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Tomorrow, Netflix is premiering Wormwood, Errol Morris‘ docu-drama about a man named Eric Olson who has spent his entire life searching for the truth about his father’s death. As Eric begins investigating the mysterious circumstances surrounding his death—Dr. Frank Olson fell from the window of a New York City hotel room, but it’s unclear if he jumped or tripped—he learns that his father was part of a much larger conspiracy to cover up the government’s LSD experimentation project, otherwise known as MKUltra.
Wormwood is by no means alone in its commitment to exploring government cover-ups; there are hundreds of documentaries, small and large budget (although Wormwood is definitely on the higher-quality end), that investigate conspiracy theories about topics like President John F. Kennedy’s assassination, alien invasions, and the “deep state.” While some of these docs and docu-series lean more towards fantasy than reality, there’s no denying that they’re hella fun. After all, who doesn’t love a good conspiracy theory?
In order to get you in the mood for Wormwood‘s premiere tomorrow, we’ve explored eight other government cover-ups that will make your mind spin. From the CIA designing crack to NASA faking the moon landing, these conspiracy theories—and the films that go along with them—will make you question everything you thought you knew about the United States government.
Buckle up, conspiracy theorists. We’re going deep-diving into a world of alternate facts, half-baked ideas, and ridiculous theories.
Lee Harvey Oswald Was Part Of A Government Conspiracy To Kill JFK
There are plenty of theories out there about JFK’s assassination, but few are as mainstream as the theory that insists that Lee Harvey Oswald did not assassinate JFK alone.
Less than two hours after Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas on November 22, 1963, Oswald was arrested for the murder of the president and Dallas police officer J.D. Tippit. In 1964, the Warren Commission concluded that Oswald (who by this point had been assassinated by Jack Ruby) acted as a lone shooter and was not part of any larger conspiracy to assassinate Kennedy. However, in the years since, critics of the Warren Commission charge that the FBI forced the Commission to implicate Oswald in order to hide the involvement of many groups, including the CIA, the KGB, and even Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson. These alternate theorists believe that the federal government compromised witnesses, tampered with evidence, lied about the existence of additional gunmen, and more.
One such conspiracy theory plays out in Oliver Stone‘s 1991 film JFK. The film depicts the shady goings-on of New Orleans businessman Clay Shaw (Tommy Lee Jones), who was charged with conspiring to assassinate Kennedy with Oswald’s (Gary Oldman’s) help. The film has been criticized for its liberal use of factual information, but it will still please conspiracy theorists interested in digging into the country’s most well-known controversy.
The Military Is Hiding Details About The 1947 Roswell Incident
In 1947, an Air Force weather balloon crashed near Roswell, New Mexico. At first, Americans dismissed the accounts of William Brazel, a rancher who claimed to have seen debris from a flying saucer, but almost 30 years later, alien enthusiasts picked up the story and insisted that Brazel had seen remains of a UFO, not a weather balloon. In the years since, researchers have found new “witnesses” to corroborate Brazel’s story, and their theories now posit that an after an alien spacecraft crashed in the New Mexico, the military performed alien autopsies and then took the bodies to an undisclosed location for further study. The government has repeatedly denied their involvement in the Roswell incident, but determined UFO researchers continue to study the 1947 event.
If you’re interested in becoming an amateur ufologist (yes, that’s what they’re called), check out Unacknowledged on Netflix. The 2017 doc follows Dr. Steven Greer, an expert alien researcher as he interviews witnesses about their extraterrestrial experiences and presents previously classified documents about aliens.
The U.S. Government Organized The 9/11 Attacks
Despite tons of evidence that identifies al-Qaeda as the group behind the 9/11 attacks, conspiracy theorists in the 9/11 Truth Movement hold fast to the belief that it was actually the federal government that perpetrated the strike on the Twin Towers. One theory claims that American intelligence officials knew that the attacks were coming but did nothing, and another claims that conservative leaders orchestrated the attacks in order to justify a full-scale invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan. Some scientists also believe that the buildings collapsed so quickly because explosives were placed inside before the attacks and were detonated when the planes hit, weakening the structures far more than the planes themselves.
These 9/11 theories and many others are explored in the BBC documentary 9/11: Truth, Lies, and Conspiracies and Richard Gage’s 9/11 Explosive Evidence: Experts Speak Out.
Stream 9/11: Truth, Lies, and Conspiracies on Netflix
Stream 9/11 Explosive Evidence: Experts Speak Out on Prime Video
A U.S. Navy Missile Accidentally Shot Down TWA Flight 800
In July 1996, Trans World Airlines Flight 800 exploded and crashed into the ocean shortly after taking off in New York. The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) investigation found that the crash was due to a fuel tank explosion, but many witnesses claimed that they saw a streak of light hit the plane before it exploded, indicating that a projectile object, a missile, must have been the cause of the crash. Proponents of this theory believe that the witness testimony, the explosive residue found on the wreckage, and the unlikelihood that a fuel tank would explode as the NTSB described indicate that a missile struck the plane and the government covered it up to avoid a scandal.
In 2013, a documentary was released that challenges the NTSB’s assessment of the crash. TWA Flight 800 alleges that the investigation quickly became a government conspiracy to hide the fact that their own missile mistakenly shot down the plane. To support this claim, the doc features interviews with six members of the original investigation team who now insist that their work was heavily swayed by government interests.
History As We Know It Is A Lie
Okay, this one isn’t really a conspiracy theory, but it’s certainly something that the government doesn’t want us talking about. Oliver Stone’s 2013 series The Untold History of the United States explores some of the largest events in American history and questions whether the prevailing narrative is really true. In distinct episodes, each devoted to a different topic, Stone challenges the American education and cultural system that we hold so dear by asking questions that have long been ignored: Did racism prompt us to drop the atomic bomb? To what degree did ego factor into the Cold War? Does the U.S. deserve to be a superpower? Stone makes clear that American exceptionalism, whether overt or subtle, permeates our history books, and he proposes that we instead embrace an untold history that favors facts over pride.
The CIA Supported The Crack Cocaine Epidemic
In 1996, Gary Webb of the San Jose Mercury News ignited a national controversy when he accused the CIA of enabling the sale of cocaine in the US and fueling the crack cocaine epidemic. According to Webb’s report, the CIA allowed the Nicaraguan Contras to smuggle drugs into the United States, and the profits from the drug trade went back to the Contras, who were fighting a US-backed war against the Nicaraguan government. The publication of Webb’s series, known as the “Dark Alliance” series, prompted three federal investigations, all of which found that there was no evidence to support the theory that the CIA was involved with the cocaine trade. Nevertheless, many conspiracy theorists continue to believe that the intelligence community was behind the crack cocaine epidemic, and Webb’s series provides further “proof” for them that the CIA continually acts in its own best interest rather than the nation’s.
Gary Webb’s story is dramatized in the 2014 film Kill the Messenger. Jeremy Renner plays Webb as he defends himself against government pressure and attempts to shield his family from unwanted attention following the publication of his story. If you’re interested in the inception of conspiracy theories, this movie is a must-see.
NASA Faked The Moon Landing
If you’ve ever seen Even Stevens, you know that we went to the moon in 1969 (thank you, Christy Carlson Romano!). Despite the irrefutable Even Stevens evidence, some Americans believe that NASA staged the moon landings in order to win the Space Race against the USSR. The naysayers who believe that the Apollo astronauts didn’t actually step foot on the moon claim that inconsistencies in the moon landing photos—including shadows pointing in different directions, extreme light in certain areas, and the position of the crosshairs in some photos—indicate that the events were shot in a studio. Despite the fact that these points have been repeatedly debunked (even by the MythBusters themselves), conspiracy theorists aren’t convinced that Neil Armstrong really took one giant leap for mankind back in 1969.
For more crazy moon landing (or lack thereof) theories, check out the 2001 TV movie Conspiracy Theory: Did We Land On The Moon?.
Stream Conspiracy Theory: Did We Land On The Moon? on Netflix
The Federal Reserve Is Scamming Us
In 2007, filmmaker Peter Joseph released Zeitgeist: The Movie, a film exploring various conspiracy theories. Joseph’s film is particularly concerned with a financial conspiracy that accuses the Federal Reserve, the United States’ central banking system, of functioning as a puppet for a small group of international bankers that run the global economy, and therefore, the world. The doc alleges that the bankers conspire to incite global catastrophes, including the Pearl Harbor attack, the Gulf of Tonkin incident, and the sinking of the Lusitania during WWI, in order to make themselves richer at the general population’s expense. According to Zeitgeist, these global events force governments to borrow money from the Federal Reserve that the Fed can then charge interest on, thereby turning a nice profit for the already rich bankers.
Joseph released two sequels to his first conspiracy film, Zeitgeist: Addendum and Zeitgeist: Moving Forward, both of which explore various socioeconomic controversies and offer up a few solutions to major global issues.
