Real or imagined, conspiracies have been around for about as long as people have been gathering. I know. I've put a lot of thought into this, and lately I've done a tremendous amount of reading on the subject. It seems that every generation has had their conspiracy theories, most of which involved the government (people's favorite entity to blame conspiracies on). For instance, did you know that President Lincoln conspired to place himself as king over the United States? Oh yes. And it was the government who sent out specially trained frog men to blow up the battleship Maine in Cuba. It was just the excuse they needed to start a war against Spain.

What? You mean you didn't know about that? Well what about the United States shipping war materials on the ocean liner Lusitania, thus enticing, hoping that the Germans would sink the ship and thrust us into the fighting of World War 1, or how the government secretly gathered the 7th fleet in Pearl Harbor knowing that the Japanese was about to launch a surprise attack there. How else could they get rid of all those "old, obsolete ships" and get us into the war while building a new navy? Of course, the conspiracy theorists conveniently forgot about the more modern ships that were sunk along with the older ones.

Fifty years! That's how long we had to wait for the "secret" papers regarding the Pear Harbor attack to be made public. Fifty years before we could finally put that conspiracy to rest, and even though there wasn't a single shred of evidence to support such a conspiracy some people still insist on clinging to such an outrageous accusation. And if that's not enough, there are those who claim that the holocaust of World War 2 never happened. Those people call themselves the Revisionists.

Haven't you heard about them? They (mostly Arabs) claim that the whole idea of the holocaust was invented to gather sympathy for Israel and that it actually never happened. Unfortunately for the Revisionists, there are a few fundamental problems with their theory. First, there are all the witnesses that survived it, tens of thousands of them on both sides. Then, of course, there's all the photographs and film footage of the concentration camps and lastly, there's the problem of the six million missing Jews. Believe it or not though, more and more people are buying into such a ludicrous conspiracy.

Of course, I have to admit that not all conspiracies are unfounded and the work of someone's overactive imagination. Take the government's conspiracy to silence and, or eradicate the communists from our midst during the fifties. They were called the McCarthy Years. Because of this very real conspiracy, many notables were blacklisted from employment including Charlie Chaplain, Lena Horne and even Gypsy Rose Lee! Many were jailed as well too, and just like the conspiracies that are little more than myths, the real ones ignore the truth also.

It always amazes me how the conspirators and conspiracy theorists always manage to rearrange, stretch or even invent facts to support their theories while conveniently ignoring those facts that contradict their beliefs.

Oh, oh. Sorry, I have to go. Don't worry, I'll be back shortly to finish this.

OK, thanks for waiting. I was starting to get myself a little worked up there and had to take a short break. I ended up warming myself up a cup of milk since I find that a good cup of warm milk always calms me down. Anyway, sorry for the interruption.

Now, where were we?

Oh yes, I see. We were talking about how they always seem to be able to twist the truth around to support their position, no matter how ridiculous their perspective is. Take the relatively new conspiracy theory regarding the attack on 9/11 for example. In this one, the conspiracy theorists claim that it was actually the government who conducted the attack on the twin towers in New York City and the Pentagon! Oh yes. If you haven't heard this one, then sit back and listen. You won't believe it!

They say that it was really a U.S. missile that struck the Pentagon! Of course, they somehow manage to forget that there was actual video footage that someone took of the Jet liner that crashed into the Pentagon. One could even see the markings on the airliner! And the twin towers in New York? Haven't you heard that they were really rigged with explosives? Well that's what the conspiracy theorists say!

Naturally, they can't explain how the tons of explosives that it would have taken were smuggled into the towers and how someone had managed to place it so it could do the damage that it did. Nor could they explain how one could move some 24 truck loads of explosives to the towers without anybody noticing. Can you imagine the timing it would have taken to have it all placed in the right spot at the right time for those planes to hit? And how stupid could those office people be! I mean imagine them having to go around all those piles of explosives in the halls and their offices without ever noticing that they were there.

It's also kind of funny how none of the conspiracy theorists ever mentions the airliner that crashed in Pennsylvania either. I also think it would have been more than difficult to find air force pilots to fly those planes into the towers or that field in Pennsylvania! Oh well, there's no understanding of nut jobs I guess.

At least that conspiracy will be relatively short lived. Like the one about President Lincoln and the Main, history will just gloss over it, and it will eventually be just buried with the passing of time. Of course, not all conspiracy theories are short lived. Some seem to hang around forever. Take the theory that the U.S. Government is covering up the existence of UFOs for example. Now that one has been around since the sixties.

Now I'm pretty sure that nearly everyone has heard of this one! Of course, the government isn't doing itself any favors by keeping Area 51 such a secret, but I'm pretty sure that if they were ever to conduct a tour of the place, we would much more likely to find scientists working on nuclear or laser weapons than some crashed UFO and its alien occupants! I mean really! One would think that if such an important scientific discovery was ever to be made, one would think that the whole world would know about it in an instant! Besides, why would the government even try to cover it up anyway? Also, I wonder why it's our government that gets to have all the goodies. One would think that such discoveries would be made in other countries as well.