The Debunker’s Guide to Obama Conspiracy Theories

Don’t Panic! Have you heard some crazy rumor about Barack Obama and want the straight story? The Debunker’s Guide to Obama Conspiracy Theories is a compilation of many of the strange tales and unfounded rumors that fly over the Internet about Obama, and particularly alternate accounts of his birth. Each one is carefully researched with references you can use to correct misinformation and know the facts.

Table of Categories:

• Obama’s birth certificate
• Other claims about Obama’s birth in Hawaii
• Obama born in Kenya stories
• Obama in Indonesia stories
• Obama’s Selective Service registration
• Obama’s social-security number
• Obama legal fees and sealing records
• Obama higher education claims
• Obama is not a natural born citizen because of his parentage
• Other strange stories

Let the claims begin!

Obama’s birth certificate

Nothing defines the birther movement more than controversy over Barack Obama’s birth certificate. Birthers demand that Obama release his birth certificate, when in fact he did already, back in June of 2008. For more information debunking birth certificate claims, see also here, here, here and here. Birthers claim that:

• The document has been amended. (It wasn’t.)
• The location of birth is a clerical error. (It’s not.)
• The location of birth is really the location of registration. (It’s not.)
• Hawaii allows registration of any child in Hawaii over one year old as being born in Hawaii. (They don’t.)
• Hawaii allows residents to register foreign-born children as being born in Hawaii. (They don’t.)
• Obama was adopted from a foreign country (He wasn’t.)
• Block 7(c) of the birth registration form allows the entry of a foreign country for place of birth. (It’s the parent’s place of birth.)
• The Obama document is a “Certification”, not a “Certificate”.
• A Certification of Live Birth is not a birth certificate. See also here.
• There were no laser printers when Obama was born in 1961.
• Recorded information may have been altered and a new birth certificate issued showing different information pursuant to HRS §338-17.7. (Doesn’t apply.)
• Hawaii Act 96 allows for a birth certificate to be issued for someone born out of state. (It doesn’t)
• Sun Yat-Sen the first President of China has a Hawaiian birth certificate and he was born in China so this proves anybody can get a Hawaiian birth certificate. See also here.
• The Department of Hawaii Homelands declared that the short-form birth certificate was not sufficient evidence and also that such a certificate is not proof of birth in Hawaii.
• Obama’s mother didn’t live at the address listed on the birth certificate. See also.
• Obama’s birth registration was created by his grandparents, and not by a physician. The attending physician was David A Sinclair, MD.
• Obama’s birth certificate lacks the state seal and here. (It’s there.)
• Obama’s birth certificate lacks an official’s signature. (It’s there.)
• Obama’s birth certificate lacks a certificate number. (It’s there.)
• The Registrar’s stamp on Obama’s short form certificate is a rubber stamp (as it should be).
• Image recovery techniques prove the certificate number is missing in original scanned images. (They don’t)
• Obama’s birth certificate was invalidated when the certificate number was covered.
• The certificate number proves Obama was not born in a hospital. See also here. (It doesn’t)
• Obama’s birth certificate has the wrong certificate number. (It’s correct.)
• Obama’s birth certificate has the wrong registration date. (It doesn’t.)
• Obama’s birth certificate is a forgery. See also and also. (No.)
• Barack Obama has a Canadian birth certificate. (Signed by Dudley Do-Right)
• The Hawaii elections clerk Tim Adams verified that Obama has no long-form birth certificate. (He doesn’t know.)
• Obama’s refusal to release his long form birth certificate proves he has something to hide. See also. (It’s been released.)
• Obama’s birth certificate is a fake because the father’s race was “African.” See also. (This is normal.)
• Obama’s long form birth certificate is a fake because the PDF version has “layers.”  A detailed analysis of various claims that Obama’s long form certificate is a fake is found in John Woodman’s book: Is Barack Obama’s Birth Certificate a Fraud? see also this video.
• There are multiple versions of Obama’s 2011 PDF certificate file. (There aren’t.)
• OCR does not explain the layers in Obama’s birth certificate. (They are explained by something else.)
• Obama’s birth certificate has too many/too few layers. (It doesn’t.)
• Obama’s birth certificate has too many one-bit layers. (Nope.)
• The raised seal on Obama’s 2007 Certification of Live Birth is debossed instead of embossed. (It’s normal.)
• Obama’s long form has curved text but the background is not curved. (Optical illusion.)
• The letters on Obama’s long form are not all the same shape, suggesting a composite image from multiple typewriters. See also. (Not really.)
• Some letters on Obama’s long form are curved less than the surrounding text. (Optical illusion.)
• The long form says Obama’s father was born in Kenya, East Africa. Kenya didn’t exist until 3 years later. (Except that Kenya has been around far longer than that.)
• Obama attorney Alexandra Hill admitted Obama’s birth certificate is fake. (She didn’t.)
• Penciled data entry codes are inconsistent with written values. (They aren’t.)
• A professional law-enforcement investigation of Obama’s birth certificate in Arizona proved the document a fake. The so-called anomalies on the PDF certificate are the normal processing of a Xerox WorkCentre 7655 copier/scanner opened and saved with Preview on a Mac computer.
• Obama’s birth certificate is too small. (It’s not.)
• Obama’s father’s age is wrong on the birth certificate. (Obama’s father used two dates of birth on official documents.)
• The hospital name on Obama’s birth certificate is wrong for the time period. (No, it isn’t.)
• Douglas Vogt identified 20 points of forgery in the birth certificates. See also here,  here, and here.
• A credentialed document examiner, Reed Hayes, has stated that the White House PDF birth certificate is a 100% forgery. Until the Hayes report is released, its conclusions, whatever they are, cannot be debunked or verified. Articles mentioning Reed Hayes.
• Hawaii Department of Health director Loretta Fuddy took a $50,000 bribe to fake Obama’s birth certificate. (No bribe, and anyway Fuddy isn’t the Health Director who verified Obama’s birth in Hawaii.)
• The security paper pattern on Obama’s long form birth certificate is too small. (It isn’t.)
• Governor Abercrombie of Hawaii couldn’t find Obama’s birth certificate. This Claim by celebrity journalist Mike Evans was retracted.
• An ex-serviceman says Obama told him in 1980 he was born in Kenya. (Not credible.)
• Two forensic experts say parts of Obama’s birth certificate were copied from another certificate. The forensic reports were never released and it was found (here and here) that the allegedly copied items were not identical.

Other claims about Obama’s birth in Hawaii

• The newspaper announcement of Obama’s birth was an ad placed by his parents. (Not possible.)
• All microfilm copies worldwide of the Honolulu Advertiser and Star Bulletin relating to Obama’s birth have been replaced by fake ones.
• No one remembers young Obama in Hawaii (except Governor Abercrombie of Hawaii and his kindergarten teachers and classmates).
• Obama relatives cannot agree on which hospital was Obama’s birthplace. (If you believe the Italian Wikipedia.)
• Obama has never acknowledged the hospital where he was born. (But he did.)
• Hawaii hospitals all deny Obama was born there. All but one and see video here.
• Obama/Dunham Divorce Decree says One Child Born in Kenya. (It doesn’t)
• The letters “TXE” signal a forgery. See also. It says “THE.”)
• Scanner/software expert says Obama long-form birth certificate a forgery. (Also claims to know when, to the minute, that the Sun will go nova and start the next ice age.)

Obama born in Kenya stories

• Obama’s step grandmother, Sarah Obama, said on tape that the President was born in the Kenya and she was there. See also here. (Not really.)
• Obama family members say President Obama was born in Kenya. See also here. (Nope.)
• There is a Kenyan Birth Certificate for Barack Obama. See here, and also here. (It’s a fake.)
• There is another Kenyan Birth Certificate for Barack Obama. (It’s a fake too.)
• The Kenyan ambassador to the US said that Obama was born in Kenya. (Barack Obama and his father have the same name.)
• The Associated Press said in 2004 that Obama was born in Kenya. (Retracted.)
• The Kenyan minister of lands said Obama was born in Kenya. He did, but he never explains how he knew. See also here.
• Kenyan newspapers say Obama was born in Kenya. See also here and here.
• Michelle Obama said Barack Obama was born in Kenya. (Not quite.)
• Road signs entering Kenya say “Welcome to Kenya: Birthplace of Barack Obama.” (Photoshopped)
• Obama’s literary biography says he was born in Kenya. (Fact checking error)

Obama in Indonesia stories

• Obama’s school registration proves he was an Indonesian citizen. (Not really.)
• Obama was an Indonesian national because he went to school in Indonesia where only Indonesians could attend. (Not true.)
• Obama was adopted by his Indonesian step-father. See also here. (Not adopted.)
• Obama automatically became an Indonesian citizen when he was adopted at age 5. (Not adopted.)

Obama’s Selective Service registration

• Obama is ineligible to be president because he failed to register for the Selective Service, a prerequisite for a federal job. See also here. (But he did register.)
• Ohama’s Selective Service registration document is fake, see also here. (It’s legit.)
• The Selective Service computer system will not confirm Obama’s registration. (It did.)
• The Selective Service registration number has too many digits. (No it doesn’t.)
• Obama could not have registered for the draft in Hawaii because he was attending classes in California at the time. (No.)
• Authentic postal cancellations always have a 4-digit year. They do except when the date isn’t clear.

Obama’s social-security number

Two issues were raised about President Obama’s social-security number, which had become public through faulty redaction of the President’s income tax returns. One deals with the fact that the number itself is usually associated with Connecticut residents, and that there are some unidentified public records tying Obama’s number with one or more other names. Obama Conspiracy Theories has several articles dealing with social-security numbers and Obama. Here are some particular claims:

• Obama has 39 social-security numbers. (Just one.)
• Obama has a Connecticut social-security number and that means fraud. See also here. (Clerical error most likely.)
• Obama is using the social-security number of a deceased individual. (No.)
• Obama is using the social-security number of Jean Paul Ludwig. (Ludwig has a different number.)
• eVerify response indicates Obama’s number is fraudulent. See also here. (It means the president gets extra security on his records.)

Obama legal fees and sealing records

• Obama has spent millions in legal fees keeping his birth certificate secret. This is further nonsense since Obama freely released his birth certificate.
• An Obama executive order sealed all his records. (No, the order has nothing to do with prior records.)
• See also this article from FactCheck.org.

Obama higher education claims

• Obama registered as a foreign student at Occidental College to get financial aid. This was actually an April Fool joke, but it is still widely believed. Follow-up story here and here.
• Obama went to Occidental College under a Fulbright scholarship. Silly since Fulbright scholarships are for graduate study and Obama was an undergrad at Occidental.
• Obama went under the name “Barry Soetoro” at Occidental College. See also. (Guess again.)
• Nobody remembers Obama at Columbia College. See also classmate Wolf and Professor Baron.
• Obama funneled guns to the Taliban for the CIA while a student. Too silly to debunk, but listed for reference.
• Obama’s Columbia University ID lists him as a “foreign student.” Politifact rated this “pants on fire.” See also here.

Obama is not a natural born citizen because of his parentage

The idea that Barack Obama is not a natural born citizen even if born in the US is not a “conspiracy theory;” it is a legal theory. The best compilation debunking this claim is the report of the Congressional Research Service: Qualifications for President and the “Natural Born” Citizenship Eligibility Requirement.

For a general review, see: Natural Born Citizen for Dummies. For a compendium of citations about natural born citizen, see The Great Mother of All Natural Born Citizen Quotation Pages, other articles on citizenship on this site, our Citizenship bookmarks, and Books on Google that define “natural born citizen.” See also John Woodman’s series of articles. Since 2008 at least 11 courts have ruled specifically on this question as it pertains to Barack Obama and all have affirmed that if born in Hawaii, Obama is a natural born citizen. Also see my article here and here.

Specific debunked claims:

• The Supreme Court in Minor v Happersett defined natural born citizen as requiring two citizen parents.
• The Law of Nations by E. Vattel defined natural born citizen as requiring two citizen parents.
• The US Constitution incorporates the Law of Nations by reference.
• The Supreme Court cited Vattel in United States v Wong Kim Ark.
• Supreme Court Case Perkins v. Elg proves a natural born citizen must have two US parents.
• No court has ruled on the merits of claims that Obama is not a natural born citizen because of his father’s British citizenship.

Other strange stories

• Barack Obama traveled to Pakistan on an Indonesian passport. See also.
• Barack Obama was raised by communists.
• Google says Obama is a socialist.
• Barack Obama Committed Perjury on his Illinois Bar Application.
• Michelle Obama was disbarred. See also.
• Barack Obama was forced to surrender his law license or face ethics charges.
• CIA DNA Test Reveals Barack Obama was ADOPTED. This one is too silly to debunk but I wanted to document the incredible story.
• Obama sat on the board of the Annenberg Foundation that runs FactCheck.org.
• Barack Obama is a British citizen.
• Barack Obama was going to change the military oath so that soldiers would swear allegiance to him personally. This was meant to be a joke, but, well…
• Obama is the Anti-Christ. And here. And here.
• Barack Obama’s best-selling 1995 memoir, Dreams from My Father, was ghostwritten by Bill Ayers.
• Barack Obama told veterans to “stop whining” about having to pay for their own health care.
• Obama has issued more executive orders than any president in history (actually fewer).
• Obama went by the name Soetoro in high school.
• Obama was a time traveler to Mars when he was a teenager.
• Obama is a Muslim
• Obama wears a ring with an Islamic inscription
• Obama refused to say the Pledge of Allegiance
• Obama removed the US flag from Air Force 1 and replaced it with his campaign logo
• Barack Obama won election through hypnosis
• Barack Obama has an IQ of 102, lowest of any president. Debunked at Snopes.com.
• Jesus said that Barack Obama is Satan.

Updated June 18, 2018.