B86 entries

• Baalbek MegalithsAt Baalbek in Lebanon, three enormous blocks form part of the platform beneath the Roman Temple of Jupiter. Even larger stones remained in the quarry.
• Baba YagaBaba Yaga lives in a hut on chicken legs in Slavic folktales. Depending on the story, a visitor may find a dangerous adversary or an unexpected helper.
• Balloon Boy HoaxA homemade balloon drifted over Colorado in October 2009 while rescuers looked for six-year-old Falcon Heene. He was later found at home.
• Baltimore AffairA dispute over laboratory notebooks in 1986 grew into a decade-long misconduct case involving immunologist Thereza Imanishi-Kari and Nobel laureate David Baltimore.
• BALTIMORE, DavidDavid Baltimore shared the 1975 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. A dispute over a paper he co-authored later tested how scientists and federal officials investigated misconduct.
• Banco Ambrosiano Vatican ScandalRoberto Calvi was found dead beneath London's Blackfriars Bridge in 1982 as the Italian bank he ran, Banco Ambrosiano, was collapsing.
• Bank of England FoundingThe Bank of England began in 1694 when private investors raised money to lend to the English government.
• BANKMAN-FRIED, Sam (FTX Collapse)Sam Bankman-Fried built the cryptocurrency exchange FTX. After its collapse in 2022, a jury convicted him of fraud and conspiracy over the diversion of customer funds.
• BansheeIn Irish folklore, the banshee is a woman or female spirit whose cry foretells a death in the family.
• BaphometThe nineteenth-century occultist Éliphas Lévi drew Baphomet as a horned figure. The name had appeared centuries earlier in records of the Templar trials.
• Barbara Bush/Crowley Granddaughter RumorAn internet rumor claimed former first lady Barbara Bush was a granddaughter of occultist Aleister Crowley. Genealogical records give the claim no support.
• BARNES, T.D.T. D. Barnes worked on the X-15 program in Nevada before joining classified aircraft testing at Area 51. Decades later, he described both jobs in an oral history.
• BasiliskThe basilisk could kill with a glance or a breath, according to stories told by classical writers and repeated in medieval bestiaries.
• Battle of Los AngelesAir-raid sirens sounded over Los Angeles in February 1942, and Army batteries fired into the night sky. No enemy aircraft were confirmed.
• BAUVAL, RobertRobert Bauval argued that the three main pyramids at Giza mirror the three stars of Orion's Belt. Astronomers and Egyptologists have challenged his calculations and dating.
• Bay of Pigs InvasionIn April 1961, Cuban exiles backed by the CIA landed at the Bay of Pigs in an attempt to overthrow Fidel Castro. The invasion failed within days.
• Beast of Bray RoadReports of a wolf-like creature walking upright reached Wisconsin reporter Linda Godfrey in 1991. Her coverage made a rural road near Elkhorn the center of a modern legend.
• Beast of GévaudanFatal animal attacks spread fear through France's Gévaudan region in the 1760s. The deaths are documented, and the identity of the animal or animals remains disputed.
• BEGICH, NickIn his 1995 book Angels Don't Play This HAARP, Nick Begich and co-author Jeane Manning argued that a research facility in Alaska concealed military capabilities.
• Belgian UFO WaveIn November 1989, two officers near Eupen reported seeing a large triangular object. Similar reports followed across Belgium over the next several months.
• Belknap ScandalSecretary of War William Belknap resigned in 1876 after a House investigation traced payments to him from a military trading post. The House impeached him the same day.
• Bell Witch LegendTennessee folklore tells of a voice and other disturbances at the Bell family farm in the early nineteenth century. The best-known accounts appeared decades later.
• BELL, ArtArt Bell turned an overnight radio show broadcast from the Nevada desert into a national forum for stories about UFOs, hauntings, and government secrets.
• Bermuda TriangleA stretch of the western Atlantic became known as the Bermuda Triangle after writers grouped several disappearances of ships and aircraft into a single mystery.
• BERNAYS, EdwardEdward Bernays helped turn public relations into a profession by staging events and shaping news coverage on behalf of clients.
• BERNERS STREET HOAXTradespeople and delivery wagons crowded a London street in 1810 after prankster Theodore Hook sent them all to the same address.
• BERNSTEIN, CarlCarl Bernstein helped uncover Watergate with Bob Woodward. In a 1977 Rolling Stone article, he reported on the CIA's relationships with American journalists and news organizations.
• Berwyn Mountain IncidentPeople in north Wales reported a bright light and shaking ground on the same evening in January 1974. An earthquake and a meteor account for the two reports.
• Betz Mystery SphereThe Betz family found a metal sphere after a Florida brush fire in 1974. Their accounts of how it moved attracted reporters and UFO investigators.
• BICHOLIM CONFLICT HOAXA Wikipedia editor wrote an account of a seventeenth-century war in Goa and supplied a bibliography. The war was invented, and the article stayed up for five years.
• BICHOLIM CONFLICT WIKIPEDIA HOAXFrom 2007 to 2012, Wikipedia carried a detailed account of a colonial-era conflict in Goa that never happened.
• BIG PHARMA CONSPIRACY THEORIESDrug-industry scandals have given rise to broader claims that manufacturers, regulators, and doctors work together to suppress treatments or hide risks.
• Big Tobacco Cover-upInternal records and court proceedings showed how major tobacco companies spent decades casting doubt on evidence about smoking and addiction.
• BIGELOW, RobertRobert Bigelow used his fortune to fund UFO research, including work at Skinwalker Ranch. His company later received a Defense Intelligence Agency research contract.
• BIGFOOTReports of an upright, hair-covered creature helped make Bigfoot a fixture of Pacific Northwest folklore. A verified specimen has yet to emerge.
• BIGTREE, DelDel Bigtree moved from television production to vaccine activism. He helped found the Informed Consent Action Network and hosts The HighWire.
• Bilderberg GroupPolitical, business, and academic figures first met at the Hotel de Bilderberg in the Netherlands in 1954. The private conference became an annual event.
• Bill Gates Vaccine Conspiracy TheoriesBill Gates's foundation funds vaccination programs. Online rumors turned that work into unsupported claims about surveillance and population control.
• BINNEY, WilliamWilliam Binney spent decades at the National Security Agency before resigning in 2001 and becoming a public critic of its surveillance programs.
• Bird Box ChallengeAfter Netflix released Bird Box, some viewers imitated the film's blindfolded characters in videos. Reports of injuries prompted safety warnings.
• Bird Flu Plandemic TheoryBird flu outbreaks prompted claims that officials had engineered a crisis to control food supplies or impose restrictions. The claims lack evidence.
• Birds Aren't RealPeter McIndoe began telling people in 2017 that birds were government drones. The joke grew into a satirical movement with its own rallies and slogans.
• Bitcoin Psyop TheoryBitcoin's pseudonymous inventor and public transaction ledger have fueled claims that an intelligence agency created it as a surveillance tool.
• Black Awakening TheoryThe Black Awakening theory recasts documented Cold War mind-control research as a story about a hidden network of programmed operatives. The network has no evidentiary basis.
• Black Death Well-Poisoning AccusationsDuring the Black Death, false accusations that Jews had poisoned wells helped provoke massacres and expulsions across Europe.
• Black Monday (1987)The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 22.6 percent on October 19, 1987, as selling swept markets around the world.
• Black NobilityThe Black Nobility theory claims old European aristocratic families still direct world politics and finance in secret. Its proponents have produced no evidence of such a network.
• Black Sox ScandalEight Chicago White Sox players were banned from baseball after a scheme to fix the 1919 World Series came to light. A jury acquitted them in the criminal case.
• Black-Eyed ChildrenAn account circulated online in the late 1990s about children with entirely black eyes asking to enter a car. Other stories soon followed.
• BlackRock/Vanguard "Own Everything" TheoryFunds managed by BlackRock and Vanguard hold shares in many of the same companies. That overlap has prompted claims that the firms coordinate control of those businesses.
• BLAIR, Jayson, New York Times Fabrication ScandalIn 2003, The New York Times investigated its own reporter, Jayson Blair, and found fabricated reporting and plagiarism in dozens of articles.
• Blair Witch Project Marketing HoaxThe promotion for The Blair Witch Project invited audiences to treat a fictional disappearance as a real case.
• BLAIR WITCH PROJECT MARKETING HOAXBefore The Blair Witch Project reached theaters in 1999, its promoters put fictional missing-person material and case records online.
• BLAVATSKY, HelenaHelena Blavatsky co-founded the Theosophical Society and set out her account of humanity's spiritual history in The Secret Doctrine in 1888.
• BLEDSOE, ChrisChris Bledsoe says he saw unusual lights near Fayetteville, North Carolina, in 2007. He later described the encounter and its place in his life in UFO of God.
• BLONDLOT, RenéIn 1903, French physicist René Blondlot announced a new form of radiation. A visitor to his laboratory devised a simple test of what observers thought they saw.
• Blood Atonement TheoryBrigham Young and other nineteenth-century Mormon leaders preached that certain sins required the shedding of the sinner's blood.
• Blue BloodBlue blood was a term for aristocratic ancestry before conspiracy writers borrowed it for claims about secret ruling bloodlines.
• Blue Whale ChallengeReports of an online challenge encouraging self-harm spread internationally in 2016 and 2017. Researchers could trace the spread of the reports more readily than their connection to individual deaths.
• BOESKY, IvanIvan Boesky made a fortune trading stocks tied to takeovers. After pleading guilty in an insider-trading case, he helped federal investigators pursue financier Michael Milken.
• BOHANNON, John, Predatory Publishing Sting OperationIn 2013, Science correspondent John Bohannon sent a deliberately flawed paper to 304 open-access journals to see how many would accept it.
• Bohemian GroveThe Bohemian Club holds a private summer retreat in a California redwood grove. Its guest lists and ceremonies have made the gathering a subject of speculation.
• Bologna MassacreA bomb at Bologna's central railway station killed 85 people in August 1980. Italian courts later convicted neofascist militants and examined efforts to misdirect investigators.
• BONOMO, RobertIn Twilight of the Archons, Robert Bonomo uses figures from Gnostic tradition to interpret the power of modern banks.
• BONSAI KITTEN HOAXA website launched in 2000 claimed that kittens could be raised in glass jars. The fictional premise drew real complaints from animal-welfare advocates.
• Book of Enoch Extraterrestrial InterpretationThe Book of Enoch describes heavenly beings known as Watchers. Some ancient astronaut writers read the account as a story about extraterrestrial visitors.
• Book of Mormon DNA ControversyGenetic studies tracing much Indigenous American ancestry to Asia prompted renewed debate over how to read the Book of Mormon's account of migration from the Near East.
• BOOTH, John WilkesJohn Wilkes Booth was a stage actor and Confederate sympathizer who killed President Abraham Lincoln at Ford's Theatre in 1865.
• Borley RectoryParanormal investigator Harry Price made an Essex rectory famous for its alleged hauntings. Later investigators challenged some of the best-known reports.
• Bosnian Pyramids ClaimSemir Osmanagić began promoting hills near Visoko as ancient pyramids in 2005. Archaeologists and geologists identified them as natural formations.
• Branch DavidiansThe Branch Davidians were a religious movement whose community near Waco, Texas, became the site of a deadly federal siege in 1993.
• Brass EyeOn Brass Eye, Chris Morris persuaded public figures to speak gravely about a fictitious drug called Cake.
• Breakaway CivilizationUFO writer Richard Dolan popularized the idea that a secretive elite had acquired technology advanced enough to operate beyond public oversight.
• BREATHARIAN MOVEMENTBreatharian teachers claim people can live without food by drawing nourishment from air or light. The practice has led to deaths.
• Bretton Woods SystemDelegates meeting in New Hampshire in 1944 agreed on a monetary system that tied exchange rates to the U.S. dollar.
• Bridgewater TriangleLoren Coleman drew a triangle across southeastern Massachusetts in his 1983 book Mysterious America, bringing scattered reports of strange sightings under one name.
• British Royal Family Conspiracy TheoriesDavid Icke claimed the British royal family belonged to a line of shape-shifting reptilians. The claim is unsupported.
• BROOKS, WileyWiley Brooks promoted the idea that people could live without food, a claim that made him a public face of the Breatharian movement.
• BRYANT, NickJournalist Nick Bryant interviewed witnesses and drew on released records for his book on the Franklin scandal. His broader claims of a coordinated cover-up remain disputed.
• BunyipIn Aboriginal Australian traditions, the bunyip is a creature associated with waterholes and swamps. Accounts of its appearance vary widely.
• Burt Cyril Twin Studies FraudCyril Burt's studies of identical twins raised apart seemed to show a strong hereditary influence on intelligence. After his death, researchers questioned whether some of the data were real.
• BURT, CyrilBritish psychologist Cyril Burt used twin studies to argue that intelligence was strongly heritable. Researchers later challenged the reliability of his data and the identities of some collaborators.
• Bush Family Conspiracy TheoriesThe Bush family produced two U.S. presidents. Its political reach and documented Skull and Bones ties helped fuel unsupported claims of a hereditary secret network.
• BUSH–TRUMP SAME-PHOTOGRAPHER CLAIMAn online claim assigned two famous photographs, one of George W. Bush after September 11 and one of Donald Trump at Butler, to the same photographer. The photographs have different credits.
• Business PlotIn 1934, retired Marine major general Smedley Butler told a House committee that an intermediary had approached him about using veterans to pressure President Franklin D. Roosevelt.
• BUTLER, SmedleySmedley Butler earned two Medals of Honor during his Marine Corps career. After retiring, he criticized war profiteering and told Congress he had been approached about a plot against Roosevelt.