Seriously though, as crazy as most conspiracy theories are, you can almost ( almost ) empathize with those wacky folks when you consider the fact that, as we've mentioned before , history is chock-full of real conspiracies even crazier than Oliver Stone's fever dreams, such as ...

If you can honestly say that you've never encountered a delusionally paranoid conspiracy theorist, then welcome to your first day on the Internet (home of all the world's porn)! Now quick, turn around before it's too late.

5 There Was Totally a Soviet Spy in Congress

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The Conspiracy Theory:

Right up until the 1980s in America, it was generally agreed by conspiracy theorists that everything was the communists' fault. Hell, the effort to add fluoride to drinking water was declared a communist plot -- those sneaky bastards were everywhere.

Of course, the nadir of the whole "Red Scare" was Joe McCarthy's infamous '50s communists witch hunts, with McCarthy claiming that even the U.S. Congress was in the throes of a full-fledged Communist infestation.

United States Senate

"Better batshittingly paranoid than red."

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You can still see traces of it in Tea Party rallies today -- anyone who disagrees must be an undercover commie, damn it!

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"Cabbage? You know who else ate cabbage? Stalin."

Now McCarthy is remembered as one of American history's great villains, a demagogue hurling false accusations and playing on the nation's Cold War fears. Looking back, it all seems so ridiculous. Hell, the Ruskies could barely keep their own government running; forget about sneaking sleeper agents into the U.S. capitol ...

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The Reality:

Somebody get McCarthy on the horn, because there was totally a Soviet spy in the U.S. House of Representatives. It just happened before he came along.

Our friendly neighborhood red spy was a New York Democrat who went by the unassuming but infinitely insultable name of Samuel Dickstein, and we'd be willing to bet that you've never once heard of him. You've probably heard of his most famous creation, though: the House Committee on Un-American Activities. That's right -- he chaired the committee that would later be in charge of rooting out communists (at the time, it was more about finding Fascists, since this was before the Cold War).