Conspiracy Theories

When Fidel Castro overthrew Cuba’s dictator in 1959, the Communist leader and provocateur quickly became a threat to the U.S. government. The CIA has been proven responsible for at least eight plots against Castro’s life. Despite the creativity of their attempts—including everything from an exploding cigar to a mafia hit—they were ultimately unsuccessful. But if there were reportedly over 600 attempts on Castro’s life during his reign, just how many were the CIA actually responsible for?Keep up with Conspiracy Theories!YouTube: @ConspiracyTheoriesPodcastInstagram: @theconspiracypodTikTok: @conspiracy.pod Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

On July 17th, 1996, about 13 minutes into a direct flight from New York to Paris, TWA Flight 800 exploded in mid-air, killing all 230 people on board. An extensive investigation concluded that the most likely culprit was a mechanical issue. But the official story didn’t stop rumors that a missile brought down the airliner – and that the government was covering up the truth. Keep up with Conspiracy Theories! YouTube: ⁠@ConspiracyTheoriesPodcast⁠ Instagram: ⁠@theconspiracypod⁠ TikTok: ⁠@conspiracy.pod Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

First, they said Pine Gap was for space research. Then, it was a weather station. It’s now called a defense base, but Australians often refer to it as their country’s Area 51. Some suspect the facility is housing alien life and giant UFOs that have crash landed on earth. Others say its satellites and surveillance technology are part of a global war machine. What’s really going on at the top-secret military base located in Australia’s desert? You could ask the hundreds of people who work there, but they probably won’t tell you. Loose-lipped employees have apparently disappeared in the past. Keep up with Conspiracy Theories! YouTube: ⁠@ConspiracyTheoriesPodcast⁠ Instagram: ⁠@theconspiracypod⁠ TikTok: ⁠@conspiracy.pod Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

In 1695, “The Pirate King” Henry Every pulled off a heist, evaded a global manhunt, and vanished with his newfound treasure. He was never found…or was he? A new theory suggests the King of England not only knew what happened to Henry – he hired the “missing” pirate as a spy. Keep up with Conspiracy Theories! YouTube: ⁠@ConspiracyTheoriesPodcast⁠ Instagram: ⁠@theconspiracypod⁠ TikTok: ⁠@conspiracy.pod Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Imagine you wake up tomorrow and the person you depend upon most in this world is gone. No trace, no goodbyes, just vanished. Then, you find out they planned their disappearance — and have no intention of returning. In Japan, this phenomenon has a name: Johatsu, or “evaporated people.” Is it a silent escape from societal pressures or something more sinister? From clandestine "night-moving" services to whispers of a hidden underworld, we dive into the intriguing, and sometimes unsettling, world of Japan's missing. Keep up with Conspiracy Theories! YouTube: ⁠@ConspiracyTheoriesPodcast⁠ Instagram: ⁠@theconspiracypod⁠ TikTok: ⁠@conspiracy.pod Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Earlier this year, Dr. Corrado Malanga and Dr. Filippo Biondi claimed they’d made a massive discovery at the Giza Complex in Egypt. Using Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) data, combined with their own new technology, they said they’d located massive structures hidden below the Pyramid of Khafre. The news went viral; excitement and speculation ran rampant. Experts were quick to question the results. So what’s the debate all about? Keep up with Conspiracy Theories! YouTube: ⁠@ConspiracyTheoriesPodcast⁠ Instagram: ⁠@theconspiracypod⁠ TikTok: ⁠@conspiracy.pod⁠ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

We can’t hop in a time machine and set it to a specific year…yet. But what if we can unwittingly slip through time, briefly, to another year – with no control over when or where it happens? There have been multiple documented cases of alleged time-slips, and strangely, many of them have occurred in Europe. Keep up with Conspiracy Theories! YouTube: ⁠@ConspiracyTheoriesPodcast⁠ Instagram: ⁠@theconspiracypod⁠ TikTok: ⁠@conspiracy.pod Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Did Germany secretly establish a base in Antarctica prior to World War II? In 1947, the U.S. Navy launched the largest expedition to the southernmost continent ever attempted. Some believe they were hunting Nazis. And the idea that the Germans built one, or more, Antarctic bases is just beginning. UFOs? Super weapons? Gateways to Hell? Subterranean alien species? The South Pole is like a one-stop shop for popular conspiracy theories. Keep up with Conspiracy Theories! YouTube: ⁠@ConspiracyTheoriesPodcast⁠ Instagram: ⁠@theconspiracypod⁠ TikTok: ⁠@conspiracy.pod Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

“Power is having impunity.” In January 1997, a photojournalist is found murdered on the side of the road in General Madariaga, Argentina. The investigation into his death becomes a cultural flashpoint, exposing a sprawling conspiracy with ties to some of the most powerful forces in the country. More than 25 years later, some still believe the man who orchestrated it all…got away. Keep up with Conspiracy Theories!YouTube: @ConspiracyTheoriesPodcastInstagram: @theconspiracypodTikTok: @conspiracy.pod Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

For over a century, common belief was that Vincent Van Gogh died by suicide. But in 2011, two Pulitzer Prize-winning biographers suggested the art world had it all wrong, and Vincent covered up his own homicide. Keep up with Conspiracy Theories!YouTube: @ConspiracyTheoriesPodcastInstagram: @theconspiracypodTikTok: @conspiracy.pod Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

On New Year’s Day in Sydney, Australia, two dead bodies are discovered near a river. Dr. Gilbert Bogle and Margaret Chandler are married – but not to each other. And both of their spouses have strong alibis.They’re found just hours after dying, and yet experts can’t determine what led to their deaths. There are no signs of violence; no trace of deadly substances. Were they killed by a jealous spouse, accidental poisoning, or an international conspiracy targeting Dr. Bogle, a renowned physicist who, some allege, was working on a top-secret project? Keep up with us on Instagram @theconspiracypod! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Fluoride and its presence in public water has become a hot-button issue in the United States. More and more communities and government officials are rethinking whether the benefits fluoride provides our teeth outweigh its potential health risks. But history shows fluoride is no stranger to controversy or conspiracy theories. Over the years, the naturally-occurring mineral compound has been blamed for turning women into nymphomaniacs, populations into “moronic, atheistic slaves”, and perhaps most popularly, it’s been accused of being a weapon in a vast communist plot to overthrow democracy. What’s true and what’s not? The needle is moving. ***Keep up with us on Instagram @theconspiracypod! Listen to Science Vs. explore the science, including recent studies on whether fluoride affects IQ. Listen to The Journal discuss how the politics of fluoride in drinking water are playing out across the country. To check fluoride levels in your local water, visit the CDC’s My Water’s Fluoride page. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

In 2018, a peer-reviewed article published in Progress in Biophysics and Molecular Biology suggested the theory that octopuses could have extraterrestrial origins. As in, they’re not regular Earthlings. The 33 scientists who authored the paper say, the octopus could have arrived on Earth, in some form, on board a celestial body – like an asteroid. Most of the scientific community disagreed. Experts said octopuses are alien-like, but there are clues to suggest they experienced a normal, Earth-bound evolution. However…they might hold clues about what alien behavior would look like. Today, we’re joined by researcher Dominic Sivitilli, who tells us what studying octopus cognition can teach us about alien intelligence. Keep up with us on Instagram @theconspiracypod! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

American New Age culture isn’t all crystals and Tarot cards. A New World Order? The Aryan race? Alien-human hybrids? Throughout history, New Age belief systems have so often been blended with wild, and sometimes dangerous, conspiracy theories that academics have coined the term “conspirituality.” This week, we journey into murky waters of Love Has Won, a New Age spiritual group whose leader passed away in 2021. By the time authorities found her body that April, she had been dead for weeks. Her followers had camped with her body, slept with it in tents, and crossed state lines to fashion a shine out of her mummified corpse. We’re joined by journalist and author Leah Sottile. Leah’s book Blazing Eye Sees All investigates American New Age culture and examines how self-proclaimed prophetesses, like Love Has Won’s Amy Carlson, have managed to create kingdoms for themselves. Keep up with us on Instagram @theconspiracypod! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Alcatraz was designed to be inescapable. But in 1962, three men broke out. The FBI concluded the inmates died in the San Francisco Bay. But some family members are convinced they made it out alive – and lived secret lives for decades. Keep up with us on Instagram @theconspiracypod! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

In 1953, an Air Force jet took off from Michigan’s Kinross Air Force Base in pursuit of an unknown aircraft, or bogey. As the jet approached the mystery aircraft, the two dots representing them on a radarscope appeared to merge – just before the jet vanished.For years, ufologists have theorized that the bogey was of extraterrestrial origin.Today, we’re talking to two researchers from the Open Skies Project – Zach Garner and Kyle Kary – who’ve been digging into declassified files and other documents related to the Kinross Incident.See their research and follow along with their work on the Calumet Air Force Station at openskiesproject.org Keep up with us on Instagram @theconspiracypod! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

A legend tells of a cache of Civil War-era gold buried somewhere in the hills of Elk County, Pennsylvania. Over the past few decades, treasure hunters have descended upon the community of Dents Run to seek their fortune – and to find out if the stories are true. Dennis Parada’s search began in 1974. He spent the majority of his lifetime researching the tale, put years into combing the woods, and told his son bedtime stories of Union soldiers on an ill-fated trip. Then, one day, he believed he finally found it. His research was so convincing that in 2018, the FBI agreed to excavate the site Dennis pinpointed. According to the FBI, they found nothing: no gold, and no evidence that gold had ever been there. But not everybody is convinced that the FBI is telling the full truth. Keep up with us on Instagram @theconspiracypod! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

In the early 1970s, when he was still an Archbishop, Albino Luciani caught wind of a shady banking scheme involving Italian banker Roberto Calvi and the Vatican. Years later – and just 33 days into his tenure as Pope John Paul I – he was found dead. Did stepping into the Vatican’s affairs cost him his life? Keep up with us on Instagram @theconspiracypod! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

After Malcolm X was assassinated, three men were arrested. Despite holes in the investigation and the prosecution’s case, all three went to prison. In the years that followed, people close to Malcolm insisted there was more to the story. But then, decades later, after new information emerged in a 2020 docuseries Manhattan’s then-District Attorney decided to re-examine the case. Keep up with us on Instagram @theconspiracypod! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Malcolm X’s radical ideas about racial justice won him many followers, and spawned just as many enemies. When Malcolm X was assassinated in 1965, three men were promptly arrested. But for decades, questions have lingered about whether the right men went to prison, and more importantly, who told them to pull the trigger. Keep up with us on Instagram @theconspiracypod! Have a story to share? Email us at conspiracystories@spotify.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices