Uncover 4 Conspiracy Theories (With a Grain of Truth)

People love a good conspiracy theory - and even if you don't believe a word of them, there's something compelling about the image of a shadowy organization controlling events from behind the scenes.

Some conspiracy theories do actually have a grain of truth behind them though - take a look at...

• Bioweapon Testing - Operation Sea Spray
• Animal Spies - Acoustic Kitty
• Covert Medical Research - Tuskegee Syphilis Study
• Secret Polar Bases - Camp Century

Bioweapon Testing - Operation Sea Spray

Picture the scene - a covert naval operation launches bacteria two miles off the coast of a sea-side city. The microbes are carried on the wind and in the water, contaminating the suburbs - soon, unexplained illnesses are cropping up in the population.

That's not actually a hypothetical - it really happened to San Francisco in 1950. A naval minesweeper spent six days spraying Serratia marcescens into the winds off the coast. This bacteria was thought (at the time) to be completely harmless, but useful due to the red pigment it produced. Researchers would be able to track how far the bacteria spread by looking for patches of red pigment in San Francisco, and thus determine how a bioweapon might contaminate a large city.

Things are rarely that simple when it comes to biology though. Soon, people were turning up at clinics with urinary tract infections... and the bacteria responsible had a red tint.

One unfortunate fellow by the name of Edward Nevin) was recovering from prostate surgery when he became infected - he died shortly after (and it's quite likely that the testing was responsible) but Federal District Judge Samuel Conti ruled that his family couldn't bring a lawsuit against the government.

Animal Spies - Acoustic Kitty

There's a whole bunch of conspiracy theories about governments using animals as spies. While at least some of them are satirical (for example, the claim that birds are actually surveillance drones) there have been times when beasts really have been enlisted for espionage - such as the strange case of "Acoustic Kitty."

Acoustic Kitty was a CIA project to create a cyborg spy cat (yes, really.) Researchers implanted small batteries in the feline's body, a microphone in the ear canal, a transmitter at the base of the skull and wove a wire antenna throughout the fur. The cyborg animal cost an estimated $20 million, but the end result was indistinguishable from the average feline.

Of course, "Kitty" was still a cat. Intensive training was required to get it to do even a fraction of what the researchers wanted, as it tended to wander off as soon as it got bored or hungry.

Finally, Acoustic Kitty was deemed ready to surveil the outside world... and a few minutes into it's first mission, was run over by a taxi. The project seems to have been cancelled at this point.

Covert Medical Research - Tuskegee Syphilis Study

Operation Sea Spray may have had unintentional effects, but the Tuskegee syphilis experiment was a lot more calculated.

The U.S. Public Health Service conducted this experiment between 1932 and 1972 under the guise of a special healthcare program. It targeted a narrow group of subjects, 399 black men over 25 years of age with late-latent syphilis - the researchers didn't actually infect anyone.

So what was particularly sinister about the study? Well, the researchers wanted to observe the natural progression of syphilis - so they didn't provide any useful aid to the infected, even when penicillin became known as a highly effective treatment.

On top of that, the "participants" were not informed of their role in the study, nor of the fact that their easily-treatable condition was going to be left alone. The researcher's inaction even led to the spread of syphilis amongst the partners of those infected.

The study was shut down on the recommendation of an advisory panel in 1972, the government paid around $10 million in out-of-court settlements in 1974 and President Clinton issued a formal apology in 1997!

Secret Polar Bases - Camp Century

Something about the frozen expanses of the poles attracts a certain sort of conspiracy theory - that there are secret military bases hidden beneath the ice. Funnily enough, they're at least partially correct!

Camp Century is a Cold War-era American military base buried beneath the ice of Greenland. Construction started in 1959, with massive trenches being ploughed into the permafrost. These were capped with steel roofs and covered over with snow, resulting in nearly two miles of hidden tunnels capable of housing two-hundred personnel.

The base was served by a sub-surface well (that provided 10,000 of fresh water per day) and powered by a compact nuclear reactor. It featured a kitchen and mess, chapel, recreation facilities, hospital and all the other features you'd expect in a military installation.

All in all, the base was assembled in slightly over a year. Though it purported to be a scientific operation (and they did do some research to keep their cover, including extracting deep ice cores) the base was intended to be a storage facility and launch point for specialist missiles -after all, it would be very hard to detect and neutralize such a site in the event of nuclear war.

The base was abandoned in 1966, with the tunnels collapsing and the remains of the structure being frozen beneath the Greenland ice. The radioactive waste generated by nuclear reactor is still down there - though changing conditions in the Arctic could eventually result in it "surfacing!"

Thanks for reading - for more, try...

• Bizarre, Bold or Bungled: 12 Weird Historical Assassination Attempts
• Taken by Aliens: Can Psychology Explain the Abduction of Betty and Barney Hill?
• Discover 4 Cases of Mad Science (From Plutonium Injections to Head Transplants)

Sources and Further Info:

• In 1950, the U.S. Released a Bioweapon in San Francisco
• SUITS BARRED IN GERM TEST DEATH
• The CIA Experimented On Animals in the 1960s Too. Just Ask ‘Acoustic Kitty'
• About The Untreated Syphilis Study at Tuskegee
• Camp Century