The fakes conspire against us

My new book, The Heretics, deals with conspiracy theories and the people who try to debunk them. Here are four currently popular theories:

The Ebola virus is an escaped bio-weapon

This theory's chief proponent is Professor Francis Boyle, a noted scholar of bio-warfare and international law at the University of Illinois, in the US.

"This isn't normal Ebola at all," he says. "I believe it's been genetically modified."

Boyle points to the existence of US government laboratories in Africa that, he says, are "creating bio-weapons under the guise of innocently working on cures".

Critics of the theory observe that, if this were an altered version of the disease, the changes to its structure would be observable to scientists. However, results of the DNA analysis of samples from 78 individuals affected by the current outbreak was recently published in the journal Science. The analysis shows that this subtly different variant probably diverged from central African lineages around 10 years ago before spreading into West Africa in May. It is, in other words, perfectly natural.

Aircraft are killing us

We are being sprayed by sinister aircraft. Why is it that some condensation trails left by commercial aircraft dissipate after a short time whereas others remain for hours and expand? And why is it that these suspected chemical trails tend to be laid out in rows of the same direction, as if they're part of a meticulously planned pattern?

The Chemtrails Project UK is one of hundreds of websites devoted to the popular chemtrails theory. It confidently asserts the streaks are "highly toxic trails left by jet planes" that "contain high levels of heavy metals". Their purpose? It's a geo-engineering project, perhaps an attempt to control global warming. Others say they're brain-numbing chemical agents used to control the population.

But the US Federal Aviation Administration has pointed out that, in high humidity, ice particles form in the condensation trails of aircraft. These tiny dots of ice grow as they absorb moisture from the air around them. Such trails can linger for hours.

Israel uses spy vultures

In December 2012, in the Sudanese town of Kereinek, officials arrested a vulture for spying.

The evidence? Electronic equipment attached to its leg that, they suspected, enabled it to broadcast images back to its Israeli HQ. Had the Mossad begun recruiting agents from the vulturine world to capitalise on their ability to fly 600km a day in virtual silence?

Or was the truth, as Israel's Nature and Parks Authority insisted, that they were merely tracking the birds with GPS for scientific study, like lots of other wildlife researchers?

Lady Gaga is an Illuminati puppet

The splendid irony about the shadowy group of dukes, diplomats and intellectuals known as the Illuminati is that their mission was, in part, to counter superstition. Founded in 18th-century Bavaria, they existed for less than a decade, fading into the fog following an order of abolition on all secret societies by the Prince Elector, Charles Theodore.

Could it be that they actually went underground, as some suspected at the time, and conspired to cause the French Revolution? Worse, do the Illuminati still exist? Are they silently manipulating the minds of the young through modern pop music?

"Mass media conduct a large-scale mind-control project that starts with Disney movies and continues with Hollywood flicks and music videos," says website The Vigilant Citizen.

The site goes on to allege that pop singer Lady Gaga is an "Illuminati puppet".

"Her vacuous, robotic and slightly degenerate persona embodies all the symptoms of a mind-control victim."