How conspiracy theories spread is the question Dr. Lee Kuhnle has been building a career around, and the answer is less about deception than about distance from the original idea. He calls it metaphor drift: the gap that opens up between what an expert meant and what a headline says they proved.

A string theory concept becomes proof we live in a simulation. A Platonic metaphor becomes a lost continent with crystals. A deliberately constructed hoax about government birds becomes a genuine belief held by university students who never heard it started as a joke.

The source material is still there. Most people just never go back to it.

Topics: how conspiracy theories spread, metaphor drift, holographic universe conspiracy, Atlantis origin story, conspiracy theory formation

GUEST: Dr. Lee Kuhnle | amazon.ca/Uncover-Up

Originally aired on2026-04-22