Conspiracy Theories: How to Tell Solid Facts from a Swamp of Fiction

Uncertainty and ambiguity allow conspiracy thinking to move from the fringes to the center of public life. Fortunately, we have tools at our disposal to help us determine whether we’re dealing with fiction or a conspiracy theory. These tools include common sense, knowledge of history, and the ability to recognize stereotypes and clichés.

Distinguishing Real Conspiracies from Conspiracy Theories

Separating genuine conspiracies from imagined ones—or from conspiracy theories—is absolutely necessary. For example, Winston Churchill’s warnings in the 1930s about the Nazis’ secret intentions are not on the same level as Hitler’s delusional claims of a Jewish conspiracy. It’s crucial to distinguish solid ground of facts from the swamp of fiction, because this very uncertainty is what allows conspiracy thinking to infiltrate mainstream society.

Luckily, we have several tools to help us identify fiction or conspiracy theories: common sense, historical knowledge, and the ability to spot stereotypes and clichés.

1. Common Sense

Not everything that’s logically possible makes sense in real life. Not all enemies seek world domination; accidents happen on their own; churches, underground tunnels, and Senate seats are not murder weapons; and it’s unreasonable to suspect Catholics, Jews, or Democrats of such methods.

As one logician noted, “When we propose a hypothesis to explain something, we don’t act in a vacuum. We have a vast store of knowledge—beliefs, principles, and theories—supported by plenty of evidence.”

Common sense favors simple explanations. Conspiracy theories, on the other hand, are complex and convoluted. They require webs of trickery and deception, and such extreme mental inventiveness that they collapse under their own implausibility. Take the assassination of John F. Kennedy, for example. There was no reason for any group to choose Lee Harvey Oswald, since involving so many people would have made the conspiracy unworkable.

For Oswald to be in the Texas School Book Depository, from which he could shoot at Kennedy’s motorcade, would have required coordinated actions by at least four people, and the whole operation would have involved hundreds. This violates the logical principle of simplicity: between two equally supported versions, the one requiring fewer new assumptions is more convincing.

This leads to two conclusions. First, conspiracies only succeed under certain circumstances (an assassination that could happen in Moscow makes no sense in Washington). Second, the more effort a supposed conspiracy requires, the less likely it is to be real. A palace coup is plausible; a conspiracy to start the French Revolution is not.

2. Knowledge of History and Conspiracy Theories

Knowing history quickly reveals the impracticality of most conspiracies. Unforeseen events ruin conspirators’ plans, allies betray them, and enemies spot the threat in time. Generally, the more complex a conspiracy, the less likely it is to succeed.

Niccolò Machiavelli, who witnessed many intrigues, noted that conspiracies “are always fraught with countless difficulties and dangers,” and pointed out their frequent failures: “Many conspiracies have occurred, but history shows that only a few have succeeded.”

Philosopher Karl Popper continued this thought: “First, they don’t happen very often and don’t change the basic features of public life. If conspiracies stopped, the problems we face wouldn’t fundamentally change. Second, I claim that conspiracies rarely succeed. Usually, the results are nothing like the original goals (just look at the Nazi conspiracy).”

Large-scale secret plots in the Middle East, carried out by European, Israeli, and American leaders, failed; in fact, they often backfired on the conspirators themselves. The British and French governments secretly divided the Middle East in the Sykes-Picot Agreement, but soon lost their dominance.

In the Lavon Affair, Israeli intelligence tried to blame Gamal Abdel Nasser for violence against Americans in Egypt, but was exposed. In the Iran-Contra scandal, U.S. authorities secretly sold weapons to Iran and were caught. Such cases happen worldwide.

3. Obvious Stereotypes and Clichés of Conspiracy Theories

Once you identify the main features, it becomes clear how much conspiracy theories have in common. They differ from mainstream thinking in two main ways: the same types of evidence and the same versions of events. Here are the clear signs of conspiracy thinking:

• Mystery: Conspiracy theorists create a deceptive appearance, easily dismissing well-known facts and searching for bizarre, obscure details. Their tendency toward mysticism makes their chosen “evidence” stand out immediately.
• Conspiracy: They often use impersonal language (“he was being watched”), but sometimes are more direct: “To avoid compromising those involved, I prefer not to reveal my sources yet.”
• Use of Forged Documents: Forgeries are a hallmark of conspiracy thinking. Fear of the Templars grew as their history became filled with fabricated facts. The peak of their “posthumous fame” was the 1877 publication of the “Latin Rule,” supposedly written six centuries earlier.
• Publications accused the Order of secret and obscene practices. In a 1614 treatise, a Jesuit defector exposed the “dark deeds” of the Society of Jesus. In 1811, Napoleon published a fake “Testament” of Peter the Great, dated 1709, in which the czar supposedly laid out plans for Russian dominance in Europe and predicted events with uncanny accuracy.
• In the 1890s, the American Protective Association released many forged documents. The most important was a fake encyclical from Pope Leo XIII to American Catholics, urging them to exterminate all heretics (i.e., non-Catholics). But the all-time classic is the “Protocols of the Elders of Zion,” fabricated in France and Russia from earlier works, some of which were crude slander.
• Inconsistencies in Conspiracy Theories: The same basic claims are repeated with minor variations and glaring inconsistencies. For half a century, American right-wing groups have repeatedly warned of enemy troops massing on the Mexican border.
• During World War II, one extremist leader wrote: “200,000 Jewish communists are ready to cross the Mexican border. If allowed, they’ll assault all unprotected women and children.” In 1962, the Minutemen warned of Chinese communist troops on the Mexican border, ready to invade. A year later, the John Birch Society claimed 35,000 Chinese troops were ready to invade San Diego. In the 1980s, the Posse Comitatus movement turned the “Chinese threat” into 35,000 Viet Cong hiding in southern Texas. Later, Russian troops were said to be massing in Mexico. Jews, Chinese, Vietnamese, Russians—these fears hardly help identify the real enemy. This is the “paranoid style.”
• Overload of Facts and Excessive Citations: Conspiracy theorists seem determined to bury the reader in names, dates, and facts. In arguing that the CIA was involved in spreading cocaine in Los Angeles, Gary Webb provided so many dizzying details about so many people that it was hard to follow his argument.
• Piling Up Conspiracy Theories: When one theory fails (for example, no “extra” bullets were found in Kennedy’s body), another is immediately offered (the bullets were secretly removed by doctors).
• Dismissing Contradictory Evidence: Conspiracy theorists start with a conclusion and look for evidence to support it, rejecting anything that doesn’t fit. Jim Garrison’s assistant, who investigated Kennedy’s assassination, described his boss’s method: “Usually, we gather facts and then form a theory. Garrison would first form a theory, then look for facts. If a fact didn’t fit, Garrison would say it was a CIA plant.”
• Independence from the Passage of Time: Centuries pass, generations change, but little changes in the world of conspiracy fantasies. The Templars, a Catholic military order founded around 1119 and destroyed in 1314, haven’t been seen in nearly 700 years, but the mystique of the oldest “secret society” lives on.
• The Bavarian Illuminati have been gone for over two centuries, but in conspiracy circles, they remain a powerful force. The far-right “Mothers of the United States of America” accused the Sanhedrin—a council of rabbis that ceased to exist in 66 AD—of provoking Hitler to attack Poland (to discredit the Führer).
• Chivalrous Attitude Toward Facts: Sometimes, there are too many “facts” to count. At first, the Rosicrucians “were so widespread that their very existence was doubted.” The idea of the organization came from three fantasy books published in 1614, 1615, and 1616. Some readers (especially in Germany and England) believed in them so much that they tried to join the order and learn its ancient secrets.
• In later centuries, charlatans and would-be conspirators like Filippo Buonarroti and Eliphas Levi used the mysterious name “Rose and Cross” for their own purposes. In 1915, the Ancient Mystical Order Rosae Crucis was founded in San Jose, California, turning a ghost into a real organization with branches and protocols. Cases of completely invented evidence are remarkable in their own way.

Author: Daniel Pipes, Hoover Institution fellow at Stanford University, professor at Harvard University. This material is published in an abridged and adapted translation from English.