Some of my favorite conspiracy theories

Apollo 11 Moon Walk

Just the other day I needed a photo of the first moon walk. First attempt, using the world’s favorite search engine, and the FBI’s as well, I was given images of Michael Jackson moonwalking. Okay, maybe I should have mentioned the year 1969 and  Neil Armstrong.

Well, I got more than I bargained for: I got conspiracy photos. They were very realistic, and very clear and sharp and, in color (that’s colour for our Brit readers). Take the above photo.  They were going to televise the landing and Armstrong’s words and the planting of the flag. Come on naysayers. Have you ever heard of rehearsing?

Now the first 12 minutes of Armstrong’s landing, his sacrosanct words and the planting of the flag were transmitted in black and white (B&W) for live broadcast by CBS and many Americans and the rest of the world, still had B&W televisions. Buzz Aldrin, who was aboard the lander, had a color movie/video camera at the window of the lander and filmed the whole thing, but that could not be broadcast because the important issue was to be able to transmit the first steps live and NASA was not sure about live transmission issues with color cameras. Most importantly, color cameras at that time were much heavier than B&W and every ounce of weight was critical.

I could go into the moon-landing deniers’ conspiracy theory that the moon-landing never happened but I was there. I had my nose to the television like everyone else. And Walter Cronkite would never lie.

Roswell

This conspiracy theory has been going on since 1947. It’s the U.S. military that has fueled the controversy by repeatedly changing their story. We’ve all seen Bill Pullman as the President in the movie, “Independence Day”, 1996. Even he didn’t know about it (“plausible deniability”).

I lived in New Mexico for 30 years. New Mexicans just take it for granted that it happened. My ex-husband went with a group into the mountains near Roswell looking for proof. He was supposed to be gone for three or four days. He was back the next day. Too much hiking for him. He was more the couch potato type.

Shakespeare was not Shakespeare

Very little biographical information exists about Shakespeare so…anything’s possible. Just enjoy the plays: the poetic insights, aphorisms and sheer beauty of Shakespeare’s words–whoever he was.

“The quality of mercy is not strain’d, it droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven…” (Merchant of Venice, Act IV, Scene I).

Would you really want to call this style “Baconian” or “Marlowean” (reference to top contenders: Sir Francis Bacon and Christopher Marlowe among others)?

The AIDS Virus was created in a laboratory

You’ve got to look at this one. I mean, the simian-human connection in Africa looks pretty shiny on the surface, but it goes much deeper. I read “The River: A Journey to the Source of HIV and AIDS” 1999, by  Edward Hooper. It’s over 1000 pages but a fantastic read for anyone interested. According to Hooper, the simian precursor to HIV existed in Central Africa for millions of years. He questions why HIV showed up in the middle of the 20th Century and jumped from chimps to humans? So do the rest of us.

The stock answer has been that humans encroached on chimp territory through deforestation blah, blah, blah. That fueled counterculture visions of humans having sex with chimps. Whoa.

Hooper’s theory is that it was due to contaminated  experimental polio vaccine administered near where AIDS appeared–manufactured with infected chimp kidneys. I would think they had a “laboratory” to do that.  It’s a good, well-documented theory, but no one is willing to prove it. No one wants to be culpable for this one.