The Conspiracy Files

Throughline

NPR

Society & Culture, History, Documentary

4.7 • 15K Ratings

🗓️ 12 September 2024

⏱️ 58 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

9/11 was an inside job. Aliens have already made contact. COVID-19 was created in a lab.

Maybe you rolled your eyes at some point while reading that list. Or maybe you paused on one and thought... well... it could be true.

Since the first Americans started chatting online, conspiracy theories have become mainstream — and profitable. It's gotten harder to separate fact and fiction. But if we don't know who we can trust, how does a democracy survive?

On today's episode, we travel the internet from UFOs, through 9/11, to COVID, to trace how we ended up in a world that can't be believed.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	What does the future of food look like as the climate continues to change?
0:04.4	We'll bring you innovations and answers during NPR's Climate Solutions Week.
0:09.2	Explore with us at NPR.org
0:11.6	slash Climate Week.
0:14.0	September 11th, 2001.
0:19.0	947 AM
0:22.0	Hi baby.m. a.
0:23.0	Hi baby.
0:24.0	I'm baby you have to listen to me carefully.
0:26.0	I'm on a plane that's in hijacked.
0:28.0	I'm on the thing I'm calling from the plane.
0:30.0	If you're on the plane, I'm on an airplane miss in a hijack?
0:34.0	I don't know if I'm going to be okay.
0:35.0	I hope to be able to see your same again, baby.
0:38.0	I just want you to know it absolutely for you.
0:40.0	I love you so much.
0:41.0	I love you.
0:42.0	Bye. I love you. I love you. I love you.
0:43.0	I'm right.
0:44.0	I remember the day very clearly, as many people do.
0:50.0	I was waiting to start basic training. I had gotten my head shaved, I had gotten my equipment and we were just hanging out normal morning, you know, doing PT. It was a beautiful day, and then all of a sudden we just got this call from the drill sergeant. Everybody form up, so everybody fell into formation, and they walked us into, know the media trailer where there was a TV and it was
1:16.9	your old four three square TV with the long extension cord and then they turned on the TV.
	...

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