[orgaelin]

I think the problem with conspiracy theories is that they have now become the tool of those whom the theories were meant to accuse.

Look at whacko's like David Icke... clearly this guy is utterly nuts, and almost everyone can see this. Yet he's tremendously popular and his books are all over the place at extortionate prices. Why? How?

What's going on is this: imagine you are a government agent charged with keeping secret the fact that we had made contact with an alien race (all this is hypothetical; I don't believe we have made contact). The very best way for you to hide something is to place it right under peoples' noses - to thrust it in their faces.

So that's what they do. They tell us the bare facts, all the things they don't want us to know... but they wrap it all in a crazy package called a conspiracy theorist. That way people hear the stories and straight away associate them with craziness and unlikeliness.

What do you think?