Public allegations that powerful people, organizations or institutions secretly coordinated wrongdoing or concealed the truth. Every item is researched as an underlying factual claim and appears here only after manual editorial approval.
Published collection4
Publication safeguardAI researched, Human attestation
Evidence-reviewed allegations
Published Conspiracy Theories
The category describes the claim type. Its verdict separately assesses whether the underlying allegation is supported by evidence.
FalseWashington / United States
The 1969 moon landing was a staged hoax filmed in a studio.
Category
Conspiracy Theory
About
Public event · The Moon Landing in 1969
Attribution
Conspiracy Theory — The submission alleges that NASA and others secretly staged the July 20, 1969 Apollo 11 lunar landing in a studio; it supplied no specific speaker or institutional source.
Assessment
The normalized core proposition is that Apollo 11 did not land on the Moon and its landing record was produced in a studio. That proposition is false. Later Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter images show the Eagle descent stage at Tranquility Base. The University of Manchester records that Jodrell Bank independently tracked Eagle during its lunar descent while also tracking the Soviet Luna 15 mission. Apollo 11 returned 21.6 kilograms of catalogued lunar rock and soil, and the laser retroreflector deployed at the site has supported continuing ranging observations from Earth. These independent observations and physical records directly contradict a staged-studio hoax. The Conspiracy Theory label describes the allegation type, not the verdict.
The claim says QAnon alleges that Donald Trump is opposing a shadowy group of Democratic pedophiles based in a pizzeria basement in Washington.
Category
Conspiracy Theory
About
Public figure · Donald Trump
Attribution
Conspiracy Theory — unattributed visitor claim concerning the QAnon and Pizzagate conspiracy narrative.
Assessment
The submission accurately describes a conspiracy claim associated with QAnon: that Donald Trump is fighting a Democratic child-sex-trafficking cabal headquartered in a Washington pizzeria basement. That descriptive point is context, not the proposition receiving the verdict. The fact-check applies to the underlying allegation itself, which is false. No such trafficking operation existed at the pizzeria. The basement allegation originated with the earlier Pizzagate conspiracy theory and was later absorbed or amplified by QAnon. The U.S. Justice Department described the rumors that motivated the armed 2016 incident as unfounded, and established fact-checkers found no evidence for the alleged ring.
The Roswell incident involved an alleged alien landing in 1947 and a U.S. government cover-up.
Category
Conspiracy Theory
About
Public event · The Roswell Incident
Attribution
Conspiracy Theory — unattributed visitor claim concerning the Roswell alien-recovery and government-cover-up narrative.
Assessment
This Urban Myth says aliens landed at Roswell in 1947 and the U.S. government covered it up. The available official record strongly weighs against that account: the National Archives describes extraterrestrial recovery as an allegation by pro-UFO researchers, while the government record describes balloon-related debris rather than an alien craft. Because some relevant records are missing or were destroyed, the surviving record cannot conclusively eliminate every claimed cover-up scenario; that prevents a definitive False verdict.
The claim states that global warming is a hoax and that there is no evidence human actions have made today's climate hotter or warmer.
Category
Conspiracy Theory
About
Public event · Global Warming
Attribution
Conspiracy Theory — unattributed visitor claim alleging that human-caused global warming is a coordinated hoax.
Assessment
This Urban Myth claims there is no evidence that human actions have made today’s climate warmer. Multiple independent lines of observational, paleoclimate, physical and attribution evidence directly contradict that claim. The IPCC reports that human activities, principally greenhouse-gas emissions, have unequivocally caused global warming, with global surface temperature in 2011–2020 about 1.1°C above 1850–1900. NOAA likewise documents the evidence linking recent warming to human activity.
