5 Creepiest Cover-ups in History

In 2013, the journalism community across the nation was shaken when a tragic accident took the life of a young journalist with a promising future. But rumors quickly started circulating that the explanations could have been a coverup for something much more sinister.

Michael Hastings rose to prominence with his coverage of the Iraq War for Newsweek magazine in the 2000s. Then, in 2010, he wrote a hard-hitting profile on General Stanley McChrystal for Rolling Stone magazine, prompting his resignation.

A vocal critic of the Obama Administration's 2013 Department of Justice investigation of political reporters, Hastings once called the imposed restrictions as the beginning of a war on free journalism.

His last story, titled ‘Why Democrats Love to Spy On Americans,’ was published by BuzzFeed on June 7, 2013, mere days before his mysterious passing.

On June 18, Hastings crashed his car onto a palm tree at the Hancock Park neighborhood in Los Angeles, with one witness claiming to have seen the reporter's car cruising at top speed before crashing and bursting into flames.

Although investigators officially deemed the crash an accident and circulated stories about the journalist's supposed drug problem and paranoia, it wasn't long before fellow journalists and web sleuths began theorizing on an alternate version.

At the time of his passing, Hastings was working on a big CIA exposé, and the day before the crash, he told several family members and friends that he believed he was being investigated by the FBI.

According to some of the reporter's friends, Hastings said that he was about to go off the radar, and he also contacted one of his lawyers a few hours before the crash.

Despite vehemently denying investigating Michael Hastings, the Federal Bureau of Investigation suspiciously volunteered a file with the journalist's biometrical data when his body proved too burned to be identified.

Hasting's widow, Elise Jordan, believes that his passing was due to a tragic accident caused by his agitated state and poor mental health, but others still think otherwise.

According to Richard A. Clarke, a former United States National Coordinator for counter-terrorism, Michael Hasting's crash is consistent with a remote attack.

In an official interview, Clarke stated: "There is reason to believe that intelligence agencies for major powers—including the United States—know how to remotely seize control of a car. So if there were a cyber attack on car — and I'm not saying there was, I think whoever did it would probably get away with it.”