I’m not saying it was Aliens......
There are something like 300 families that own most of the worlds business and land. They sometimes work together to scam a government out of Billions and sometimes the try to scam each other.
It is, as you say, "speculation" and really nothing but speculation.
And it "isn't much of stretch to tie them all together" if you start with the base assumption that the world is all one big conspiracy and then work backwards to find any possible connections you can find or even invent.

Is that the same "CFR" that Dick Cheney impishly admitted running as Director? The same CFR and Trilateral Commission run by the uber-globalist Rockefellers?
They think of themselves as benevolent puppet masters — not as vile tyrants.
But make no mistake. They will continue to enjoy the finest foods and most advanced gadgets the world has to offer in their air conditioned mansions — while the rest of us will eat beans and swelter.
If you think there are no powerful conspiracies, please explain how the jr NTsb investigator that lied about twa 800 witness testimony has risen to ntsb coo.
Dr. Carroll Quigley pretty much laid it out in Tragedy and Hope published in 1966. Crazy thing is, even after being laid out in this 1350 page tome nobody even realized what he had said until about 1970 when Dr. Cleon Skousen put the dots together concerning the Round Table Groups (int. Banks, foundations, and public and private alliances of all sorts etc.) and their role.
Quigley is the esteemed Georgetown professor that Clinton lauded during his 1992 acceptance speech at the Dem Convention. Quigely thought it a very good thing as he was a socialist anyhow and really thought they should be more upfront about it. They really didn’t agree and the publishing house (Macmillan) was bought out and the book immediately taken out of print. But by that time the cat was out of the bag and pirate copies were printed.
Norman Dodd lays out the involvement of the major foundations such as the Carnagie, Ford, Rockefeller etc detailing his findings as lead researcher for the Reece Committee.
Pretty much an open conspiracy for the institution of a one world government. The concept runs all the way back to Nimrod and Babel. The documentation is overwhelming. Dr. Stanley Monteith among others has spent decades researching and produced mountains of evidence. These people are incredibly arrogant and in many ways open about their intentions as they view the common man as simply too stupid to even catch on. In their thinking we’re getting what we deserve.
Question is, can a bunch of international elites who are nothing more than self-serving pit vipers and control freaks pull it off?
There is such a society. It’s called the “Shellbacks”. They’ll kill me if I say any more.
The Trilateral Commission with the Council on Foreign Relations, did you ever hear of them?
Well, neither did I! Until I noticed the chain of coincidence...
They have members on all the boards of all the largest corporations.
Not one detail has been left out.
Am I right, do you feel it!
Do you know what Bobby Ray Inman was doing before he was running the Microelectronics and Computer Technology Corporation (MCC)? Well guess...a CIA director! It’s public knowledge!
Do you run out of Kleenex, toilet paper and paper towels at the same time? You know it’s true!
You remember how Governor White campaigned to get the MCC here? Do you know what their goal is huh?
Elvis did!
Artificial intelligence! AH!
Oh they’d like that wouldn’t they?
Yes sir, sleeeep, sleeep!
One and one does not equal two! No sir! No Sir!
Silicon Gulch, Silicon Prairie, Silicon Hills, Silicon Valley!
You better wake up!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HdCfYHNctsc

I would be very surprised if that were true. Root went to Russia when Kerensky was still in charge to offer loans if Russia would remain in the war. No evidence that his group met with Lenin or offered him any money.
Talk about the influence of groups like the CFR in the past has a lot to do with the homogeneity of elites in the past. When most officials and influential trendsetters came from the same narrow strata of society, a group like the CFR or Bildebergers could make use of that homogeneity to spread its ideas. As older elites broke down, it becomes harder to wield that kind of influence.
Also, there's more competition now. In 1917 or 1941 very few Americans had much expertise in foreign affairs. Now there are any number of institutes and organizations and academics competing for influence in the field. Given the growth of think tanks representing very different points of view, it's harder for a group to have influence across party lines as the CFR once did.