Thanks to the wisdom bestowed upon us from Julian Huxley’s 1926 short story The Tissue-Culture King, it is now common knowledge that by simply wrapping the top of our skulls with a tin foil hat, we can deflect a myriad of troubling threats from entering our brains and prodding their inquisitive fingers into our thoughts. Whether electromagnetic fields, mind control experiments utilized by nosey government agents, or those pesky aliens who watch you whilst you sleep each night, this every day kitchen item can protect you without busting the budget. Aluminum foil. Your best friend. Your greatest asset. Never leave home without it.

Today, however, you won’t be needing it. Because where we’re going, is a place so far into the depths of human absurdity, that no tin foil hat in the world could save you. These are the residue of conspiracy theories. The little pieces of conspiracy theories that get stuck on plates even after they’ve been through the dishwasher. The conspiracy theories that even conspiracy theorists turn their backs on, saying “hey, hang on now, you’re taking things a bit too far, perhaps we should all just relax and stop giving ourselves a bad name here.” Which, of course, is exactly what the Illuminati would want you to think. Hiding in plain sight! Disguising themselves within the masses! These theories are all probably 100% true!

15. Denver Airport is the Center of All Evil

If there ever was a place on Earth where all conspiracy theories come to meet up and swap stories over a cup of tea, it’s probably Denver Airport. For starters, before you even arrive, you’re greeted by a giant blue horse with glowing red eyes, affectionately known as Blucifer, which is a statue famous for killing its own sculpture, Luis Jiménez, when it fell upon him and severed an artery in his leg. Try to ignore this until you’re inside of the airport itself, where you may stumble into a large statue of Anubis (the Egyptian god of death), or murals which allude to a one-world government, or even unrecognizable words cut into the floor, suggested to be Masonic or Satanic or something else definitely not good. Oh, did we mention that the runways are shaped like a swastika?

But worst of all, is that Denver Airport is the largest airport in the United States. Which means, it takes a very long time to get from one side to the other. It’s a complete nightmare.

14. The Illuminati Spoke Through Saved By The Bell

For those of you who don’t know, Saved by the Bell was a Disney Channel television sitcom which ran from 1989 to 1993, while the Illuminati are a secret society which sit like a crown on top of every conspiracy theory that ever existed. And so it’s only natural to assume that these two ideas were always in some way intricately connected.

The proof is so obvious and plentiful, that it’s outrageous we took so long to work it all out. For starters, main character Zack Morris graduates from high school with a very moderate SAT score of 1502. And yet, he somehow gets accepted into Yale, known as the secret home of the the Illuminati society Skull & Bones. Explain that one! Furthermore, one of the most well documented Illuminati symbols, is that of the All Seeing Eye. Did you notice how every single character in the show had eyes? Two of them, in fact. Creepy! Finally, “Saved By The Bell”? As in, the same bell Satanists ring to summon demons? Hello!?

13. Stanley Kubrick Faked The Moon Landings

The Moon landing was faked! This will forever be one of the most popular conspiracy proclamations of all time, but when you throw the immeasurably influential film director Stanley Kubrick into the mix, then things start to get really spicy. What’s more, this theory does have a decent dollop of persuasive fuel to keep it flying.

In 1968, Stanley Kubrick released 2001: A Space Odyssey, have you heard of it? It’s pretty popular. But despite often being cited as “the greatest film of all time”, the whole production was a claimed to be a charade, hiding a much deeper project of deceit beneath. Those outer space sets? Those big budget special effects? They were secretly also being used to provide fake footage for the Apollo 11 and 12 missions. In 2015, an old interview surfaced, where Kubrick confessed his involvement in the trickery, but researchers quickly proved this to be a hoax. To which I ask: who were these researchers? Aliens? The government? Everything you know is a lie.

12. The Moon Doesn’t Even Exist Anyway

In conspiracy theorist circles, you get the amateurs who reckon the Moon landings were faked, and then you get the hardcore fanatics who don’t even believe the moon exists in the first place. In fact, they claim that the entire sky you see when you look up is just one giant complex hologram, with many believers swearing that they’ve noticed malfunctions and glitches in these projected images before, a phenomenon known to most likely occur when you are very tired and paranoid.

At first, I found this theory to be hilarious. But then I was gripped by a sudden debilitating fear, as I realized that I have personally seen as much evidence that the Universe exists, as I have seen that it doesn’t. Maybe you’re all holograms. Maybe life is one big elaborate joke and I’m in the middle of it. Maybe I don’t even exist, how would I know? Help!

11. Finland Doesn’t Exist Either

With great power, comes great responsibility, and unfortunately, the internet gives everyone far too much power as it is. Just ask Reddit user Raregans, who took to the platform to disclose his theory that the country of Finland is a fictional land, invented by Russia and Japan, and there is nothing but ocean in its supposed place. But why? So that the Japanese could fish in these oceans without any legal implications, of course! I mean, why do you think it’s called Finland? Because fish have fins, duh.

There is a lot more to this tale, but what’s important to understand is that many people believe it to be true, even though original poster Raregans has openly stated that it’s absolute rubbish. Because that’s the world we live in. Naturally, once the Finnish themselves caught on to the theory, they were quick to object, only to be swiftly informed that they can’t live in Finland, because Finland doesn’t exist, and instead, are probably living in Sweden or Russia without even realizing it.

10. J.K. Rowling Doesn’t Exist Either

Do you remember those Nancy Drew Mystery Stories? They were books authored by a lady named Carolyn Keene, who was a person that did not exist. Rather, this was an umbrella pseudonym covering a collection of ghostwriters, which explains how the series managed to release such an excessive amount of books for such a lengthy period of time (averaging about two or three publications every year, for 73 years).

Now, according to Norwegian film director Nina Grünfeld, the same is true for the Harry Potter series, Rowling merely standing as a name and a face for a team of writers. Nina reasonably questioned how it is “possible that a person can write six thick books that are translated into 55 languages and sell more than 250 million copies in less than 10 years?”, with other reports assuring us that Nina was definitely not speaking from a place of jealousy. As with anything Potter related, this conspiracy spread like incendio over the internet, and admittedly, I do find it peculiar that jk is internet slang for “just kidding”. Hmmmm…

9. Paul McCartney passed away and was Replaced by an Imposter

When discussing something as insanely popular as the best-selling band in history, it’s no surprise to find conspiracy theories close behind them, lapping at their lucrative heels. There are plenty around, from the CIA’s involvement in John Lennon’s assassination, to the hypothesis that The Beatles didn’t even exist whatsoever. But none are as tasty as the one where Paul McCartney was replaced in front of our very eyes.

According to urban legend, Mr. McCartney died in a car crash in 1966, and was swapped out by some look-alike, who just so happened to also be a left-handed musical genius, and voilà, here is the man we know as Paul today. Apparently, The Beatles felt so ashamed about what they had done, that they scattered clues throughout all of their lyrics and album artwork, at times even reversing vocal confessions into the recorded music itself. There are literally hundreds of these clues about, so click here to be entertained.

8. John Lennon passed away because of Stephen King

Perhaps not quite as infamous as the Paul is Dead theory, but this Beatles conspiracy does have a small yet dedicated following, of around one person in the whole world. His name is Steve Lightfoot, and he wrote a pamphlet titled Stephen King Shot John Lennon, claiming that convicted Lennon murderer Mark David Chapman was a hired decoy, a King double, paid to take the rap whilst King committed the evil deed.

According to Lightfoot, the facts are plainly obvious, because if you look at a photo of Mark David Chapman, and then you look at a photo of Stephen King… they look very similar! Furthermore, Stephen King has also written about murders before, so wake up! However, when asked why Stephen King would risk his multimillion dollar author career just to exterminate a Beatle, Steve Lightfoot softly mumbled something about Ronald Reagan and then requested people pay him $5 for the full story. Which nobody did, so I guess we’ll never know.

7. Barack Obama Controls The Weather

Picture the scene. You are Obama. It’s a week before Election Day, 2012. You’re a bit stressed out. You really want that powerful edge to secure your reelection. And that’s when you remember: you control the weather! Why not just get on the phone and speak to your old pal Hurricane Sandy to completely destroy everything it its path? That will make the people afraid of change! That will get the votes! I’m not saying this is what happened, but if this is what happened, it worked.

Conspiracy theorists have rightfully pointed out that any time there has been a White House scandal, there has also been weather. Another, even more unrealistic theory is that Obama himself is the weather, which would explain why you’ve never seen him and a hurricane together in the same photo. Honestly, I made up that last theory right now, so knowing the internet, that conspiracy will probably have its own Wikipedia article by the end of next week.

6. Dinosaurs Helped Build the Pyramids

To this very day, the debate over who built the pyramids still rages on with great fury. On one side of the argument, we have those people who logically point out that with an endless amount of slave labor at every pharaohs’ disposal, all it took was a bit of blood, sweat, and tears to get the job done, as with everything in life. On the more suspicious side, however, people argued that these complex structures were far too advanced for ancient civilisations to construct, and therefore, aliens are the only plausible answer, as always.

However, if you pause and listen for long enough, there is a third argument whispering from the darkest corners of the conspiracy community. Based on some interesting hieroglyphic inscriptions, certain individuals believe that dinosaurs existed during these  times, and the Egyptians had tamed the beasts like household pets, getting them to do all the heavy lifting, just like the Flintstones have been trying to tell us for years.

5. CERN Built a Portal to Summon Egyptian God Osiris

Between 1998 and 2008, the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) collaborated with 10,000 scientists and engineers from 100 different countries to build The Large Hadron Collider, the biggest single machine in the world, basically designed to shoot particles really really fast, trying to get them to smash into one another, just to see what that does. Some people called this behavior “careless”, and were concerned that this uncertain endeavor may result in a black hole, one which would surely swallow our entire planet in one gulp. The scientists at CERN assured everyone that “nah, that probably won’t happen lol idk”.

But we can all see what’s really going on here, can’t we? They’re blatantly trying to awaken Osiris, the Egyptian god of the dead! Why else would CERN have a statue of the unrelated Hindu deity Shiva outside their company building? That is literally the main basis for this entire theory. Seriously, don’t waste your energy worrying about this one. Worry about that black hole thing instead.

4. Taylor Swift is a Clone of a Satanic Priestess

Founder of the Church of Satan, Anton LaVey, had three children in his lifetime: a son he creatively named Satan, as well as two daughters, Karla and Zeena. After people dug up some old pictures of Zeena Schreck, they were surprised to discover that she looked almost identical to Taylor Swift, which could only reasonably mean one thing: Taylor is a clone of this former Satanic Priestess. No other suggestion would make any sense whatsoever, I won’t hear it.

One large argument in favor for this theory, is that Taylor Swift is known to never show her navel, because perhaps she was made in a jar? It would also explain how she became one of the most popular and best-selling music artists of all time at such a young age, because everyone knows that the only way to become that famous is to trade your soul for it. Haha, just joking, that’s not true. It doesn’t work, I tried it.

3. Katy Perry is JonBenet Ramsey

Sorry to be a downer, but just in case you didn’t know, JonBenet Ramsey was a six-year-old child beauty pageant queen who was murdered, an investigation of which remains unsolved to this very day. Now, not to make you feel even worse, but I must also mention Katy Perry, apologies once again. I only bring this up because, according to this theory, they are one and the same person.

Any evidence? Yes. They look somewhat similar. Some say their eyebrows, in particular, are almost indistinguishable, and if that isn’t hard proof right there, I don’t know what is. Perry eventually addressed the rumors herself in a comedic sketch with Billy Eichner, stating “no, that’s not real”. Many people considered the skit to be in poor taste, whilst others just chanted the word “Illuminati, Illuminati, Illuminati” over and over again, spinning around counterclockwise.

2. The Queen of England is a Satanic Cannibal Lizard Alien

Author and public speaker, David Icke, has successfully ruined thousands of paranoid people’s lives by convincing them that our world leaders are shapeshifting reptilian aliens, all of whom have used their superior extraterrestrial genetics to take over our political system, in order to laugh at how silly we are, hahaha, so silly!

Naturally, Queen Elizabeth II is not only a proud member of this elitist class, but is also a devout Satanist, with Buckingham Palace serving as her safe place where she can feed on kidnapped children in peace and quiet. These cannibalistic practices would explain how she has lived so energetically over her long reign, because if you ask any nutritionist, they will tell you that virgin blood is the healthiest source of nourishment known to man. This rumor has apparently been confirmed by an anonymous serviceman, who claims to have found human remains in the Queen’s freezer. I don’t believe it myself, and even if I did, I would never say, because I am far too scared.

1. Elvis Presley and Michael Jackson and Hitler are Still Alive

And I guess this is the curse of being a massively famous celebrity. When you’re alive, everyone thinks you’ve died. And when you finally do die, everyone swears you’re still alive, roaming around, being creepy.

The list of reported dead/alive celebrities is an extensive one, and includes the King, the King of Pop, Tupac, Jim Morrison, and Andy Kaufman. But none is as worrying as that of Adolf Hitler, who many believe did not kill himself, and instead escaped Berlin in disguise. Russia’s federal archives in Moscow laughed at this belief, using a fragment of Hitler’s skull with a bullet hole as proof of his death. When this bone was DNA-tested at the University of Connecticut, however, it was found to be the skull of woman. Oops. Regardless, Hitler is either dead now, or is currently holding the world record as the oldest person who has ever lived, at 128 years of age.

Sources: The Telegraph, The Daily Mail, Daily News, USA News, Bookstr