Now, it's not hard to love conspiracy theories, especially when you're someone who likes to break down coincidences and spin them to mean something far more intricate and exciting.
Well, Reddit users u/cristianoskhaleesi, u/pat_speed and u/S4b1692 asked Aussies to share their conspiracy theories about their cities, and TBH, I'm pretty hooked.
Here are our favourite responses!
1. "The Malls Balls [South Australia] are designed to soak up life-energy from passers-by. Every now and then, they are removed for 'maintenance,' but are actually being drained and the energy sent to Delaware in the US where it's converted into a life-prolonging tonic."
2. "The Victorian Parliamentary mace — missing since 1891 — is located in a prominent Melbourne brothel."
—u/hawthorne00
3. "Apparently, if you stop on the old wooden bridge at Galston Gorge [NSW] at 2 a.m. and turn your headlights off, you'll see a ghost of a young girl."
—u/pavlovs-tuna
4. "That Melbourne has a 'board' or 'brotherhood' that controls the direction of the city. It is politics-neutral, just rabid pro-Melbourne. One of their goals is to make Melbourne the largest and most famous city in Australia again at any cost."
5. "That certain buses fudge their locations so that they don't breach their contractual obligations. On multiple occasions, I've been standing outside of work a couple of minutes before it's due to arrive, monitoring the PTV app, and the bus 'passes my stop' a few minutes before it actually arrives. By the time it arrives, the bus is two or three stops ahead according to the app."
—u/beco8
6. "The Italian-looking guy on the bed ad at Tullamarine [Victoria] is actually a stock image and nothing to do with the bed brand."
7. "There is a fueled-up diesel train full of survival supplies on a secret station in the city loop under parliament house [in Victoria]. It was originally built in case the nukes were on their way and the politicians had to leave the city really quick."
8. "Hillsong Church not getting fined after holding that summer camp with dancing — even Dominic Perrottet was saying that he fully expected them to get fined, but the NSW police suddenly decided that they weren't breaching public health orders."
—u/pointless10
9. "Westfields and, in particular, Myers intentionally block cellular data to funnel you into using Westfield WiFi, or to prevent you from comparing prices online."
10. "Big cat/panther sightings. Humans are irresponsible enough to think having a panther is a cute idea, then not coping after it grows and releasing it. There were enough 'private zoos' back in the '70s and '80s that folded to make this plausible."
11. "The Wakehurst Parkway ghost/hauntings [NSW]. Between Seaforth and Narrabeen — it's supposedly Australia's most haunted road."
12. "Apparently in 1947, a flying saucer crashed in Moorabbin [Victoria] — and the airport was built up around it to disguise its presence. Since then, there has been numerous sightings of UFOS, in particular the Westall incident."
—u/Gedcog
13. "Kevin Rudd was pushed out of the prime ministership by lobbyists for the mining industry."
—u/Sir-Viette
14. "Northcote Plaza [Victoria] is the result of a tear in the space-time continuum that takes you back to 1995."
15. "The discovery of gold in Victoria was covered up briefly until the colony of Victoria could be founded, so that the wealth generated could flow into Melbourne and not Sydney."
—u/City_Master
16. "There are bodies hidden under the old petrol station at the corner of Grange Road and Tapleys Hill Road [South Australia], which is why it's been abandoned and untouched for what must be a decade or more by now."
—u/RPA031
17. "The military built an entire city under Adelaide. Heard that one in the '80s from a prominent South Australian Christian conspiracy theorist who had ties to an even more prominent New Zealand Christian conspiracy theorist."
18. "The basement level in Adelaide Arcade [South Australia] is secretly a catacomb full of skeletons. If you listen real closely, you might hear them play the xylophone."
—u/bippidip
19. "Toll way entrances are deliberately designed to funnel people into them and to create choke points for non-toll roads."
20. "That guy who talks into a microphone on Rundle Mall [Adelaide, South Australia] trying to get people come into the store died when John Martins closed, but every so often we see his ghost appear, still desperately trying to make us shop."
—u/Koonga
21. "I remember a rumour that the Westgate Bridge [Victoria] was in danger of falling down again, such that those in the know would never drive on it."
—u/dfbowen
22. "Flagstaff station [Victoria] isn’t real. The people that get on and off there are paid actors hired by PTV."
23. "The person who signed off on the Southern Expressway [South Australia] being a one way road was a time traveller from 1900 with obviously no clear foresight of population growth."
—u/sixthirty630
24. "Whilst there is no train line (underground or overground) to Tullamarine Airport [Victoria], there is an underground station."
—u/hawthorne00
25. "There are dead bodies concreted into the Harbour Bridge [NSW]."
—u/futurismus
26. "Woolies' select brand of aluminum foil is the same quality as the more expensive Multix brand."
27. "Senior NSW police co-owning racehorses with wealthy business interests is not an innocent misunderstanding."
—u/AOC__2024
28. "What happened at Engadine McDonald's after the Sharks lost the Grand Final in 1997."
—u/jiiiiiny
29. And finally, "The Mount White ghost is real. It was a phenomenon where traffic all slowed to 60km/hour on the F3 at Mount White [NSW] for no apparent reason. People referred to this as the 'Mount White Ghost' as drivers must have seen a ghost and slowed down, but by the time you got there, it was gone."
Did we miss any of your favourite conspiracy theories? Share them in the comments!
Reddit submissions have been edited for length and/or clarity.