QAnon's Deadly Price
Church-loving surf instructor Matthew Taylor Coleman fell into online conspiracy theories, then allegedly admitted to killing his kids to save the world. How did no one see it coming?
Church-loving surf instructor Matthew Taylor Coleman fell into online conspiracy theories, then allegedly admitted to killing his kids to save the world. How did no one see it coming?
Kevin T. Dugan Rolling Stone Oct 2021 15min Permalink
Grief, conspiracy theories, and one family’s search for meaning in the two decades since 9/11.
Jennifer Senior The Atlantic Aug 2021 30min Permalink
During the pandemic, people from the author’s hometown got sucked into QAnon and the Q-adjacent “Save the Children” movement.
Aída Chávez The Intercept Sep 2020 15min Permalink
When a Black lineman from Colorado State went knocking on doors in a white neighborhood, he found himself at the dangerous intersection of a national racial reckoning and a world of internet-conspiracy fanaticism.
Alex Prewitt Sports Illustrated Aug 2020 20min Permalink
Want to know why wild conspiracism can be so irresistible? Ask a 14-year-old girl.
Ellen Cushing The Atlantic May 2020 15min Permalink
American conspiracy theories are entering a dangerous new phase.
Adrienne LaFrance The Atlantic May 2020 40min Permalink
Randy Quaid and his wife Evi have fled to Canada and are living in their car. They are seeking asylum from the menace of the “Hollywood Star Whackers.”
Nancy Jo Sales Vanity Fair Jan 2011 25min Permalink
Independent “researchers” are sharing unfounded theories across social media, which have the potential to spread panic and confusion—and have even fooled legitimate government agencies.
Anna Merlan Vice Nov 2019 15min Permalink
How proposals to change recommendations and curb conspiracies were sacrificed for engagement.
Mark Bergen Bloomberg Apr 2019 15min Permalink
The birthing of a conspiracy theory that the record holder for oldest person, Jeanne Calment, was actually her daughter Yvonne, who had “stolen her deceased mother’s identity to avoid paying inheritance taxes,”
Eli Rosenberg The Washington Post Jan 2019 Permalink
An indicted journalist reflects on conspiracy in today’s America
Aaron Cantu Santa Fe Reporter Aug 2018 20min Permalink
How a meteorite hunter’s obsession took him from the mountains of Colorado, to the Bundy Ranch, and eventually landed him in jail.
Brendan Borrell The Verge Jun 2018 30min Permalink
Conspiracy theorists think that the government killed the aspiring Libertarian filmmaker David Crowley to stop him from making his film about an authoritarian takeover of the United States and the vets who fight back. The truth is far stranger.
Alec Wilkinson New Yorker Mar 2017 25min Permalink
“American politics has often been an arena for angry minds.”
Richard Hofstadter Harper's Nov 1964 25min Permalink
You never watched Shazaam.
Amelia Tait New Statesman Dec 2016 20min Permalink
The doctor who worked on both Kennedy and Oswald tells his story.
Michael J. Mooney D Magazine Nov 2008 15min Permalink
Lenny Pozner used to believe in conspiracy theories. Until his son’s death became one.
Reeves Wiedeman New York Sep 2016 25min Permalink
A few months after working at Ground Zero, Kurt Sonnenfeld became a suspect in the mysterious and high-profile death of his wife. He got off, barely, and started a new life in South America. But when the U.S. tried to bring him back to face charges, Sonnenfeld went to the local media. The Feds didn’t want him for murder, he said. They wanted to put him away because of what he knew about 9/11.
Evan Hughes GQ Jun 2016 30min Permalink
She was a Canadian student whose travels brought her to the cheap hotel on Skid Row. The only clue in her disappearance was a strange elevator video in which she peeks and then gestures with her hands down an unseen hallway.
The lonely death of a godfather of the conspiracy theory movement.
Matt Stroud The Verge Jul 2014 25min Permalink
A tour of our greatest conspiracy theories.
Benjamin Wallace-Wells New York Nov 2013 Permalink
How conspiracy theory links the internet’s first spam (a series of randomly generated words with the subject line Markovian Parallax Denigrate) with a woman who posed as a CIA agent and was convicted of receiving funds from Saddam Hussein’s government.
Kevin Morris Daily Dot Nov 2012 15min Permalink