Conspiracy theories that actually turned out to be true

Many conspiracy theories have floated around throughout the course of history.  Most of these theories have been proven wrong. However, there are a few conspiracy theories that actually turned out to be true. 

Conspiracy theory: A stroke rendered President Woodrow Wilson incapable of governing, and his wife surreptitiously stepped in.

The truth: Wilson did suffer a debilitating stroke towards the end of his presidency—but the government felt it was in the country’s best interest to keep things quiet. The public didn’t learn about the stroke for months, during which time his wife, Edith Wilson, was making most executive decisions. Despite Mrs. Wilson claiming that she acted only as a “steward,” historians who have analyzed the Wilson term in office confirm that for well over a year, Mrs. Wilson was effectively president.

Conspiracy: The CIA was testing LSD and other hallucinogenic drugs on Americans in a top-secret experiment on behavior modification.

The truth: The program was known as MK-ULTRA, and it was real. The CIA started by using volunteers; the novelist Ken Kesey was one notable subject. But the program heads soon began dosing people without their knowledge; MK-ULTRA left many victims permanently mentally disabled. Don’t miss these 11 controversial medical theories that are actually true.

Conspiracy: The Dalai Lama worked for CIA 

The truth: Perhaps the reason the Dalai Lama is smiling in all those photos has something to do with the six-figure salary he pulled down from the US government during the 1960s. According to declassified intelligence documents, he earned $180,000 in connection with the CIA’s funding of the Tibetan Resistance to the tune of $1.7 million per year. The idea was to disrupt and hamper China’s infrastructure.

Conspiracy: The FBI was spying on former Beatle John Lennon.

The truth: Crazy conspiracy theories regarding celebs are always interesting—and this one is most certainly true. Like many counter-culture heroes, Lennon was considered a threat: “Anti-war songs, like “Give Peace a Chance” didn’t exactly endear former Beatle John Lennon to the Nixon administration,” NPR reported in 2010. “In 1971, the FBI put Lennon under surveillance, and the Immigration and Naturalization Service tried to deport him a year later.” Lennon is one of 13 more notable celebrities you didn’t realize were watched by the FBI.

Conspiracy: With the advances in technology, the government is using its vast resources to track citizens.

The truth: In 2016, government agencies sent 49,868 requests for user data to Facebook, 27,850 to Google, and 9,076 to Apple, according to the Electronic Frontier Foundation (the EFF), a major nonprofit organization that defends civil liberties in the digital world and advises the public on matters of internet privacy. You’ve probably also heard that your computer camera could be used to spy on you—here’s the real likelihood someone is watching you through that camera.

Conspiracy: For decades, tobacco companies buried evidence that smoking is deadly.

The truth: At the beginning of the 1950s, research was showing an indisputable statistical link between smoking and lung cancer, but it wasn’t until the late 1990s that Philip Morris, the nation’s largest cigarette maker at the time, even admitted that smoking could cause cancer.

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