More likely from the time of "Remember the Maine" which was one of the original LIES foisted on the American populace by William Randolph Hearst's publishing empire at our governments behest.
As "tin-foil hatters" are generally equated with conspiracy theories and ufo believers, it could be said this was one of the first.
The false claiming of the USS Maine being torpedoed by the Spanish, drug the US into the Spanish-American War, which like all wars, even the one we're fighting today was fought for the GREED of those running our country.
(Note: the investigation done under the supervision of Admiral Rickkenbacher Rickover (corrected), father of our modern nuclear navy subs, clearly determined the USS Maine was sunk, NOT BY TORPEDO, but but an internal boiler explosion of undetermined cause.)
When one looks closely at "Pearl Harbor", the Gulf of Tonkin incident and even 9/11, one will find the same pattern of deceit, false flag operations made famous by the Israelis and the same greedy bastards reaping the rewards of war, at the expense of the common folk, so don't be too hard on those tin-foil folks, as most of them have more facts to back-up their stances than those casting aspersions their way........., as they have history to back them up.
Mike