JFK Jr.

John F. Kennedy, Jr. was born into the spotlight and remained a public fixture until his untimely death at the age of 38. The NTSB concluded that John crashed his private plane – with his wife, Carolyn, and sister-in-law Lauren on board – due to pilot error, bad weather, and spatial disorientation. But some still suspect foul play. Could John’s future plans… or the secrets he knew… have made him a target? Keep up with Conspiracy Theories! Instagram: @⁠theconspiracypod⁠TikTok: ⁠⁠⁠⁠@conspiracy.pod⁠ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

• 0:06Speaker 00

  Oh, okay, uh, looks like we're starting off with a bit of trivia today, folks. Who was named People Magazine's Sexiest Man Alive back in 1988? Alright, um, let me guess.

• 0:20Speaker 00

  Oh, Tom Cruise! No, okay, ah. Tom Selleck. No? Really? I mean, come on, with that mustache? Uh...

• 0:33Speaker 00

  It wasn't... It wasn't me. Carter Roy, was it? I think I would've remembered that.

• 0:40Speaker 00

  Ah, yeah, no, right. People's Sexiest Man Alive that year was not an actor. He was actually a third-year law student living in New York with a very famous name: John F. Kennedy Jr. John is a celebrity from the moment he's born. He's surrounded by famous relatives, but as he grows up, what he wants more than anything is to forge his own path, to prove he's more than a name and that he is not to be defined by the tragedies he's endured. And then, in 1999, at the age of 38, John is piloting a single-engine plane

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  when it goes missing over the Atlantic Ocean. His life is cut short, just like his father and his uncle before him. The abrupt and mysterious nature of JFK Jr.'s death means people don't just jump to conclusions. They fling themselves at every possible theory, some of which are admittedly hard to buy. Other theories, however...

• 1:51Speaker 00

  Do make me wonder, was John's name powerful enough for somebody to want to kill him? What secrets did John know about his father's assassination? And who would have the most to gain by silencing him? Welcome to Conspiracy Theories, a Spotify podcast. I'm Carter Roy. New episodes come out every Wednesday. We would love to hear from you. So if you're listening on the Spotify app, swipe up and give us your thoughts, or check us out on Instagram at the conspiracy pod. Stay with us. And later, we have a special story update about Havana syndrome.

• 2:34Speaker 00

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• 3:12Speaker 00

  Learn more or request a prescription today at Cologuard.com/screen. When John F. Kennedy Jr. is born in November of 1960, he is, as his biographer Stephen Gillan calls him, "the most famous infant in America." His father is the president-elect of the United States. And if you're a fan of this show, you probably know what happens three years later. After JFK is assassinated in Dallas, Texas in 1963, John Jr., affectionately known to the world as John John, is photographed saluting JFK's casket.

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  This moment actually happens on John's third birthday, and it becomes one of the most iconic images in US history. John, his mother Jackie, and his sister Caroline will always strive to honor the Kennedy legacy.

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  And yet, this image of John-John salute will also pigeonhole him for the rest of his life. From a very young age, he becomes a living symbol of what his father stood for, and a very nostalgic time for many Americans. According to some theories, John's status as a living symbol of a better world will make him a target. But before we get into the theories about John's death, there are some details you need to know about his life. As a young child, John moves away from the prying eyes of Washington DC to New York City. His mother tries her best to keep her kids out of the spotlight and to give them

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  a regular childhood. Well, as regular as it can be when you have nannies, assistants, expansive family compounds, etc., etc. But by pretty much all accounts, Jackie's plan works. John grows into someone who's compassionate, down-to-earth, and despite the weight on his shoulders, shockingly carefree, which does at times translate into some risky behavior. It's always in the name of adventure, though. After graduating college, John goes on a literal treasure hunt to explore a shipwreck, and is nearly buried alive under a mound

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  of sand. He later takes a girlfriend on a dangerous kayaking trip that almost gets them maimed. But the close calls never slow him down. John seems incapable of staying in one place, including when it comes to his career. As I mentioned earlier, John goes to law school. After his treasure hunting trip, he studies for the bar exam. Doesn't exactly sound like big news, right? Except it is if your last name is Kennedy and you fail the bar. Twice. Tabloids track his progress, or lack thereof, the same way they follow his dating life, which, by the way, includes celebrity girlfriends like Madonna, Sarah

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  Jessica Parker, and Daryl Hannah. On his third attempt at the bar, he passes, and he goes on to have a successful, albeit short, legal career. He wins all six cases he tries. But once again, the press portrays him as a caricature. He's gone from little John John with his sad salute to JFK Junior, the handsome face who's too busy with women to focus on his job. It's not really an accurate portrayal, so I imagine it gets to him. And he decides that now, more than ever, it's time to prove himself. Which is why he comes up with George.

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  George magazine is years in the making. In 1988, John and his business partner, Michael Berman, start drumming up ideas. They want to launch something big. They're not sure what exactly. Fun fact, one of John's early pitches is a service where clients can rent dogs in need of a home. Honestly, the man was ahead of his time. Eventually, they land on a magazine that blends politics and lifestyle, and John is in a unique position to lead it. He's lived within the sphere of politics his whole life. Plus, his mom is now a respected book editor.

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  George, named after President Washington, is billed as post-partisan. John wants it to be, quote, "informational, not ideological." The goal is to make politics accessible. Break down barriers and make people see the humanity that can and does exist in the world of politics. George debuts in late 1995 with John as editor in chief. Right out of the gate, it's a huge success. The first issue, featuring Cindy Crawford dressed as George Washington on the cover, sells nearly half a million copies. The second issue, only slightly fewer.

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  There's advertising money out the wazoo. The magazine graces coffee tables everywhere. It feels like John has finally gotten the success he's wanted for so long.

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  But it's fleeting. By the late 90s, George is still selling copies, but they aren't pulling in enough advertisers, which means less money and George isn't profitable. John's not giving up. In fact, he's trying to finagle his way into the burgeoning business of digital magazines online, but if he can't make that work, George may run out of money. And that's not the only stressor in his life. Let me backtrack for a second. In the mid 90s, John is dating actress Daryl Hannah. They've had their issues, but things really come to a head when John's mother Jackie dies

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  in May of 1994, and John bears the task of breaking the news to the world.

• 9:29Speaker 01

  She was surrounded by her friends and her family and her books and the people and the things that she loved, and she did it in her own way and on her own terms, and we all feel lucky for that.

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  The loss puts things into perspective, as death always does, and John breaks up with Daryl. He begins dating in earnest another woman he'd already met, Carolyn Basette. Charming and statuesque, Carolyn works in fashion. John reportedly loves her fierce independence. He sees someone who can hold her own, who won't be swayed by his or his family's fame. Their romance is intense, but the passion seems to go both ways. And they're always either madly in love or fighting, sometimes publicly, and their

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  arguments are often secretly photographed and splashed across the tabloids. For John, it's an annoyance he's used to. For Carolyn, the paparazzi, the constant attention and scrutiny is a lot to get used to. After they hold a secret wedding in September of 1996, John and Carolyn hope the press will stop bothering them. But what happens is very much the opposite. Photographers follow her everywhere. She feels like she can barely leave her home. By 1999, when George magazine is faltering, reports suggest that John and Carolyn's marriage is failing too.

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  Now, whether or not they're heading for divorce is pure speculation. Close friends say they've been fighting, which is nothing new, and that John is living in a hotel at the moment, which is also nothing new. But that brings us to the evening of July 16, 1999. John and Carolyn's last night alive. John arrives at the Essex County Airport in New Jersey around 8:00 PM. Along with all his other thrill-seeking hobbies, he's a licensed pilot. Having his own plane makes the frequent trips between New York and the Kennedy compounds in Massachusetts much faster and more private.

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  Tonight, John and Carolyn are heading to Hyannis Port for a family wedding. After some heated arguments in the past few days, she has agreed to attend. She doesn't want to draw more unwanted attention to their marriage. Before they get there, they'll be making one quick stop first. Carolyn's sister Lauren Bissette is coming along for the ride, and John plans to drop her off in Martha's Vineyard. It's a flight he's made many times before. Usually, though, John takes off earlier in the evening. See, he's still flying under what's called VFR, or Visual Flight Rules. It means he relies on visuals, like the horizon,

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  the coastline, and the city lights below, to navigate, as opposed to relying solely on his instruments. But traffic getting out of the city that night is a beast. He's running late, and Carolyn is even later. As John makes his final preparations to his single-engine Piper Saratoga, dusk is already falling.

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  At 8:38 PM, the local air traffic control tower clears John for takeoff. He acknowledges their instructions, and after that, John, Carolyn, and Lauren are never heard from again. Before they reach Martha's Vineyard, their plane vanishes. A massive search gets underway the next day. The eyes of the world watch as days pass. Debris washes up on a beach on Martha's Vineyard. A suitcase, seat cushions, portions of a small aircraft.

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  Hope fades, and then, on July 20th, four days after their disappearance, the plane is found in pieces along the ocean floor about eight miles from its destination. Along with it, still in their seats, are the bodies of John F. Kennedy Jr., Carolyn Bissett Kennedy, and Lauren Bissett.

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  Divers located the wreckage and the victims in about 120 feet of water off the tip of Martha's Vineyard. They were led to the site by underwater robots and side-scanned sonar equipment, devices towed by the Navy recovery ship GRASP, which bounce sound waves off the bottom of the sea.

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  The nation struggles to face this tragedy. I remember when it happened. It wasn't exactly like the Space Shuttle Challenger explosion when I was a kid, where everyone was like, "I knew where I was," but it has that same sense of the whole nation collectively rallying around this moment, being aware it happened. There's this pervasive feeling like, "How could this have happened? How could we lose another young Kennedy and two brilliant women to a freak accident?" That is, assuming it really was an accident, or that John really did die.

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  In July of 1999, the deaths of JFK Junior, his wife Carolyn Bissett Kennedy, and her sister Lauren Bissett is the top story.

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  A final farewell at sea for three young lives taken so tragically. This morning, a mournful procession of family members from the Kennedys and the Bissetts embarked on a sad mission to cast ashes of those they loved to the ocean. For many people watching from the shoreline, just being nearby was important.

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  This is where they went down, and it's the most appropriate place to be.

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  It almost seems like it is like a jinx or something, huh? I don't know how you would put it.

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  This one, I don't know how we cope. It's almost too much.

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  The wreckage is hoisted to the surface, then turned over to the National Transportation Safety Board, or NTSB, for the official investigation. Already, there's a question on a lot of people's minds. Could somebody have crashed John's plane intentionally? He's a huge celebrity, from perhaps the most famous political family in America. And the public isn't alone. The NTSB goes into this investigation, knowing they have to look into foul play. They check for evidence of tampering, sabotage, or even telltale signs of a bomb.

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  But when they piece together all of the wreckage, they've got about 75% of the plane, the evidence says everything was working fine. Until it crashed into the water. The wreckage was found close together, indicating the plane did not break up in midair. The engine was in working order, so were all the instruments and the control cables. According to the NTSB, there are no signs of mechanical failure. Which means, they have to look to the pilot. John had been flying planes since 1982, nearly 17 years. He wasn't always consistent with his lessons, though.

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  In fact, he'd had several different instructors, but he had been flying a lot more over the past year and a half. Fifteen months before the accident, John got his private pilot's license. Since then, he'd made this exact same flight from Jersey to Martha's Vineyard 35 times. About half of those, he made with an instructor onboard. The rest were solo, and five were at night. In total, he'd logged over 300 flight hours. So, not an expert, but he was definitely no rookie. However, flying in the dark is obviously risky.

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  What might start out as a clear night can get hazy or cloudy fast, especially in the summer, when it's humid. The NTSB finds that John did check the weather before his flight, and not just, you know, on any old random dial-up website. He input a special user code to access an official portal with detailed weather conditions for pilots. But he did this before leaving his office that day in New York City, around 6:30, over two hours before he ended up taking off. So if John was mid-flight when a patch of haze formed, he might have lost the visuals

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  he needed to navigate. He would therefore need what's called an instrument rating, meaning he'd need to be certified to rely solely on his plane's instruments when he can't see anything. John was halfway through working on getting that rating, but he did not have it yet. The NTSB maps out John's route to find out exactly where things went wrong. But he did not file a flight plan, and honestly, as long as nothing's going wrong, air traffic control wouldn't typically monitor a small plane that closely. So they have to rely on radar data to piece together his path.

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  John's Piper Saratoga flew east, northeast, from New Jersey to New York to Connecticut, then followed along the coastline up to Rhode Island. Flying along the coast when you're a visual flyer is smart. As he cruised along at 5,500 feet, he could see the lights below on land. But when he turned and set out over the Rhode Island Sound, heading for Martha's Vineyard, he ran into a problem, which experts believe was a combination of bad weather and pilot error. They think the last moments of John's flight went something like this. It's dark.

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  A sudden haze forms obscuring the horizon. He can't tell where the water ends and the sky begins. Up, down, left, right, it all looks the same. And maybe, to make things worse, he looks away for a moment, perhaps to tune his radio, trying to find out what's going on with the weather. At some point, the fluid in his inner ear starts playing tricks on him. He can no longer pinpoint his location, where he is in relation to the water. It's called spatial disorientation, and it can be extremely dangerous. His senses are essentially lying to him.

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  We're so used to relying on what we see and hear, and in this moment, what John sees isn't real. Pilots who do have their instrument rating say it's incredibly difficult to learn to trust what your instruments are telling you when your mind is screaming something different. The plane begins to descend slowly but unevenly toward the water. Around 9:38 PM, an hour into the flight, John makes an inexplicable turn to the right. Now he's heading south, the wrong direction. He must realize something's wrong. Once he's down to 2,200 feet, he begins to climb. Thirty seconds later, he levels off.

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  He banks left and climbs again.

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  But then he descends again and banks hard to the right. Experts think he's trying to pull the tip of the plane up to go higher. But he's spinning in a tight turn now. And if his wings aren't level, John would enter what's called a graveyard spiral. He thinks he's going up, but he's really flying down to the water at 4,700 feet per minute. Until the plane crashes going 200 miles per hour. The NTSB concludes the probable cause was, quote, "The pilots' failure to maintain

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  control of the airplane during a descent over water at night, which was a result of spatial disorientation. Factors in the accident were haze and the dark night." End quote. Now, this comes out about a year after the accident. Does everybody accept this answer? Without question? Of course not. No, people are cut deep by this tragedy and in that year since it happened, plenty of alternate theories have spread across the internet. One of my favorites, that the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider at Brookhaven National Laboratory on Long Island is in some way responsible.

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  Now, this collider won't even be fully operational until the year 2000. But while it's being built, there are concerns about unforeseen consequences. Like creating black holes. Sound familiar? Yeah. It's a lot like the theories about CERN's Large Hadron Collider located in Switzerland, which has been blamed for allegedly causing everything from earthquakes to thrusting us all into another dimension.

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  As for the collider on Long Island, well, people aren't quite sure what it's capable of, but maybe during some kind of testing, it interfered with John's plane, like on a subatomic level. Just three days after the plane went missing, the director of the laboratory actually had to release a statement denying their ability to, say, turn a Piper Saratoga into a hypothetical soup of strange matter. Other early theories are a little more concrete. Right off the bat, people noticed similarities to another

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  plane crash that happened just a few years earlier. The explosion of TWA Flight 800. Like this woman interviewed on Martha's Vineyard mere days after John went missing.

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  Three years ago, we were on the same beach. We were vacationing with the children before I had my baby. And it was the same kind of, you know, the atmosphere in the air was the same way when we found out about Flight 800.

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  We've covered TWA Flight 800 in the past. If you want to listen to that episode, I'm sure we can link it in the description. I know some people. Essentially, it was a commercial airliner that broke up in midair after leaving JFK Airport, and 230 lives were lost in the Atlantic Ocean. It happened around the same time of day as John's crash, at 8:31 PM, and it took place on the evening of July 17, 1996, which means John disappeared exactly one day shy of the three-year anniversary. The NTSB's extensive investigation on the

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  TWA case found that a random spark caused the fuel tank to explode, but a lot of people still don't buy that explanation. One theory alleges that a US Navy missile accidentally shot down the airliner. There were even witnesses who claimed they saw something suspicious in the air that night. The same happens in John's case. There are early reports that at least two people witnessed a flash or explosion around the time John's plane fell off the radar. A lawyer who we'll call Norman said he was night fishing off the southern tip of Martha's Vineyard

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  on July 16th when he heard a loud bang. He thought it sounded like there'd been an explosion, maybe four miles away. As a reminder, John's plane was found about eight miles off the coast. Others say they remember watching a reporter from the Vineyard Gazette appear on a live newscast right after the plane vanished. And he supposedly saw a "big white flash in the sky" that night near Philbin Beach. The same spot where debris later washed up. It's yet another similarity to the Flight 800 case. The difference?

• 26:44Speaker 00

  Well, with Flight 800, there were far more witnesses. Over 730 of them. And honestly, nobody seems to have successfully tracked down that reporter from the Vineyard Gazette or the clip where he appeared on the news. But in 1999, when John's plane goes down, the Flight 800 case is still being talked about. The NTSB just sat for a congressional hearing two months earlier. There's already some level of distrust. Some portion of the population who believe the NTSB is capable of taking part in a massive cover-up. When the report on John's accident comes out, people are quick to pick apart certain

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  details. Several of them, actually, but let's focus on three. Number one, the fact that John never makes contact with the outside world after takeoff. John is in the air for a full hour without speaking to air traffic control or a flight service station. It's not unheard of, but get this. Less than 15 minutes into the flight, John's plane gets a little too close to an American Airlines commercial flight coming in for a landing. Air traffic control contacts the American Airlines pilot and instructs him to descend to avoid a close call. On top of that, the NTSB says John later flew into bad weather.

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  You'd think that at some point, he'd radio someone to advise him. Is it more risky behavior on John's part? Did John speak to somebody after all, during his flight? Who wasn't included in the official report for some reason? Or, as some have suggested, could something have gone wrong with his radio? When the wreckage of his Piper Saratoga was examined, investigators found that his radio was still tuned to the frequency 127.25. If John was looking for updated weather information coming straight from the Martha's Vineyard Airport,

• 28:59Speaker 00

  well, he was one number off. The correct frequency he needed was 126.25. And honestly, this part of the story raises some questions, even for me and my team. He'd made this flight numerous times before, right? He should know the correct number. Now, I have no way of knowing if he'd accessed that weather station in the past. Maybe he never really needed to. But, let's say you're in your car, looking for a station you haven't listened to in a while. You know, back before we all had smartphones. And you turn the dial to the station, but you only get static. What do you do?

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  Toggle the dial a little to the left and the right, trying to find the frequency, right? Could that explain what happened here? Okay, sure, John is probably panicking. Maybe he's not thinking clearly. But it is odd that he's so close, just one digit off. Now, the NTSB tested his radio and reported that it was still operational. And they found no evidence that anything onboard his plane was sabotaged.

• 30:11Speaker 00

  So unfortunately, this one is kind of a dead end. That brings me to the second part of the reports not everybody agrees with. The weather. Some say it was not as hazy as the NTSB reported. Documentarian John Hankey, who directed Dark Legacy, says his research showed that it was a clear night. To his point, the NTSB does quote the tower manager from the Martha's Vineyard Airport who said, "The visibility, present weather, and sky condition at the approximate time of the accident was probably a little better than what was being reported."

• 30:54Speaker 00

  The tower manager remembered seeing stars that night and another plane that landed using a visual approach without a problem. On the other hand, there is a good deal of evidence that the weather truly was bad and that a thick patch of haze rolled in from nowhere. Another pilot flying in the vicinity that night reported hazy conditions. A second said conditions were clear at his altitude, 14,000 feet, much higher than John was flying, but that as he flew over Martha's Vineyard, he looked down and couldn't see a thing. He actually thought the whole island might have had a power failure.

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  Then there's Kyle Bailey, a pilot who was the last person to see John, Carolyn, and Lauren alive. Kyle was at Essex County Airport preparing his own plane for a flight to Martha's Vineyard, just like John. But Kyle decided against making the flight at the last second due to weather concerns. He could already tell the hazy, hot, and humid air might cause problems.

• 32:11Speaker 00

  So, not everybody encountered bad weather that night, but enough pilots did to suggest that John could have gotten blindsided by thick haze. Number three in our list of questions regards John's autopsy. Okay, so I mentioned earlier that the wreckage was located on July 20th, four days after the crash. The bodies of John, Carolyn, and Lauren were raised to the surface the next day, July 21st, around 4:30 in the afternoon. That same night, the chief medical examiner performed the autopsy. Then the three victims were immediately cremated,

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  and their ashes were scattered at sea the next morning. The family gave this reasoning, they didn't want to risk any spectacle. That hasn't stopped people from asking why the autopsy appeared to be so rushed. A thorough autopsy can reveal any number of surprises, like undiagnosed health issues, heart attacks, strokes, and so forth, that could contribute to a crash. It's an important part of any accident investigation, not something you'd normally want to hurry through. But, that could just be the power of the Kennedy name.

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  I will clarify that John's full autopsy report and notes haven't been released to the public. His death certificate is circulating out there, which lists his cause of death as simply multiple traumatic injuries. I have to wonder if people sometimes confuse the death certificate with the coroner's report. The toxicology report, though, well, that's a different story. The tox report was released by the NTSB. It's a single page long, and some people question its findings.

• 34:15Speaker 00

  Two of the tests weren't performed at all. It found no drugs or alcohol in John's system. And, well, let me take you back to June 1st, 1999, about six and a half weeks before the plane crash. John, who always loves a thrill, is flying, but not in a plane. He's in this contraption called an ultra-light aircraft. It's like an open paraglider with a seat. And it kind of looks like something Da Vinci might have dreamed up if he were alive in the 1980s. Anyway, John flies it straight into a tree, and miraculously, he only breaks his ankle. He has surgery the next day. And for several weeks after that,

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  he has to wear a cast and then one of those giant boots, which gets removed just one day before his fatal accident. Now, you might be saying, "Excuse me? What? Why are you only mentioning this now?" And I get it, but his medical records noted that John could put full pressure on his ankle when his cast came off. And despite not having full range of motion in his ankle, his surgeon said on record that John should have been able to operate the plane normally. So, what does this have to do with the toxicology report? Well, some have suggested

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  he would probably have managed his pain with painkillers. So why weren't any detected? Certain painkillers would stay in his system for days. But here's what I noticed. The NTSB report also says that his doctor never prescribed him any painkillers after his surgery. So if he took a mild over-the-counter drug, that might not have been detectable on the toxicology screening. Okay, so those are what I see as the three most questionable parts of the official report. And they all have some kind of logical answer.

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  Whether you buy it or not, there are those who say anything you read to back up the official story could have been manipulated. This is a Kennedy we're talking about here, who was arguably in the best position to pick up where his father's legacy ended. I mean, after the assassinations of RFK and JFK, new revelations have certainly called those official stories into question. Is it so wild to think someone could be manipulating the information coming out about John's crash?

• 37:03Speaker 00

  Someone or some organization who might want John out of the picture? Okay, remember how the NTSB considered early on in their investigation that John's plane crash could have been caused by foul play? Given his status as both a celebrity and the poster child of American politics, it was a real possibility. John had already been the target of three kidnapping plots over the years, the most recent in 1995, four years before he died.

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  It's unclear how serious these attempts were, or if John even knew about them, but some believe the real threat could have come from within the US government by an organization that has been accused of allegedly conspiring in the two known Kennedy assassinations: the CIA. November 22nd, 1963. John Jr. is two, going on three years old when his father, President John F. Kennedy, is shot dead while his motorcade parades through Dealey Plaza in Dallas, Texas. One week later, the new president, Lyndon Johnson, orders a special committee to investigate the assassination.

• 38:29Speaker 00

  The Warren Commission concludes that Lee Harvey Oswald acted as the lone gunman and was not part of any conspiracy to kill the president. But of course Oswald has already been killed on live TV no less by Jack Ruby. So Oswald can't provide any further information. Early on, the CIA denies any meaningful prior knowledge of Oswald or his activities. But over the years, they've had to walk that claim back again and again. Example, unredacted documents released in 2025 proved that a CIA agent named George

• 39:10Speaker 00

  Joannides was covertly working with a student organization in contact with Oswald three months before JFK was killed. Nowadays, it's no secret that JFK had no love for the CIA, and especially after the disastrous Bay of Pigs invasion. He forced out CIA Director Allen Dulles and a newly declassified memo from Arthur Schlesinger, one of JFK's advisors, critique the CIA's clandestine operations and called for a quote, "fairly drastic rearrangement of our present intelligence setup." All of this might explain why the CIA is at the heart of so many conspiracy theories

• 39:55Speaker 00

  surrounding the JFK assassination. After JFK's death, Robert F. Kennedy became like a father figure to his nephew John Junior. Under his brother's presidency, RFK had acted as Attorney General. And at the time of his assassination at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles in 1968, when John was seven years old, RFK was running for president. He's also found to be killed by a lone gunman, Sirhan Sirhan, who later claims he doesn't remember shooting Robert Kennedy. In fact, he says he may have been hypnotized and brainwashed.

• 40:39Speaker 00

  Like the plot of the Manchurian Candidate. And, just as with JFK's death, details surrounding RFK's assassination don't always add up. Like how witnesses saw Sirhan standing in front of RFK a few feet away, which doesn't square with the autopsy findings that Robert was fatally shot at point-blank range from behind, suggesting there may have been a second shooter, a claim made by multiple witnesses to the assassination, including one man who was shot in the head by Sirhan. Now, just who was this alleged second shooter?

• 41:20Speaker 00

  Independent researchers have tried and failed to find a clear connection between the CIA and the death of Robert Kennedy. But he and JFK were both disruptors. They threatened the status quo for a lot of powerful people and agencies. So much so, that a lot of people think they could have been killed as a result.

• 41:45Speaker 00

  Okay, you might be thinking, "Uh, hold on, wait a second. JFK and RFK were prominent politicians. John Junior had never run for public office. He was the editor of a failing magazine, right?" Well, according to John's close friends, he'd been thinking about his move into politics for a long time. He was talking about making that move soon. His whole life, people had bugged John about when he would go into politics. The idea followed him around like a shadow. And then, something happens in 1988 that seems to whet his political appetite.

• 42:27Speaker 00

  He introduces his uncle, Senator Ted Kennedy, at the Democratic National Convention.

• 42:33Speaker 00

  John gets a huge standing ovation before he even opens his mouth to speak. When he does talk, people are sure that he has a future in politics. It's only a matter of John deciding when. Some say he plans to run for Senator of New York in 2000, and that this actually makes him a target of the Clinton family, since Hillary Clinton ends up running for and winning that seat. Except, that theory has been repeatedly debunked. Some of John's friends suggest he considered running for the Senate, but, as a friend of the Clintons', he stepped back once he learned about Hillary's intentions.

• 43:17Speaker 00

  He may have even been disappointed about having to do so, but then, he decides he doesn't want to be a legislator. He wants to be in the pilot seat. He wants to be in the executive branch. The night before he dies, John goes to a Yankees game with friends, and insinuates that he's planning to run for Governor of New York in 2002. Presumably, that gives him enough time to right the ship, to get his business and his marriage back on solid ground first. John's biographer, Stephen Gillan, a historian and personal friend of John's,

• 43:58Speaker 00

  believes he would have then planned to run for President someday. Think about it. An extremely handsome, young Kennedy, running for President. And not just any Kennedy. The only son of JFK. By many accounts, he's considered a popular president. He may have had his faults, but in the years since his death, he's become this almost mythical figure. There's this sweeping nostalgia for the idealism and simpler times that JFK represented, which John very well could have campaigned on. Unless, perhaps, someone thought it might be easier

• 44:43Speaker 00

  to remove that kind of political force before he ever had a chance to rise to power. As for any proof the CIA was involved in covering up an intentional plane crash...

• 44:59Speaker 00

  There is none that I can corroborate. Anyway, there's only the belief that if this was a cover-up, the strings had to have been pulled by an organization as powerful as the CIA, and the reluctance of a grieving nation to accept that John John, the little boy who famously saluted his father's coffin back in 1963, could have died in such an ordinary way, which might help explain why a very small but vocal faction doesn't believe John is even dead at all. Let's jump ahead to November 2021. A crowd of hundreds waits

• 45:44Speaker 00

  anxiously on the grassy knoll in Dealey Plaza. A lot of these people might not know each other, at least not in person. They're members of QAnon, who believe that today is the day John F. Kennedy Jr. will reemerge alive, because he never really died onboard that plane back in 1999. Possibly, the crowd thinks, John will then introduce his father. A celebration will break out right then and there, and John will announce that he will be Donald Trump's vice president as Trump is reinstated in the White House.

• 46:27Speaker 00

  It's a fringe theory, held by a tiny percentage of the QAnon community, in part because, well, even the mysterious Q denied that John was still alive. John and his father do not end up returning on that November day. Seems to me that if JFK were to suddenly come back, his top priority might not be parading around Dealey Plaza. But the whole thing is indicative of how the Kennedy mythos opens the door to pretty much any theory under the sun. Their influence, their power, their hold over history and pop culture for decades, really does

• 47:10Speaker 00

  make it feel impossible that they could be taken down by a lone gunman, or a simple mistake behind the controls of a private plane.

• 47:22Speaker 00

  Kyle Bailey, the pilot who was the last person to see John alive, says there probably isn't any singular cause for John's accident. As in so many plane crashes, it was a string of unfortunate events lined up like a row of dominoes. The weather, stress from his business, his marriage, even from running late, his experience with taking risks, and his inexperience with flying on a hazy night. The dominoes simply toppled over.

• 47:58Speaker 00

  But I do want to say one last thing. Some have suggested that John may have been open to conspiracy theories about his father's death. To be clear, he always refused to speak publicly on the subject. Even in private, friends felt it was off limits. However, a high school girlfriend reportedly wrote that as a teenager, John wanted to make sure that anybody behind his father's death was brought to justice. And his biographer distinctly remembers John saying once that, quote, "Bobby knew everything," referring to his uncle, Robert Kennedy,

• 48:39Speaker 00

  and perhaps suggesting he knew more than had been released to the public, regardless of what John personally believed, or how much he talked about it. If he did someday run for president and got elected, he presumably would have gained access to confidential files about JFK's assassination. If you had access to top-secret information concerning the murder of your father and your uncle, who is like a father to you, would you be able to keep your curiosity at bay? Or would you wield your power to see the complete and unredacted files? And if those files revealed any kind of cover-up at any level,

• 49:25Speaker 00

  who would you feel more loyalty to? The people who knew about the murder? Or your family? If the files really could reveal some shadowy corner of the government was responsible for the assassination,

• 49:40Speaker 00

  do you think they'd risk being found out?

• 49:50Speaker 00

  And there's one more thing we have for you. There might finally be an explanation for Havana Syndrome, the mysterious neurological illness affecting US government officials and their families. Turns out, the governments may have been hiding the truth this entire time. You might remember our episode on Havana Syndrome from 2023. Recently, it's back in the news. We've been following the story and wanted to do an update because, wow, a lot has happened. Refresher: Back in 2016, government workers at the US Embassy in Havana,

• 50:29Speaker 00

  Cuba began hearing odd, high-pitched sounds. During and after, they experienced symptoms including headaches, vertigo, and reduced cognitive function. Many of the victims, who some people allege are spies, believe they were targeted by a Russian sonic weapon. The weapon shot microwaves, causing brain injuries. And yes, it does sound like it's straight out of a James Bond movie. In fact, so much so that in 2022 and 23, the US government report said that sonic and microwave weapons were unlikely to be the cause. They would

• 51:10Speaker 00

  be too big, too visible, and require too much power to actually implement. Havana Syndrome was the result of unrelated anomalies, not foreign attacks. And that is still the official story as of 2026. But new allegations suggest the government may have said that to protect the status quo. It recently came out that in 2024, a Norwegian scientist might have accidentally proved this conspiracy theory true.

• 51:45Speaker 00

  Allegedly, he followed classified blueprints that had been stolen from a foreign government and followed them, hoping to prove that this kind of weapon was harmless. Instead, he accidentally gave himself Havana Syndrome. And according to The Washington Post, both the Pentagon and the White House investigated. Because they were in the market for one of these devices. Both The Washington Post and 60 Minutes recently reported that the Biden administration secretly spent around $15 million to buy a portable sonic weapon.

• 52:26Speaker 00

  They bought it from Russian underground arms dealers, and President Trump may have confirmed it in a press conference. He referenced a portable microwave energy weapon called a discombobulator. That's certainly a name. And said he wasn't allowed to talk about it. But revealed that US forces used the weapon to kidnap the president of Venezuela. But according to suffering Havana Syndrome victims, the official line has remained, "There is no sonic weapon that can do this to you." This is all coming to light because former CIA officers are finally sharing what they saw.

• 53:11Speaker 00

  And they have two main theories why the truth might have been brushed under the rug. One, the CIA wanted to keep agents calm and focused on their missions and not have them freaking out that they and their families would be attacked. Two, the Pentagon didn't want to go to war with Russia. Confirming a Russian attack would mandate defensive action. As these former CIA operatives told 60 Minutes, quote, "This is a massive CIA cover-up." And this is one of those cases that's so crazy to me because it involves the history of the CIA, which we know has many conspiracy theories in it. But it's unfolding in real time.

• 53:54Speaker 00

  It is happening right now and having impacts on our lives and the geopolitical situations of the moment. So, I don't know about you, but we will keep following this story. Let us know what you think in the comments. Thank you for listening to Conspiracy Theories. We're here with a new episode every Wednesday. Be sure to check us out on Instagram @TheConspiracyPod. If you're watching on Spotify, swipe up and give us your thoughts. For more information on John F. Kennedy Jr., amongst the many sources we used, we found Stephen M. Gillan's biography, "America's Reluctant Prince: The Life of John F. Kennedy

• 54:35Speaker 00

  Jr.", along with A&E's "JFK Jr.: The Final Year", and the series "Mayday Air Disaster", extremely helpful to our research. Until next time, remember, the truth isn't always the best story. And the official story isn't always the truth. This episode was written and researched by Mickey Taylor, edited by Connor Sampson, fact-checked by Sophie Kemp, and engineered, video-edited, and sound-designed by Alex Button. I'm your host, Carter Roy.