Yep, this type of speculative BS is really mudding the waters between fact in fiction thanks to all the people who can't see through the nonsense and the people who exploit them.

One of my friends is into the Oak Island idiocy, and he totally believes all of it - Templars in the new world, etc. Anything that is said with the usual "Well, maybe this happened" he believes literally happened.

I recall stopping by his place some years back and the History Channel had some other idiotic show on that was "proving" how some random lake in some impoverished nation was full of sea monsters or evil mermaids or some clickbait. Why? Because some people went missing years back and the locals had legends of "sea monsters." That's not proof of anything. There was another one I saw briefly where some similar channel was claiming that Tesla had invented "free electricity" - total violation of the laws of physics - because the skyscraper he lived in had a metal frame, which clearly means it was actually a huge antenna he had made to send out free electricity, but the government stopped him?! If I recall, there was even one where they tried to "prove" that super volcanos were actually Russian earthquake weapons or something. These stupid shows would be funny, except for all the people who believe them.

It's just exhausting dealing with the fallout of these speculative nonsense shows. I really wish they had to put the phrase "this is all made up BS" or something similar on the screen at all times so gullible people might stop falling for their nonsense.