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Strangest conspiracy theories: from JFK to ‘hollow earth’

Strangest conspiracy theories: from JFK to ‘hollow earth’

The world is run by evil lizards, the Moon is hollow and Paul McCartney died in 1966. When it comes to conspiracy theories, there is no shortage of weird and wacky “alternative truths” out there. But although it is easy to dismiss conspiracy theories as “unhinged beliefs held by a small number of paranoid idiots”, said New Scientist, they are in fact the product of normal human psychology.

And not everyone who enjoys conspiracy theories takes them seriously, said the magazine. In a study last year, researchers planted a made-up claim that Canada “had an elite army of genetically engineered, super-intelligent, giant raccoons” among a list of genuine conspiracy theories, and found that some participants still said they believed it was true, suggesting they were “insincere responders” – or, to put it more plainly, trolls.

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