General Knowledge
Conspiracy Theories Debunked Quiz
Moon landing hoaxers, flat earthers, and the psychology behind why people believe.
Moon landing hoaxers, flat earthers, and the psychology behind why people believe.
The original anti-vaccine study by Andrew Wakefield was proven to be fraudulent — the data was fabricated, the study was retracted, and Wakefield lost his medical license. Yet vaccine hesitancy persists worldwide. This quiz explores dozens of debunked conspiracy theories and the science that unraveled them, alongside real conspiracies that turned out to be true, and the psychology that makes people believe even the most improbable claims.
You'll discover which famous conspiracy theories have been completely debunked (flat earth, Moon landing hoax, chemtrails), how science-based debunking actually works, the psychological mechanisms that make humans susceptible to conspiracy thinking — including pattern recognition, proportionality bias, and confirmation bias — and which real conspiracies like MKUltra, COINTELPRO, and the Tuskegee study were proven true.
Yes, absolutely. The Moon landings are among the most thoroughly verified events in human history. Apollo astronauts left retroreflectors on the lunar surface that scientists still bounce lasers off today to measure the Moon's distance precisely. Over 842 pounds of Moon rocks have been independently studied by scientists worldwide. The Soviet Union — America's space rival with every reason to expose a hoax — independently tracked the missions and confirmed they were real. Around 400,000 people worked on the Apollo program, and no credible whistleblower has ever emerged.
Psychologists have identified several cognitive mechanisms that make people susceptible to conspiracy thinking. Pattern recognition (pareidolia) causes us to see meaningful connections in random events. Proportionality bias makes us expect big events to have big causes — so a lone gunman killing a president feels inadequate. Agency detection leads us to assume intentional actors behind complex events. The Dunning-Kruger effect means people with limited knowledge overestimate their understanding. Social identity and confirmation bias make us filter information to fit our existing worldview. These are normal human tendencies, not signs of stupidity.
Several conspiracy theories turned out to be entirely real. The CIA's MKUltra program used LSD and other methods for mind control experiments on unwitting subjects — confirmed by declassified documents. COINTELPRO was a real FBI program that surveilled and disrupted civil rights leaders including Martin Luther King Jr. The Tuskegee syphilis study deliberately withheld treatment from Black men for 40 years. Tobacco companies knew smoking caused cancer for decades and conspired to hide it. The Watergate scandal was a genuine criminal conspiracy inside the US government. These examples show why healthy skepticism is valuable — but also why evidence matters.
Last updated: March 2026