P65 entries

• 9/11 Put Options ClaimsDebunked claims that unusually high volumes of put options on airline stocks before September 11 suggested advance knowledge of the attacks.
• P2 Masonic Lodge ScandalThe P2 Masonic Lodge scandal was a real Italian political and financial scandal, exposed in 1981, in which an irregular Masonic lodge led by Licio Gelli was found to include prominent politicians, military officers, and financiers linked to banking fraud and the Banco Ambrosiano collapse, a confirmed instance of documented elite secret-society corruption rather than a fabricated claim.
• Palantir TechnologiesPalantir Technologies is a real Silicon Valley data-analytics company founded in 2003 with early CIA venture funding, holding extensive documented contracts with U.S. intelligence, military, immigration enforcement, and police agencies, with claims of a unified secret mass-surveillance database operated by the company remaining speculative extrapolation beyond its confirmed contract work.
• Panama PapersMassive 2016 leak of 11.5 million documents from Panamanian law firm Mossack Fonseca, exposing offshore financial arrangements of politicians, businesspeople, and public figures worldwide.
• Pandora PapersThe Pandora Papers were a confirmed 2021 leak of nearly 12 million documents from multiple offshore service providers, revealing hidden assets and financial dealings of numerous world leaders and public officials.
• Panic of 1907The Panic of 1907 was a real financial crisis during which financier J.P. Morgan personally organized a private consortium to bail out the American banking system in the absence of a central bank, a confirmed episode of concentrated private financial power frequently cited by later theorists as evidence that pre-Federal-Reserve bankers effectively controlled the U.S. economy.
• Paradise Papers2017 leak of 13.4 million documents from offshore law firm Appleby revealing tax avoidance strategies of corporations and wealthy individuals.
• PARSONS, JackParsons, Jack (b. 1914, Los Angeles, California - d. 1952, Pasadena, California), American rocket propulsion pioneer and co-founder of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory who was also a practicing occultist and leader of a Pasadena lodge of the Ordo Templi Orientis, where he conducted magical rituals with future Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard.
• Pascagoula Abduction1973 case in which fishermen Charles Hickson and Calvin Parker reported being abducted by robotic humanoid entities near Pascagoula, Mississippi.
• Patterson-Gimlin Film59.5-second motion picture shot October 20, 1967, at Bluff Creek, California, depicting a large bipedal figure that remains the most widely examined piece of purported Bigfoot evidence.
• Paul Is DeadPaul Is Dead is a 1969 hoax theory claiming that Beatles member Paul McCartney died in a 1966 car accident and was secretly replaced by a look-alike, supported by fans through supposed clues hidden in album artwork and lyrics, a claim McCartney himself has repeatedly and publicly denied by the straightforward fact of his continued, well-documented life and career.
• PAULIDES, DavidPaulides, David, American former police officer and Bigfoot researcher, originated the Missing 411 body of research in 2011, cataloguing wilderness disappearances he presents as sharing unexplained common characteristics.
• Payseur Family TheoryThe Payseur family theory alleges that a descendant of the French Bourbon royal line secretly relocated to colonial America under the name Payseur and established a hidden dynasty that today covertly controls a vast share of American banking, rail, and industry, a genealogical claim unsupported by verifiable historical or financial documentation.
• PegasusSophisticated spyware developed by Israeli firm NSO Group, capable of remotely infecting phones to extract data and activate cameras and microphones, documented as being used by government clients against journalists, activists, and politicians.
• Pentagon No-Plane TheoryThe Pentagon no-plane theory is a fringe strand of 9/11 skepticism holding that no aircraft struck the Pentagon on September 11, 2001, and that damage was instead caused by a missile or planted explosives, a claim contradicted by extensive physical wreckage, recovered flight-data and cockpit-voice recorders, air traffic control radar data, and hundreds of eyewitnesses who reported seeing a commercial jet.
• Pentagon PapersThe Pentagon Papers were classified Vietnam War documents leaked by Daniel Ellsberg to The New York Times in 1971, revealing government deception about the war.
• Peoples TempleAmerican religious movement founded by Jim Jones in 1955 that evolved from a racially integrated church promoting social justice into an authoritarian cult, culminating in the mass murder-suicide of over 900 members at Jonestown, Guyana in 1978.
• PERKINS, JohnPerkins, John, American author, wrote Confessions of an Economic Hit Man (2004), describing his work as an economic consultant persuading developing nations to accept large infrastructure loans that he argues served to entrench U.S. financial and political influence, a firsthand account that has drawn both support and skepticism from economists over its specific claims.
• Peter Thiel Vatican Conspiracy TheoryPeter Thiel Vatican conspiracy theory alleges that American technology entrepreneur and venture capitalist Peter Thiel maintains covert influence relationships with Vatican power structures, using financial resources to advance joint political and religious objectives counter to public policy positions.
• Petrodollar SystemInternational monetary arrangement in which major oil-exporting nations price crude oil sales in U.S. dollars, creating demand for American currency.
• Philadelphia ExperimentAlleged 1943 U.S. Navy experiment claimed to have rendered the destroyer USS Eldridge invisible or teleported between Philadelphia and Norfolk, based entirely on unverified letters and lacking any naval documentation.
• PHILBY, KimPhilby, Kim (b. Jan. 1, 1912, Ambala, British India—d. May 11, 1988, Moscow, U.S.S.R.), British intelligence officer, was the most senior member of the Cambridge Five Soviet spy ring, rising within MI6 to positions of significant trust before defecting to the Soviet Union in 1963 upon the collapse of his cover.
• Phoenix LightsA mass UFO sighting over Phoenix, Arizona, on March 13, 1997, witnessed by thousands of people including Governor Fife Symington.
• Phoenix ProgramThe Phoenix Program was a joint U.S. and South Vietnamese intelligence effort conducted from 1967 to 1972 to identify and neutralize the civilian infrastructure of the Viet Cong, resulting in the detention, interrogation, and killing of tens of thousands of suspected insurgents, and whose methods were examined by Congress amid allegations that it functioned as a systematic assassination program.
• Piazza Fontana BombingThe Piazza Fontana bombing was a December 1969 attack on a Milan bank that killed seventeen people and inaugurated Italy's "Years of Lead," later tied by courts to a neofascist cell operating with the knowledge of elements of Italian military intelligence.
• Piltdown ManFabricated fossil discovered in 1912 near Piltdown, England, presented as a missing evolutionary link between apes and humans, exposed in 1953 as an elaborate forgery using a modern human skull and orangutan jaw.
• Pineal Gland Calcification TheoryTheory that dietary fluoride and environmental toxins cause the pineal gland to calcify, suppressing alleged spiritual or perceptual functions.
• PizzagateDebunked conspiracy theory alleging that Democratic Party figures operated a child-trafficking ring from a Washington D.C. pizzeria, which led to armed confrontation and influenced later conspiracy movements.
• Plandemic Documentary26-minute documentary featuring virologist Judy Mikovits claiming COVID-19 was planned by global elites to control the population, rapidly spreading across social media before being removed by platforms for promoting dangerous misinformation.
• Poisoning of Alexander LitvinenkoNovember 2006 polonium-210 poisoning of former Russian intelligence officer Alexander Litvinenko in London, officially concluded by British inquiry to be a state-sponsored assassination.
• POITRAS, LauraPoitras, Laura, American documentary filmmaker and journalist, was one of the first reporters contacted by Edward Snowden in 2013 and directed Citizenfour (2014), the Academy Award-winning documentary chronicling his disclosures of National Security Agency surveillance programs.
• Polywater ControversyScientific controversy of the 1960s-1970s in which Soviet scientist Nikolai Fedyakin claimed to have discovered a new form of water with anomalous properties, later shown to result from contamination rather than a genuine new substance.
• PONS, StanleyAmerican electrochemist who claimed in 1989 to have achieved nuclear fusion at room temperature, sparking the cold fusion controversy.
• PONZI, CharlesPonzi, Charles (b. March 3, 1882, Lugo, Italy - d. January 18, 1949, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil), Italian-born swindler whose 1920 investment scheme, promising extraordinary returns from international postal-reply-coupon arbitrage, defrauded thousands of Boston-area investors and gave his name to all subsequent pyramid frauds of its type.
• PopobawaPopobawa is a shape-shifting, bat-winged spirit said to assault victims at night on the island of Zanzibar, with periodic outbreaks of mass sighting and panic recorded since the 1960s, an unsubstantiated figure of East African folk belief.
• POSNER, GeraldAmerican investigative journalist and author who defended the Warren Commission's single-gunman conclusion in his influential book 'Case Closed.'
• Pre-Columbian Contact TheoriesTheories proposing that Old World peoples reached the Americas before Columbus's 1492 voyage, ranging from archaeologically confirmed Norse settlement to disputed claims and demonstrated hoaxes.
• PRIEST, DanaAmerican journalist who won the 2006 Pulitzer Prize for exposing the CIA's network of secret overseas prisons used in post-9/11 interrogation programs.
• Prince Philip Reptilian ClaimsPrince Philip reptilian claims refer to a specific assertion, popularized by David Icke beginning in the 1990s, that Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, was a shape-shifting reptilian being, a widely circulated and equally widely mocked claim with no supporting evidence.
• Priory of SionFabricated secret society created in France in 1956 by Pierre Plantard, who forged supporting historical documents to falsely suggest an ancient lineage protecting a secret Merovingian bloodline, later popularized by 'The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail' and 'The Da Vinci Code.'
• PRISMNSA surveillance program disclosed through Edward Snowden's 2013 leaks that collects internet communications from major technology companies under Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.
• Profumo Affair1963 British political scandal involving War Secretary John Profumo's affair with Christine Keeler, who was simultaneously involved with a Soviet naval attaché.
• Project ArtichokeCIA interrogation research program active from 1951-1953, successor to Project Bluebird, investigating whether individuals could be made to perform involuntary acts under hypnosis, drugs, or other coercive means.
• Project AzorianProject Azorian was a Central Intelligence Agency operation of 1974 using the purpose-built ship Glomar Explorer to attempt the covert recovery of a sunken Soviet submarine from the floor of the Pacific Ocean, publicly acknowledged decades later and the origin of the phrase "Glomar response" used by agencies to neither confirm nor deny a program's existence.
• PROJECT BLUE BEAMAlleged NASA conspiracy theory claiming plans to use holographic technology to simulate religious events for establishing a world government, fabricated by Quebec journalist Serge Monast.
• Project Blue BookOfficial U.S. Air Force program that investigated UFO reports from 1952 to 1969, analyzing over 12,000 sightings before concluding that no cases represented evidence of extraterrestrial visitation.
• Project BluebirdProject Bluebird was a 1950 Central Intelligence Agency program studying hypnosis, interrogation, and behavior-influencing drugs, renamed Project Artichoke in 1951 and later absorbed into the broader MK-Ultra research effort.
• Project ChatterProject Chatter was a U.S. Navy program begun in 1947 to identify and test drugs, including mescaline and scopolamine, for use as truth serums in interrogation, terminated in 1953 and later recognized as one of the earliest American chemical-interrogation research efforts predating MK-Ultra.
• Project GrudgeProject Grudge was a United States Air Force program that succeeded Project Sign in 1949, adopting an official posture skeptical of extraterrestrial explanations for unidentified flying object reports and attributing most sightings to misidentification, hoax, or delusion before being reorganized in 1952 into Project Blue Book under Edward J. Ruppelt.
• Project MerrimacCIA domestic infiltration program of the 1960s-70s that targeted Washington D.C. area protest and civil rights organizations.
• Project MinaretNSA surveillance program from 1967-1973 that compiled watch lists of American citizens including antiwar activists and members of Congress.
• Project MKDELTAProject MKDELTA was the Central Intelligence Agency's program, confirmed alongside MK-Ultra in 1975-76 congressional disclosures, for the operational use abroad of behavior-influencing drugs developed under MK-Ultra research, distinguishing overseas deployment from the domestic experimentation conducted under the parent project.
• Project MKOFTENProject MKOFTEN was a Central Intelligence Agency program of the late 1960s and early 1970s that tested the behavioral and toxicological effects of drugs on animals and prisoners as an offshoot of the broader MK-Ultra research effort, disclosed in the surviving 1977 MK-Ultra document cache.
• Project MKSEARCHCIA program that succeeded MK-Ultra, continuing research into chemical and biological agents for behavior modification and interrogation purposes from 1965 to 1972.
• Project ResistanceCIA domestic surveillance program targeting American university campuses during the Vietnam War era, operating through cooperative relationships with college administrators to monitor student antiwar activities.
• Project SignFirst official U.S. Air Force investigation of unidentified flying object reports, established in 1947 following the Kenneth Arnold sighting and Roswell incident, succeeded by Project Grudge after internal disagreements over extraterrestrial explanations.
• Project StargateU.S. Army and CIA remote-viewing research program conducted from 1978 to 1995, declassified and terminated after a CIA-commissioned review concluded it provided no actionable intelligence value.
• Project VeritasConservative activist organization founded by James O'Keefe that produces undercover recordings targeting media organizations and liberal politicians, employing methods that courts and news outlets have found to involve selective editing and deceptive practices.
• PROPHET, Elizabeth ClareAmerican spiritual leader who founded the Church Universal and Triumphant and gained notoriety for predicting nuclear apocalypse and leading followers to build elaborate fallout shelters.
• Protocols of the Elders of ZionThe Protocols of the Elders of Zion is a fabricated document, first published in Russia in 1903, purporting to record a Jewish plan for world domination, exposed as a forgery by the Times of London in 1921 and traced substantially to plagiarism of an unrelated French political satire, yet one that has continued to circulate as a foundational text of antisemitic conspiracy theory for more than a century.
• PROUTY, L. FletcherProuty, L. Fletcher, American Air Force colonel and author whose 1973 book The Secret Team detailed his account of Cold War-era covert operations coordination and later served as the model for the composite character "Mr. X" in Oliver Stone's 1991 film JFK.
• Pseudo-Isidorian DecretalsCollection of fabricated papal letters and church documents created in 9th-century France to strengthen ecclesiastical authority, representing one of history's most influential religious forgeries.
• PUHARICH, AndrijaPuharich, Andrija (b. Feb. 19, 1918, Chicago, Ill., U.S.—d. Jan. 3, 1995, Dobbs Ferry, N.Y., U.S.), American physician and inventor, conducted CIA-funded parapsychology research during the Cold War, was an early and influential promoter of self-described psychic Uri Geller, and organized the channeling sessions that produced the claimed Council of Nine communications.
• Pull It Quote ControversyControversy surrounding Larry Silverstein's 2002 statement about telling fire department officials to 'pull it' regarding World Trade Center 7, interpreted by conspiracy theorists as admission of controlled demolition.
• PUTHOFF, Harold E.Puthoff, Harold E. ("Hal"), American physicist, co-founded the Stanford Research Institute's remote-viewing research program in the 1970s under Central Intelligence Agency and Defense Intelligence Agency funding, a program whose existence and funding are declassified matters of record even as the psychic abilities it studied were never scientifically validated.