Distrust for centralized government has been a staple of American culture from the beginning. This distrust comes in many forms such as simple caution, owning a gun, going off the grid or believing in a conspiracy theory. Research conducted in 2014 by political science professors Eric Oliver and Thomas Wood found that half of the American population believes in at least one conspiracy theory out of the short list they offered. America is full of them and a great majority specifically pertain to the great states themselves. These are just a few of the most known theories.

Barack Obama was not born in the United States

Back in his run for the office of President of the United States, Barack Obama was accused of not being born in the United States. Believers of the conspiracy “Birthers” claim that his birth certificate was forged and that made him ineligible to run for the office of President. Some claimed that he was born in Kenya, others Indonesia. We know how it worked out in the end, Obama was found to be born in Hawaii and he became the President for two terms. However, the conspiracy still remains today, after he has been out of office.

The cure for cancer is being withheld

It is estimated that 1,735,350 Americans will be diagnosed and 609,640 will die from cancer in 2018 alone. According to the National Cancer Institute, $4.8 billion was raised by the government in 2013 for cancer research and this high amount of money hasn’t decreased yearly. Yet, little to no progress has been made in producing a cure. With all of this money and the limited success of the research, it appears to some that the cure for cancer has been held back to keep the high flow of money raised for cancer intact. A cure still hasn’t been found, so the conspiracy still remains alive.

The moon landing was faked

In 1961 when John F. Kennedy announced that the United States would reach the moon, many were in disbelief. In 1969, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin became the first people to step foot on the moon, or did they? To this day, many Americans refute the idea that man had ever landed on the moon and have pointed to many different pieces of evidence. From the absence of stars, to the appearance of a flapping flag, to the letter “C” being on a rock, many things are cited as evidence. Although it’s been many years since we’ve been to the moon, many think that we never reached it in the first place.

Area 51 is hiding Aliens

Whenever there’s a secret, there’s a million wrong guesses about what the secret is. This is the exact case with Area 51. For years after the denial of its existence and then hiding everything about it, in 2017, the Pentagon released that $22 million was going to a program called the Advanced Aviation Threat Identification Program. Conspiracy theorists were already certain that aliens existed, now they know that if they do, Area 51 knows it, too. This is a recipe for only more guesses.

Lee Harvey Oswald didn’t act alone in the JFK assassination

Out of the four presidents to have been assassinated, John F. Kennedy has intrigued many people. Theories have ranged from the assassination being orchestrated by Lyndon B. Johnson, the Vice President at the time, to the military doing it to keep troops in Vietnam, to the mob having him killed, to the CIA killing him. According to Dave Perry, a researcher on the topic, has said that the theory about the CIA is the only one he can’t debunk. The files recently released in 2017 haven’t revealed anything major, so most conspiracies are fair game.

The United States’ government, although not having nearly as much power as other governments, has been the suspect of many things. With the front being the protection of the free world, the government has done many things that are indisputable, like overthrowing multiple other governments. With this in mind, maybe some of these theories aren’t so far out.