Has there ever been a Conspiracy Theory that was in fact true?

[Scott Sommers]

Did anyone suspect Iran-Contra before it got exposed? There were plenty of ninja-like components, a government cover-up, etc.

This is a joke? Right? Iran-Contra wasn't even a conspiracy, much less a conspiracy theory.

What do you call something that's criminal and is supposed to be covered up, but everyone knows about it anyway? Is that a conspiracy theory?

The "Contra" end was one of the worst kept secrets in history - just about everybody in the old boy SF community knew about it in passing, was involved either through volunteer work or contract employment, and much of it was even reported on in Soldier of Fortune magazine even before the general public or the media caught on.

It wasn't until 1984, when Jim Powell and Dana Parker were killed by the Sandinistas when their helicoptor was shot down that the MSM finally caught on that there were big doings going on south of the border.

According to that hard-to-get website, Wikipedia, the first arms sales were in the summer of 1985 and within a little more than a year,

the Lebanese magazine Ash-Shiraa exposed the arrangement on November 3, 1986

So within a year, there was published exposure of the conspiracy. Kind of looks like everyone knew about it right from the beginning.

 

[Craig4]

I like to apply the "All the President's Men Test". If the people telling me the theory have done work up to or exceeding the quality of Woodward and Bernstein I'll give it a look. I would encourage anyone interested in this topic to watch the movie. Look at the hours of work that went into researching the story and the disciplined involved. Compare that to, "I watched a Youtube video",

Conspiracy theories do exist. However, anyone who thinks they're going to blow one wide open surfing "Above Top Secret" is delusional.

 

[BStrong]

This is a joke? Right? Iran-Contra wasn't even a conspiracy, much less a conspiracy theory.

What do you call something that's criminal and is supposed to be covered up, but everyone knows about it anyway? Is that a conspiracy theory?



According to that hard-to-get website, Wikipedia, the first arms sales were in the summer of 1985 and within a little more than a year,

So within a year, there was published exposure of the conspiracy. Kind of looks like everyone knew about it right from the beginning.

Scott - that was the Iran end, of which I have no first hand knowledge.

The southern situation was in high gear long before the Iran end came about.

 

[Robrob]

Every time it's pointed out that Abdelbaset al-Megrahi is no more the "Lockerbie bomber" than I am, and that he was framed for the crime by the CIA and the DoJ, someone shouts "take it to conspiracy theories!"

It's still true though.

Rolfe.

Accepting your assertion on face value, simply being framed for something doesn't rise to the definition we're using here of a classic conspiracy theory.

 

[Moss]

I'm not sure, maybe https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lodge_P2 qualifies?

 

[Rolfe]

But I think that, if true, it was an attempt to frame him after the fact, rather than have him be a patsy all along. Then again, I am not intimately familiar with the details of the case.

Accepting your assertion on face value, simply being framed for something doesn't rise to the definition we're using here of a classic conspiracy theory.

There are different opinions on this, but indeed I agree with you. The Lockerbie investigation went off the rails in 1989 when the investigators refused to consider the (overwhelmingly probable) possibility that the bomb that destroyed the airliner had been smuggled past Heathrow airport's sieve-like security precautions. Instead they followed a tenuous lead that seemed to point to the island of Malta. Despite finding absolutely nothing on Malta to substantiate that theory, they refused to reconsider and look again at Heathrow. This concentration on the wrong modus operandi caused the entire investigation to run into the sand, and let the bombers escape completely.

It was only in December 1990 that they noticed Megrahi at the airport in Malta at the crucial time, looking suitably suspicious (he was said to be a Libyan security agent, and he was travelling on a coded diplomatic passport in a false name). By this time it was politically highly expedient to blame Libya for the atrocity (or rather, even more expedient than it had been all along), and the investigation fell on Megrahi like a drowning man grabbing a lifebelt. The rest of it was just the job of framing him.

However, the act of framing Megrahi, and the singleminded insistence that the ludicrous case against him is true and he is actually the "Lockerbie bomber" has to be a conspiracy of some sort.

If the Lockerbie case is just another run-of-the-mill miscarriage of justice where the cops fitted up the wrong guy, just like the Meredith Kercher murder and so many others, why the concerted campaign to have every mention of this moved to Conspiracy Theories?

There have been recent calls for the main thread on Lockerbie to be moved to Current Affairs, because it is a serious discussion of a very serious current political issue. Would you guys support that move?

Rolfe.

 

[TheRedWorm]

Yes, absolutely.

 

[randman]

Lots of conspiracy theories have turned out to be true.

MK-Ultra was one of the weirdest and most difficult to believe and turned out to be completely true.

Iran/Contra was a conspiracy theory until exposed.

the Dreyfuss affair

the existence of the NSA (once mocked as a conspiracy theory)

the existence of the Echelon spy system (mocked as a conspiracy theory as well)

the Gulf of Tonkin incident

the burning of the Reichstag

JFK having a mistress that was also a mistress to a Mobster

the Indiana or whatever the name of it was (mentioned in Jaws)...only came to official light due to a boy working to expose the conspiracy

the level of recruitment of NAZI scientists after WWII

lots of covert ops are kept secret via disinformation designed to help them be dismissed as conspiracy theories

testing of STDs on people of color

forced sterilization

communist infiltration of the Hollywood and the State department

the coup against the Vietnamese leader (forget his name)

 

[randman]

This is a joke? Right? Iran-Contra wasn't even a conspiracy, much less a conspiracy theory.

What do you call something that's criminal and is supposed to be covered up, but everyone knows about it anyway? Is that a conspiracy theory?



According to that hard-to-get website, Wikipedia, the first arms sales were in the summer of 1985 and within a little more than a year,

So within a year, there was published exposure of the conspiracy. Kind of looks like everyone knew about it right from the beginning.

Iran/Contra, at least the contra part of it, was a conspiracy theory though widely lampooned by Doonesbury showing the US flying overhead shoveling out money. It was widely known the Reagan administration got around the Boland amendment. The Iran part not so much.

 

[randman]

Here's some more:

The suppression of Nicola Tesla and his continued technological advances; particularly strong evidence involved denying his patents for radio and allowing an obvious falsehood to proceed, that Marconi invented radio.....Tesla was only awarded the patents posthumously....bankrupting him was necessary to prevent his newer technology from obsoleting the power grid (his first generation technology).

the denial ultra-wide band radar existed and was possible....the government was still denying this after commercial products came on the market

You can likely find conspiracy theories involving any technology classified for national security.

 

[Rolfe]

I seem to remember a similar thread some time ago, where everything that wasn't buging nuts was dismissed as "not a Conspiracy Theory^TM". This allowed people who are clearly in denial to continue to assert that there never has been a conspiracy theory that turned out to be true. This is easy, if you simply redefine everything that turns out to be justified as not counting.

And yet at the same time, any attempt to discuss things like the Lockerbie trial, or indeed at one point the trial of Knox and Sollecito for the murder of Meredith Kercher, is subject to loud demands for the topic to be moved to conspiracy theories.

It's the inconsistency I find annoying. Lockerbie doesn't count if you ask about "conspiracy theories that turned out to be true". But try starting a discussion about it in Social Issues and Current Affairs, and see what happens.

Rolfe.

 

[Robrob]

Lots of conspiracy theories have turned out to be true.

Your list contains lots of things that were "secret" at one time or another but misses what has been discussed here as CT. No enormously complex government plot, no scapegoat, no ninjas, nothing.

Illegal medical experiments or keeping a military secret isn't the same thing as 9/11 or a Moon Landing hoax.

Here's some more:

The suppression of Nicola Tesla and his continued technological advances...

I'm sure you feel strongly about this but honestly, if they worked someone - somewhere - would have built the darn things.

I seem to remember a similar thread some time ago, where everything that wasn't buging nuts was dismissed as "not a Conspiracy Theory^TM". This allowed people who are clearly in denial to continue to assert that there never has been a conspiracy theory that turned out to be true. This is easy, if you simply redefine everything that turns out to be justified as not counting.

See above Ninja rule. Lockerbie Trial - even accepting your statements as true - isn't the same as 9/11 or a Moon Landing hoax.

 

[LSSBB]

Lots of conspiracy theories have turned out to be true.

MK-Ultra was one of the weirdest and most difficult to believe and turned out to be completely true.

Iran/Contra was a conspiracy theory until exposed.

the Dreyfuss affair

the existence of the NSA (once mocked as a conspiracy theory)

the existence of the Echelon spy system (mocked as a conspiracy theory as well)

the Gulf of Tonkin incident

the burning of the Reichstag

JFK having a mistress that was also a mistress to a Mobster

the Indiana or whatever the name of it was (mentioned in Jaws)...only came to official light due to a boy working to expose the conspiracy

the level of recruitment of NAZI scientists after WWII

lots of covert ops are kept secret via disinformation designed to help them be dismissed as conspiracy theories

testing of STDs on people of color

forced sterilization

communist infiltration of the Hollywood and the State department

the coup against the Vietnamese leader (forget his name)

OK, aside from the foggy details, specifically which of these had conspiracy theorists working to expose them before they came to light?

By the way, the story in Jaws I believe you refer to was of the USS Indianapolis sinking, which wasn't a conspiracy. I also don't see how the NSA or Echelon count as conspiracies.

 

[randman]

OK, aside from the foggy details, specifically which of these had conspiracy theorists working to expose them before they came to light?

By the way, the story in Jaws I believe you refer to was of the USS Indianapolis sinking, which wasn't a conspiracy. I also don't see how the NSA or Echelon count as conspiracies.

All of them, and the conspiracy involved the official story of how it sank.

Also for robrob, these do qualify as government conspiracies. It's weird you would argue otherwise and then say 911 conspiracy theories are conspiracy theories.

What's the difference? MK-Ultra was an outrageous government program run by the CIA and along with related programs included near every research hospital in the nation. That's as big as 911 in many respects. The idea the government did secret experiments on patients, on the public, some agreeing and some completely unaware and not consulted over 20 years or so sounds crazy but was true.

 

[randman]

No enormously complex government plot, no scapegoat, no ninjas, nothing.

Illegal medical experiments or keeping a military secret isn't the same thing as 9/11 or a Moon Landing hoax.

Who says? MK-Ultra was an enormous government plot experimenting on the public. It's at least as big a conspiracy as 9/11 or the Moon Landing Hoax.

 

[matt.tansy]

How did the official story of the sinking differ from what we now know?

The Dreyfuss Affair? Anti-semitism and your typical French incompetence and vanity hardly makes a conspiracy. Besides, it was public knowledge from the day he was arrested.

 

[Childlike Empress]

I think the OP does precisely what Rolfe pointed out so well - redefining terms to fit a world view -, but in case i'm wrong here's my contribution again:

Would Propaganda Due qualify? Ergenekon?

 

[Robrob]

By the way, the story in Jaws I believe you refer to was of the USS Indianapolis sinking, which wasn't a conspiracy. I also don't see how the NSA or Echelon count as conspiracies.

I believe he is confusing "secret" with "conspiracy." And again, no scapegoats or ninjas.

Who says? MK-Ultra was an enormous government plot experimenting on the public. It's at least as big a conspiracy as 9/11 or the Moon Landing Hoax.

If you are claiming the number of individuals involved in MK-Ultra was anywhere near the number required to carry out the 9/11 or Moon Landing CT -

Would Propaganda Due qualify? Ergenekon?

Government plot, scapegoats, ninjas? Criminal enterprise and terrorism still not measuring up to CT descriptions of 9/11 or the Moon Landing.

 

[Elizabeth I]

This reveals a high degree of confusion about the terms "conspiracy" and "conspiracy theory".

* "Conspiracy": How is Monicagate a conspiracy? Who conspired with whom against whom to commit which crime?

* "Conspiracy theory" - was there a fringe of conspiracy theorists who discussed the possibility and details of a cabal involving Miss Lewinsky and Mr. Clinton before the affair was revealed by media and investigators? An allegation does not turn into a CT just because the alleged perpetrators at first deny any wrongdoing.

Well, Hillary said there was a "vast right-wing conspiracy" working to take Her Man out.

 

[rjh01]

I suspect you should define terms. Obviously "ordinary" conspiracies exist by legal definition.

"In the criminal law, a conspiracy is an agreement between two or more persons to break the law at some time in the future, and, in some cases, with at least one overt act in furtherance of that agreement."

OTOH, what most conspiracy theorists posit are on a much grander scale in numbers, motivation and results. I submit any CT would have to include:

1) Government participation (federal, state or local). A gang plotting a bank robbery isn't reaching the degree of complexity in most CT.

2) A post-facto cover up. Everyone knows the bank has been robbed by someone. CT require a scapegoat and/or no one knowing (except for CT proponents) that a conspiracy occurred.

3) A logical and cost effective reason to engage in a complex and long term conspiracy. Robbing a bank doesn't necessitate technical equipment and expertise of the CIA/NSA. Nor does it require hundreds/thousands of people sworn to secrecy.

Lots of conspiracy theories have turned out to be true.

MK-Ultra was one of the weirdest and most difficult to believe and turned out to be completely true.

Iran/Contra was a conspiracy theory until exposed.

the Dreyfuss affair

the existence of the NSA (once mocked as a conspiracy theory)

the existence of the Echelon spy system (mocked as a conspiracy theory as well)

the Gulf of Tonkin incident

the burning of the Reichstag

JFK having a mistress that was also a mistress to a Mobster

the Indiana or whatever the name of it was (mentioned in Jaws)...only came to official light due to a boy working to expose the conspiracy

the level of recruitment of NAZI scientists after WWII

lots of covert ops are kept secret via disinformation designed to help them be dismissed as conspiracy theories

testing of STDs on people of color

forced sterilization

communist infiltration of the Hollywood and the State department

the coup against the Vietnamese leader (forget his name)

OK, aside from the foggy details, specifically which of these had conspiracy theorists working to expose them before they came to light?

By the way, the story in Jaws I believe you refer to was of the USS Indianapolis sinking, which wasn't a conspiracy. I also don't see how the NSA or Echelon count as conspiracies.

Robrob has defined what a CT is. I assume everyone agrees that this definition is reasonable? randman has listed several potential CT that are true. I am not going to go though them all. I will look at just one of them to see how well it meets Robrob's definition of a CT.

testing of STDs on people of color
Here is a link to some information on this issue http://northerntruthseeker.blogspot.com/2010/10/guatemalan-std-testing-was-only-tip-of.html
1) Government participation (federal, state or local).
The link says

United States conducted illegal experimentation in Guatemala during the 1940's

by United States I assume they mean Federal Government. So this criteria is met.

2) A post-facto cover up. These experiments were not known about until 2010 by the public. So there was a cover up.

3) A logical and cost effective reason to engage in a complex and long term conspiracy.
The experiment was illegal and was done in the 1940s. It was only exposed last year. The fact that it was illegal means that there was a good reason not to expose this experiment. Long term? I think we can agree that the time between the 1940s to 2010 is long term. So this criteria is met.

All three of Robrob's criteria are met. It does not need people trying to expose a CT for one to exist. If I have made an error please show me using a CT commonly discussed in the CT subforum to show that is a CT and the above is not a CT. Otherwise... need I say any more?