Did you know that Michael Brown, the unarmed black 18-year-old said to have been killed by a white Ferguson police officer earlier this month, is actually still alive? And that his well-publicized corpse was instead a dummy? And that Brown may never have existed at all, and that his parents are actors? Did you know this elaborate hoax was orchestrated to distract us from "arch-Zionist crimes, including the Israelis categorical failure in Gaza, where they were defeated by the Palestinians"?

If you believe the "mainstream" version of events, these theories say, you’re being duped by the government. What’s really happening in Ferguson isn’t the product of years of economic inequality and racial tension.

So what is happening? The conspiracy theories vary.

Alex Jones of InfoWars claims the Department of Justice has teamed up with Communists and the Black Panthers "to hijack what were largely peaceful protests that have turned increasingly violent in recent days." And in a video titled "Army Admits Plan to Execute Americans En Masse," he says that the military has a secret battle plan "to use lethal force against unarmed non-violent Americans"—namely African Americans. "This is the attempt to start the civil war, where they will then stage terror attacks, blame it on the Liberty movement during a race war," he says, "and then have the feds come in and crush the inner city people and the, quote, mainly white militia, as a pretext for restoring order." He even invoked the tactics of the Islamic State and the Nazis.

D.C. Clothesline's Dean Garrison posted a video by YouTube user DAHBOO77 ("Underworld World News") claiming to show an "agent provocateur" throwing a smoke bomb back at police. The evidence? That he was acting alone, but "police never once interacted with this man."