No one knows everything, that's why we come up with theories for how things work or why things happen. Remember, at one point someone actually “discovered” gravity. Well, sometimes those theories are really dumb. Like, ignores common sense & just basic facts of the universe levels of dumb… But those are the fun ones to talk about, so let’s look at a bunch of debunked theories people still believe for some reason.
19. Fake Moon Landing
A popular version of this theory goes as follows: As he had just completed ‘2001: A Space Odyssey’, the US government asked Stanley Kubrick to produce the footage for Apollos 11 and 12. In early 1968, NASA secretly approached Kubrick to direct the first three moon landings, and although the launch and return would be real, while the ship was in orbit, NASA would broadcast fake footage "live from the Moon." The reality, however, is that it would've been harder to fake the landing on Earth than it would have been to build a ship and go to the moon. Using the technology available at the time, it would’ve been literally impossible to fake the landing. Additionally, NASA would have had to convince 400,000 employees to keep the secret, and even coordinate with Russia (our sworn enemy at the time, and only competition in the space race). At this point, believing the moon landing was fake is on par with believing fairies live in your garden. It wasn’t, and they don’t.
18. Loch Ness Monster
In 1993 Christian Spurling admitted that he had “made a monster” out of some plastic, a toy submarine, and a piece of tin. Allegedly Duke Wetherell had come up with the plan to fake the Loch Ness monster pictures to get revenge on the London Daily Mail. In 1933 The Daily Mail had hired Wetherell to find the Loch Ness Monster. During his search he found some strange tracks in the mud near the water. But after plaster casts were taken and sent to the London Museum, the museum announced the tracks were those of a hippo. Apparently someone was playing a trick on Wetherell and used a dried hippopotamus foot to make tracks along the bank. When the Daily Mail found out, they were mad at Wetherell and publicly ridiculed and humiliated him. In an effort to get revenge, Wetherell approached Spurling, and together they built the toy model seen in the photos and sold them to the Daily Mail.
17. “Big Pharma” Is Hiding The Cure For Cancer
I'll be the first to admit that “Big Pharma” hasn't been very good at making friends in the public sector. That being said, the idea that they’re keeping the cure for cancer to themselves because if they released it to the public they wouldn't make any money is ludicrous. Whoever finds the cure for cancer is going to be raking in money while at the same time saving millions of lives. Big Pharma knows this. Curing cancer will be the biggest accomplishment in medical science history. To think that any self respecting scientist would allow for this game changing discovery to go unnoticed because some guy waved a suitcase full of money at them is honestly quite absurd.
16. Chemtrails
Contrails are trails of condensation left behind by large airplanes. Some people believe that they are actually chemicals being pumped into the atmosphere by the world’s governments. No one has any real explanation as to why the government would want to do this. Plus, atmospheric scientists explained that chemtrails are released so high in the atmosphere that the unpredictable winds moving the chemicals around would make them extremely unlikely to have any impact on the earth's surface. Time to shut the book on this theory.
15. CIA Murdered Bob Marley
This is a fabrication pure and simple. Literally none of the ‘facts’ add up.
Yournewswire.com posted an article claiming that a CIA agent named Bill Oxley confessed to killing Bob Marley on his deathbed. But the story begins to unravel pretty quickly. For starters, the photo of 'Bill Oxley' was in fact an edited stock image. Next, the internet has no records of a CIA agent named Bill Oxley (although they’re hardly known for being transparent). Third, the hospital the article claimed Oxley was being treated at has never heard of him. A quick Google search of Bill Oxley only returns the yournewswire article he's mentioned in and other articles that have copied the original. And finally, the story claims Bob Marley was poisoned with “viruses and bacteria” which is a really ineffective way of giving somebody cancer. Additionally, Bob Marley died from a very specific and rare type of skin cancer. It's almost like your newswire.com uses “news” in a satirical sense.
14. Roosevelt Let Pearl Harbor Happen So The USA Would Join WWII
The attack on Pearl Harbor was an absolute surprise. That doesn't stop people from believing that Roosevelt knew all along that the Japanese were going to attack Hawaii. However, all evidence points to the fact that Roosevelt was completely caught off guard by the attacks and although he may have expected some form of attack given the sanctions he had placed on the Japanese to hinder their conquest of China, no one expected a fleet of aircraft carriers to travel 4000 miles across the ocean to attack Pearl Harbor.
13. Courtney Love Murdered Kurt Cobain
Anytime a highly popular artist dies at a young age, fans go wild with all kinds of competing theories of how they died. In Kurt Cobain's case, add in the fact that most of his fans had disdain for Courtney Love and you quickly enter the realm of conspiracy. Claims that Kurt Cobain was planning on leaving Courtney Love and writing her out of his will add fuel to that fire, with some people going as far as saying Love hired a hitman to inject Cobain with heroin and then shoot him in the head with a shotgun to make it look like a suicide. The fact remains that the official opinion of the Seattle Police Department is that Cobain committed suicide and the fact that his to bandmates Krist Novoselic and Dave Grohl, and even his father agree with that assessment should be enough to put this theory to rest.
12. Tupac Is Still Out There
In 1996 Tupac Shakur was gunned down in a drive-by shooting in Las Vegas. To this day his murder is one that still captures the imagination of fans from all over the world. While many of the facts surrounding Shakur's death are a mystery, the things we do know for sure is that at 11 p.m. a white Cadillac pulled up beside the car Shakur was riding in, and fired 14 shots, hitting Tupac four times: twice in the chest, once in the arm, and once in the thigh. One bullet punctured his right lung. Tupac was taken to a nearby hospital where he was kept alive for six days before his mother made the decision to stop treatment on September 13th 1996. The official cause of death was cardiac arrest. However, a popular theory believes Tupac didn't die and is alive and well, living in Cuba after faking his own death. While we may never know who pulled the trigger that killed Tupac, we are pretty certain he isn’t kicking it on a beach in Cuba.
11. Flat Earth
Members of The Flat Earth Society claim that earth is flat, and that all evidence to the contrary is a fabrication. Members even go so far as to call NASA a member of the “round earth conspiracy” although literal mountains of evidence to the contrary. Many believe that the flat earth society is an elaborate joke. With claims like earth's gravity being an illusion, it's hard to take the flat earth society seriously. Sorry, Kyrie Irving.
10. Camels Carry Water In Their Humps
Camels are extraordinary animals and can survive for seven days without water. This simple fact has led people to believe that they carry extra water in their humps. This is simply not true. The camel's hump is actually a large store of fat that provides the animal with the same amount of energy that 3 weeks worth of food would provide. The real MVP when it comes to camels ability to survive for extended periods of time without any water is their oval red blood cells, and their highly efficient kidneys and intestines.
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9. You Can See The Great Wall of China From Space
There’s a lot of talk about walls these days... But let’s take a moment to revisit one of the most popular and famous walls in the entire world, the Great Wall of China. Often regarded as the only man-made structure you can see from space. Except you can't. Even from low earth orbit, it's just not possible to see the Great Wall of China. The reason being, it's made from rock that's the same color as the rest of the surrounding area, and it follows the natural contours of the landscape around it.
That being said, space station astronauts have said that the Great Pyramids at Giza are pretty easy to spot so, at least that's one man-made structure that's easy to see.
8. The Tongue Tastes Flavors In Different Zones
I'm sure you've seen the map of the tongue stating that certain areas are responsible for identifying sweet, sour, salty, and bitter tastes. Unfortunately, there's no science to support that this map is anything more than a fabrication. In fact, there are five basic tastes- the fifth is called umami and is the taste of glutamate- not four, and the tongue can sense all of these tastes equally across its entirety. Don't believe me? Take some salt and put it on the tip of your tongue. Do you taste salt? Yes, of course you do. Because the flavor map is a lie.
7. If Earth Was Just 10 Feet Closer Or Further From The Sun We Would All Die
This is a very popular theory that is commonly shared on social media. Usually as evidence of some sort of creator who just absolutely nailed it when it came to the placement of our planet. This would be great if earth's orbit was circular, but it's not. It's elliptical, which means it orbits in an oval shape In fact, the earth varies in distance from the sun from 147 million miles at its closest to 152 million miles at its farthest. That's a difference of 5 million miles which, as you’ll immediately recognize, is a few feet more than 10. Additionally, we have buildings that are over 10 ft tall. Seriously, just climb to the top of a building, see if you burn to death. Assuming you don't get arrested, you should be fine. The fact that people believe this is actually kind of hilarious.
6. Bulls Hate Red
If you watch a bullfight you’ll immediately recognize that the matador is waving around a red cape. The fact that the cape is always red has led to the common belief that bulls hate that color specifically. But get this, bulls are color blind to the color red! So why do they always go berserk at the cape? Well, they just hate the motion of the cape, not the color.
In fact, the mythbusters did a test with red, white, and blue flags. The bull charged all of them regardless of color, and even charged the red flag last. So why is the cape red? It's to mask the bulls blood when it’s killed at the end of the bullfight. Now you know!
5. Liars Avoid Eye Contact
If you believe everything you see on TV (especially police dramas in this case) you probably think that liars always avoid eye contact. Fact is, this is simply not true. In fact, most liars know that you’ll be looking at their eyes to see if they avoid eye contact and will intentionally maintain eye contact. Turns out, when a liar gets caught, they don't stop lying, they just get better at lying. When it comes to lie detection, we just aren't very good at it. Even with polygraph machines, we’re no better at determining whether someone is lying than we would by guessing.
4. Blood Is Blue In Your Body
Although blood may look blue in your veins, human blood is never blue. The coloration comes from the way your eyes absorb color through the vein and skin. Depending on the level of oxygen in your blood cells it can range anywhere from bright red to dark red. Never blue. Octopuses on the other hand, have blue blood. So if you do have blue blood, you're probably an octopus. Sorry I had to break the news to you this way.
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3. If You Cut An Earthworm In Half It Will Become Two Worms
First of all, this is just cruel. Don't be cutting worms in half. Second, it's also not true. While an earthworm may be able to regrow its tail, the tail of an earthworm won't grow a new head. It just doesn't work that way. This is because earthworms actually have a head and a tail. Although it may not look like it. Then again, the planarian flatworm is able to regrow its entire body if only 1/300 of the original body exists. Still won't grow two heads though.
2. It Takes Seven Years To Digest Gum
We've all heard it before, “Swallow that gum and it'll stick in your stomach for 7 years!” Luckily that's just not the case. While it is true the human body can't digest chewing gum, nothing about chewing gum would cause it to stick around in your body for 7 years. In fact, like everything else you swallow, it will eventually pass through your digestive system. Just don't make a habit of swallowing gum, it can still cause problems if you swallow enough of it.
1. Sugar Makes Kids Hyper
Give a kid one candy bar, and before you know it they'll be bouncing off the walls. Right? Well considering you've gotten this far and you understand the premise of this article, you're probably not going to be surprised when I say, “No.” In fact, during a double-blind research study back in 1994, it was found that sugar had no effect on behavior or cognitive skills in children. In fact, the only thing sugar does do is change the expectations of the parents. When the child was given a placebo containing no sugar the parents still reported their child was hyperactive. Turns out that kids are just hyper regardless of what they're eating.
