MANY bloggers have taken note of this new poll from Public Policy Polling, which shows that a disturbingly large number of Americans believe in conspiracy theories. But not all conspiracy theories are created equal: some are more fanciful than others. For example, 14% of registered voters believe in Bigfoot, 21% believe a UFO crashed at Roswell and the government covered it up (more Romney voters than Obama voters believe that, for what it's worth) and 28% believe a "secretive power elite with a globalist agenda is conspiring to eventually rule the world through an authoritarian world government, or New World Order". That last one is interesting. Perhaps over a quarter of American voters believe in some global cabal with authoritarian aspirations. On the other hand, perhaps this is a way for some Americans (a plurality of Romney voters in fact) to express their concerns over international organisations and global financial institutions. Such concerns don't seem nearly as loopy as believing in a "New World Order". Similarly, the poll shows that 37% of voters (and 61% of Romney voters) believe global warming "is a hoax". But many of these folks are probably more accurately described as being sceptical of climate science, which isn't the same thing. (Take that debate here, please.)

In other words, the answers to many of these questions act as proxies for broader opinions, especially when the respondents are uninformed on the specific topic. For example, 28% of voters (36% of Romney voters) believe Saddam Hussein was involved in the 9/11 attacks, while 11% of voters (13% of Obama voters) believe the government knowingly allowed 9/11 to happen. Some of these people are no doubt ill-informed, but others are probably just expressing their opinions about the Iraq war and the presidency of George W. Bush more generally.

Here's another example: 13% of voters, and 22% of Romney voters, think Barack Obama is the anti-Christ. While I'm sure some of these folks are thinking in eschatological terms, others probably just think Mr Obama is a big jerk who's ruining America. And what to make of the 5% of Obama voters who think the president is the anti-Christ? Are these people trying to usher in the End Times? We should probably consider the possibility that a few respondents answered randomly or were messing with the pollsters. Or perhaps one in 25 voters really do believe that lizard people control the levers of power in the world.

(Photo credit: AFP)