Conspiracies
I am not an advocate of conspiracy theories. Practically none of them stand up to the slightest fact-checking, not to mention human nature - the chances that elaborate secrets can be kept hidden for long periods of time in an open society is next to nil.
On the other hand, there are occasionally situations where a smaller set of actors, with similar agendas, will happily cooperate on an enterprise and keep their cooperation hidden in order to maximize the effect of their efforts.
Yesterday we saw this happen - twice.