A perfect example of this is the young-earth creationism movement, which is a fully fledged cargo cult in this sense. It publishes legitimate-looking books and papers, has intellectual leaders who are highly regarded within the group, and an army of well-trained foot soldiers on YouTube and other social media sites. Cargo cults are by no means limited to Polynesia, or even less developed countries. They are everywhere.
I mean pretty much all religion is a cargo cult. How is a cargo cult fundamentally different than Catholicism, which has a series of rituals in preparation of the return of Jesus?
Isn’t that the same thing as a cargo cult? The key shared similarity is that neither religious people nor cargo cultists understand how their desired goal works (a good afterlife or cargo respectively). Both groups believe they can obtain their desired goal, despite having no knowledge of its mechanism of action, if they blindly carry out their respective rituals.
