List of Conspiracy Theories - Miscellaneous

Miscellaneous

Nature

• Several theories are advanced regarding the cause and aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.
• Conspiracy theories related to the causes of the devastating 2010 Pakistan floods abound, with even mainstream newspapers repeating allegations that India and/or the US are responsible.

Advertising

• There is a theory that the famous "computer vs. human" chess game – between Russian grandmaster Garry Kasparov and IBM's Deep Blue computer – had involved cheating by IBM, to ensure they would achieve a victory that would be widely publicized. This theory is argued by the documentary Game Over: Kasparov and the Machine.
• Another conspiracy theory related to advertising is that The Coca-Cola Company intentionally changed to an inferior formula with New Coke with the intent of driving up demand for their classic product, later reintroducing it for their financial gain. Alternatively, people believe the switch was made to allow Coca-Cola to reintroduce "classic" Coke with a new formulation using less expensive corn syrup. Donald Keough, president of Coca-Cola, replied to this theory: "The truth is, we're not that dumb, and we're not that smart."

Space

• Theorists claim that the Apollo moon landings were "staged" in a Hollywood movie or other studio either because they never happened or to conceal some aspect of the truth of the circumstances of the actual landing. (This led to the falsified Martian landing plot of Peter Hyams's film Capricorn One.)
• Another theory regarding the moon landings is that the Apollo astronauts found a human skeleton and footprints on the moon. (This was circulated despite the fact that there is no way for anything to decompose on the moon, because its lack of atmosphere would prevent this.) The theory received more widespread attention when the Weekly World News twice published stories about a human skeleton on the moon, first on Nov 28, 1989, and then again on Jul 15, 1997. This same story had been told before in a 1977 novel, Inherit the Stars, by James P. Hogan.
• Soviet space program conspiracy accusations suppose that some failed human spaceflights in the USSR occurred but were concealed by the government.
• Also, some theorists claim that China secretly tried a manned spaceflight in the winter of 1978 and 1979, but that it was a failure.

Global Warming

• The Global warming conspiracy theory asserts that the global community of climate scientists has colluded to fabricate a vast body of scientific evidence and literature in order to deceive the world into believing there is a significant anthropogenic component to increases in global temperatures, with the objective of misdirecting research funding, political power, or simply money.

History

• Some New Chronology theories, such as the Phantom time hypothesis of Heribert Illig and the Fomenko-Nosovsky chronology, claim that the conventional dating of historical events is incorrect, and that the historical timeline has been purposely distorted by powerful interests.
• Revisionist history regarding the Irish Potato Famine suggests that it was a result of the British naval blockade around Ireland; that when the international community began to send naval ship food shipments, the British rerouted those naval ships to England.

Sports

• The "Frozen Envelope Theory" suggests that the NBA rigged the 1985 NBA Draft Lottery so Georgetown University standout Patrick Ewing would land with the New York Knicks, who had the first pick in that year's draft. Conspiracy theorists argue that the New York Knicks's envelope was placed in the freezer so that when NBA commissioner David Stern reached into a bowl containing the envelopes of all the teams participating in the draft lottery, he would be able to identify the Knicks’s envelope by its being colder than the others.
• The death of Phar Lap, the champion New Zealand and Australian racehorse, was purported to be a deliberate poisoning. There are also several theories concerning the disappearance of the champion racehorse, Shergar.

Electronic banking conspiracy

• The Theory of Electronic Conspiracy is said to be a variant of modern New World Order conspiracy theories. The theory consists of the belief that a secret group has attempted for centuries to reach world domination, even if the result by design would be world destruction. According to this theory, the worldwide dominion has been planned from antiquity and follows the following phases:

1. The substitution of precious metal-based coin currency by paper currency. This process began in the Renaissance, with the beginning of the use of tickets which allowed for people to have a tangible good (such as silver or gold pieces) by paper--a more virtual, but comfortable, medium which the state was committed to provide the equivalent amount of precious metal if such was required.
2. The appearance of virtual money, with credit cards: money approaches wholly virtual status. Money is no longer a tangible paper- or metal-based object but rather a series of numbers recorded in magnetic stripes.
3. The proliferation of Internet and Electronic commerce: credit cards are no longer required in order to purchase or sell goods and services from an Internet-connected computer.
4. The concentration of the worldwide bank into few hands, by means of continuous international banking fusions.
5. The worldwide implementation of an electronic identity card.
6. The great worldwide blackout: A tremendous disaster will take place when, after a great electrical blackout on a planetary scale, the data of all electronic accounts erase simultaneously. After this event, chaos and poverty will immediately ensue throughout the planet; and civilization will revert to its primitive forms of slavery to survive. This is the last aim of the "secret organization" which has spent centuries guiding this process. The worldwide blackout will be preceded by partial blackouts that would only be tests and "signals" to communicate that different phases of the process are being fulfilled. An example of these partial blackouts would be those that have been produced almost simultaneously in different parts around the world; and, at the beginning of the 21st century, shortly after the September 11, 2001, attacks: the blackouts in the United States, Canada, Australia, and the United Kingdom.