10 Conspiracy Theory Podcasts You Don’t Want to Listen To

Question dropouts, Deep State campaigns, 9/11 intelligence failures, cryptic internet videos and stories from the fringes: being an American means being constantly bombarded with new conspiracy theories. Which of them are dangerous? which ones are worth thinking about? Which ones are just weird? These 10 podcasts go down in conspiracy dirt to tell stories they don’t want us to know.

american hysteria

American Hysteria explores how fantasy thinking has shaped our culture. Think: moral panic, urban legends, practical jokes, craziness, fringe beliefs, and national misunderstandings. Host Chelsea Weber-Smith retells the strangest stories from American history with a strong sense of humor and explores the forces that create our common and sometimes different reality. Chelsea just launched a very cool segment called the Urban Legends Hotline , which allows people (like you!) to call in and share local urban legends. If you’re lucky, Chelsea will visit you in real life to investigate them. (Call the Urban Legends hotline here .)

Things they don’t want you to know

“Things They Don’t Want You to Know” sheds light on research and sober analysis of the world of conspiracy theories. This is the perfect show for people who are interested in hidden knowledge and are interested in prospects in tinfoil hats. Ben Bowlin, Matt Frederick and Noel Brown are engaging storytellers who dive deep into government secrets, the paranormal, hidden history and unexplained events, confirming or denying them with verifiable facts, historical records and credible sources. Some episodes feel very timely (a recent interview with Gilbert King from the groundbreaking Valley of the Bones crime series) and some are more relevant because conspiracy theories never go away. Ben, Matt and Noel have been doing this since 2013 and have created a huge community of people who are itching to know what they shouldn’t know.

Knowledge battle

Dan Friesen and Jordan Holmes keep a close eye on Alex Jones so you don’t have to. Every week at Knowledge Fight they watch the latest clips from Jones’ Infowars programs and try to make sense of it all. They go deep and some of the content is dark, but Dan and Jordan are funny enough to make it both a wild ride and an enjoyable listening experience. There’s no better way to learn about conspiracy theories than by studying the people immersed in them, and this show, like Cliff’s Notes, is the source of many of the wildest theories sweeping America.

lizards

Sometimes conspiracy theories are dangerous and terrible. Sometimes they are just funny. Comedian Caitlin Hempstead’s “Lizard Men” is dedicated to the latter. The show draws in funny people and lets them vent their obsession with the wackiest conspiracy theories you’ve ever heard. New Zealand fake? Is Rivers Cuomo Really Kurt Cobain? Are octopuses aliens? Is The Walking Dead a Documentary? The answer to all of the above is: Probably not, but isn’t it fun to think about? In each episode, a guest lays out her crazy beliefs and Caitlyn tries to disprove them. At the end, she makes a judgment: How convinced is she that the conspiracy theory is true? And how much does she want to believe it?

QAnon Anonymous

QAnon is penetrating the mainstream and attracting more and more followers (including some current members of Congress) who believe in the Deep State theory, which claims that a global cabal of Democrats and celebrities is engaged in child sexual abuse and cannibalism. All of this information is delivered to those in the know via “blobs” of anonymous “Q”. It’s hard to keep up with this ever-evolving web of disinformation, but on QAnon Anonymous , Julian Field, Travis View, and Jake Rockatansky serve as your QAnon correspondents, explaining every key element of the conspiracy: The Storm, The Great Awakening, and every ounce of distrustful ideology in between. It’s not so much that the theories themselves are terrible (although they are certainly disturbing); the thing is, so many people seem to believe them.

My mom told me

On My Mom Told Me, comedians Langston Kerman and David Gbori dive deep into some of the funniest (and often most problematic) black conspiracy theories. Guests come to talk about what their mother told them, starting a conversation about authenticity and/or nonsense. Should you burn your own hair so that people don’t bewitch you? Is Churches Chicken owned by the KKK and trying to sterilize black men through their food? Does everything kill sperm count? Langston and David don’t know, but they want to give each idea a little thought.

Web crawlers

Go down the rabbit hole with Eli Siegel and Melissa Stetten, hosts of Web Crawlers , a show about unsolved mysteries, creepy cults, scammers and disturbing conspiracies collected from around the web. Ali and Melissa tell wild stories, share news about “girls” and open a mailbox where their dedicated listeners write online about their strange finds. This is a podcast about creepy things, but also about friendship; the chemistry of the hosts can make you smile along with stories of cancer scams, writers who fake their own deaths and kill their husbands, Snapple’s Wendy’s cocaine addiction, and more. These women fall down the rabbit hole laughing all the way.

Last podcast on the left

In The Last Podcast on the Left , Ben Kissel, Marcus Parks, and Henry Zebrowski talk about crazy things that people actually believe. The research that goes into each episode (on topics as varied as the UFO crash, the 9/11 intelligence failures, Jeffrey Epstein, and the little news in between) is intense, and the stories themselves are so crazy that you’re left hoping the show just makes it all up. . (Unfortunately not.) Even if you’ve heard the same story on 20 other podcasts, you’re missing out if you don’t hear the Last Podcast on the Left version .

red web

Red Web reveals some of the Internet’s most intriguing mysteries, conspiracies and supernatural events. Trevor Collins and co-host Alfredo Diaz review stories that leave more questions than answers and do their best to fill in the gaps. Trevor comes with facts, and Alfredo comes with comic relief. Together, they offer an entertaining mix of reportage and comedy, covering the creepiest video on the internet, slime falling from the sky, the world’s most mysterious phone number, a real crate of madness, and more.

Jordan Clapper exposes the conspiracy

Jordan Klepper rides through the messy world of pizzagate, Hunter Biden’s laptop, and Biden’s winning Italian satellites in the six-episode Jordan Klepper Fingers the Conspiracy podcast, in which he puts his boots on MAGA ground as he makes his way through conspiracy theories. that have shaped contemporary American politics and culture. On The Daily Show, Jordan’s interviews and comments were critical to understanding the far right, and over the course of six small episodes, we get him back. Join him to step away from the table and head into the unknown. You will quickly eat them and wish for more.