Stranger than fiction: Jon Ronson tries to get to the truth about conspiracy theorists. Illustration: Michelle Thompson Stranger than fiction: Jon Ronson tries to get to the truth about conspiracy theorists. Illustration: Michelle Thompson It is 20 years since Jon Ronson wrote Them, his eye-popping investigation into conspiracy theorists. Now, in a world awash with tales of paedophile elites and puppet masters, is he any closer to understanding it all? Sun 11 Apr 2021 03.00 EDT In 1999 I sat in a Vancouver café with a group of anti-capitalist activists. They’d just returned from protesting the WTO in Seattle to find a new, far stranger foe in town – David Icke. He was there to lecture about how the ruling elite are actually child-sacrificing, blood-drinking paedophile lizards in human disguise.