10 Conspiracy Theories That Turned Out To Be True

1.

MK-ULTRA: From 1950s to 1970s, the CIA tried to find the truth serum and ran a mind-control project, applying LSD to test subjects often without their consent and even resorting to torture. Investigations by the Rockefeller Commission made it possible to expose the project.

2.

Operation Mockingbird: In the 1950s to ’70s, the CIA paid big-name media outlets to publish propaganda. This has been exposed by the Church Committee in 1975, and backed up with evidence.

3.

Asbestos: Between 1930 and 1960, manufacturers tried to cover up the link between asbestos and respiratory diseases, including cancer - to avoid prosecution. Even though the suing process started in 1932, it wasn't until 1962 that epidemiologists proved asbestos causes cancer.

4.

The Tuskegee Syphilis Study: The United States Public Health Service studied 400 poor, African-American men with syphilis from 1932 to 1972. They were treated as guinea pigs to find out more about the disease. The study continued for 40 years.

5.

Operation Northwoods: In the early 1960s, American military leaders planned on committing acts of terrorism in U.S. cities, killing innocent people and U.S. soldiers - to support the war against Cuba. The plans were later rejected by the civil leadership, and kept secret for nearly 40 years.

6.

1990 Testimony of Nayirah: A 15-year-old girl named Nayirah testified before the U.S. Congress about seeing Iraqi soldiers pulling Kuwaiti babies from incubators and killing them. This became the fuel for major public support for the 1991 Gulf War. Nayirah later turned out to be the daughter of the Kuwaiti ambassador to the USA.

7.

Karen Silkwood: Karen Silwood was an American whistleblower, who worked as a labor union activist and chemical technician. She discovered numerous violations of health regulations, including exposure of workers to contamination, faulty respiratory equipment and improper storage of samples. November 7, 1974, she was found to be dangerously contaminated even expelling contaminated air from her lungs. As it turns out, her house has been contaminated with plutonium. Silkwood, her partner and housemate were sent to Los Alamos National Laboratory for testing. Later that evening her body was found in her car, which had run off the road.

8.

Bohemian Grove: Conspiracy theorists were saying that the rich and powerful annually gathered in the woods and worshiped a giant stone owl in an occult fashion. News agencies investigated this and surprisingly it was true. The participants turned it into a joke and a fraternity- type of stuff.

9.

COINTELPRO: It was a series of covert, and often illegal, projects conducted by the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) aimed at investigating and disrupting dissident political organizations within the United States. Which organizations? For example, the women’s rights movement, militant black nationalist groups, and the non-violent civil rights movement and almost all movements protesting the Vietnam War. The directives governing COINTELPRO were issued by FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover, who ordered FBI agents to “expose, disrupt, misdirect, discredit, or otherwise neutralize” the activities of these movements and their leaders.

10.

Operation Snow White: A popular conspiracy theory was that during the 1970s, the Church of Scientology secured their power with the largest infiltration of the United States government in history. It turns out 5,000 of Scientology’s crack commandos wiretapped and burglarized various agencies and stole tons of documents, mainly from the IRS. 136 organizations, agencies and foreign embassies were infiltrated.