ScienceToday

5. Some of the most popular conspiracy theories in the US surround the Kennedy assassination.

On November 22, 1963, President John F. Kennedy was in Dallas, Texas, when he was killed by two bullets. He died at the age of 46. Lee Harvey Oswald was quickly apprehended coming out of a local cinema and blamed for the assassination of the president as well as a Dallas police officer called J.D. Tippit, both of which he denied, famously saying he was just a ‘patsy’. While being escorted through the basement of Dallas Police Headquarters Oswald himself was assassinated on live television just two days later by reputed mafia connect nightclub owner Jack Ruby (which opened up its own set of conspiracy theories). The Warren Commission was then set up to investigate the incident and concluded that Oswald operated alone.

Some suspect, however, that there is more to the story. There are theories that the CIA recruited Oswald because of the President’s lackluster response to Communism and the Bay of Pigs invasion. Others assume that the Mafia, Cuba or the Soviet Union is involved in the killing. When videos of the incident were released, people believed that Oswald ‘s location made it nearly impossible for him to kill the president. Most recently, however, a scientist at IMSG concluded that Oswald had killed JFK. With that being said, there still remains a plethora of contradictory evidence through witness testimony, sound and bullet trajectory analysis and more video evidence that leave this conclusion still open to interpretation. In the decades since the assassination, several thousand government documents have been released to the public, however, strangely, some still remain withheld in part and will not be declassified until 2021.

6. There have been 2,032 Bigfoot “sightings” in Washington state.

While there are Bigfoot sightings all over the U.S., however, Washington state can certainly boast the highest number, According to Newsweek, there were 2,032 sightings in this Pacific Northwest region. There are many theories about the mythical creature. Some presume it’s a vicious beast that is meant to be feared, the roar many have claimed to hear would attest to that, and others think it’s a gentle creature who wants to be left alone.

There are other theories suggesting that Bigfoot is related to humans because he walks on two legs, while others believe he’s an extraterrestrial or inter-dimensional creature, a so-called reason why it has been so hard to capture. According to the Smithsonian, the first 1958 footprint was a prank by a man named Ray Wallace near Bluff Creek in Northern California. His children announced that it was all a joke after his death in 2002. Arguably, the most famous sighting still remains the Patterson–Gimlin film. The footage was shot in 1967 in Northern California, and has since been subjected to many attempts to either authenticate or debunk it. Neither of which has been conclusive.