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The dead baby project

Laughing at crazy conspiracy theories is good fun—until they turn out to be true. Take the conspiracy surrounding the “Project Sunshine,” for example. In the wake of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the U.S. government commenced a major study to measure the effects of nuclear fallout on the human body.

Conspiracy: The government was stealing dead bodies to do radioactive testing.

The truth: The government was stealing parts of dead bodies. Because they needed young tissue, they recruited a worldwide network of agents to find recently deceased babies and children, and then take samples and even limbs—each collected without notification or permission of the more than 1,500 grieving families.