Conspiracy Theories

By Kassidy Ravina

 

 

 

 

Have you heard of conspiracy theories? They’ve become popular in our culture recently.

The definition is, according to Wikipedia, “an explanation of an event or situation that invokes an unwarranted conspiracy, generally one involving an illegal or harmful act carried out by government or other powerful actors.”

There are tons of YouTube videos explaining these theories, and plenty of YouTube channels which describe specific conspiracy theories. Shane Dawson, for example, is a YouTuber who produces these videos in great detail.

Over the summer, the Coal Cracker editorial staff talked about conspiracy theories, and how information can be used to influence people’s beliefs.

Here are some of the interesting stories surrounding a few popular conspiracy theories.

Aliens

Are aliens real? There may be no telling whether or not they are, but we do have evidence for both sides of the story.

Pros

1. Senator Harry Reid, a creator of America’s Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program, has been quoted as saying we do not take UFOs seriously enough. Reid’s friend, businessman Bob Bigelow, the founder of Bigelow Aerospace, has been quoted as saying his grandparents saw a “flying saucer.”
2. Dr. Norman Bergrun, once a NASA engineer who is now with the Ames Research Center, has said, through a conspiracy theory channel, that UFOs are hiding in the rings of Saturn.
3. A recently released YouTube video, which claims to be of the Roswell, New Mexico UFO incident of 1947, shows an alien on a stretcher after the crash.
4. Various online and print sources claim actress Marilyn Monroe was murdered by the US government so she would not expose classified information about aliens.
5. It has been reported (although Snopes.com has debunked this claim) that Apollo II astronaut Buzz Aldrin passed a lie detector test about his sighting of a UFO on his mission to the moon.

Cons

1. There is no indisputable evidence.
2. We haven’t found a UFO after years of searching.
3. Lenticular clouds, which are shaped like a saucer, look like UFOs.
4. Planets are often mistaken for things that they’re not such as airplanes, satellites, and UFOs.
5. The Phoenix Lights, a series of unidentified flying objects that many people saw in the skies over Arizona, Nevada and Mexico on March 13, 1997 have been identified by the US Air Force as flares being dropped from an aircraft during a training exercise.

The Moon Landing

By Alivia Economy

 

 

 

 

One event that many people question is whether the 1969 moon landing was real or not. There are many ways that someone can be a skeptic on the moon landing.

No one knows what goes on behind a TV set. The landing was broadcast over millions of TVs throughout the US, and some people noticed some things that were off about the whole situation.

According to many online conspiracy theory sources, for example, there were no stars in the sky, and an unidentified object can be seen, which many people think is a stage light. Also, many people claim they saw a reflection of a green screen in the background through the astronaut’s helmet.

As you may start to wonder, even celebrities have said that they believe that it was a set up. Nowadays, with editing software, videos can easily be modified or Photoshopped.

But why would the government broadcast a fake moon landing? Conspiracy theory websites have reported that it is because our government wanted other nations to feel lower than the US, causing them to think that we have more power against them.

The US National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) has said that conspiracy theories about the moon landing being fake are “preposterous and outlandish.”

Now that you know all this information, do you believe it or not?

Flat Earth

By Oceana O’Boyle

 

 

 

 

The flat earth theory is flat out just a theory about why the earth could be flat.

If you think this is as crazy or as ridiculous as it sounds you might want to read the rest of this article and see what you think about it in the end.

I’m going to list some examples of why someone would think the world is flat and/or round. If you’re a flat earther, try to keep an open mind to the round earthers’ explanations. And, if you’re a round earther try to keep an open mind to the flat earthers’ explanations.

Round Earthers

1. Ancient Greeks made observations to figure out the shape of our planet. Aristotle, for example, noticed during a lunar eclipse that the shadow of earth on the moon’s surface is round.
2. The reason ships on the ocean appear as if they emerge from waves is because the world is round.
3. Images taken on missions to space all show that the earth is round.
4. If you are looking out into the distance and you climb onto something high, like a tree, you can see a curve on the earth’s surface.
5. According to Popular Science, “A flat planet would be such an incredible observation that it would pretty much go against everything we know about how planets form and behave. It would not only change everything we know about planet formation, but also about star formation (our sun would have to behave quite differently to accommodate the flat-earth theory) and what we know of speeds and movements in space (like planets’ orbits and the effects of gravity). In short, we don’t just suspect that our planet is spherical. We know it.”

Flat Earthers

1. The Bible says that the earth extends to its four corners.
2. Some people believe that Antarctica is an ice wall on the flat disc-shaped earth, and this wall surrounds the continents. They say that the United Nations map is a model of what this looks like.
3. The Antarctic Treaty of 1959 (which is a real thing) was supposedly signed, according to conspiracy theorists, by all the major countries to prevent people from going into Antarctica and climbing over the ice wall and falling off the earth.
4. Conspiracy theorists say that on a plane flight from the Philippines to Los Angeles, a pregnant lady’s water broke in midflight and they had to make an emergency landing. Instead of turning around to go back to the Philippines or going to LA, the plane somehow ended up in Alaska, which makes sense on a flat earth map but not a globe.
5. There is no curve visible on the earth’s surface when you look into the distance.

For me, what I believe is about the trust I have in the people who are telling me the information. I’ve always questioned some of the things I was told about our planet and the theories on how it works. We all shouldn’t judge someone on their opinion until we learn more about it.