The Kennedy assassination has been the focus of enduring conspiracy theories alleging that shadowy agents were responsible for the deed. Despite government investigations and untold private ones, no credible piece of evidence has tied anyone besides Lee Harvey Oswald to the deed.
The Kennedy killing is one of the few areas on conspiracy theory thought that has an “official account.” That phrase is normally used by conspiracy theorists to discredit the most mainstream notion and to pat themselves on the back for exposing the sinister ruse. But in this case, the Warren Commission report qualifies. Members concluded that Oswald acted alone, as did a House Selected Committee on Assassinations the following decade.
These days, with a thousand 24-7 social media sites needing to be fed, any even uneventful event – nice oxymoron there – can appeal to the conspiratorial minded. But previously, conspiracy theories centered mostly on major events and it’s hard to image anything more impactful than the first presidential assassination of the modern age.
Largely because of that, it is the one conspiracy theory that a majority of people believe. Contributing to that is that there are so man sub-categories to choose from. Most of them identify Oswald as the trigger man but consider him a stooge or at least as only one of many involved. J.D. Sword wrote for Skeptical Inquirer about a specific theory that puts blame on one of the old conspiracy theorist standbys, the Free Masons. Proponents feel the assassination constituted psychological warfare against U.S. citizens and was perpetrated by means of a Masonic rite. They posit that Kennedy’s assassination was the second part of an alchemical ritual. The first part, the destruction of Primordial Matter, occurred when the atom was split in White Sands, New Mexico.
The second goal of alchemy refers to the killing of the king, which believers assert applies to Kennedy. Proponents use any combination of places, dates, and especially numbers to shoe in a conclusion, no matter how remote or tenuous.
One example cited by Sword: “On the morning of November 22, they flew to Gate 28 at Love Field, Dallas, Texas. The number 28 is one of the correspondences of Solomon in kabbalistic numerology. … On the 28th degree is also Cape Canaveral from which the moon flight was launched—made possible not only by the President’s various feats but by his death as well, for the placing of Freemasons on the moon could occur only after the Killing of the King. The 28th degree of Templarism is the “King of the Sun” degree.”
All of this proves absolutely nothing, other than that proponents having elastic creativity and too much time on their hands, and a desperate to reach a desired conclusion. Their ideas makes little effort to even claim evidence. They just asserts symbolic meaning and assumes the existence of a clandestine, evil entity at work.