Category File
World War II
34 documented theories filed under this subject.
- The Japanese and the California EarthquakeThis wartime theory claimed that Japan was not limited to shelling and coastal harassment but had discovered a way to trigger California earthquakes through undersea explosives aimed at the San Andreas system. It framed seismic catastrophe as a covert military option and treated natural disaster as disguised attack.
- Hollywood Signal PlotThe Hollywood Signal Plot was a wartime theory that the bright searchlights used at movie premieres were more than publicity devices. According to the rumor, the sweeping beams over Los Angeles gave positional guidance to enemy bombers or submarines and reflected a deeper relationship between Hollywood spectacle, military vulnerability, and elite indifference to public safety.
- London Fog as WeaponLondon Fog as Weapon was a theory that Britain’s urban fogs and later lethal smog conditions were not simply byproducts of coal use and weather, but the result of deliberate smoke-screen experimentation turned inward on the population. In many versions, the poor were described as the first and main targets, with respiratory damage framed as collateral testing or intentional social control.
- Einstein and Time ManipulationEinstein and Time Manipulation was a World War II-era theory that Albert Einstein had not merely theorized time in abstract terms but had personally traveled forward, seen the outcome of the war, and passed strategic foreknowledge to Franklin D. Roosevelt. The theory treated relativity as a hidden state weapon and Einstein as both scientist and witness to future history.
- The Kamikaze BrainwashingA wartime and postwar theory claiming that Japanese kamikaze pilots were not primarily volunteers shaped by propaganda, discipline, and military culture, but were instead hypnotized, spiritually broken, or remotely influenced into self-destruction. In more elaborate versions, monks, ritual specialists, or radio-wave systems are said to have played a direct role in locking pilots into suicidal obedience.
- The Sulfa Drug TrackingA World War II–era theory claiming that sulfa powder and related battlefield medicines were doing more than preventing infection. In its conspiratorial form, the white powder applied to wounds was said to mark blood in a detectable way, allowing governments to identify, follow, or remotely scan treated citizens or soldiers after they returned to civilian life.
- The Radio and the WeatherA wartime theory that expanding use of radar, radio transmitters, and atmospheric electromagnetic systems was not merely detecting weather but altering it, and that the severe or unusual cold spells associated with the winters around 1942–43 were the result of man-made radio-wave interference in the sky. The theory joined early radar secrecy with wartime weather anxiety and the belief that radio had become an environmental force rather than just a communications tool.
- The British Royals and the German BloodA theory claiming that the British monarchy’s German dynastic roots did not merely survive the 1917 name change to Windsor, but continued to shape covert sympathy toward Nazi Germany. In stronger versions, symbolic gestures, family connections, home-movie footage, and the Duke of Windsor’s Nazi contacts are treated as evidence that the Queen or the royal household was sending signals to Hitler through bloodline, gesture, or coded diplomatic posture.
- The Mussolini EscapeA postwar rumor that the Benito Mussolini displayed in Milan after April 1945 was not the real dictator but a substitute body, wax dummy, or carefully arranged double. The theory arose because his death was sudden, his body was publicly abused, later buried in secrecy, then stolen and hidden again, creating a long afterlife of uncertainty around the physical fate of Il Duce.
- The Hollow Maginot LineA French political-corruption theory claiming that the Maginot Line was not merely strategically bypassed in 1940, but physically fraudulent from the start: concrete money was allegedly stolen, budgets were padded, and some forts were said to be little more than wooden shells, painted surfaces, or stage-set defenses built to enrich contractors and politicians rather than defend France.
- The Invisible ParatroopersA wartime rumor that Germany had developed transparent or near-transparent parachutes—often imagined as made from special silk—to drop airborne troops almost invisibly in low light or over defended territory. The theory likely drew on the real use of silk parachutes, the mystique around German airborne operations, and the wider wartime tendency to exaggerate enemy innovations into quasi-magical technologies.
- The Polish Cavalry FakeA theory rooted in the now-famous myth that Polish cavalry charged German tanks with swords and lances in 1939. The theory’s later form holds that the entire image was not just propaganda but a staged visual production by Nazi journalists or propagandists, built from a real cavalry engagement and then rearranged into a false cinematic symbol of Polish backwardness.
- The Zeppelin Gas TheftA theory claiming that the United States refused to sell helium to Germany not primarily from safety or export-policy concerns, but in order to force German airships onto flammable hydrogen and make catastrophic destruction more likely. The story gained traction because Germany did in fact want helium for the Hindenburg, and U.S. export law and strategic policy did keep that gas out of German hands.
- The Ghost Army (Real but mythologized)A World War II theory built around a real Allied deception unit that used inflatable tanks, dummy artillery, fake radio traffic, and engineered battlefield sound to mislead German forces. Because the unit operated under secrecy and its visual decoys often looked uncanny from a distance, later rumors expanded the story into claims that the Allies had developed “invisible” or cloaked armor rather than canvas-and-rubber illusions.
- The Lourdes Water Healing SoldiersA theory that the miraculous water of Lourdes was not only a site of pilgrimage and healing belief, but was secretly bottled or distributed to Allied servicemen—especially airborne or elite troops—as a form of spiritual protection, battlefield hardening, or miraculous enhancement. The theory draws on the longstanding association of Lourdes with healing, military pilgrimages, and the wartime circulation of devotional objects among soldiers.
- The I.G. Farben Global MonopolyA theory that World War II was not fundamentally a clash of nations but the violent restructuring of a transnational chemical-industrial order centered on I.G. Farben and its cartel relationships. In this telling, war itself functioned as the coercive phase of a global merger among chemical, fuel, dye, pharmaceutical, and materials empires.
- The French Resistance as British SpiesA theory claiming that the French Resistance was largely a fiction and that what appeared to be a broad internal anti-Nazi movement was really a thin network of British commandos, SOE handlers, and foreign operatives dressed up as “French patriots” for propaganda purposes. The rumor emerged from the genuine British role in organizing, training, arming, and linking many resistance circuits to London.
- The Japanese CanneriesThe Japanese Canneries theory held that Japanese-owned or Japanese-run fish canneries and related fishing facilities on the West Coast were not ordinary industrial businesses but covert military sites preparing components for a future Japanese attack. In the most developed version, the canneries were said to be torpedo assembly plants or sabotage hubs hidden in plain sight among the region’s fisheries.
- The Atomic Bomb and the End of the SoulThis theory claims that the atomic bomb did more than destroy bodies and cities: it ruptured or erased the souls of those caught in the flash. Built around the unprecedented visual, thermal, and radiological violence of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the theory reflects a spiritual interpretation of atomic warfare in which nuclear force is treated as an assault on the continuity of personhood, ritual death, and the afterlife itself.
- The United States and the Japanese InternmentThis theory argues that the wartime incarceration of Japanese Americans was framed or even designed as a form of protective custody intended to shield them from mob violence, vigilante attack, or a wider anti-Japanese pogrom on the U.S. West Coast. It takes real anti-Japanese hostility and documented fears of violence and reinterprets internment not primarily as exclusion and racialized confinement, but as a preemptive state quarantine against mass bloodshed.
- The American and the Nazi Scientist SwapThis theory claims that the United States struck a hidden bargain at the end of the Second World War: in exchange for access to German scientists, weapons expertise, and potentially bomb-related research, top Nazi figures—including Adolf Hitler in the most extreme version—were allowed to disappear rather than be fully captured or publicly accounted for. The theory fuses documented postwar recruitment of German specialists with older Hitler-escape narratives.
- The British and the Enigma MachineThis theory claims that Britain’s wartime success against Enigma and its rapid development of codebreaking methods at Bletchley Park were impossible through ordinary mathematics and engineering alone, and therefore must have depended on alien guidance, recovered extraterrestrial technology, or transmissions from a nonhuman intelligence. It recasts a real history of cryptanalysis, secrecy, and multinational intelligence cooperation as evidence of outside intervention.
- The FDR and the Pearl Harbor GoldThis theory alleges that Franklin D. Roosevelt or U.S.-aligned financial networks quietly removed or redirected large stores of Pacific gold before the attack on Pearl Harbor, using foreknowledge of war to secure bullion, colonial reserves, or hidden treasure while the public remained unaware. Later versions of the theory often fuse Pearl Harbor foreknowledge narratives with postwar legends about Japanese wartime looting and so-called Pacific or Yamashita gold.
- The Japanese and the Emperor as GodThis theory extends the wartime concept of imperial divinity into a science-fiction frame by claiming that Emperor Hirohito was not simply treated as divine within State Shinto but was literally nonhuman or extraterrestrial. The theory combines real pre-1945 ideas about the emperor’s sacred status with later alien-contact narratives and reinterprets imperial distance, ritual, and surrender-era symbolism as evidence of hidden otherworldly identity.
- The Allied and the Firebombing of DresdenThis theory claims that the February 13–15, 1945 destruction of Dresden was not only a strategic bombing operation but a deliberately timed ritual act tied to Masonic numerology, occult symbolism, or an initiatory wartime calendar. The theory attaches itself to a real and highly controversial Allied bombing campaign and reinterprets the timing of the raid as evidence of ceremonial intent rather than military planning alone.
- The Eisenhower Jewish AncestryThis theory claimed that Dwight D. Eisenhower either had concealed Jewish ancestry or served as a “Zionist” or Jewish-controlled agent inside the Allied command structure. In its wartime form, the claim functioned as Nazi-style propaganda meant to explain his role in the defeat of Germany not as military leadership but as evidence of hidden ethnic or ideological allegiance. The story drew on the general methods of Nazi antisemitic propaganda, which routinely reinterpreted enemies as puppets of Jewish power, finance, or conspiracy. The documentary basis for the specific ancestry claim is thin and propagandistic, but the broader context—Nazi use of antisemitism to frame military and political opponents—is fully established.
- The Japanese Balloon Bomb BacteriaThis theory grew out of a real wartime threat: the Japanese Fu-Go balloon bomb campaign that sent thousands of unmanned balloons across the Pacific toward North America. While the documented balloons carried incendiary and anti-personnel devices, rumor quickly pushed the threat further. In its period form, the fear was that the balloons might also carry bacteria, plague agents, or other forms of germ warfare. In later and more sensational retellings, that biological-warfare fear was exaggerated into a “zombie virus” story in which the balloons were supposedly designed to spread a pathogen that would produce madness, collapse, or undeath-like symptoms. The documentary core is strong on the balloons and on Japanese biological-warfare capability, but not on the existence of a zombie-like agent in the balloon program.
- The Rubber HoardThis theory claimed that the wartime rubber shortage in the United States was exaggerated or partly staged by the federal government. In its strongest form, the allegation held that officials actually possessed adequate stores of crude and reclaimed rubber but maintained the appearance of scarcity in order to test public obedience, measure willingness to sacrifice, and normalize rationing culture. The historical setting behind the theory was real and dramatic: the Japanese conquest of major natural-rubber regions in Southeast Asia cut the United States off from most of its normal supply, gasoline and tire rationing followed, and the government mounted large public campaigns urging citizens to drive less, preserve tires, and surrender scrap rubber. The conspiratorial version treated this genuine mobilization as a behavioral experiment rather than a supply crisis.
- The Artificial SunThis theory held that wartime governments were attempting to create a permanent or semi-permanent artificial sun that could illuminate battlefields continuously, deny night to the enemy, and erase the tactical advantage of darkness. The documentary core behind the rumor is real but more limited: World War II militaries experimented extensively with searchlights, floodlighting, “artificial moonlight,” and round-the-clock battlefield illumination techniques. In conspiracy form, these practical innovations were transformed into a much larger hidden project to create an enduring man-made sun over the front.
- The Death Ray at Oak RidgeThis theory claimed that the vast electricity consumption at the Tennessee facilities of the Manhattan Project was not really for uranium enrichment or atomic research, but for a Tesla-style directed-energy weapon intended to burn, melt, or otherwise devastate the German heartland. The theory emerged naturally from several real wartime facts: Oak Ridge consumed extraordinary amounts of electricity, most workers did not know the full purpose of what they were helping build, and Tesla’s “death ray” or teleforce ideas remained active in public imagination through the 1930s and into World War II. In conspiratorial form, these facts were fused into a hidden-weapon narrative in which East Tennessee was not powering an atomic bomb program, but a continental beam weapon.
- The V-3 CannonThe V-3 cannon was a real German long-range weapon project based on the multi-charge or “high-pressure pump” principle. During and after the war, however, its reputation often exceeded its actual demonstrated capability. Rumors transformed it from a long-range bombardment system aimed at London into a transatlantic supergun capable of firing from Berlin to New York. That New York variant belonged to fear and wonder-weapon mythology rather than to the documented range of the weapon. The V-3 was real, the underground sites were real, and the weapon was genuinely intended for long-range bombardment—but not at intercontinental scale.
- The Foo FightersThe Foo Fighters were the glowing aerial objects reported by Allied pilots during World War II, especially night-fighter crews in Europe and the Pacific. Witnesses described luminous spheres, orange or red lights, or maneuvering objects that seemed to pace aircraft, appear in groups, or perform movements unlike ordinary navigation lights. During the war and immediately afterward, explanations varied. Some airmen and intelligence personnel suspected secret German weapons or observational devices, while others treated the objects as atmospheric or psychological phenomena. Later UFO culture reinterpreted them as early evidence of extraterrestrial monitoring, turning the wartime sightings into a pre-Roswell chapter of modern alien history.
- Duke of Windsor Puppet KingThis theory claimed that Nazi Germany had moved beyond sympathy for Edward VIII and had developed concrete plans to restore him as a compliant ruler under German influence. In its more dramatic version, the story alleged that a coronation framework or prewritten ceremonial plan already existed in Berlin for his eventual return. The theory drew heavily on the documented Marburg Files and the Nazi plot known as Operation Willi, which contemplated bringing the Duke of Windsor over to the German side and reinstalling him under favorable conditions. The more elaborate coronation script element is a conspiratorial enlargement of that real documentary trail.
- The French Resistance FraudThis theory claimed that the French Resistance, as popularly remembered after the war, was less an indigenous nationwide struggle than a political and public-relations construction designed to save French national honor. In its harshest form, the allegation held that Britain, especially through the Special Operations Executive and wartime broadcasting, exaggerated or stage-managed the Resistance so that post-liberation France could claim a heroic internal uprising rather than a humiliating occupation and collaboration. The theory developed in tension with two real historical facts: the Resistance did exist and performed genuine underground, intelligence, sabotage, and guerrilla work, but postwar memory also magnified and simplified that history into a unifying national myth. Conspiracy versions converted the memory problem into a fabrication claim.