Build a conspiracy theory from scratch.
The best way to learn to spot a conspiracy theory is to make one yourself.
Pick a real news story. On the next step you'll choose who's behind it and why. Then walk through the four moves real conspiracists use, with a debunk on every step.
- Hunt anomalies — turn coincidence into evidence of a secret plot.
- Fabricate connections — draw lines between unrelated dots until they look meaningful.
- Dismiss counter-evidence — if a fact disagrees, make the fact part of the cover-up.
- Discredit the critics — dismiss people who point out flaws in your theory.
Pick the event.
Choose whichever real-feeling headline your imagination will run wildest with. Don't overthink it.
Film's production plagued by misfortune
William Friedkin’s 1977 film Sorcerer is a tense thriller about four desperate men hired to transport highly unstable explosives across dangerous, remote roads. Inspired by Georges Arnaud’s novel and echoing the earlier French film The Wages of Fear, Sorcerer aimed for a raw, realistic tone. Friedkin, fresh from the success of The Exorcist, pushed for authentic locations and intense performances to heighten the film’s unrelenting atmosphere.
Kansas orders deletion of seized files
A Kansas judge has ordered authorities to delete all electronic copies made from files seized during a police search of the Marion County Record, a small local newspaper. The searches, carried out nearly two weeks earlier, removed computers and cellphones from the paper’s office. The court order requires that digital copies created from those devices be destroyed, limiting how officials may keep and use material gathered in the raid.
West's Voters Divided by Identity
A recent YouGov–Cambridge Globalism Project survey finds that voters in Western democracies are more divided by identity and partisan loyalty than by specific policy positions. Researchers describe strong "affective polarization": people feel intense dislike for opposing groups even when those groups often share similar views on key debates such as sexism, racism, and economic policy. The findings challenge the idea that culture wars are mainly about conflicting opinions; instead, much conflict appears driven by who people see as "us" versus "them."
LHC Conspiracy Theories and Fears
In 2009 the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), a giant particle accelerator near Geneva run by CERN, was preparing to restart after upgrades. Scientists said the machine would smash protons together at very high energies to study fundamental particles and forces, potentially revealing phenomena such as the Higgs boson or signs of new physics. However, some members of the public expressed fear that the machine could produce catastrophic effects, including miniature black holes or other unknown dangers.