The problem is summed up by Carl Sagan: “Every time he [von Däniken] sees something he can’t understand, he attributes it to extraterrestrial intelligence, and since he understands almost nothing, he sees evidence of extraterrestrial intelligence all over the planet” (Playboy 1974:151).
Unfortunately its true of so many people, and the information revolution we were all promised seems to have made it worse, not better.
Think of it like Marvel universe stuff.
We'd go on long walks and let our 'what if' imagination run wild.
In both cases, it's their God of the Gaps.
(Not to be confused with the Boss of the Ross. Or Hermes. Or Nike.)
We live in a society where corruption is rife and ordinary people are largely excluded from most major institutions ... That is the atmosphere that breeds these things.
We also live in a corrupt society and occasionally that emerges as a scandal.
Certain secrets are kept better than others. Now and then real conspiracies do become public knowledge like the Tuskegee Experiment or Scientology's infiltration of parts of the US government.