Top 10 Government Conspiracy Theories That Turned Out To Be True (3 of 6)

4. The Dalai Lama & the CIA

Did you know that the Dalai Lama’s close circle worked with the CIA during the Cold War to support Tibetan resistance to China? Oh, you thought it was just one of those things a crazy person would say, huh? Well, it turns out that such an arrangement fit America’s anti-Communist strategy nicely, even if the Dalai Lama himself had no clue what was going on. After Nixon’s 1972 trip to Beijing, the program faded out. It’s one of those “only during the Cold War” alliances that sound unbelievable until they’re documented.

5. The Surveillance State

Edward Snowden’s 2013 leaks didn’t start the rumors; they confirmed it. The NSA and partner programs were collecting massive amounts of data, like metadata, private messages, discrete location trails, etc., on an almost industrial scale. Overnight, privacy went from nerdy niche to kitchen-table topic, and we all learned our phones are basically tracking devices that happen to make calls.