Front Burner - Why is everything a ‘false flag’?

Episode Date: May 1, 2026

Following the recent shooting connected to the White House Correspondents’ Dinner, false-flag conspiracy theories emerged almost instantly online. A false-flag is a covert operation designed to appear as though it was carried out by someone other than the true perpetrator.And the complicated thing is that false-flag operations are not just the figments of paranoid imagination. Throughout history, governments have used deception, staged attacks, and manipulated attribution to justify war, consolidate power, and shape public opinion.Today, we’re joined by Kathryn Olmsted, author and distinguished professor of history at University California, Davis, to discuss the history of false flag operations, conspiracy culture, and the relationship between real government deception and modern political paranoia.For transcripts of Front Burner, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/frontburner/transcripts

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So earlier this week, we got this listener review about our episode on the alleged assassination attempt on Donald Trump at this year's White House Correspondence Dinner. It reads, in part, I understand you will have policy at CBC about what you can say, but really, Trump was buoyed up by the shooting attempt because it was staged. He had no fear because there was no real threat. He takes the focus off Iran with this threat and he makes a case for the ballroom which will now be approved. Please don't lose your edge on reality, even if only assumed. Basically that it was a false flag.

Look, I know comment sections can get pretty wild, but whoever this was is tapping into a much larger phenomenon. We've talked a lot on this program about the way that conspiracies and public mistrust are fueling our current political. moment. How after what feels like any major event, there emerges competing theories with no evidence about what actually took place. That Israel was behind the assassination of Charlie Kirk, that the Trump shooting in Butler, Pennsylvania was staged to help him win the election. Now, the complicated thing here is that there is a rich history of governments or provocateurs launching false flag operations. For example, a false flag helped accelerate the Japanese invasion of Manchuria and the Nazi.

invasion of Poland. So today we'd like to talk about why these kinds of theories have such broad purchase in the public and how we are to responsibly distinguish between justified skepticism and conspiratorial thinking. Catherine Olmsted is a distinguished professor of history at the University of California Davis and the author of a number of books including real enemies, conspiracy theories and American democracy World War I, 2-9-11. Catherine, hi, it's really great to have you on the show. Thank you for having me. So this will, of course, be a conversation about conspiracies and the depths of public mistrust, also about institutional deceit.

But let's begin with a concrete definition. The term false flag was derived from the world of naval warfare, from the days of pirates, actually, where pirate ships would disguise themselves with neutral flags in order to get closer to an enemy before mounting attack. But can you walk me through a definition of what like a so-called false flag attack or event means today? Well, the way most people understand it is that it is when a government stages an attack on itself and then attributes that attack to an enemy for certain nation to justify a war. And just how mainstream would you say this term or the paranoia and skepticism behind it has been? become today? Oh, I think it's quite mainstream and widespread that a lot of people know about false flag attacks in the past, and they're highly suspicious, in particular in the United States,

of the U.S. government. And so they leap to the conclusion that, like your listener did, that many different traumatic events are actually staged for the benefit of the government. It probably makes sense for us to begin with the White House Correspondence dinner, really the incident that in some way inspired the making of this episode. So in the minutes and hours after the shooting, all kinds of theories were promulgated online, right? One of which involved a doctor news item, which showed the shooter and the second lady, Ushah Vance, at the same engineering event many years ago. Others posted AI images, which purported to show the shooter in a t-shirt bearing the logo of the Israel defense forces, suggesting

he was somehow connected to the state of Israel. Many online claim that the incident was staged as a way to distract from the war in Iran. And there was also the theory that the shooting was somehow staged to create a pathway, of course, for the construction of Trump's White House ballroom. It's actually a larger room and it's much more secure. It's drone proof. It's bulletproof glass. We need the ballroom. That's why Secret Service. That's why the military are demanding it. Again, this was all presented without evidence. But what did you make of all of this as a historian that looks at this? Well, it's typical after dramatic, traumatic events like this, after intelligence failures, which essentially that's what happened here, is that the Secret Service failed to prevent this attack from starting, although, of course, they stopped it before he actually got anywhere near the president.

Whenever these sorts of things happen, there are conspiracy theories, and there have been. throughout U.S. history. It's just that now they can spread so much faster, instantaneously, and overwhelm people with information, much of it faked. And especially in the new age of AI, people can see very realistic-looking images that have been concocted, and it makes them either believe in certain conspiracy theories or distrust everything that they hear. We did fairly quickly, I think within like less than 24 hours, get a manifesto and some kind of personal details of the shooter released. And then Trump very quickly frame the attacker as someone who hates Christians. That's one thing for sure. He hates Christians, a hatred.

Though if you read the manifesto, the shooter cites the Bible throughout relying on scripture as like a defense for his own act of violence against alleged violence against the president. Like, how can confusion and disputes around facts also give rise to conspiracy? Well, when there's confusion and dispute around facts, and that is fertile ground for conspiracy theories, because people don't know what to believe. And so then they latch on to whatever theory fits their preconceived notions. Yeah. Another recent incident, which inspired, like, an entire canon of conspiracies would be the assassination of right-wing influence or Charlie. Kirk, these theories ranged from framing it as an Israeli operation to one that is now

widowed wife was in on. What I think stood out to us here about this one, though, was that some of these conspiracies were created and mainstreamed by people with enormous audiences. At least one was a friend of Charlie Kirk. I'm thinking of the right-wing media personality, Candace Owens, who has published all kinds of conspiracy material related to Israel being behind the shooting. But they got Charlie Kirk and it's just heartbreaking. Who is they, Bibi? Who is they who got Charlie Kirk?

We don't have to actually speak conspiracies. I'm just wondering, because you said a lot there, but it really sounded like it was about Beebe, trying to establish a narrative. Bibi is doing the rounds saying, I didn't kill him immediately when no one initially thought that he killed him until he said he didn't kill him. Then we thought, did you kill him? But even like the likes of Tucker Carlson have platformed similar kinds of sentiments. But I know that recently, Candace said that

Egyptian registered aircraft were following Erica Kirk, Charlie's widow, around for a number of years in different places in the world. That's one of the weirdest things I've ever heard, and I just want to say that that is factually true. And it also, her claim that, you know, there were kind of a disproportionately large number of foreign registered cell phones at the event. That's also true. So what does that add up to? I don't know. Is it fair to say these kinds of theories are no longer confined to the political fringe, right, but are now often amplified by people with huge audiences and real cultural power and purchase?

Yes. I think the changes in the media landscape make that possible for people who previously would have had a very small audience to now have a huge audience. There's a lot of incentive to say something very outrageous in order to get the clicks, the likes, the views that then in turn are monetized by these conspiracy theory entrepreneurs. So there is financial incentive. There is incentive for gaining more fame to say the most outrageous thing possible. So in the past, there always would be these conspiracy theories that pop up right afterwards. So, for example, right after the 9-11 attacks, there were people on the internet who instantly were saying, wow, this seems staged, this doesn't seem real. But they didn't have a huge reach. It's only with social media and then with the rise recently of these people with very large social media platforms or YouTube channels promoting these conspiracy theories that they spread so quickly and have such a high profile.

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We promise you won't be smorgas bored. Find this week's episode of the debaters anywhere you get your podcasts. I feel like we have to talk about Donald Trump himself too. He has spent the better part of the last decade calling for the arrest of political enemies, calling the mainstream media fake, referring to universities as sites of radical left. indoctrination and accusing institutions and political leaders of treachery. So what role do you think that the president of the United States has played in the hydrant of conspiracy theories that we see today? Oh, he's played a very important role. He started thinking about running for president in 2012 against

President Obama, and he's president, then not President. Donald Trump started sending, posting tweets that furthered the birther conspiracy theory that Obama was not legally eligible to be president. I was a really good student at the best school. I'm not like a smart guy, okay? They make these berthers into the worst it is. Why doesn't he show his birth certificate? Three weeks ago when I started, I thought he was probably born in this country. And now I really have a much bigger doubt than I did before. And he continued to spread conspiracy theories throughout his 2016 campaign, his first term, in between his terms, and now on his second term, it's the first time in U.S. history where you've had a president who is so active in spreading conspiracy theories.

You've had very important people in the past spreading conspiracy theories like Senator Joe McCarthy in the 1950s, but never before has it been a president who has spread these theories. Do you think that we have reached a point where conspiracy and allegations of false flag operations are a kind of logical conclusion to our current political moment, like where conspiracy has become the default language or lens through which many people now interpret political events. And if so, what do you think that says about the moment that we're in? Well, I hope that's not true, but certainly there are a lot of signs that point to the fact that we live in completely different information universes now. We're in information bubbles.

And so many people resist taking in information that isn't compatible with their own personal beliefs. And so they just take in a steady diet of information that supports their points of views and they are more inclined to conspiracy theories. And if this continues, then I think it's very dangerous for democracy because if you don't believe, in what are uncontestable facts and instead create your own alternative facts, then it's very hard to have a common civic discourse and it's hard to have a democracy. I think it is fair to say, though, that there has, well, first of all, long exist a deep mistrust among the American public as it relates to their government, and that also some of this trust can, He traced back to actual government malfeasance, right?

Like take vaccine skepticism, for example. It is true that there is a long tradition of medical experimentation and abuse that was overseen by the U.S. government on black people. The United States Public Health Service began a study of the effects of untreated syphilis on black men in Macon County, Alabama. Participants informed consent was not collected. At the study's conclusion, only 74 of the original. 600 men were still alive.

40 of their wives had been infected, and 19 of their children were born with congenital syphilis. As it relates to political violence, it is also true that the U.S. government has surveilled and killed dissidents at home for all kinds of political reasons. The 1985 move bombing in Philadelphia, for example. You made the decision to drop a damn bomb on my house. You ruined my life.

At the bunker, they decided physically. Decide to let the bunker burn, they knew they was going to burn down the whole neighborhood. Who gave them people that power? All kinds of spying that was going on through the 60s and onwards. And so when someone points to this very real history of state violence and deception to justify their current paranoia, what would you say to them? Well, I would say that certainly there are grains of truth to the argument that the U.S. government has laws. and abused power in the past, and that it helps explain the spread of conspiracy theories since the 1970s when a lot of these abuses of power were exposed.

I would say, though, that that doesn't mean that we can't ever discover the truth or rely on institutions or authorities anymore. I want to go through some historical examples with you, some of the major false flag incidents that have indeed been perpetrated by governments. There are two major American examples which kind of stand out, the first of which would be Operation Northwoods, which was a plan proposed by the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff to stage terror attacks across the United States, including the hijacking of planes and sinking of American ships, all of which was a plan proposed. to be blamed on the Cuban government and ultimately used as a kind of Trojan horse to justify invasion and war with Cuba.

Can you walk me through Northwoods a little bit more how it ended up resolving and what the implications of this plan were? The plan itself ended up having no implications at the time because it was just a plan that the president rejected. So it was never implemented. But the document itself is quite horrifying

because it was drawn up by the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staffs, the top military leaders. And they did suggest, propose that the President approve a whole campaign of false flag attacks on the United States, including, as you said, hijackings, shooting down airliners, staging an attack on the Guantanamo Naval Base, setting off bombs in U.S. cities. And sometimes they took care to say, well, we're not going to actually endanger anybody here. We're going to make sure that these people are taken off the plane before it shot down. But it's, in general, it's a plan that strikes you as completely paranoid and divorced from reality. So President Kennedy did say, no, we're not doing this.

And it never happened. But then in the 1990s, as a result of Congress setting up this review board to look at a lot of Kennedy administration records related to the assassination of John Kennedy and to release them to the public, Operation Northwoods came to light. And among a lot of scholars, it got a lot of attention, but it wasn't really, I think, part of the public consciousness until the 9-11 attacks. And then a lot of conspiracy theorists looked at Northwoods and said, oh, that's what happened with 9-11, is that just like the Joint Chiefs, chiefs planned these false flag attacks to justify war with Cuba, the Bush administration, they alleged, has set up this attack on the United States to justify war in Iraq. So it ended up,

Northwoods ended up having a lot of important consequences because it stimulated this whole new generation of anti-government conspiracy theories. Example number two I wanted to go through with you is probably the Gulf of Tonkin incident, which contains two events, the first of which was real, but the second of which was not. The Gulf of Tonkin was then used to accelerate the American war effort in Vietnam. And can you talk to me about that incident and what the fallout from that was? Yeah, so this was in 1964, August of 1964, when North Vietnam and South Vietnam were at war, and the United States was supporting South Vietnam. And as part of that support, the U.S. sent a destroyer, a naval ship to the Gulf of Tonkin to provide intelligence to South Vietnamese

boats that were attacking the North Vietnamese shore. And the North Vietnamese one night started shooting at the South Vietnamese, and they also shot at the U.S. destroyer. No one was hurt. There were no Americans who were injured, but the Johnson administration, the administration of Lyndon Johnson was at the time looking for an excuse to go to Congress. and ask for unlimited authority to escalate the war. And so the Johnson administration seized on this event. That I shall immediately request the Congress to pass a resolution, making it clear that our government is united in its determination to take all necessary measures in support of freedom and in defense. of peace in Southeast Asia.

Exaggerated it, took away the context, said it was completely unprovoked attack on in international waters, on U.S. naval ship. And then also they said that a second attack had taken place, which did not. And they went to Congress, misrepresented this incident, and succeeded in getting Congress to pass a joint resolution that gave the president a blank check, just said, whatever you think is necessary to do in Vietnam, you have the power to do that. And it was very popular at the time. Only two senators voted against it and no members of the House of Representatives. So Johnson then took this authority and he escalated the war in Vietnam, first with an air war and then by sending

hundreds of thousands of U.S. troops. And as the war became more and more and popular, then evidence of what really happened at the Gulf of Tongan began to leak out and really helped to discredit the Johnson administration in the eyes of the American public. And so the Gulf of Tonkin was not a false flag, but it was an exaggeration, a huge exaggeration of, you know, a minor incident that then led to tens of thousands of American deaths and hundreds of thousands of Southeast Asian deaths. So it became very important, this pivotal moment in Americans losing. trust in their government. Yeah. Part of the story with this example and also the Northwoods example

seems to me to be the fact that these incidents happen or the government sort of plans for them to happen and they never actually happen. But the public doesn't find out the truth until later after, I guess, anything can be done about it. And just what are the implications of that? Well, the implications are that they, when people do find out, they're outraged. And then they tend to believe that there are other conspiracies, other government lies, cover-ups, crimes that just have not yet been exposed. So they're more inclined to believe conspiracy theories because they say, well, you don't believe that the Bush administration stage 9-11, have you heard of Operation Northwoods? Do you know what happened at the Gulf of Tonkin, and they used these real historical events as support for

conspiracy theories of the present. There are other well-known major examples globally. The Glywitz incident, which is where Nazi agents disguised as Polish military personnel, attacked a German radio station in what was then used as a pretext for the Nazi invasion of Poland, or the Mukden incident where Japanese officers staged an explosion. that was blamed on Chinese dissidents and used that to justify the Japanese invasion of Manchuria. I guess the question here is, why is the false flag attack such a useful instrument of power? What is the thing that governments and leaders are tapping into or exploiting when they resort to this kind of behavior?

Well, they think that they do not have enough public support or possibly international support for a strategic objective. And so they decide, okay, we're going to figure out a way to stage an incident to change the public perception of what's happening here so that then we have a reason to go to war. So whether it's the German government, the Japanese government, the U.S. government with Operation Northwoods. But they think that what we need to do is portray ourselves as the victim of an outside attack and so that therefore we are justified in counterattacking. And of course, it's designed to exploit raw human emotion, fear, outrage, patriotism, grief, because I guess these are emotions that can pretty quickly consolidate public support for things that might otherwise be difficult to justify. Fair? Right, exactly. You know, we've talked about some real examples of false flag attacks, but then we also have major incidents that remain highly contested in the public imagination.

The kind of stories, which can contain, I guess, like unusual details or may involve governments or leaders, which the public considers to be unreliable. I'm thinking about the assassination of JFK. The idea that he posed a threat to the CIA has held a lot of purchase. For we are opposed around the world by a monolithic and ruthless conspiracy that relies primarily on covet means for expanding its sphere of influence, on infiltration instead of invasion, on subversion instead of elections, on intimidation instead of free choice, on guerrillas by night instead of armies by day. Or the Reichstag fire, which the Nazis blamed on communists

and used as a pretext to claim emergency powers, crush political opposition, and accelerate Germany's transformation into a dictatorship. Hitler, now Chancellor, has announced that the fire was the work of communists and was intended to be the signal for a Bolshevist uprising throughout the country. In consequence, Germany has been placed under a system of martial law, a decree having been signed which aims at the total destruction of communism. There's also the 1999 Russian apartment bombings. Bombs obliterated four apartment buildings in Moscow and other cities, all blown up at night while people slept.

Hundreds died. Some historians actually believe were orchestrated by Russia's Federal Security Service as a pretext for the second Chechen war and a way to propel Putin to the presidency. The Russian officials said that there was a Chechen trail in the apartment bombings, not. proof of Chechen involvement, a Chechen trail. It wasn't clear what that meant, but it was used in order to justify a new invasion of Chechnya. There's lots of examples here. But what do you think these historically, I don't know, for lack of a better word, stickier stories have in common? Well, I would say that all of those things were very traumatic events that sees the imagination. of the public, that everyone was paying attention, and that then had great historical consequences.

And so people at the time, but especially years later, look back and say, oh, that's how the Nazis came to power or that's how, in their belief, the U.S. went to war in Vietnam because they, in air quotes, killed JFK. They look back at these events and then use those real events to spin these incredible conspiracy theories. There's another kind of false flag conspiracy, frankly, particularly perverse ones, the kind of conspiracy found, I think, at the fringes, really at the fringes of society, the kind that might leave you ostracized at an office party or something. I'm thinking maybe of Alex Jones's conspiracy that the Sandy Hook school shooting was a hoax,

for example, incredibly far-flung and dehumanizing. theories about widely agreed upon events. And what do you think is happening there? Well, I think that Alex Jones really taps into the fears and the needs of a certain segment of the population. It's not a majority. It's not anything close to a majority. But it's enough people who then follow him, watch him, you know, buy his supplements that he sells. So that then they, so that it's worth it for him to be completely outrageous. But do you think there's something else going on there that isn't about monetizing it? Well, I think it's for a lot of the people who spread these theories, it's about monetizing it.

I think for the people who are buying into the theories, it satisfies some psychological need or political belief. So that, for example, with the mass shootings that are allegedly false flags that are staged, according to the conspiracy theorists. The people who believe those theories want to believe that the government is doing these horrible things in order to take their guns. Hitler took the guns.

Stalin took the guns. Mao took the guns. Fidel Castro took the guns. And I'm here to tell you, 1776 will commence again if you try to take our firearms. Doesn't matter how many lemmings you get out there on the street

begging for them to have their guns taken. We will not relinquish them. It's just part of the way that they view the world. And so they say, of course, that's the kind of thing the U.S. government would do. It would be to make us think that there was this horrible mass shooting so that then they can pass gun control laws. You're ultimately a historian and a professor of history. I can't but wonder whether any of this conspiracy culture has shown up at any of your lectures or classrooms. And like how you handle those kinds of questions of skepticism.

as a teacher of younger people? Well, first of all, I don't have any problem with skepticism. I think people should be skeptical of their government. And as we've been talking this whole time, there are many examples of the U.S. government in the past abusing its power and lying to the people. And so it's perfectly natural to be skeptical of any government claims. But then when you leap to believe to believe,

believing that the government or elements of the government or the Jews or the masons or the Catholics or whoever are behind some sort of worldwide conspiracy, that's when you need to start thinking about where are you getting your information and start looking at some fact-checking websites and talk to other people who maybe aren't in your information bubble to have a reality check. And as far as my students go, I actually find that most of them are, of course, very skeptical of the U.S. government and very skeptical of the legacy news media. But also, they are skeptical of conspiracy theorists as well.

And they are still very open to considering all kinds of explanations. And they are not just spreading conspiracy theories, and they're not at all a problem in class. They're not disruptive. They want to learn about the history of conspiracy theories so that they can understand what's going on in the present. Okay, I think that's a good place for us to end here today. Catherine, this was really interesting. Thank you so much. All right.

Thank you very much. All right. That's all for today. Front burner was produced this week by Matthew Almha, Joytha Schengupta, Kevin Seventh. Mackenzie Cameron, Mia Johnson, Dave Modi, and Kieran Outtorn. Our YouTube producer is John Lee. Our music is by Joseph Shabbison. Our senior producers are Imogen Burchard and Elaine Chow.

Our executive producer is Nick McCabe Locos. And I'm Jamie Poissom. Thanks so much for listening. Talk to you next week. For more CBC podcasts, go to cbc.ca.ca slash podcasts.