Our standards

How we rate, and where our evidence comes from

The Conspiratory is a record, not a referee. Our job is to set out what people believe, gather the real evidence on every side, and tell you plainly where that evidence leads, so you can judge for yourself.

Who decides what counts as a fact?

Not us, and not a headline. The evidence you can check for yourself decides. A government agency, a famous scientist, or a major news outlet stating that something is true is not, by itself, proof that it is true. It is a claim, and a claim is where an investigation begins, not where it ends.

What settles a question is evidence anyone can examine: a primary document, a measurement you can repeat, a physical object, a record that exists whether or not anyone believes it. When that evidence is overwhelming, we say so. When it is thin, contested, or missing, we say that too, and we do not pretend a question is closed when it is not.

Where our evidence comes from

Every entry is built from the strongest sources available, in this order of preference:

Primary and official records: declassified files, court and government records, official reports, raw data.
Peer-reviewed research: studies whose methods and data are open to scrutiny and repetition.
Original texts: the actual book, letter, transcript or image a claim comes from, rather than a description of it.
Reference works, for orientation only: useful for pointing you toward the primary material, never treated as the last word.

A news article reporting on any of these is a summary of the evidence, not the evidence itself. Wherever an entry can cite the document, the study, or the record directly, it does, and we treat no outlet's say-so, and no institution's, as proof on its own.

Nothing is dismissed

We take believers seriously. Every entry states the strongest, most honest version of the case for a theory before weighing it, because a case you have not stated fairly is a case you have not actually answered. All evidence is admitted and weighed on its merits; none is waved away because of who raised it. We do not mock, and we assume you are here to think, not to be told what to conclude.

Two labels, and the many files that carry neither

We label a case file only when the checkable evidence actually settles it. There are two labels, and a label is provisional: it describes where the evidence stands today, and it changes when the evidence does.

Proven

Confirmed by evidence or official disclosure. Some claims long dismissed as paranoia turn out to be true (MKUltra is one), and when the record proves it, we say so plainly.

Contradicted

The evidence you can check for yourself runs directly against the claim: a measurement, a document, or an object anyone can examine, not merely an authority's denial. We say contradicted rather than debunked on purpose. Debunked describes something done to a person; contradicted describes what the evidence does to a claim, which is the only thing we are in a position to judge.

No label

A large share of our case files carry no label at all, and that is deliberate. When the evidence does not close a question in either direction, stamping a word on it would be pretending to a certainty we do not have. So we lay out the case each way, tell you plainly where the evidence currently sits, and leave the question open. An absent label means we have not landed, not that we are hedging. A fast-moving story we are still reporting is flagged as developing on the file itself, so you know the account may change.

Authorship and corrections

Every entry carries an editorial byline and a date, cites its sources, and is open to correction. If you can show us stronger evidence, we will follow it, including changing a verdict. The evidence leads; we follow.