My association with Fortean Times began in 1996, when I spoke at the UnConvention on conspiracy theories. My presence - and that subject - was just another part of the X-Files effect on British popular culture. X-Files creator Chris Carter had used the US Air Force disinformation about Majestic 12 and the government-alien conspiracy as the programme's main theme. It was, in a sense, a contemporary version of Invasion of the Body Snatchers - one in which the pods had opened up and taken over the US military and intelligence outfi ts. Before this point in Anglo-American popular culture, the X-Files-generated interest in UFOs, the paranormal and US conspiracy theories would surely have run out of steam and been replaced by the next TV-manufactured enthusiasm. But 1996 was the year before the Internet began to take hold of our intellectual lives and conspiracy theories transferred from TV and magazines onto the Net. Where - ever since - they appear to have been something of a worry to our masters in Washington.

The existence of the Internet means that it is no longer as easy to control public perception as it was during the good old days of the Cold War, when mass media were fewer and more manageable, newspaper and TV editors could be recruited or bought by the authorities and stories planted with ease in the press. Recently, the US State Department has begun trying to rebut some of the current conspiracy theories about America. Their fi rst targets were a couple of websites - www.rense.com and Conspiracy Planet - and the late Joe Vialls, an Australian. What a boost for the named sites! Attacked by the State Department!

The second bulletin attacked the book 9-11 Revealed by the British writers Ian Henshall and Rowland Morgan (http://usinfo.state.gov/media/ Archive/2005/Sep/16-241966.html). The State Department's critique is unimpressive, mainly because, as Henshall's reply points out, the book does not advocate any particular theory - it discusses many. Meanwhile, the book's publisher, Robinson, sent out a press release trumpeting the State Department's attack. Publicity like this you could not buy! However, conspiracy theories are hard to get rid of. The Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion has been endlessly demolished, yet is still widely believed in Eastern Europe and the Middle East. But you don't have to be a PR genius to see that what you simply mustn't do is launch offi cial attacks: all they do is amplify and legitimise the theories by announcing that they are deemed to be worth attacking.

1996 was also the year that Thomas Hamilton shot and killed 16 children in the small Scottish town of Dunblane, before committing suicide. Lord Cullen xs offi cial inquiry concluded that Hamilton, who had a long history of running boys - clubs, was probably a pædophile, though no specifi c allegations had been reported; that Hamilton should not have had his fi rearms license renewed; and that no one else was to blame for the deaths. (Some of Lord Cullen's inquiry can be read at www.archive.offi cialdocuments.co.uk/ document/scottish/dunblane/ dunblane.htm)

Lord Cullen then ordered the documents in the case sealed for an extraordinary 100 years. Even the major media in Scotland thought this smelled funny. What was being hidden? For the conspiracy theorists it was obvious: an apparent pædophile, an apparently dodgy fi rearms licence and an apparent cover-up. Add to this allegations that Hamilton was a Mason, and the theory took on a solid form: Masons in the police got Hamilton his gun license. In turn, this scenario soon expanded to become a Masonic pædophile ring for which Hamilton was making and supplying pornographic videos of the boys in his clubs - or even, indeed, supplying the boys themselves.

Variations of these theories rattled around on the Net for years, occasionally surfacing in the major media, most recently in the Mail on Sunday on 5 June 2005, where the opening sentence was: "Police were involved in a pædophile ring that covered up abuse allegations against the man responsible for the infamous Dunblane school massacre" - an allegation for which the Mail offered no evidence.

There are few libel lawyers or editors on the Net, and one version of the story (at www.propagandamatrix.com/blair_ protection.html) claimed that the NATO Secretary General, Lord George Robertson, who had been a local MP, had used his Masonic infl uence to get Hamilton a gun licence and was a member of a "clandestine pædophile ring" run by Hamilton and servicing the great and good of Scotland. (Robertson's only link to Hamilton was his son's presence in one of Hamilton's clubs.)

Never mind that there was no evidence to support any of this - the calls for the files to be opened grew. In October 2004, Lord Tebbit added his voice, and in October 2005 half of the files were opened. Press reports suggested that the papers showed Hamilton be a paranoid obsessive, much given to writing letters of complaint to all and sundry; a pædophile ring has not been found.