In one particularly heated exchange on the conspiracy theory subreddit, two hairstylists argued over Mangione’s eyebrows.
One user wrote: “Back in the day, I was a hair stylist 20 years ago, no one had eyebrows that grew that fast in just three days.” “It is on the state board test. The hair on your head grows 1/4 inch each month. Your eyebrows grow more slowly.”
“I’m also a hairstylist and I work with models,” another user replied. “Different lighting and different facial expressions create different shadows in the photo. This man is trying to start a revolution. Don’t conspire with someone who is for the people.”
However, this is just one of the conspiracy theories surrounding Mangione. Another popular theory involves the number 286 and its many connections to the suspected shooter.
In his profile on X, Mangione introduces the Pokémon Breloom, which is the 286th Pokémon. Mangione has also posted exactly 286 times on X when he was captured. 286 is also a code used by health insurance companies when “when the appeal deadline for a health care claim has not been met.”
Other users on TikTok have pointed out a potential connection to the Bible, with Proverbs 28:6 stating: “Better is a poor person whose ways are upright than a rich person whose ways are crooked.”
Finally, some people online claimed the distance between the shooting location and the McDonald’s where Mangione was discovered was 286 miles. However, according to Google MapsThe actual distance is 279 miles.
Regardless of the distance between it and Manhattan, the location of this McDonald’s has in itself sparked a number of conspiracy theories, as seen in the work of a Reddit poster who took the time to document many connections between the board game Monopoly and the shooting.
First, they pointed out that the backpack found by police in Central Park contained money from the game. They also noted that Altoona was the headquarters of the Pennsylvania Railroad, one of four railroads sold in the standard US version of the game. Finally, the poster emphasizes the fact that McDonald’s has been running a campaign promoting the game for decades, although the campaign was briefly paused at the turn of the century after . Massive fraud scandal implicated, among dozens of others, a key insider and Gennaro “Jerry” Colombo, who claimed to be a member of the Colombo crime family.
