'American Horror Story' Season 5 Spoilers: New Season Clues Revealed? Theories Point To Top Hat, Government Connection

Are we getting warmer? Fans of “American Horror Story” have been attempting to solve the Season 5 plot of the gore-filled FX miniseries since “Freak Show” made its terrifying debut. Ryan Murphy, the co-creator behind the thriller, teased fans prior to the Season 4 October premiere by hinting that episodes one and two would feature a few clues that would explain what the Season 5 storyline will focus around.

“There are clues in the first two episodes because I figured out Season 5 very early on and I know that the fans love that,” he told Entertainment Weekly. “So there are clues that are dropped.”

With that go-ahead, viewers put on their thinking caps and got to work as they tried to string together theories. But according to Murphy, no one was able to hit the nail on the head. “I’ve been looking, and nobody has gotten it right,” he revealed to EW.

Some fans whipped up the idea that Season 5 might be space-related due to Elsa Mars’ (Jessica Lange) cover of “Life on Mars.” However, the mastermind behind the miniseries quickly quashed that theory. “No. We’re not doing space. Because space is not in America. It’s ‘American Horror Story,’ not ‘Intergalactic Horror Story.’ But I thought the clues about people thinking it was space were clever. I always love it when people come up with these theories but it is 100 percent not space. It is land-bound and it takes place in the United States,” he said.

But just because it’s not about space doesn’t mean Season 5 can’t still be about aliens, right? Wrong! MTV reported that Murphy is wiping his hands clean of extra-terrestrials since he scripted them into the plot of Season 2, “Asylum.” But if Murphy was to make Season 5 about aliens, it would help connect the dots between the two installments, not to mention add some context to that shaky storyline. (Is anyone else still confused about what really happened to Kit [Evan Peters]?)

Because fans couldn’t seem to piece together Murphy’s well-constructed puzzle, the co-creator gave viewers a freebie. He explained during an interview with EW that top hats will play a pivotal role in Season 5 of “AHS.” Remember when Maggie (Emma Roberts) was handed a coffee cup with the fancy accessory plastered across it? Well, according to Murphy that “is a big season five clue!”

"It’s an arcane clue, but it’s very purposeful, and it illuminates something that you’ll be like, 'Oh! You dirty [expletive]!’” he stated.

With top hats in mind, fans nearly freaked out when a well-known “AHS” spoiler Instagram account posted a photo of a cornfield, a farm house and what looked like a billboard with a top hat. (You can see the images HERE).

The Huffington Post then composed the theory that perhaps Season 5 might have something to do with Operation Top Hat – a “local field exercise” that was conducted by the U.S. Army Chemical Corps in Alabama in 1953. That's the same decade when Elsa had created her freak show -- not to mention, both Elsa's show and the Tattler twins (Sarah Paulson) lived in Alabama before fleeing to Florida. Do we smell a connection? According to reports, Operation Top Hat was an exercise that tested biological and chemical warfare on human subjects. Does that mean fans should anticipate seeing deformity due to radiation in Season 5 if Operation Top Hat is the answer to the clues?

Chime in with your thoughts of what the Season 5 storyline is in the comments section below. “American Horror Story: Freak Show” will return on Wednesday, Jan. 7, at 10 p.m. EST.