Cold Fusion! It's real I tell you, seriously.
Back when pons and fleischman unveiled their experiment, scientists around the world attempted to replicate it and failed. So, the world declared it a hoax. All who endorsed the idea were laughed out of the scientific community. There's a fair amount of evidence now that creating cold fusion is a more precise and exacting endeavor than previously thought. Dozens of scientists are working in their basements right now, researching cf. It's a catch-22. These scientists are laughed at because of a lack of peer review yet they no "real" scientists will review their work out of arrogance and fear of ridicule.
I spent a year researching cf. It may not be the future of civilization, but I think something's certainly there.
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/6.11/coldfusion.html