AIBU to wonder what conspiracy theories you think may hold some weight?

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Generally speaking I hate conspiracy theories, but is there anything out there that’s passed off as a conspiracy theory that you think holds some weight? I personally have some questions about the assassination of JFK.

A while back, but there are theories about Margaret Thatcher's backer, Airey Kneave, having been bumped off by MI5 rather than by INLA. I forget all the details, but apparently he would have had a major government role and had got drunk at a party and let slip some comments about how hands on he was going to be with the secret services. Apparently he believed/knew that there was infiltration at the very heart of the organisation, at the top levels, and he intended to be merciless in rooting it out. Essentially, he made Whitehall too hot to hold him, and MI5 bumped him off in such a way that it looked as though it was INLA (who were presumably only too happy to claim responsibility).

I always thought that had a ring of truth to it.

It's funny, "conspiracy theory" sounds crackpot, but there are conspiracies that happen, sometimes they work and other times not. So a conspiracy theory is really just a suspicion that some people got away with their conspiracy.

Most of the famous ones I don't really think much of. I don't think, if anyone had wanted to kill princess Diana, they'd have done it in that way - it could have gone totally wrong.

But in terms of international politics there are plenty of things that are classified, and so the official explanations are only partial. I think that possibility is what is behind people finding many of them plausible. When you hear that the CIA actually had plans to kill a leader of another nation with an exploding cigar, anything seems possible.

It was mostly the UK agitating for it, and since Dando was a prominent UK TV personality seen to be actively working against Serb interests, she was an obvious target for an act of reprisal.

She may have been a "prominent TV personality" in the UK but she wasn't that well known overseas. She always comes up on threads like this and on a previous thread a person with experience of Serbia posted (can't remember if they were Serbian themselves) saying that most Serbian people had no clue who she was. Given that everything that Serbia were involved in at the time do you really think killing a tv presenter was at the top of their priorities?

The smoking man shot JFK obvs

He did Martin Luther King too.

I'm afraid to say - because it's a terrible thing to think - but the past four years have proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that all the CIA/FBI/secret service American govt departments have no where near the reach or heavy handed manner we believed they did in the 90s (mostly courtesy of the X Files). If they were in the business of assassinating presidents or dangerous and damaging politicians or leaders of movements on American soil then they would have already ... well I'll just leave that sentence dangling and let you finish it up for yourselves.
But suffice it to say, if they haven't acted since 2016 - they didn't assassinate Kennedy.

But I did hear a theory that Kennedy was killed by one of the security guys on the back of his car - not on purpose, his gun went off. I can;t remember the details, but the evidence was quite compelling when presented. The entry wounds are at the right angle for someone right behind him - and said guard was whipped away and never spoken to or interviewed. Of all the people who have talked about the shooting, of all the eye witnesses who have said what they saw ... no one ever spoke to the guy directly behind him. Which is a strange omission when you think about it.
So it was a cock up with a cover up on it's heels - not a conspiracy.

I remember finding the death of Robin Cook to be very convenient for the govt at the time - but it's so long ago now that I don't remember why. Something to do with Iraq maybe?

Robin Cook foreign Secretary when Diana died ooh look another Blair tie in to a conspiracy
Who resigned over the Iraq invasion Blair he is again
Died aged 59 of unknown about heart disease quite suddenly when he was on the edge of an 8ft drop off a cliff
Nope nothing to see here move along now everyone

I don't believe that Ian Huntley killed the girls

@pcmcgregor really why and who then?

@TheGreatWave

Dr David Kelly didn't take his own life. There has been a massive cover up there.

I agree

I don't think David Kelly killed himself, and Gareth Williams certainly didn't kill himself.

Abdelbaset al-Megrahi didn't plant the bomb on the Lockerbie flight. It will be very interesting to see how the appeal that was allowed yesterday goes.

I think JFK was shot by LHO, but I think he was also shot by his security guy on the back of the car; accidentally when he was scrambling to grab his gun and hold on. I think that was a cover-up more than actual conspiracy.

I don't think Diana was a conspiracy either. I think the French just ballsed up the drunk driver's blood results with another, more drunk, driver and that's lead to conspiracy theories that will never go away. Also the car she was in was badly damaged previously and bought on the cheap so it could have been a tricky drive - drunk driver, high speed, tiredness and a heavy to handle car is just asking for trouble. Faffing with not holding an inquest for years just fed conspiracy theories.

Corrie McKeague I don't think there was any conspiracy, but a few errors. I think they let his parent's opinion on who he was and the kind of social life he lead sway him for too long and then missed opportunities to know more actually about him. Plus the error with the bin weight suggests he was actually in the bin lorry after all.

@Didkdt a guy called Joe vialls wrote about it at the time, he was convinced there was a link with the US army base, his website was deleted after his death in 2015 but some of it can be found on wikispooks, might want to skimread through some of it as it's a bit disturbing where he refers to other crimes and I think a bit unnecessary, I'm not sure I believe everything he says but I definitely don't think there was enough evidence to convict him. wikispooks.com/iframeDocs/joe%20vialls%20articles/wells-chapman.html

I'm sorry that I haven't read the full thread, but the part about deliberately infecting black men with syphilis is absolutely true.

Check out the Tuskegee experiments. That happened. Please don't lump this in with other conspiracy theories.

That is for @HighNetGirth.

Black men suffered. Wrongly so. As an American, it's important to me that people understand this really happened.

I don't mean to single you out, but this is important to american history. Black Americans have been treated appallingly, and we need to recognize it. BLM exists for a reason.

There are some very odd things about Lee Harvey Oswald, especially his defection to the Soviet Union and then his return to the U.S. I have some suspicion that he had closer ties to the CIA than have ever been admitted. He may conceivably have been a patsy, as he claimed. But I definitely don’t buy any of the wilder speculation about JFK’s assassination.

There is something 'off' about LHO. I watched a programme interviewing a CIA officer who said they were not interested in LHO - that raised a red flag for me, they SHOULD have been interested.

I think Iran brought down Pan Am 103 as revenge for Iran Air 655.

@Greyblueeyes I think you might want to read that person's post again, they didn't say those experiments never happened. They used it as an example of bizarre stuff that actually HAS happened.

I remember thinking about the moon landings and thinking if they did land back then, was it luck? Why did exploration not move on more significantly? (But I was younger when I thought it so maybe it did and I didn't notice!)
I always thought the Paul McCartney thing (that he replaced a guy called paul McCartney in the early days, was shocking but that if it had happened he'd earned all the recognition he'd earned since.
Also always meant to look up why people thought Elvis was still alive when I was young (80s and 90s)

@JanMeyer you are correct. I did read that incorrectly . My apologies to both of you. Thank you for kindly correcting me. I am very aware of the Tuskegee experiments because I grew up close to them.

Thank you for graciously pointing out that I was reading the comment incorrectly.

@HighNetGirth I apologize to you. I read your comment about the Tuskegee experiments wrongly. Please disregard my earlier comments.

Has anyone mentioned the Marconi deaths yet? That was weird. en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/GEC-Marconi_scientist_deaths_conspiracy_theory

I believe Jill Dando was assassinated by the Serb government. NATO had just bombed a Serb TV station, killing 16 people. I was in a national newsroom at the time and it was pre-internet so I can see how this detail got lost - but the Serb government reacted to her death. They put out a statement saying it was a terrible tragedy, just like the bombing of their TV station. We were all in the throes of reacting the the initial story and of course the police were told but the investigation discounted it. But it was clearly a professional hit.

Flight 103 was terrorism and probably state-sponsored. The risk of an imminent attack on that plane or others was certainly known inside security services at the highest levels.

See I assumed Epstein did kill himself but still suspicious.. either he bribed a few people into letting him/ helping him (missing checks and footage) OR he was encouraged to do it.

@likestodraw

The smoking man shot JFK obvs ;-)

That is of course one theory but it’s more likely that JFK shot himself after a time travelling trip for curry went wrong and LHO fell from a window of the Texas book repository.

Not exactly a conspiracy theory but I would be interested to know the real story behind the Queen's intervention in Paul Burrell's trial.

@LadyGAgain

Hmmmm the only reference I recall was about being fed to dogs and I didn't understand it!

I wouldn’t call that a conspiracy theory, more a case of media / press management (I don't believe it myself but that is what it sounded like if anything).