"Conspiracy theorist" is now a term used to gaslight people who ask unpopular questions
(updated) Those pesky question-askers
I’m not really a conspiracy theorist, but my husband will tell you that I question everything (especially when he’s trying to tell me a story and I keep interrupting him every 30 seconds).
While the term “conspiracy theorist” has been around for decades, it’s now being used to cancel people who are asking what, in a rational, non-politicized society, would be considered at least somewhat reasonable questions.
Want some examples?
(Disclaimer: I’m not arguing for or against any of these examples. Neither am I doing the amount of research I usually conduct for an article, because the whole point is about asking questions, not making conclusions. Just sayin…)
But before we get down to business, here’s some shameless self-promotion:
Area 51
So I may not really believe that there are big-eyed grays living at Area 51 and being experimented on by lizards in lab coats. I might label that one a conspiracy theory. Except for one little thing.
The day after “the Roswell incident,” Major Jesse Marcel, an intelligence officer from the Roswell Army Airfield’s 509th Composite Group, issued a public statement. The next day, it ran in the Roswell Daily Record under the headline “RAAF Captures Flying Saucer on Ranch in Roswell.” And it included a statement that kicked off a UFO craze that hasn’t slowed down since:
“The intelligence office of the 509th Bombardment Group at Roswell Army Air Field announced at noon today that the field has come into the possession of a Flying Saucer.”
The next day, the military changed its story: The “flying disc” was really just a weather balloon.
If I had been around at the time, that change in narrative would have been a huge red flag for me, and I definitely would have been on Team UFO.
Later, the story would change again: The debris was really from high-altitude balloons that were part of Project Mogul — a top-secret program looking for evidence that the Soviets were testing nuclear weapons.
So we’re supposed to believe that the government thought it was better to create a story that we had captured a flying saucer as well as a few aliens than to just say that it was a weather balloon? Which they could have done without even hinting at Project Mogul?
I don’t think there are aliens at Area 51 (although I sure as heck would ask on my first day as President!). But I don’t think it’s unreasonable to believe that there are still unanswered questions about what happened that day.
After all, it’s not like I’m suggesting something crazy, like out-of-control Chinese weather balloons with zero navigational ability not only making their way into our airspace but flying over our most important military installations.
Oh, wait…
Who shot JFK?
The official narrative is so full of holes that I don’t see how any curious person can buy it without at least a few questions. And the recent revelation that Oswald was “associated” with the CIA should rouse curiosity among even the most ardent supporters of the Warren Report.
I’m not saying I believe any particular theory, because I don’t know what I believe.
I just…have questions. And I can’t wrap my brain around thinking the matter is settled. So calling people who don’t buy the official narrative “conspiracy theorists” is unfair to real conspiracy theorists — the ones who make things up from whole cloth.
Flat Earthers should be offended when anyone who questions the details of the JFK assassination is called a “conspiracy theorist.”
TWA 800
If I were going to don a conspiracy theorist hat over anything, this would be it. You’ve got over 200 eyewitnesses claiming they saw a missile rising into the air. And that ridiculous CIA tape trying to convince people that down is up.
And we were told the CIA was given the job of making the video because they had better capabilities. But I was making training videos in 1996, and the whole “NOT A MISSILE” thing cracks me up every time I watch it. I would have gotten fired for doing something so cheesy.
Other than the 200+ witnesses (and the goofy video), what other things make me question what really happened?
Facts
There were live-fire naval exercises taking place very close to the air corridor TWA used.
Air Force One — also a 747 — wasn’t immediately grounded. In fact, as of 2006 — 9 years after the crash of TWA 800 — the center fuel tank issues that were blamed for the crash remained unaddressed.
NTSB agents claim FBI agents entered the hangar in the middle of the night and moved pieces of debris from one area to another. This is important because the area in which a piece of debris was found indicated where and when it fell off the plane.
This isn’t meant to be a definitive list, and there are arguments for the official story, too. If you’re interested, there are some really good videos on YouTube. Don’t trust me — watch them and make your own conclusions. (And don’t ever trust anybody who tells you not to!)
A few possible reasons for a cover up
Shooting down a plane full of innocent passengers is really embarrassing for the military. We learned that lesson when the U.S.S. Vincennes accidentally shot down Iran Air Flight 655.
We were just a week away from the opening of the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta.
The 1996 election was less than four months away, and neither a terrorist attack nor an incident of friendly fire would help Bill Clinton’s chances.
Would Bill Clinton really lie to cover up something like that up?
Uhm…two things:
“I did not have sexual intercourse with that woman.”
“It depends on what the meaning of the word is, is”
Climate change
I can hear your heads exploding…the science is settled, right?
Well…it depends on what the meaning of the word is, is. 😝
I almost skipped this one. With 97% of climate scientists agreeing that the earth is warming and it’s our fault, I’ll admit I was a bit intimidated.But that would wipe out any credibility I might have in writing an article about not being afraid to challenge the official narrative.
So…here we go.
Science has been “unsettled” before by new research and data
Just think of poor Pluto, which lost its status as a planet overnight just because some scientists said so.
We also used to think that gender science was settled.
About that 97% thing…
It’s probably just me, but the statement that “97% of climate scientists agree” (aside from sounding like a commercial for toothpaste) sends up red flags. That’s an extremely high level of agreement.
But since we all know that things like corruption and political pressure exist, it’s not hard to imagine that scientists would have trouble getting grant funding for a study that would challenge the established narrative — especially when you consider the scope and infrastructure of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. Only a pre-schooler with prior experience belong alone in a room with a Lego version of the Millennium Falcon could dismantle that thing.
Any scientist who tried to publish an opposing theory would likely get canceled faster than a MAGA-supporting good ol’ boy on pre-Elon Twitter.
After all, it’s always been risky to challenge settled science. Just look at what they did to Galileo when he said the earth revolved around the sun.
So it’s not unreasonable to wonder whether there are other theories and other data sets that we’ll never hear about.
COVID
Haters, get ready, because I’m gonna be brutally honest. I’ve never been able to wrap my brain around the story that COVID originated in a wet market…because common sense.
Given that:
COVID-19 is a novel coronavirus that originated in Wuhan, China.
Wuhan, China, is home to the Wuhan Institute of Virology, where scientists were conducting gain-of-function research on coronaviruses.
Therefore:
COVID-19 came from a raccoon dog in a wet market.
Really? That’s like saying 2 + 2 = triangle.
How could anyone not question that? (Feel free to try to change my mind in the comments!)
Masks and vaccines
I just deleted two whole sections because I don’t want to be insensitive to those who lost loved ones to COVID or who are still feeling the effects of their own illness. But information has recently come out that questions the effectiveness of masks (although some of that is due to user error) and the safety of vaccines. So I’m just going to leave it there.
Deep fakes
I’m not going to search for examples, because I don’t want to give them any more attention than they already get. But they’re real, and they’re very, very dangerous. Deep fakes alone should be reason enough to question everything you see and hear, no matter how real it seems. The technology is just too good.
In fact, every single image in this article is a deep fake. Ok, shallow fake. Or maybe puddle. But I made them with an AI imaging app I downloaded on my phone. Just type in a description of the image you want, and it shall appear. It’s not perfect; some of the images it offered up were way off base. And I had to tweak a couple. But I couldn’t have made any of them from scratch.
Life on other planets
This isn’t a conspiracy theory (yet!) but I’ve always wondered why scientists are so convinced that life on other planets would be carbon-based and need water and oxygen. Why? Isn’t it kind of arrogant to think that life as we know it is the only kind of life there could be? OK, I realize that assumption helps narrow the parameters when we look for planets that could potentially sustain life, but it’s always seemed pretty presumptuous to me. If anybody out there can offer a scientific defense of the carbon-water-oxygen theory, I’m open to changing my mind!