The Economist has published a list of the most popular conspiracy theories (as measured by Google searches), which I thought might interest y'all. While they have to yield first place to 11th September conspiracies, space-related CTs make a good showing with the Apollo moon hoax, Area 51, and reptilian aliens making the top ten.

link

__________________
The other Shaltanac's joopleberry shrub is always a more mauve-y shade of pinky russet

Interesting and thanks for posting. Of course, their method only counts number of times someone searched, it doesn't necessarily correlate with belief in that CT. Gosh, I hope not. If it does, it means more people believe in the Reptile Aliens (#7) than in more than one JFK gunman (#9). For some reason, I find that disturbing.

__________________
At night the stars put on a show for free (Carole King)

Especially since statistics are regularly brought forward that state that a majority of US citizens, at least, disbelieve that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone. How large a majority varies from study to study, of course, but a majority nonetheless. I would also say far more people believe Insert Other Person Here wrote the plays of Shakespeare than believe Elvis faked his own death!

__________________
Gillian

"Now everyone was giving her that kind of look UFOlogists get when they suddenly say, 'Hey, if you shade your eyes you can see it is just a flock of geese after all.'"

"You can't erase icing."

"I can't believe it doesn't work! I found it on the internet, man!"

It would be really disturbing if it was a reptilian alien that shot JFK.

Anyway, I've noticed most CT's last about 100 years. After that they are proven wrong or not important anymore. The only ones that seem to stand the test of time are the ones that have something to do with aliens.

__________________
_
Show me the money
_

I would say this measures intrest not [/i]belief[/i].

After all, I am one of the searches on the 9/11 conspiracy (looking for debunking material) and I am the complete opposite of a believer.

__________________
Carl Matherly

Offical Battlestar Galactica Apologist

Named Time Magazine's 2006 "Person of the Year"

Dang. The imminent invasion of giant space bunnies didn't make the list. There must have been a conspiracy.

__________________
The views expressed are the febrile product of an overactive imagination of a person who in shadows sees the gyrating Elvis-like ghost of Leonid Brezhnev.

Actually, the Reptile Overlords, from their base of operation at Area 51, not only killed JFK, Diana, and all the AIDS victims (part of their genetic engineering experiments), but orchestrated the 9/11 attacks, helped their Commander Elvis fake his death, helped NASA fake the moon landing to cover-up their supply base on the Moon, and wrote all of Shakespeare's plays as well as the book, "The DaVinci Code" (they only got co-credit for the screenplay).

__________________
At night the stars put on a show for free (Carole King)

You left out the fact that their spacecraft are the source of chem trails as well.

I don't know. Illuminati CT's are over 200 years old and still going strong.


(I'm assuming that the Illuminati aren't chemtrail-spewing reptilians. Possibly a bad assumption.)

__________________
The other Shaltanac's joopleberry shrub is always a more mauve-y shade of pinky russet

I would like to welcome our new Reptillian Over-lords, and remind them that they will need insurance sales-men to cover their elaborate enslave-o-rays and death-cannons.

__________________
I'm like one of those idiot savants...well, except for the savant part.

"A long time ago, yet somehow in the future"

Morbo laughs at your puny insurance policies.

__________________
At night the stars put on a show for free (Carole King)

New Geico commercial slogan: "So easy even an alien can do it".

__________________
_
Show me the money
_

Translated into conspiraspeak:

ac4ually 4h3 r3p41l3 0v3rl0rd5 fr0m 4h31r bA53 0f 0p3ra410n a4 ar3a 51 n04 0nly k1ll3d jfk d1ana AND all 4h3 a1d5 v1c41m5 par4 0f 4h31r g3n341c 3ng1n33r1ng 3xp3r1m3n45 bu4 0rch354ra43d 4h3 9/11 a44ack5 h3lp3d 4h31r c0mmAND3r 3lv15 fak3 h15 d3a4h h3lp3d nA5a fak3 4h3 m00n lAND1ng 40 c0v3r-UP 4h31r 5UPply bA53 0n 4h3 m00n AND wr043 all 0f 5hak35p3ar3'5 play5 A5 w3ll A5 4h3 b00k 4h3 dav1nc1 c0d3 4h3y 0nly g04 c0-cr3d14 f0r 4h3 5cr33nplay

Translated into Dudespeak :

Dude.

__________________
The views expressed are the febrile product of an overactive imagination of a person who in shadows sees the gyrating Elvis-like ghost of Leonid Brezhnev.

That Planet X/Nibiru/Sitchen/Nancy Lieder/Zetatalk nonsense didn't even rank!

Nancy will be so shattered.

__________________
... it's so much easier to blame your car wreck of an argument on the hardness of the wall rather than upon your inability to drive -JayUtah

...And that's exactly how our fluffy future overlords want it.

__________________
See? Because of me, now there's a warning. -Homer Simpson

Here in the rural Midwest, there's far more speculation about Elvis because far more people here are familiar with the life story of The King than with that of The Bard.

__________________
"If this were play'd upon a stage now, I could condemn it as an improbable fiction."
Shakespeare, Twelfth Night
Illuminati's Razor-The most complicatedly evil answer is usually the most correct answer. - Fazor
"Every book is a children's book if the kid can read." - Mitch Hedberg
"Distance doesn’t matter much in space, where if you just start a thing off with the right kind of shove, sooner or later it will get where you want it to go." -Frederik Pohl, Mining the Oort

Didn't the whole reptilian overlords thing start with that crappy series "V"?

__________________
This is not an idea to be tossed aside lightly - it should be thrown with great force

It goes back to the 60s-- Y'know, when large numbers of college students experimented with mind-altering drugs?


Although it claims to draws on (and mutate in the process) several ancient myths, the 1960s when the whole shebang hit the big time.

__________________
"If this were play'd upon a stage now, I could condemn it as an improbable fiction."
Shakespeare, Twelfth Night
Illuminati's Razor-The most complicatedly evil answer is usually the most correct answer. - Fazor
"Every book is a children's book if the kid can read." - Mitch Hedberg
"Distance doesn’t matter much in space, where if you just start a thing off with the right kind of shove, sooner or later it will get where you want it to go." -Frederik Pohl, Mining the Oort

If they were to repeat that now the Diana conspiracy might score higher, especially given Mohammad Al Fayed's recent appearance at the inquest and his desription of the Royal Family as vampires....

__________________
"The very powerful and the very stupid have one thing in common: They don't alter their views to fit the facts, they alter the facts to fit their views." The Doctor, Doctor Who: The Face of Evil.

Looking at the title of this thread, I just thought of the last lines from the first Indiana Jones movie, when he asks what happened to the ark and he is told that "They have their top people working on it. Top!".

Yep, Top conspiracy theories.

__________________
At night the stars put on a show for free (Carole King)