Take these ideas with a grain of me

I HAVE a theory about conspiracy theories: they never apply to ordinary people.

Salt illo

I AM a big fan of the conspiracy theory. I collect them. In fact, so addicted to conspiracy theories am I that I have a theory about conspiracy theories. My theory is this: they never apply to ordinary people.

No one has a conspiracy theory to explain the sudden death or supposed death of John Smith. But there are endless theories about the demise of JFK, Harold Holt, Princess Diana, Elvis Presley and even Michael Jackson.

And the reason conspiracy theories pertain only to the rich and powerful is because, well, ordinary lives are boring. That's right, if you were to drop dead tomorrow, no one would create an elaborate conspiracy theory to explain your departure.

Sorry, but you and I just aren't worth it. The ingredient you need to create a conspiracy theory is death -- or better still, a mysterious disappearance -- preferably of a well-known and greatly loved celebrity.

And, most important, this person needs to be cut down somewhere between the ages of 35 and 55. Any younger and they probably haven't amassed the fan base to foment a conspiracy. Any older and, well, it's very sad that so-and-so dropped dead at 83 but, you

know, when your number's up your number's up.

Consider the evidence: Princess Diana and Marilyn Monroe were 36, JFK was 46, Jackson was 50; Elvis was 42. All these well-known conspiracy theory targets fall within the hot zone: 37-50.

But there are outliers. Jesus Christ was 33 when he died. Holt was 59.

Did you know that Holt was so devastated by the deaths of Australian soldiers in Vietnam that he wanted to run away from it all, but he couldn't because he was prime minister so he walked into surf at Portsea and faked his death. Yes, faked it. Because he was whisked away by Chinese frogmen to China, where he lives to this day.

It's OK, Harold. You can come out now. The Chinese are our friends. They make stuff for us. He won't come, of course. Too old. But he's there. Grinning and having a whale of a time. Ni-hao, Harold.

The same thing happened with Elvis. He was so sick of the whole celebrity thing that he faked his death in a Las Vegas hotel room -- the doctor was like so totally in on it -- and to this day he lives among us. But there's the thing. Only Elvis's truest disciples can see him. He has been spotted several times in Wal-Mart! (You see, it would have made more sense for Elvis to have been spotted at KFC or McDonald's.) And don't get me started on Princess Diana.

Did you know that the royal family was so scared of Diana marrying Dodi Fayed that they had MI5 cut the brake cables of her car? Apparently Prince Philip was behind it. And do you know, whenever I see Prince Philip on television I reckon he has a guilty look on his face. Sprung, Duke of Edinburgh. You can't put anything over us.

What about Monroe? Well, Bobby Kennedy had the mafia, or was it the FBI, it was probably both, working in cahoots to spike her drugs so that she'd overdose. You see, she was about to go public about her affair with the president and Bobby couldn't allow that. So he had her done away with.

And this is just the half of it. Did you know that the Americans have UFOs stashed away in a secret military base called Area 51 in Utah? That's right. Apparently one crashed in the 1950s in Roswell, New Mexico, and the military rescued them and ever since we've been in communication with the mother ship and their planet. And the reason the American military needs to keep all this a secret is because, well, I don't know but I can only assume that something really, really bad would happen if any of this were to get out.

Which reminds me. If I should suddenly disappear over the coming week I want you to question Julia Gillard because as she is commander-in-chief of our armed forces I wouldn't put it past her to have ASIO cut the brake cables on my car to shut me up because I'm like the whistleblower on the theory behind conspiracy theories.

KPMG partner Bernard Salt's new book is The Big Tilt [e-mail]; Twitter.com/bernardsalt; Facebook/BernardSaltDemographer