Conspiracy

People may pretend to believe in conspiracy theories, study finds

By T.K. Randall
May 12, 2026 ·  2 comments

Image: AI-generated (Midjourney) We've certainly seen more than a few downright bizarre conspiracies over the years, ranging from the ever-popular flat Earth theory to the idea that birds don't actually exist.

But when someone claims to subscribe to such a conspiracy, are they actually being sincere or are they just claiming to do so out of sheer devilment ?

Recently, researchers investigating this phenomenon noted that research into conspiracy theories dating back many years might have been heavily skewed all along due to people essentially trolling the poll results by claiming to believe in conspiracies that are objectively nonsensical.

A particularly egregious example of this that was highlighted for the study saw survey participants in Australia asked back in 2024 how likely it was that various conspiracies were real.The researchers had put in one or two that they had made up themselves - conspiracies that were so utterly bizarre that nobody in their right mind could ever legitimately champion them.

When the results came in, they discovered that a significant number of people had voted to state that one conspiracy in particular - which suggested that the Canadian Armed Forces had been developing a secret army of genetically modified raccoons to invade other countries - was true.

The conclusion from this was that, when asked about conspiracies, members of the public would often say that they believed in something that they clearly didn't.

This raises the question - just how many people genuinely believe that the Earth is flat, or that humans never walked on the Moon, or any of the other long-running conspiratorial claims ?

It also raises questions over the role conspiracies played during the coronavirus pandemic.

Clearly, there is a lot more to belief (or feigned belief) in conspiracy theories than meets the eye.

Source: IFL Science | Comments (2)

Tags: Conspiracies