Conspiracy Clearinghouse

EPISODE 23 | Signs, Grudges & Blue Books: Early UFOlogy Hidden inside the new COVID relief bill is a mandate for US Congress to be fully briefed on UFOs, so it might be worth it to take a look at the early days of UFO sightings and American investigative efforts. And tomorrow is the anniversary of the Mantell UFO Incident, called by some the first UFO-related death on record. But is it? Depend...

EPISODE 22 | Jingle Hells: The War on Xmas Some members of the largest religion in the world, over 2.4 billion people, somehow feel aggrieved or under siege, especially when it comes to one of their most important holidays. We're talking about Christians and Christmas, and the narrative that claims there's a concerted effort to destroy the celebration of Jesus' birth. Who? Depends on who you talk...

EPISODE 21 | The Knights Templar (Big 'Uns 2) They were the most powerful group in Medieval Europe, and then they vanished. Who were the Templars? Warrior-priests with good patronage? Keepers of the Holy Grail and other mystical secrets? Blasphemous gay Satan worshiping freaks? All of the above? For centuries, people have claimed to have figured out the secrets of the Knights Templar and what they...

EPISODE 20 | Time for Timer: Pseudohistories & Historical Revisions History may not have happened like you think. Is it possible that whole swaths of so-called "history" have been made up to bolster various people and downplay others, or maybe even to cover up the existence of the greatest historical force ever known - the Russian Horde?  What year is it? Is it 2020? Or 1723? 2520? Depends on who...

EPISODE 19 | The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress: Facts & Fictions About Our Nearest Neighbour You can be over the moon, bark at the moon, ask for the moon, shoot the moon; something can happen once in a blue moon, there's a man in the moon (or a woman or a rabbit or a toad). Maybe there are ruins on the moon. Maybe there's an alien base there. Maybe Nazis live there. Maybe it's a hollow spacecraft....

EPISODE 18| The Illuminati: Bavarian Brouhaha (Big 'Uns 1) The first major conspiracy theory of the modern age is the tale of the Illuminati. Started in Bavaria by a power-hungry professor with poor social skills, it has become one of the overarching theories of our times. This is one of the Big 'Uns. Like what we do? Then buy us a beer or three via our page on Buy Me a Coffee. #ConspiracyClearing...

EPISODE 17 | Project Blue Beam: Abandon Hope All Ye Who Research Here What do you get for the conspiracy theorist who has everything? How about a conspiracy theory that has everything? Project Blue Beam has it all - a bleak techno-apocalypse that culminates in the enslavement of most of humanity by demons pretending to be god and/or aliens, with the help of NASA, the Masons, Microsoft, Greenpeace,...

Episode 16 | Studies & Signals: Insights into the Conspiracy Mindset (Because Reasons 4) Guest: John Poston, Theatrical Artist & Writer We talk about the origins of some clichés about conspiracy folks, as well as some actual scientific studies about the mindset. We also deftly use Star Trek as a metaphor for the brain. And some questionnaires you can take at home to find out just how consp...

Episode 15 | October Surprise: Fact or Fiction? (The World Is Weird 3) Is it commonplace for a big event that sways things to happen in presidential election years in the U.S? Maybe. We'll look at the 18 "October Surprises" in US presidential electoral history, encountering smear attempts, false charges, false claims, outright lies, political chaos, boozing, racism, homophobia, financial collapse...

Episode 14 | Conspiracy Thinking in Eastern Europe (Because Reasons 3) Guest: Mark Baker, Journalist & Travel Writer The cultural and social impact of conspiracy thinking will differ depending on where it's happening. You have to take into account a country's particular history to gain some understanding as to why people in that place react the way they do to serious theories. The authoritaria...

Episode 13 | Mass Hysteria & Shared Delusions (The World Is Weird 2) Mass hysteria, collective delusions or just people freaking out - whatever you call it, you can't deny that history is filled with reports of people losing it en masse. We'll look at nuns that bite and meow, fainting and twitching schoolchildren, uncontrollable dancing, large scale paranoia, mysterious attacks on windshields...

Episode 12 | True Fictions (Because Reasons 2) Guest: John Poston, Theatrical Artist and Writer So, just who are these "conspiracy theorists" anyway? I talk with John Poston about conspiracy thinking, true believers and debunkers, how humans create identity through narratives, tribal signaling, Homo Ludens and, of course, the JFK assassination. Like what we do? Then buy us a beer or three via our...

Episode 11 | Conspirasaurus Rex: Dino-Mite Theories About the Dinosaurs What happened to the dinosaurs? Did a meteor wipe them out? Was it volcanoes? Maybe their eggs just sucked. Or they farted themselves to death. Or they never existed at all. Or maybe they never died. Or maaaybe they helped build the pyramids. Like what we do? Then buy us a beer or three via our page on Buy Me a Coffee. #Conspi...

Episode 10 | Fright Delays: Denver Airport Is the Nexus of Evil It's big, it's unusual and gets folks to thinking. Denver International Airport is more than just the hub for airlines - it's a magnet for just about every conspiracy theory you can think of.  Like what we do? Then buy us a beer or three via our page on Buy Me a Coffee. #ConspiracyClearinghouse #sharingiscaring #donations #support #bu...

Episode 09 | Now You See It, Now You Don't: Finland Doesn't Exist There are some things you just know are true. Like that Finland exists. But it doesn't. Neither does Australia. And New Zealand's looking kind of iffy as well. In fact, there are many things that you think are real, but aren't. Like birds. They aren't real either. Like what we do? Then buy us a beer or three via our page on Buy Me a...

Episode 08 | Time Cube: Four Is the Loneliest Number The world is a cube, time is a cube, you are a cube - everything's a cube. That's what Gene Ray, an electrician from Florida said. And he should know, since he was "the wisest man on Earth" and "wiser than God".  This is the strange and occasionally disturbing story of one of the wildest theories to ever hit the internet - the Time Cube Theory....

Episode 07 | The Lucifer Project(s): Big Scary in Sky! Space might not be such a final frontier after all. Is the Vatican secretly in league with aliens? Or demons pretending to be aliens? Was Jesus an extraterrestrial? Is NASA trying to create a second sun in our solar system? These questions and more must be examined. And when you name your science project "Lucifer", you really should be all tha...

Episode 06 | The Tuskegee Study (The World is Weird 1) The tale of a 40-year clinical study with overtones of both race and class, shows just what some people are willing to do once they have otherized their fellow humans. If they're willing to do that, the reasoning goes, what else might they be willing to do? This builds distrust, which feeds conspiracy theories. This is the shameful story of th...

Episode 05 | 44 for 44: The Obama Conspiracies (Thanks, Obama!) The 44th US President sure had a lot of theories about him. Was he really a cocaine-fueled, murdering, gay, inter-dimensional, Satanic, Mars-visiting lizard who could control the weather? Every leader of a country, or anyone that much in the public eye, is sure to engender a number of conspiracy theories. But the 44th president, Barac...

Episode 04 | Saddam's Stargate and Taskforce 20 Host: Derek DeWitt The United States went into Iraq to stop Saddam Hussein from using and/or developing Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMDs). They meant chemical and biological weapons, but what if the WMDs were something else? What if Hussein had found ancient alien technology that allowed him to communicate with an ancient race of extraterrestrials w...

Episode 03 | Misinformation & Pattern Recognition (Because Reasons 1) Why are conspiracy theories so popular with so many? This series of shorter episodes will look at different factors that may be responsible for conspiracy theories taking root in the public consciousness and how they spread with modern communications tools. Along the way, we'll look at motivations, science, psychology and mo...

Episode 02 | A Cavalcade of COVID-19 Crackpottery The year 2020 has started off being defined by the global spread of the COVID-19 human coronavirus, but it's not just the illness that's spreading - misinformation, disinformation, misconceptions and outright lies are also on a worldwide tour aided and abetted by social media. We'll take a look at some of the more pervasive ideas out there, tracing...

Episode 01 | Glass Onion: The Beatles Conspiracies The Beatles made more of an impact than perhaps any other band in history. Their highly engineered later albums, use of backmasking and decidedly quirky senses of humor seem to leave trails of breadcrumbs for people to follow into deeper, hidden truths about them.  You may have heard of the Paul is Dead theory. But what about the Paul is Alive one...