Conspiracy Wiki · ChronologyTimeline

Chronicle

1257 entries · by decade

Conspiracy theories arranged by the decade in which the alleged events took place.

2020s99 entries

2010s59 entries

2000s63 entries

1990s67 entries

1980s39 entries

1989Information Superhighway as PanopticonA 1990s internet-governance theory claiming that the “information superhighway” championed by Al Gore was not simply a civilian networking vision, but a long-range surveillance architecture rooted in military and state communications systems. In this reading, citizens were encouraged to voluntarily connect their homes, schools, and businesses to a network that would eventually make their communications, habits, and data available to unprecedented oversight.
1989The Atomic Energy Cold Fusion Suppression TheoryCold Fusion became one of the most famous scientific controversies of the late 20th century. In March 1989, chemists Martin Fleischmann and Stanley Pons announced that they had observed excess heat in
1989The Death of Eugene MalloveEugene Mallove was an MIT-trained engineer, science writer, former MIT chief science writer, and one of the best-known public advocates of cold fusion and related “new energy” research. He was beaten to death in Norwich, Connecticut, on May 14, 2004, while clearing out a family-owned rental property. Because he had spent years arguing that mainstream institutions had suppressed cold fusion, his murder immediately became the subject of speculation that he had been silenced for his work, even as the criminal case later centered on a violent local dispute tied to the property.
1989The Lambros 'Boycott Brazil' CaseJohn Gregory Lambros, a former Minneapolis commodities broker convicted of cocaine conspiracy, has spent decades saying that Brazilian authorities tortured him and surgically implanted electronic devices in his head during his 1991-1992 detention. From a federal prison cell he built a long-running 'Boycott Brazil' campaign and sought others who believed they carried implants. Federal courts addressing the claim in competency proceedings found him fit to stand trial and recited a psychologist's conclusion that his symptoms were manufactured. The two records — his account and the court's — have never been reconciled.
1989The Milli Vanilli Scandal (1989)A pop-culture control theory claiming that the Milli Vanilli scandal was more than a producer-driven lip-sync fraud and that it functioned as an early mass test of whether audiences could emotionally accept image without authentic voice. In this reading, the project measured how far pop stardom could drift from human performance toward packaging, substitution, and eventually synthetic entertainment.
1989The Panama Invasion (1989)A fringe geopolitical-occult theory claiming that the U.S. invasion of Panama was not primarily about Manuel Noriega, narcotics, or canal security, but about hidden treasure—sometimes described as “alien gold,” pre-Columbian technological metal, or esoteric loot connected to Noriega’s occult world. In this reading, Operation Just Cause served as a military cover for recovering materials too valuable or too strange to acknowledge publicly.
1989The Simpsons (1989 launch): That It Was a Predictive Programming BibleThis theory claimed that The Simpsons was not simply a satirical animated series, but a long-running “predictive programming” text that introduced the public to future events before they happened. In its strongest form, the show was treated as a kind of cultural oracle or encoded handbook for elite planning, with seemingly accurate “predictions” interpreted as evidence of foreknowledge rather than coincidence, satire, or extrapolation. The documented record supports that the series debuted in 1989, grew into one of the longest-running shows in television history, and later became famous online for episodes or jokes that resembled subsequent real-world events. It does not support the claim that the show functioned as a deliberate programming bible for future crises or political developments."
1988Silicone Breast Implant ConspiracyThe Silicone Breast Implant Conspiracy is the allegation that manufacturers, regulators, and influential medical institutions minimized or suppressed evidence that silicone breast implants could cause serious chronic illness. The controversy grew out of lawsuits, internal company documents, congressional scrutiny, FDA action, and years of dispute over whether reported autoimmune, neurological, and systemic symptoms reflected a real implant-related disease process or a broader panic built on incomplete evidence. The theory persists because the historical record shows real regulatory delays, documented device complications, and continuing reports of systemic symptoms, even though major reviews did not establish a clear causal link between silicone implants and classic connective-tissue disease.
1988The 1988 Summer Olympics (Seoul): That They Were Genetic GamesThis theory claimed that the 1988 Seoul Olympics were not simply a contest of training, doping, and state-sponsored sports science, but a demonstration of covert biological sorting—what later rumor called “Genetic Games.” In some versions, the phrase referred to sex verification, chromosome screening, and suspicion that women athletes were being judged by hidden genetic criteria. In others, it referred to the belief that medal-winning states were systematically engineering or selecting athletes through genetics, hormones, and laboratory enhancement. The historical record supports that Seoul 1988 was one of the most famous doping and sex-testing Olympics of the late twentieth century. It does not support the claim that the Games were a formal genetics competition in the modern gene-engineering sense.
1988The Censorship and They Live (1988)A cult-film conspiracy theory claiming that John Carpenter’s 1988 film They Live was not a science-fiction satire but a disguised documentary, and that the sunglasses revealing hidden messages and alien rulers represented real suppressed technology. In many versions, the movie’s limited mainstream status is treated as evidence that it was tolerated only because audiences would dismiss it as fiction.
1988The Phobos 2 Attack (1989)A Soviet-era space conspiracy theory claiming that the Phobos 2 probe was attacked or destroyed near Mars after transmitting unusual imagery, especially an image interpreted by some viewers as a long cylindrical object or anomalous shadow. In this reading, the loss of contact signaled hostile action by an unknown Martian defense system rather than an onboard failure.
1985Iran-Contra AffairA confirmed political scandal in which senior Reagan administration officials secretly facilitated illegal arms sales to Iran and diverted the proceeds to fund Contra rebels in Nicaragua, violating both an arms embargo and congressional prohibitions.
1985The 1985 Back to the Future ProphecyA modern retroactive theory claiming that the 1985 film Back to the Future contains symbolic foreshadowing of the September 11, 2001 attacks. The theory belongs to a broader “predictive programming” tradition in which older media are re-read as encoding future trauma through numbers, imagery, architecture, timing, or visual coincidence.
1985The 1985 MOVE Bombing (Philadelphia)A theory holding that the bombing of the MOVE house in West Philadelphia was more than a catastrophic police assault: it was a test of a new urban control doctrine, combining aerial delivery, explosive breaching, fire behavior, neighborhood-scale containment, and live observation of how force would propagate through a dense city block.
1984Patient Zero HIV MythThis theory held that the government, public-health authorities, or shadow actors intentionally seeded HIV through a specific person and then tracked the epidemic’s spread through his social and sexual network. In popular form, that person became “Patient Zero,” most famously identified as Canadian flight attendant Gaëtan Dugas. The strongest historical record shows a different process: Dugas was not the origin of HIV in North America, and the term “Patient Zero” grew out of a misreading of “Patient O,” where the letter meant “Outside of California” in an epidemiological cluster study. The myth was intensified by media, especially Randy Shilts’s 1987 book And the Band Played On, and by a wider desire to personify the origin of a frightening new epidemic."
1984The Challenger Pre-PanicA conspiracy theory alleging that before the 1986 Challenger disaster, NASA and allied policymakers were already compromising shuttle safety in order to protect a larger political project — keeping the shuttle central to commercialization, military payload strategy, and eventual privatization of space access.
1984The Madonna and the OccultA pop-culture theory claiming that Madonna’s “Like a Virgin” era—especially its bridal imagery, staged purity, symbolic inversion, and ritualized public performances—was not merely provocative entertainment but an initiation-style occult or Masonic drama. The theory later expanded by reading her use of sacred, bridal, and ceremonial symbolism as coded participation in elite ritual culture.
1984The Majestic 12 (MJ-12)The Majestic 12 theory holds that President Harry S. Truman secretly created a small committee of scientists, intelligence figures, and military leaders to manage the recovery of alien craft, study extraterrestrial technology, and control all official knowledge of nonhuman contact. In popular form, MJ-12 became the command center behind Roswell, crash retrievals, body studies, and long-term secrecy. The belief emerged publicly not in 1947 but in the 1980s, when supposed briefing papers and related documents began circulating among ufologists. The theory gained enormous power because it appeared to supply what earlier UFO lore had lacked: a named management structure, a presidential chain of authority, and a roster of elite insiders.
1984The Teacher in Space SabotageA conspiracy theory alleging that the Space Shuttle Challenger was intentionally sabotaged in order to kill Christa McAuliffe, the first selected Teacher in Space, and use the highly public disaster to overwhelm media attention surrounding a separate government scandal. In many retellings, McAuliffe’s civilian status is treated as the key reason the mission was chosen as a sacrificial public spectacle.
1983Able Archer 83In November 1983, NATO conducted "Able Archer 83," a routine military exercise simulating a nuclear escalation. However, due to heightened Cold War tensions and the recent shoot down of KAL 007, the S
1983HIV Cure SuppressionThis theory claimed that a simple herbal, vitamin-based, or low-cost cure for AIDS/HIV was discovered as early as 1983 but then buried by pharmaceutical interests, hospitals, regulators, or what later critics called the Medical-Industrial Complex. In its strongest form, the story held that early inexpensive cures were “deleted” once the epidemic became a durable source of institutional power and profit. The documentary record shows a different pattern: from the earliest years of the AIDS crisis, patients were flooded with fraudulent claims involving vitamins, hydrogen peroxide, pseudo-medicines, and other unproven treatments, while official HIV cure research remained unresolved for decades. The historical significance of the theory lies in its fusion of real desperation, real medical bureaucracy, and a long marketplace of false cures."
1983Star Wars (SDI) FakeThis theory claimed that Ronald Reagan’s Strategic Defense Initiative was not a serious missile-defense program but a political hoax or strategic bluff designed primarily to frighten, pressure, or economically exhaust the Soviet Union. In one version, “Star Wars” was technologically impossible and known to be impossible, making it a deliberate deception aimed at arms-control leverage and psychological warfare. In another fringe branch, the public-facing program was said to be mostly fake while a smaller real system based on advanced or even alien technology existed behind it. The historical record strongly supports that SDI studied many highly ambitious concepts and never produced the sweeping shield often imagined by the public. It does not support a clear consensus that SDI alone bankrupted the Soviet Union, nor does it support alien-technology claims.
1983The Censorship and V (The Miniseries, 1983)This theory claims that the 1983 NBC miniseries V was not merely science-fiction allegory but a disguised revelation about reptilian beings already embedded in the U.S. government. In this interpretation, the show’s lizard-like Visitors, media manipulation, and infiltration of political authority reflected not speculative fiction but truths that had to be presented indirectly because direct disclosure would have been censored or dismissed.
1983The Fort Detrick HIV Lab LeakThis theory claimed that HIV was not a naturally emerging zoonotic virus, but a biological weapon engineered at Fort Detrick and either intentionally released or accidentally leaked from U.S. military research. In many versions, the virus was said to have been designed to target Black communities, gay men, prisoners, or populations in Africa. The documentary record shows that this theory became a major public myth in the 1980s, but it also shows that the scientific consensus on HIV origin points instead to multiple cross-species transmissions of simian immunodeficiency viruses from African primates into humans. The Fort Detrick claim gained strength partly because it overlapped with real histories of biological warfare research, public mistrust, and later Soviet-bloc disinformation efforts."
1983The McMartin Preschool Case (1983)A theory that the McMartin Preschool in Manhattan Beach, California, sat above hidden tunnels and secret rooms where teachers and associated adults carried out Satanic rituals, sexual abuse, animal sacrifice, and impossible or nearly impossible acts such as flight. The theory arose during the wider Satanic Panic and was sustained by suggestive interviewing, media amplification, excavation efforts, and persistent claims that the school physically concealed subterranean ritual spaces.
1983The Sober OriginThis entry refers to the Soviet-era disinformation campaign that claimed the United States had invented AIDS as a biological weapon to destabilize Africa, discredit U.S. military presence abroad, and intensify social fracture among already marginalized communities, including gay men. In scholarship, the campaign is more commonly identified as Operation Denver and is often popularly called Operation INFEKTION. The documentary record strongly supports that the KGB and allied bloc services spread the Fort Detrick/AIDS story through forged documents, planted press items, and proxy outlets. The campaign’s public claims were false, but the campaign itself was real.
1983The Star Wars Laser Test and ChallengerA Cold War conspiracy theory claiming that Challenger was accidentally struck by a Strategic Defense Initiative ground-based laser or related directed-energy test. In this version, the shuttle disaster was not caused by a booster joint failure but by an SDI weapons experiment that intersected the launch trajectory and was then concealed beneath the official accident report.
1982Backward Masking on Stairway to HeavenThis theory reached its peak in 1982 and held that hidden Satanic or subliminal commands had been deliberately embedded backward in rock songs so that they could be decoded by the unconscious mind. Led Zeppelin’s “Stairway to Heaven” became the best-known example, with activists claiming that when one section was played in reverse it contained praise of Satan or commands that affected young listeners. The panic led to public hearings, proposed warning-label legislation, and media campaigns arguing that backmasked audio could manipulate behavior without the listener’s awareness. The historical record strongly supports the existence of the panic and the legal proposals. It does not support the claim that hidden Satanic commands in rock records were scientifically established or intentionally used to control listeners.
1982The British and The SmithsThis theory claims that Morrissey and The Smiths were part of a covert Soviet influence operation aimed at demoralizing British youth, deepening anti-war and anti-establishment sentiment, and redirecting alienated young listeners away from patriotic consensus during the late Cold War. In this reading, the band’s melancholy, social criticism, and appeal to disaffected youth are interpreted not as artistic expression but as cultural-political targeting.
1982The HMS Sheffield MysteryClaims that the 1982 sinking of the British destroyer by an Argentine missile involved a failure of "secret" IFF codes or deliberate sacrifice to harden public resolve.
1981PolybiusA legendary 1981 arcade cabinet said to have appeared in Portland, Oregon, combining addictive abstract gameplay, psychoactive side effects, government-style monitoring, and abrupt disappearance into one of the most enduring electronic mysteries of the modern age.
1981Pope John Paul II Shooting (1981)This theory claimed that the 1981 shooting of Pope John Paul II was not the work of Mehmet Ali Ağca alone, but a coordinated warning operation in which Soviet-bloc intelligence, Western intelligence, and anti-Catholic or anti-papal clandestine networks—sometimes specifically described as Freemasons—converged to pressure the pope over Poland and the Solidarity movement. In some versions, the KGB and Bulgarian services organized the attack while the CIA allowed the operation to proceed for strategic reasons; in others, anti-Masonic Vatican intrigue is added to make the shooting a transnational elite signal rather than a straightforward assassination attempt. The public record strongly supports that John Paul II was shot in St. Peter’s Square on May 13, 1981 by Ağca and that suspicions of Soviet or Bulgarian complicity were publicly debated. No conspiracy was proved in court, and the larger KGB-CIA-Masonic cooperation theory remains speculative.
1980John Lennon Assassin (1980)This theory claimed that Mark David Chapman was not simply a celebrity-obsessed murderer, but an MK-Ultra-style sleeper assassin programmed by the CIA, with J.D. Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye functioning as a trigger object or mental key. In stronger versions, Lennon’s killing is grouped with other “Manchurian Candidate” narratives about Sirhan Sirhan, Hinckley, and mind-control programs exposed in the 1970s. The documented record supports that Chapman carried The Catcher in the Rye, identified strongly with Holden Caulfield, and later told parole boards that he wanted notoriety and to be “somebody.” It does not support that the CIA programmed him or that the novel was used as an official trigger in an MK-Ultra-style operation.
1980Procter & Gamble’s Satanic LogoThis theory held that Procter & Gamble’s old “Moon and Stars” trademark was not simply a nineteenth-century brand emblem, but a coded Satanic symbol tied to the Church of Satan. The most common version claimed that the company’s president or CEO had appeared on a national talk show, usually named as Phil Donahue’s, and openly admitted that P&G supported Satanism and gave part of its profits to the Church of Satan. The rumor became one of the best-known corporate conspiracy stories of the 1980s, spread through word of mouth, chain messages, church networks, and later Amway distributor communications. The historical record strongly supports the existence and spread of the rumor, and it also shows that P&G spent years fighting it in court. It does not support the truth of the rumor itself.
1980Stevie Wonder Can Really SeeThe theory that Stevie Wonder can really see has circulated for decades and holds that his blindness is either partial, strategically concealed, or selectively overcome in certain situations. In conspiracy culture, the theory is built not on one single event but on an accumulation of moments: Stevie Wonder catching a falling microphone stand, navigating public space with unusual confidence, identifying people around him, responding to visual cues in live settings, and becoming the subject of repeated celebrity stories suggesting that he perceives more than the public is told. Within that framework, the question is not simply whether he is blind, but whether the public story of total blindness hides a more complex reality.
1980The 1980 Mount St. Helens Eruption as a Nuclear Deep-Drill TestA conspiracy theory alleging that the May 18, 1980 eruption of Mount St. Helens was not solely a volcanic event, but the result of a secret underground nuclear or deep-drilling experiment that destabilized the mountain and triggered the catastrophic blast.
1980The Crack Cocaine CIA ConnectionA major late twentieth-century U.S. political theory holding that the CIA, directly or through tolerated proxy networks, enabled cocaine trafficking connected to the Nicaraguan Contras and that these flows contributed materially to the rise of crack in American cities. The strongest versions say the Agency effectively created crack to finance covert war; milder versions say it knowingly looked away while allied traffickers operated.
1980The Georgia GuidestonesA mysterious granite monument erected in 1980 that listed ten "commandments" for a new age, often linked to New World Order depopulation agendas.
1980The October Surprise (1980)This theory suggests that representatives of Ronald Reagan, including William Casey, met with Iranian officials to ensure the 52 American hostages were not released before the election, preventing a "

1970s47 entries

1960s90 entries

1950s65 entries

1940s137 entries

1930s118 entries

1920s67 entries

1910s90 entries

1900s32 entries

1890s30 entries

1880s31 entries

1870s27 entries

1860s24 entries

1850s16 entries

1840s11 entries

1830s21 entries

1820s6 entries

1810s18 entries

1800s11 entries

1790s6 entries

1780s7 entries

1770s4 entries

1760s4 entries

1740s4 entries

1730s1 entry

1735Jersey DevilThe Jersey Devil is a legendary creature of American folklore said to inhabit the Pine Barrens of southern New Jersey. Known earlier as the Leeds Devil, the figure is tied to a colonial-era origin story about “Mother Leeds” and her cursed thirteenth child. Over time, the legend grew from local oral tradition into one of the most famous monster stories in the United States, especially after the 1909 wave of sightings and media hysteria that helped standardize the modern image of the creature.

1710s2 entries

1700s2 entries

1690s1 entry

1695The "Bachelor" Tax PlotThis theory holds that proposed bachelor taxes were not merely moral or fiscal measures, but part of a broader state effort to pressure men into marriage and childbearing in order to increase the labor supply for industrial society. The idea draws on real historical proposals to tax unmarried men, especially in periods of anxiety about declining birthrates, social disorder, and national strength. In conspiracy-oriented retellings, these proposals become evidence that government and industrial elites wanted to eliminate bachelorhood as an obstacle to producing more future workers.

1660s3 entries

1640s1 entry

1649The "Stolen" Crown JewelsThis theory claimed that the Crown Jewels displayed in the Tower of London were not the real regalia but expertly made replicas of glass and paste, while the genuine jewels had been secretly sold to cover royal debts. The theory drew plausibility from the real destruction and sale of the medieval regalia in 1649, the remaking of the regalia after the Restoration, and the strict security around the current collection. In conspiracy-oriented versions, those facts become evidence that substitution occurred again in secret.

1600s1 entry

1600The Lost Colony of the Welsh IndiansThis theory held that descendants of the medieval Welsh prince Madoc had crossed the Atlantic in the twelfth century and survived among Native peoples in North America. In the nineteenth century, the Mandan in particular were often claimed to be “Welsh Indians,” and explorers, writers, and antiquarians repeatedly sought evidence of European features, Christian traces, fortified settlements, or even the Welsh language among them. The documented record clearly shows that the Madoc legend circulated for centuries and that the Welsh-Indian hypothesis remained active throughout the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. What is not supported is the claim that the Mandan or any other Native nation were actually descendants of a lost Welsh colony.

1590s1 entry

1595The Prophecy of the PopesThe Prophecy of the Popes is a list of 112 short Latin mottoes, first printed in Arnold Wion's Lignum Vitae in 1595 and attributed to the 12th-century Irish archbishop St. Malachy, purporting to describe every pope from Celestine II to a final "Petrus Romanus" under whom Rome is destroyed. Most historians conclude the list was composed around 1590, noting that its mottoes are precise up to that year and vague afterward, and that no manuscript is attested before publication. The list drew worldwide attention around Benedict XVI's 2013 resignation and again during the 2025 conclave that elected Leo XIV.

1570s1 entry

1570TartariaTartaria, more commonly rendered in English-language history as Tartary, was an early modern European geographic label used for a broad and shifting expanse of Inner Asia, Siberia, and neighboring regions. In modern conspiracy culture, the same name has been reinterpreted as referring to a lost global empire said to have possessed advanced architecture, technology, and knowledge before being erased from history. The modern Tartaria theory combines historical map terminology, architecture-focused hidden-history claims, mud-flood narratives, and ideas of documentary suppression into one of the most prominent internet-era alternative-history systems.

1540s1 entry

1541Dodleston MessagesA British time-slip and haunting mystery centered on a BBC Micro computer in a sixteenth-century cottage at Dodleston, where messages allegedly appeared from a man named Lukas living in the 1540s, producing one of the most unusual cross-time communication stories in modern paranormal literature.

1510s1 entry

1510The "Hidden" Island of CaliforniaThis theory revived the much older belief that California was an island, combining it with modern earthquake and plate-tectonic fears to claim that the state was drifting away from the continent and that officials were secretly “bolting” it down. It fused two separate historical traditions: the early modern cartographic myth of California as an island, and the modern misconception that California could simply break off and fall into the Pacific. In conspiracy form, the state’s geology becomes a concealed engineering problem rather than a matter of tectonic science.

1400s2 entries

1300s2 entries

1270s1 entry

1271The "Great Wall of China" as a HoaxThis theory claims that the Great Wall did not exist as a real historical structure and that its reputation was created or exaggerated by travelers, illustrators, and publishers who profited from exotic descriptions of China. The idea often draws on the fact that some early travelers, especially Marco Polo, did not describe the Wall in the way later European readers expected. In later retellings, that silence was transformed into a claim that the Wall itself was a literary fabrication designed to sell books and shape Western ideas about China.

1200s1 entry

1200Brotherhood of the SnakeThe theory of the Brotherhood of the Snake presents it as the oldest and most important secret society in human history. According to this narrative, it began thousands of years ago as a covert order

1100s1 entry

1100The Tuatha Dé Danann as a Red-Haired Advanced RaceThe Tuatha Dé Danann are presented not simply as mythic Irish gods but as an advanced incoming race associated with red or blond hair, pale skin, blue eyes, aerial arrival, hidden knowledge, and later hybridization with local populations. Irish myth, Basque tradition, unusual archaeological remains, and modern UFO-abduction DNA narratives suggest that the Tuatha were a real high-strangeness people whose legacy survived in folklore, bloodlines, and memory.

610s1 entry

614The Phantom Time HypothesisA radical chronological theory claiming that nearly three centuries of the Early Middle Ages never occurred, and that European history contains an inserted “phantom” period created through falsified chronology, forged records, and retroactive political mythmaking.

320s1 entry

325Council of NicaeaThe Council of Nicaea was the first ecumenical council of the Christian church. It met in 325 CE in Nicaea, a city in Bithynia in northwestern Asia Minor, now İznik in modern Turkey. It was convened b

150s1 entry

150DemiurgeIn esoteric and conspiracy-oriented traditions, the Demiurge is described as the false creator of the material world: a lesser cosmic ruler who fashions physical reality, traps divine consciousness in matter, and obscures the existence of the true transcendent Source above him. In classical philosophy the Demiurge appears as a cosmic craftsman, but in Gnostic systems he becomes an ignorant, arrogant, or even oppressive architect of the visible world, often identified with Yaldabaoth, Samael, or Saklas and surrounded by archonic powers that maintain the prison of material existence.

30s1 entry

30Bloodline of the Lineage of JesusThis theory holds that Jesus did not leave history without descendants, but established a hidden royal bloodline through Mary Magdalene that survived the crucifixion era, passed into southern France, and later merged with the Merovingian dynastic stream. In this framework, the Holy Grail is not a cup but the vessel of that bloodline, preserved in secret through esoteric traditions, noble houses, and hidden guardians across the centuries.

Unknown Date38 entries