Conspiracy Theories, Cults, & Crimes

Crime House
Crime House
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Conspiracy Theories, Cults, and Crimes explores true stories of belief taken too far: murderous cults, criminal cover-ups, mass manipulation, and the conspiracies that still won't die. Hosted by Vanessa Richardson, three weekly episodes dig into cases like Jonestown, Heaven's Gate, CIA mind control experiments, and presidential assassinations. This is true crime at the intersection of faith, fear and manipulation.Conspiracy Theories, Cults, and Crimes is a Crime House Original, powered by PAVE Studios. Follow us on YouTube or listen wherever you get your podcasts. Subscribe to @crimehousestudios on YouTube and follow us @crimehouse on Instagram.

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  1. Oct 7 • Crime House+ Early Access

    CULT: When Prophecy Fails: The Seekers

    In 1954, a housewife in Oak Park, Illinois named Dorothy Martin began taking down messages from beings she called the Guardians, and told the small circle around her that a flood would destroy the middle of North America before dawn on December 21st. Flying saucers would collect the believers first. The group, who called themselves the Seekers, gave away possessions and quit jobs, and on the night of the 20th pulled every scrap of metal off their clothes and sat down to wait. Three social psychologists led by Leon Festinger were sitting in the room under false names. Their 1956 book about that night, When Prophecy Fails, gave the world the phrase cognitive dissonance and is still assigned in classrooms. In this episode of Conspiracy Theories, Cults, & Crimes, Vanessa Richardson examines the prophecy Dorothy Martin took down from the Guardians, the researchers who joined under false names, and the private archive that undid a study taught in classrooms for 70 years. Head over to our YouTube channel to WATCH our video episodes: https://www.youtube.com/@crimehousestudios  If you’re new here, don’t forget to follow Conspiracy Theories, Cults, and Crimes to never miss a case! To hear episodes ad-free and released a day early, subscribe to Crime House+. Join at  crimehouseplus.com or if you’re listening on Apple Podcasts, tap “Try Free” at the top of this show’s page. Conspiracy Theories, Cults, and Crimes is a Crime House Original Podcast, powered by PAVE Studios. 🎧 Need More to Binge?  Listen to other Crime House Originals Clues, Crimes Of Reddit, Serial Killers & Murderous Minds, Crime House 24/7, Murder True Crime Stories and more wherever you get your podcasts! Follow me on Social * Instagram: @Crimehouse * TikTok: @Crimehouse * Facebook: @crimehousestudios * X: @crimehousemedia * YouTube: @crimehousestudios

  2. 1d ago

    CONSPIRACY THEORY: Is Anyone Real Anymore? The Dead Internet Theory

    In 2021, an anonymous forum post floated a theory that sounded absurd: the internet effectively died around 2016, and most of what we now see online, the posts, comments, arguments, and trends, is generated by bots and AI designed to manipulate what we think, buy, and believe. People laughed, until the evidence started piling up. Bots surpassed human traffic online for the first time in 2024, more than a third of new websites are now AI-generated, and state actors run thousands of fake accounts to shape public opinion. With every passing month, the idea that the internet is fake looks less like a conspiracy theory and more like a description of reality. In this episode of Conspiracy Theories, Cults, & Crimes, Vanessa examines the Dead Internet Theory, the mounting signs that much of the online world is no longer human, and the unsettling question of what happens to a society that can no longer tell the difference. Head over to our YouTube channel to WATCH our video episodes: https://www.youtube.com/@crimehousestudios  If you’re new here, don’t forget to follow Conspiracy Theories, Cults, and Crimes to never miss a case! To hear episodes ad-free and released a day early, subscribe to Crime House+. Join at  crimehouseplus.com or if you’re listening on Apple Podcasts, tap “Try Free” at the top of this show’s page. Conspiracy Theories, Cults, and Crimes is a Crime House Original Podcast, powered by PAVE Studios. 🎧 Need More to Binge?  Listen to other Crime House Originals Clues, Crimes Of Reddit, Serial Killers & Murderous Minds, Crime House 24/7, Murder True Crime Stories and more wherever you get your podcasts! Follow me on Social Instagram: @CrimehouseTikTok: @CrimehouseFacebook: @crimehousestudiosX: @crimehousemediaYouTube: @crimehousestudios

  3. 2d ago ·  Bonus

    Introducing WHAT THE FACT with Connor Tomlinson and Carter Roy, a new Rewind podcast!

    Fun fact: Did you know Jaws almost never existed because the shark kept sinking while filming? That is Connor Tomlinson just getting started. If that sounds fascinating, you are going to love Rewind Studios’ new podcast out now called WHAT THE FACT hosted by Connor Tomlinson and Carter Roy. It’s produced by the same team that brings you Conspiracy Theories, Cults, & Crimes. Connor and co-host Carter Roy pull three unbelievable true facts every week and tell you the full story behind each one. Nothing is off limits. Myths and monsters. Forgotten scandals. Accidental discoveries. Untold stories behind the songs everyone knows. Disasters that sound made up but absolutely happened. Carter sets the scene and Connor makes you fall in love with history. The wildest stuff is real, and the real stuff is wilder than you think. New episodes every Wednesday. What the Fact with Connor Tomlinson and Carter Roy is a Rewind Original, powered by PAVE Studios. Listen and Follow: https://pod.link/6811124906

    Introducing WHAT THE FACT with Connor Tomlinson and Carter Roy, a new Rewind podcast!

  4. 4d ago

    CRIME: Victor Lustig: He Sold the Eiffel Tower Twice

    In 1925, a con man calling himself Count Victor Lustig read that the Eiffel Tower was costly to maintain. He took a suite at one of the best hotels in Paris and invited five scrap dealers to a confidential meeting. On stationery bearing a government seal, he introduced himself as a ministry official, said the state had secretly decided to demolish it, and offered them its 7,000 tons of iron. One dealer paid, and was too humiliated to report it. So Lustig came back and ran it again. He went on to sell a fake money-printing machine to a Texas sheriff, take $5,000 off Al Capone, and print so much counterfeit cash that the Secret Service named it for him. In this episode of Conspiracy Theories, Cults, & Crimes, Vanessa Richardson traces the ten rules Victor Lustig wrote down for deceiving people, the confidence trick that sold a national monument twice, and the jealous phone call that finally put the smoothest con man in America inside Alcatraz. Head over to our YouTube channel to WATCH our video episodes: https://www.youtube.com/@crimehousestudios  If you’re new here, don’t forget to follow Conspiracy Theories, Cults, and Crimes to never miss a case! To hear episodes ad-free and released a day early, subscribe to Crime House+. Join at crimehouseplus.com or if you’re listening on Apple Podcasts, tap “Try Free” at the top of this show’s page. Conspiracy Theories, Cults, and Crimes is a Crime House Original Podcast, powered by PAVE Studios. 🎧 Need More to Binge?  Listen to other Crime House Originals Clues, Crimes Of Reddit, Serial Killers & Murderous Minds, Crime House 24/7, Murder True Crime Stories and more wherever you get your podcasts! Follow me on Social Instagram: @CrimehouseTikTok: @CrimehouseFacebook: @crimehousestudiosX: @crimehousemediaYouTube: @crimehousestudios

  5. 6d ago

    CULT: The Church Universal and Triumphant

    In the 1980s, a charismatic woman named Elizabeth Clare Prophet convinced thousands of followers that she was channeling messages from Jesus, Buddha, and a spiritual entity called Saint Germain, and that nuclear apocalypse was imminent. Her devotees sold their homes, quit their jobs, and moved to a sprawling 12,000-acre compound beside Yellowstone National Park, where the church built an enormous underground bunker system stocked with weapons and supplies. On March 15th, 1990, some seven thousand people descended into the shelters to wait for the end of the world, only to emerge the next morning to find everything exactly as they'd left it, except their savings and their old lives were gone. In this episode of Conspiracy Theories, Cults, & Crimes, Vanessa Richardson examines the woman her followers called Mother, the doomsday prophecy that convinced thousands to bury themselves alive, and what happened when they had to dig their way back to reality. Head over to our YouTube channel to WATCH our video episodes: https://www.youtube.com/@crimehousestudios  If you’re new here, don’t forget to follow Conspiracy Theories, Cults, and Crimes to never miss a case! To hear episodes ad-free and released a day early, subscribe to Crime House+. Join at crimehouseplus.com or if you’re listening on Apple Podcasts, tap “Try Free” at the top of this show’s page. Conspiracy Theories, Cults, and Crimes is a Crime House Original Podcast, powered by PAVE Studios. 🎧 Need More to Binge?  Listen to other Crime House Originals Clues, Crimes Of Reddit, Serial Killers & Murderous Minds, Crime House 24/7, Murder True Crime Stories and more wherever you get your podcasts! Follow me on Social Instagram: @CrimehouseTikTok: @CrimehouseFacebook: @crimehousestudiosX: @crimehousemediaYouTube: @crimehousestudios

  6. Sep 28

    CONSPIRACY THEORY: Aviation Industry Whistleblowers

    John Barnett spent 32 years at Boeing before going public with alarming claims about faulty oxygen masks, substandard parts, and a corporate culture that punished anyone who dared to speak up. In March 2024, in the middle of giving deposition testimony against the company, he was found dead in a hotel parking lot from a gunshot wound. Less than two months later, Joshua Dean, a 45-year-old quality auditor who had flagged the very manufacturing defects Boeing later admitted to, died within two weeks of a sudden infection after being perfectly healthy. Both men shared the same attorney, both had documented retaliation, and a manager had once told Barnett he would push him until he broke. In the aftermath, more than ten new whistleblowers came forward. In this episode of Conspiracy Theories, Cults, & Crimes, Vanessa Richardson examines what Boeing knew, how it treated the people who tried to expose the truth, and the unsettling question the company has never answered: why do the people who speak up keep dying? Head over to our YouTube channel to WATCH our video episodes: https://www.youtube.com/@crimehousestudios  If you’re new here, don’t forget to follow Conspiracy Theories, Cults, and Crimes to never miss a case! To hear episodes ad-free and released a day early, subscribe to Crime House+. Join at crimehouseplus.com or if you’re listening on Apple Podcasts, tap “Try Free” at the top of this show’s page. Conspiracy Theories, Cults, and Crimes is a Crime House Original Podcast, powered by PAVE Studios. 🎧 Need More to Binge?  Listen to other Crime House Originals Clues, Crimes Of Reddit, Serial Killers & Murderous Minds, Crime House 24/7, Murder True Crime Stories and more wherever you get your podcasts! Follow me on Social Instagram: @CrimehouseTikTok: @CrimehouseFacebook: @crimehousestudiosX: @crimehousemediaYouTube: @crimehousestudios

  7. Sep 25

    CRIME: MH370

    On March 8th, 2014, Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 vanished from the sky with 239 people aboard, disappearing during a routine flight from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing. The plane's transponder went dark, it changed course over the ocean, and then it was simply gone, triggering the largest and most expensive search in aviation history. In the years since, theories have multiplied, ranging from deliberate pilot sabotage to hijacking to a military cover-up, but despite scattered debris washing ashore, the main wreckage has never been found. In this episode of Conspiracy Theories, Cults, & Crimes, Vanessa Richardson investigates the disappearance of MH370, the baffling final hours of the flight, and the many competing theories about how a modern airliner could vanish almost without a trace. Head over to our YouTube channel to WATCH our video episodes: https://www.youtube.com/@crimehousestudios  If you’re new here, don’t forget to follow Conspiracy Theories, Cults, and Crimes to never miss a case! To hear episodes ad-free and released a day early, subscribe to Crime House+. Join at crimehouseplus.com or if you’re listening on Apple Podcasts, tap “Try Free” at the top of this show’s page. Conspiracy Theories, Cults, and Crimes is a Crime House Original Podcast, powered by PAVE Studios. 🎧 Need More to Binge?  Listen to other Crime House Originals Clues, Crimes Of Reddit, Serial Killers & Murderous Minds, Crime House 24/7, Murder True Crime Stories and more wherever you get your podcasts! Follow me on Social Instagram: @CrimehouseTikTok: @CrimehouseFacebook: @crimehousestudiosX: @crimehousemediaYouTube: @crimehousestudios

  8. Sep 23

    CULT: The Rosicrucians

    In the early 17th century, mysterious manifestos appeared in Europe announcing the existence of a secret brotherhood called the Rosicrucians, said to possess hidden knowledge of alchemy, mysticism, and the deepest secrets of the universe. Whether the order truly existed or was an elaborate hoax has been debated for centuries, but the legend inspired real societies, esoteric traditions, and endless speculation about suppressed ancient wisdom. In this episode of Conspiracy Theories, Cults, & Crimes, Vanessa Richardson explores the enigma of the Rosicrucians, the blend of symbolism and secrecy that fueled their mystique, and the enduring question of whether they guarded forbidden knowledge, or whether the whole thing was one of history's most successful mysteries. Head over to our YouTube channel to WATCH our video episodes: https://www.youtube.com/@crimehousestudios  If you’re new here, don’t forget to follow Conspiracy Theories, Cults, and Crimes to never miss a case! To hear episodes ad-free and released a day early, subscribe to Crime House+. Join at crimehouseplus.com or if you’re listening on Apple Podcasts, tap “Try Free” at the top of this show’s page. Conspiracy Theories, Cults, and Crimes is a Crime House Original Podcast, powered by PAVE Studios. 🎧 Need More to Binge?  Listen to other Crime House Originals Clues, Crimes Of Reddit, Serial Killers & Murderous Minds, Crime House 24/7, Murder True Crime Stories and more wherever you get your podcasts! Follow me on Social Instagram: @CrimehouseTikTok: @CrimehouseFacebook: @crimehousestudiosX: @crimehousemediaYouTube: @crimehousestudios

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Conspiracy Theories, Cults, and Crimes explores true stories of belief taken too far: murderous cults, criminal cover-ups, mass manipulation, and the conspiracies that still won't die. Hosted by Vanessa Richardson, three weekly episodes dig into cases like Jonestown, Heaven's Gate, CIA mind control experiments, and presidential assassinations. This is true crime at the intersection of faith, fear and manipulation.Conspiracy Theories, Cults, and Crimes is a Crime House Original, powered by PAVE Studios. Follow us on YouTube or listen wherever you get your podcasts. Subscribe to @crimehousestudios on YouTube and follow us @crimehouse on Instagram.

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