US Election 2024: The five most absurd conspiracy theories from dog-eating to sofa sex

This year's election cycle has proven to be one of the most conspiracy and fake news dominated in decades, with social media firms becoming trapped under a deluge of disinformation

The 2024 US election will likely go down as one of the most unique in history thanks to a host of unusual twists and turns, but also one of the most bizarre thanks to the almost as numerous conspiracy theories.

While this year's Democrat and Republican campaigns haven't been short of drama - with two assassination attempts on Donald Trump and a political switcheroo from Joe Biden to Kamala Harris - orbiting pockets of conspiracy have spawned on both sides that have ratcheted the existing chaos up tenfold.

Voters going to the polls today have to wade through a sea of fake news and online disinformation before they cast their ballot that has primarily been fed through social media. This landscape, while ultimately deemed dangerous for the state of democracy in the US, has produced some theories that are just too absurd to be believed.

The "Tartarian Empire"

During rallies held early on during his campaign, Donald Trump went on several particularly unusual tangents in which he focussed relentlessly on classical architecture in the US in beyond. In one rally he mused: "Beautiful columns built 200 years ago and 100 years ago, gorgeous columns. You say, how did they ever build them?

"How did they move them? They didn’t have the equipment to move them. They moved them through force of will." Most people quickly attributed the odd statements to his usual rambling, but some came to believe he had subscribed to a wild theory that emerged on the internet around a decade ago.

The theory stipulates that the human race in its current form did not build many of its architectural marvels, and instead inherited them from forgotten, hyper-advanced predecessors. Followers have suggested that a prospective returning Trump administration would return civilisation to its former glory. Trump has never publicly subscribed to the theory - nor mentioned it by name.

RFK Jr's creature comforts

Robert F Kennedy Junior, one of the last vestiges of the Kennedy dynasty, became a left-field third-party candidate this year and quickly rose to prominence, scooping an estimated one percent of the national vote. His campaign, while successful in some pockets, has turned out to be one of the weirdest features of the race as a whole.

The New York Times revealed in May that it had obtained records showing doctors found a small but full worm that had died in his brain and come to settle in a pocket of gray matter. It was later reported - but never confirmed - during the campaign that Kennedy ate a dog, beheaded a dead whale, and kept a freezer full of road kill. Kennedy himself later admitted to dumping the body of a bear cub in New Central Park.

JD Vance's sofa

Most conspiracy theories that have debuted during the latest campaign seem to have come from conservative corners and been directed at Democrats. But one verifiably untrue theory was directed at JD Vance, Donald Trump's running mate. Shortly after he was elevated to the position in July, one social media user claimed he had admitted to completing a bizarre sexual act.

X user @rickrudescalves wrote on the platform that they “can’t say for sure but [Vance] might be the first vp pick to have admitted in a ny times bestseller to f***ing an inside-out latex glove shoved between two couch cushions (vance, hillbilly elegy, pp. 179-181).” The claim was an outright lie, with Vance having never written such a passage in his book. But it nevertheless spread like wildfire across the internet.

'They're eating the dogs'

One bizarre and overtly racist conspiracy theory that should never have gained ground but ultimately did was a suggestion by Donald Trump and his running mate JD Vance that Haitian migrants were killing and eating pets in Springfield, a small town in Ohio. The claim - which was initially spread by Vance citing false "reports" in his state - was repeated by Trump on live television in September.

During his first and only presidential debate with Kamala Harris, Trump said: “In Springfield, they’re eating the dogs — the people that came in - they’re eating the cats.” While the outburst was mercilessly mocked online, it caused real-world harm, with numerous bomb threats reported across Springfield and Haitian residents left fearing for their safety.

Democrats sent two deadly storms

The American South was rustled by two deadly storms this autumn, one of which, Hurricane Helene, killed an estimated 200 people and devastated dozens of miles worth of land. As those storms fell, conservative influencers started a deadly parallel campaign during which they suggested that Democrats had sent the storms to punish their political enemies.

They urged people to kill meteorologists who did not back their dangerous claims, and even advocated for the disruption of federal disaster aid. The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) was also beset by false rumours suggesting it had run out of money because it was supporting undocumented immigrants who were arriving in the US.