A man named John Wojnowski used to stand outside the Vatican Embassy the '90s in Washington, DC with a sign saying that the Pope is hiding pedophile priests. He claimed to be a victim of such abuse. People would honk and throw insults/junk at him and call him crazy.

The CIA used military personnel with diagnoses of everything from depression to PTSD and even schizophrenia as guinea pigs for experimental medicines and treatments. They once gave a group of mentally ill men massive doses of LSD and left them all in a room for several days just to see what would happen. One survivor wrote that he spent those days perceiving the other men as living corpses and that the walls were covered in blood. There is no accurate number for how many people were killed or otherwise traumatised for life. Project MKUltra began in 1953 and continued for 20 years, only finally being dismantled in 1973.

Most people screaming about "conspiracy theories" are the internet equivalent of the village idiot. You know, the QAnon-curious uncle you have to be nice to at Christmas. But some "conspiracies" ended up being completely real. And here is our roundup of the most surprising ones!

President Nixon was so paranoid at the end of his administration that people dismissed out of hand his claim (on tape) that the Pentagon was spying on him. Turns out, they were doing exactly that.

The tobacco industry silenced scientists and created false studies to say smoking isn't harmful several decades ago.

The FBI tracking Ernest Hemmingway. He became paranoid that they were tracking him. Turns out they were watching him.

That the sugar industry paid scientists to blame fat instead of sugar for heart disease, and various other health issues.

Scientology’s invasion on the US government. Project Snow White.

Crashgate. In a nutshell... Fernando Alonso is starting the 2008 Singapore Grand Prix from... quite a bad position, actually. The normal strategy when in a competitive car starting at the back is to load her up with fuel, and go as far as you can into the race before pitting. Weirdly, Alonso is instead one of the first to pit. The only possible way this can work is if the Safety Car comes out due to how the rules are enforced. Well, exactly one lap later, Alonso's teammate has a big crash into the wall, and brings out the Safety Car, allowing Alonso to go on and win. At the time, many were accusing Alonso's Renault team of fixing the result due to how convenient it was for the Safety Car to come out at exactly the right time after the other car crashed. But hey, that's just a coincidence, right? It wasn't a coincidence. It turned out Alonso's teammate was indeed told to crash by the team principal to benefit the team by scoring a win. This all came out in 2009, after the 2nd driver lost his seat for not being quick enough.

How about when Johnson and Johnson knew that their talc powder had too much asbestos in it which can cause cancer and they kept selling it to be used on babies. They're still getting sued for mesothelioma and ovarian cancer (lots of women used it on their lady parts).

The government is spying on you. Ooooo spooky! Then PRISM came out and indeed the government is spying on you.

The Panama papers. I mean, we all suspected it was happening....

The Echelon Program. I'm amazed this one doesn't come up more, it was treated as a real tin-foil-hat looney conspiracy theory for years, I remember it being mentioned in a a couple of films in the 90s (i think by crazy conspiracy theorist type characters). Then Snowden blew his whistle and I was amazed how many details were right.

Iran contra

Britney Spears being silenced and abused for years

Social media websites shadow-ban opinions they disagree with

That various governments recorded, analyzed, and stored every single piece of digital information, anyone shared with anyone else. For you younger people, this used to be one of those tinfoil hat conspiracies.

The CIA overthrew the democratically elected government of Iran to install a Shah, who was more friendly to the US in the 1950s.

Artificially limiting the lifespan of lightbulbs. First suspected for me: Relatives of friends still are using bulbs from East Germany manufactured in 1956.

In Super Mario Bros. 3, he wasn’t actually rescuing the princess again, it was a stage play.

The FBI and local law enforcement stalked, harassed, and blackmailed MLK Jr. They tried to get him to kill himself. They assassinated a leader of the black panthers in Chicago and then concocted bogus criminal charges against all the witnesses of the murder to lock them up and discredit them. They had undercover LEOs infiltrate basically every single social justice movement and had a whole playbook based around how to make those movements look more radical/violent/dangerous than they actually are to discredit them. Undercover officers and confidential informants at protests throw bricks or try to start violence. Local law enforcement, prosecutors, and the FBI all lied to judges, juries, grand juries, legislatures, and congress saying they never did things like this. People had to break into an FBI field office and steal documents to prove they were actually doing this stuff and had to keep their identities secret for decades so they wouldn’t be prosecuted or persecuted for their actions. And the FBI and local law enforcement still do this stuff but everyone acts like they don’t. COINTELPRO will change the way you look at media, government, and law enforcement.

Those ET Atari cartridges in the desert.

The crack epidemic was fueled and facilitated by the CIA. Documents came out proving the connection between Central American drugs for guns deals and distribution through Freeway Rick Ross in LA in the 80’s.

Epstein's Island. Was called a conspiracy theory for over 20 years before it was found to be true.

Malcolm X's assassination. An NYPD former officer talked about how NYPD and FBI worked together to get his bodyguards removed so that an assassination could take place. And they recently just exonerated the guys they pinned this on

That Apple purposely makes their old phones slower