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Another possible example involving Russia occurred in 1999. Following a series of bombings believed to be carried out by Chechnyan militants, several people were apprehended planting a large bag of explosives in front of an apartment building in the city of Ryazan, said Scott Radnitz, an associate professor of Russian and Eurasian studies at the University of Washington.
Intelligence agencies do launch false flag operations, “but telling the difference between a real one and a false allegation is really hard,” said Lance Janda, a military historian at Cameron University. “It often amounts to how much faith you have in the source.” The Gestapo staged a Polish raid on a German broadcasting tower at Gleiwitz, in current-day Poland. The Nazis left behind a dead “saboteur” — in reality a German farmer with Polish sympathies who’d been shot by the Gestapo — as well as several dead Germans, who in reality were concentration camp prisoners killed and dressed as German guards, said David Silbey, a Cornell University historian. “Hitler used the incidents to justify the invasion of Poland,” he said.One proponent of the 9/11 conspiracy theories was InfoWars founder Alex Jones, who helped direct an infamous documentary that pushed the bogus counter-narrative. Years later, Jones used his InfoWars platform to push another “false flag” conspiracy theory. But experts warn that social media rumors alleging that big events in the news are “false flags” should be viewed skeptically. Real false flag operations are logistically complex; they rope in significant numbers of people and force leaders to consider complicated ethical dilemmas. Jones alleged that the Sandy Hook shooting in Connecticut, in which 20 children and six adults died, was faked to push gun control, and that the victims’ families were crisis actors. (Crisis actors are actors purportedly trained to portray victims during disasters and other emergencies.) The layers of deception that surround false flag operations make it hard to determine whether an incident is really a false flag — including the recent U.S. allegations against Russia.
The people who are susceptible to these theories are already distrustful of government and of the mainstream news media,” Olmsted said. “And fringe conspiracy theory entrepreneurs like Alex Jones amplify these fears and help spread them.” That said, false flag operations require significant effort to come across as plausible, so other deceptive operations — such as spreading disinformation — may be more common, experts said. And sometimes governments can exaggerate actual events for political gain. PolitiFact has debunked a number of false flag claims in recent years. Why “false flag” internet rumors should be viewed skeptically Russia’s agencies “both use false flag operations and accuse others of using false flag operations,” Starbird wrote. “It’s both projection and an effective tactic of making it difficult for people to make sense of events in the world. Undermining trust in information.”Historically, a false flag operation referred to a military force or a ship flying another country’s flag for the purposes of deception. Under international law, this is usually considered illegal. The Hague Convention IV of 1907, for instance, forbids any signatory from making “improper use of a flag of truce, of the national flag or of the military insignia and uniform of the enemy.” What are some historical examples of false flag operations? Despite the damage being minor and rail services not being disrupted, the Japanese used this Mukden incident to seize Manchuria. The Swedish National Assembly, which until then had refused to agree to a war against Russia, then launched an offensive in retaliation.
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