Hey Thoughty2 here, conspiracy theorists are
often mocked and called tin-foil hat wearing loonies, but whatever people may say, they
have got the occasional thing correct. And sometimes the truth is even scarier than speculations
and theories. These are the terrifying conspiracy theories that turned out to be true. 1. We start with the conspiracy of the MKUltra
project. The theory goes that between 1950 and 1973 the CIA carried out top secret and
disturbing mind control experiments on US citizens. Unfortunately the theories turned
out to be very true. In 1995 President Clinton actually issued a formal apology on behalf
of the US government for the atrocities they committed. The experiments carried out as
part of the MKUltra project were highly illegal. All the test subjects where unwilling and
the experiments involved drugs, electronics, hypnosis, sensory deprivations, verbal and
sexual abuse, and torture. To distance the project from the US government the CIA subcontracted
the work to 80 different institutions, including universities, hospitals and prisons. 20,000
classified MKUltra documents were uncovered to the public in 1977 under the Freedom of
Information act, which confirmed people's suspicious. However the director of the CIA,
Richard Helms had most of the more damming MKUltra files destroyed in 1973, so much of
what happened during the experiments is still unknown to this day. 2. Next up is the great diamond conspiracy,
during the late 1870s when huge diamond mines were opened in South Africa it was suspected
that the diamond supply was actually far greater than advertised and the price of diamonds
had been artificially inflated, conspiracy theorists believed that diamonds were actually
worthless. Well, they couldn't be closer to the truth. Until the 19th century diamonds
were only found in very small quantities in riverbeds in India and the jungles of Brazil.
However, in 1870, huge diamond mines were found in South Africa and diamonds were soon
being mined by the truck load. Very soon the market was flooded with an excessive amount
of diamonds. The British investors who funded the diamond mines soon realised that the price
of diamonds rested solely on the fact that they were so rare. If too many diamonds came
into the market their price would plummet, diamonds would no longer be a precious stone
and their investment would be worth nothing. So what did they do? The investors realised
they had to restrict the supply of diamonds to keep the prices high. So in 1888 the handful
of British diamond mine investors banded together into a single entity to form a cartel, called
De Beers Consolidated Mines. In one fell swoop they had completely monopolised the diamond
market worldwide. The global selling price of diamonds was now completely under their
control. The De Beers corporation achieved this by stockpiling massive quantities of
diamonds in London warehouses and only releasing a tiny amount into the market each year to
create an illusion of scarcity. But De Beers soon realised that only wealthy individuals
were buying their diamonds because the prices were so high. So they needed a way to encourage
the working and middle classes to buy diamonds. So in 1938 they came up with one of the greatest
scams of the modern day, they invented the diamond engagement ring. De Beers utilised
the newly emerging medium of motion pictures to plant the idea in the heads of young men
worldwide that the only stone acceptable for an engagement ring is a diamond. They paid
Hollywood movie studios to include scenes in their movies of young men proposing to
their loved ones with a diamond engagement ring. They also launched a massive advertising
campaign with the slogan "a diamond is forever". The campaign was an enormous success. Before
their campaign only 10% of engagement rings sold worldwide had diamonds on them, after
the campaign 80% had diamonds. In a short few years the De Beers company had artificially
inflated the global price of diamonds and brainwashed the entire world into thinking
that these worthless hunks of carbon are the only way to propose to a woman. To this day
their mass manipulation is still deeply rooted in society. 3. The Gulf of Tonkin incident was a major
event in 1964 that was one of the biggest contributing factors to the start of the Vietnam
War. However conspiracy theorists say the event never actually happened. The story goes
that the US destroyer ship USS Maddox engaged three North Vietnamese Navy torpedo boats
in the Gulf of Tonkin near Vietnam, as part of a US intelligence patrol. The Maddox fired
an incredible 300 shells. That much is true. However in 2005 a study by the NSA revealed
that there weren't actually any Vietnamese naval vessels present during the incident
whatsoever. USS Maddox was firing at nothing. In 1965, President Johnson actually said "For
all I know, our Navy was shooting at whales out there." 4. Next up is the conspiracy theory that between
1932 and 1972 the US Public Health Service were deliberately not treating syphilis patients
as part of a clinical study to see what would happen to syphilis patients if left untreated.
Unfortunately, this turned out to be very true. 399 rural African American men were
chosen by the US Public Health Service who were suffering from syphilis, the health service
never even informed these men that they had a sexually transmitted disease, and they never
offered them treatment of any kind, despite the treatment for syphilis being widely available.
The victims were simply told they had "bad blood" and their symptoms were inevitable.
By the early 1970s, 128 of the 399 men had died of syphilis, 40 of their wives had contracted
the disease and 19 of their children had been born with congenital syphilis. 5. Next up is the theory that the joint chiefs
of staff of the US military created plans to create fake acts of terrorism against US
citizen on US soil in a Cuban false flag attack to persuade the American public to support
the war against Cuba. It's completely true and the official documents can be found online.
The plan which was drawn up by the US military involved shooting down innocent Americans
on the streets. Planes full of innocent people being hijacked and shot down, and other extremely
violent bouts of terrorism taking place against the American public in Washington D.C., Miami,
and elsewhere across the US. The plan was approved and ready to go into action, but
thankfully President Kennedy rejected it. 6. Perhaps one of the most well believed conspiracy
theories is that your government is spying on you. We've all had that paranoid feeling
at some point in our lives, that someone, somewhere is watching us. Maybe it was George
Orwell's 1984 that started it all off or just a general distrust of the government, but
whatever started the theories, the scary truth is, your government is watching you, and it's
not just in America that it's happening. In recent years there have also been disturbing
reports of other countries spying on their own citizens, such as France, Germany, China,
Russia, Syria, New Zealand, Canada and the United Kingdom. Of course the most well known
of these spying scandals was when former NSA employee, Edward Snowden released sensitive
government information, revealing the frightening extent of the NSA's spying activities on American
citizens, under it's surveillance program, codenamed PRISM. Thanks to these revelations,
we now know that the scope of the NSA's eavesdropping is even larger that what conspiracy theorists
originally believed. But of course, all this spying is necessary to protect us from the
likes of terrorists, is it not? Well not exactly, a report by the Washington Post found that
90% of the sensitive data being collected by the NSA's surveillance programmes is from
Internet users with absolutely no connection to terrorist activities. Making their spying
activities downright illegal. 7. For a long time it's been theorised that
professional wrestling is fake and the outcomes of the matches are determined beforehand.
It's always been a popular theory, until recently, when it was confirmed to be true. in 2013
a mysterious reddit user called Dolphins1925 who claims he has a contact inside the World
Wrestling Entertainment company, started posting the results of pay-per-view wrestling matches
online, before they actually took place. He posted the results of 38 matches, all of which
he got correct. Which proved once and for all that pro wrestling, well at least in the
case of WWE matches, are as many suspected, setup. 8. Between 1920 and 1933 in the US was the
alcohol prohibition. For a whole 13 years alcoholic beverages in any form were banned.
As you would expect, this proved very hard to enforce. A lot of people were secretly
making their own alcohol in their homes. The FBI were finding it increasingly more difficult
to stop people drinking. Then suddenly, people started dying from drinking alcoholic beverages,
many theories popped up that claimed the FBI was intentionally poisoning liquor to deter
people from drinking it. It's frightening to believe, but the theories were absolutely
correct. The FBI's idea was that by adding potentially fatal impurities to liquor it
would demonise alcohol in the eyes of the general public and stop people from wanting
to drink. Of course they didn't tell the public about their nefarious plan, they let the consequences
of the poisoned liquors do all the talking for them. The FBI added substances such as
kerosene, chloroform and acetone to bottles of liquor, and people started mysteriously
dying of what many believed was simply alcohol poisoning. 9. It's long been believed by conspiracy theorists
the world over that the world is run by a group of rich men in powerful positions and
that they meet up every year to discuss secret plans, one such theory is that the world's
elite meet up once a year in the middle of the woods and worship a giant owl effigy.
Well turns out it's true, it's called the Bohemian Grove. It's a 2,700-acre campground
located in the woods of Monte Rio, California. Once a year Bohemian Grove is host to a two
week event involving some of the most powerful men in the world. During the event they get
drunk, put on strange plays in the woods and burn an effigy in front of a giant owl statue.
However little is known about the event and what exactly is discussed by the rich and
powerful is kept top secret. Women aren't allowed to attend. Famous Bohemian Grove members
have included: Dick Cheney, both George Bushes, Ronald Reagan, Richard Nixon, John Major,
David Rockefeller, former C.I.A. director William Casey, the former CEO of IBM, Thomas
J. Watson and many more. 10. And finally. Conspiracy Theorists believed
that the CIA invented a heart attack gun that can be used to assassinate people without
a trace. Turns out this is terrifyingly true. The weapon does exist, it was developed in
the late 1960s. The gun was designed to be completely untraceable. It fires a tiny bullet
about 3 millimetres wide that is made entirely of ice. This ice bullet has a lethal shellfish
toxin frozen inside it. Upon entering the target the bullet would leave only a tiny
red dot on the skin, and the bullet itself would quickly melt, leaving no trace at all.
The shellfish toxin causes a heart attack regardless of the target's physical fitness.
The toxin itself denatures quickly, meaning an autopsy is unlikely to find any traces
of it. It is a perfectly, untraceable James Bond style weapon. However it's existence
was confirmed in 1975 when Senator Frank Church was forced to reveal the gun to a subcommittee
whom were investigating the CIA's illegal activities. Because assassinating someone
on the streets who doesn't pose a significant threat to the state is illegal, even for the
CIA. Even though its existence is now undeniable theorists believe it is still being used by
the CIA to this day. Andrew Breitbart may very well have been a victim, he was a media
mogul whom published derogatory stories about Barack Obama. He promised that he would shortly
publish proof that Barack Obama's presidency was illegitimate. But he never got to do so,
because shortly afterwards on the 1st March 2012 he suspiciously collapsed dead from a
heart attack whilst walking in a Los Angeles neighbourhood, despite being of relatively
good health. Another possible victim of the heart attack gun was Mark Pittman, a financial
journalist who sued the American Federal Reserve for mishandling taxpayer's money. However
before the case could come to a conclusion Pittman died of a heart attack in very similar
circumstances as Andrew Breitbart.