“American Conspiracy: The Octopus Murders” might just establish itself as one of the best true crime shows streaming in 2024, but the floating tree conspiracy is definitely causing debate among its viewers. On X, formerly known as Twitter, user @RealNateHorsman chose a journalistic approach to the problem. “During that scene after the Zapruder film was shown I paused the doc and watched the Zapruder film again. There was only one video because of course the ‘alternate’ video was not shown in the doc,” they wrote, including a screenshot of the tree that’s very much not floating for good measure. Others, on the other hand, took the opposite approach to Seymour’s revelation, while ignoring that she herself doesn’t believe in the driver video’s authenticity. “She’s right! Several YT videos you can see the driver kill JFK.” @_PochoVilla claimed.
Others, however, had a more difficult time wrapping their head around the tree situation. “The part about the Kennedy video is really bothering me. Is the floating tree a real thing?” u/Beneficial-Lion-2045 wrote on Reddit. “She was saying he doctored it to mess with her. If she went public and said this was the real film, she’d be humiliated. It was undermining her credibility,” u/broketothebone replied. “That house was weird, he probably showed that video a lot to intimidate people,” u/chuckles25 posted, sharing their opinion about Robert Booth Nichols.
With the combination of “The Octopus Murders” catching attention and “The Program: Cons, Cults, and Kidnapping” docuseries making Netflix subscribers angrier than ever, the streamer has carved itself out a nice spot in the world of true crime documentaries. Well, at least until HBO enters the arena when “The Jinx” Season 2 reveals more details about Robert Durst later this year.
