Welcome to the internet, where incredulity and paranoia loom large. Here, you'll find no shortage of theories expounding on the non-existence of celebrities and detailed analysis on the many ways in which we've been lied to by the government (which, in turn, has been lied to by the elite reptile overlords who really rule the earth).
Here are a few of the strangest ideologies currently occupying the web:
1. Melania Trump has a doppelganger who follows the president around on official business.
In October, several people took to Twitter to question the real identity of the woman trailing behind the president during a White House press chat. Twitter users compared side by side photos of the "real Melania" and the "Melania double" and came to an official assessment: there's a slightly shorter First Lady lookalike.
2. J.K. Rowling doesn't actually exist.
In 2005, Norwegian filmmaker Nina Grünfeld argued that the Harry Potter series had been created by an entire industry of writers, and that the woman known as J.K. Rowling was only a front. "Is it possible that a person can write six thick books that are translated into 55 languages and sell more than 250 million copies in less than 10 years?" Grünfeld asked.
3. Finland doesn't exist either.
This theory evolved on Reddit in 2015, when a user called "Raregans" suggested that Finland was a fabricated landmass, dreamed up by the Japanese and Soviet Union during the Cold War in an effort to secure fishing rights in the Baltic Sea.
Raregans suggested the people who populate the country known as Finland actually belong to the nations of Sweden, Estonia, and Russia.
4. An elite cohort of reptiles rule the earth, and Justin Bieber is among them.
A Public Policy Survey in 2016 found that nearly 12 million people believe that an elite class of space-traveling lizards rule the earth. Among these lizards is Justin Bieber, who was reported earlier this year shape-shifting mid-concert into a giant reptile with "big scaly claws" and "a black stripe down its middle."
5. Queen Elizabeth is a cannibal.
Ever wondered how the queen of England has managed to live so long? British historian Hubert Humdinger has the answer: "She must eat human flesh to be so vivacious." In 2012, the site Dear Dirty America claimed to have "confirmed" Humdinger's reports when a serviceman at Windsor Castle claimed to discover human remains inside the queen's "private freezer."
6. The ice bucket challenge was really a Satanic ritual.
When the ice bucket challenge began circulating the web in 2014, a number of suspicious theories came with it. Several critics took to YouTube hoping to reveal the true motivations behind the challenge, with many of them claiming the ALS benefit was a ritual purification cleansing for what would be the largest human sacrifice in history, part of a hidden Illuminati code passed down by Satan himself.
7. NASA knows about a second sun, and they've hidden it from us.
When NASA reported the discovery of a Planet 9 in 2016, astronomer Paul Cox took to the internet to speculate that the planet was actually a second sun. In a live video posted to a robotic telescope service site called Slooh, Cox examined Mercury's transits and pointed out a second sun. "NASA and other organizations, they usually hide that stuff away from us," Cox said. "They don't tell us the truth, but there it is."
8. Michelle Obama is a man, and s/he murdered Joan Rivers.
InfoWars' Alex Jones came up with this theory up in 2016: After Joan Rivers joked that Michelle Obama was a transgender woman, the Obamas had her assassinated.
9. The earth is flat.
After the solar eclipse in August, a number of flat-earth conspiracists, or "flat earthers," took to the internet to disprove the spherical shape of the planet. The theory is experiencing a modern-day resurgence, with flat-earther YouTube channels and subreddits like /r/flatearth flourishing with thousands of members online.
10. The Israeli government has a pack of evil, GPS-equipped sharks that they use against their enemies.
After a series of shark attacks off the coast of Egypt in 2010, a South Sinai official blamed Israel's government. From there, theories spread online: Israel was accused of possessing a fleet of "killer arrow" armed "spy dolphins" and a pack of sharks "equipped with GPS systems" that were sent to Egypt with an evil master plan.
11. The UN is plotting to kill us all.
For years, a UN-backed sustainable development plan called Agenda 21 has faced suspicious criticism: According to a large spectrum of the internet, Agenda 21 is really the Illuminati's covert plan to kill off the majority of the earth's population.
12. Robert Kardashian and Ted Cruz are the same person.
This conspiracy claims Robert Kardashian isn't actually dead, but rather he's just been traipsing around in the guise of Ted Cruz in order to sever ties with the Kardashian clan and enter into a career in politics.
