In the 1800s, a movement spread across Great Britain that convinced thousands of Englishmen they were part of an ancient Jewish tribe. It was based on a legend about an evangelizer, Joseph of Arimathea.

The fate of the ten tribes of Israel has been a mystery for thousands of years. Some legends say they are trapped in a mythical land. One mysterious traveler in the 9th century CE claimed differently. All we know for sure is that the members of the ten tribes suffered invasion and exile before seemingly disappearing from history.

In November 2018, equipment from the largest utility provider in America sparked a fire that killed 86 people and destroyed thousands of homes.

In March 2011, the worst nuclear meltdown since Chernobyl took place in northern Japan. The incident was triggered by a natural disaster, but it was decisions made by the facility’s operators that led to such catastrophic damage.

An emergency plan to cut costs in Flint, Michigan resulted in a contaminated water supply for the city’s residents. The water looked, tasted, and smelled foul – because it was tainted with toxic chemicals, harmful bacteria and lead from old pipes.

The Love Canal was supposed to be a suburban idyll. Instead, it became a dumping ground for chemical waste. After the land changed hands in the 1950s — from the Hooker Electrochemical Company to the Niagara Falls Board of Education — a school and 900 homes were built atop the toxic landfill.

After the Civil War, multiple caches of Confederate gold were discovered around the country. Were they buried by the Knights of the Golden Circle?

In 1854, as tensions between the American North and South were brewing, a physician named George Bickley called his closest friends to a secret meeting.

After a dozen major campaigns and thousands of planted bugs and wiretaps, COINTELPRO was finally exposed to the public. But the job of untangling its impact would take decades.

A secret intelligence project led by the FBI used illegal methods to spy on organizations and people from the mid-1950s to the early 1970s. It claimed to be acting in the name of U.S. security — but was it really?

Finding Beale’s treasure would be the thrill — and payout — of a lifetime. Without the key to the ciphers, it doesn’t seem likely. But there could be other reasons the riches are never recovered…

In 1818, a member of a hunting party in the American West spotted a glimmer on a hillside — gold. Two hundred years later, treasure hunters are still trying to locate the dug-up riches.

A new wave of extraterrestrial discourse began in June 2021 after the release of the U.S. government’s UFO report.

Ever since “flying saucer” entered the lexicon, the U.S. government’s public stance on UFO sightings was to doubt and debunk. But all that changed in 2017, with an explosive report on UFO intelligence. And again in June 2021, when the government acknowledged — for the first time in history — that some UFOs are truly inexplicable… and maybe even threatening.

In the final episode of our crossover special, we examine the theories suggesting the surprise attack on Pearl Harbor wasn’t a surprise to the U.S. government at all.

In the hours, days, and weeks after the attack on Pearl Harbor, Japan’s forces coordinated a vast takeover of the Pacific. Back at home, Hideki Tojo’s reign as Prime Minister oversaw brutal wartime atrocities.

In the summer of 1941, as hostilities between the two nations escalated, wartime negotiations officially broke down. Combat was imminent — but where?

Eighty years ago, the surprise attack on Pearl Harbor by Japanese fighter planes devastated the U.S. and spurred the nation into war. Join us for a special crossover between Dictators and Conspiracy Theories where we’ll analyze the event from all sides, starting with the life of Japanese Prime Minister Hideki Tojo — a career militarist whose devotion to Japan thrust him into power.

There are so many unresolved mysteries surrounding the iconic monument, like whether it’s really a sphinx, and if it could be a relic from the lost city of Atlantis. We look at a stone beard, a story from Plato, and patterns of erosion to investigate.

The Great Pyramids of Giza are some of the largest, most foreboding structures on the planet, but the mystery of how they were built still plagues historians today. Some Egyptologists think aliens provided advanced technology, while engineers see evidence they were ancient nuclear power plants.

Today, the health risks associated with smoking cigarettes aren’t a secret. But since the mid-1900s, researchers have pointed out the harmful effects of these cancer sticks.

In the 20th century, the mass production of cigarettes fueled a global addiction — but Big Tobacco had a problem. Cancer rates were skyrocketing, and smoking-related illnesses became the leading cause of preventable death in America. This is the story of how an industry in peril conspired to survive — by keeping generations of smokers in their grip.

The deaths of the Dyatlov Nine didn’t just seem bizarre — they seemed violent. What could explain the brutal injuries, missing tongue, radioactive clothing, and burnt trees?

In winter 1959, a group of experienced mountaineers went missing in a remote part of Siberia. When their bodies were eventually found, their injuries — and radioactive clothing — confounded investigators. The incident became one of Russia’s most enduring mysteries.

When President Woodrow Wilson suffered a paralyzing stroke in 1919, First Lady Edith Wilson stepped in to maintain order in the White House.