Austin Smith

UWRT 1103
Mrs. Lynn Raymond
November 16, 2015
Writing Prompt #10
For the semester long project that we have been assigned in UWRT, my group chose to
research conspiracy theories and their effect on US history. That was the purpose that we put
down on our project proposal, and our goals havent really changed much since then. We have
been able to readily gather information the history of conspiracy theories and what kinds of
conspiracy theories are out there, but it has proven a bit difficult to see how they have really
affected history itself. One area of my research that has surprised me is the percentage of people
that actually believe in the really crazy and far out conspiracy theories. When you look at the
numbers, its really quite astonishing. Our research has detoured a bit into how the government is
tied in with all of the conspiracy theories. Many of the theories rely on the fact that the
government orchestrated some type of event or that they are withholding information from the
public about the events. In most of the theories surrounding events like the JFK assassination, the
moon landing, and the 9/11 terrorist attacks, they discuss the possibility that the US government
or at least some agency within the government was pulling the strings from behind the curtains
and refuses to let the citizens of the US know the truth about what they did. Surprisingly, some of
the theories that we have found are fairly believable due to the amount of evidence presented, but
many of them jump to conclusions based on facts that just arent there. Overall, the project has
progressed along the expected path.