I am always amused by conspiracy theories. Here’s a good one currently going around, as reported by The Daily Mail, that the strange on-air bouts of incoherence by various people on television are the result of secret experiments by the U.S. military.

It’s a fairly good conspiracy, but I dare any conspiracy-minded readers to peruse H.P. Lovecraft’s novel The Shadow Out of Time and not come away with an infinitely more terrifying, and slightly more plausible theory. Here is an excerpt:

“The collapse occurred about 10.20 A.M., while I was conducting a class in Political Economy VI – history and present tendencies of economics – for juniors and a few sophomores. I began to see strange shapes before my eyes, and to feel that I was in a grotesque room other than the classroom.

 My thoughts and speech wandered from my subject, and the students saw that something was gravely amiss. Then I slumped down, unconscious, in my chair, in a stupor from which no one could arouse me. “

I don’t want to give away too much. “Most merciful thing in the world” etc.