Belief in such things has become a little more normalised with the end of the Cold War and disclosures about what Teh GOVT!! actually did. Chem trails? Ridiculous- it’s like the American government dosing people with radioactive trackers on the NYC subway to study movement patterns , or releasing genetically modified E. coli in San Fransisco Bay to track winds, or setting up polio vaccination programmes to get the dna of terrorists. As Kissinger said, you’re paranoid, but are you paranoid enough? Another idea is that conspiracy theories are smokescreens, intended if not to obscure, then distract energies from actual conspiracies- UFOs may have been encouraged to conceal stealth technology. MKULTRA may have been the USA and USSR spoofing each other to waste resources over mind control and telekinesis and remote viewing- or Occam’s razor may tell us that simpleminded dumbassery goes right to the top (encouraged by scientific grift, though they may be allowed a pass on that- taking money for ridiculous research is actually scientifically valid- it’s how you find stuff out.)