If there’s one thing people love to gossip about, it’s conspiracy theories.

From who really killed President John F. Kennedy to wondering if Big Foot wanders the Pacific Northwest, conspiracy theorists never run out of wild accusations.

Some of the theories are almost laughable – a Yeti, or the Abominable Snowman, roams the high Himalaya Mountains. People claim to have seen giant footprints in the snow that could only be attributed to an ape-like creature.

There are practical ways to explain these tracks, but the theory that a giant blood-thirsty creature roams the cold tundra is a much more attractive story.

People believe nobody knows everything that’s alive on this planet, so who’s to say there’s not an Abominable Snowman pack or a Big Foot tribe.

There are some who believe mermaids exist. Conspiracy fanatics claim we only possess a sliver of information about what lives in the depths of the ocean.

Therefore, mermaids could exist.

Except it’s impossible for fish and humans to mate.

But people still believe.

For decades, people have believed a giant dinosaur swims in the bottom of Loch Ness. People have trolled those waters with modern sonar equipment and found nothing.

So what, they say.

Hunters aren’t looking hard enough, they say.

But let’s be practical –store, hotel owners and restaurant managers near Loch Ness know that thousands of people come to their tiny town and spend a lot of money looking for “Nessie.”

What’s not a conspiracy is tourist dollars.

When my son drove through New Mexico, he found himself in Roswell.

After all, it’s not unbelievable that an alien spacecraft crashed in the desert decades ago and the government’s kept it quiet. It’s also not unbelievable that so many people could make a living out of plastic trinkets and Area 51 bumper stickers and T-shirts.

There’s more — a research facility in Alaska is a front for a mind-control lab, mattress stores are fronts for money laundering, and there’s a giant bunker underneath the Denver International Airport. There’s also a machine that controls the weather and chem trails in the sky are marking all of us with tiny metal particles so the government can track us.

Scary is that a giant sinkhole in Louisiana will eventually devour everything from Texas to Florida. According to the BBC, the coast of Louisiana is slowly disappearing, so thinking there’s a giant sucking sound coming for us has a ring of truth.

There’s one I do believe:  the government shot down United Flight 93 on 9/11. Everyone knew that flight was headed to Washington D.C. and would’ve destroyed the White House or the Capitol.

Shooting it down, even though Americans were on the plane, is a sad and horrible reality to accept. But I saw the video of the crash site right after it happened, and it looked like someone took a bulldozer and quickly cleared away some grass. It sure didn’t look like a jet, filled with fuel, crashed and exploded.

The latest theory is the involvement of the alleged sex pervert Jeffrey Epstein. The billionaire was found dead in his jail cell this past weekend while awaiting trial on federal sex trafficking charges.

The conspiracy theories started immediately because the word was Epstein could reveal the names of politicians, businessmen and other influential rich people who’d raped and taken advantage of underage girls on an island he owned in the Caribbean or at his residences in two different states.

Epstein was supposed to be under heavy guard and constant watch, but somehow he managed to commit suicide before he started talking.

Conspiracy theorists believe he was left alone on purpose so he’d die and not reveal any names of the rich and powerful.

They could have a point.

There’s a reason why people are quick to shout conspiracy theories. They are entertaining. It’s also easier to blame something strange when something scares us. Once we know what’s behind the curtain, most of the fun’s gone out of the magic.

In the case of Epstein, however, hundreds of women who were tricked and defiled will never get to face the beast who exploited them. For a little while, they thought they might get the chance to have justice served.

And now, we’ll never know the truth even though there’s plenty of evidence to prove this conspiracy theory true.

Just don’t ask me to accept there’s alligators in the sewers.

This column was originally published in The Fort Bend Herald.