Everyone enjoys a good conspiracy theory. It’s like living out a mystery thriller in real life… from your TV. But either way, following (or starting) conspiracy theories seems like a worldwide pastime. The Economist scoured Google’s infinite wisdom to come up with a list of the most popular conspiracy theories floating around the web. Some of these are pretty outrageous (to nobody’s surprise) but others are strangely relevant.

For example, The Princess Diana conspiracy brings up the rear — but with a British inquest going on, this “theory” pulled up a mere 165,000 hits. Maybe people are starting to buy into this crazy junk after all.

My personal favorite has got to be the Reptilian Humanoid conspiracy. With a name like that, how can it not be the coolest one out there? In a nutshell: Reptoids, more than likely the space-dwelling variety, secretly control the world. A cop named Herbert Schirmer claims to have been abducted by these guys. That was in the 60’s, but since then a “Reptoids Research Center” has been established. Moving on…

Ever heard the one stating that Shakespeare never existed? That’s the 5th most popular conspiracy theory, which alleges that Queen Elizabeth could have been the real writer. Of course the Earl of Oxford is also considered a possible match, but I say we just open the polls for debate. At 375,000 hits, Shakespeare is gaining ground — but doesn’t quite make the grade for the #1 most popular conspiracy theory. It’s not Area 51 either (that was #2).

You guessed it: 9/11 ranked at the top with well over half a million hits. More flavors of conspiracy can be found below.

Tags: conspiracy theory, theories, 9/11, area 51, JFK, Princess Diana, Divinci Code, Reptilian

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