within, the details of various technologies the government had been
00:36:53working on were disclosed, including the concept of microwave hearing. The information details a
00:36:58frequency that could be produced akin to a microwave firearm that could direct discrete
00:37:04messages at a person, such as a hostage. Frighteningly, the report hypothesized the
00:37:09tech could be used to make someone think they have voices in their head.
00:37:18Number 38. Soldiers passed off civilians as rebels
00:37:22As part of the Colombia conflict, where governmental forces fought against guerrilla
00:37:27groups for power, the government rewarded their soldiers whenever they showcased that they had
00:37:31slain a rebel. They were given time off, promotions, or financial boosts for doing so. However, folks
00:37:37became suspicious of the high casualties and the questionable identities of certain guerrilla
00:37:42members, family members especially. Known as the false positive scandal in Colombia, it's believed
00:37:47that between 2002 and 2008, over 6,400 non-guerrilla participants were killed and dressed to look like
00:37:55rebels. In reality, the victims were often poor farmers abducted by soldiers to boost their dark
00:38:07quotas. Several soldiers and officers have been sentenced for their crimes, but there are calls
00:38:12to do far more. Number 37. The U.S. military planned to kill civilians and blame Cuba
00:38:18In the 1960s, some figures really wanted the United States to go to war with Cuba,
00:38:23so much so that in 1962, among less lethal ideas, they planned to use the CIA to attack military
00:38:30sites, boats, airplanes, and cities and make it look as though Cuba was responsible. Known as
00:38:36Operation Northwoods, this false flag project theorized the possibility of slaying citizens
00:38:42and its own soldiers just to escalate the situation. All of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
00:38:46gave the go-ahead for this possible destruction and handed it to the office of President John F.
00:38:51Kennedy. However, thankfully, it was rejected. Number 36. The CIA tried to control major media
00:38:58outlets As the Cold War began, so did the CIA's plan to manipulate the masses. Known as Operation
00:39:04Mockingbird, the group allegedly bribed or blackmailed newspaper journalists to create
00:39:09specific content or shut down stories. On top of doing this in the States, the CIA did the same
00:39:14abroad. They infiltrated foreign media to gain information that they found vital. In 1975,
00:39:21files within the Church Committee showed that the CIA had been involved in this conspiracy.
00:39:26In 1977, investigative reporter Carl Bernstein claimed that the operation had resulted in over
00:39:32400 journalists and media figures working for the agency at one point. Are there many actors in
00:39:37Hollywood who also moonlight as agents, do you think? I think there are probably quite a few,
00:39:41yes. I think probably Hollywood is full of CIA agents and we just don't know it. Number 35. The
00:39:47phones are listening. When you talk about something and then see an ad for it online,
00:39:52it might just be because algorithms already have so much data on you, they can predict your
00:39:56interests and behaviors. And we're talking about the design of the trainers and the name of the
00:40:00brand trainers. And I went to my feed on my Instagram and within five, 10 minutes, it was
00:40:04one of the adverts that popped up on there. However, there is at least one way in which
00:40:08your phone might be listening. Some applications use device microphones to listen to ultrasonic
00:40:13audio beacons inaudible to the human ear embedded in the ads. They can also connect with the
00:40:19microphones of other devices. This can give them data such as your location and how long you watched
00:40:24a certain ad for. It's a good idea to review app permissions to minimize this. Number 34. The CIA
00:40:30was involved in cocaine trafficking. Victory over drugs is our cause, a just cause. And with your
00:40:38help, we are going to win. For decades, there were rumors that the CIA was responsible for
00:40:44turning U.S. areas and places abroad rife with illegal substances. In 1996, the press accused
00:40:50the agency of involvement with cocaine in Nicaragua during the Civil War. According to a
00:40:55report by former Inspector General of the CIA, Frederick Hitz, the agency had known that the
00:41:00Contras, who the CIA backed, were involved in drug smuggling to fund their campaign.
00:41:04And some of the money they were making was going to support an army that the men who ran
00:41:08the cocaine ring worked for called the FDM. This was an army that the CIA started in 1981
00:41:15and supported. Better known to us, most of us who remember, is the Contras. The group had
00:41:20reportedly brought in cocaine from Miami to use in the Central American region. However, the agency
00:41:25did nothing to stop it. As a public elected officials, all of us must be concerned that
00:41:32our government could have anyway been involved in drug trafficking. When the Drug Enforcement
00:41:38Administration heard about the Contras smuggling drugs, the CIA worked to put them off the scent.
00:41:43Number 33. UFO Investigations. The U.S. government may not be investigating UFOs at Area 51,
00:41:50but that doesn't mean that official research isn't happening somewhere. While most of the
00:41:54cases were explained as either satellites, weather balloons, high-flying jets, or even
00:41:59meteors, still hundreds of cases remain unidentified. Project Blue Book, which ran from
00:42:051952 to 1969, was public knowledge. The report includes more than 12,000 sightings made by
00:42:12military members and civilians. But in 2017, it was revealed that from 2007 to 2012, the U.S.
00:42:18government also funded an unpublicized investigation called the Advanced Aerospace Threat
00:42:24Identification Program to the tune of $22 million. In 2020, we learned of another UFO program,
00:42:31the Unidentified Aerial Phenomenon Task Force. Its findings included photos and videos of UFOs
00:42:37that experts have struggled to explain. This was recorded while the U.S. Navy ship observed a
00:42:42number of small unmanned aerial systems in the area. Importantly, the video was taken through
00:42:48night-vision goggles with a single-lens reflex camera. These remained unresolved for several
00:42:54years. Number 32. The U.S. Navy sprayed chemicals into the Bay Area. San Francisco is known for its
00:43:01fog, but it's also been host to sinister substances. One day in 1950, eleven Bay Area residents checked
00:43:08into the same hospital with urinary tract infections. While ten recovered, one died due
00:43:13to a heart valve infection. Finally, in 1977, the U.S. Army revealed it was the result of a
00:43:19biological warfare test called Operation Sea Spray. Weeks before the mysterious infections
00:43:25were reported, the Navy released two types of bacteria off a ship to test their impact on the
00:43:30city's population. Additionally, the Army announced several other bioweapon experiments across the
00:43:35country from the 1950s and 60s that had gone undetected. While President Nixon put a stop to
00:43:41the program in 1969, this revelation isn't any less terrifying. Number 31. Canada tried to create
00:43:48actual gaydar. In the mid-20th century, gay men and women had to keep their orientation secret
00:43:54or risk losing their social standing, jobs, or even their lives. I mean, there's a whole bunch
00:43:58of possible ways in which someone could have a character weakness, right, or some sort of
00:44:02addiction, but the one that the Canadian state focuses on is homosexuality. It was the key focus,
00:44:10not just a focus. In an attempt to ferret out gay men in the military or other government
00:44:15institutions from the 1950s on, the Canadian government hired Professor Frank Robert Wake.
00:44:21Wake invented what they would ultimately call the fruit machine. This is the attempt by the
00:44:26government to determine and find a technology or a set of tests that would scientifically and
00:44:33objectively be able to determine who was gay or lesbian. Today, we'd call it gaydar. Wake would
00:44:40strap men into a chair, force them to look at sexual images, and measure their physical reactions.
00:44:46The Royal Canadian Mounted Police investigated thousands of government employees as a result.
00:44:51The fact of policy was that if you were homosexual, you were out. That's what it
00:44:58came down to. You were out. There was no discretion, and the Mounties got really carried
00:45:04away with this. Many men lost their jobs due to the dubious test results until it was discontinued.
00:45:11Number 30. The CIA experimented on cats. Atomic Kitten isn't just a girl group.
00:45:17The tide is high, but I'm holding on. I'm gonna be your number one.
00:45:26During the height of the spy film craze in the 1960s, the CIA devised an interesting use for
00:45:31our feline friends, turning them into bionic carrier pigeons. In an initiative called Operation
00:45:37Acoustic Kitty, they inserted recording devices into cats so that they could eavesdrop on
00:45:43government officials and bring back secret intel. But in an extremely predictable turn of events,
00:45:49they had little interest in the pursuit of espionage and continued acting like normal cats,
00:45:53causing the tactic to be abandoned. On a Catwoman scale of Eartha Kitt to Zoe Kravitz,
00:45:59it's safe to say that this experiment was a Halle Berry-level misfire. You boys thought
00:46:04you could come in here and steal all these beautiful things. What a perfect idea.
00:46:12Number 29. Weather control programs. The history of the U.S. government's attempts to control the
00:46:17weather began after the Civil War. In the late 1800s, an American engineer collected dozens of
00:46:23stories of rain following large battles. To recreate the effect, a general set off $9,000
00:46:29worth of explosives in Texas. The results were inconclusive. Where people believe that all the
00:46:34natural disasters that have been occurring recently are linked to a secret climate controlling weapon
00:46:39used by the U.S. Army. The better part of a century later, the Pentagon incorporated weather
00:46:44control into their strategy for the Vietnam War. Operation Sober Popeye lasted for five years.
00:46:50Using planes, the military tried to seed rain clouds over Vietnam. The silver iodide particles
00:46:56mimic ice crystals and provide the scaffolding of sorts for ice to form. That ice then grows
00:47:02very efficiently by consuming the super cool liquid drops. Usually after about 20 minutes,
00:47:07they grow large enough and fall out of the cloud as precipitation. If they could extend
00:47:12the monsoon season, it could provide a strategic advantage. A series of news stories revealed the
00:47:18program. Six years later in 1978, weather-based environmental warfare was banned around the world.
00:47:24So maybe the lesson learned here is we shouldn't meddle with forces that we don't really understand
00:47:31because we may not like the result. Number 28. Planned obsolescence. Out with the old,
00:47:38in with the new. It's long been speculated that tech companies like Apple and Samsung have
00:47:43purposely slowed down their existing gadgets after releasing new updates and models. Most people
00:47:49think, you know, my phone is slow, I need to go buy a new phone. But the problem doesn't lie
00:47:54necessarily with the phone, it's just with the battery in the phone. And while the evidence was
00:47:58purely anecdotal at first, the arrival of iOS 10 in 2016 opened up the floodgates,
00:48:04or should we say, battery gate. Months later, Apple admitted that the iPhone 6 and 6s
00:48:10struggled to adjust to the new update, causing slow phones and drained batteries.
00:48:15I think it's on them to do a much better job of helping people understand what goes on with these
00:48:20very expensive products as they get older. In the years since, the company has continued to
00:48:24face class action lawsuits and investigations related to the incident. The term planned
00:48:29obsolescence goes back to the 1930s. But confirmation of it in the digital age showed
00:48:34people they weren't going crazy after all. At this demonstration in Paris, Apple is
00:48:39portrayed as the evil empire accused of tax evasion and cheating customers. France has
00:48:45moved to make planned obsolescence a crime and has placed Apple under formal investigation.
00:48:5127. The CIA Administered Fake Vaccines
00:48:55Vaccines have long been a favourite subject for conspiracy theorists, and this might be the
00:49:00closest they've come to vindication. In 2011, the CIA conducted a hepatitis B vaccination program
00:49:06in Pakistan. The catch? The vaccines were fake, and people's DNA was being collected as an effort
00:49:12to retrieve Osama Bin Laden's whereabouts. The CIA set up a fake vaccination program
00:49:18in the town where it thought Bin Laden was hiding. The idea was to secure a DNA sample
00:49:23from Bin Laden or a family member. The scheme was unsuccessful in more ways than one. Besides
00:49:28doing little to track down the Al Qaeda leader, it's still cited as a reason to distrust the
00:49:33US government when it comes to other, more recent vaccines. While Bin Laden was eventually
00:49:38located by other means that same year, the mission has done plenty to dissuade people
00:49:42from getting the jab. A growing number of people say they won't take a vaccine.
00:49:47I don't want to inject anything like this into my body.
00:49:50This is linked to declining trust in scientific experts and political leaders.
00:49:5426. The US Government Poisoned Alcohol During Prohibition
00:49:58Ratified in 1919, the 18th Amendment to the US Constitution prohibited alcohol.
00:50:04What do you think about prohibition, Mr. Ness? You're gonna drink, Mr. Ness?
00:50:09Mr. Ness, answer the question. It's not just a showpiece,
00:50:12and I'll tell you exactly how I feel about prohibition. It is the law of the land.
00:50:17The period of prohibition would last until 1933, ending with the ratification of the 21st
00:50:22Amendment. Despite the law, illegal smuggling, manufacturing, and distribution of drinking
00:50:27alcohol was rampant. To satisfy a thirsty nation,
00:50:31gangsters like Al Capone operate illicit distilleries and smuggle in liquor from other
00:50:37countries. In an attempt to curtail drinking, the US government tried something radical.
00:50:43Even before 1920, they'd mandated that extra contaminants be added to industrial alcohol
00:50:49to prevent its consumption. What the government then looked at was,
00:50:53can we do something to this alcohol that makes it much riskier to drink,
00:50:58and use that essentially as a chemical enforcement of prohibition?
00:51:02In 1926, they added new regulations requiring the inclusion of more toxic poisons. Manufacturers
00:51:09added benzene, mercury, and methanol. Unsurprisingly, this stopped neither the
00:51:15bootleggers nor the drinkers. An estimated 10,000 people died, and many others were blinded.
00:51:21Number 25. The sugar industry paid off scientists.
00:51:25It's hard to imagine now with everything we know about diabetes and dental hygiene,
00:51:30but sugar was once viewed by many as a healthy food. The reason? Sugar producers and sweet
00:51:35companies pushed fat as the enemy instead. The Journal of the American Medical Association
00:51:40reveals that scientists were paid in the 1960s to play down the link between sugar and heart
00:51:45disease and instead make saturated fat the culprit. In 2016, a researcher at the University
00:51:51of California, San Francisco found that the Sugar Research Foundation funded a 1967 Harvard study
00:51:58downplaying sugar's impact on heart health, instead pointing to saturated fat as a cause
00:52:03of heart disease. Meanwhile, Coca-Cola has been paying researchers millions to minimize
00:52:08the relationship between sugary sodas and obesity as recently as 2015. Coke has poured millions into
00:52:14funding research that says exercise, not diet, is the best way to fight obesity, and that's just
00:52:20one example. Unlike the taste of their products, these companies' ethics were anything but sweet.
00:52:26Number 24. The CIA Created a Heart Attack Gun
00:52:30Guns and arrests go hand-in-hand, but cardiac arrests? Not so much. So-called heart attack
00:52:37guns seemed like the stuff of James Bond movies, until a 1975 CIA testimony revealed their
00:52:43existence. During the hearing, CIA Director William Colby and Idaho Senator Frank Church
00:52:49unveiled a handgun that shot frozen darts containing shellfish toxin.
00:52:53Does this pistol fire the dart? Yes, it does, Mr. Chairman. The round thing at the top is
00:53:01obviously the sight. The rest of it is what is practically a normal .45, although it's special.
00:53:09Upon entering the body, the poison would leave behind a red dot and give off the impression
00:53:14of a heart attack, allowing the shooter to get away untraced, at least until the autopsy.
00:53:19And a special one was developed which potentially would be able to
00:53:24enter the target without perception. However, while there's evidence of the gun's existence,
00:53:28there aren't any confirmed cases of it being used in high-profile assassinations.
00:53:33Number 23. Bayer Spread HIV Many conspiracies tend to focus on
00:53:38government cabals. Oftentimes, though, some of the worst secrets come from the private sector.
00:53:43They wanted to keep it secret. They didn't want to publicize something which would be damaging
00:53:50for the company. German pharmaceutical company
00:53:52Bayer has been selling aspirin since 1899. Since that time, they've expanded to all kinds of drugs
00:53:58and medications. In the 1980s, the Bayer-owned company Cutter Biological was selling blood
00:54:04clotting factors for hemophiliacs, but recruiting high-risk donors to manufacture it.
00:54:09The medicine's called Factor 8. It was an injection medicine that was used for hemophiliacs,
00:54:14mostly children. Children had been born with an incurable disease.
00:54:18Hold on, Mike. That clotting factor became contaminated with HIV.
00:54:22When the problem was discovered, Cutter declared the response irrational, but switched over to safe,
00:54:27heat-treated products for the Western market. Then they shipped the contaminated products to
00:54:31Latin America and Asia to make a buck. This company knew absolutely that they
00:54:36had a problem with the product. They knew that it was infected with AIDS.
00:54:40They dumped it because they wanted to turn this disaster into a profit.
00:54:44Roughly 20,000 patients were infected by Bayer's products.
00:54:48Number 22. The Iran-Contra Affair
00:54:51In 1985, U.S. President Ronald Reagan had a dilemma. Iran had approached the states to
00:54:57buy weapons from them. However, the country was backing Hezbollah, which had American hostages
00:55:02in Lebanon. Plus, the U.S. had an arms embargo on Iran due to the hostage crisis that began in
00:55:071979. But the lure of using the proceeds of the weapons sale to fund the rebel group Contras
00:55:13against the socialist-led government of Nicaragua and get the hostages released
00:55:17was too much for the Reagan administration to ignore. Reagan initially denied the
00:55:21allegations when they leaked, only to reverse that soon after. Oliver North,
00:55:25who helped move the money to the Contras, came forward to confirm the rumors.
00:55:29Number 21. Nazi Officers Tried to Kill Hitler
00:55:33Several efforts were made to assassinate Adolf Hitler during the height of World War II.
00:55:37Perhaps the most famous one is sometimes known as Operation Valkyrie, otherwise referred to as the
00:55:4320th of July Plot. Members of the German resistance planned to set off a bomb during
00:55:56Hitler's visit to the Wolfslehr headquarters. German Army officer Klaus von Stauffenberg
00:56:01managed to place the hidden explosive, but the result failed to kill the Nazi leader.
00:56:10The other part of the plot involved seizing control of the military in the dictator's absence.
00:56:15Despite painstaking attempts to account for every move, the operation was discovered,
00:56:19and the co-conspirators were largely executed. The film Valkyrie,
00:56:26brought a renewed interest to the complicated story of the failed plot.
00:56:30Number 20. The U.S. Air Force Was Developing a Gay Bomb
00:56:34How do you slow down an impending army? Instead of dropping lethal explosives,
00:56:39the U.S. military once considered an unexpected alternative.
00:56:50Researchers considered the possibility of dropping a non-lethal bomb
00:56:53full of pheromone mixture on troops. Although this idea never reached the battlefield,
00:56:58the theory was that soldiers would be too distracted by each other to keep fighting.
00:57:10It's especially clear that authorities were really reaching with this particular idea.
00:57:14This isn't to be confused with the theoretical and equally confusing concept of
00:57:25gaydar, which the Canadian authorities hoped would reveal people's sexual preferences.
00:57:30All the same, it's crazy to think that any amount of time was spent working on a gay bomb.
00:57:44Number 19. Operation Menu
00:57:48The Vietnam War affected neighboring nations in Southeast Asia, such as Cambodia. Northern
00:57:54Vietnamese troops used the eastern part of Cambodia for resupplying an encampment during
00:57:59the conflict. This prompted a bombing campaign from the U.S., which targeted Cambodian sites
00:58:05operating along the Vietnamese border. From 1969 to 1970, this bombardment leveled much of the area.
00:58:13This action was hugely controversial given the force and destruction unleashed on the Cambodians,
00:58:18along with the fact that the secret operation was conducted on a non-combatant country.
00:58:23It later inspired Operation Freedom Deal, which was an even harsher campaign that cut deeper into
00:58:28the heart of Cambodia. Details of this scheme were largely revealed in a declassification from
00:58:34the year 2000. Number 18. The U.S. worked with former Nazi scientists
00:58:43Even though the Allies won the war and put many Nazi war criminals on trial,
00:58:48that didn't stop the U.S. from hiring German scientists. These experts were later integral
00:58:53in the development of the U.S. space program and other military improvements during the Cold War.
00:58:58Many of them had close ties and allegiance to the Nazis, making this entire operation
00:59:03all the more controversial. There was, on the one hand, the truth about the program kept secret,
00:59:08and on the other hand, the idea that we'll tell the public that these are the good Germans.
00:59:13The Soviet Union also conducted a similar operation in attempts to bolster their post-war
00:59:18staying power. One of the recruits for the American side, Werner von Braun, is considered
00:59:23among the more important figures in modern rocketry and early space travel. Sometimes
00:59:28celebrating their achievements, the authorities also largely disregarded many of the subject's
00:59:33connections to atrocities. Number 17. The Business Plot Coup
00:59:42Known as the Business Plot, this little-known conspiracy wanted to bring down the presidency
00:59:47of Franklin D. Roosevelt. Although this was a nefarious coup plot, the case didn't come to
00:59:52light until the testimony of retired General Smedley Butler. Butler asserted that he was
00:59:58asked to usurp the 32nd President of the United States, partly due to his support of veterans
01:00:03groups. Even with the General's revelations, some people questioned the veracity of certain
01:00:18details and the extent of the planning that took place. George H. W. Bush's father, Prescott Bush,
01:00:24has been linked to the plot, but it's still unconfirmed as to his ultimate involvement.
01:00:29David O. Russell's film Amsterdam is just one project that fictionalizes the events
01:00:34surrounding the scheme. Number 16. Faked Gulf War Testimony
01:00:48The Gulf War was a brief but notable conflict preempted by the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait.
01:00:54The U.S. intervened soon after, using a number of stories to support the decision,
01:00:58including the testimony of a teenager. She was known as Nayyira, and her account of babies
01:01:12being removed from incubators in Kuwait shocked and helped sell the war to American citizens.
01:01:24It became a much-quoted story for President George H. W. Bush and other proponents of
01:01:30military action. Later revealed to be falsified, Nayyira was actually the daughter of the Kuwaiti
01:01:36ambassador to the United States. She not only didn't see any crimes firsthand, but many details
01:01:41were generated by a PR firm. The case has become infamous as a deeply flawed attempt to sell the
01:01:48war. Number 15. Tuskegee Study
01:01:59One of the most horrifying chapters in American medical history came out of the Tuskegee
01:02:04Institute in Alabama. A research study offered black men free healthcare in exchange for a
01:02:09secretive and unethical observation, withholding syphilis diagnoses from participating members.
01:02:16Researchers from health organizations such as the U.S. Public Health Service
01:02:20attempted to study the effects of untreated syphilis without treating the patients.
01:02:24Knowing that you were denied treatment and that you were lied to would affect anybody.
01:02:31This also came at a time when penicillin was becoming a widely confirmed treatment
01:02:36for the sufferers of the disease. And for the sake of science, they
01:02:40sacrificed some human beings. And it raised the question, did they really believe these men were
01:02:44human beings? Not only was it a complete travesty perpetrated by the medical community, but it
01:02:50created a genuine distrust of the healthcare system among many people in the African American
01:02:55community. What the United States government did was shameful. And I am sorry. Number 14.
01:03:04Operation Condor. At this point, it's well known that the CIA had a large scale and destructive
01:03:09influence on South American politics. Operation Condor was one such plan that completely altered
01:03:15the landscape of countries such as Argentina and Chile. By propping up dictators like Augusto
01:03:20Pinochet, the U.S. helped finance coups of various leaders across the continent. The actions that
01:03:26were supported by American intelligence groups created irreversible damage in these nations,
01:03:31and thousands were killed. President Clinton eventually declassified more information about
01:03:36the operation and its effects, bringing forth new details about the plans to delegitimize
01:03:41left-leaning political movements in the region. In the decades since Operation Condor,
01:03:45its lasting impact is still felt in the countries affected.
01:04:00Number 13. Bohemian Grove. Rumors have always swirled about secret societies
01:04:05and country clubs where elites meet up to discuss world affairs. In the case of Bohemian Grove,
01:04:11this accusation is at least partly true. Many of the most powerful and influential American
01:04:16figures of the 20th century met at the California club. The place was reserved for people like
01:04:21Ronald Reagan and Richard Nixon, along with a list of businessmen and even Nobel laureates.
01:04:26Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan had a talk there about who was going to run for president first.
01:04:32And obviously Richard Nixon won that. While one of their precepts involves
01:04:36leaving world affairs at the door, there's no shortage of evidence to the contrary.
01:04:41It was also the site of a meeting regarding the Manhattan Project.
01:04:44The Manhattan Project was conceived at the Grove in 1942. The Manhattan Project,
01:04:51of course, is what led to the atom bomb. The presence of many U.S. presidents provokes
01:04:55even more gossip about the other conversations that took place there.
01:04:59Number 12. The FBI spied on John Lennon.
01:05:08When John Lennon moved to the U.S. in the 70s, he became a target of FBI observation.
01:05:13His outspoken political beliefs were already controversial, and some U.S. leaders worried
01:05:18that he would influence the next election. With stories swirling about Lennon's possible tour,
01:05:23which was an apparent attempt to recruit young liberal voters,
01:05:26J. Edgar Hoover put the musician under close watch. Not only that, the artist was threatened
01:05:31with deportation during this period. Republican Richard Nixon ended up winning the 1972 election,
01:05:37but the attempts to kick the singer out of the country continued until a court ruling in 1975.
01:05:51Unsurprisingly, this wasn't the first or last person hounded by the FBI.
01:05:55As their COINTELPROGRAM spied on many citizens and political groups.
01:06:12Number 11. Big tobacco's big lie.
01:06:26Smoking causes lung cancer and a lot of other adverse health effects.
01:06:30Scientists demonstrated this definitively in the 1950s. However, public opinion wavered for
01:06:36decades, with sources springing up to generate controversy and debate. Some suspected that the
01:06:41tobacco industry was suppressing and distorting the facts through a coordinated campaign,
01:06:46and it eventually came out that they were. Together, the world's largest tobacco companies
01:06:51initiated Operation Berkshire to generate fake controversy and debate. Big tobacco knew that
01:06:57smoking caused cancer and that nicotine was addictive. They decided not to make cigarettes
01:07:02less harmful because addiction made them a lot of money. Now the work we did here is confidential,
01:07:07not for public scrutiny any more than our one's family matters. You're threatening my family now
01:07:12too? Just goes to show, where there's smoke, there's often fire. See how camels agree with
01:07:18your throat. See how mild and good tasting a cigarette can be. Number 10. The FBI spied on
01:07:25political activist groups. All power to all the people! Those involved in political protests and
01:07:32other activist causes are often paranoid that they're being watched. And they should be,
01:07:36because it's happened before and it can happen again. Tapes from the hotel rooms, FBI reports,
01:07:42those are pieces of information that we shouldn't have. From the late 50s to the early 70s,
01:07:47the FBI engaged in illegal surveillance, infiltration, and disruption of protest
01:07:52movements and other organizations deemed subversive. He realized how sick this
01:07:57country was. We were trying to reveal the truth about segregation. These ranged from
01:08:02independence movements to civil rights movements to feminist organizations. They even had John
01:08:08Lennon, the former Beatles frontman, under watch. While this program, named COINTELPRO,
01:08:13was abolished in 1971, others may have taken its place. This represents the darkest part of
01:08:20the Bureau's history. Number 9. The first female U.S. president. While the United States has yet
01:08:26to elect a woman to the office of president, by electoral college anyway, some theorize that a
01:08:32woman has assumed the duties of the office already. In 1919, President Woodrow Wilson
01:08:38suffered a debilitating stroke. This left him bedridden and partially paralyzed with some
01:08:43impaired judgment. If I don't help him be president, what a kind of wife am I? For over a
01:08:50year, Wilson's wife Edith aided him in governing the country, to the point where she was basically
01:08:55performing his job in all but name. The degree of her involvement was kept a close secret,
01:09:00and Wilson herself denied that she made executive decisions until her death. So he's like sitting
01:09:06there, and they like move his arm, and then they just release that to the press, and that's how
01:09:12dumb people were back then. Number 8. The White Sox threw the World Series. The Chicago White
01:09:19Sox are on record for having one of the longest droughts between winning World Series, at 87
01:09:24years. However, they weren't always known for their bad luck. Back in the late 1910s, the Sox
01:09:30won in 1917, and they even had a wonder-like shoeless Joe Jackson on the team. Yet, rumors
01:09:37during the 1919 series held that the games were fixed. The White Sox lost the series, but the
01:09:43rumors persisted into the next year. Eventually, a grand jury found evidence that eight players,
01:09:49including Jackson, though his role is disputed, were involved in a conspiracy to receive money
01:09:54in exchange for throwing the series. I think the Black Sox players saw a high reward for what they
01:10:00were doing. They could make as much as their yearly salary in one week for fixing the World
01:10:05Series. While a trial found them not guilty, they were nevertheless banned from the league permanently.
01:10:11Number 7. Roswell cover-up. In the summer of 1947, an object crashed down to earth in Roswell, New
01:10:18Mexico. Theories that it was an alien spacecraft have pervaded pop culture for over a half a
01:10:24century since. Everybody thinks that Roswell was the first sighting of a UFO in the United
01:10:29States, and that's bullroar. The US Air Force claimed that the object was merely a weather
01:10:34balloon, only added fuel to the fire. And the conspiracy theorists were right. It was no weather
01:10:40balloon, and there was a cover-up. But, it wasn't an alien ship, either. Probably. The object was a
01:10:47high-altitude balloon, launched as part of Project Mogul. These balloons were intended to detect
01:10:52sound waves from Soviet atomic bomb tests. During the Cold War, the US military couldn't exactly be
01:10:58honest about that in the papers. Now, whether you think that's another cover story, well…
01:11:05Number 6. Scientologists infiltrated the US government. The Church of Scientology
01:11:11is infamously touchy about any criticism of their organization. Their influence over
01:11:22celebrities is well-known, but theories about their influence over the government are also
01:11:26out there. And here's the thing… Scientologists really did infiltrate the government. In the 1970s,
01:11:33at least 5,000 members of the organization conducted espionage on government agencies
01:11:39and private organizations. And this wasn't a fringe element, either. The founder's wife,
01:11:44Mary Sue Hubbard, pleaded guilty and went to prison. It was one of the largest-scale
01:11:49infiltrations of the US government in history. All of this was done with the aim of destroying
01:11:54evidence that painted Scientology in an unfavorable light. It arguably had quite
01:11:59the opposite effect. Number 5. Project Sunshine. With a name like this, images of happiness or
01:12:05some form of green energy initiation spring to mind. But in reality, it's incredibly dark.
01:12:16Headed by the United States Atomic Energy Commission in 1955, Project Sunshine was
01:12:22created to see the effects of nuclear radiation on the human body. However, the group went morbid
01:12:27with it. In the 50s, around 1,500 bodies were taken across Europe and Australia, often without
01:12:33the permission of the next of kin. Most of those stolen were children or younger. To hide the body
01:12:38snatching, one British mother was refused access by authorities to dress her daughter in a christening
01:12:43gown in 1957 in case she discovered what the doctors had done. Number 4. The Watergate Scandal.
01:12:50Perhaps the most well-known political conspiracy of all time, the Watergate scandal was unthinkable
01:12:55when it occurred. The scandal began when Republican President Richard Nixon's
01:13:03administration illegally wiretapped and broke into the Democratic National Committee headquarters.
01:13:14Their aim was to acquire information about Nixon's opposition in the forthcoming election.
01:13:19The arrest of the perpetrators led to attempts by Nixon and his administration to cover up their
01:13:24involvement. However, mounting evidence and leaks soon exploded into a scandal that has become a
01:13:30byword for political disgrace, leading to Nixon's resignation. One of the things that's so hard to
01:13:36recreate and understand now, looking back, is there was no sense that the president could lie
01:13:42to the American people. Things have changed, Garrett. Things have changed today. Number 3. The Government
01:13:48Is Spying On You. The common refrain for cranks and conspiracy nuts for decades has been that the
01:13:54government is watching our every move. And it's not completely wrong. With the rise of smartphones
01:13:59and the internet, the government has unprecedented access to information on its citizens. They're
01:14:04following us. In the wake of 9-11, the Bush administration initiated far-reaching mass
01:14:12surveillance programs, both foreign and domestic. The NSA's activities in the years since have
01:14:17included sucking up and storing online history, emails, metadata, text messages, you name it.
01:14:23Edward Snowden revealed a lot of this info with his leaks, including how other governments were
01:14:28also implicated. Even if you send it to somebody within the United States, your wholly domestic
01:14:35communication between you and your wife can go from New York to London and back and get caught
01:14:40up in the database. Few believe that in the time since, governments have just given up.
01:14:46Number 2. False Justification For War. In August 1964, the USS Maddox fired a
01:14:53warning shot as three North Vietnamese torpedo boats approached the Gulf of Tonkin.
01:14:58After the torpedo boats opened fire, the Maddox sank all three. Two days later, the report of
01:15:04a second attack, known as the Gulf of Tonkin Incident, prompted President Lyndon B. Johnson
01:15:09to authorize further military action in Vietnam. For years, people questioned this justification.
01:15:26It was eventually revealed that the second attack was imaginary, based on wrongly
01:15:30interpreted communications intercepts. It wasn't the last dubious rationale for war.
01:15:36As we already mentioned, in 1990, George H.W. Bush leveraged false testimony crafted by a public
01:15:43relations firm to initiate the Gulf War. Over a decade later, his son would falsely claim that
01:15:49Iraq possessed WMDs to justify an invasion. Before we continue, be sure to subscribe to
01:16:03our channel and ring the bell to get notified about our latest videos. You have the option to
01:16:08be notified for occasional videos, or all of them. If you're on your phone, make sure you
01:16:12go into settings and switch on your notifications. Number 1. The CIA Conducted Mind Control Experiments.
01:16:21The idea of a government agency trying to control people's minds might sound like science fiction,
01:16:26but it really happened.
01:16:33In the 1970s, a commission on the CIA's activities within the U.S. exposed the existence of Project MK Ultra,
01:16:48a secret program that used drugs and torture to manipulate its victims' mental states.
01:16:54This Kool-Aid was spiked with LSD. It was horrible.
01:17:01These experiments were conducted on prisoners in secret detention centers around the world,
01:17:05as well as within American universities, hospitals, and prisons.
01:17:09The day that my father was brought to the hospital, they immediately put him on insulin,
01:17:14to put him into like an insulin coma.
01:17:16The CIA also funded brutal experiments involving electroconvulsive therapy in Montreal, Canada.
01:17:23Victims of MK Ultra included Ken Kesey and Allen Ginsberg.
01:17:27It's one of the darkest conspiracies out there, and we still don't know the full extent of it.
01:17:33Which of these conspiracies do you find the most disturbing? Let us know in the comments.
01:17:38Boy, those Scientologists, they can be pretty sensitive.
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