8 Crazy Conspiracy Theories That Turned Out to Be True

[Jon Banks]

Good summary of a few major stories that were once viewed as Conspiracy Theories:

8 Crazy Conspiracy Theories That Turned Out to Be True

The Existence of the Mafia
For a long time, no one believed in the mafia. That a group of criminals who have a hierarchy and are organized could exist sounded too fanciful. In the end, the criminals had always been there.

Illegal Experiments
For years, civilian groups and military personnel claimed that the United States (US) government had experimented on them without their consent. They were branded as crazy and socially excluded, but it was later discovered that many of these cases were actually true.
In the mid-70s, under the command of the US vice president Nelson Rockefeller, the CIA spent more than $ 20 million to secretly develop a program known as MK Ultra. (The program began in the 1950s but was confirmed in the 1970s)

Asbestos
Although today it is known for sure that asbestos causes cancer, there was a time when this fact was treated as a myth. Those affected considered that their diseases had been caused by the use of this building material, and believed that manufacturing companies conspired by hiding it. They were right.

Counterintelligence Program
First, it was a rumor, but later it was known to be true. In 1956, the FBI (Federal Bureau of Investigation) created COINTELPRO, a program of counterintelligence designed to increase factionalism, cause confusion, and prompt desertions inside the Communist Party of the United States of America. Soon, the program expanded its targets to the Socialist Workers (1961), the Ku Klux Klan (1964), the Black Panthers, and the Nation of Islam.

The Bohemian Grove Society
Since 1872, it is rumored that the American elite meets in natural private places to worship the statue of a giant owl and participate in other non-conventional rituals. Although not much is known about this cult, major television networks like NBC, CBC, and the BBC have confirmed its existence. They don’t know if it is a simple cult or a power group such as the Freemasons.

The CIA Deals in Drugs
In 1996, journalist Gary Webb uncovered something that many suspected: international drug trafficking could only be possible if organizations like the CIA partook in it. Apparently, the intelligence agency and other government agencies knew all the goings-on of the drug market and actively participated in trafficking and flooding the slums of Latin America with crack from Los Angeles to finance paramilitary groups fighting to overthrow the Sandinista government in Nicaragua.

Nayirah’s Testimony (1991 Gulf War)
In 1991, 15-year-old Nayirah reported the horror that was taking place in Iraq to the court and the media. According to her, Iraqi soldiers killed Kuwaiti children inside hospital incubators. Her story was so heartbreaking that she served as a catalyst and excuse for the US to initiate the 1991 Gulf War.

Later, it was discovered that Nayirah was, in reality, the daughter of the Kuwaiti ambassador in the US, Saud bin Nasir al-Sabah, and that her testimony about the Iraqi soldiers was orchestrated by the government to justify the invasion.

Operation Paperclip (Nazis in America)
For a long time, the stories of Nazis with new identities and living in America were street legends, but when Operation Paperclip was declassified the stories were found to be true.

https://historyofyesterday.com/8-crazy-conspiracy-theories-that-turned-out-to-be-true-13f6a4be23f3

[Tom Scully]

Good summary of a few major stories that were once viewed as Conspiracy Theories:

...Operation Paperclip (Nazis in America)
For a long time, the stories of Nazis with new identities and living in America were street legends, but when Operation Paperclip was declassified the stories were found to be true.

https://historyofyesterday.com/8-crazy-conspiracy-theories-that-turned-out-to-be-true-13f6a4be23f3

Nazis, you say? And they were brought in or smuggled in to end segregation in the south or put a man on the moon, or what? What was the CT, that the Alabama whites wanted to maintain segregation, or is this CT about Jews?

https://www.npr.org/2019/07/22/744023616/as-nasas-apollo-space-program-grew-alabama-was-pressured-to-desegregate
July 22, 2019

German-born rocket scientist Wernher von Braun was director at Marshall. His past made him an unlikely ally in the fight for racial equality. During World War II, he had overseen development of the Nazi's V-2 missile and the forced labor to build it. After the war, the U.S. recruited him to work on American rockets. NASA historian Brian Odom says von Braun understood the need for desegregation.

BRIAN ODOM: He was finding it increasingly hard to get anyone - you know, whites, blacks, whoever - to move to the South because of this negative image.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

WERNHER VON BRAUN: This is the elliptical path which our rocket ship will follow - going out and coming back

NEUMAN: Von Braun was already a household name, thanks to his appearing on television specials about the future of space travel. So NASA enlisted him to make the case for integration.

ODOM: Von Braun was brought in really to say, you know, if we don't begin to clean up our image, it's going to become hard to keep facilities like this, to keep jobs like this....

[Jon Banks]

Nazis, you say? And they were brought in or smuggled in to end segregation in the south or put a man on the moon, or what? What was the CT, that the Alabama whites wanted to maintain segregation, or is this CT about Jews?

USA Today:

The Nazis and their contributions

By the fall of 1945, German scientists starting arriving on U.S. soil. Not all the men recruited were Nazis or SS officers but the most prominent and valued among them were, having worked either directly with Hitler or leading members of the Nazi Party, such as Heinrich Himmler and Herman Göring.

Wernher von Braun, a rocket engineer, was instrumental in developing the first U.S. ballistic missile, the Redstone, and later the Saturn V rocket while serving as director of NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center. As a Nazi ideologue and member of the SS, he traveled to the Buchenwald concentration camp, where he "handpicked slaves to work for him as laborers," said Jacobsen in a 2014 interview with NPR.

Our rating: True

We rate this claim TRUE because it is supported by our research. Operation Paperclip was a secret initiative launched by the U.S. government to recruit German engineers, doctors, physicists, chemists and other scientific experts for U.S. technological advancement, especially in anticipation of the Cold War. Many recruited German scientists did work for NASA and various other government entities. They were not held responsible for their war crimes.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/factcheck/2020/09/16/fact-check-nazi-scientists-brought-u-s-operation-paperclip/5690870002/