Ah, the 1980’s! What a wonderful time for conspiracy theories! Conspiracy theorists were easy to spot. They’re the ones wearing aluminum foil hats. To protect their brains from spy satellites. If you see a home filled with photos, diagrams, and whiteboards that try to link trivial news items into… the PLOT… then you’ve found your conspiracy theorist! Good Times! Then, unfortunately, the next 40 years happened. And we topped it all off with COVID.
Computers, globalization, and new technologies changed our world. “Science fiction” quickly becomes science fact. In the 20th Century, the very definition of science-fiction was… “The 21st Century!” Well, we’re there! It’s the third decade of the 21st Century, and just like SciFi writers told us, technology and society are constantly changing. A lot of tropes come true, but it usually takes decades. After more than 50 years of living in the Science Fiction era, we shouldn’t be that surprised that so many predictions came true!
For those unfamiliar with Science Fiction, or science for that matter, the process of “some guy” predicting the future and then it happening, seems just a bit too convenient. Especially for the world of conspiracies. Of course, that “some guy” just might have been someone with formal scientific education, and years of study in the area where these predictions are being made.
Michael Crichton created Jurassic Park (dinosaurs live again!), The Andromeda Strain (deadly viruses from outer space), The Terminal Man (surgery on the human brain goes wrong), had his other medical SciFi stories all have bits and pieces that came true… although no one is raising dinosaurs on a remote tropical island. (Or are they?). Issac Asimov, the most prolific SciFi writer of all, largely created what we think of as robotics. During World War II, Arthur C. Clarke was a radar specialist who was frustrated by the limitations of earth-based radar. So, he developed practical plans for launching geosynchronous space satellites, which we now use for the internet, TV, cell phones, etc.
When COVID hit, conspiracy theory websites were all abuzz about “The Book” that accurately predicted the Pandemic. The day, the virus, type, the involvement of China, the global death rate. Hmm. No, it didn’t. The “global virus that causes a pandemic” trope is not a single book or a group of books, it is a whole genre of SciFi. There are hundreds of books, movies, comic books, and TV series. This trope is so popular that whole franchises are built on it (Resident Evil), originals are rebooted (The Last Man on Earth [1964], [1971], [2007], [TV- 2015], ) and rebooted franchises that throw in a Pandemic to keep things fresh (Planet of the Apes).
With all of this “could almost be true” floating around, it’s easy to see how the lines between fact and fiction get blurry, and why conspiracy theorists look for hidden messages everywhere. Of course, why THEY (or whatever cabal of the rich and powerful you think is responsible) would hide messages in old movies, as opposed to sending you an email is harder to say. But if crop circles are good enough when Aliens need to contact you, then hidden SciFi messages must be good enough for passing on vital scientific information.
We are now all armed with the superpowers of Google, and we can comb through the vastness of the Internet. It’s now much easier to thread together almost any collection of unrelated ideas into a full-blown conspiracy. Truth is now a spectrum. The introduction of “Alternative Facts” to the American lexicon hasn’t helped. Fantasy, conspiracy, fictionalized facts, and the “real truth” now all sit side by side. And, we must admit, conspiracy theories do come true…
SECRET MONITORING: “They are watching you!”, was the battle cry of the conspiracy universe. The “they” changes from conspiracy to conspiracy. “They” could be the government, big corporations, possibly a secret society. Today, “They”… are everyone. Your cell phone (and your laptop, and credit cards) track your location and your life choices. There are nearly one billion internet-connected security cameras, many of which have begun feeding into “facial recognition” systems. This technology has the potential for a police state far worse than George Orwell’s “1984”. They are definitely watching us, but if we all know we’re being watched… HELL, if we all pay for the privilege of phone contracts so that we can be BE tracked… is it still a conspiracy?
CHEMICALS: Rumors of strange chemicals in our drinking water is nothing new. Floride was the main culprit in the 1950s (it prevents cavities). Today, just about every chemical imaginable… from lead to anti-depressants… is lurking in your drinking water. The real culprit is pollution, industrial contamination, and incompetent town managers (that’s a whole other list of conspiracies). There really is a “THEY” for water pollution. Unfortunately, our entire agricultural and manufacturing base, the entire base of our economy, is responsible. It could be a lot easier to catch some conspirators dumping chemicals into our reservoirs in the middle of the night!
AIRPLANES: Airplanes were once few in number and primarily for the US and Europe. Today, the global fleet is 25,000 commercial aircraft, and it is expected to reach 35,000 by 2035. Planes fly everywhere. And they can crash anywhere. But planes are BIG and we have TECHNOLOGY! How can we possibly lose a commercial airplane? Pretty suspicious, right? Well, 75% of the world is OCEAN, with almost no radar stations. Land makes up the remaining 25%, but even this is only partially covered by radar. Our Earth is a big planet with oceans and valleys, forests, and jungles; panes crash in very inconvenient places. We don’t need aliens, time warps, or other phenomena to explain missing aircraft. Still. Airplanes are so big! Are we sure that no one knows where they went?
GLOBAL WARMING: Understanding and predicting climate is incredibly complex. If you don’t understand climate, that’s OK. Nobody understands how climate works. Even climatologists with PhDs (some of the smartest people on earth) need supercomputers to run their climate models. We could listen to these experts when they offer explanations, like the wildfires in California are the result of hotter, drier, weather and mismanagement of our water resources. Or we can go with more “to the point” conspiracy theories… like space lasers. Hey, don’t knock it! Do YOU know what all those satellites are doing? Why not orbiting space lasers? This theory might be a bit light on facts, but it’s easy to understand!
CORONA-19 Virus: Good God! This is the gift that keeps giving! The vaccine is made from alien DNA, it can change your DNA, and best of all… THE CORONA VACCINE HAS A TRACKING CHIP! Haven’t you been listening? We know we’re being tracked! Even if a tracking chip could fit through a hypodermic needle (and they can’t), cell phones and computers already track your location AND a whole lot of other information.
If you don’t use electronics, it doesn’t matter. Credit cards have tracked where you are and what you buy since the 1970s. Got a smart TV? Yep, you’re tracked. Own a car? Then you not only have GPS tracking, but newer cars also have black-box-like devices that comprehensively track your every action. After all, your insurance company needs that data to deny your payments the next time you have an accident.
I could go on and on about how tracking chips (which do exist) cannot be made small enough to fit in a dose of vaccine. Or how the smaller the chip, the shorter the range (the smallest chips today can only transfer data a few inches away). As opposed to your cell phone or your car, which can transmit data around the world.
I recently saw a news segment about COVID. It showed an anti-vaxxer with a severe COVID infection. He refused the vaccine because a friend told him that it had a tracking chip, and he did not want to be tracked. The interview began, with the patient in bed, using his cell phone. During the interview, he never put down his phone.
So, if you are against taking the COVID vaccination because it has a tracking chip, then you are several conspiracies out of date. You’re already fully tracked. It’s time to move on. Besides, there are so many other COVID conspiracies! You can easily pick one that’s… you know… just a bit less stupid.
What’s your favorite conspiracy theory? And how did you hear about it? Your fellow readers would love to hear from you!