That's an interesting way to view it. I generally just thought of all of this as people falling into the "everything is a conspiracy" mindset, with the added complication that the governments of the world definitely have an interest in discrediting the "truth seeking" people. So basically there are absurd conspiracies that get promoted and then people who tend to view everything as a conspiracy believe them. The mother of all of these is flat earth, which seems to trace back over a century with Samuel Rowbotham.

But yeah, there is probably a human aspect to this too that a conspiracy is a convenient way to dismiss something scary.