conspiracy debunking

A clip from Joe Rogan Experience #928 in which Rogan, with Arian Foster, explains why he abandoned his belief in Moon landing conspiracy theories. He describes how doctored training photos fueled doubt before he learned more of the physics.

James Corbett's five-minute conspiracy-framed overview of 9/11 claims.

A filmmaker explains why the Apollo moon landing footage could not have been faked in a studio, based on the video and film technology of the late 1960s. He walks through the limits of cameras, frame rates and effects of the era.

A short video by Steve Pieczenik claiming the Clintons are carrying out a coup d'etat to take over the United States. It is political conspiracy commentary from the 2016 election period.

A very short clip titled Criminal Conspiracy Notes, apparently the scene from The Wire in which Stringer Bell scolds his associates for taking written notes at a meeting.

Internet of Bugs analyzes Cognition's Devin demo frame by frame, arguing the video did not show Devin completing paid Upwork jobs as claimed, and showing what the task required versus what Devin produced.

Miniminuteman begins a long, humorous point-by-point debunking of Graham Hancock's Netflix series Ancient Apocalypse and its claims of a lost ice-age civilization. It is part one of a multi-part critique.

Dr. Layne Norton critiques claims made by Dr. Robert Lustig on the Huberman Lab podcast, going through them against the nutrition research with cited sources. It covers topics like sugar, calories and fruit juice.

Thunderf00t analyzes the leaked Pentagon UFO videos and offers mundane explanations for the fuzzy triangle and tic-tac footage.

Thunderf00t critiques a 60 Minutes segment in which Navy pilots describe UFO encounters, arguing the footage has mundane explanations and has been debunked.

Part one of a two-part skeptical series examining Elon Musk's past business dealings to test whether he is a self-made genius billionaire.

Thunderf00t goes through the three UFO videos released by the Pentagon and offers mundane explanations for each. He treats the footage as sensor artifacts, parallax and camera effects rather than alien craft.

A one-minute George Carlin clip on conspiracies, making the point that powerful people with shared interests need no formal conspiracy.

Thunderf00t argues that the Pentagon's officially released 'UFO' videos have mundane explanations such as birds, parallax and sensor artifacts.

Dan Olson's 76-minute essay on flat earth belief, built around a hike to a lake to test earth's curvature. It examines the community, how YouTube promoted it, and how it connects to wider conspiracy thinking and QAnon.

hbomberguy investigates the modern flat earth movement and why people come to believe it. The video treats the community with a measured, humorous tone and looks at the social causes behind the belief.

The first part of a long two-part video series by historian Sean Munger arguing, with citations, that Lee Harvey Oswald assassinated President Kennedy and acted alone. It goes through the provable historical facts and addresses conspiracy theories.

A short video from a blacksmith, who heats and bends steel to rebut the claim that jet fuel could not weaken the steel in the World Trade Center. It is delivered with a lot of attitude.

Captain Disillusion debunks the Cicret Bracelet, a crowdfunded wearable that claimed to project a touchscreen onto the wrist. He looks at the concept, design, execution and fundraising.

A short New Zealand Tourism ad in which comedian Rhys Darby appeals to Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern to solve why New Zealand keeps being left off world maps. It is a tongue-in-cheek take on a conspiracy theory.

Ron Garret's Google Tech Talk argues that quantum mechanics is no harder to understand than relativity and that popular accounts wrongly rely on the Copenhagen interpretation. He presents measurement as entanglement and explains phenomena like the quantum eraser.

Dan Olson's long Folding Ideas video on the GameStop meme stock phenomenon, its online community and the conspiracy thinking around it. It runs over two hours.

Mick West explains the three Navy UFO videos (FLIR, GIMBAL and GOFAST) released in 2020, giving mundane explanations such as a distant plane and camera artifacts. He notes the videos were not new and had been circulating since 2017.

Mick West analyzes the Navy "Go Fast" UFO footage and shows with simple trigonometry and the data overlay that the object is slow and high up, consistent with a balloon. He explains how parallax makes it look fast and argues the original TV claims were wrong.

In this TED talk, Hans Rosling uses animated statistics to debunk myths about the developing world, showing how health and income have improved across countries.

A long video essay arguing that Koko the gorilla probably could not actually use sign language. It examines the cherry-picked data and the lack of transparency behind the claims, drawing on published critiques.

Chaos Theory is a 64k demoscene intro by Conspiracy and CNS that took second place at Assembly 2006, generating its graphics and music from a tiny executable.

Astronomer David Kipping of Cool Worlds talks with Mick West to break down the three declassified Pentagon UFO videos. They explain the footage through camera artifacts, glare, and perspective effects.

A 43-minute skeptical critique arguing that Starlink fails to live up to its promises, covering satellite lifespan, costs, bandwidth and viability. The creator later added an update about FCC grant requirements.

Matt Parker of Stand-up Maths examines scatter plots that were claimed to show fraudulent vote-switching in Michigan's 2020 election. He recreates the analysis and shows that the pattern arises from comparing percentages across different bases, not from fraud.

Soup Emporium's deep dive argues that Yellowstone is not a ticking timebomb. It goes through uplift and subsidence, earthquakes and what the caldera really is, to rebut supervolcano doom claims.

Mick West shows new night-vision reference footage indicating the Navy's supposed flying pyramid UFO is just an out-of-focus light, likely a plane near LAX, rendered triangular by bokeh. He identifies other lights as Jupiter and stars.

Thunderf00t debunks the Fontus self-filling water bottle, arguing that pulling meaningful amounts of water from air with a small solar-powered device is thermodynamically impractical.

Dave Jones of EEVblog debunks the Solar Roadways project, which raised millions through Indiegogo and government funding. He works through the solar generation and LED power calculations to show the idea isn't viable.

Matt Parker of Stand-up Maths examines the Texas Supreme Court filing claiming Biden's 2020 win had a one-in-a-quadrillion chance. He walks through why the statistical argument is flawed.

Thunderf00t critiques SpinLaunch, the startup that proposes flinging payloads to space with a giant centrifuge. He argues the physics and engineering do not hold up.

An Empire Files documentary by Abby Martin presenting a critical account of the Afghanistan War, from the CIA's role in the 1980s to the stalemate of the 2010s and 2020. It argues the war was driven by imperial interests.

Thunderf00t critiques the MIT and Berkeley metal-organic framework device that claims to pull water from air using only solar heating. He argues the energy accounting does not work and that such devices are essentially fancy dehumidifiers.

A video debunking popular primitive-building YouTube channels, arguing that their digging, concrete and construction are staged. It uses the Primitive Technology channel as a baseline for what is plausible in a natural setting.

Thunderf00t debunks the Waterseer, a crowdfunded device that claims to condense drinking water from the air using cool ground. He argues the physics does not support its claims.