There’s a reason the History Channel has produced hundreds of documentaries about Hitler but only a few about Dwight D. Eisenhower. Bad guys (and gals) are eternally fascinating. Behind the Bastards dives in past the Cliffs Notes of the worst humans in history and exposes the bizarre realities of their lives. Listeners will learn about the young adult novels that helped Hitler form his monstrous ideology, the founder of Blackwater’s insane quest to build his own Air Force, the bizarre lives of the sons and daughters of dictators and Saddam Hussein’s side career as a trashy romance novelist.
Sat, 30 Oct 2021 04:02
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Hello, I'm Erica Kelly from the podcast Southern Fried True crime, and if you want to go from podcast fan to podcast host, do what I did and check out spreaker from iheart. I was working in accounting and hating it. Then after just 18 months of podcasting with Spreaker, I was able to quit my day job. Follow your podcasting dreams, let's break or handle the hosting, creation, distribution, and monetization of your podcast. Go to spreaker.com. That's spreaker.com. Hey there, it's Ebony Monet, your co-host for the San Diego Zoo's Amazing Wildlife podcast. In this special episode, we're speaking with Doctor Jane Goodall about the fascinating journey that led to her social discoveries on chimpanzees. So four whole months, the chimps ran away from me. I mean, they take one look at this peculiar white ape and disappear into the vegetation. Bing wildlife on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts, sisters of the Underground is a podcast about fearless Dominican women who stood up against the brutal dictator Kapal Trujillo. He needs to be stopped. We've been silent and complacent for far too long. I am Daniel Ramirez, and as a Dominicana myself, I am proud to be narrating this true story that is often left out of the history books to read. Your has blood on his hands. Listen to sisters of the underground wherever you get your podcasts. Raffi is the voice of some of the happiest songs of our generation. So who is the man behind baby beluga? Every human being wants to feel respected. When we start with young children, all good things can grow from there. I'm Chris Garcia, comedian, new dad, and host of finding Raffi, a new podcast from iHeartRadio and fatherly. Listen every Tuesday on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm John Gonzalez, the host of OSI's new podcast Sports Illustrated weekly. Sports Illustrated has delivered some of the best storytelling in sports for 70 years, and now that continues on our show. Each week, we'll dive deep into the best stories from around the sports world. Sports Illustrated Weekly is available every Wednesday on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Subscribe now. Raffi is the voice of some of the happiest songs of our generation. So who is the man behind baby beluga? Every human being wants to feel respected. When we start with young children, all good things can grow from there. I'm Chris Garcia, comedian, new dad and host of finding Raffi, a new podcast from iHeartRadio and fatherly. Listen every Tuesday on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey everybody, Robert Evans here. And I wanted to let you know, this is a compilation episode, so every episode. Of the week that just happened is here in one convenient and with somewhat less ads package for you to listen to in a long stretch if you want. If you've been listening to the episodes every day this week, there's going to be nothing new here for you, but you can make your own decisions. Welcome to Spooky Week, a week where we are. Not really any spookier, honestly, than the average things happening, because everything happening is is terrifying like ghosts and ghouls are are are a lot more fun anyway. What? Hang up in this podcast, don't listen. Go watch Herbert W Reanimator. Have some fun. But if you decide to keep listening to podcasts for some reason, we have a bunch of spooky content for you this week. How is that? How's that introduction, Sophie? Bad. To. Spooky. Scary. Garrison, get going. Do your thing. Yeah, my, my thing. So yeah, we're doing, we're doing spooky spooky week, which is very excited about. Yeah. Everyone I've told about spooky week, they're like, oh, so it's just a regular week for for the show. Like, you know, pretty much. No, no, it's more fun. It is in a few ways. It is actually going to be more fun because the the the the the spooky spooky mind bending tails commit to the God dammit. Yeah, spooky mind bending tales actually do have do have some more fun than just the solely depressing ones. Those first theme week that we all agreed upon, this was the first theme week. Like can we do something around Spooky Lyness near Halloween and everybody you know roughly said yes, yes, yes. So this is the first theme week we have. We, we have, we have been promising nut week coming up eventually. Yeah. We'll have to tease about things that made us nut or were we talk about the legumes, mostly legumes. OK, that's fair. But anyway, we should we should start off our first, our first spooky tale. So I'm, I'm going, I'm going to tell a very, very spooky tale of a of of an entire French town going going mad over the course of a single week. Hell yeah, probably. Probably with the help of psychoactive drugs and a certain three letter agency. You know what I think we're going to get to do, Garrison? Let's ask the French accent. I did somebody online. I did get a few messages that you can't be racist against the French. They're like the British or Americans. I did get a few messages saying that your French accent was very racist. To the French, there is a certain number. It's like the Germans. There's a certain number of genocides after which people get to make fun of your country, and it's not racist. And that number is, let's say, 3. Honestly, the the the worst part of this story is that we're probably doing critical support for France. I mean in a in a well. Honestly, I'm gonna be kind of more critical support to the CIA by the end of this one. Exactly. Yeah, that's that is the most critical support can be. So anyway, our very spooky tale begins in 1951 in a small, charming French village called Pont St Esprit, which is how I'm going to say that yeah, there you go. So not much happened in this little picturesque little town on the South side of France. You know, on the day we start, it's just like a regular summer day. People are going about their routine, going to their jobs, kids are playing in the street, enjoying some delicious freshly baked bread, but suddenly. Strange things begin happening and I'm going to start off with some of the more mild, mild, mild effects here. So on August 15th, 1st, dozens, then hundreds of people began first just complaining of nausea, you know, and and some people with some like stomach and abdominal pain, they're coming up less often, less often. Noted there was a few instances like vomiting and diarrhea. I believe 30% of people had diarrhea. That is. That is a weirder, weirder thing. That's a lot of diarrhea. Yeah, that is on like a town wide basis, 3:30, significant 30. Sorry. Yeah. That's a significant strain on the suit, which is 3030% of the people affected, which is going to be like a few 100 versus. I was taking drugs with a group of friends and a third of them had diarrhea. I would say we might need to go to a hospital. This is a sign that we are taking some of that. Perhaps what we got was tainted. There is. There is, yeah. Well, we'll be talking about what actually what the actual drugs being used here are going to be, but. That's gonna come anitas or something where that's not an uncommon side effect, but yeah, yeah. First. First, nausea. A little a little bit of vomiting, stomach pains, cramping. Hospitals began reporting people experiencing alternating warm and cold waves over their entire body. The British Medical Journal recalls abundant sweating and a disagreeable odor, which I'm guessing the odor is just because there's all this sweating people in the same cramped hospital room in the summer. In the summer heat. Yeah. Though anyway, and they're French, so. Lot of escargot sweats. That's all I'm saying. I don't wanna get more messages saying that I have to stop by saying that he's going to do it more. By the way, do we know that the diarrhea was the result of of whatever substance? Or maybe it's just the wine ***** again. We don't we? There's no way to tell. There's no way to know. So, yeah, patients began complaining about weird pains and pressure around their neck, which. Yeah, and one of the one of the most reported symptoms was insomnia. In some cases lasting several days, quoting the British Medical Journal, the first symptoms appeared after a latent period of 6 to 48 hours. The digestive disorders quickly became worse, with burning sensations through the entire digestive tract. Some experience sensations of burning at the ****. A state of giddiness persisted. I mean, who's not giddy when your **** is burning? Am I right? I do. Like, this is like, this is like the like the clearest side that there's like some some psychoactive drug going on because, like, your **** is burning and gets you're very gyped you are on board. Yeah. It's like that sign from that. What is that from a rejected by. What's that, cartoonist? Like, my **** is bleeding, but, like, you're down. You know you're down for it. Yeah, yeah, you're you're you're 110% so, John Mulaney impression. No, no, no. It's who did reject it. Because that was bad. It wasn't a John Laney impression. Sophie. OK, that's just your millennial brain, Don Hertzfeld. Yeah, great artist. Yep, great artist. So these pale and limp patients, still quoting the British Medical Journal, these pale and limp patients showed inconspicuous trembling of the extremities and they complained of disorders of the visual accommodation and especially being unable to read. So this this is. This is the more mild range, this is the. This could be a long one there. So this is for many people affected. This is where the symptoms stopped after suffering for insomnia for a while with you know mild disorders of the visual accommodation and you know and stomach pains and like weird like neck things after they were able to sleep. That was the sign of their recovery is like the ability to sleep again after the insomnia wore off. But in a in around 50 of the cases reported the effects were much more intense. I'm going to continue from the from the medical. 1st and then get into some of the more colorful reporting around the incident, quoting the medical journal. Again, vivid visual hallucinations appeared in particular themes of visions of animals and of flames. All of these visions were fleeting, invariable in many of the patients. They were followed by dreamy delirium. But right, that's actually pretty good description of like LSA, LSD. Those kind of like the yeah movies always get it wrong because you're not usually not like you're not seeing some sort of like visual like cartoon world. It's it's these kind of like fleeting impressions of visions and things in the corner of your eyes. Yeah, it's a pretty good, especially on lower like it is unclear what exactly they were on because they definitely can be the more cartoon. I mean you can get full open eyed hallucination like especially the Shogun chemicals will do that. But I don't get it so much with like LSD, LSA. Now let's say if you want to **** yourself, that is. That is right. Some Hawaiian baby woodrose seeds. Yeah. So from Home Depot and have yourself a horrible night. So the delirium seemed to be systematized, with animal hallucinations and self accusation was weird. Weird terms from the from the medical journal accusations. Yeah it's. I think I think they're trying to get at ego death but they don't have terms for it yet. Either that or that like sometimes you're hallucinating it like overcome like guilt. Like oh I did this terrible thing or yeah yeah yeah everybody's angry at me or whatever like continuing from the medical journal so self accusation and and it was sometimes mystical or McCabe in some cases terrifying visions were followed by fungus. Which is an old term for like fugues. It says you says fugues. It's it's pronounced fugue. Yeah. It's like, it's it's like, it's like extreme, extreme disassociation. Yeah, yeah. You're kind of zombified a little bit, yeah. And two and two patients through themselves out the window. Yeah, if the delirium was of a confusao kind, which could be interpreted for some moments by a strong stimulation, every attempt at restraint increased the agitation. Well, yeah, that's it. That is really restraining. I've had to restrain a number of people, and it does not calm anyone down. Especially like to be restrained, especially when you're tripping hard. Yeah, this sounds like a real, real bad time. Not the thing to do. In severe cases, muscular spasms appeared the duration of these periods of delirium. Was varied. They lasted several several hours in some patients, and in others they persisted overnight. So that and then here it's it's gonna get a little bit darker and then we're gonna have more fun. We observed 4 fatal cases, three men and one woman. Three of these people were old and in bad health. One of the men was only 25 years old and had had been in good health previously. They died in a muscular spasm in a state of cardiovascular collapse. I think this is probably mostly due to how the doctors were handling these patients, right. I mean obviously your your blood pressure one that can elevate when you're when you're hallucinating. But yeah I think it also has a lot to do with. The way they were being handled, yeah, you're right, the disorders developed more quickly in children, but also left them more quickly. An interesting feature some of the cases was that the delirium was the first sign to be noted. So it depends. People come up, came up on different ways, right? Some of them first had weird body feelings, some of them first started just seeing stuff. One other interesting tidbit that we're not going to spend much time talking about, but like around two weeks after this initial incident, some symptoms started to reappear, either through like a secondary poisoning or it was like some kind of like acid flashback. Yeah, it must. It must because I've I've done a ******** of acid. I've never had a flashback. I did at one point. I mean, I have like done some damage and so I have permanent tracers, but it's not like my guess is they got it. I think the idea that there are like acid flashbacks. That are vivid hallucinations has been pretty heavily debunked. My guess is they got reduced. I don't know, I might fight you, but on the TSD, yeah, like it could be that it was traumatic enough that like they're having, they're dealing with PTSD and kind of that's what's happening. But I don't know and I think I definitely have seen enough reports that would see acid flashbacks definitely actually being a thing in some cases, especially in like the early days of studying these types of drugs and like the 60s like this, the CA reported a lot of stuff around acid flashbacks, around the people that they tortured, but I guess. If it's, if it's tied to torture, that could just be PTSD stuff, could be PTSD. It's also, I mean, one thing you have to know, I don't know what kind of dose these people are getting the CIA with those people. They were sometimes giving people doses. Yeah. People do not take, like, you do not take that much. Yeah. Like hundreds or thousands or millions of likes. Yeah. Yeah. That's ridiculous, irresponsible doses. Yeah. So now we're going to get to some of the, some of the more fun descriptions here, which we can actually kind of like, based on our experiences, can actually kind of see like what was actually going on in these people's heads. So basically, we had at least dozens and dozens of people tripping very, very hard. The local postman was doing his rounds on his bicycle when he was suddenly overwhelmed by nausea and wild hallucinations quoting him. It was terrible. I had the sense I had the sensation of shrinking and shrinking and the fire and the serpents coiling around my arms. Yeah, that guy had some other stuff going on. Yeah, because the very first acid trip was on a bicycle. When Heinrich Hoffman, like made it and dosed himself, he started coming up. I believe it was Amsterdam, like riding his bicycle, which is like, well, this is lovely. Yeah, I've made something cool of. Why was the postman riding a bicycle? To deliver packages and because they're in France, because it's your France. We do not have the vehicles in the 1950s. It's not there. France in 1924, I mean that. I'm sorry. Posting so yeah, the mailman fell off his bike and was taken to the taken to a hospital in a nearby town. He was put in a straight jacket and he shared a room with three teenagers who were also tripping. And the teenagers were changed to their beds to keep them under control. Yeah, that's that's how you sounds horrible, right? Flashbacks to this, to being chained to a bed while tripping. Yeah, that's a bad thing to do. Some of my friends tried to get out of the window. They were thrashing wildly, screaming, and the sound of the metal beds and jumping up and down the noise was terrible. I put I would prefer. I would prefer to die than go through that again, you know? Yeah, totally terrible. This sounds like the worst acid trip you could go off. That sounds like about the worst way you could have a trip. Go. It sounds awful. Yeah. So back in the French town, a little girl. Creed as she was being chased by man eating tigers. Oh my goodness, a woman sobbed about how her children had been grounded to sausages. Oh great. No. So graphic and specific. Yeah, a large bed defended off a terrific beast by smashing his furniture and using the wood as weapons. Good for you, buddy. Good for you. A husband and wife right around chasing each other with knives. Again, probably something else going on there. My, my guess is we're not just talking the acid in in that, because I have again been on acid a lot around knives and other weapons. I've never chased anybody. I've never chased someone around with knives. But again, like a couple who was on the verge of a knife. I think I think the important part here is that, like in 1951 in this French town, like, acid wasn't a thing yet. Like, like, like, like, yeah, like hallucinogenic drugs weren't a thing, right? Even, like, even like mushrooms weren't popular around this time. No one knew what what the hell was going on. Like they just think that they're just basically losing their minds. Like there's there's no other explanation for what's happening to them. Say that the most shocking thing that has come out so far is that when Robert was on acid, he wasn't chasing people with knives. That seems like it's honest, like, depending on your acid trip, you wouldn't want to chase him with a knife. Like it's not. That's not the kind of headspace you're in. We would, we would like during this sober. Yeah, we would. We would take a bunch of drugs and grab my AK47 and hike out into the woods. And we would shoot down a fur tree and we would drag it back to a clearing and we would bury it standing up and we would drape it in pig intestines and put a pig's heart. And when we cover it in gasoline and light it with firecrackers and dance around it like the pagans of old, but there was nothing aggressive about no, you, you, you very rarely would want to hurt somebody on acid. In my experience, like you, you generally generally are at least you're like, way more compassionate and in a lot of ways. But if you have no idea what acid is and you're just you're in the 1950s and you're losing your mind and you're seeing weird things, then yeah, I can see how this would maybe cause some other types of behavior. You just think that, like, God is angry at you. Yeah. Yeah. Like, like, like, they're not, they're not dosing themselves either. They're being dosed, right, like they don't. It's very different. We're like you're deciding to go on a trip versus this is happening to you and you have no decision. I think for basically anyone in this position, the logical assumption would be, oh, the devil has taken over our town and our minds have we have been infested with demons. Like, what else are you going to assume? You're not going to be like, oh, this drug that's just barely been invented and that nobody really knows about yet except for weird nerds? It must be some version of that. That I've taken accidentally no, you're going to do so like, no demons are in your blood. So one interesting thing. But before we before we go on break even, some of the local animals had been affected by whatever poison in the town there there was there was one dog in particular that kept chewing on rocks until its teeth chipped away. I don't like this. And and ducks were behaving very odd. It's described it they they were they were walking around erect and upright like Penguins in a line. And they just like, very weird. Weird behavior from ducks scariest thing I've heard so far that kind of makes me want to dose our duck scares. We are not. We're not wasting acid on the Ducks. But I mean, there's a lot of things you could give ducks, so we're not, we're not giving ducks asset. That's not happening about giving ducks drugs is they're all monsters. That is true. They are monsters and rapists. Every one of them. Yeah, all of the male ducks. So anyway, I'll reoccurring theme was that people were running around wildly and being very fearful of like monstery animals and encroaching flames. Sounds like the Ducks are having a good time though. In their Ministry of Silly Walks. **** like, I don't know what all these people are bummed about. This is red. OK, so when you first said that I heard dogs and I was like, that is the most terrible thing I've ever heard. Ducks. Ducks is much funnier. It's like ducks, Stanley. Like very upright, like Penguins walking around in the line. I think ducks might enjoy it. I think dogs are a little too aware of what's going on. Garrison didn't say dog the the the stone thing was about the dog, but yeah, the the, the, the the dog. And scary. Yeah. I just don't know that the dogs enjoy it because, like, I've seen dogs. Accidentally eat large amounts of pot and whatnot, and they they they are they get weird. They they're pretty scared. They're pretty scared. Yeah, yeah. Do you know what is also very spooky? Capitalism. Yeah, capitalism and all of these spooky advertisements to sell you things. Advertisements are also a form of mind control. Speaking of the CIA in the 50s anyway. Profoundly damaging. We are back from the spooky advertising. Killed it. Yeah. Anyway. So I think another another reoccurring factor for why a lot of these people have very similar types of experiences around like snakes, which we'll talk about later. And like flames is like with this many people tripping and no one knows what tripping is. I think it's really easy for an idea or a fear to spread from one person to another while they're tripping with like this many people. I think if someone says something, it's going to start happening to someone else. And it's kind of kind of this like cascading effect where they're all developed these very similar fear is because it's almost like being spread like an infection. So there was there was a one man convinced that red snakes were devouring his brain, and he jumped out of a window. Ohh no. What? Did he did he live through this? He did live. I'm guessing a lot of these. It's it's like France and the 50s. So I'm guessing most of these buildings are not super. They're not. They're not super high. No, no, they're like fall enough foot or two. Although here we have another one. Another man reportedly left from a window yelling, look, everyone, I'm a dragonfly. And then the men broke. The men broke both legs. But he stood up and continued running. Dad? King Sigma. Sigma behavior? Yeah, absolutely. Now we're adding Sigma. We're adding. This is a new kind of man. And the rarity kind of man look, everyone of a dragonfly breaks both legs, keeps running. Based on the information you've provided us, I can't say he's not a dragonfly. No, he is an absolute, absolute, absolute king. Ohh, good for I I hope you had a great life, yeah. And another one saw his heart escape through his feet and beseeched a doctor to try to put it back into place. Yeah, you don't want to have that happen. That doesn't sound fun, keep you want to keep that. Somewhere around the middle of your body, someone sprinted down the lane, claiming that he was being chased by bandits with donkey ears. At a nearby river, a man was convinced that he was a circus tightrope Walker and attempted to balance his way across the cables of a suspension bridge. How do you know? It doesn't say. The report does not tell you. Sounds like you did great. Yeah. Like he was right. Yeah. He's not in the death report. Yeah. So he's not report. And therefore another another person did try to die in the river. He tried to jump into the river, only to be saved by his friends. And he was screaming. I am dead. I am dead. And my head is made of copper and I have snakes in my stomach. And they are burning me. It's such a weird description of like tripping and saying like, my head is made of copper. I'm trying to think of like what was going on? What, like what? What series of events did did he spiral down in his brain to have that sentence? I just, I'm not quite sure. It's it's it's it's definitely, I can definitely see it happening. I just, I just can't. I'm trying to think like what exactly what happened to get to that point. It's real, real interesting. I think some of these are hard because again, it's like these people just think literally think they're going insane. Yeah. Or that like this stuff is just actually happening to them. Like you. Like when you tripping on acid, you already kind of have the feeling that you there is moments where you feel like this is like, this is like never going to end even though you, even though you know, you know you're on acid. These people don't know that, right? Like these people don't have the reassurance like, no, I took acid, I'm on a drug. This is going to be over 8 hours. They think they think this is gonna last forever, right? Like they think this this is just the world now, like this is just. One of those, Robert Anton Wilson, who is a thinker I enjoy a lot, writes a lot about how to calm people down when they've taken too much. And most of his advices around talking about like, OK, well, how long ago did you take it? Hey, well, that the good news is that this is going to end here, you know, it's only going to last this long. Like you're through this .0, this is the, this is the second hour freakies. And by the third hour you'll be fine again and enjoying it like it's all about making keeping in people's minds like this is going to pass. So yeah, you're right. Like, this is the ******* worst way to take drugs. Alright, so local newspapers and also like in in national newspapers described described this as among the stricken delirium rose. Patients thrash wildly on their beds screaming that red flowers were blossoming from their bodies, people throwing themselves from rooftops, men and women throwing their clothes off and running in the streets naked, and children complaining their stomachs were infested with coils and snakes. What should be half of that sounds like, yeah, that's like a normal good time just running around the streets naked on acid. Other labs like, yeah, that that doesn't seem pleasant with coils and snakes in your stomach, but also like flowers blossoming from your body. I can, I can, I can understand that kind of sensation. But, like, it definitely. It definitely wasn't all horrible in the night. Like, Nightmares, we, we we already mentioned the giddy people with burning anuses, but for like, the full, entrapping folks. According to the New York Times, there was reports of people like hearing heavenly choruses and seeing, you know, bright colors. The world look beautiful to them. Apparently the head of the farming Co-op wrote hundreds of pages of, like, enlightened, tripping poetry. You see, like that. That guy must be sick as ****. Because knowing nothing, he starts tripping. Not knowing he's tripping. It's just like time to make some ******* art like you. You know what? This head stayed is good for? Writing some ****. Just, like, went to his cabinets, wrote poetry. That's ******* awesome. That's a guy. I I'll bet he handled just everything. That life threw it well. Like that says a lot about you when you're like, oh, demons have infiltrated my brain. Guess I'm going to hang out in my cabin and write some poems. Hundreds of pages. Wow. Like I could have. I could hardly write **** on acid. I cannot imagine trying to write poetry. I've done a lot of creative stuff on *****. Creative stuff, yeah. I just feel like specifically like reading and typing can can be hard at certain points. You know, if you're like coming down it can be easier. But like as you're really good for like writing, it's good for ideas that you later can flesh out into writing. But yeah, yeah. So unfortunately, you know, because this was, you know, no one was going on. Many people were taken to local asylums in straitjackets and tied onto beds, making things undoubtedly worse for people tripping. One of those things, I can't even be angry at them because they don't know what's going. I know. Like, you have no idea what's going on. Like, the whole, the whole, like every attempted restraint increase the agitation line is like horrifying from the concept of, like, you're tripping you, you you don't know what's going on, and people are tying you down to beds, making you feel like you're even more stuck in this permanent state of delirium. It's just it just is the worst nightmare. Yeah, all of this is horrible. Yeah, the, the, the, the mayor of the town said, like I've seen healthy men and women suddenly become terrorized, ripping their bedsheets, hiding themselves beneath their blankets to escape from the hallucinations. So yeah, it's it's if if you if you don't know what's going on pretty, pretty, pretty scary. Except for the poetry guy. Good for him. Yeah, good for him, yeah. So, so. But by the time the effects had subsided for everyone affected, which is around like a few days after the initial report, like nausea, like, you know, not it it didn't affect everyone at the same time. You know, some people got dosed later on. It's unclear what exactly because this is the 50s. We didn't have a great idea of the exact time. And of events of like when the first effects were felt and like how all the stuff spaced out. But this whole incident arrest lasted around like a few days for like everyone, everyone totaled. It was reported that anywhere between like 300 to 500 people had felt the effects, you know, around 50 feeling very, very extreme, like open eye, like hallucinations of objects that aren't even there, like like very extreme hallucinations. And and four people did die in connection to the poisoning. At least four people died. It's again it's unclear for exact numbers for a lot of this. Yeah. An investigation into the Sun outbreak of the madness was promptly underway. Town officials wanted to get to the bottom of this as quickly as possible. Yeah, that makes sense. Yeah. You would want to figure out what was happening, yeah. And the blame fell onto a single batch of bread. What so among the common denominator among those affected that they all allegedly consumed bread from one specific Baker works he he was accused of using ergot contaminated rye flour, and he was arrested and a temporary imprisoned. Also, a nearby Miller that he got the flower from was also arrested and given some of the blame. The. The funny part is, is that around this time the French government had a very top down grain distribution system that rigidly controlled everything about where the Greens were milled, where they were sent, and what bakers could use which flour. So bakers had no choice in what type of flour to use or what type of grain they could use in baking. It was all decided by other people because France bread is like, it's a real big deal and it's pretty, pretty, pretty important. Yeah. For the record, just like ergot poisoning, there are a lot of cases of like different, like dancing. Manias and whatnot in like the medieval in medieval Europe were like whole towns will be will everyone will start like dancing or like hallucinating. And you know, they always came down as like, these people assumed apocryphal, as stories about like demon possessions or whatnot. And now a lot of the suspicions like, Oh yeah, some air guide got. No, yeah, it was, it was just kind of tripping, poisoning. It seems like one of the rougher trips to go on. It's not super clean. It's no. I mean, I've done LSA, which I think is similar. It's similar to ever gotten. Yeah, they're tryptamines that are like. Really rough and it's I would not, don't, don't do LSA. No Hawaiian baby woodrose seeds for. If you're going to take LSA, then actually, like, synthesize it you can. You can synthesize it, which is a felony. It is a felony. But you can just buy Hawaiian baby woodrose seeds and eat them and you will have maybe the worst trip of your life. Great advice from from the pod. Yeah on on on on the on the on the Ryan Urgot topic that the past growing season was especially wet and ergot fungi did grow across the country's rye fields. But the amount of ergot on the right and the amount of rye used in baking was thought to not be enough to induce any to any type of poisoning. In fact, the the last time or like or got poisoning had struck. Briance was back in eight, was back in 1816, so almost like a century and 1/2 before this incident. And there was a century, if it's the 50s, right, a little less than a century. So the the last incident was 1816, this was 19, you said 1860. Gotcha, gotcha. Yeah. So essentially and 1/2 ago and no other towns any and no other part of France was affected by anything similar to this. So the ergot thing is kind of iffy. But the explanation was the only thing that doctors investigators could come to would do. Like, you know, they're they're limited knowledge around brain altering substances and just pressure from town officials to get to the bottom of this so that they had something to blame and people could like move on. But, you know, as a result, not much evidence really backs up their backs up their got claim and a lot of experts today kind of deem it bunk. Yeah, there's and there's a bunch of, like, there's this thing kykeon that the Greeks would take that was like this Greek hallucinatory thing that they think it was because they were putting grain and wine. It might have been air got poisoned, but also, like, people enjoyed it. And so there's a lot of debate over whether or not it could have been her got. But I don't know. I don't know what else is. There are other other theories about what it might overlap. Oh yes, there is. Oh, boy. Is it the CIA? CIA Garrison? Where can they get to it? Oh yeah, it it doesn't really make much sense that the high amounts of ergot rye would only be in one batch of grains in a single batch of bread from just one bakery and one small town doesn't doesn't really make sense. Other explanations that people have come to includes like mercury poisoning and overuse of other fungicides. These have been mostly disproven. That doesn't seem like mercury poisoning. And as a guy who likes to drink some mercury, you know, Joe Boy, Mark on. So yeah. So there's a lot of other theories around like fungicides being used, but those have been kind of disproved by some people, but others still point to them as possible explanations. But but there is one other theory that we will focus on that features two of my favorite things, LSD and the 1950s CIA. Because if you're going to pick a CIA then 1950s, they had the most fun. They had the most fun. Like, you know who else has a lot of fun? Garrison? Who? Who? And is also the 1950s CIA. Whomst our sponsors. Oh, really? Yeah, could happen here. Is sponsored only by the 50s CIA only. Only the one from the 50s. Yeah. When you order any of our project products, they will come to your house and inject you with 7000 hits of LSD. Hey, three. Hey, that is that sounds like a great deal, honestly. You're saving a lot of money. You are saying that that is a lot of free as a lot of acid for the amount of money you're spending. Look, that's life. You you won't do more acid, that's for sure. You're that's acid for life. You won't do it again. Yeah, you might. You probably. You won't have to do it. You won't have to do any expenses ever again. Yeah. Well, you'll you'll survive. You'll just be a very different person by the end of the yeah, you you won't survive. Your body will. Yes, someone else will be inhabiting it. At the end of that trip, someone else will wake up. So, Speaking of waking up, here is all the products. Yeah. So, 1950s CIA wild time time. In 2009, Hank P Albarelli is an American writer and journalist released a book called a Terrible Mistake, which focuses on the suspicious death of a CIA scientist. Named Frank Olson, who worked on the CIA mind control experiments during the late 40s and early 50s. While researching the book, Albarelli claims to have come across a number of old CIA and White House documents referencing the Pont St Esprit incident. And he claims that the village was the target of a CIA experiment on the mass effects of LSD and that around the time that Frank Olson wanted to sever his ties with the Army and CIA, Frank started talking about his participation in the experiment, which may have led to the government offering Olson. So I I know that is a lot and it is slightly more than just a speculation. We're going to get into the evidence here shortly, but by now. It's pretty well known that throughout the 40s, fifties and 60s, both the US Army and the CIA tried to use hallucinogenic hallucinogenic drugs such as LSD as both an offensive weapon and as a way to make like, psychic super soldiers. It's programs like MK Ultra, MK Nyomi Project Bluebird Project artichoke, what Watson Bird watch. Lots of these things we're trying to find different ways of using LSD for, like, offensive and defensive means. Some of the interest was promoted by was was prompted by reports of the Soviet Union doing experiments with drugs at the same time also stuff around like you know like like like psychic powers and and hypnosis. This was very popular around this time for for lots of different intelligence agencies. But so Albarelli uncovered a report from 1949 by the director of the Edwood Arsenal which many which which was where many U.S. government LSD experiments were carried out and this report stated that the. We should do everything. Everything is possible. Everything. Everything possible to launch so-called field experiments using this drug. And later in his 2009 book, Alberelli claims that he found references to a government document with the label Re Pont, St Esprit and F Olson Files. SO span Slash France, operation file inclusive, Olsen Intel files, hand carry tabellen. Tell him to see to it that these are buried. This document does exist like we we we like we we we we we do have this label. So on on this document but like the actual contents of the document are are gone by this is this is this is this is just a label that is being referenced as you know there was a thing with this title. So the document label references Frank Olson and David Bellin. Bellin was the executive director of the Rockefeller Commission created by the White House in the mid 70s to investigate abuses carried out worldwide by the Central Intelligence Agency. So Albarelli believes that the that the French town. The incident, which is like the the the Pont St Esprit, which is the name of the town, and the F Olson files mentioned in the document, would definitely show that if the document hadn't been buried, as it was said in the in the label the CIA, it would show that the CIA was experimenting on the townspeople by dosing them with what he thinks was LSD. Now there is also a bit more to it than that. Using foias, he got a hold of another CIA document, A2 page report from 1954, detailing a conversation between a CIA agent and a representative of the Sandoz. Chemical company. So the this, the Sandoz base was the place where Albert Hoffman invented LSD in 1938. And it was, it was, it was only a few 100 kilometers away from Pont St Esprit, the town where this happened. So the the, the chemical company was actually pretty, pretty close relatively to like Europe. And it was also the only place where LSD was being made at the time. And they were providing both the army and the CIA with a lot of, a lot of acid between. They're also giving it, like, they're also giving it to universities. They gave lots to Timothy Leary initially. They sure did. They were, they were. They give quite a lot to Tim Leary. They were, they were giving a good out to a lot of different universities and research people, but including the US government. So the CIA, the CIA agent wrote in this report that was like he was detailing a dinner he had with this representative of the chemical company and he reported that after having several drinks the scientists started talking about the Pont St Esprit incident. The sandals official blurted out the Pont St Esprit secret was that it was not the bird at all, continued the sandals official. For weeks. The French tied up our laboratories with analysis of the bread. It was not the grain ergot, it was a diethyl laminate. Sorry it's. The last part of the LSD. Yeah. Diethyl acid. Yeah. The the diethylamide like compound. So yeah the surgic diethyl acid is what LSD stands for. So yeah he the the the scientist said that it was it was like it was like basically an LSD like compound. So that's that was the that was report to detail like a dinner that a CIA agent had with this scientist. And that document was uncovered. That was it was from, like, the 50s. Now this, this, this next part has a little bit less proof to it because there's no documents backing this up. But Albarelli also claims that during his digging, two former CIA researchers reached out to him and revealed that revealed some details of what's impossible, details of the method of the poisoning. They told him that the village was subjected to an air blitz of pulverized LSD. Holy **** they acid bomb them. I'm sorry, that's ******* based, so. To force the test people into taking the substance through the air. According to the researchers, this manner of this manner of distribution proved mostly unsuccessful, forcing the CIA to move on to phase two, which was contaminating local food. So apparently the air if the if the if the Air Blitz was a thing, it didn't work super well. The bummer yeah, I know. Although actually people talk about to have Sophie bias a plane. We will talk about this later, but the CIA did do more air blitzing of of acid in New York City. Actually, they would ride around in cars in like poorer and poorer, more like multicultural areas, shooting LSD out of the back of the car to see what would happen to people. I mean, take out the racism and that really is a dream job, just driving around cities. Air dosing people with acid at random, smoking cigarettes, probably. Oh my God. So with the conclusion drawn that it was one of the town's bakeries being the source of the poisoning, Albarelli says it was possible that LSD was put in or on to the bread. So yeah. And also lots of the scientists, lots of the scientists dispatched to investigate the poisoning after took place were actually from the Sandoz chemical company. They studied the situation for like two or three weeks and gave the explanation that would later be kind of disproven that it was ergot poisoning which they they told the town officials and the British Medical Journal what, what, what no one knew at the time was that one, the existence of LSD in the 1st place and two, that Sandoz was the company making it and giving these drugs to the US Army and to the CIA. And apparently Albert, apparently Albert Hoffman himself went to the town to investigate this incident. So yeah, and one last thing on like the physical evidence side of things, albarelli also found an undated White House document that appeared to be part of a larger file that had been sent to members of the Rockefeller Commission containing the names of two French nationals who had been secretly employed by the CIA and made direct references to the quote Pont St Esprit incident. Also, it was linked to the document linked former CIA biological warfare expert and the chief of the Fort Derrick's Special Operations Division. So those are all places that they were experimenting with this similar kind of thing. We, we, we we have mentioned the Rockefeller Commission a few Times Now. If you remember the names, Frank Olson, the guy, the one of the CIA researchers on LSD, and David Bellin, they were on the label of that missing document. So but Bellin was the executive director of the White House Commission to investigate the CIA's abuses and crimes, which was called the Rockefeller Commission. It was formed by President Ford in 1975 to investigate abuses and other activities. The CIA and a few other intelligence agencies that were operating within the states. So the Rockefeller Commission revealed not only like the reason why we know about MK Ultra was because the Rockefeller Commission, this is, this is how we know this was a thing. So it not only revealed stuff about like programs around MK ULTRA, but it also revealed the details of the CIA dosing their own scientist Frank Olson with LSD and possibly killing him. There's also like, there's like a Netflix series about this called Woodward, which I haven't. I haven't actually watched yet. I don't know how good or accurate it is, but they did. They did make a Series A few years ago about the death of Frank Olson and all of the weird sketchy stuff surrounding both his job and and and and and his death. Do you love the CIA folks? Uh-huh. So the the Commission also concluded that the head of the CIA LSD program, doctor Sidney Gottlieb, destroyed all of the drug programs records in 1973 to hide the details of possibly illegal actions. And he was personally involved in the torture of Frank Olson of 20 years after Mr Olsen's death and 10 years after the last experiments were halted, Dr Gottlieb ordered the destruction of all the records of the program, including a total of 152 separate. This came shortly after other reports that that that records were being destroyed by Richard Helms. The the the the then director of Central Intelligence. So it's undoubtedly true that the CIA was up to up to some **** involving LSD around around the exact time period of this French town incident. Yeah, you're certain? It's certainly not like you're not coming out of nowhere suggesting the CIA may have dosed all these people? No, but they did it to a bunch of folks. If they didn't do it here, they've done. Similar **** so it's also. It's also worth mentioning at this point that like. This is like the point where the CIA is also running this, like, enormous heroin network out of France as like, if it basically had this, they had this deal with the French where they're like, OK, so the French mob can, like, basically move all the heroin they want. In exchange, they'll, like, stop the communist from taking control of the point of Marseilles. And so this is, this is all also going on, like, at the same time that they're doing the LSD stuff. It's great. Yeah. So there's there's some historians that think the LSD theory does not hold enough water. Steven Kaplan is a US historian. Specializing in the French food history and the author of the 2008 book Cursed Bread, which follows this incident, he says that he is, I've numerous objections to this, paltry evidence that this that this against the CIA. First of all, it's clinically incoherent. LSD takes effect in just a few hours, whereas the inhabitants where the inhabitants showed symptoms only after 36 hours or more. Furthermore, else does not cause the the digestive elements or the vegetative effects described by the townspeople. And so both of those claims I say they're not necessarily. Through it's, it's it's unclear how soon the delirious effects took place. For some people they were they first effect felt. So the whole thing about like the effects only taking effect after 36 hours, that's not that's not necessarily true. And also LSD can definitely have nauseating or digestive effects. Yeah, absolutely. So that's that's that's not that's yeah and and but. But like there were other types of symptoms that are not common for what we think of as like modern LSD. Again, this is the 1950s and we don't know what they were. Actually on it it's maybe not it may not be what we think of as like LSD now it could be slightly you know that this is a whole class of psychoactive drugs that's unclear what they were all actually being dosed with. Who the **** knows what they were being given and who the **** knows what the actual like dose amount was. Yeah we have no idea. It's also you know I think it's leery was the origin of the phrase that like the things that determine what happens on a trip or set setting in dose so your mindset where you take it and who you take it around and the dose and. The fact that these are somewhat unique symptoms could be to the fact that, like other people taking acid have never taken it this way, or this whole town is all dosed at once without knowing what acid is like. So Kaplan's other objections revolve around like, the delivery system, he says. It's absurd, this idea of transmitting a very toxic drug by putting in, by putting it in the bread. As for Pulverizes to get for ingestion through the air, that technology wasn't even possible at the time. Most compellingly, why would they choose the town of of Pont St Esprit to conduct these tests? It was half destroyed by the US Army during fighting with the Germans in the Second World War. It makes no sense. And and to that I say that makes it the perfect time for the CIA to **** with. That's yeah. They generally would choose to dose someone with acid because it sounded funny like, yeah, like they didn't give it. I think the fact that this town was already kind of like only half inhabited and half destroyed by the by the Second World War, that makes it the perfect town to **** with like. And also they also the CIA and the government very much did have the means to try to distribute stuff via the air because we can see other, we can see other documents are in the time of them doing this to specific areas of of New York City. They also tried to poison the entire New York subway with LSD in the 50s, but that was shut down by higher ups in in the Central Intelligence Agency. Unfortunately, God, what a time that would have been. But, but, but but Kaplan isn't sure or that's the responsible either. He says that or contamination would not have worked because it doesn't make sense. Only one sack of grain would have been affected. And he says if it was or got the, the effects would have been way more widespread. Yeah, that that sounds. He rules out LSD in the grounds of the symptoms that people suffered. Although similar don't quite fit what we modernly think of as the drug but also I don't I don't think happens ever taken LSD so I don't think you talking about. I think he's right about it probably not being air got but I don't think he knows much yeah he also he also he also points out that LSD probably wouldn't have survived the fierce temperatures of the bakers oven although albarelli counters that it could have been that LSD could have been added after the fact to like the surface of the yeah you could just drop it on you could just drop it on with like with like liquid blotters which also explain how the effects were so different from person to person because. I'm personally having a whole drop of LSD where some may only have like a tiny little, like, you know, speck of like, speck of like like moist liquid. So it can explain some things. But you know, this is still pretty much a mystery. You know, it's very clear. It's Mint Mobile offers premium wireless starting at just 15 bucks a month. And now for the plot twist. Nope, there isn't one. Mint Mobile just has premium wireless from 15 bucks a month. 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Let's break our handle the hosting, creation, distribution, and monetization of your podcast. Go to spreaker.com. That's spreaker.com. Get paid to talk about the things you love with spreaker from iheart. This it very much, very well. Could have been some kind of hidden LSD CIA experiment, or the CIA could have just been, you know, interested in studying what happened in the town. Since they were also doing studies into psychoactives substances at the time, it could be either or. And that's where it's spooky, because you'll never know. Woo. So yes, that is, that is the spooky incident of a French town basically thinking that they lost their minds and then, you know, they eventually see it. Do we? I think it's funny. It is a little funny. It is definitely a little funny. It's it is a great example of like the worst way to trip. Yeah, that that's that's pretty high up there. Anyway, critical support to the CIA for dosing random people with acid. Always one of my favorite sets of stories. You you love to see it. So yeah, tune tune in TuneIn tomorrow for more. Spooky, spooky story and you can. Follow these spooky social media that poisons your brain at. Ohh, happened here. Pardon calls on media which yes, Twitter will poison your brain. That is just as spooky. Goodbye. More spooky. Way worse for your brain than surprise. CIA acid, to be honest. The acid wears off. The Gangster Chronicles Podcast is a weekly conversation that revolves around underworld criminals and entertainers to victims of crime and law enforcement. We cover all facets of the game. Gangster Chronicles podcast doesn't glorify promotility activities. We just discussed the ramifications and repercussions of these activities because after all, if you play gangster games, you are ultimately rewarded with gangster prizes. Our heart radio is number one for podcast, but don't take our word for it. Find the Gangster Chronicles podcast on iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcast. Hello and welcome to our show. I'm Zoe Deschanel and I'm so excited to be joined by my friends and castmates, Hannah Simone and Lamorne Morris. To recap our hit television series New Girl. Join us every Monday on the welcome to our show podcast, where we'll share behind the scenes stories of your favorite New Girl episodes, reveal the truth behind the legendary game True American, and discuss how this show got made with the writers, guest stars, and directors who made the show so special. Fans have been begging us to do a New Girl recap for years and we finally made a podcast. Where we answer all your burning questions like, is there really a bear in every episode of New Girl? Plus, each week you'll hear hilarious stories like this at the end when he says you got some Schmidt on your face. I feel like I pitched that joke. I believe that I feel like I did. I'm not 1000% I want to say that was I? 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Listen to the shadow girls on the iHeartRadio app, on Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm so close to clicking leave meeting every time that that ******** comes up. It's like, yes, I consent. That's why I'm ******* here. All right? So if we're starting with that line from panel. Welcome to Spooky week on. It could happen here. Today we are discussing a truly spooky topic, one that everyone is just really gonna hate. And it's we're talking about, let's say, esoteric Keck, ISM and meme magic. So Chapdelaine, my brothers and sisters, come along on a ride. We read a whole book for this. Ohh I'd at least I did you read a book you just for this? I would say that like all of the books I read from age 19 to 22 prepared me. Have that have been preparing you for this? Yeah, the books I read while I was doing psychedelics twice a week all really we're good background on this subject. That is that is true. You want to kick us off? I don't. So I think first thing we're talking about, we're going to, we're going to emphasize awareness over amplification or that kind of my, my goal for this is to that we can all be. More aware of kind of the power that images on the Internet can have over influencing the actual world. And talking about people who believe this to a ridiculous degree and how they actually have been able to institute change. Not only because of this belief, just because of their dedication to this practice. Because it's it's because it's a thing that exists and it has had real-world ramifications. And it's good to understand that that's a thing, and that also maybe we can influence the way we like us use the Internet to also maybe make good things happen. As opposed to just being doomers all the time? Hell yeah. So that's kind of what I wanted to, to start with. Many dubs to that Garrison. Complete Kek with you. God no. Although to be fair, the past few days I have just been spamming the IT could happen here group chat with horrible nonsense around to check. It has been the most insufferable week of my life. Horrible nonsense like paragraphs, paragraphs, walls of text. So big any any actually safe working environment that cared about its employees would have fired you long ago. Yeah. So I think the other thing that we should definitely mention is that. Any type of like occultism, mysticism or like Woo Woo has actually does have a decent history within right wing political ideas and specifically like you know, like more extreme like right wing stuff. In the past few 100 years, like everyone's most people know that like the modern, not like the like. The early Nazis had some mystical stuff going on. There was a lot more stuff going on behind the scenes. A lot of their favorite colleague authors also were like practicing occultists. This is this is this is the thing that goes back a while you can even see this to some degree with like how close Christianity is to a lot of the right wing to a lot of like the modern right wing the states as well a lot of what we would consider evangelical Christianity has a lot of stuff that's actually very similar to occultism they just use different terms because of cultism and and like magic is taboo but it's actually the same thing so it's all like just it's it's interacting with the same systems just with different words. So like this is this is the thing that is is not it's it's not just on the Internet this thing that's been going on for thousands of years. In particular, the past 100 years we've seen a big rise in the amount of like of occultism, mysticism specifically tied to politics. Yeah, and there's this. I mean people. There been a couple of articles written just recently about the fact that a lot of like the Woo Woo left the kind of not really esoteric but kind of mainstream accolti left like the the Papa Culte left has increasingly turned towards stuff like Q Anon. And a big chunk, chunk of it is like this, this openness to like, feel power. And coincidences, synchronicity would be, synchronicity is the term. Yeah, and just a general open mindedness to. Maybe too many things. Sure. Yeah, I mean it's you can see this on on on a lot of a lot of sides because it's, yeah, it is definitely not just the right wing. I mean it's like the biggest example of this would probably be facets of Q Anon. The past few years have done very similar types of things. There's a lot of other stuff going on behind the scenes like how how Pepe operated was very similar to that, which is what we're mainly talking about today. But you know, there is also stuff like this on, on the left wing, whether it be like new agey type stuff that seems to kind of mostly be ********. But there's a, you know, other other type of like, like, like like folk magic or like Indigenous traditions that have that have, I would say slightly more significantly more like there's actually reasonable actually stuff going on. Yeah, as opposed to just like new age selling books and that kind of stuff. Yeah. One of the things that also separates actual religion from religion, that kind of has formed in this memetic way recently, is that all of this stuff, particularly what we're talking about today? Formed simultaneously with political sentiment and as and and was was crafted and in a lot of cases like they they state facts wrong specifically because they are trying to craft a political narrative alongside this like weird quasi spiritual thing. I mean Speaking of spiritualism coming to the same kind of coming to the same. This is you know we're all kind of anarchistic adjacent here and one of the things that really came up around the same time as anarchism in the 20th century was a concept called Chaos Magic. Which was really, really tied to a lot of old, really tied to a lot of like anarchist thought and and anarchist kind of thinkers. Some of the most famous chaos magicians are like explicitly anarchist, someone like Grant Morrison. Others are like discordians which have a lot of like anarchist crossover stuff like like Robert Anton Wilson which kind of operates in that same ocean. Yeah, he played a big role in kind of pulling me away from Proto Alt right style beliefs and I think also a lot of his work was very intelligently. Drafted because he wrote about conspiracies, he wrote about esoteric magic, but always with a really intent eye on increasing people's defenses to this kind of stuff, what we're talking about today. He was very, like, cognizant of that. Like, he wrote about conspiracy as an enthusiast, but also as someone who was trying to stop kind of unchecked conspiratorial belief. Yeah, he went out about about that in peculiar ways, but he was an odd man. Yeah. And the reason why I I've been getting more into this type of stuff. The past year increase, and the reason why I really like chaos Magic as I like it, as like a postmodern system of magic of looking at how basically if magic is just ideas and trying to figure out how our brains can interact with the physical world, then chaos magic introduces a lot of interesting stuff around like late stage capitalism, because it is it's it's explicitly tied to to like postmodern art and postmodern thought. And in the way you know, brands and marketing and specifically the Internet, all effects our minds. All this stuff gets talked about in charismatic a lot and I really like look using that framework for things. And Speaking of that kind of stuff, specifically around the Internet we're gonna be talking about, the first thing I want to mention is like the concept of searching for something and then you're like you're and you're going to find it, whether that you know, Robert Anton Wilson and like the Illuminatus trilogy has like and and like and discordianism has like 23 and the law of fives, right. I read that book when I was 20 and I have been like seeing 20 threes repeatedly at like significant moments in my life for the last 14 years or so. Like, yeah, it's it's. Like, once you get that kind of meme implanted in your brain, it can stick with you for forever. And and this, this happens to everything you know, this happens to, this happens to everyone. Like, once you learn about a new topic, the next day, you'll see it somewhere, right? You'll be like, you'll learn a new word. You'll be like reading it wrong. And it's in all these places that you didn't see it before. This happens all the time with everything. This is how. This is like how synchronicity works. And this is where religions come from. Yeah, throughout history. And it's because, like, this all has its roots in why we're very good hunters, we are pattern and why we're pattern recognition. Like our brains, our pattern recognizing machines. That's what we're best at. And it means that we're good at spotting berries and tracking deer. And it also means that we can't stop making religions, religions and cults. And if we have one too many synchronicities, we can change the entire way we view, view about the like, the whole world, which can have varying degrees of. Effects. Sometimes they can. If it's just a little bit, that can, maybe should be very helpful. If you join a weird cult that does messed up stuff, then it's like, yeah, that's a problem. Yeah, sometimes it ends in Burning Man, and sometimes it ends and burning men. Ohh, drop the bomb on that one. Ohh. So first thing I want to kind of discuss before we get into the actual timeline of how Pepe and Kek ISM became a thing, I want to just do a brief overview of sigils and memes and this idea of what like. Let's let's take the original concept of the meme, which is like, you know, the the it's genes are genetic, memes are cultural, these are cultural ideas that can spread like a virus and usually memes. In the since since the Internet has become way more popular, memes have become more tied to images. Like like memes are much more visual thing now, whereas in the 90s they were more of just like like an idea concept, but now they have like in this extra visual backing, so. Sigil is A is a magical concept tied mostly to chaos magic, which is basically an abstract concept or or like a specific concept put into an abstract image that then gets charged and then it's going to manifest itself in your life. The reason why this works is because part part of this desire gets implanted deep in your brain when you charge it through like a trance. Or there's, there's, there's like, there's different methods of charging sigils, but you have this. You have this concept and this idea and this desire. And it gets put into you. So you're going to kind of subconsciously do things that that influence it into becoming something that you can see. Just like, you know, if you're if you're looking, if you hear about 23, you're going to see it. Same thing for this. It's it's it's it's the same kind of base concept. And then Grant Morrison of Comic book writers write what my favorite comic book writer he he was he's really the only person that's developed sigils more since their inception with the concept of a Hyper sigil, which is taking the same idea of like wanting to. Influence change in the world via this visual medium of a sigil, and instead of just having it be like an abstract glyph that you charge a hypersexual is an entire work of art with this express interest. So everything that you do in this is trying to get some type of real world change. And it's very, very intentional, right? A lot of art already operates like this. This is why a lot of postmodern magic is very similar just to like, making art, because it's the same kind of basic idea, whether that be something, you know, like the matrix or you know. Any any type of art kind of does this already if it is good and it and it can find ways to influence reality. So memes operate on this same way and eventually people actually found it. Eventually people on 4 Chan realized that they that they were doing signals and started using this word. Because it's really the same thing when you're when you're altering all of these images of this frog and posting it into all these different kind of more abstract, more like ugly obscure kind of like weird. Like this is surreal types of types of memes and you're spamming. On politicians Twitter account you're basically doing a Group A group sigil and a group Hyper Sigil, cause you're making these individual things and you're spamming them into the world. And because there's so many of them, yeah they're going to have, they're going to have a real world effect. Yeah they're going to have a real world effect in part because of the way human brains work and in part because of the way algorithms work. Yep. Which is one of the things where like it's it's easy, especially if you're an impressionable kid, to mistake the the algorithm doing what it's designed to do, which is find patterns, groups of people sharing something and expand. That to a larger group of people because if this cluster of people like this, this will probably be something that's very algorithms are great at making synchronicities because that's designed to do. That's what they're supposed to do. That's the whole point of why they exist and that's why this is that that that's why our because as you stated a little earlier and one of these days on ******** we're gonna talk about how Helena Blavatsky and like the Theosophy movement in more detail and like all of the occult stuff that fed into the third the early stage of the Third Reich but the occult back then. Is very different from the kind of a cult feeding into fascism now, which is heavily based around synchronicity because it's also heavily based around social media and the way memes spread. Yeah, that's it. That's what the chaos magic has really gotten kind of a resurgence the past few years with social media and how algorithms develop, because they do mirror a lot of the concepts within chaos magic, because the Internet is kind of a chaotic place, but it's also, it's not just pure chaos, it is chaos within a framework of order, which is why I like the like the like, the chaos star like, the like, the actual like chaos, like Sigil. Yes, the air is pointing in every direction, but you can make a perfect circle around all of the arrows. It's because it's not just pure chaos, it actually is contained within this other framework. And by the way, Garrison, when you started talking about synchronicities and sigils, I checked my phone for a second and saw that it was 517 on October 23rd. 5, of course, contains both two and three and is thus a sacred number. October 23rd. I shouldn't have to explain why that's significant, Robert. And then 17 is a sacred number, Robert. It's the 22nd. Yeah, but it's the 23rd on my phone. Why is my phones ****** ** on your? Because. Because because that's the universe, baby. That's the synchronicity I'm living in the future, *************. I'm in. What time is it that it's not right now. It was 5/17 on my phone. And the other time it is 2:00 PM. I don't. I don't. I don't. I don't need to know what time it is, Sophie. Your default reality. No. Yeah, you, you you are on a different, different dimensional plane. Now we have. Two into two different ones. Why is mine wrong? I think. I think this is, I think this gives us, gives us a perfect opportunity for the audience to find their own synchronicities in these ads, because who knows what's going to happen, very knows what's going to play. So look for patterns and you'll find them. Whoo. Here's some ads, I hope it's an ad for the Egyptian goddess Mott. And we are back. We're gonna, we're gonna now actually kind of get into some of the some of the actual Pepe nonsense. I think an important, another important part to mention is that, like for a lot of people doing this online, this this is like an online pattern that happens all the time. It happens with. It happens with stuff like this. It happens with with with Cat Boys. Happens with a whole bunch of stuff. Is that, like, stuff starts as a joke and then you do it a lot and the repetition basically makes you do it genuinely. Yeah, like me talking about getting all of my followers to a compound in Idaho where we die fighting the FDA. Exactly. Actually, that turns into an actual death cult. So it's it's it starts as a joke and then under repetition it becomes genuine. This happens to basically almost everything on the Internet. This, this, this this leads to Garrison and I doing the inevitable Robert Evans behind the ******** episode last episode. Yeah, that's a 3 parter if I ever heard one. You you hope so. You wish. What are what are what are cat boys? This that is that is that is a different that's a different podcast you're here that that is a different podcast I think yeah hi sorry I know I only interject briefly is that is that are they are they like pre furries is that something different. No kind of post furry it's kind of it's it's it's it's really humanizing the humanizing the furry so like the same way that they're the same way the same way Sonic the Hedgehog is a re Mickey Mouse ification of Vegeta Cat Boys are a. Guy Humification of furries. This is a whole process on the I I can explain this in great detail in a later episode, but I think we have enough. We have enough to talk about already. Thank you so much. I'm going to get my my dog. OK, sure. Would someone be willing to sacrifice their own mentality to describe the the rise of Pepe just originally in the early 20 teens? Yeah. So it started as this guy's comic that there was nothing particularly worried about. Yeah. It was just, it was a dude comic. He was like, uh, feels good, man. Was kind of feels good, man. He was a chill dude. He was a chill dude. Yeah, not a fascist comic. Pepe is actually pretty fun. Yeah, comic Peppes greasy artist is he's like, he's like a millennial slacker who doesn't really know what to do with his life after like after 911, after the financial crash. He's just trying to kind of get by the comics fine, yeah, the comics fine. But the art just like kind of the specifics of how he drew Pepe made him very well suited for a meme because he's. Expressive and he so he he shows up and starts getting spread in 4 Chan and you know it. That kind of idea goes viral. And it particularly gets attached to a lot of, like, the political **** on poll and the people who are, like, churning into Gamergate and the alt right sad Pepe gets very popular. Smug Pepe gets very popular. Yeah. Yeah. And then as so Keck. Is well kind. That does tie in the frog **** cake is a bit late, kicks a bit like later on I think we'll go over more for like how Pepe is like the cartoon character got you know as as soon as it becomes a meme it spreads out into all corners and the people who memed this hardest were were on fortune. So this is how Pepe became very kind of tied to this. And I think the last bullet in Pepe really solidifying him as as an alt right meme specifically was the Richard Spencer Punch. I think that's the thing that actually was like done. It's like. Pepper is just this now he can't be anything else because when we when we're Spencer was being punched he was describing what Pepe was. That was what's happening in that specific viral moment. If you want to talk about like magical terms, this is Pepe getting like charged like this is the idea of like this idea getting getting charged because it is now going to be proliferated to the masses in this, in this moment of like pure motion so. That's when Pepe really gets tied to it. And I think Hillary Clinton made it very, very worse. Yep. The way she talked about this kind of stuff on her speeches basically gave gave the alt right a baseball bat to hit her with. The the problem that Clinton and everyone else because, like a big part of, I would argue that, like the largest part of why Pepe became a thing that was destined to last was that pundits and politicians, including Hillary and media people, kept talking about it as a fascist symbol. Yeah. And kept discussing, like, what it was and that anyone who grew up on the Internet, who grew up around these communities, knows that you ignore them as much as possible to the extent that that's possible. You don't feed the troll. You don't give them power. Yeah, you don't. And and talking about it again, this is like chaos magic ****. Like referencing it, bringing it up, bringing it into the real world, gives it power. That's the thing that feeds it. Yeah, so that that's how it got so much more power. The more Clinton talked about it, the more news media wrote about it. Everyone got so excited. The fortune that that's like that's that's that like that is them winning them them seeing this thing and and then and then some this goes back pre even it being far I can remember because I was in these spaces when they first started doing **** like raids on the Church of Scientology. Every time there would be actual like news coverage of what people on the Internet did it got people so ******* excited because like the Internet had been this thing that didn't matter for the longest in the book I read about this kind of stuff they they did use the example of. Like Anonymous and the raids on Scientology being like a precursor to this type of like me. Magic of this thing was like of like Internet forums influencing the real world through repetition and getting getting to grow power by getting people who don't use Internet to talk about these same things. It was like a precursor to then what we what we saw on the Alt right which is which is a pretty, a pretty common opinion and then and then enter enter the Egyptian gods. Robert, do you want to, do you want to? Doing that, I don't wanna discuss. Get to that. We're good. That's what we're going to say next is how is this intersex? With Egyptian gods. So the ancient Pharaohs played a card game of ancient and terrible power. The man. Nobody wants yugioh as a kid. This is no man. I'm surrounded by heathens, no. Man, Robin, do you want to do you want to do you want to do you want to discuss KEC? Yeah. I mean, so way back in the day, and I think this even predates World of Warcraft. I remember at first happening on like StarCraft games online. There would be, hell yeah, gamers from Korea and like, when you were doing like a zerg rush or something, which is when you have a bunch of guys and they all attack the enemy base or whatever, they would type out their term for LOL, which was like Keck, KE K Yeah K so it usually just look like a stream of. KKK over and over and over again. This really took off in in World of Warcraft where like there were Korean gold, farmers were a big thing, and like Keck was something that like everyone kind of knew what it meant because it was often the only thing you can understand. You could you could understand as an American that like these people would be typing. And it as a result of kind of all of that, it took off in Internet culture as just an lol and specifically like one of the things that's going on here. So as the mid aughts dawn and the Internet becomes serious. Business and like social media, really. And everybody's even before social media is dominant. But just when everybody's taking the Internet seriously, it's clear there's a lot of money in it. It's it's mainstream. You have this, this kind of second generation of Internet people who got on in the late 90s, early 2000s, when they were kids, who get frustrated at the fact that all of these different terms and phrases and, like bits of Internet culture that they had identified with are going mainstream and normies, normies are using them. Yeah. Yeah. And Keck is everyone knows what? As well as people don't know what K is, so in places like 4 Chan, that becomes a really popular yeah thing. And Keck kind of is like, so Keck as a as a term for laughter is like floating around at the same time as like Pepe memes. And so whenever you whenever you like meme something into the mainstream, whenever like some 4 Chan op or whatever you want to call it like succeeds in getting mainstream. As soon as Hillary Clinton mentions Pepe on stage, everyone unfortunately goes check because they're laughing. They go and they say stuff like top KEK and whatnot and. Then eventually somebody realizes that there's an Egyptian goddess, one of the translations of that God and goddesses name is KEK. Now there's a couple other translations. There's there's a whole bunch of issues with this. If you wanted to look at this with a rational brain, it's because like this there was this old family of gods are very, very old, old Egyptian gods. They all had male and female versions. The male versions all had frog heads and but around frogs can change their gender. So, like, so, like, all of the all this whole era of Egyptian gods all had frog heads. So there was one of them that was named Keck, who was a God of chaos. And this also played into how 4 Chan was using Trump because, like, they they liked Trump mostly as like as like a chaotic reforce that got people angry because that's what that's what I wanted to do as well. They wanted to be a chaotic force that gets people angry. So that's why they really latched on to Trump. And then when they found out that, oh, there's this God named Keck who is like the Lord of like, like. Like, like pro what's. What's the word? Yeah. Primordial darkness. Primordial darkness. Yeah. And this idea. Not even chaos is not even being. Yeah. Kind of like Uranus and like Greco-roman, right? Like a God kind of before the gods that are are more well known. But, like, this was a synchronicity. So they took it as like, you know, the same way religions take, take synchronicity and create and create, like, divinity, they took this as, like, this take they took this as like. Divinity. Now, again, this this starts as a joke, but you do it enough and you start to take it seriously and and there's a you get a mix of you get a mix of of real like Egyptology. Was that yeah, there was a guy named Keck, like among a bunch of other gods. One of the ways he was depicted was with the frog head, but also like bad Egyptology, like I found an article on the board plus press blog, Pepe The Frog Faith, which I'm sure this I'm sure this is like a bastion of archaeology. And the title is. Amateur Egyptologist weighs in on the frog statue. Hieroglyphs. And one of the things he points out, oh, we're talking about the statue. That isn't a check, but they thought it was check. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And and a number of things. So, like, one of the things this guy claims is that the hieroglyphics for Keck are a frog man, and then a couple of what he calls baskets for snap their cups, not baskets. Second, the actual. Hieroglyphics for for KEK don't include the little frog man. They're like the two of the little cups in this weird T shaped thing. Like yeah it's all. It's all like it's bad because again, amateur Egyptologist like he's just a kid who was Googling stuff and like got some either light or got some hieroglyphics wrong. But this kind of stuff compounds as like an idea is like now we have a backing of an ancient God again, first as a joke but then some people started to take it more seriously. Really really caught on. Among people. Because. Because it's funny. Like, it's it's just funny and it is funny. It's of course tremely funny. Of course it's gonna catch on. Unfortunately, it's hilarious. Yeah, right. So they're going to start using this and repeating this and creating a whole new memes, creating like the. There's like there's like an 88 part book series that's like fake books written by, like someone who's like Justin Bieber big but pretending to take it seriously. But like, the authenticity doesn't actually matter because because it exists, it doesn't actually matter how authentic it is. Yeah, like, and there's there's. Weird coincidences that continue to occur, like one of the biggest being there's this like phrase chavaleh, which creeps up in all of this and becomes like this exhortation that they use like a way of, like, exclaiming and such. And then somebody figures out that shadilay is also a song like an Italo disco song, I think, from the 70s. And the album that Shadow is on has like a frog man face on the cover. And so they're like, oh, it's a sign like all of the because you're going to find frogs wherever you look now because that has become the new 23. You might think of, I think, the uncommon. You're going to find them everywhere now, and there are every ancient religion everywhere in the world. I'm going to guarantee you there's some ******* frogs in it because, like, they're everywhere and they're they're old creatures. People pay attention to frogs. They've been around for a long time. There's a frogs have been around awhile. So Kermit the frog, the other the other thing that happened. So people not only basically created their whole mythology around this, creating different types of religion, there was like techism as a religion, the cult of Keck, esoteric techism, all of their own distinct. Differences because these people spend all their time on the Internet. So they developed, develop these things. And they also found this old frog statue that they said was Keck. It actually it isn't. It's actually, it's actually a gold called heket. But that doesn't matter, doesn't matter. But are the base of the statue it had, it had glyphs which appear to us modern humans as they they look like someone sitting on a computer. Like they look like someone sitting in front of a monitor on a keyboard. And on the other side of the keyboard is a DNA spot, is like what looks like a DNA spiral. So this is like Jesus, like jeans, right? Genes. Genes are DNA. Memes are cultural DNA. This is a glyph of the God check on a statue with someone on a computer. With a DNA spiral, of course. You're gonna take this is like some like message from the from the gods. You're like, yes, I'm supposed to be. I am supposed to be by my meming. I'm doing KEX work to put Trump into office. Yeah, it's. God, that's frustrating. It sure is. It sure is. But all of those in the in Group, this is like the statue was just a depiction of what the tech people and the and the Pepe spammers were doing posting on the Internet to manifest real world change, and that's that's all it is. If you want to see other examples of this, like if you look at the ancient alien stuff, there's this, like famous Mayan hieroglyph of the astronomer that's like, if you if you know what a telescope is because you're looking at it 1000 years after it was carved, it kind of looks like it might be a telescope. And it's part of what? Like people say, like, oh, this is proof that, like, that this is an alien. Like he's looking at a ******* telescope. No, it was. There's other explanations for it. It was something like that somebody carved. Yeah. I think this is another thing that you starting to feel like. I see this. Like, not even like I see this. Just this is just on the end all time. Like, I see leftist do this or, like, so, like, OK, so you learned something and then, oh, it's not true. But then people will keep spreading the thing because they'll say, and I've had some people say this. Why? Might have more power. Yeah. It has more power with it. So you're still going to believe it? Yeah. Like when I talk about the fact that Will Wheaton murdered three people in 1998, if you repeat this is the message, like, yeah, yeah. With a knife. What's horrible? Yeah. Now, I mean he was in Thailand at the time, so he was able to get out. And we don't extradite. So he's he's he's got out. Scott free. But yeah. OK. But like, this is like the same. This is this is the same thing that Trump does, which we'll talk about. We'll talk about. It is like if you repeat the thing enough, it becomes true. The large swaths of the population that that's that's that's all truth actually needs to be for people. I think, I think we're going to go on, break and come back and close us, close us up and finally finish this horrible discussion anyway. Who won't? Meme fascism. Well, actually, KFC the the. Have you seen it? Have you seen the KFC Fascist posting on Twitter? Yeah, there's like a Spanish KFC account that has been doing that. That is up to some **** yeah. That's funny. I hate. I hate that. That's a sentence that that that you got to say. Just hate it. Paradox. And we are back. I have finished an entire dark meat bucket and I am so full. Yep. And now now I'm sad. I'm sad because I'm still thinking of the fascist KFC Twitter account. So. We we. The other thing I want to do want to mention is kind of Trump's own power of belief kind of idea and how Trump was basically using esoteric terms, was able to basically create an alternate reality for millions of people to live in. And there's really no getting through to them now because they are literally just in it, just in a different dimension. And there's just, there's no way to Pierce that other dimension. They're basically living in just a totally alternate reality. There's no use saying that it is the one that we live in. Umm. So Trump is obsessed with a few of these ideas. He's less than like, the like. He's less interested in, like, the Woo and more interested in, like, the power of positive thinking. Power of your own belief. Yeah, he grew up in a movement, and it's Norman Vincent Peale stuff. Yeah, he he he grew up following a specific movement and church cult that falls under the umbrella called New Thought. Which is where Trump's you know. Trump's like, like how strong Trump's ego is comes from this idea of that you need to reinforce yourself and reinforce your own victories. Because if you do that, you're going to you're you're going to find them, right? If you're looking for 23, you're going to find it. If you're looking for your own victories, you're going to force them to happen, even if they don't happen in two other people right as, but like, so that we, we see this happening successfully with the 2016 election. We see both, like all of the meming everything that happened in 2020. Mission worked for Trump and it, you know, we, you know, of course he of course he didn't win the popular vote, but that doesn't actually matter. But it worked in getting him to office. Now it, you know it worked less well for the 2020 election, but still his reassertion that he won still gave us a lot of real world results like the January 6th Capital insurrection. So like it's this, right so this type of idea that if you read, if you, if you reinforce. This thing, if you reinforce this belief, if you can, if you have, if you have this idea and you keep putting it out into the world, it's going to manifest some type of real, real world result. And that that was January 6th. That's what that was. Yeah baby. And and that's the kind of the world we live in now. It's like the weaponized unreality world where people because of how media works, because the Internet works, they're able to create this like chaotic, like like sphere of of energy and ideas. That can like spread so much faster than anything used to be that could everyone can segment their own reality into 2 degrees that we've never really seen before because of how fast information can travel now. It is a it is, it is a new, it's it is a relatively new thing. The the way that the way that this, this, this can operate like memes, memes themselves, like Pepe and all this kind of stuff undoubtedly had had an impact on not only just the 2016 election, but just the entire political climate surrounding the whole Trump presidency. Now, to the degree to which we can credit me magic or the God Keck, that part is meaningless because because the effect is the same that, like the the synchronicities, we're still experienced. And and truth is just is just experiential. So it the beliefs that we kind of hold will shape how we experience things anyway that will experience what the actual truth is there is there there is a great Robert Anton Wilson quote that is like reality is what you can get away with Yep and that's that's like that that like summarizes how Trump was able to be so successful because he was able to shape reality. Right. I think me and me and Chris were talking about this the other day about. Now, Chris, I do you want to say the thing about like the Democratic Party and Republican Party and how really. Yeah. OK OK. So there's, there's, there's, there's a thing. And Garrison I think was too young for this. But there there's a very famous thing that that one of the Bush administration people said about how Democrats lived in the reality based community and this was like a whole thing in the in like 2000. This is the Bush administration and everyone loses their minds and this is like a whole meme when the Democrats that's like, oh, we're the reality based community and they're not but, but. This is the interesting part. If you look at the second part of that quote, right what he's actually saying. Is that so? The Democrats are the reality based community, right? They they analyze reality. The Republican Party is the party that creates reality because other people control the empire. And this is, this is what Neoconservativism was right. And, you know, the argument here basically is that the Democrats are, you know, they're always going to be a step behind because they're really analyzing reality, whereas Republicans using the powers of the state to, you know, change and define it. And this, this worked for them. You know, I would argue this is how they came into power. This is how, this is what they're still doing. Yeah. Yeah. This is why every president since Ronald Reagan has just been Ronald Reagan with a mask. Yeah. But I think I think something very important here, specifically about how Bush took office. Right. Because Bush, Bush steals the election, right. Bush does like the thing that Trump was trying to do is what George Bush did in 2002. Thousands, but with a riot, just with a very specific kind of riot. This is the this is the thing that Bush and the neocons understood that the Trumpists kind of understand, but never quite solidified because they're not like they're not sort of insider political actors, which is that, OK, so all of the stuff about saying something and it becoming real, right? There's there, there's sort of a limit to this. If if you don't have a gun now, if you have a gun. Then the the limits of that are are, you know, it's it's you you can view basically whatever you want because you can just, you can force everyone else to also accept this as reality. You know this is what the state is, right. There's a whole, there's a whole thing this is a couple of performance theory. It's like, yeah. So like you you saying the thing makes it so right. Well this is this is what a state is and this is how Bush won the election because he, unlike Trump, whose people tried to like take power directly by like storming the Capitol, Bush was smart and Bush was like, oh, OK, I I'm. I'm going to. I'm going to clarify that I won the election and but. But. But instead of like. Openly doing it right, I'm going to get the Supreme Court to declare that I'm president. And you know, and this this this requires the Brooks Brothers riot to stop the counts and bolts all the stuff we were like you know, it doesn't yeah yeah it's great, but like it doesn't it doesn't matter that, you know, he he didn't win Florida. Like if, if if if if if if if the if the votes had actually been counted he would not have won Florida. But because he was able to get Mint Mobile offers premium wireless starting at just 15 bucks a month. And now for the plot twist. Nope, there isn't one. Mint Mobile just has premium wireless from 15 bucks a month. There's no trapping you into a two year contract. You're opening the bill to find all these nuts fees. There's no luring you in with free subscriptions or streaming services that you'll forget to cancel and then be charged full price for. None of that. 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My name is Erica Kelly, and I am the host and creator of Southern Freight true crime. There are so many people that just have no idea about some injustices in the world, and if you can give a voice to them, you can create change. To be able to do it within podcasting is just such a gift. I believe it was 18 months after I got on with Spreaker that I was making enough that I could quit my day job. It was incredible. I always feel like an ambassador for speaker, but that's because I'm passionate about podcasting. It's really easy to use. I always tell people I am so not tech. Took me 5 minutes to get comfortable with spreaker, and when I find a new friend that has an incredible show, I want them to make money. I want them to be able to do what I did. Follow your podcasting dreams. Let's break your handle the hosting, creation, distribution and monetization of your podcast. Go to spreaker.com. That's spreaker.com. Get paid to talk about the things you love with spreaker from iheart courts to say that he was president. He he was president. And and that's that is the concept of magic words. And this is this is, this is, this is this is all the state is, right. It's this, this. The state is magic with a gun behind it. Yeah, it is. Yeah. State of magic because he's like, yeah, you're right. It's like magic can't have a hard cap. There's going to be a certain people that you know with with with Trump's reality altering kind of power. There's a certain that there is a hard cap on how much they can influence the general population. But if you have a gun behind that, that gives us so much more enforceable power. Yeah. And to go back to Egyptian mythology, one of the attitudes they had about the pharaoh is that reality was whatever the Pharaoh declared. Other a lot of societies have this idea towards their monarchs and the duty of. His people is to make reality conform to the Pharaohs will and like that's that's what the GOP does like that's yeah I think I think the quote surrounding like yeah the Democrats are the reality based party because they because they you know observe reality accept the reality and like yeah and like and like and like limbs and Democrats are like yes they they like they they take this on prior like yes we are rational we observe reality meanwhile they're probably like no you just observe it but we can just we can create it. I think that is a great example of how those two parties operate politically and how because like yes, they're both, they're both right leading parties. But here's the difference for how they actually operate is that one of them is way more passive in their observing of reality and one is is OK with getting their hands dirty and actually forcing this type of reality altering changes. I, I will say I think like one thing to close this out is that, you know, we can we can tie this all the way back to the second part of the of her episode, which is that the NEO con Neo con project. And work. And the reason it doesn't work is that. You know, they they like, they basically, they lose militarily and that just that implodes the entire project. And so, you know, and and if if if if you look back at like all of this stuff about how we can shape reality, we can shape reality, we can shape reality that stopped being true the moment that, you know, like they lose control of Basra or like, you know, all like they run into other people. Tara. Al sadr? Yes. To be unkillable by all the weapons of empire? Yeah. Yeah. It's like it, you know, and and solder. And solder does this by, like, you know, Sauder sets up a bunch of baby clinics, right? He's like, he's a bunch of clinics here. We will we'll give help to pregnant mothers. Like, you guys really going to shoot us, you know, build a militia around this and he's able to, like, he's one of the smartest people on the planet. He's really good at what? He's not a good guy, but, like, completely shattered the neocons, like they they're dead. Like, they don't like that. That project, which was like the culmination of. This this incredible like into this incredible intellectual possible military project and they got their absolute *** kicked by once people doing dual power. Yep, I think, and I, I really, I I do want to talk more about kind of chaos magic. And there's a lot of stuff on the part of the future grounding and I think, but yeah, I think this is a great intro to how how these concepts overlap with politics. And I really disagree on the end of this with one aspect, Garrison, because you said their reality can't be pierced. But the ancient texts speak of a spear that once pierced the side of Christ itself. And while Hitler held it, his armies were ascended, but it was stolen. And if we can find the spear of Longinus Garrison, we can Pierce their reality. Hey, I have a fedora. I have a whip. We could. We all have fedoras, Garrison. We could do it. Let's go. We are. We are off to fight the spear that sides us off the spear of destiny. You could follow our adventures on happened here Pod and Media on Twitter and yeah, I'm sure we will give you updates for our spirit ventures of the pod in the Sophie, we need half $1,000,000 to find the spear of destiny. OK, OK, great. See you on the other side. Hey, lethal listeners. Tig. Here. Last season on Lethal lit, you might remember I came to Hollow falls on a mission, clearing my Aunt Beth's name and making sure justice was finally served. But I hadn't counted on a rash of new murderers tearing apart the town. My mission put myself and my friends in danger, though it wasn't all bad. I'm going to be real with you, tig. I like you, but now all signs point to a new serial killer in Hollow Falls. If this game is just starting, you better believe I'm going to win. I'm Tig Torres and this is lethal lit. Catch up on season one of the hit Murder Mystery podcast, Lethal Lit, a tig Torres mystery out now and then TuneIn for all new thrills in Season 2 dropping weekly starting February 9. Subscribe now to never miss an episode. Listen to lethal lit on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Art world. It is essentially a money laundering business. The best fakes are still hanging on people's walls. You know, they don't even know or suspect that they're fakes. I'm Alec Baldwin and this is a podcast about deception, greed, and forgery. In the art world. You knew the painting was fake. Ohm. Listen to art fraud starting February 1st on the iHeartRadio App, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I call the Union hall, I said. It's a matter of life and death. I think these people are planning to kill Doctor King. On April 4th, 1968, Doctor Martin Luther King was shot and killed in Memphis. A petty criminal named James Earl Ray was arrested. He pled guilty to the crime and spent the rest of his life in prison. Case closed, right, James Earl Ray. Was a pawn for the official story. The authorities would parade all we found a gun that James Earl Ray bought in Birmingham that killed Doctor King. Except it wasn't the gun that killed Doctor King. One of the problems that came out when I got the Ray case was that some of the evidence, as far as I was concerned, did not match the circumstances. This is the MLK tapes. The first episodes are available now. Listen on the iHeartRadio. Apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. Kill them all. This has been it could happen here, the show where I just kill them all. There isn't. Chris, you wanna take over? Oh boy. Woke up. Haven't had coffee yet. That is incredibly spooky. Virgin murder? Well, it is spooky. You're right. This is true. I am. I didn't realize that until just now, but retroactively, that makes it fine. See? Extremely spooky. Yeah. What are we doing? Who are we? We're we're doing we're we're we're it could happen here we're doing is this is this is this is a a podcast where we talk about spooky stuff that happens around Halloween. And today we are doing the spookiest thing of all, which will be revealed shortly. Ohh boy, I hope it's will. Wheaton is not what Wheaton? Well, unfortunately, that's the spookiest I really. I really should have looked for that tie in, because there might be one. Is a CIA asset. We might get there. I don't know. OK, OK, see, this is I'm hacking a fraud and I didn't actually look into this. They will eat in connection. Yeah. Nope. Well, we missed it. You and most journalists. Yeah, alright, what are we? What are we doing? What are we doing? On June 14th, 1947, a rancher named Wmac Brazil and his son Vernon would drive me across their property when they encountered, quote, a large area of bright wreckage made-up of rubber strips, tinfoil and rather tough paper and sticks. Yeah, me too. This is just a regular night in in in Oregon. But. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. But Brazil's back in a time where people are baffled when weird things happened instead of going, oh, it's Tuesday. Yeah. So. Oh, man, what a time. Yeah. So they didn't just go straight to Twitter. No, no, he he, you know, that was actually, you know, kind of like reasonably reasonably responsible thing to do in 1947, which is that he spends about a week, like, picking up all of the the scraps that he can and, like, putting them in a box. And then he he drives it to the sheriff. OK, and the sheriff's name is George Bush. I love. That. Says a lot about the difference in urgency back then, where it's like, oh, this is important. I'll spend a week getting everything together before I take it off to the share. Like before the Internet, you could really afford to to sit on some ****. Take your time. It was an era in which, like, if you had a busy life, three things happened. OK, yeah, so so George Wilcox, the sheriff, looks at this, and it's like, I have no idea what any of this crap is like. What is happening? So. He takes it to Roswell Air Force Base for further investigation. Ah, now, Colonel Bush blade the the the commander of Roswell airfield's 509 composite group. You know it sends A-Team out to analyze the wreckage, which includes an Air Force intelligence officer named Major Major Jesse Marcel. Now, Marshall gives a now infamous series of quotes to the media that results in the Roswell Daily Record running the sentence quote the Intelligence Office of the Five Oh Ninth Bombardment Group at Roswell. Air Fuel announced at noon that the field has come into possession of a flying saucer. Now, this is the birth. Yeah, I mean, this is the birth of modern ufology, but this is, you know, this. This is one of their most important our events. And, like, the pictures do rule. All of all of the Roswell pictures are super rad because it's just random **** in a field. And they're like, it's aliens, you know? There's random **** in the field. Now, this, this is all happening and be just like like scattered sort of reports of UFO's that have been cropping up throughout the sort of like the post war era. Yeah, and the next day, the Air Force releases a statement saying there's no flying saucer in the wreckage. It's just an air balloon. It's just. Yeah. It's it's it's just. Why the pleasure? Yeah. Yeah. So the Air Force. Sure, sure. Air Force weather balloon. Yeah. Yeah. They're lying. Everyone knows they're lying. But this is where things get bad. Because what mark Brazil really discovered was something even spookier and more sinister than aliens. What Brazil had discovered was the the American Military Industrial complex. That's correct. It turned out that's what's really spooky. Oh, it's it's it's real spooky. It's yeah, we're by by by the end of this episode they will have I had to cut two times. They almost killed everyone on Earth. Oh, OK, well alright, so we're going to be judging folks for almost killing everyone on Earth. Like you haven't almost killed everyone on Earth. Come on. That's true. That's true. Podcasting saved me from a life of mass extinction of the entire human race. And will eventually end all life on this planet. I believe in Podcasting's potential to kill absolutely everyone. Yeah, it's it's great. It's it's a time. It's yeah, actually, you know this part. Part of this is actually going to be about how we get to the point where everyone is podcasting on the Internet about things that does this does absolutely plague in to the Roswell incident. Yeah, because there's a there's a strong line between **** like Coast to Coast FM and the old like conspiracy. You know, the precursors to that alien UFO, whatever radio shows and **** on the on the. Wide band back in the day and and podcasts where we are right now. Yep, it's it's great. It's it's a good time. We're descended from great media. We're going to continue to produce great media. We're totally not just like an extremely large much larger version of the the the radio broadcast you get right before genocide. That's like, that's not what's happening here. It's all in fact good and cool. I mean This is why I tell people to get machetes. It's true that was a bad yeah that's made that made that comment. Look we just, we just, we just, we just got to make sure the only way is to blaze on. Right ahead now, the Air Force is lying out of its ***. But the Air Force isn't lying out of its *** because they have a flying saucer. The Air Force knows precisely what they've got in their hands on here because the the the other identified flying object that has crashed at Roswell is actually something called project mogul. Now, to understand project mogul, we need to go back a little bit now. In 1945, the US dropped two nuclear bombs on Japan. And this does a lot of things, literally all of which are bad. Yeah. And what one of which is that it sets off a sort of sets off, you know, the thing that we all live in now, which is this the, the, the nuclear arms race between the US and the USSR, who, you know, but by pretty quickly after World War Two are just bitter enemies and, you know, but by 1947. I there's just bores raging across the world between communist and anti communist forces. This is was war in China. I mean in Greece, which I think people know. People know more about. The Chinese of war, people know less about Greece. We're just like the British. The British are like, oh, the commies are gonna take power. So they just like, give all the guns back to the fascists and they start doing the Holocaust again. And that, you know, sets off this own, another civil war there. And, you know, as as as Europe becomes, you know, divided between the two great powers, the US becomes increasingly worried about the USSR crying, requiring their own nuclear weapons. So to detect a potential Soviet nuclear test, the US embarked on project mogul. Project Mogul sent 657 foot balloons. These are like massive. They're twice the size of the Statue of Liberty. Yeah. Those balloons are bigger than a balloon needs to be. Yeah, they're they're too large. It's too big for balloons and they so that they they load these balloons with like sensor listening equipment she like detecting nuclear detonation they like they they like float them into the upper jet stream and the jet stream will like push them to Russia is sort of the plan behind it. And this sort of works, except the Russians don't have nukes yet. So yeah. This, by the way, is also why the song 99 red balloons was not just a banger, but also very realistic, because we absolutely could have had a nuclear exchange over some ******* balloons. Oh yeah. Yeah, actually, I don't. I'm not sure there's any. Direct balloon related near nuclear exchanges in this episode, but no, but don't worry, could happen. Yeah well, you know, and what what what it did actually do was, you know, set off the modern UFO thing because, you know, one of these balloons like fails and it spews the records around. And you know. There's. Yeah, this this. You know, this is this. Then you you see a bunch of the problems that are gonna happen with sort of the rest of how the course of UFO go. Because. You know, you have initially the government like we have a flying saucer and then they turn around and do this like incredibly **** ***** cover up that like everyone knows is fake. And, you know, so maybe, you know, because Americans are Americans, they don't assume that like the US is, you know? Creating a devastating new surveillance intelligence program that will be used to further total nuclear war. Instead, they go, it's aliens. Yeah. Because we're great at Occam's razor. Yeah. Yeah, it's it's a time. But I think what's really important here is that what Brazil had actually made first contact with was America's new thermonuclear monarchy. And this is something that I think more people should talk about, which is that. Having nukes. Just as a thing massively centralizes power into sort of individual people and into the executive branch, because. You know, so if you have nuclear weapons, right, the theory is that you have to have one person who presses the button to shoot them. And you you can't have, like, you know, there's not enough time for like, a parliamentary deliberative body to, like, set the Dukes off. And so that this becomes this rationale for enormously centralizing the power of the executive branch, and this produces. An absolutely terrifying new age of state secrecy, filled with increasingly powerful and clandestine government agencies and bureaucracies ranging from the CIA, are good friends to the much lesser known Atomic Energy Commission. And these agencies, the power of their secrecy is so strong that I mean by the 1990s Atomic Energy commissions like successor agency. Uh decides that they can keep secrets from the president on the basis that the President does not need to know. Which is absolutely horrifying. Well, yeah, I mean, like, it's just you got a democracy, and that's going to be a problem because in a democracy, people presumably get to make choices. And if you don't want them to decide not to continue making weird **** to throw into the sky, then you know why you probably should just not tell anybody anything. Yeah, well, and that that particular story is also grim. Just one thing I was debating covering they're they're covering up the fact that they deliberately poisoned, like, hundreds and hundreds of people with radiation. Do human testing on them. Yeah. Yeah. They're like, the president doesn't need to know this, like, doesn't need to know about our, you know? I mean, it's like we don't tell Sophie guys a lot of the things that we do with our budget, like when we irradiated all those people for a podcast, we're we're still not telling Sophie that. Yeah, it could happen here. Black budget will remain secret. Yeah. It is a lot of money. Please continue. Now all, all of the secrecy around this and the fact that these cover ups are like. The most **** ***** **** anyone has ever seen. You know it. Continue. It fuels this rampant speculation around you. UFO's and the conspiracy theorists are also aided by the fact that people keep seeing weird flying objects. We sure do. We love. We love to see weird **** in the sky. We are very good at it. Yeah, it's we're in. We're incredible. It's, it's. And this guy is full of weird. It's true. I saw a crow the other day anyway. Yeah, in in 1990 and 1955, hundreds of people start who are on airplanes, start seeing these just enormous flaming crosses flying impossibly high, impossibly fast in the sky and publicly KK's gained Space Flight. It's it's worse than that. It's it's it's the people. The people doing this are worse than the KKK, which is. Wow, what is what is sentence, sentence, Chris. It's great. It's yeah. So you know, in public the US government's like, whatever. These aren't a thing. They're fake. Whatever their meteorological disturbances in private. The passengers who are on these jets that that see these flaming crosses are all detained by the FBI and and sworn to secrecy after providing accounts of what they'd seen. Awesome. And you know, and this this is also a part of of the the sort of UFO mythology and this does actually happen. Like the the FBI does actually show up to these people. Well, that's who you send in when you want people to stop wondering if something shady is going on. Yeah. Yeah. That's what I hear. The FBI is telling people to shut up about something I think, well, that's not worth looking into at all. When you have five men in suits and sunglasses show up at your door telling you to talk about something, you know, that means everything's fine and normal. That's great. You know what I don't think of when I think of the FBI UFO cover ups? It's great. Yeah. And this is this is this is America's first contact with. Yet another new part of his clandestine military military bureaucracy, area 51. Area 51 is a secret military aeronautics research and development facility built on a salt flat called Lake Groom, inside the massive Nevada test and training range. This place, by the way, this place is massive. This place is like the size of Kennett. Like it's like larger than Connecticut. It's larger than than most of the eastern states. Yeah, it's enormous. And but, you know, it's something I think is very interesting about this is that for all its mystique, area 51 is not the most dangerous facility on the Nevada test and training range. No, that's area 52, the sub level below where they store. A real weird ****. Yeah. OK, so the funny part, I watched, I watched a few YouTube videos. I think I know what I'm talking about. So we are actually going to get to area 52. OK. All right. Yeah. Well, the thing the thing that's actually really dangerous is areas 1219 and 20, because that's the Nevada areas. Do these ************* need like 100? Checked off all these things. Yeah, all this because I mean this, this, this is like a state sized like testing facility, right? OK, they get all these ******* areas, but the Branch Davidians have one compound where they don't even do very many illegal things. And suddenly it's a problem. Because the thing I see how it is the Russians never had nukes and that that that that that could. Could you imagine though? Is you know what? If they'd had nukes, about like 80 people would still be alive. Maybe they might have accidentally muted them, or everyone would be dead. One of them, that's the 280 people would be alive, or everyone on Earth would be dead. So area 51 is the partner of the Nevada test site, which is which is areas 1219 and 20, and that's where the real dangerous **** happens, which is the US test nuclear weapons there. OK, but we used to make it clear at the outset, we should not be underestimating area 51. That place has done irreparable harm to the cause of World Peace and very nearly like caused us all to go extinct several times. So do not underestimate the power of of of military spy airplanes. Yeah, those are lead us all destruction. Those are all, honestly, way more way more spooky than any little Gray creatures with large you can think of. Various planes just with cameras on them have gotten us closer to the extermination of all life on Earth than basically anything else. Yep. Yep. Except for that one computer bug that that the Russians had that would have killed us all if not for Petrov. I think his name was, I forget his last name, that one guy who was like, no, we're not going to have a nuclear war right now. Well, there's there's a lot of this is this is weirdly the Soviets come out looking like, Oh yeah, no. They did this episode. Yes. Like every, every time there's almost a nuclear war. It's like, it doesn't happen because the Soviets are like, no. And the Americans are like, we want this war and the Soviets are like. Rule once it when it comes to atomic Apocalypse stories if you if you if you tally up all the columns because the Soviets definitely have a few in their side. But it winds up way more ****** ** nuke incidents on the US side of things than the Soviet side of things. Although there was that time they built a bomb so big that it might have changed the tilt of the earth if they did. And at the last moment they were like, let's take half of the missile material out of this. This seems like a bad idea. Bad. It's great. Yeah. So speak. Speaking of bad ideas involving involving nuclear weapons. So area 51 misses. Oh no, I think that you're doing. So yeah, speaking, Speaking of bad ideas, you know what else will change the tilt of the earth? The products and services, they're quality. Is so intent. That. It's like the Czar Bomba. It is just like that. Explosive potential. OK, Mads? Yeah. Area 51 was founded in 1951 by the Atomic Energy Commission, a federal agency established as a successor to the mother of all black projects, the Manhattan Project. Now black projects are secret off the books. Military defense projects, the existence of which are kept secret even from Congress, which is a totally cool and normal thing to have in a democracy when you're representative body does not know what. Anyone else what the military is doing now? Area 51 is interesting because it's basically like a black project for black project. It's so secret that, like the vice president LBJ, who is like not a **** *** vice president, right. This is LBJ. No, like LBJ wields some power. He's. Yeah, he's like a Cheney type. Yeah, yeah. And she's also gonna show up the story briefly. But yeah, like even he didn't actually really know what was going on there until, like after JFK was assassinated. O this place is really secret and as best we can tell, in its first four years it was essentially the Atomic Energy Commission. I. Basically wanted a place to do off the books like pilot and aircraft testing. And they were able to do this successfully that like we basically don't know what they did for four years. But that's good. Yeah. But but in 1955, the facility is taken over by an even spookier organization, the Central Intelligence Agency. Ah, our old friends. Yeah. No, no, the CI a. You know, this is 1955, and the CIA has spent the early years of the Cold War getting just its absolute *** handed to it in Europe. Because, you know, this is what happens when a bunch of different Harvard grads in, like, hey, yeah, because this poisoning people with acid and that's all they're doing. Yeah. Yeah. So they're running into a real intelligence agency, which is the KGB who like, like, those guys do not **** around. They like, don't just poison people with acid. They do they they they're, they're, they're, they're much, much more intense than than the early 50s CIA. Yeah. Yeah. And so they had this real problem, which is that they, they, the CIA, basically can't get intelligence out of Eastern Europe, which is bad when your whole, like, your entire, like state is based off of like fighting Eastern Europe. So this is kind of your main target. Yeah, yeah. So the solution is to fly a plane really high over Russia and use it to take pictures. Uh-huh. Now seems good. Yeah. Like I think like this sounds like, I think kind of banal to us in 21st century. We're like, yeah, New York this is this is like this is like this is like pre satellite. Yeah. Yeah. And and you know, like like we we're all just sort of used to the fact that like the government is spying on us at all times. We sure are. But you know in in in 1955. This is incredibly radical. Like the the US, the US has only had intelligence agencies for like 10 years. And there there is no precedent at all. There's none no precedent for flying surveillance over a country you aren't actively at war with. Like the only reason you fly an airplane over countries if you're about to bomb them. People should note also that, like the first ten years or so that we had an intelligence industry every single. Or that we had an intent like intelligence agencies. Every single vote for funding them, every single like vote for giving them new powers was like universally supported by both parties. There was, there was. 0 dissent about whether or not we should have a CIA and they should have a giant black budget to do all sorts of scary **** that might provoke a nuclear war. Yeah. Like people just like, well, of course it's really bad. And I think this is, this is, you know, this is what area 51 actually is. The area 51 is the place where the development is that the permanent intelligence industrial complex is, is, is permanently solidified. And this all starts with the U2. Now the CIA brings in Lockheed Martin and a little known but very powerful and influential defense contractor called EG and G Who. I mean they they do a lot of stuff, but it's such a defense contractor. Yeah. It's it's it's it's like it's the ultimate defense contractor name. And nobody knows who they are because they make like cameras and like film equipment and stuff. But like, you know, these are the people who, like, made the cameras that could take pictures of you. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And, you know, and so and so the CIA brings them all to this. Remote testing rage in Nevada to work on a secret project called Dragonlady. Now, in its early stages, area 51 is so secret that, like, even the Air Force doesn't know about it. And this like really ****** off the air forces, you know, senior generals. It in particular a guy who is going to become very important to the story, Air Force General Curtis Lemay, who like that man. Like that I I don't say this very often about historical figures, but like if if someone had assassinated General Curtis Lemay, the world's like we would like the the amount safer that the world would have been described. The architects of saturation bombing starting in World War Two and continuing in for up to now. We didn't stop and that is that is not the worst thing he's involved in. Yeah yeah. Now, but and Lemay is extremely ****** *** that the CIA. Doesn't tell about this, and he's going to remember that that's become important later in the story. But eventually the CIA is forced to bring the Air Force into Area 51 for a number of reasons, partially because they're flying airplanes and partially because the YouTube is like, kind of a ***** ** ****. You know, and part of it. OK, so they're learning how to fly planes really high for the first time. But, you know, the U2, if you fly it too slowly, it stalls, which is like, OK, that's kind of a normal airplane. Yeah. The you. The U2 is an amazing aircraft because it just is one of the most absurd pieces of aviation equipment ever designed. And, like, watching those things take off and land is the most funny thing. I mean, it's wild. Like the other problem is just like, yeah, so as a stalling problem, but also the problem, if you fly it too fast, the wings will fall off. OK. She's so fragile. The plane, Chris, it's so, it's so massive and so fragile. The wings are so heavy and so large. It's one of the most ridiculous pieces of equipment ever designed. It's it's it's incredible. So, yeah, so the CIA needs help to get this thing working. And so the result is that area 51 at this point is is staffed by about. It's it's 1/3 CIA, 1/3 Air Force and 1/3 Lockheed Martin. What a what a combination. Yeah, these are the. God. Can you imagine that? Cafeteria, the conversations. Yeah. It's wild because it's like, you have a bunch of just, like, Spooks, right? Bunch of just, like people. And there's just like a bunch of test pilots who are like, yeah, just nuts and have been like, yeah, absolutely. Like people who are like genuine war heroes, who, like, fought in World War Two but then went turned around and like, did horrible war crimes and like Korea. It's it's amazing how it works. 20 percent, 20%. Like Tom Cruise from Top Gun, but with horrible. PTSD and 80% Michael Douglas from falling down, but he hasn't picked up a gun yet. We, we we can mention this now. So I top the, the reason that Top Gun exists is actually also area 51. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Because at one point the US like, so the Israelis managed to convince a May 23 pilots to defect and then they gave the airplane to the US and so the US spent a bunch of time like flying this big 23 year round and figuring out how it worked. And that's how they like trains all. They train all their pilots because they suddenly do have the mix work and that's the origin of the Top Gun. Ram, but then also hilariously that the biggest got their revenge when when an Air Force general whose name is, whose name is I am not making this up. His name is General Bond. And he was like, he's like shows up 51 is like, I want to fly, I want to fly and make 18 and they're like, OK, buddy. And then you just flew into a mountain, died, which OK, well, all right. Never mind. Have turned my opinion is he killing himself or was he just he was just like it. Yeah he was that he was like, that's incredibly which is like a really that is difficult to control play just that rules that rule so hard. You just completely changed my opinion of this, man. Yeah, it's amazing. That is, that is the, that is incredibly based. I'm so happy. Unfortunately, there's a lot of other way more depressing plane crashes that happens here and, right, part of the reason it's bad is because, you know, this whole thing is a black. I have trouble imagine being depressed about anyone. They're dying. It's it. It it's kind of. So there there's a I don't really care much about the people, but like, so there's a bunch of like 14 of the the the people who are flying, you choose like die and they like they they they crash into a mountain. Trust about it. It's like, yeah, but but yeah, that sucks about it. Is it like, like, the US government lies to their families for like half a century about how they died. And it's like, this sucks. But then it gets even worse because again, like, this is, you know, this. This is the black project of, like, all black projects. And that means that they have a bunch of people from Operation Paper clip because, again, this is a facility run by the CIA in the 1950s. God. And so they let these literal, a bunch of literal Nazi Nazi doctors run endurance. That's potentially you 2 pilots. Now. These doctors are Nazi concentration camp doctors who had performed horrific human experiments on people in the camps. So naturally, when they do endurance test, they torture people. So they would do things like, they would force pilots to like, hold their arms under ice water for like, you should be long time they would trap the chairs just, like, randomly electrocute different parts of their body. And it was like, yeah, it's a nightmare. Like, it's yeah. You know, this is what happens when you give the Nazis free reign over a completely secret testing facility where no one can even talk about what people did to them. It's it's great. It's great. It's. It's. This is This is why you don't have black projects because the Nazis wind up in charge of them and they torture people. Yeah, I think we're pretty, we're pretty all on the same page and not having really any projects bad. Now the CIA has another problem, which is which is a much weirder and funnier problem, which is that people keep seeing their spy planes. They should. Yeah. And you know, and so part of this is the original you choose were silver, which means that they reflected the sun and they look like a giant flaming cross. Yeah, the very first you choose. Yeah, and they know that all Matt black, yeah. Roamed a chromed out. Yeah, you two. What does the thing like? It looks like a flying saucer. Credible? Yeah. And it's. But you know, like this, this, this is, you know, this causes like a huge number of the UFO settings, just people seeing this thing and eventually they're like, we have to make this black because like having a spy plane that glows in the sun. Yes. That idea. No. And worse yet, so you know, you 2 can fly at like 65,000 feet, which is it's way outside the range of anti aircraft guns. It is ridiculously high. How high? How high that. Thinking, but the CIA, in their eternal hubris, assumes that it's also too high for the Soviets radar to work. And So what happens instead is that they they fly a YouTube directly over the Kremlin to like, take pictures of Rick Krushchev sleeping, and the Soviets just immediately see it. And they get really ****** *** because, again, like, there's no precedent for flying a spy plane over a country you're not at war with. And they're like, what the ****? Why are you flying pains? The problem is they can't actually, like, shoot them down because the plane is too high up. So there's something they can just see it. Yeah, yeah. And but the US is like, OK, this is not provocative enough, right? Like we've we've now flown, we've now flown planes over the House of like, a guy who can fire a nuclear weapons. That's not enough. No, that's incredibly funny. Actually, it is very funny. But they're like, yeah, so Curtis Lemay, who's also some things anyway, we don't need to. It's time actions in front of Russian embassies continues so Lemay. Is this guy, this guy is a a threat to all humanity and he has this idea and say OK, he wants to figure out how the he want to figure out like how the US stars radar system works. And so his plan is he's going to get the USSR to trigger their radar system, and he's going to do this by flying 1000 B 47 bombers over Alaska and fly them like right at Soviet airspace and then turn around the moment before they get in. Guys, come on, there's other ways. Are there ways to do trolling? Like, you don't know, like you don't need to risk the entire population with your trolls? Yeah, it's Garrison. See, This is why you're not an A level troll. Level trolls know that if you're not risking the entire future of possibly all life in the known universe, then you're just, you're not even. There's other ways to talk ****. Make some friends. Some friends and troll your friends. It's not that hard. Come on, guys, troll the world by by playing chicken with its continued ability to support any life above the microbial level. Like the the thing. It's incredible about. This is the only reason any of this works is that the Soviets, like the Soviets, are not good, but the Soviets aren't who the Americans say they are. Like, sure, not like if if if if the US had done this against the US, everyone on Earth would have died to be so dead. Like in 1955. Yeah, in the end of it. And and let me like you can say stuff like who Lemay is. Lemay. Someone asked him about this afterwards. And his and she says, and I quote, with a little bit more luck, we could have started World War Three. Ohh man, this guy's this guy's a ******* like, yeah, they're all monsters. They are. They are all just like this. This is so bad that, like, the CIA sends a panel of like, advisers to the President telling him that, like, you can't do this again because the Soviets will think it's an actual attack. When the CIA is calling you out, then, yeah, I think it's time to. It's time to wrap up shop. I think we did. We're done. The thing is, like this is not like the only just absolutely psychotic thing going on in in this. Like around area 51. So in in in 195657 the US tests the first dirty bomb and they really don't know what this thing is going to do. And it's like this is extremely dangerous or detonating a bomb placed with tonium everywhere. But just wait, lest you think that detonating a dirty bomb was not dangerous enough. In 1957 they dropped something called the Hood bomb. And this bomb like the blast this OK they dropped this dropped this bomb in Nevada, right? The blast of this bomb blows out windows in LA. People, people see again, this is in Nevada. People see the explosion in Canada. Great. They see the Mexico, like, you can see it from 800 miles out to sea. And the funniest part is that it temporarily renders area 51 uninhabitable and they forgot to tell the people if you want to evacuate as well. That is incredibly fun given everybody cancer that is. That actually is incredibly funny. That actually is funny. Funny. Yeah. And then, you know, people still want to work there and so they they. But this is like before they have hazmat suits. So they said a bunch of people in lab coats with like magnets to go collect radioactive. From fragment so people can go back to testing spy planes here you 50 great, that's extremely fun. Just killing all of their. I have no problems with this. Yeah, this is fine. This is completely fine. We have had probably saved a lot of lives, honestly. Yeah, well, department. The problem is though, they they they like. Area 51 was allowed to resume, and that, like, very nearly killed us all. Yeah. But like, the more people that died Area 51 to get cancer, that probably odds are that that contributes to it. It is. It is. It is slow death. I guess that's what everyone says about radiation poisoning. It happens too slowly. Yeah. Yeah. Now OK so area 51 UFOs are like continuing to do flights and ******* off the Soviets, but unbeknownst to the Americans the Soviet anti air capacity was rapidly improving. And on May Day 1960, the US pushes it too far, and they, they send a pilot and Gary Powers to fly over the Soviet Union and the Soviets just, like, shoot the **** out of him. And this, this is actually this really cute moment where, like, he crashes and he survived and he's found by some random Soviet farmer. And the Soviet farmer just like, is like, oh, hey, cool, just like gives them a cigarette with lucky or the space dog on it. And they have this, like, very nice moment where they they smoke a cigarette together and then powers gets arrested by the Soviet government and put on trial for espionage now. The interesting part about this is that so the US assumes that powers is dead because when they designed the U2, the CIA was like, Oh yeah, if this, they didn't tell the pilots, but they were the yeah, everyone will die. You are done. Yeah. It's like, but but, you know, powers lives through it. And so they, they, they the US is like claiming on live television that powers was like, oh, this wasn't the pipeline. He was collecting high altitude weather data for the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics. Sure. He of course, this lets Khrushchev has like, his finest hour here is like incredible theatrical moment. He gives us incredible speech. That's like, he's, he's like, he's like asking like comrades like what what would happen if Soviet planes flew over Detroit and immediate war and he heals on this thing about how he's accusing, like, he's like, OK, so who? Who said the spy plane? And he's like, well, it couldn't be the American people. It must have been the American militarist running the spy plane program without the knowledge of the commander in chief. And so the US, like, keeps denying it, and then Khrushchev, a couple of days later gets this another incredible line. I'm going to quote from this speech because it rules, comrades, he said. I must let you in on a secret. When I made a report two days ago, I deliberately refrained from mentioning that we have the remains of the plane, and we also have the pilot, who was quite alive and kicking. And the US just like it gets owned because they've been. Oh my God. Yeah, I'm sure, I'm sure this stays. I'm sure the state isn't thrilled. Oh yeah. It's it's like, isn't enormous embarrassment for this? And there's this is a couple of other great lines. So. So Gary Powers get tried for espionage and there's this incredible line in this trial where Sergey Rudenko, who is this? He's an Air Force general and he's also part of the trial. And he calls area 51, quote a criminal conspiracy between, quote, a major American capitalist company and espionage and reconnaissance. And the military of the US. And this is true, right. You're right. That is true. You got this is this is literally what area 51 is. You know? But this is where everything goes to ****. Because there was supposed to be a massive, like USSR peace summit to, like, look at denuclearization. Yeah. Yeah. And so and and Khrushchev is like, OK, Eisenhower, you you need to apologize for flying spy planes over our country. And Eisenhower is like, no. And this? This? Yeah, the the conference is cancelled and the world has plunged into mortal peril that will only barely survive. And barely. I mean, we did it. It's fine. Ohh yeah. I we got extremely lucky. Yeah. All all of this basically causes cruise ship to like start a military buildup in Cuba. And, you know, you can see where this is going, but but don't worry less, lest you think that area 51 is only indirectly responsible for this. They are in fact directly responsible for the Cuban missile crisis. Good. You know, they they they they they area 51 does they do a bunch of other stuff to like **** with the Cubans, like they have this thing with it. They send in pilots. Like, right up, right up to Cuban airspace. And like, have them basically trade missile locks with Soviet pilots so that they can test the Soviets, like, electronic weapons capacity. And it's again, cool. Once again, we only didn't die because the Soviets didn't shoot after the US did some, like, just absolutely some **** we would have absolutely shot them for doing. But they've done it. Yes. Yeah, yeah. If if a Mig had buzzed like Washington DC, we would have ended all humanity. Yeah, we sure would have. They ******* knew that. But that has to be so frustrating. Yeah. Like, not a lot of sympathy for the USSR in my book, but just being like, well, this is unacceptable. But if we do literally just what they're doing to us. Yeah. And all life on Earth. So I guess we have to be chill here. It's like, yeah, well, Speaking of of doing things, there's also, there's also an incredible Bay of Pigs connection, which is that Richard Bissell who's the guy who did Bay of Pigs, was the guy who read Area 51 and one of the reasons why it. Great. That. So remember when I talked about how the CIA ****** *** Curtis Lemay by not telling him about 51? So the Lemay is supposed to send a bunch of B52 bombers to support the Bay of Pigs and he doesn't do it. And his defense is that he ****** like his defense is that he ****** ** the time zones, which, like I've missed. Hey, we've all missed meetings because of that. I'm. I'm late all the time because of time zones. It that that you know what Curtis Lemay did nothing wrong. Yeah. Vincent, it's amazing. And this this causes lasselle. But, yeah, it doesn't work because it's a ***********. And, yeah, this, you know, this this causes Bissell to get kicked out of the security establishment, but it it doesn't stop the US ******* with Cuba. And so some more are. We still haven't stopped. Yeah. No, we're like, never going to. It's it's incredible. And and but because this is the time that came closest to telling us all. Which is that. Well, Chris, you know what will also eventually kill us all? Products and services? Is these. All of these? That's not even a joke. That's just true. Yeah, all of these things that is being sold for fake money. So. Yep. By roducts. And this is when Garrison goes on a rant about Fiat currency. Uh, we're back and we're talking about the Honda Fiat, which is certainly a car. I lost it all. I lost. I lost it all to Fiat. Please, everyone. Everyone, send me send me what you can. I'll reinvest and give you back your money in a few days. You're going to buy one of those ******* one of those 8 bit illustration in FT that costs $2,000,000, aren't you, Garrison? Oh, you bet. Wait, Robert, you you. I heard. I heard now that they're making physical copies. This is a brand new phenomenon, making physical versions of an NFT so you can actually, like, have something. Yeah, it's amazing. There is. There's nothing else like this. It's like art, but you actually can have it. It's the first time. It's really Garrison. Garrison, Robert. You guys, you can't you can't tell the public how are how, how, how, how, how we funnel all of our money around for our black projects. You're not allowed to explain our money laundering schemes on air. You know, 11 surprising thing about all of this, like air 51 step is honestly the the degree to which the the government does not deflect stuff by using alien **** more often. Because if they were smart they could just use alien ship more often to deflect any suspicion about what's actually happening. So they, I don't know they they go back and so part of what's going, so they go back and forth on this and part of what's going on is the the CIA. When when when people start first reporting UFO's, like they have two like concerns, one of which is that it's just going to cause panic in the US public and they don't want, they're doing this sort of like elite panic thing and they're afraid that was gonna go insane or whatever. But the second thing that they're worried about is that they're really concerned that the the, the Soviet Union is going to block out the US's early warning system by sending a bunch of fake UFO reports, which would be very funny. Yeah, would be very funny, but you know, but so so they they their initial line on UFO's is like. They tried to. They spend a lot of time trying to get everyone to, like, not believe in them because they're like, this is, this is treading hysteria. And it's, like, damaging our early warning capacity because people keep reporting and also because people just keep seeing their spy planes. And so they're just like, guys, there's no UFOs. Yeah, we'll get to in a little bit of some more about that because there's a lot of very weird stuff going on there. But first we have to almost end the world. All right, let's let's just do that first and then we'll get to that in 1962. The CIA. Flies. It flies AU two over over Cuba and they get a bunch of pictures of nuclear weapons. And this, this is basically The thing is our secret missile crisis. Although I also, I also we need to talk about May one more time, because before they get these pictures, Lemay is convinced there's there's no nukes there. And Lemay wants to do a preemptive strike on Cuba to stop the Soviets and bringing missiles in, which again, literally would have killed us all. OK yeah yeah but but let make us voted down so the CIA you know sends the you choose in and this this is the thing that starts the the the starts queuing missile crisis and you have the Soviets and Americans like staring each other down at sea and but again because these people are just like like because the area 51 people say people are just nuts they keep sending UFO's and if they keep sending U twos over Cuba and they they're sending you two over Cuba and and the the Americans like lying on EU Tuesday sent over is if they shoot. That you two were going to invade? Cool. And so the Soviets actually do shoot, shoot down a YouTube, but for like, the only time ever in history the US is like, wait, maybe we shouldn't end all, like, literally end all humanity. And like, we we got this, we got this moment. We're just like. You know, you, you you get to actually. So you have all the, like, just horrific leadership stuff that has got you here. But you you get a moment where, like, the soul of humanity is tested in, like, a very small number of people. And it's like if if any one of these people on either side flinches or, like, decides that they want to end all life on Earth, everyone is going to die. And for one of like this, you know, this is like, this is like one of the only times ever that it has actually mattered that we're not all just, like, terrible pieces of ****. And we didn't do it, and we didn't end all humanity. And eventually, you know, the whole thing is wound down. And alternatively, the people in charge realize that if they were doing this, they could no longer do whatever fun stuff they did in their spare time, and it's only for selfish reasons. Oh yeah, of course, yeah. It's like the the leaders get no credit here at all. The people who do get credit are just like the random ******** on a ship who, like, got sent over to the other side of the world and had to just, like, sit there knowing that they could be destroyed at any moments and then didn't panic and like, held. Yeah, and kept kept everyone on Earth from dying by just not just like. Holding it together in a situation that would have just like destroyed most people. So, so good, good on, good on like the cruise of the ships for not killing us all. Yeah, it was nice. Yeah. So depending on how I feel, yeah, given day. Now, part part part of what's happening here is, is the US getting shot down? It makes the area 51 people go. We need to build a faster plane. Sure. Uh-huh. And so there's their solution to this is the A-12 OXCART. And the Oscars. Interesting because. This is another thing that everyone thinks is a UFO but actually isn't. And there's a very famous UFO picture of like, one of NASA's like X15 rocket jets. And in the very, like in the very corner of this rocket picture, the rocket, there's there's a day 12. And everyone is like, oh, this is UFO, this is the UFO is like, no it's not. It's this, but. You know. The the CIA keeps doing these like **** ***** cover ups, but like you like you can just see these out of passenger planes. Like if you're in a plane, you just see it. It's like, oh this thing looks like a cigar just flew past. And they try to do these. They do looking. They do look incredibly weird. Yeah, it just doesn't work. And eventually in the mid 60s, Walter Cronkite like goes on TV and tells the American public at the CIA been doing a UFO cover up. Cool. Which is true. But everyone assumes this is about aliens. But it's not about aliens. Nothing with aliens. It has everything to do with the fact that people keep seeing this biplanes. And so the the Air Force gets put in charge of an investigation of UFO's. But the problem is that only a few top Air Force generals know about the A 12. Yeah. They only a few people know what the existence of this aircraft. Yeah. Yeah. And so the low level investigators are like, oh, the Air Force is doing UFO coverup, which they are, but they assume that it's about aliens. And so a bunch of these people, like, turn into alien, like, UFO conspiracy theorists. Then. Yeah because this is, you know and and we're getting to see this the, the, the US basically through it sort of like the secrecy of these programs it just it keeps creating UFO conspiracies. And yeah, there there's some. OK, there's some question as to how deliberately they're doing this. So the head of the National Investigation Committee on Aerial Phenomena, which is like the US UFO Study Group. Yep. In 1969, is taken over by Joseph Brian the third who? Joseph Bryan. The third was the CIA's first chief of political and psychological warfare. He seems like a solid dude to hang out with. Yeah, yeah. So, so I I have no idea what that means. He does. There's no way to know. And there's some reports that there have been a couple of, like, books and documentaries in the and in the last, like, 10 years that have there been a lot, you know, that, yes. But basically reported that that people in the CIA deliberately fed, like, fake UFO information to people to cause people to, like, go even deeper into their conspiracy. Which I absolutely believe. Yeah, I will say this. OK. So, like, this is the kind of thing the CIA would do, but the people who are giving the evidence are sketchy. And I mean, of course, yeah, like that that is. Yeah, that is kind of how that mean. They probably feed it to a lot of people and the people who talk about it. Well, I mean, so the people were testifying better people who allegedly did it. Yeah. Which is interesting. But. But the thing that, well, the problem is weird about those people also just sort of they're like, oh, I spread this conspiracy, but like, they cut, they also want to get into the UFO scene. And so, yeah, question it's, it's weird and it is a lot of weird conflicting interests going on. Yeah. And this is, this is one of the problems with the CIA, which is that like. OK, so there's there's a couple. There's like some important things you need to understand about the CIA is they're bad. You don't need conspiracy theories for that. They're they're bad. They do a lot of bad things. The CIA, having done something, is not in and of itself proof that they did another thing. So, for example, like, you could say the like, you know something like, the CIA is a mood base, right? And someone asked you for evidence, you can go, Oh well, they did operation paper clip and they're involved in development of rocket technology. But just because the CIA did operation paper clip and had rocket does not mean they have a moon base, right? This is. Yeah, this is something, something happens all the time when people talk about the CIA. Yeah. That is like a basic fallacy. Yeah. You you cannot you cannot use something that the CIA has done as direct evidence they did something else unless there's a direct tie between, unless unless you have evidence that the other thing happened. There's other people who suck. Yeah. Yeah. And the other thing is they're not omnipotent. And this is the example I always bring up because it's really funny. So the CIA just completely missed 2 two different Indian nuclear weapons tests, like, across 2 decades. Like, not only did they not realize that that that they were testing be happening soon. They didn't even know that India was doing tests at all. And then they. They. Yeah. Yeah. So these nuts would go off and they would learn that the India was doing tests when Indian government on TV. So, like, they're not actually omnipotent. I think what is also interesting is I'm not sure if you're not sure you bring this up shortly, but like, this sort of thing is definitely still happening in terms of like, yeah, like Air Force pilots seeing weird stuff in the sky and then going to talk about it. Like, you know, just like this is some other aircraft usually, usually, usually we're able to actually, like, prove what these things are. But, like, you know, military or if people see stuff, they talk about the news. And the timing is always weird. It's always been like some other, like, like, civil unrest is happening when, like, we get some weird piece of information about UFO's. Like, oh, really? What? What a coincidence. And it's an interesting thing, too, though, because, like, there's this kind of, like, weird interplay because, like, a lot of, like, like, like, senators and presidents, like, actually believe that there's UFO's. And and this is like, this is a weird thing because UFO is yes, but like different. Like, do you mean like UFO or do you mean like aliens? Well, like aliens like this. Like there are there are a lot of people in the government who do believe in aliens and and and it's it's this weird tension because and a lot of like everything is like like. I don't know. Like, Harry Reid, for example, was a big alien dude, right? But Harry Reid, like, I mean, I know he's very powerful in Nevada. Like, maybe he knew, but like, Harry Reid is not someone who knows what's happening in these black projects because they don't tell. They don't tell Congress, right? I mean, he he might know because of how powerful he is, but like, again, it's up in the even the people who are supposed to be in charge don't know what's actually happening. And that means they fall for conspiracy theories because they fall for conspiracy theories. And at this point, it's more of a it's more of a fandom than anything else. It's really easy to get sucked into a fandom like that. So I can't, I mean, I don't trust any congressman on any level specifically around this issue because this is solely a fandom issue. It's it's like, it's like, it's like taking their opinion on like, religion. It's like, I I care zero amount because it's only a fandom. Yeah. And I think, I think that the thing that is very dangerous about this, though, is that, again, Area 51 is like the existence of Area 51 is like an atrocity to anyone who thinks you live in a democracy. They have almost killed. Like multiple, multiple times and everyone is like, oh it's the aliens was like, no, like they they literally almost ended life on Earth like four times. And and yeah, you know we're gonna get into the yeah, we'll get into the other horrible stuff they do in a second. But I do want to talk about the one cool thing they did. Ohh OK, they did one thing that was incredibly awesome. That was the greatest thing the American Empire ever produced, which is they made the SR-71. And the SR71 is ******* sick. This is this is the coolest airplane anyone is. Like, just like don't Google a picture of it. It looks so cool. It it could hit, it could hit mock 3.4 like it's just fast, it's faster than bullets, it doesn't have any weapons on it. And it it's it's defense strategy. So once it's a misleading, it's to outrun the missile. That is the strategy. It's what's the man's plane is the plane is based off it's it's dope. It's a ******* rat. It does look just like the X wing. It does look just like the X-men's. Yeah. Well, yeah, it's specifically modified SR71. Yeah. Yeah. It's just thing ever. And it's like from that was like, that was the pinnacle of the American Empire, was when they made this, this one, just absolutely incredible machine. And then they used to do war crimes in Vietnam and then they were like, oh, it's too expensive. It Dick Cheney, who was a demon in human form, who will one day return to the hell that spawned him and spend the rest of his days being torn apart by Satan. But has the program killed because he wants to make B2 bombers? He's like, oh, we got to be able to drop nukes from weird triangle planes. We can't run the coolest plane of all time ever anymore. So he he kills it and it's depressing and it's it's everything is bad now and he will rot in hell eternally. For of his many crimes, killing the SR-71, the only good thing the Americans ever did, he should have. This is the only thing we should have ever spent money on as a country. But if look if the roads just a network of SR-70. Guns take it was it was almost $300 million in today's money, for one. Yeah, sure. But, like, the 35 is like, it's like a trillion dollars. Look at how much worse that plane looks than the SR-71. Like every successive flying around in an F35, they're so wet. They're so bad because Professor Xavier has has ******* style. Unfortunately. So there's the the other things they're building there are horrifying. One of the most important ones that I think people have sort of like forgotten the real impact of is, is that the F117 Nighthawk? And so, so area 51 is basically where America's stealth technology is developed, which really does sound like conspiracy, but like, no, this is actually like, yeah, this is what they're doing. They're doing, yeah, they're doing cell technology and. The Nighthawk nighthawk is really bad. And the nighthawk is really bad because it fundamentally changes the balance of power between anti air weapons and bombers. And this means that the US can just like, I don't know for example just obliterate an army of fleeing Iraqi conscripts without having to like worry about someone shooting down their planes. To be fair, I do think I do think the Nighthawk looks way better. Mint Mobile offers premium wireless starting at just 15 bucks a month. And now for the plot twist. Nope, there isn't one. Mint Mobile just has premium wireless from 15 bucks a month. There's no trapping you into a two year contract. You're opening the bill to find all these nuts fees. There's no luring you in with free subscriptions or streaming services that you'll forget to cancel and then be charged full price for. None of that. For anyone who hates their phone Bill, Mint Mobile offers premium wireless for just 15. Dollars a month. Mint Mobile will give you the best rate whether you're buying one or for a family, and it meant family start at 2 lines. All plans come with unlimited talk and text, plus high speed data delivered on the nation's largest 5G network. You can use your own phone with any mint mobile plan and keep your same phone number along with all your existing contacts. Just switch to Mint mobile and get premium wireless service starting at 15 bucks a month. Get premium wireless service from just $15.00 a month, and no one expected plot twists at mintmobile.com/behind. That's mint mobile. From behind. Seriously, you'll make your wallet very happy at mintmobile.com/behind. My name is Erica Kelly and I am the host and creator of Southern Freight true crime. There are so many people that just have no idea about some injustices in the world, and if you can give a voice to them, you can create change to be able to do it within podcasting. It's just such a gift. I believe it was 18 months after I got on with speaker that I was making enough. That I could quit my day job. It was incredible. I always feel like an ambassador for speaker, but that's because I'm passionate about podcasting. It's really easy to use. I always tell people I am so not tech. Took me 5 minutes to get comfortable with speaker and when I find a new friend that has an incredible show, I want them to make money. I want them to be able to do what I did. Follow your podcasting dreams. Let's break your handle the hosting, creation, distribution, and monetization of your podcast. Go to spreaker.com. That's spreaker.com get paid to talk about the things you love with spreaker from iheart this fall on revisionist history. Is there anything that we haven't talked about or or I should have asked you or you'd like to add that seems relevant? You should have asked me why I'm missing fingers on my left hand. A story about sacrifice. I think his suffering drove him to try to alleviate suffering. And the shocking discovery I made where I faced the consequences of writing a book I thought would help people? Isn't that funny? It's not funny at all. It's depressing. Very depressing. Revisionist history is back with more. Listen to revisionist history on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts. I've never seen less enthusiasm for a great idea in my life. Then the previous plane we mentioned, that's somewhat, uh, no, that's 71. Wake up. That's not a bad looking plane, but Nighthawks. It's a it is a horrible killing machine. It's all designed for and it looks like it. It looks like death, like the plane looks like it's true. It does. It look like, well, that's why I like, there's only 171. Just looks like. It looks like. It's like a race car looks like sexy death. Yeah. Whereas whereas this was like, like, it's like this one looks like like like, like, like, like, yeah, like a government put into a plane that is death. That is what this is what it looks like. And so this is, this is, this is part of a transition. Epoxy is is there's an interaction that's happening here which is that. So the next seven at the Nighthawk is tested at area 51. But this is the first plane that like can actually drop bombs that area 51 ever made because up until up until this point they been doing reconnaissance aircraft between the 271 the A 12, which is like a yeah they're just capable of accidentally ending the world prison ship these also like deliberately ending it by dropping bombs. Yeah and and this is this is this is when this the the CIA gives control of of Area 51. The Air Force 1971 and yeah and this is all this is also where Area 52 comes in because area 52 which it's literally just a facility that area 51 and so they they area 51 is like sorry 52 is is built up basically to like housed the Nighthawks. Now it is it is interesting that like the older Nighthawks look a lot more like UFO's than the newer nighthawks like the newer Nighthawks look more like the stupid, like Tumblr Batmobile, but in a plane. The older Nighthawks look a lot more sci-fi and it is interesting the difference to be like if I saw the older nighthawk and be like, oh, that's a UFO. If I saw the newer Nighthawk, I'm like, oh, that is like a military plane. Yeah, well it was. It wasn't this. So they they they they start doing a lot of things to like, reduce the number of UFO sightings. They they produce so like they they start flying. They flying at night because it turns out it actually really hard to see a black airplane at night. Yeah, but but you know the the other thing that they're doing in area 51 and they've been doing this really since the 60s is area 51 is where the US basically develops its drones. Yeah. And that is that that is the modern thing that pilots see and then talk about on CBS or whatever and and you know, and this interestingly so. So I mean I've been sort of aware of this. I didn't fully understand it. the US like had drones in the 60s. We just had them for a long. Yeah. Yeah. Like they they they like one of the things they do with the 12 is they put like they had this like ramjet drone on top of it, which is like pretty like a ramjet. Joan is sick. Like that's like, that's just like a cool thing. Yeah. If it wasn't used for killing people, then all these things are cool. Yeah, they're only designed to kill people. About the ramjet thing is, they had to stop using it because it kept it kept just like like cutting the airplane that kept cutting the a 12 1/2. OK, well, critical support support, critical support to the rabbit drone. But yeah, and I think the last thing we should talk about is that. Yeah, so area 50 ones. The the latest thing that we know that they did that is horrifying and awful is. OU until 911, there had been a line in the US military, and that line was you do not put weapons on unarmed drones. After, yeah. After. After 911. Oh, oh, what a time. Yeah, yeah. And after 911, the Air Force and the CIA basically get together, and they're trying to draw up a plan to kill bin Laden. And so they're, they're planning to do this is to put Hellfire missiles on a drone. And this is, this is, this is the origin of what, a horrible series of events. Yeah. It's awful. They feel like the few decisions that have impacted the course of humanity for the next century that are being responsible for so many, so many bodies. And you, you can you can see where this is going in initial thing because. So when they're testing the missiles on this right in area 51, they set up like a mock version of like bin Laden's house. And they're setting it up so that they can figure out how many children they're going to kill when they blow this thing up. Yeah and yeah that's that's that's that's that's been that's been area 50 ones modern. No the the worst the worst thing to come from places like this is putting guns on robots and drones. This is like the worst thing that almost almost almost almost ending the world with nuclear weapons and then now drones deciding to put, deciding to put bombs and weapons on little tiny things that fly and little and little robots that crawl around. This is the worst thing. Imaginable that we could have, we could have just not done. But we're like, Nope, let's do it. And now it's thinking about it is even even though like 70 CIA was like, this is a bad idea. I know. And then one of one of the first laws of like, this is one of the first laws of, yeah, first law of robotics. The first law of robotics. Yeah. But we stopped talking about that years ago. Now we have those that we have those ******* robot dogs with that ******* like 556 rifles. Little Tiny head 6.5, creedmore 6.5. Even worse. Even worse. Yep, and that's the episode. And yeah, by a 6.5 creedmore rifle. It'll go right through a robot. Yeah. I'm really excited for the robot wars. Yeah. And then you'll be able to take the robots ammo. It's gonna suck so bad. We're already in the robot wars. Yeah, I know. Yeah, it's well, it's happened. Well, but you know what? It'll never happen. It would have been so much. It would have been so much better if it was just aliens. God, what? No, it's not. Yeah. You know, I will say this, though. I will say this, though. If if we ever do storm area 51, we should just destroy it. Like that place. That place should be raised to the ground and, like, left as a monument to the people that killed. Because, yeah, they that should be most of the states, yes, yes. Specifically 51. We fill every inch of it with concrete and we top it with a statue of Fox Mulder. You know? You know, what we do is we do the thing, like for the the theoretical, the theoretical. Nuclear waste disposal site. Oh yeah, that is what we do. It it it it it is also still sort of irradiated. Also, it is still also radiated. So, yeah. Nothing. Nothing. Onion bombs there. Nothing, nothing. Nothing of value is kept here. Turned. Turned away. Yep. Yeah. Well, I wish it was aliens. Nope. We all wish it was aliens. It's alright. Well, the CIA. That's the episode. You can follow our CIA exploits at the happen here, pawn on Twitter and Instagram. God, I hate social media. All right, that's the episode. Here's to the Great American settlers, the millions of you who settled for unsatisfying jobs because they pay the bills and you just kind of fell into it and, you know, it's like, totally fine. Just another few decades or so and then you can enjoy yourself. Of course, there is something else you could do. If you got something to say, you could, oh, I don't know, start a podcast. The speaker from iheart and unleash your creative freedom and spend all day researching and talking about stuff you love. And maybe even earn enough money to one day tell your irritating boss as you quit and walk off into the sunset. Hey, I'm no settler. I'm an explorer. Spreaker.com that's a SBREAKER hustle on over today. I'm Jake Halpern's, host of deep cover. Our new season is about a lawyer who helped the mob run Chicago. We controlled the courts. We controlled absolutely everything. He bribed judges and even helped a hit man walk free until one day when he started talking with the FBI and promised that he could take the mob down. I've spent the past year trying to figure out why he flipped and what he was really after. From my perspective, Bob was too good to be true. There's got to be something wrong with this. I wouldn't trust that guy. He looks like a little scumbag liar, stool pigeon. He looked like what? He was a rat. I can say with all certainty I think he's a hero because he didn't have to do what he did, and he did it anyway. The moment I put the wire around the first time my life was over. If it ever got out, they would kill me in a heartbeat. Listen to deep cover on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. When PT Barnum's Great American Museum burned to the ground in 1865, what rose from its ashes would change the world. Welcome to grim and mild presents an ongoing journey into the strange, the unusual, and the fascinating. For our inaugural season, we'll be giving you a backstage tour of the Always complex and often misunderstood cultural artifact that is the American sideshow. So come along as we visit the shadowy corners of the stage and learn about the people who are at the center of it. In a place where spectacle was king, we will soon discover there's always more to the story than meets the eye, so step right up and get in line. Listen to grim and male presents now on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. Learn more over at grim and mild.com/presents. A spooky alright, we're done. Hello everybody. Welcome back to the show that this is on the week that this is, which is the spooky week of the year where things are spooky. Today, my guest, Katie Golden. Katie, say hello to the audience. Hello audience. Now say goodbye. OK, bye audience. Now tell the audience that acts of industrial sabotage are always morally justified in defense of the climate. Acts of wait. OK, so. Are you, do you guys have a team of lawyers that I can access or. Absolutely. They say it's fine. They say it's fine. If you tell people that, then, you know, industrial saboteur or whatever he said is cool. I love it. All right, everybody, I wouldn't have made that kind of claim, but but you heard Katie, so, you know, there you go. We've now made a full throated defense of the Niger Delta Avengers. Yeah, that is true. That is an upcoming episode. Chris. Katie, what are you? What do you what? What do we what are we? What are we? What? What are we? What are we? What are we? We're all Stardust, Robert. Oh, OK. Well, that sounds soothing, actually. Well, first, Katie of of of the Goldens is the host of creatures. Yeah. And writer for someone, right? For some more news, you're the host of creature feature. Jesus, Sophie, you gotta remember these things. Yeah. Everything's always my fault. What are we what are we doing today? What do you got? What, what, what are what's happening? I mean, this is your podcast, but, uh, I I thought, all right, fine. It's my podcast now. Welcome to it could happen here. Hosted by Katie Golden. I thought we could talk. I thought we could talk about animals, because I like animals. The spooky thing about an animal for us, yeah, I thought, because the theme of your podcast seems to be, you know, sort of the future and how things could get pretty ***** in the future. And I thought there are some examples of things getting ***** with the animals in the current president that seems to. It could maybe be a bit of a crystal ball for things that could happen in the future with climate change that. Is kind of spooky. Alright, let's do it. Have you guys heard of the saiga antelope? I mean, I I've heard of antelopes and I've heard of the saga, and I guess I'm not surprised that there's antelopes in in in the saga. Do me a quick favor and just Google Saiga antelope and just take a gander. Take them in as I I'll describe them to the audience while you're oh wow, yeah. They are kind of some of the cutest, goofiest little ungulates in the world. They have the best little face I know. It's weird. It looks like just two. It's just a big nose. Yeah, it's just a big, ridiculous nose. My God, that nose, silly. They must be endangered because they look they look like they're terrible at staying alive. They're they're faces, all knows. It's like someone's whole face was just a nose. Like someone strapped an anteater to, like, an animal they looked. Delicious. I'm just gonna say it. I would hunt and eat them because they kind of have, like, what they did with Voldemort's nostrils in the Harry Potter movie. But, like, long. Yeah. They look ridiculous. Yes. They also like a Star Wars animal. Yeah, some of them that they're patterning makes it look like they have teardrop tattoos under their eyes, which I think means they've all killed someone in prison. They go hard. Correctly. Yeah. Yeah. Anyways, I want one. Are you going to tell us something horrible is happening to them? Katie? Yes. Are they racist? Are these racist antelope? Katie? We're gonna milkshake, duck these antelopes? Yeah. They're all they're all as far as I know. They're not too racist. They have some problematic views on, like, you know, gender abortion. Yeah, that's. I mean, all antelope have really regressive attitudes towards women's reproductive health. Is frustrating. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's a but these guys look like Star Wars animals to me. They kind of look like this Star Wars animal named like a grasshopper or something. Yeah, they look extremely fake. It's it looks like a guy you'd meet at the bar where the aliens play ****. Yes. Yes, that type of music that Katie's doing is canonically called **** and and if you and if you are, if you are, if you are a musician who plays jazz, you are a **** wailer. And that's the best thing about that is that I know all of the thought that George Lucas put to that was, oh, someone asked what the type of music they play in the cantina is. Jazz is a real kind of music. Let me just put an eye in. Let's change the vowel. It's **** now. Well, that's going to be the day for me. He didn't even put an apostrophe in it, which I know really. It could have. It could have been is the effort wasn't there because these are OK, sorry, sorry, no, I could talk about this for hours. I just the differences between JK Rowling and and George Lucas as creators who who both made very popular fiction franchises and want people to think they thought about them more than they did is absolutely hysterical. Because JK Rowling does that by creating all these convoluted backstories and George Lucas replaced the A and jazz. Than I and didn't realize that Jazz was a thing. Right. What an incredible person it is. Pretty good. Sorry Katie. So no, it's fine. It's fine. So these saga antelope, AKA **** whalers, are found in the grasslands and semi deserts in Central Asia, Russia, Kazakhstan, Mongolia, Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan. They actually used to have a much wider range, but because of all the Roberts out there wanting to taste their delicious, they look delicious. Overhunting. Oh my God, yeah. Just that nose on a plate there. Population declined, and it's now limited to a small territory. So, yeah, so there's still enough for me to to eat a couple is what you're no, Robert. If you try to kill one, I'll kill you first. Thank you, Gary. We have. I'm going to saiga antelope hunting. We have to we have to protect the ****. Whalers, they look they look stupid as ****. Possibly be good at stuff. Actually, with that nose I bet their senses are in. They could do a lot of interesting things, yeah. Katie, tell the story. You interrupting? Fox go. Sorry, we all got **** filled in now. Not so cool. It's OK. It's. I understand the excitement about these guys. I do want to paint a mental picture for the audience just so they get, like, why people are freaking out. So they have this elephant. Like, imagine a little antelope and they're they're small. They're about two to three feet tall, about 60 to 150 pounds. Yeah, they're little babies. And it looks like you took like a cute little deer and just glued. Like a big elephant nose to it. It's not as long as an elephant trunk, but it's sort of a curve like a a curls under like an elephant seal nose stuck to a little deer. And that snout is called a proboscis. And yeah, it's a. They're kind of a they have sort of a light tan white coat, uh, they can get really fluffy in the winter. They have these really huge tubular nostrils on that nose, and that gigantic conquer helps them filter dirt as the huge herds sort of trample on the ground and kick up dirt clouds. And it can also act as an AC unit that cools the saiga antelopes blood so as blood flows through it. You have this spacious chamber and it cools the blood and it recirculates and then in the winter it can act as a space heater that warms the air before they breathe it in so they see heater. Yeah, filter system. It's really a cool nose. Which is why it was absolutely horrifying when entire herds of the saiga antelope started dropping dead on mass within like days of each other. Just like a biblical plague. O there are photos. What? Sorry, Robert. Unbelievable. Unbelievable. Ohio embarrassing sometimes. Katie, I'm so sorry. No, it's it's it's fine. I'm. I mean, I don't know how else to sort of add levity to just the most adorable little antelope in the world just all suddenly dying. There. So there are photos in Kazakhstan of in Kazakhstan of these fields of just littered with these white lumps. And when you zoom in, you realize they're all saiga antelope corpses just covering the ground. It's pretty bone chilling. It kind of looks OK. This is a little bit of it. Kind of looks like a cult death. A mass cult death. Like Jonestown, but antelope. Boy, I was gonna say when you go grenade fishing, but yeah, same kind of idea. Grenade fishing, yeah. When you drop a grenade in a lake and then it kills all the fish and they float to the top so you can scoop them up ohk. OK. I thought it was like you were fishing for fishing for grenades. Yeah, like running around a field, going like it's that happened is if you go fishing in a lake where people go grenade fishing, you may in fact catch a grenade, but but no right, two grenades with one stone. Al Qaeda I'm having this image of like bobbing for apples, but like you Bob for apples to grenade pin and careful with the lakes in Iraq. Is it because they've got grenades in them? Yeah. Wow. Really? That's how you fish, yeah? OK. Yeah. If you're lazy, well, I'm still obsessed with looking at these pictures. OK, so adorable, right? What what caused all this? This this nightmare plague that killed all of the all of the weird nose? The gonzo antelope. Right? The gonzo antelope. It was kind of a mystery. So in 2015, 200,000 Saiga died off in that year alone. Like, literally just there. Not that many. So I hate that. The. Yeah, it was like the IT wiped out the majority of the global population because they were already endangered. Yeah, they just like keeled over, died without explanation. And so researchers were obviously horrified and confused and slightly curious and start. That's more than there are left. Yeah, yeah. So they're like 100,000 left. And so they started investigating the mass deaths and they found that the cause was a bacterial infection of pasteurella, multocida type B bacteria, which is really catchy name, and it caused hemorrhagic septicemia. Which is a horrible I looked up the symptoms. It's like internal bleeding and just it's like the worst cold ever, but also with your organs bleeding inside, which doesn't sound great. It sounds and honestly looks like captain trips. Like the the the plague from Stephen King's the stand that killed all of the people. Like just this horrible plague that makes everybody bleed out and drop where they're standing. Yeah, that's essentially what happened. What happens also with a lot of snot. Like, a lot of yeah, that's also very captain trips. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, maybe that. Yeah. Yeah. So neat fun. So yeah. What is thought to have happened is that basically this bacteria, pasteurella, has often been found in saiga antelope large noses. They're also found in other, like, ungulate noses. That have big, these big sort of proboscis noses and it lives in there, but it's normally not a problem because the immune system is able to fight it off fine and it maintains its balance. But the climate, I don't know if you guys have heard, but climate is kind of getting weird. That is something I've I've heard of. Yeah. Yeah, I'm learning about it. It it may be, it may be changing from what it used to be a little bit, yeah. It's called change of climate, change of climate, kind of on a global scale, everything getting slightly warmer, yeah, usually climate heightening. Yeah, that's all it because of climate hot aning this bacteria. It had much more ideal, kind of of an environment to grow. So inside this beautiful proboscis of the antelope, you can imagine it's moist, it's warm, it's great for the moist and warm and festive. Yeah, it would fester inside the nose, right? Exactly. And so when it gets more humid on the outside, more hot and humid, that nose increases in temperature as well. And it became the perfect incubator for hosting this bacteria such that it overwhelmed the antelopes. Immune system. And literally they just started dropping like flies from this infection, like an entire herd dying within a couple of days. When when you first mentioned this, you're talking about how like they can use their noses like an air conditioner. I was thinking, like, oh, maybe maybe these animals will be like, well adapted to climate change since they can like, self regulate. But no, of course not. Of course it's not a good story. Yeah. Now I think that's what's so creepy about climate change to me is there's like the obvious effects are things like more. Fire, we get real hot and we die because it's too hot. But things like, oh, this means bacteria loves, loves living life and like, starts eating us from the inside out. Like, that's not a really, I guess, intuitive consequence of global warming, but it is one of the things that seems to be likely to happen, so it's really creepy. When you started this and talked about, like, a whole herd of of of these antelopes dropping at once, I thought it was going to be like, oh, another one of those like horrible sulfur bubbles that killed like a cities worth of animals in a matter of seconds because a bunch of ice melted. And I'm not sure which is creepier. Actually, this is worse because, like, they died in like, horrible pain. Yeah, I don't think the sulfur wasn't painful, but yeah, they're both horrifying. The sulfurs at least faster. Yeah. They're both very frightening. And it's also both things that like, Oh yeah, that could that could that could drop some people that could yeah, just jump right across. There's there's a couple of ways this could go bad for us. This is the thing being Robert was looking a little bit into to put together the first five scripted episodes of the daily is we in the few books we read there were, there were there were section like large sections about how this is going to basically just make plagues be a thing forever Now yeah, this is going to be hard for people to really get their heads around, but imagine a plague. That in in in the 21st century, how scary that would be. Just really trying to get your head around that global plate. Yeah. People dropping. It's frightening, you know? So this is just the coronavirus. Coronavirus is technically, it's not a plague, right, because it's not a bacteria. It's yeah, yeah, it's viral. People of plague. Yeah like it's, it's it's both, both both like viral pathogens, bacterial pathogens are with with globalization can spread at a much faster right now with global warming there's going to be more breeding ground for literally new bacterias and this is and with with stuff melting in the ice caps and all kind of stuff, there's just a lot of reasons to just assume that yeah, we're just going to kind of live with plagues constantly being a problem now. Like it's just like they're there never is going to be a post COVID-19 world. It's just this forever. COVID was just the first plague that really got through the defenses that were never going to hold up to the damage we're doing to the climate. Like, there were a couple of plagues beforehand that, like, we were able to kind of tamp down on, get a lid on, and COVID was just the system actually finally shattering. And it's never going to get fixed, and the plagues are just going to get play gear, and it'll be fun. But on the other side, on the upside, here's the match. Oh, OK yeah. On the upside, capitalism. We are back. I've, I've. Unfortunately, I've, I've got to the point where I'm scrolling through these pictures where I've now found the mountain of dead animals that are just burial. Yeah, it's real ******* the stand ****. Yeah, it's a lot of them. A lot of them. Dead just in a giant pile. Like, imagine the cutest Sesame Street character. Cuter than Snuffaluffagus, just lying in heaps. That big nose has to make him extra vulnerable to *******. Horrible nose bacteria. That's what we were just talking about. It's literally his big nose. That's just what we said. They just explained that I know, but it's so sad. It is very sad. It's very sad. And there there's this is not an isolated case that'll never happen again. Researchers warn that it's very likely stuff like this will keep happening with climate change. And they're warning that reindeer populations are at risk because reindeer actually also have a really, even though it doesn't seem like they have a huge proboscis, they have a very impressive nose. It's very spacious. It also. Actually works like a little space heater and warms up the air as they breathe it in. It's pretty amazing. But those same characteristics that are so beneficial to the reindeer now could actually become very dangerous for them with climate change if this bacterial growth happens. So we're looking at potential, you know, risk to reindeer population. And there's also a lot of risk to farm animals as well, like for something similar have to happen where this bacteria. Can infect farm animals like cows and other types of ungulate farm animals. And so, you know, even if people don't care about the adorable saiga antelope, which I guess would be just psychopaths. Murderers, you know? But like, you know, we also have very important species like, you know, reindeer, that are a keystone species and also, you know, are farm animals that, you know, yeah. They're very important for a lot of people to basically how they live. Their lives are based around cultivating these animals and hunting and racing and. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, I mean, in my opinion, every species, even if no matter how obscure it is, it is typically something very important. For humans, it just, it's sort of the like 7 degrees of Kevin Bacon. It's like you don't have to get too far away to realize that Kevin Bacon, like his survival is really important to the planet. Except instead of Kevin Bacon, it's like any animal that is basically, Oh yeah, all animals and all ecosystems. No matter. Even if you feel like they're not super important. The way our world works and how ecosystems work, they're all incredibly intrinsic and reliant on each other. So even even, you know, that's what we're seeing. But, like, why don't we just, like, turn entire deserts into solar fields and be like, well, no, because the desert ecosystem actually very like, if they serves a very important purpose. Like, you can't just be like, oh, deserts arch important. Like, no, like I have an actual ecosystem that's actually very important to the surrounding area, so we can't just bulldoze it and turn it into a solar field. Just sand Garrison, which is coarse and irritating, and it gets everywhere. It gets everywhere. Actual quote from uh from Star Wars Episode Episode 2 attack of the Clones Fighting Christensen playing Anakin Skywalker's Padawan with with the rat tail, yeah. Classy. I love that. Yeah, his rat tail. Amazing. The courage they used to have in Hollywood. The courage of 2003. Really stunning. Yeah. How could Pat may not. How could she not want that? How could you resist? It's like that Ween song. Every girl wants a guy with a rat tail. Yeah, I'm just assuming if that were a song, it would be by Ween. You know, it's called a. It's called a like a love lover, I think. Rat tail. That's right. That's right. O what's up with these animals? Yeah? You want some more animals? Because I talked about how those animals mostly all died. Oh, I'm just thinking, like, what's like, what's what? Like, do you know, like what's happened with them since they all dropped, like, whole 124,000 of them left alive? Yeah, yeah, yeah. They're not currently all dying of this bacterial infection. I think, like some of them are they apparently outside of the danger zone, I guess outside of the area where they're more like. Yeah. That's about the best you can say for any species in 2021. Some of them aren't in the danger area currently. Yeah. But obviously that's going to change as global warming progresses. So yeah, it's a it's pretty grim. It's also, I think, you know, obviously when you think about these things, humans obviously don't have, like these big snuffaluffagus noses, which is really sad because I'm imagining us with it. And we're we'd all be dead. We would all be dead. But really, it would be better for the planet. You have to be way we would. We would be way better at whaling **** and honestly, I feel like we would be whaling the hell out of some ****. Man, one can dream we would be nose deep in a big old pillages. Oh, wow. Yeah. How would you how does the Bible quantify **** cubits? OK Cupid. That's what no one said but he wanted to get the cheese on the ark. God's like no, you must bring that **** makes cubits. Two **** of every kind. Well, Noah was big into now we're, we're just like animal predictions that it was ever about music. All right? Sorry, Katie. No, that's alright. I asked. So, yeah, I mean, I thought another thing we could talk about is how. Animal folklore is really important to pay attention to and to kind of listen to as both information and warnings for the future. Because we often dismiss folklore as like, oh, you know, these are just spooky stories that we tell around the campfire. They're just legends. They don't mean anything. We're especially dismissive. I think when it comes to indigenous peoples, it's like, oh, you're folklore. Oh, that's so cute and quaint, but yeah. Listen to it. We, we look at it as we we like, really like infantilize. It is like, oh, look at you, primitive people still doing folklore, which is extremely, extremely disrespectful and also like very naive about how things work. When you look at how heavily engineered all of like, the forests were in the entirety of of the Americas, like from the Amazon of the UP to the Pacific Northwest. It's a little like like the architect of a building comes in and says, hey, you can't knock out that retaining wall. The building's gonna collapse and we're going to be like. Mr Architect with his magic walls and then the building collapses on this. You know, there's there's a bunch of paintings like there's like these drawings from like this is like the early 1600s of of people like in North America and and it'll be these drawings, all these European guy standing on a tree and what they're watching is like, it's it's one of the, I forget exactly what tried. This is one of the people like they they figured out how to have like. A fire that's like, it burns it like, exactly like, like perfectly in this ring around the tree does not catch anything else inside of it. Like I said. And it's funny because like you, you look at this and it's like. OK, like the people, like the people who are drawing this painting cannot do this. And it's like, it's very clear that they're just, like, incredibly befuddled by this. But it's like, you know, just it's just sitting there and then all of the people who paint who paint that you like all the European artists who, like, do this and you're like, no, no, no, it's fine. We don't know how they're doing this fire control stuff, but we're Europeans. Everything we everyone ignoring everything other people say is going to go fine and great. And we're not going to like, yeah, turn half the country into a Dust Bowl. What are what are they got to teach us? We figured out how to make boats that only. They'll have the people on them. Only half. Barely. I mean that. I mean, that is a really good point. Controlled burns have been practiced by a number of civilizations for millennia, but when European settlers came and colonized North America, we're like controlled Mint mobile offers premium wireless starting at just 15 bucks a month. And now for the plot twist. Nope, there isn't one. Mint Mobile just has premium wireless from 15 bucks a month. 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Seriously, you'll make your wallet very happy at mintmobile.com/behind. My name is Erica Kelly and I am the host and creator of Southern Freight true crime. There are so many people that just have no idea about some injustices in the world, and if you can give a voice to them, you can create change. To be able to do it within podcasting is just such a gift. I believe it was 18 months after I got on with Spreaker that I was making enough that I could quit my day job. It was incredible. I always feel like an ambassador for speaker, but that's because I'm passionate about podcasting. It's really easy to use. I always tell people I am so not tech. Took me 5 minutes to get comfortable with spreaker, and when I find a new friend that has an incredible show, I want them to make money. I want them to be able to do what I did. Follow your podcasting dreams. Let's break your handle the hosting, creation, distribution, and monetization of your podcast. Go to spreaker.com. That's spreaker.com. Get paid to talk about the things you love with spreaker from iheart this fall on revisionist history. Talked about it, or if I should have asked you or you'd like to add that. Seems relevant. You should have asked me why I'm missing fingers on my left hand. A story about sacrifice. I think his suffering drove him to try to alleviate suffering. And the shocking discovery I made where I faced the consequences of writing a book I thought would help people? Isn't that funny? It's not funny at all. It's depressing. Very depressing. Revisionist history is back with more. Listen to revisionist history on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts. I've never seen less enthusiasm for a great idea in my life. Burns, but we want to sell the timber and that sounds dangerous, so let us handle it. But yeah, this is all immortalized in the biographical song timber by by Pitbull, which which, which tells this story in in lyrical version, please continue. And in and in timberland boots and in timberland boots. That's right. Every timberland boot has a piece of the story. Yeah. And Timberwolves, the, I'm going to say hockey team. Yes. The hockey team is yeah. OK yeah. Sophie shaking her head. I'm sorry, Sophie. Minnesota Wolves are an NBA team. I'm sorry, I apologize to everyone. You should be, but yeah, I mean, so in North America, especially in California, Indigenous American tribes practice controlled burns for thousands and thousands of years. The Euro Karak and Hoopa tribes of California did controlled burns, which in addition to preventing larger, more dangerous wildfires by getting rid of dead brush, it also promoted new growth of vegetation. Like, really important. Plant species like oak and Hazel. It even had unexpected effects like supporting the salmon population because as you did, these controlled burns created a block from the sun so that the ash clouds, and then that would cool down the temperatures of the streams. And I know what you're thinking that, hey, to counter global warming, we should burn everything so that I agree cooled down. The problem with burning everything like these uncontrolled burns is they also kill living vegetation. And it's just like it burns everything insight and leaves basically nothing, and it burns off a huge amount of carbon stores. So the great thing about controlled burns is it very slowly burns off these carbon stores in this dead wood and then it gives it time to regrow so that you recapture the carbon rather than just like burning. All this carbon at once, releasing it all at once, and then it's like trying to play catchup. It's like if you still like a little bit of milk on the table and you use a paper towel and wipe it up it, it works. But if you just, like, pour out the entire milk jug on the table, you know, just on like a sloppy Saturday, just pouring out that milk, it's like a paper towel is not going to do anything that's like trees and carbon. You know, I'm saying yes. Yeah, yeah, I do. I do, I do, I do. Pick up what you are putting down. Yeah, they say, although I still think milk analogy, we should try a controlled burn on, let's say. Boston see how it goes. Right. Just my boss shot. Very anti. I've been there. Didn't care for it. Didn't care for Boston. Don't see how we need it. Even North End, yeah. Yeah. Didn't care for it. Hmm. They've got good cannolis there, though I'm sure they do. You know where else has good cannolis? I don't because I don't care for cannolis either. OK, well, alright, that's the. I'm actually living in Italy, and so if they find out I've been on this podcast, I'm going to get kicked out of the oh, you need to be. Yeah, very careful. It's filled with Italians. They're everywhere. If you can get up to the Alps, there might be some Swiss nearby who can protect you, but you're in dangerous territory. I didn't realize they were Italians here. That's scary. Yeah. It's one of the main problems that Italy has. Yeah. So yeah. So but when basically Indigenous tribes had a pretty good system of controlled burns in California. And then when, you know, colonizers came to North America, we were like, hey, stop that. In fact, we're going to make it illegal to do controlled burns because that seems dangerous. And they focused on fire suppression and protection of timber stores rather than. You know, paying attention to the way people had been doing this for thousands and thousands of years and how it kind of worked. And so they just thought, like, hey, if we just stop fires from ever happening, they'll never happen. But spoilers, they just started happening. Still happen, and it's worse. And they're out of control, and they're big problems every year. And yeah, learned nothing. But another thing is that we could have learned about controlled burns much, much earlier if we had decided to listen to the Aboriginal peoples in northern Australia about Firehawks so. Fire Hawks are Raptors. That is like birds of prey who seem to either accidentally or intentionally spread wildfire by picking up smoldering twigs and sticks from a burning area and dropping them elsewhere. And then once they start that fire, they watch for all the little scared mice and rodents and lizards and just feast upon the fleeing animals. It's extremely metal. That does sound. That does sound very fun, yeah. And so research published in 2018 detailed about how three species of birds of prey in Australia seem to do this. But of course this is not news, because Aboriginal peoples have known about this for thousands and thousands of years and have documented this in their own folklore. There's a even a ceremony called Yadua in which people act out birds carrying. Smoldering branches, which sounds amazing. But essentially they are teaching this sort of naturalist history of. Sorry of how they have seen these, these Hawks, these fire Hawks, carrying these burning sticks and distributing it. And if this, if we had listened to this, you know, earlier, we may have had more research on how, you know, maybe these birds of prey have been terraforming the Australian Outback for thousands and thousands of years. And that's really cool, and it may be really informative, but unfortunately we kind of really only decided to start. Researching it in 2018 and those researchers started doing it because they listened to these stories from the Aboriginal people. So yeah. Yeah, I feel like everyone should. I feel like everyone should be more. OK with understanding why folklore exists and what purpose it serves, this is. This is something I I got into years ago because of the because of the lore podcast learning about. Just how folklore influences culture and politics and a whole bunch of really interesting and weird ways. And that is something I wanted to talk about more, because it's it's a thing. And. Folklore is different for us now in terms of how we have like a cultural stories, but it's it's it's still the same, it's still the same purpose and we just kind of deny it in a way that is kind of silly. Yep. Yeah, I think there's often this idea of there is a clear distinction between fact and folklore. And while it's true, like we can't necessarily just take folklore for at its exact word because like, it's sort of like a telephone game throughout years and years, folklore is going to take on new shapes every generation, but we really should take it seriously as a part of very important data set of like, this is human observational history. Maybe some of it has been sort of. The. Turned into myth, but a lot of it could be genuine observation that people are relaying over many, many generations, which I think is really important. Well, thank you uh, Katie Golden for talking about those those very silly gonzo things that are unfortunately dropping dead. Little Gonzo climate change genocide. And then and then the other climate change issues are in folklore. Where where can people find you on the old Internet interwebs? And people, yeah, I got a podcast. I don't know if you've heard about those. It's called creature feature. And I talk about stuff like this all the time about animals. It's not always about animals dying in horrible ways, but sometimes it is. It's a good mix, you know? It's like sometimes animals being alive, sometimes animals being dead, sometimes some animals making other animals dead and interesting, wacky animals. Yeah, you can never predict. And, you know, you can find me on Twitter at Katie Golden. That's Kat i.e. GOLDIN. Yeah, where I just, you know, just post it on the Twitter. Doing that listening to creature feature. Find Katie on Twitter. And uh. Shoplift? Sure. What's up guys? I'm Rachel Blau and I am Troy Millings and we are the host of the Ernie Leisure podcast where we break down business models and examine the latest trends in finance. We hold court and have exclusive interviews with some of the biggest names in business, sport and entertainment, from DJ Khaled to Mark Cuban, Rick Ross and Shaquille O'Neal. I mean, our alumni list is expansive. Listen in as our guests reveal their business models, hardships and triumphs in their respective fields. The knowledge is in depth and the questions are always delivered. From your standpoint, we want to know what you want to know. We talked to the legends of business, sports and entertainment about how they got their start and most importantly how they make their money earning. Alicia is a college business class mixed with pop culture. 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So, you know, normally this is a show about collapse, all that good stuff, yadda, yadda, yadda. But **** it. It's Halloween week. So we're, we're, we're, we're, we're making sure all of our stuff has a little bit of an extra spooky twist. It's like when you you make a martini and you decide to actually put vermouth inside it as opposed to just kind of waving it nearby. That's what we're doing this week with Spookiness being the vermouth. And mixing up our martini today is Margaret. Killjoy. Margaret. Hello? Hello, I'm a famous mixologist, so clearly this will be very good. Now Margaret, today for this very special episode of it could happen here on Spooky Week. You have written us as well. You've written a short story and you're going to read it. And and and we're all gonna enjoy it. Is that is that accurate? I hope at least I can testify to the first parts. And I hope for the last part. Excellent. All right, well, without further ado or with minimal further ado, let's, you know, with the stuff. With the stuff, Margaret, with this stuff. And this is great because this is actually a short story that you start reading of. Oh, ****. Yeah. Where's that link? You texted it to me, but I don't have my phone. OK, let me put it in the chat here. Based. Impressive to say the least. Based in fiction pilled. OK, I start reading the italics. Yeah, it's the first couple paragraphs of introduction and then you're you're interviewing me. Alright, ************* let's get it started. The northern host. For all its lingering horror and misery, the wake of a war is rich terrain. For a folklorist like myself, more people report more supernatural experiences during times of war than times of peace. Some of my peers have argued the stress and shock of battle leaves our brains more susceptible to mass delusion. Others claim that the veil between worlds remains thin when so many are passing from life to death. The second American Civil War has been no exception. Most famously, of course, soldiers from each of the three armies present at the 15 day siege of Saint Louis reported a wailing man who walked among the wounded, healing some and ending the lives of others. On the Cascadian front, rebel forces spoke of black bears who in effect stood sentry for their guerrilla positions. During the White Army's occupation of Washington DC, civilians and soldiers alike reported apparitions pouring out from the Pentagon crater every new moon, of all the various myths and legends. To spring up in the wake of the recent conflict, however, I find myself most strongly drawn to the stories of the northern host. Never have I heard a myth recounted in such detail by such a wide variety of people. My favorite telling comes from Private Sarah Dollar and the Battle of Asheville. This interview was recorded in the spring of 2035 and lightly edited for clarity with permission of the subject. Note that the subject refers to the white Army by pejoratives throughout. These have been left intact for the historical record. Could you introduce yourself and tell me what you saw? Yeah, my my name is Sarah Daher. I'm 31 years old. I live in Asheville and the Appalachian region of the United States of America on stolen Cherokee land. My U.S. military rank was private. They made us all privates when they incorporated the irregulars into the army, but I only served in the Union to fight the White Army. A year later, I'm one of those crazy radicals who doesn't think the reconfiguration goes far enough. I've never fired a gun in my life before the irregulars, and I hope I never fire another one again. By temperament, I'm neither a lover nor a fighter. I'm just your average trans girl who likes cats and hates Nazis. I fought in three engagements in Weaverville, Leicester, and Asheville. I think I killed two people. One of them I know I killed him. I I saw him bleed out and I saw him taken away in a black bag. The other person was a man I shot in the thigh during the Battle of Asheville. I didn't know you could die from a bullet in the thigh, but I've spent a lot of time looking at casualty records and someone who fit that man's general description died in that battle from a bullet to the thigh. Does that bother you? Yes. No, I I don't know. I don't lose sleep over it, but I think about it a lot. I look at the docs on both of them. The first guy was a true believer, a real blood and soil type. It doesn't bother me that I mingled those two things for him. The second man, though, I'm not so sure. He signed up because his son signed up. I don't have any kids myself, but I could see myself doing that. His son survived the war. Have you been in contact with his son? No. **** that guy. That kid's a ******* Nazi and I don't know, he talked his way out of the tribunals. Can you tell me what you saw at the Battle of Asheville? This was during the fascist Spring offensive last year. You know, Hitler's birthday, April 20th. By that point, the White army was pretty much done, but they weren't about to go down without doing some major symbolic damage. So there were about 40 of us, all irregulars with our own commanders. No army oversight. Morale was down. We felt pretty abandoned. Common sentiment in the South. I was on the street, out in front of the library, walking rounds. Downtown was half rubble at that point. Only the library was standing, because symbols matter and all that ********. So that's where we were making a stand. Neither side had artillery, really. By that point, the brass had just commandeered even our RPG's for the quote. Real fight. Air support wasn't coming. Not for them and not for us, really. The Battle of Asheville was was like nothing to the rest of the world, and we knew it. So I was doing the rounds, thinking about my **** luck, thinking maybe I was going to die and how so many people had died. And what's another dead girl to add to the pile? I was thinking about how at least this dead girl is going to die surrounded by or in defense of books. Then I heard dogs from around the side of the building, 1 barked loud and near the other, sort of distant and echoey. I went to check it out, turned the corner, and there was this naked guy. He was pale as hell, tall, tattooed and scarred. And like I said, he was naked as the sun. I stared at him. He stared at me. I got so distracted trying to figure him out that it took me a moment to realize there were nine others behind him. Or maybe they weren't there at first. I don't know. Most of them were men, mostly of the tall Norse looking variety. But there was a Middle Eastern man and three women, including one who by my read was Latin X. No dogs anywhere that I could see. The man closest to me. He asked me something in the language I didn't know. I just kind of stared. He asked me another question in another language. What? I asked. Who are you? Who are we fighting? He asked. His accent was thick and I couldn't place it for the life of me. I mean, I know now, but I sure as **** didn't know it. Then we I asked what I was due back out front because I was essentially doing the rounds and this sure needed reporting, but what the hell was I going to tell people? Who are we fighting? Where are we? You're in Asheville. Who are you? Ah, the American conflict, the man said behind him. Others nodded. Their movements were sloppy, dreamlike. They were drunk. I later realized one of them had dried blood running down from her lip onto her not insubstantial belly. You're fighting the nationalists, the first one said. We're here to help you. Who are you? I asked. This third time, he actually answered. My name is belgier. We are the dead. We are the einherjar from Valhalla. Every day we are sent to a battle to fight, and we die. The others behind him nodded. Definitely drunk. Now, I know there were good folks on our side who were into European paganism, but you have to understand that a lot more of the fish were into that **** than anybody else. If they hadn't been naked and drunk, I might have mistaken them for the enemy and shot them. Valhalla, I said, reciting the tiny bit I knew. That's where Vikings go if they die in battle. Feast every day and fight every night, and Odin's hall until the end of the world where you like. Also fight and die. That wolf eats the sun or something. Close enough, Belger said. I mean, Odin only gets half the battle dead, and Viking isn't a good name for us, but sure. And you're here because we are to take arms alongside you, fight your enemies, and die today. Am I going to die today? Only the seers and the gods know that. I've been calling myself a witch half of my life, but honestly that was mostly because I like tarot and astrology and pentagrams and ****. I've never been someone who took the supernatural all that seriously, but nothing in the world made sense like it used to. Fascists had just been driven out of DC. Cascadia had not only seceded but was in a civil war of its own. Now Mexico was gone and replaced by self governing states of almost every stripe in the political rainbow. China had backed white supremacists and other nationalist types in an American Civil War and anti government leftists were fighting alongside weirdos. Like me in the damn U.S. Army. I can't say those things were as weird as naked dead. Don't call us Vikings talking to me on the street, but somehow all of that was just comparably bizarre. Come, let us arm ourselves and fight together, you and I, belger said. So that's How I Met the northern host. Most people don't believe me. Assume it was just some kind of drunk wing nuts, maybe some irregulars I'd never met before. But I saw what I saw, and I believe it. The rest of us who survived, they saw it too. And how did it go? Yeah, pardon the battle. How did it go? We got the on here Yar into irregulars garb and armed them. There were plenty of guns at that point, and the forgotten hellhole of front. Bullets? Not so much, but plenty of guns. They were all comfortable with firearms, though. One fellow groused about what he wouldn't do for an axe and shield, and another said what we had was fine, but monofilament web guns were better than any combat shotgun. To hear them tell it, oh **** it. Why am I pretending like I don't believe them? I believe them with every bit of my soul and damn what people think of me for it. The northern hosts fight every night and every night they are in a different time and place. Most battles in human history were in the past, they said, which sounds optimistic, doesn't it? But they said they fought in every century up to the 24th. Nothing happens after the 24th century Ragnarok. Most likely the end of the world will be eating the sun and the moon. All that. They stood guard out with me out front. Around midday we got hip with an EMP. We knew that was coming and it didn't screw us up much. We had a hardened phone in the basement and all our weapons operated just as well in dumb mode as smart mode, including our own EMP's. The White Army showed up. Maybe 100 men. All men. That's their whole schtick. They came in on motorcycles and ATVs and horses. More schtick. Look how ******* folksy they are. We hit them with the emps anyway. Level the field, took out the ATV's. The bikes were retrofitted. No electric and a horse. You can't empel horse. I don't know if there was a skirmish in that war that didn't start with both sides ritually knocking the other one back to basically the 20th century. I think the tactical EMP is the reason there's anything left of this country. We took a few pot shots while they were still at range, but we didn't have the ammo to waste on anything else. Don't think we did any damage. They took up position further up the hill in the ruins of the old basilica. Then we waited. We should have mined the church. That old thing was blown half to **** anyway. It wouldn't have made the world any worse if we'd either levelled it or hidden explosives throughout. But, you know, ethical war or whatever. Don't mind churches. The other side levelled every mosque, synagogue and quote heretic church they got their hands on. Not to mention libraries and universities and even the *** **** Statue of Liberty because they hate immigrants. But we were supposed to be fighting a, quote, ethical war. Those two words don't got nothing to do with one another and everyone knows it. So they hold up in the basilica and we pulled back into the library and we had one of those good old fashioned standoffs where people die slowly from sniper fire and everything is awful. That's when Laura got shot right in the head, because we missed a spot. When we bulletproofed the facade, she's dead. She had natural red hair, but she always dyed it redder, and her favorite show was Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and she liked to drink water out of long stem glasses. She was. I think she was 37, way past drafting age, she volunteered. It was her first engagement. She was only there because she loved books. Had plenty of time to avoid looking at her corpse while she was in there with us dead. Dwight was another one of my friends in the unit, one of my favorite people. Hands down. Total weirdo. And he was all obsessed with that Viking ****. Dark ages in general. Both his parents had come over from Sweden, though his dad was originally from Nigeria. Dwight had one degree in medieval studies and another in African history. And I I can't tell you how many times during basic he'd run down the details of this or that ancient battle, whether in Europe or Africa. If there were guns involved, he didn't care about it. But if there were swords and armor or Spears. Shields, he was all in. He started talking to the Vikings first thing. He was the first person to believe them, to really believe them, and his faith was contagious. While we were pinned down, he asked them everything. Mostly they were quiet, even taciturn. But there was one thing they were very insistent on and that I overheard them talking about. Nazis don't go to Valhalla. But why not? Dwight asked. It takes two things to go to Valhalla, the spokesperson said. You have to die in battle, and you have to venerate Odin. A bunch of those ******* are odness, he said. No, they aren't. They're nationalist fascists, racial separatists. They're all kinds of things, but they don't venerate Odin, whatever they think. What do you mean? They only know 1/2 of Oden. They know the masculine side, the heterosexual side, the the Christian side. They worship a bastardization of our God, a bastardization first created by a nationalist Christian 800 years ago that's only gotten further afield since. Arrowed in practices, women's magic. The magic of these sexually penetrated. We also worship female gods of war and male gods of the hearth, and gods who change their gender when they're bored. Nazis don't understand that. Any of it in life. We rated sometimes. Treat it other times, we also did all sorts of things that won't fit your modern sensibilities. Things that were I alive you might kill me for, but we're not Nazis, and people who worship a Christian version of our God most certainly do not go to Valhalla. It was as if the man had used up every word allotted to him for the day, because I don't believe a one of them spoke again before the battle began in earnest. And how long was that? Another hour maybe the sun was still right overhead when the white Army rushed us. It was a ******** move. Rushing US1 part overconfidence and one part desperation, if you can imagine that. They knew they were losing the war at that point, but they had us more than two to one, and we all know that K commanders don't give two ***** about the lives of their men. That's when I put a bullet in a man's leg while he was in the street running. It was a good shot. He was running. I and I led the target in everything I've been aiming for center body mass, but but still at least 100 yards against a moving target. I was proud of that shot at the time on a technical level, even if I'm not sure I'm proud of it anymore now that I know the man's name. We expected the charge. What we didn't expect was the ordinance that knocked the reinforced front off its hinges. But that happened, and almost all the fighting happened right there on the 1st floor among the empty shelves. The whole thing felt like it lasted half an hour. I've looked it up since, from the time of the first blast at the time the last shot was fired, we're talking about 3 minutes and 12 seconds. We thought they were going to pour in through the door after they blew it the **** ***. So James got in there with our one functioning automatic and he took at least ten of the flash down with him before someone got him in the neck. It was a faint and they blew a hole in the side of the building while while that was going on, and that's where they got in. close quarters combat is a whole different beast. A worse one maybe. Maybe a better one. I go back and forth on that sometimes instead of sleeping. I think about the pros and cons of various types of absolute horror. Is it better to see your death coming? To get picked off without knowing it. I would have thought the Vikings would expend themselves right off. I mean Vikings. They were starting to sober up by that point, but still, they'd been drinking and they were already dead and they were doomed to die. But they were smarter than that, never risked themselves unnecessarily. Your next assumption of a comrade you know is doomed is that they'll sacrifice themselves to save others. None of that either. They knew they were the best trained soldiers on the field, and that in order for us to win, they had to be in the fight as long as they could. They were smart like that. ******** like that. I stationed myself in the back. I fancy myself more of a sniper than the assault sort, so I watched the whole thing go down. I also only hit three targets out of 117 bullets I fired, but that's another story. I watched us win. We took casualties of 50%. Half of those were Kia, but we defeated a force twice our strength. I watched the inhar but bayonet men and shoot them, and I saw one of the Viking women break a man's face apart with her fists. Soon after, a bullet found her heart and she collapsed with a smile on her lips. She disappeared, like, literally. She phased out of existence. Beam me up, Scotty. We pushed them back onto the pavement. When I say we, I'm honestly not being fair because I didn't do much of it myself. We had them scattered and running, most of them. Dwight was out there waving a pistol in one hand and swinging a wooden stock rifle like a club and the other a Viking with a shotgun stood beside him. I think the same fashy little **** killed them both, maybe in the same three round burst. I tagged the fashion. His belly and his friends helped him get away and the remaining Nazis ran. He survived his wound. Why do we have so much information about the war? Does it do me any good to know who I killed and who I didn't? And Dwight? Dwight lay alone in the concrete face down. There wasn't much blood, but he was dead. 2 Ravens sat atop him, one on each shoulder. I've never seen a Raven in Asheville in my life. Not before, not since. There were two of them, as big as people say those things are. They barked, and they sounded like dogs. One was loud, like it was right where I was. The other was distant, echoing. Then they flew away directly up and toward the sun, and I tried to watch, to see where they went, but you can't look directly at the sun like that. I looked back down and Dwight was gone, OK, so his body was still there, but there was there was something about him that was gone, and I don't know how to tell you what it was. That that was that we won, sort of. They didn't storm the library, which I guess means we won. But sometimes I think I'd burn every single book in that place. It would bring back Laura or Dwight or any of the rest of my friends. The war was over at that point, even if we didn't know it yet. So what did they die for? I guess for symbols, maybe symbols matter that much. I don't know. I deserted after that. Half the survivors of the Battle of Asheville died less than a week later up in Pittsburgh, and I suppose I'd be dead if I'd gone, and it probably makes me a coward that I didn't. It's not that I was afraid of dying, it's that I was afraid of dying in battle. Because I believe in Odin now. It's hard not to believe in a God without venerating him. I don't want to go to Valhalla. I don't want to fight ever again, let alone every night. I don't want to serve with Iron Yard at the twilight of the gods sometime in the 25th century. If I don't want to do that, then I don't want to die in battle. Dwight, though, I expect he's happy. I expect he dies every day with a smile on his lips and meat in his belly. He won't have to fight alongside the monsters of the human race, either, because, as I learned in Asheville, Nazis don't go to Valhalla. Alright. That was awesome, Margaret. Thank you. Yeah, thanks. Yeah, I was still put a bunch of applause noise here. Yes, yes. Plating over. Yeah. And and and and an air horn. Take an air horn. Air, ************. Pick a couple of ****** ******* air. I don't think the Air horn is gonna be that as no Garrison. Your show. Thank you. Thank you, Garrison. Uh-huh. Margaret, how long ago did you write that? I wrote that I believe in 2017. Gee, maybe 2018. Oh yeah. Well, it's not gotten less relevant. Yeah, man, I. Yeah, they have to. There's definitely some times where I've, I've wished for upload tuna Vikings. Yeah. To deal with some **** yeah. Ohh well, this has been it could happen here and this has been spooky week. I hope you enjoyed this scary story that's also relevant to our theme of collapse. Margaret, you want to tell the people where they can find you? Yeah, I'm on Twitter at magpie. Killjoy. I'm on Instagram at Margaret. Killjoy. I'm on patreon@patreon.com/margaret. Killjoy, where this story and many other stories are available for anyone who sponsors me at a dollar a month. And if you make less money than I do, then just message me and I'll give you all my **** for free. And I have an upcoming because you asked me to plug things, and I'm definitely just go ahead and plug things. Hell, yeah. I have a book coming out from a K press. It's a reissue of my anarchist utopian book, a country of ghosts, if you. Like my very I like writing war stories, but I specifically like writing war stories that are actually sad. And how about how war is horrible? And so a country ghosts is such a book, and this story will eventually. I'm excited to say I just signed the contract for Akres is going to put out a short story anthology of mine, which will include the story. Yeah, that sounds incredibly rad, yes. Great publisher. Yeah. Not biased at all in that. No, no, no. Nor towards stories of the Second American Civil War with never heard super strong characters I've been introduced to just today. Yes. All right, we'll check out Margaret's book. Parentheses S. And and check out this show when it comes back someday. One day you'll never know when, but you'll hear a whisper on the wind, and there will be or it'll be the next weekday after one of those. Hey, we'll be back Monday with more episodes every week from now until the heat death of the universe. It could happen here as a production of cool zone media. For more podcasts from Cool Zone Media, visit our website coolzonemedia.com, or check us out on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts you can find sources for. It could happen here, updated monthly at coolzonemedia.com/sources. Thanks for listening. I'm John Gonzalez, the host of OSI's new podcast Sports Illustrated weekly. Sports Illustrated has delivered some of the best storytelling in sports for 70 years, and now that continues on our show. Each week, we'll dive deep into the best stories from around the sports world. Sports Illustrated Weekly is available every Wednesday on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Subscribe now. I'm Colleen whitt. Join me, the host of eating while broke podcasts, while I eat a meal created by self-made entrepreneurs, influencers and celebrities over a meal they once ate when they were broke. Today I have the lovely AJ Crimson, the official Princess of Compton, Asia, kidding, and Asia. This is the professor we're here on Eddie while broke and today I'm gonna break down my meal that got me through a time when I was broke. Listen to eating while broke on the iHeartRadio app on Apple Podcasts. Wherever you get your podcasts, here's to the Great American settlers. 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In this special episode, we're speaking with Doctor Jane Goodall about the fascinating journey that led to her impactful behavioural discoveries on chimpanzees. It wasn't until one of the chimpanzees began to lose his fear of me, but I began to really make discoveries that actually shook the scientific world. Survive on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts Sisters of the underground is a podcast about fearless. Dominican women who stood up against the brutal dictator Kapal Trujillo. He needs to be stopped. We've been silent and complacent for far too long. I am Daniel Ramirez and I said Dominicana myself. I am proud to be narrating. This true story. That is often left out of the history books through your has blood on his hands listen to sisters. The underground wherever you get your podcasts.