History shelf · 12 chapters

Conspiracy Theories: The Dossier

Twelve stories that the internet tells as secrets. Each one starts with real people, real places and real documents — and each one, somewhere along the way, turns into something else. This book shows exactly where.

Start with chapter oneContents
A closed leather-bound book with a red wax seal on a dark archive desk under a brass reading lamp
The picture is AI-generated.

How the book is read

  1. Every chapter opens with a free preface: who they are and what happened.
  2. The dossier behind it — documents, numbers, a timeline, what is proven and what is invented — opens with a VITON ID and a reading permission.
  3. Every chapter lists its sources. Pictures are archival or generated, and each caption says which.

Contents

  1. An empty candlelit lodge room with a black and white chequered floor, two columns and an altar with a square and compassesChapter 1 · Secret societiesFreemasons: Who They Really Are, What Their Sign Means and Where the Plot EndsIn 1717 four London lodges sat down to dinner in a tavern. Three centuries later they are credited with ruling the world. What in that story is a document and what is invention, from a papal bull of 1738 to a list of 962 names.Preface freeDossier for readers
  2. A desk at night with a candle, a quill, an open notebook, letters sealed with red wax, a brass wheel and a small pyramidChapter 2 · Secret societiesThe Illuminati: Four Students, One Professor and a Myth No Edict Could BanIn October 1786 Bavarian officials cracked open the most secret society in Europe and printed all of its papers. So why, 240 years later, are people still hunting for the Illuminati on a dollar bill?Preface freeDossier for readers
  3. An old brick hotel among tall oaks at dusk, its windows lit, with dark cars parked by the entranceChapter 3 · Power and elitesWorld Government and the Bilderberg Group: A Secret Council or a Closed Club?Every year about 130 politicians, bankers and editors gather in one hotel for a few days and agree not to repeat who said what. Is that a world government, or just a very private club?Preface freeDossier for readers
  4. A long straight canal running to the horizon across misty fenland at dawn, with a moored rowing boat and a telescope on a tripodChapter 4 · Science mythsFlat Earth: Who Invented the Belief That People Once Believed It, and Who Really DidIn December 2024 four flat-Earth believers flew to Antarctica to check whether the Sun really never sets there. It did not set. That is only the last chapter of a story in which almost nothing is as people think.Preface freeDossier for readers
  5. An antique hand-coloured map of Asia on a library table with a magnifying glass, a compass and brass dividersChapter 5 · PseudohistoryGreat Tartary: An Empire Erased from History, or a Blank on the Map?On sixteenth-century maps, Tartary sprawls across half of Asia, and online it is called an empire struck from the textbooks. Read the labels on the maps and see what they actually say.Preface freeDossier for readers
  6. A close-up of a gecko's head: scaly brown and cream skin and a golden eye with a vertical slit pupilChapter 6 · Modern mythsReptilians Among Us: How Snake Men From a 1929 Pulp Magazine Became a World ConspiracyIn a 2013 poll, 4% of American voters said shape-shifting lizards run the world. Where did the idea come from: folklore, a pulp magazine, a TV series and a former goalkeeper from the BBC?Preface freeDossier for readers
  7. An aerial view of the Nevada desert with two pale dry lake beds, Groom Lake and Papoose Lake, between brown mountain ridgesChapter 7 · Secret basesArea 51: What the Base in the Nevada Desert Really HidesA forgotten airstrip on a salt flat, a spy plane, captured MiGs and millions of people who joked about storming the fence. Where does Area 51 end and the legend of it begin?Preface freeDossier for readers
  8. A Hubble Space Telescope image of the interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS: a small bright core inside a blue glow, with star trailsChapter 8 · UFOs and spaceUFOs and Aliens in 2026: What We Actually KnowThe Pentagon has put its declassified UFO archive online, and a comet from another epoch of the galaxy has just crossed the Solar System after being billed as an alien ship. Which parts are fact, and which are legend?Preface freeDossier for readers
  9. The Vera C. Rubin Observatory on a mountain ridge in Chile at night, under a sky full of starsChapter 9 · Cosmic mythsNibiru: The Planet That Never Arrives and the Doomsday That Keeps Being MovedIt was due in May 2003, on 21 December 2012 and on 23 September 2017. Each time the date was moved. How a word on a Babylonian tablet became a killer planet, and what astronomers are really hunting for.Preface freeDossier for readers
  10. A printed page of Nostradamus's preface to his Prophecies, 1555, with an ornamental headpiece and a decorated initialChapter 10 · Prophecies and predictionsBaba Vanga Predictions for 2027: Where They Really Come FromA blind Bulgarian woman left behind not a single written line, yet every year “her” forecast for the next one makes the headlines. Here is where the Vanga and Nostradamus predictions come from, and where the paper trail ends.Preface freeDossier for readers
  11. Little Saint James island in the US Virgin Islands seen from the sea: palm trees, white buildings and a flag on a poleChapter 11 · High-profile casesEpstein's Island: What Was Proven in Court and What Became a Conspiracy TheoryA small island in the Caribbean, a sealed deal with prosecutors, a cell in a New York jail and three and a half million pages of documents. Where the court record ends and the myth begins.Preface freeDossier for readers
  12. The title page of the Index librorum prohibitorum printed in Cologne in 1564Chapter 12 · Censorship and booksBanned Books: From the Vatican Index to Russia’s List of Extremist MaterialsCopernicus sat on the Index for 219 years, Ulysses was tried in New York, and Russia’s list of extremist materials now runs past five thousand entries. What “banned” really means, and why a ban proves nothing.Preface freeDossier for readers

The open archive of the book

Everything the research archives say about the twelve topics, counted in one place: a forum, a recommendation engine and the web.

34,579 forum posts with 276,632 comments; 6,752 YouTube videos recommended 584,295 times.

TopicForum postsFirst postBusiest monthYouTube videosRecommendationsViews
1. Freemasons32430 April 2010January 2018 (13)566,08357,957,086
2. The Illuminati53427 August 2009September 2017 (24)30627,559206,984,331
3. World Government and the Bilderberg Group71621 September 2008May 2017 (31)39832,991199,470,874
4. Flat Earth45524 March 2014May 2017 (30)18414,38261,072,488
5. Great Tartary414 December 2017December 2017 (2)312,7916,124,653
6. Reptilians Among Us19210 March 2009November 2016 (10)857,95582,728,998
7. Area 514430 July 2010August 2018 (3)12310,51975,912,414
8. UFOs and Aliens in 202698928 November 2008December 2017 (68)793104,073490,605,484
9. Nibiru5614 May 2011September 2017 (7)1006,29642,360,914
10. Baba Vanga Predictions for 202759 August 2014—212,60812,536,982
11. Epstein's Island14212 January 2015November 2016 (23)322,1376,484,490
12. Banned Books422 February 2017March 2018 (2)41,7647,751,001

The whole forum archive, posts per year

  1. 20088
  2. 2009101
  3. 2010248
  4. 2011535
  5. 20121,164
  6. 20132,417
  7. 20142,347
  8. 20153,708
  9. 20165,429
  10. 201711,272
  11. 20187,350

Conspiracy websites by theory, summer 2021

  1. QAnon227
  2. UFO193
  3. COVID-19134
  4. 9/11104
  5. Flat Earth97

Counted from research archives: the popular text posts of one English-language forum, a study of YouTube recommendations and lists of conspiracy websites. What came of it is in the dossier.

The archives:r/conspiracy text-post archive, 2008–2018 (reddit-html-archiver)Faddoul, Chaslot, Farid. A longitudinal analysis of YouTube’s promotion of conspiracy videos, 2020Hanley, Kumar, Durumeric. A Golden Age: Conspiracy Theories’ Relationship with Misinformation Outlets, News Media, and the Wider Internet, 2023