The assassination of JFK is something that will continuously be scrutinised by conspiracy theorists, and one aspect that has resurfaced is the mysterious “umbrella man” who was at the scene.

People have pointed it out that while it wasn’t raining, and even though it was sunny, a single man holding an umbrella was strange… apparently. But there’s more to the man than being at the wrong place at the wrong time.

The man (Louie Steven Witt) was asked to come forward and explain his actions, and he did, before congress. The umbrella was a protest of Joseph Kennedy’s appeasement polices when he was Ambassador to the Court of St. James in 1938-39, with the umbrella being a reference to the umbrella often carried by Neville Chamberlain.

Umbrella protests first began in England after Chamberlain arrived home from the conference carrying his trademark accessory. Wherever Chamberlain traveled, the opposition party in Britain protested his appeasement at Munich by displaying umbrellas. Throughout the 1950s and 1960s, Americans on the far Right employed umbrellas to criticize leaders supposedly appeasing the enemies of the United States. Some politicians even refused to use them for that reason. Vice President Richard Nixon banned his own aides from carrying umbrellas when picking him up at the airport for fear of being photographed and charged as an appeaser.

Love conspiracy theories? We know where you can find more – check this out.

Check out the full story on io9.