Conspiracy theories and ideas that the world is crafting some ulterior motive via staged productions are… uh, ridiculous. And as we saw over the last few years in America, sometimes they are downright dangerous.
With that enormous caveat in mind, we definitely are not saying any of these are real and we are not suggesting that this list is anything but a little fun on your Monday morning. But sometimes it’s good to know what people out there are thinking or get a little chuckle.
We rounded up some of the best answers to u/ConsciousSloth‘s question on Reddit, “What world event do you think was staged?” Let’s take a look!
1. Spy death
In the UK a spy or someone who worked in intelligence was found dead in his apartment. He drowned in his bath, locked inside a North Face duffel bag. The lock was on the outside of the bag Official verdict into his death… Suicide
2. A latrine disaster
The Erfurt latrine disaster in 1184. I fully believe that Henry VI staged that to create a power vacuum his family was equipped to take advantage of.
3. In Moscow
1999 Moscow apartment bombings.
Hadn’t heard of this before, damn. “Former FSB agent Alexander Litvinenko, who defected and blamed the FSB for the bombings, was poisoned and killed in London in 2006.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_apartment_bombings
4. Turkey’s Coup
The 2016 “coup” in Turkey was staged to solidify Erdogan’s presidency.
5. NASCAR
Dale Jr. winning the July NASCAR race at Daytona after his father was killed in an accident there in February.
6. Janet Jackson’s Breast
I work in the entertainment industry and I feel like this is pretty much understood to be a fact. Her costume was designed to be a tear away. Regular fabric doesn’t tear that cleanly. The stunt didn’t get the reaction they wanted so they cried wardrobe malfunction to save face, then Janet got caught in the middle of the media frenzy even though she was just doing the approved choreography.
7. War On Drugs
The War on Drugs. Once you read about how Harry J. Anslinger manufactured the marijuana scare just to keep his job, you’ll realize how crazy the entire situation is. Anslinger was the DEA version of J. Edgar Hoover, and before the DEA even existed.
8. The Maine
It wasn’t a scuttling, it was likely an internal accidental explosion due to coal dust.
9. Flat Earthers
Flat Eathers. I truly can’t believe for a second that with all the technology and photos proving that the Earth 🌎 is round that Flat Eathers are real. I truly do believe they know for fact the plant is round but just say it isn’t to troll society as as a whole. Maybe I’m crazy but I don’t think I am 🤷🏿. They have to be staged
10. Banksy
Not an event per se but the fact everyone still thinks that Banksy is just one guy, trust me, it’s a well oiled machine that, even from the 99/2000 had a small team working on it all, it’s been one big money making exercise from the early days, the fact Robin and co are still getting away with it proves it works so good luck to them!
11. Hawaii Missile Alert
The Hawaii missile alert false alarm has three possible scenarios that I’m tossed on:
1: It really was a misclick.
2: It was a drill to test the preparedness of a missile attack. They wanted to see what a population would do in that scenario.
3: It was a real incoming missile attack but the US has top secret missile interception capabilities that nobody knows about; except whatever country actually launched the missile now. I bet the foreign country, in this scenario, would have even figured they did and was just testing to see the full extent of the technology
12. Finland
Lil’ol’ Finland attacking mighty bear of Russia back in ’39. I mean, Russian later said it was staged, but the current leader is again going ”what, who said is was stages, does not look staged to me, i havent heard such rumors before and uh we beat the nazis so we are never wrong”.
13. Reagan didn’t negotiate their release
The timing of the release of the Iranian hostages so that Reagan got the credit for it. 100% fishy.
14. Russia & Belarus
Any election in Russia or Belarus after 1991. …..or ever.
15. Max Headroom
Why would anyone pretend like someone hacked a tv channel to broadcast a completely random and weird clip that has seemingly no target or purpose.
16. Sex Tapes
Some skank leaking her sex tape to gain the public’s eye… and now we get the hear about the whole goddamn family on the regular.
17. Call Me Maybe
The popularity of Call Me Maybe by Carly Rae Jepsen. I’m not saying it’s a bad song. But I was pretty up to speed on both memes and pop music at the time, and I definitely saw the memes about the song (like the ones using Maeby from Arrested Development) absolutely flood every meme channel all at once a few weeks before the song was at all popular, not after. Now this sort of thing is pretty common, but I was bewildered that no one else at the time had questioned why this song they never heard was suddenly a meme, like… everywhere. The “staging” is that I’m pretty sure Carly Rae Jepsen’s record label astroturfed the Internet hard in 2012 with regard to the popularity of her hit single Call Me Maybe, 4+ years before that sort of thing was really noticed or heard of.