Conspiracy Clearinghouse

The CIA promoted abstract art as part of the Cold War, and then the art market became a vast, unregulated exercise in branding.

The story of Pizzagate is the story of how the conspirasphere went from harmless kookery to being actually, physically dangerous.

Most cities have oddities, anomalies and legends. Washington D.C. has more than most.

Magnets are cool but can they confer health benefits? Spoiler: they can’t.

The Bermuda Triangle - real or not? What about all the other triangles? And the 12 Vile Vortices?

Conspiracy thinking thrives in the Middle East but why?

Jan. 6, 2021 was a singular event in US electoral history. But what, exactly, happened that day?

The origins of the modern conspirasphere in the US can be traced JFK’s assassination, and the interplay of political events and distrust form the basis of what we see today.

For 13 months, the town of Point Pleasant, WV was plagued with UFOs, MIBs, ghosts, demons and the Mothman. And so legends, and careers, are made.

Cognitive biases and out-dated mental equipment contribute to the human tendency to latch onto certain narratives. One solution is slow thinking.

Turkey is a fascinating country with a rich history, but also a susceptibility to conspiracy narratives. And some of those are doozies.

Neurosurgeon Gary Simonds talks about the brain, how it works, how it doesn’t, ghosts and more.

Deception is a big part of warfare, and it sometimes trickles down into the civilian sphere.

Project Star Gate explored the possibilities of remote viewing and other psychic abilities. Too bad it was all nonsense.

More mysteries and histories aboot America’s Hat

Dan Casolaro thought he’d found a vast conspiracy he called the Octopus. But then he killed himself, supposedly, just one in a series of deaths linked to what may or may not have been going on.

Even the realms of architecture and urban planning are not safe from the paranoid minds that live in the conspirasphere.

Canadians are not immune to conspiracy thinking, and have some interesting ideas all their own.

The John Birch Society really, really hates Communism, and is the foundation of the far right today.

AI is here, and here to stay. And, honestly, the future looks pretty bright and/or weird.

Three unsolved cases that mix speculation and facts, with head scratching results.

AI might be a real boon or it just might wipe us all out.

The US maybe has bases on Mars which they maybe share with aliens and maybe also create soulless slaves to fight an interplanetary war. Or not.

We use A440 as the standard reference pitch today in music. Is that because it’s better, or because an evil cabal is manipulating us?

The world of sport is rife with rumor and conspiracy theories.

For our 3rd anniversary episode, we finally look at the Reptilian Conspiracy Theory.

Martin Treanor’s newest project is a trilogy that asks, what if all conspiracy theories are true?

Four offbeat events from the Land Down Under.

Fred Litwin looks at some of Oliver Stone’s numerous claims about JFK.

The Khazars as Cossack myth and code for anti-Semitism, Christian Identity & serpent seedism, Black Hebrews and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Werewolf stories at thousands of years old. Is there any truth to them? Some think so.

The KKK has actually had several versions, but all of them are hateful.

Some supposedly nefarious meetings and institutions that do god-knows-what behind closed doors.

Some US officials thinks UFOs might be a ”threat”. Is there any evidence they could be?

Chemtrails - that’s what the really paranoid call contrails. And they quite a few ideas about them.

A talk with Bob LeMent, who runs the Everywhere Is Haunted YouTube channel about ghost hunting TV shows, equipment, theories and a couple of anomalous events in his life, one involving the Shadow People and another with a UFO.

A wonky jetfighter, political bribes, ultranationalists and criminals, porn stars and kamikazes, a homeless assassin and more - the story of the Starfighter has it all!

Vampires are cool or scary or fun. And some people say that they really are vampires, in some form or another.

A look at voter fraud allegations and election interference in the US, 1792-1982.

Is time travel real? Will it be? Have some people slippe dinto the past, or visited us from the future? Well, there certainly are plenty of claims.

In an industry as big as video games, it should be no surprise that myths and conspiracy theories show up there as well.

America had a Satan freak out in the 80s, but why? Also, what was going on outside Belfast in the early 70s?

CERN and the LHC are doing important work trying to answer deep questions. They also inspire conspiracy theories aplenty.

Sometimes the fabric of our world thins out, and people slip through - either from another dimension or to one. So some people think, while others claim it happened to them.

Targeted individuals, who are either suffering a psychotic break, have schizophrenia, or have done something to royally piss off some very powerful people who possess technology so advanced, it borders on magic.

Nikola Tesla was a genius, maybe invented a death ray, maybe talked to aliens and maybe was an alien himself.

White people are being replaced by non-whites, on purpose. So say some, and some of those people are armed.

Morgellons - the weirdest illness in the world or a shared delusion you can only catch by reading about it on the internet.

An iceberg sank the Titanic. Or maybe a fire. Or the Catholic God. Or a mummy. Or the Freemasons. Or JP Morgan. Or it never sank... or...or....

Let’s go to Spain for some high weirdness scattered amoing all that history.

All sorts of peole write and say nonsense hoping it will get them secret money, or at least out of paying their taxes.

Do we live in a simulation? If so, how can we tell? Maybe by looking at physics. Maybe religion. Maybe our own senses. Maybe not.

There are no people on the internet anymore - just AI bots, deepfakes and a very nosy bunch of corporations. Supposedly.

Putin has invaded Ukraine - is he like Hitler or Stalin or Napoleon of what? A quick look at history, disinformation and conspiracy theories surrounding the Russo-Ukraine War.

DST, Y2K, 2012 - even time is not free from the gloomy glances of the suspiciously-minded....

Either our memories are not as reliable as we think they are, or someone is going around changing the very fabric of reality.

EPISODE 51 | Et Tu, Reptilicus - Mythconceptions About the Ancient World History is a concept, often imperfectly recounted and remembered, sometimes purposefully obscured or confused. So, we think we know things that, in fact, we don't really know. Let's jump into the Wayback Machine and take a look at some things we think we know about the ancient world. See a video version on our YouTube channel. Like what we do? Then buy us a beer or three via our page on Buy Me a Coffee. #ConspiracyClearinghouse #sharingiscaring #donations #support #buymeacoffee You can also SUBSCRIBE to this podcast. Review us here or on IMDb! SECTIONS 01:59 - Rome Is Where the Heart Is 03:11 - What have the Romans ever done for us? 04:00 - Statues of limitations, pantheon purloiners, toga party, orgies, salutes, vomitoriums 08:56 - Are You Not Entertained? Stuff about gladiators 16:13 - Lend Me Your Ears - Stuff about Julius Caesar 21:10 - Freakazoid - Stuff about Caligula 23:38 - And Now For My Next Number - Stuff about Nero 30:12 - Fluid Prejudice - Herodotus and history 33:11 - Vikings, the Pyramids, Eve's sin, salting the ground, Amazons 36:59 - Neanderthals, Stonehenge, the Sphinx, the Hanging Gardens of Babylon 38:22 - The Great Library of Alexandria, the Battle of Thermopylae & the 300, Braveheart & cinema 42:28 - Memory is fickle, collective or otherwise Music by Fanette Ronjat More Info: 10 Common Misconceptions About the Ancient World Top 10 Myths and Urban Legends About Ancient History 50 Incredible Facts about Rome 10 Things You May Not Know About Roman Gladiators 11 Misconceptions About Ancient Rome, Debunked Rome: 5 Things that Are Accurate and 5 Things That Are Totally Fabricated From Gladiator Duels To Caesar's Last Words: The Myths Of Ancient Rome on NPR Professor Buzzkill history podcast The 24 Best Podcasts for Every History Fan The Reliability of Knowledge in History Study: Historians Easily Fooled by Unreliable Content Follow us on social for extra goodies: Facebook (including upcoming conspiracy-themed events) Twitter YouTube (extra videos on the topic, Old Time Radio shows, music playlists and more) Other Podcasts by Derek DeWitt DIGITAL SIGNAGE DONE RIGHT - Winner of the 2021 AVA Digital Award Gold, 2021 Silver Davey Award & 2020 Communicator Award of Excellence, and on numerous top 10 podcast lists.  PRAGUE TIMES - A city is more than just a location - it’s a kaleidoscope of history, places, people and trends. This podcast looks at Prague, in the center of Europe, from a number of perspectives, including what it is now, what is has been and where it’s going. It’s Prague THEN, Prague NOW, Prague LATER.

JFK - the conspiracy gateway drug. Fred Litwin says it was Oswald alone.

Mt. Rushmore & the Washington monument - history, racism, secrets, weather control & much more.

Winter has come - nature used as an insult, snow that burns, Ice Ages that are coming (or already here or that never happened), buried mountains, Nazis in Antarctica, alien vegetables and more.

The earth might be hollow and filled with any number of mythological legends, most evil or at the very least mysterious. Except that it isn‘t.

Fight fire with fire using these #fakespiracies about ”Back to the Future”, Doritos and more that might sound plausible, but they aren‘t.

Rumours and CTs can spread quickly through a workplace. How do they take root and what can organizations do about it?

The Philadelphia Experiment and the Montauk Project are (in)famous in the annals of the conspirasphere.

Scott Shay wrote Conspiracy U to look at how some university professors are pushing propaganda and even anti-Jewish conspiracy theories in their writings and even their classrooms.

Is the author of the Harry Potter books a writer or a Satanist witch or a transphobe or what, exactly?

A war on ideas is being waged by white people who don‘t like Critical Race Theory. And also natural black hair.

Crazed men harass women in elevators and online, threats are made and careers ruined. All because a boy and a girl broke up. Oh, and because there‘s a deep strain of misogyny out there.

There are some truly offbeat but also fun things to see out there. Just because it’s mysterious, doesn’t (necessarily) mean it’s scary.

We look at the 12 most prolific spreaders of vaccine misinformation on social media and try and figure out if they are crazy or just opportunists making a buck.

We landed on the moon, or maybe not. Some people don‘t buy it and have all sorts of ”proof” as to why the whole thing is hooey. We‘ll look at some of the deniers‘ claims as well as a few of the big players in the moon hoax industry.

The Georgia Guidestones - A message for the survivors of a future cataclysm? A statement of intent for the New World Order? Satanic stuff? Who the hell knows?

Back in 1946, the KGB started compiling a handbook on many aliens races to visit Earth. Fortunately, an internet marketing guy found it.

Close encounters of the groovy kind can lead to lots of sex, space families and lucrative business models.

The strange and enigmatic tale of Kaspar Hauser leads us to language deprivation experiments through the ages as well as the effects of neglect on children. The world is certainly weird, and often cruel.

Did a 19th century novelist accidentally tap into a long hidden truth about an underground race of godlike beings who control an electrical fluid called the Vril? Of course not.

We look at three key events from the 1980s: the Majestic 12 claims, Project Serpo and the sad & infuriating Bennewitz Affair. And some of the people who might be behind it all.

UFOs even come to the Czech Republic - flying cigars, Silver Men, tiny balls that suck and much more.

One of the most sinister UFO-related phenomena - the Men in Black. Sure, they dress like the Blues Brothers, but they are super creepy and often menacing. And also pretty ineffective

Black - the colour of evil black-eyed children, Soviet cars, black helicopters, secret aircraft & alien satellites.

Famous early alien abduction claims, false memories, sleep paralysis & alien abduction insurance.

People are vaccine hesitant because the ingredients used are harmful or have side effects, like giving children autism; turning them into half-man, half-cow hybrids or making making males become homosexuals. Or maybe there are teeny, tiny mind control devices in them.

The strange and provocative events of the Dyatlov Pass Incident have kept UFOlogists, cryptozoologists and people who just distrust the government very busy for the past 62 years.

Yes, the New World Order is back, and this time it’s about real estate, national parks and affordable housing led by internationalists who are Communists and/or Nazis and/or homosexuals.

A look at the early days of UFO sightings and incidents, with the origins of some terms and the sad death of Captain Thomas Mantell.

Is there a ”war on Christmas”? No, but there used to be - and it was waged by Christians themselves. And the holiday has not always been what it is today.

They were the most powerful group in Medieval Europe, and then they vanished. Who were the Templars? Warrior-priests with good patronage? Keepers of the Holy Grail and other mystical secrets? Blasphemous day Satan worshiping freaks? All of the above?

What year is it? Is it 2020? Or 1723? 2520? Depends on who you listen to. History may not have happened like you think.

Maybe there are ruins on the moon. Maybe there’s an alien base there. Maybe Nazis live there. Maybe it’s a hollow spacecraft. Or a hologram. Or a nightlight (a big one).

The Illuminati were started in Bavaria by a power-hungry professor with poor social skills, but now has become one of the overarching theories of our times.

Dig in to the all-you-can-eat buffet of horror and doom that is Project Blue Book - a bleak techo-apocalypse that culminates in the enslavement of most of humanity by demons pretending to be god and/or aliens, with the help of NASA, the Masons, Microsoft, Greenpeace, the IMF and many more.

The origins of some clichés about conspiracy folks, scientific studies about the mindset and Star Trek as a metaphor for the brain. A lot of what you think you know about conspiracy theorists is probably wrong. But some of it is right.

Lies, booze, racism, homophobia, political chaos, greed, sexism and bad weather - is the October Surprise really a factor in US politics?

Journalist Mark Baker examines how a country’s history affects the way its people think about things today, and how dangerous conspiracy thinking can be to a culture.

Mass hysteria outbreaks through the ages: nuns that bite & meow, children who faint & twitch, crowds who dance for days, mass panics, attacks of windshields and creepy clowns all over the world.

A chat about conspiracy thinking, true believers and debunkers, identity through narratives, tribal signalling, Homo Ludens and, of course, the JFK assassination.

What happened to the dinosaurs? Did a meteor wipe them out? Was it volcanoes? Maybe their eggs just sucked. Or they farted themselves to death. Or they never existed at all. Or maybe they never died. Or maaaybe they helped build the pyramids.

It’s big, it’s unusual and gets folks to thinking. Denver International Airport is more than just the hub for airlines - it’s a magnet for just about every conspiracy theory you can think of.

The first in a series of short episodes that looks at some of the reasons why people believe conspiracy theories.