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From a Korean dissident to a nuclear scientist, via Vaclav Havel, we look at some of the world’s most famous political prisoners.

Nelson Mandela


‘Bring Back Nelson Mandela, Bring him back home to Soweto, I want to see him walking hand in hand with Winnie Mandela’, sang Hugh Masekela, a renowned anti-apartheid artist. Tried and convicted in the Rivonia trial for sabotage against the apartheid government, the black nationalist leader was deemed too dangerous to walk the streets of South Africa for twenty seven years, his demand for a non racial South Africa too much to bear. Masekela got his wish on the 11th of February, 1990. Mandela emerged from Victor-verster prison, a face until then unrecognizable to most South Africans, to a warm welcome from the teeming multitude who had come to catch a glimpse of their messiah. He then addressed a crowd at Cape Town by raising his arm and clenching his fist-the power salute which the world is now so accustomed to-and cried ‘Amandla, Amandla.’ The Jordan it seemed, had been crossed.

Aung San Suu Kyi


If success is a journey and not a destination, then Suu Kyi is a living embodiment of accomplishment. Because, through her two decade long struggle to bring democracy to Burma, she has maintained that the quintessential revolution is that of the spirit. Branded as a ‘terrorist’ by the junta and placed under house arrest since 1990, the leader of the National League for Democracy has handled her ordeal with extraordinary grace and dignity. At the age of sixty four, her zeal has not diminished, and her people march to that elusive quest of freedom and democracy.

Andrei Sakharov


History will be kind to Andrei Sakharov. Indeed, he had the advantage of scripting it as the father of the Soviet H-bomb, dissident and a political prisoner. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, a man who knew a thing or two about the prison system in the Soviet union, wrote that a “miracle occurred when Andrei Sakharov emerged in the Soviet state, among the swarms of corrupt, venal, unprincipled intelligentsia.”

Growing increasingly disillusioned with the incompatibility of the state mechanism, with the principles of individual liberty and human understanding, Sakharov made his ideas known to the world.’Our country, like every modern state, needs profound democratic reforms.’ he said, ‘It needs political and ideological pluralism, a mixed economy and protection of human rights and the opening up of society.’ The party exiled him to that obscure city of Gorky, but his legend only aggravated, culminating in his release in 1986. By then, Andrei Dmitrievich Sakharov had paved the way for the democratization of the Soviet Union by simply refusing to yield.

Bobby Sands


Invasion of the British consulate in Ghent. Balloons filled with tomato sauce hurled at the queen. Condolences from Tehran and Delhi. Just some of the many reactions observed when a twenty seven year old Irishman died of a hunger fast after sixty six days in Long Kesh. The whole objective of the fast was to get political prisoner status. Margret Thatcher thought otherwise, branding the IRA sympathizer as a rabble-rouser, and Bobby went to his grave smiling.

Mahatma Gandhi


‘Yeravda’ was the reply given by Mahatma Gandhi when asked about his address by a British interrogator. He wasn’t misinformed. In fact, India’s independence struggle was forged from the prison walls by the political mastermind, whose ideals of non violent civil disobedience brought about the end of British imperialism. Gandhi was unfazed by mortar, brick and stone. He successfully transformed the prison from a place of derision to a center of festive reunion, never flinching to return to captivity.

Vaclav Havel


“If you want to see your plays performed the way you wrote them, become president” said Vaclav Havel. If anybody would know, it would be him. Vaclav Havel transitioned from a writer of plays to the writer of his country’s destiny. When the Prague Spring ushered in Czechoslovakia’s winter of discontent, Havel scripted the Charter 77 manifesto, co-founded the Committee for the Defense of the Unjustly Persecuted and endured imprisonment with fellow artists. It is from prison- ‘the great school of self control’ – that the man demonstrated the potential of artists to shape the collective consciousness of a people, and thus alter the direction of a country for posterity.

Mordechai Vanunu


For a man of such rigorous discipline, Mordechai Vanunu was trapped by the most elementary of methods. The trial was a clandestine affair and, not surprisingly, landed him in prison for eighteen years, eleven of which were spent in solitary confinement. His release has not brought about much relief, and a broad array of restrictions are imposed on his speech and movement. What did he do? He exposed Israel’s nuclear program.

Xanana Gusmao


A modern day cross between the zeal and idealism of Che Guevara and the courage and integrity of Nelson Mandela, Xanana Gusmao spearheaded East Timor’s independence movement from Portugal, and later from Indonesia. Arrested in November, 1992, on charges of subversion and illegal possession of firearms, Gusmao began on a journey to free his people from Indonesian occupation. Superbly aided by Jose Ramos Horta, Gusmao was able to bring the plight of his people to worldwide attention. No amount of torture and intimidation could break the man, and he came out stronger than ever. His release, in 1999, was the precedent to a referendum and, eventually, to independence.

Yasser Arafat


No one person could inspire such conflicting feelings like Mohammed Abdel Rahman Abdel Raouf Arafat al-Qudwa al-Husseini. To some, he exemplified resistance, a man who turned a fledgling, rag-tag movement into a world renowned organisation, with sole responsibility for the Palestinians. To others, he was a vile terrorist with little respect for human rights. Towards the very end, though, his inability to make peace jeopardized his credibility as a statesman and the Israeli government besieged his home in Ramallah. It was from there that the gallant leader, once the face of a dispossessed people, still defiant, led his people . He was allowed to go to Paris for medical treatment, but he returned home only to be buried.

Kim Dae-jung


Kidnapped from a hotel room in Tokyo by members of KICA, General Park’s notorious spy agency in 1973, Kim Dae-Jung was brought to his Seoul residence, only to be placed under house arrest. Through his decades long struggle for democracy and human rights in his homeland, Kim saw his country swap one dictator for another, until the great liberator, financial crisis, brought him to power. The years of exile in America had secured him many admirers, and he tried to use that leverage to bring about that same fate for his brothers in the north, but not even an embrace from Kim Jong Il at Pyongyang prevented him from being voted out.

Here are the people who came very close to the highest office in the land. Some of them missed it by only a few weeks or a few votes.

Al Gore


Today Al Gore has many awards including an Oscar, Grammy, and Nobel Peace Prize to his name, but the ultimate prize eluded him several times. Al Gore came very close to the presidency several times while serving as Vice President under Bill Clinton. In 1994 alone there were three attempts on Clinton’s life. In 1999 Clinton was impeached, but he was kept in office. Then in 2000 Gore got his own chance to run for president. The 2000 election turned out to be one of the most controversial in history. Gore got over 500,000 more popular votes than opponent George W. Bush, but highly scrutinized votes in Florida eventually swung the election in Bush’s favor. Today Al Gore seems to be a happy person who is proud of his accomplishments, but he will undoubtedly never forget how close he was to being president nearly a half dozen times.

Samuel J Tilden


In 1876 Tilden won the popular vote over his opponent Rutherford B. Hayes by around 200,000 and was one vote shy in the electoral college. The problem arose when three southern states (South Carolina, Florida, and Louisiana) turned in two sets of votes. This led to a scandal that revealed heavy fraud in the voting process in these three states. Eventually a 15 member commission was set up to decide the winner. They voted along party lines and awarded the victory to Hayes. This gave him an Electoral College victory of one vote. Tilden lived out the rest of his life quietly and never ran for office again.

Henry A. Wallace


Wallace was the Vice President during Franklin Roosevelt’s third term. During this time he showed himself to be quite a radical, at least according to the controlling Democrats at the time. He was a civil rights advocate who was interested in Buddhism. He was also a strong supporter of Russia thanks to a trip he took in 1944 where the real Russia was hidden from him. Also in 1944 rumors were beginning to surface about the health of FDR. Many insiders were worried that he would not survive another term if elected. Leading democrats were worried about Wallace becoming president, so they kicked him off the 1944 Presidential ticket and replaced him with Harry S. Truman. 82 days after the start of the term FDR died and Truman took over. Wallace missed being president by about three months.

Thomas Riley Marshall


Marshall was Vice President under Woodrow Wilson, and he probably had a legitimate reason to become president. In 1919 Wilson suffered a debilitating stroke which left him unable to carry out his duties as president. Marshall, though, had one major obstacle standing in his way to the presidency. This obstacle was the president’s wife, Edith Wilson. She was going to make sure that her husband finished his term in office, and did so by taking on many of the executive duties herself. She also kept the knowledge of Wilson’s condition a secret. Marshall reportedly never found out the true extent of the president’s stroke until his last day in office. Many go so far as to say that Edith Wilson was the first woman president, but no matter what her real standing was she was certainly closer to the office than Marshall.

Benjamin Wade


Although most one vote margin victory stories are either completely false or exaggerated, this one is absolutely true. In 1868 Benjamin Wade came within one vote of becoming president. Wade was President pro Tempore at the time President Andrew Johnson was being impeached. Wade was next in line to get the job because Johnson had no vice president. His presidency would have lasted around five months until the upcoming elections and would have been the one of the shortest terms in history. However, the vote in the Senate was one short of the needed 2/3 majority and Johnson was allowed to stay in office.

Hannibal Hamlin


Hamlin was Lincoln’s vice president during his first term. He was a popular and experienced politician in his day, but his party saw things differently. They felt that adding a southerner to the 1864 ticket would add more appeal. So for the presidential race they kicked out Hamlin and brought in Andrew Johnson. Lincoln and Johnson easily won the election. However, barely a month after the new term began Lincoln was shot and Johnson took over. His presidency is now infamous for being one of the worst in history. It is probably fair to say that if Hamlin had won, he would have made a far better president than Johnson.

Spiro Agnew


Had Spiro Agnew been able to keep his hands clean, he would have become president. He was Vice President under Richard Nixon in both his first and second term. About a year into his second term it came out that Agnew had been taking bribes in all of his elected offices. These bribes totaled more than $100,000 dollars, which was a great sum in the 1960s. Agnew was forced to resign, and Nixon, who didn’t get along with Agnew, couldn’t have been happier. Nixon, of course, would be out of office due to a scandal in less than a year, but it was Gerald Ford, and not Spiro Agnew, who ended up in the White House.

Garret Hobart


Very few events better illustrate the rise of Theodore Roosevelt than the Vice Presidency of William McKinley. Garret Hobart had been one of the most powerful vice presidents in history. He worked very closely with the president, and no doubt could have taken over as president if he needed to. Unfortunately in 1899 Hobart died. Around that same time Roosevelt, then Governor of New York, was wreaking havoc on the corrupt political machines. Those in power thought that the best way to keep him quiet would be to make him Vice President. At the time the VP had very few duties. McKinley and Roosevelt won the election easily. Then around six months later McKinley was assassinated and Roosevelt became president. Today Roosevelt is on Mt. Rushmore and remembered as one of the greats. However, it took a few deaths for him to get there. And although Hobart was a well liked public figure, he is mostly forgotten today.

Nelson Rockefeller


Rockefeller was a politician who very much wanted to be president, and in September 1975 he almost got his chance. During that month there were two assassination attempts on president Gerald Ford. The first by “Squeaky” Fromme is the most famous, although her gun was loaded improperly and was therefore harmless. Seventeen days later, however, Ford was shot at by Sara Jane Moore but the bullet was deflected. Nelson Rockefeller was Ford’s vice president by special appointment. Had the assassination attempts been successful, Rockefeller would have been the second president in a row to reach the office without having to win an election.

Thomas Dewey


In 1948 just about everybody thought Thomas Dewey was going to be elected president. Harry Truman was losing popularity and most people felt that the Democratic vote was going to be split between two third party candidates, Henry Wallace and Strom Thurmond. Dewey was told that all he had to do was not make any major mistakes. Truman, however, wasn’t going to give up. He ran a very vigorous campaign and attacked Dewey on all fronts. In spite of this, many media outlets still did not think it was enough. Early returns from the election led the Chicago Tribune to print their infamous “Dewey Defeats Truman” headline. However, as the night went on it became clear that Truman had won the election thanks to swing voters in a few select states. Dewey may have lost the election, but thanks to his infamous headline he is one of the most famous runners-up in history.

Some presidents seem to have far too long in the Whitehouse, but some have had so little time that they were barely able to fulfill their duties.

William Henry Harrison
31 Days


In Office: March 4, 1841 – April 4, 1841

Died within a month of his first term. Harrison only had time for one official act: calling Congress into a special session, which he set to begin on May 31, 1841. He and Whig leader Henry Clay had disagreed over the necessity of the special session (which Harrison opposed, but Clay desired in order to immediately get his economic agenda underway), but Clay’s powerful position in both the legislature and the Whig Party quickly forced Harrison to give in. Harrison was the first president to die in office.

James A Garfield
199 Days


In Office: March 4, 1881 – September 19, 1881

Assassinated within less than a year of his first term. Between his election and his inauguration, Garfield was occupied with constructing a cabinet that would balance all Republican factions. He was shot by Charles Julius Guiteau, disgruntled by failed efforts to secure a federal post, on July 2, 1881, at 9:30 a.m., less than four months after taking office.

Zachary Taylor
491 Days


In Office: March 4, 1849 – July 9, 1850

Died in his first term. Did not take the oath of office until March 5, 1849, because March 4th fell on a Sunday and Taylor declined to take the oath on Sunday because of his religious beliefs. The slavery issue dominated Taylor’s short term. Although he owned slaves, he took a moderate stance on the territorial expansion of slavery, angering fellow Southerners. Taylor urged settlers in New Mexico and California to draft constitutions and apply for statehood, bypassing the territorial stage. New Mexico was too small to act but California — which had high population growth from the gold rush — wrote a constitution that did not allow slavery; it was approved by the voters and a new state government took over in December 1849 without Congressional approval.

Warren G Harding
881 Days


In Office: March 4, 1921 – August 2, 1923

Died in his first term. In April 1921, speaking before a joint session of congress he called for peacemaking with Germany and Austria, emergency tariffs, new immigration laws, regulation of radio and trans cable communications retrenchment in government, tax reduction, repeal of wartime excess profits tax, reduction of railroad rates, promotion of agricultural interests, a national budget system, a great merchant marine and a department of public welfare.

Gerald Ford
895 Days


In Office: August 9, 1974 – January 20, 1977

Served the remainder of Nixon’s term. Not elected for full term. In foreign policy, the Helsinki Accords marked a move toward detente in the Cold War, even as the former ally South Vietnam was invaded and conquered by North Vietnam; Ford did not intervene, but did help extract friends of the U.S. At home, the economy suffered from inflation and recession. Ford came under intense criticism for granting a preemptive pardon to President Richard Nixon for his role in the Watergate scandal.

Millard Fillmore
969 Days


In Office: July 9, 1850 – March 4, 1853

Served the remainder of Taylor’s term. Sought the Whig nomination in 1852, but lost to Winfield Scott. Four years later, ran again (as a Know Nothing) and came in third. As president, Fillmore dealt with increasing party divisions within the Whig party; party harmony became one of his primary objectives. He tried to unite the party by pointing out the differences between the Whigs and the Democrats (by proposing tariff reforms that negatively reflected on the Democratic Party). Another primary objective of Fillmore was to preserve the Union from the intensifying slavery debate.

John F Kennedy
1,036 Days


In Office: January 20, 1961 – November 22, 1963

Assassinated in his first term. John F. Kennedy was sworn in as the 35th President at noon on January 20, 1961. In his inaugural address he spoke of the need for all Americans to be active citizens, famously saying, “Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country.” He also asked the nations of the world to join together to fight what he called the “common enemies of man: tyranny, poverty, disease, and war itself.”

Chester A Arthur
1,262 Days


In Office: September 19, 1881 – March 4, 1885

Served the remainder of Garfield’s term. Sought a full term, but was not re-nominated. The Arthur Administration enacted the first general Federal immigration law. Arthur approved a measure in 1882 excluding paupers, criminals, and the mentally ill. Congress also suspended Chinese immigration for ten years with the Chinese Exclusion Act, later making the restriction permanent.

Andrew Johnson
1,419 Days


In Office: April 15, 1865 – March 4, 1869

Served the remainder of Lincoln’s term. Sought the Democratic nomination in 1868, but was unsuccessful. Johnson had an ambiguous party status. He attempted to build up a party of loyalists under the National Union label, but he did not identify with either of the two main parties while President—though he did try for the Democratic nomination in 1868. Asked in 1868 why he did not become a Democrat, he said “It is true I am asked why don’t I join the Democratic party. Why don’t they join me…if I have administered the office of president so well?”

John Tyler
1,430 Days


In Office: April 4, 1841 – March 4, 1845

Served the remainder of William Harrison’s term. Denied renomination by the Whigs, Tyler flirted with the Liberty Party, but was persuaded not to run by the Democrats (his former party). Tyler’s presidency was rarely taken seriously in his time. He was usually referred to as the “Acting President” or “His Accidency” by opponents. Further, Tyler quickly found himself at odds with his former political supporters.

Everyone enjoys hearing about a good conspiracy theory and many people enjoy coming up with new ones. You can spend an incredible amount of time reading about theories and wondering if there is any truth to them. If you feel that I have left off your favourite, or have proof that any of these are not just theory but fact, post a comment, just remember: don’t be cruel!

9/11 was Planned by the US Government [Wikpedia]


Many conspiracy theories have been presented concerning the September 11, 2001 attacks, many of them claiming that President George W. Bush and/or individuals in his administration knew about the attacks beforehand and purposefully allowed them to occur because the attacks would generate public support for militarization, expansion of the police state, and other intrusive foreign and domestic policies by which they would benefit.

Proponents point to the Project for the New American Century, a conservative think tank that argues for increased American global leadership, whose former members include ex-Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, Vice President Dick Cheney and several other key Bush administration figures. An 1990 report from the group stated that “some catastrophic and catalyzing event — like a new Pearl Harbor” would be needed to budge public opinion in their favor.


UFO Recovered at Roswell [Wikpedia]


The Roswell UFO Incident involved the recovery of materials near Roswell, New Mexico, USA, in July 1947, which have since become the subject of intense speculation, rumor, questioning and research. There are widely divergent views on what actually happened, and passionate debate about what evidence can be believed. The United States military maintains that what was recovered was a top-secret research balloon that had crashed.

By the early 1990s, UFO researchers such as Friedman, William Moore, Karl Pflock, and the team of Kevin Randle and Don Schmitt had interviewed several hundred people [11] who had, or claimed to have had, a connection with the events at Roswell in 1947. Additionally, hundreds of documents were obtained via Freedom of Information Act requests, as were some apparently leaked by insiders, such as the disputed “Majestic 12″ documents. Their conclusions were that at least one alien craft had crashed in the Roswell vicinity, that aliens, some possibly still alive, were recovered, and that a massive cover-up of any knowledge of the incident was put in place.

John F. Kennedy’s Assasination [Wikpedia]


The assassination of John F. Kennedy, the thirty-fifth President of the United States, took place on Friday, November 22, 1963, in Dallas, Texas, USA at 12:30 p.m. CST (18:30 UTC). Kennedy was fatally wounded by gunshots while riding with his wife Jacqueline in a presidential motorcade through Dealey Plaza. The official investigation by the Warren Commission was conducted over a ten-month period, and its report was published in September 1964. The Commission concluded that the assassination was carried out solely by Lee Harvey Oswald, an employee of the Texas School Book Depository in Dealey Plaza.

A number of conspiracy theories exist with regard to the assassination of U.S. President John F. Kennedy. Such theories began to be generated soon after his death, and continue to be proposed today. Many of these theories propose a criminal conspiracy involving parties such as the Federal Reserve, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), the KGB, the Mafia, Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) director J. Edgar Hoover, Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson, Richard Nixon, Fidel Castro, George H. W. Bush, Cuban exile groups opposed to the Castro government and the military and/or government interests of the United States.

Global Warming is a Fraud [Wikpedia]


The suggestion of a conspiracy to promote the theory of global warming was put forward in a 1990 documentary The Greenhouse Conspiracy broadcast by Channel Four in the United Kingdom on 12 August 1990, as part of the Equinox series, which asserted that scientists critical of global warming theory were denied funding.

William Gray, phD (a pioneer in the science of hurricane forecasting) has made a list of 15 reasons for the global warming hysteria. The list includes the need to come up with an enemy after the end of the Cold War, and the desire among scientists, government leaders and environmentalists to find a political cause that would enable them to ‘organize, propagandize, force conformity and exercise political influence. Big world government could best lead (and control) us to a better world!’ In this article, Gray also cites the ascendancy of Al Gore to the vice presidency as the start of his problems with federal funding. According to him, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration stopped giving him research grants, and so did NASA.

Princess Diana was Murdered by the Royal Family [Wikpedia]


In 1997, Princess Diana (Princess of Wales) and Dodi Fayed (son of Mohamed Fayed, owner of the Ritz Hotel and Harrods) were killed in a car accident while trying to get away from press photographers in Paris. The scandal surrounding their relationship (Dodi was Muslim whilst Diana was the mother of the future head of the Church of England) has led many people to speculate that they were actually killed in order to prevent further scandal to the throne of England.

Polls suggest that around a quarter of the UK public, and a majority of people in some Arab countries, believe that there was a plot to murder Diana, Princess of Wales. Motivations which have been advanced for such a conspiracy include suggestions that Diana intended to marry Dodi Fayed, that she intended to convert to Islam, that she was pregnant, and that she was to visit the holy land. Organizations which conspiracy theorists suggest are responsible for her death have included French Intelligence, the British Royal Family, the press, the British Intelligence services MI5 or MI6, the CIA, Mossad, the Freemasons, or the IRA.

Jewish World Domination [Wikpedia]


This theory, in recent history, extends mainly from the booklet The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, which are widely considered to be the beginning of contemporary conspiracy theory literature. The Protocols are considered by some to be an anti-Jewish literary forgery that purports to describe a Jewish plot to achieve world domination. Numerous independent investigations have repeatedly proven it to be a plagiarism and a hoax, yet numerous independent investigations have shown it to be a factual document.

The text was popularized by those opposed to Russian revolutionary movement, and was disseminated further after the revolution of 1905, becoming known worldwide after the 1917 October Revolution. It was widely circulated in the West in 1920 and thereafter. The Great Depression and the rise of Nazism were important developments in the history of the Protocols.

Apollo Moon Landing Hoax [Wikpedia]


Apollo Moon Landing hoax accusations are claims that some or all elements of the Apollo Moon landings were faked by NASA and possibly members of other involved organizations. Some groups and individuals have advanced alternate historical narratives which tend, to varying degrees, to state that the Apollo Astronauts did not land on the moon, and that NASA created and continues to perpetuate this hoax.

Moon hoax proponents devote a substantial portion of their efforts to examining NASA photos. They point to various issues with photographs and films purportedly taken on the Moon. Experts in photography (even those unrelated to NASA) respond that the anomalies, while sometimes counterintuitive, are in fact precisely what one would expect from a real Moon landing, and contrary to what would occur with manipulated or studio imagery. Hoax proponents also state that whistleblowers may have deliberately manipulated the NASA photos in hope of exposing NASA.

Pearl Harbor Was Allowed to Happen [Wikpedia]


This theory states that President Roosevelt (FDR) provoked the attack, knew about it in advance and covered up his failure to warn the Hawaiian commanders. FDR needed the attack to sucker Hitler to declare war, since the public and Congress were overwhelmingly against entering the war in Europe. It was his backdoor to war.

Theorists believe that the US was warned by, at least, the governments of Britain, Netherlands, Australia, Peru, Korea and the Soviet Union that a surprise attack on Pearl Harbor was coming. All important Japanese codes were broken. FDR and Marshall and others knew the attack was coming, allowed it and covered up their knowledge.

The Third Secret of Fatima [Wikpedia]


The Three Secrets of Fatima are said to be three prophecies that were given by an apparition of the Blessed Virgin Mary to three young Portuguese shepherds, Lucia Santos and her cousins Jacinta and Francisco Marto. From May to October, 1917, the three children claimed to have witnessed this Marian apparition, which is today popularly described as Our Lady of Fatima. On July 13 the Virgin Mary is said to have entrusted the three secrets – in the form of prophecies – to the young visionaries. Two of the secrets were revealed in 1941 in a document written by Lucia to assist with the canonization of her cousins, while the third was to remain secret, although the bishop of Leiria commanded Lucia to put it in writing and to present it to the Pope.

A Catholic priest who has apparently seen the original text of the “third secret” of Fatima disputes the official interpretation of the secret released by the Vatican. Furthermore, he has asked key people in the Vatican about the text and has gotten no response. While the Priest’s comments are somewhat radical, they are not without merit, as he has seen the secret with his own eyes. Moreover, while the first 2 secrets are fairly obvious and clear, leading some to wonder why the third one is required to be examined by a team of experts because of its complexity.

The Philadelphia Experiment [Wikpedia]


The Philadelphia Experiment was an alleged naval military experiment at the Philadelphia Naval Shipyard in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, sometime around the date of October 28, 1943, in which the U.S. destroyer escort USS Eldridge was to be rendered invisible to human observers for a brief period of time. It is also referred to as Project Rainbow. The story is widely regarded as a hoax. The U.S. Navy has stated that the experiment never occurred, and furthermore, details of the story contradict stated facts about the Eldridge. It has nonetheless caused a significant ripple effect in many conspiracy theory circles, and elements of the Philadelphia Experiment are featured in many other government conspiracy theories.

According to some accounts, the experiment was conducted by a Dr. Franklin Reno (or Rinehart) as a military application of a Unified Field Theory. The theory, briefly, postulates the interrelated nature of the forces that comprise electromagnetic radiation and gravity. Through a special application of the theory, it was thought possible, with specialized equipment and sufficient energy, to bend light around an object in such a way as to render it essentially invisible to observers. The Navy considered this application of the theory to be of obvious military value (especially as the United States was engaged in World War II at the time) and both approved and sponsored the experiment. A navy destroyer escort, the USS Eldridge, was fitted with the required equipment at the naval yards in Philadelphia.

Note: There are so many conspiracy theories that this would be an unwieldy list if I included them all. Stay tuned for another Conspiracy Theories list in the future.

Everyone enjoys hearing about a good conspiracy theory and many people enjoy coming up with new ones. You can spend an incredible amount of time reading about theories and wondering if there is any truth to them.

9/11 was Planned by the US Government [Wikpedia]


Many conspiracy theories have been presented concerning the September 11, 2001 attacks, many of them claiming that President George W. Bush and/or individuals in his administration knew about the attacks beforehand and purposefully allowed them to occur because the attacks would generate public support for militarization, expansion of the police state, and other intrusive foreign and domestic policies by which they would benefit.

Proponents point to the Project for the New American Century, a conservative think tank that argues for increased American global leadership, whose former members include ex-Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, Vice President Dick Cheney and several other key Bush administration figures. An 1990 report from the group stated that “some catastrophic and catalyzing event — like a new Pearl Harbor” would be needed to budge public opinion in their favor.

UFO Recovered at Roswell [Wikpedia]


The Roswell UFO Incident involved the recovery of materials near Roswell, New Mexico, USA, in July 1947, which have since become the subject of intense speculation, rumor, questioning and research. There are widely divergent views on what actually happened, and passionate debate about what evidence can be believed. The United States military maintains that what was recovered was a top-secret research balloon that had crashed.

By the early 1990s, UFO researchers such as Friedman, William Moore, Karl Pflock, and the team of Kevin Randle and Don Schmitt had interviewed several hundred people who had, or claimed to have had, a connection with the events at Roswell in 1947. Additionally, hundreds of documents were obtained via Freedom of Information Act requests, as were some apparently leaked by insiders, such as the disputed “Majestic 12″ documents. Their conclusions were that at least one alien craft had crashed in the Roswell vicinity, that aliens, some possibly still alive, were recovered, and that a massive cover-up of any knowledge of the incident was put in place.

John F. Kennedy’s Assasination [Wikpedia]


The assassination of John F. Kennedy, the thirty-fifth President of the United States, took place on Friday, November 22, 1963, in Dallas, Texas, USA at 12:30 p.m. CST (18:30 UTC). Kennedy was fatally wounded by gunshots while riding with his wife Jacqueline in a presidential motorcade through Dealey Plaza. The official investigation by the Warren Commission was conducted over a ten-month period, and its report was published in September 1964. The Commission concluded that the assassination was carried out solely by Lee Harvey Oswald, an employee of the Texas School Book Depository in Dealey Plaza.

Princess Diana was Murdered by the Royal Family [Wikpedia]


In 1997, Princess Diana (Princess of Wales) and Dodi Fayed (son of Mohamed Fayed, owner of the Ritz Hotel and Harrods) were killed in a car accident while trying to get away from press photographers in Paris. The scandal surrounding their relationship (Dodi was Muslim whilst Diana was the mother of the future head of the Church of England) has led many people to speculate that they were actually killed in order to prevent further scandal to the throne of England.

Jewish World Domination [Wikpedia]


This theory, in recent history, extends mainly from the booklet The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, which are widely considered to be the beginning of contemporary conspiracy theory literature. The Protocols are considered by some to be an anti-Jewish literary forgery that purports to describe a Jewish plot to achieve world domination. Numerous independent investigations have repeatedly proven it to be a plagiarism and a hoax, yet numerous independent investigations have shown it to be a factual document.

The text was popularized by those opposed to Russian revolutionary movement, and was disseminated further after the revolution of 1905, becoming known worldwide after the 1917 October Revolution. It was widely circulated in the West in 1920 and thereafter. The Great Depression and the rise of Nazism were important developments in the history of the Protocols.

Apollo Moon Landing Hoax [Wikpedia]


Apollo Moon Landing hoax accusations are claims that some or all elements of the Apollo Moon landings were faked by NASA and possibly members of other involved organizations. Some groups and individuals have advanced alternate historical narratives which tend, to varying degrees, to state that the Apollo Astronauts did not land on the moon, and that NASA created and continues to perpetuate this hoax.

Pearl Harbor Was Allowed to Happen [Wikpedia]


This theory states that President Roosevelt (FDR) provoked the attack, knew about it in advance and covered up his failure to warn the Hawaiian commanders. FDR needed the attack to sucker Hitler to declare war, since the public and Congress were overwhelmingly against entering the war in Europe. It was his backdoor to war.

Theorists believe that the US was warned by, at least, the governments of Britain, Netherlands, Australia, Peru, Korea and the Soviet Union that a surprise attack on Pearl Harbor was coming. All important Japanese codes were broken. FDR and Marshall and others knew the attack was coming, allowed it and covered up their knowledge.