Our conspiracy series drives on; a day later than usual but here all the same! This time round, we're moving to one of the more recent conspiracies to make its way across the internet. When Malaysia Airline flight MH370 went missing in March 2014, the majority of the public assumed it was a terrible tragedy; but what if something a little more sinister was at play?
What happened?
Originally bound for Beijing, Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 crashed into the ocean after veering off of its flight path in extremely mysterious circumstances, and flying for a further six hours in the wrong direction. Minimal debris was recovered from the flight, and only after it had drifted to the West coast of the Indian Ocean. A private company's search which came later failed, despite using drones as part of their recovery attempt.
Did aliens abduct those on board?
Last year, a Twitter user called Ty said that he had received a voice message from an unknown number. A series of numbers and letters were read out by a robotic voice on the message, which some said were from the NATO phonetic alphabet. Those who were immediately drawn in translated the message using that alphabet, and claim it said: "S Danger SOS it is dire for you to evacuate be caution they are not human 042933964230 SOS Danger SOS."
After spacing out the numbers and putting the coordinates into Google, users were taken to the capital of Indonesia's North Sumatra province, Medan. That city is right next to Malaysia, and from that point theories surrounding the message suggested that it had been sent as a message pointing to what really happened on board that plane.
Other Twitter accounts were then created without having an official face behind them, and began to send Ty messages to delete the voicemail from his timeline via Direct Message. He's passed those off as simply being other users who wanted to jump on the controversy however, and scare him.
To this day, Ty has denied setting up the entire thing to conjure up followers. In an interview with Shane Dawson, he said that he received the message out of the blue, and it came after he saw people photographing the building in which he lives. Creepy stuff indeed.
There's also the final message from the pilot, in which some say they hear an alien noise during the recording before everything cuts off. In it, the pilot stutters, despite being incredibly clear and calm earlier on in the flight. You can see that in Shane's video above, along with the YouTuber's full interview with Ty.
Other theories
The rogue captain: A leading plane hunter called Ean Higgins this month claimed that the captain of the doomed flight, Zaharie Ahmad Shah, actually depressurised the aircraft 40 minutes into the flight. This would have cut all of the oxygen to the aircraft. "We think he also tripped the circuit of the lights in the passenger cabins to make it dark," he told Australian broadcaster ABC News. But for what reason would the pilot have done such a thing?
In 2016, investigators found that a personal flight simulator in captain Shah's home had actually been used to draft a route into the southern Indian Ocean, which was eerily similar to the route believed to have been taken when the plane veered off track. The Malaysian government have however continued to deny claims that he was a "rogue pilot", instead pushing the theory that he was unconscious when the plane crashed.
Cambodia: There's not much information on this one, other than a Google Maps image pulled by British video producer Ian Wilson, who says that the images were dated to 2018. They showed what looked to be a 70 metre plane (a little larger than the MH370's official measurements) in a Cambodian jungle. You can check out the pictures in the original exclusive report here.
Shot down by military forces: Rush Limbaugh speculated that MH370 may have actually been shot down, as civilian aircraft have been in the past by military forces. This seemed to be one of the leading theories and was only backed up by the incidental and confirmed shooting down of a different Malaysia Airlines flight over Ukraine in the same year.
Towards the end of 2014, former head of Proteus Airlines Marc Dugain said that the plane may have been shot down by American military personnel who feared another terrorist attack on their Navy Base in Diego Garcia. If this was ever indeed the case, we imagine we'll never know the truth.
What now?
Despite the five-year anniversary of the plane's disappearance having been and gone, we seem to be no further to discovering exactly what happened on that fateful day. There has been a combined 200,000 square kilometres searched without success, and still we have zero conclusive evidence of exactly where the plane went down.
The Malaysian government released a report in 2018 that was initially billed as a "final report", but outrage from families of those who are missing meant that the officials backtracked. Whilst further reports are expected in the years to come, it's not clear if they'll have any new information to offer up.
NOTE: Conspiracies are theories often created with a lack of evidence. Each of our conspiracy reports are based on online research, but should never be taken as 100% fact.
NEXT WEEK: Area 51
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