Conspiracy theories and the McCanns

A few years ago I found myself in the strange position of being the only person in the room who knew the exact answer to a mystery.

The mystery was no big deal, but it was perplexing enough for everyone present to want to speculate. However, for reasons that are too long and boring to go into I was unable to reveal what I knew.

What astonished me was how the conspiracy instinct kicked in big time. I listened in disbelief as the suggestions grew increasingly ludicrous and bizarre.

People weren't joking. They genuinely believed their theory provided a credible explanation.

What also astonished me was how people would conveniently ignore the facts at hand to advance their own preposterous ideas. Science or logic wasn't going to spoil a good conspiracy theory.

As this was happening I noticed two interesting things.

First, how many of the theories were built around the theorist's personal prejudices and obsessions.

Second, how trivial and irrelevant details that had absolutely no bearing on the mystery were pored over and picked apart to prove the theorist right. Patterns were seen and connections made that were mostly non-existent and certainly had no relation to the mystery under consideration.

All this brings me to the McCanns.

I was reading a chatroom page devoted to this unfortunate case and it was extraordinary to see the ridiculous and paranoid explanations literally hundreds of people were giving to explain the disappearance of Madeleine.

Many of them were cherry picking the facts to fit their own paranoid view of what happened, conveniently dispensing with science or logic.

The fact is none of us has a clue what happened. We weren't present at the scene. We don't know the family.

A complicated murder and cover up in the style of Agatha Christie would make for a great news story, but my suspicion is that the truth in this case (as with my own mystery) could be a whole lot simpler.

But of course that's just my personal prejudice showing through.