Researchers have used Swarm Intelligence to accurately predict countless events from the Kentucky Derby to the 2016 election, and to reveal public sentiment on everything from League of Legends to pizza toppings. But, swarming technology has the potential to go much deeper, and reveal insights into all facets of modern life.  And, that means…. conspiracy theories.

You don’t have to travel very far on the Information Superhighway to stumble across some pretty big mysteries. Who wrote Shakespeare’s plays? What exactly are chemtrails? Can jet fuel melt steel beams?  To find out which conspiracy theories hold water, researchers asked 150 people to think together as a swarm, then hit them with some of the biggest theories out there.

First, we needed to know, what are the chances that the US Government is hiding evidence of alien intelligence?

As you can see, the Swarm was very confident that the U.S. government knows more about alien intelligence than they’ve revealed to the American public. But, should we listen to the Swarm? Couldn’t this just be evidence of the Internet echo chamber at work, with bad information getting amplified by repetition? Not so fast.

First, keep the math in mind. According to Nadia Drake, “Based on @NASAKepler data, our galaxy has more than 10 billion rocky planets that live in the habitable zones of their stars.”  The guy from Science Fridays took that data and ran with it:

Second, some sources report that one of President Obama’s last acts in office will be to reveal groundbreaking info about the presence of alien intelligence. And, for her part, Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton has said she’s push for increased transparency into unexplained aerial phenomena — “I would like us to go into those files and hopefully make as much of that as public as possible.”

Some are calling these revelations the biggest news story ever. But, does that make the alien intelligence cover-up the most likely of the popular conspiracy theories to be verified?  Researchers asked the swarm, and this is what it said:

Who killed Kennedy?  No conspiracy-theory analysis would be complete without asking who killed JFK.  In this case, the swarm intelligence was torn between Oswald working alone, and the CIA having a hand in it.  You can see where the swarm converged blow:

It’s interesting to see how this decision was reached – two factions quickly formed, one in favor of a simple Oswald assasination, and one in favor of a black operation run by the CIA.  But as the swarm deliberated, the black-op conspiracy firmly won out:

And finally, what about Bigfoot?  Does the huge hairy guy exist, as suggested by all those grainy videos and plaster castings of massive footprints?  Researchers wanted to know, so they asked the swarm:

So, that settles it.  Bigfoot is fake.  Aliens are real.  And, even if it’s a mathematical certainty that alien life exists, according to the Swarm Intelligence, it’s even more likely that President Bush knew about 9/11. The truth is out there, people…

Swarms will continue to tackle these and other big questions. If you’d like to join a future swarm, or create your own, just drop by UNU or join our swarming mailing list here.