The X-Files is not based on true events or real FBI X files. The episodes are fiction, the plots loosely based on news reports of unexplained events around the world and other unexplained phenomena. While the pilot episode did open with a note saying that the events were based on an actual real-life story, this was not meant to imply that there are real X Files.

Hoping that the creator of the top rating TV cult hit would write a promotional blurb for 50 Greatest Conspiracies of All Time, John Whalen was delighted to receive a telephone call from the X-Files producer. Chris Carter said that he "loved the book," and that he thought it was "fascinating, witty, right up my alley."

Unlike the X-Files, Whalen and Vankin's 50 Greatest Conspiracies of All Time is not a work of fiction. More an anthology of history's biggest mysteries, coverups, and cabals. The essential guidebook to the most far-reaching and startling conspiracy theories of all time. In this one book of over 390 pages you will find the Kennedy and King assassinations, the CIA's mind control program, CIA manipulation of the media, Pan Am Flight 103, the Priory of Zion, Charlie Manson, Jonestown, biological warfare and fascism... Real life X-Files? Is there an area where the seemingly fixed lines between fiction and fact really blur beyond recognition?

In the final episode of the current X-Files series, which screened in the United States on 19 May (not yet shown in Australia), a character known as "The Hacker" is seen perusing the book 50 Greatest Conspiracies of All Time, underlining passages with a pen, while he waits for his computer to crack into the Pentagon's computer network.

Better than a promotional blurb, Chris Carter decided to feature 50 Greatest Conspiracies of All Time in the X-Files. Needless to say authors Whalen and Vankin were delighted.

If you've ever dared to think, just for a moment, that there might be something more to the X-Files then 50 Greatest Conspiracies of All Time is the book for you. But be warned, after reading it, history as well as day-to-day events may take on a whole new meaning. You may never be the same again. The Truth is out there....

NEW DAWN SPEAKS TO JON VANKIN

NEW DAWN: What prompted you to co-author the book, following from your earlier work Conspiracies, Cover-ups and Crimes?

VANKIN:It seemed natural to do a follow-up book aimed at a wider readership than CC&C. The proposal was originally called 100 Greatest Conspiracies of All Time and I knew I couldn't handle it myself. I knew that John and I shared many of the same sensibilities and that he was an outstanding writer, and the rest is history.

NEW DAWN:What is your general view on various "conspiracies"? Do you think there is any validity in the so-called "conspiracy view of history"?

VANKIN:Conspiracies happen, probably more frequently and with greater power than we'd like to admit. But I am a skeptic of all theories that purport to explain everything so I don't subscribe to any single "view of history" and find varying degrees of validity in many ways of interpreting the world. The origin of this book, and its predecessor, was in the question of why so-called "conspiracy theories" are treated with such derision, generally speaking.

NEW DAWN:Dr. Michael Parenti says that "just because there are kooks who believe in imaginary conspiracies doesn't mean that all conspiracies are imaginary or kooky." How would you respond?

VANKIN:I agree completely. But I don't make the too-common mistake of taking it one step further, i.e. "no conspiracies are imaginary or kooky." There's definitely a middle ground that can be found by applying your rational faculties, I believe.

NEW DAWN:Post-JFK/Watergate, do you think people are more prone to conspiracy views? If so, why?

I think people have always been prone to conspiratorial explanations of things - conspiracy theories have a great explanatory power, like religious myths. But I also think that post Watergate-JFK etc. conspiracy theories have gained a certain credence because we've seen so many conspiracies come true. Just look at how the CIA messed with the politics of your own country. Sounds like a crazy conspiracy theory at first, but it's well documented.

Go straight to 50 GCAT WWW site!