Scandals and secrets are revealed in the 11 biggest government cover-ups in history. As citizens of countries and under their governments, we are often aware of all the decisions made. From laws, legislations and amendments, we are aware of how things run. We are also aware of the fact that there are just some things that the government would rather keep a secret. There could be many reasons why they would do so. One is to protect important information and people. There are some things that are better kept as secrets.
There have been some failures to keep dangerous secrets and scandals as we look through history. Some information surfaces and the government desperately try to dig itself out of their own hole. There have been many tragic and embarrassing cover-ups that have happened in the past. Some of them are bad, some of them are good, and some of them may even be weird. Some of the cover-ups in history have also become fuel to ignite the 7 Most Popular Conspiracy Theories. Indeed with the number of events and information the government hides, it’s no wonder there are so many mysteries in the world.
Can you think of a big cover-up the government has done in the past? The big cover-ups listed here have bought some of the best theories and stories around the world. I guess all of these were not all bad. Let’s take a look at this list of 11:
11. Churchill’s UFO Cover Up
Winston Churchill is one of the most historically renowned people in the world. You can hear all sorts of news about his life, even nowadays, as there’re many interesting things that happened in his life. There was a letter uncovered around 1999 that talks about information from one of Churchill’s bodyguards. It detailed in the letter that Churchill used a lot of resources during World War II to cover up the one of the British aircraft’s encounter with an “unidentified flying object”.
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10. Area 51
The cover-ups and rumors done for Area 51 are so numerous that we could fill this entire article with Area 51 speculations. The silence was however broken recently when former CIA employees were given the chance to share what really went on in the secret military base. Apparently they were testing a lot of advanced aircraft and weapons systems not meant for the public eye. Many still believe that aliens reside inside the base.
9. John Lennon
During the peak of popularity of the Beatles, John Lennon was already considered a legend and was gaining a large following. Because of this the FBI saw it fit to monitor and gather information about Lennon’s activities. They only stopped monitoring a month after Nixon’s re-election. The information about this only surfaced after a historian won a battle in court for the information that the FBI gathered on Lennon.
8. Potyomkin Villages
Grigory Potyomkin was a famous Russian nobleman from the 18th century. The story goes that during one of the visits of Catherine the Great, he made fake villages with people faking prosperity that didn’t exist. Due to the lack of concrete information the story has become more of a myth but many believe that this was one of the first cruel regimes of their time.
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7. CIA Mind Control Experiments
During the Cold War, the CIA conducted about two decades worth of research and experiments on mind control. The goal: to be able to conduct assassinations by programming other people’s minds. The project was soon ordered to be destroyed but not before the media could get a hold of it. The investigation led to a plethora of evidence and data supporting the research.
6. Dreyfus Affair
The Dreyfus Affair was one of the first instances in France that the military convicted an innocent man to cover up a possible traitor in their ranks. Dreyfus was wrongfully convicted two times until he was finally pardoned for the crimes years later.
The biggest cover-ups are still to come as we go to the second half of the 11 biggest government cover-ups in history.
5. Teapot Dome Scandal
The 1920s was one of the worst eras of governance in the US as there were many issues of corruption in the government. One was the Teapot Dome scandal where the secretary of interior, Albert Fall allowed bribes so that companies could tap in the Teapot Dome oil reserve without competitive bidding.
4. Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment
One of the most unethical studies in recorded history, the US Public health service bought in a lot of people with some infected by syphilis in order to observe how the disease destroyed their bodies. They convinced the people that they were treating them but did not give them any form of medication even when penicillin was already available.
3. CIA Plot to Assassinate Fidel Castro
One of the most controversial events in the US history was the assassination of President Kennedy. The original investigations got a lot of heat because of a lack of action. It was claimed that the assassin worked alone, but later evidence theorized that the assassination was part of a conspiracy. Though not completely confirmed, the assassination seemed to be retaliation because of the CIA’s plot to kill Fidel Castro.
2. Watergate
This is the scandal that forced President Nixon to quit following continuous filing of impeachments. The Watergate scandal revealed that Nixon was actually bugging conversations from different offices of the government to manipulate to his own needs.
1. Chernobyl
As many of us are now familiar with, Chernobyl is a ghost city known for the destruction of a nuclear reactor. Radiation poured all around the area. The tragic thing about the event is that the Soviet Union did not report and acknowledge anything about it until it was discovered by Sweden.
There you go the 11 biggest government cover-ups in history. We can only pray that these kinds of events don’t happen again in the future.
