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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. If you could completely remove one phrase from your vocabulary, which phrase would you choose? I don't know. Correct answer. No, I meant I don't know which phrase, and the best way to banish I don't know from your life is by cramming your brain full of stuff you should know. Join your host, Josh and Chuck on the Super Popular podcast packed with fascinating discussions on science, history, pop culture and more episodes that ask, was the lost city of Atlantis Real? I don't know. Is birth order important? I don't know. How does pizza work? Well, I do know. Bit about that. See? You can know even more, because stuff you should know has over 1500 immensely interesting episodes for your brain to feast on. So what do you say? I don't want to miss the stuff you should know. Podcast you're learning already. Listen to stuff you should know on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. 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 impactful behavioral 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. Listen to amazing wildlife on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome to behind the ******** the show where we talk about the worst people in all of history. And every now and then, Jamie, we change ourselves for the better. Wow, we learned something. I got a big file cabinet in the background. I've I've been learning a lot of things. Yeah, keep just lie about a file cabinet for decades. Just like really milk the most out of you could possibly can out of the fact that you worked for a guy with a file cabinet back in the 60s. Imagine if everyone had that foresight to be like, no, no, no, you don't understand. I used to work at a comptroller's office and it feels like a real missed opportunity. Yeah, it's not too late. Hate that word, by the way, Comptroller, cause it's supposed to be pronounced controller. Not the way the Massachusetts Comptroller pronounced it, but it's kind of funny. Yeah, I mean, we've been talking about Boston a lot, and that's just one more reason they're bad anyway, outside of Boston. Jamie, welcome back to the story of Bill Billiam Cooper. Ohh, billiam, are you Are you ready to. I can I see you've got your beanie baby. I just got my eBay Beanie Baby in the mail. I'm so excited. And that's a death themed Beanie Baby, is it not? It's well, that's no, that's this one. This is the the end. Yeah. You do have a death themed Beanie Baby. Yeah. Yeah, the theme is the death of Beanie Babies. Yeah, I got him, you know, mint condition in the mail. And before anyone bothers me about it, they're they're like. Because there's like, this myth that Beanie Babies are expensive. They're not. I got these two for $8.00 together. So I'm good, I have a, I have a a, I have an animal familiar and I'm ready to go. Alrighty. Well, let's do some ****. Ends alright. On July 4th, 1989, Bill Cooper committed marriage for the very last time. Yeah yeah, this wife would be his most successful adult relationship. And depending on who you believe, their relationship may be evidence that he did grow as a person. Although that may not be true either. Yeah, she was a 28 year old Taiwanese woman named Annie Mordhorst. Bill was 46 years old at the time. Yeah, in the grand tradition of all wonderful love stories, Annie and Bill were married in a Las Vegas Blvd. Wedding Chapel, and we know very little about their courtship. Bill would claim that Annie was the daughter of a nationalist Chinese official who'd fled the country when Mao and his communists won the Civil War. Uh, but you know, who knows what the **** happened, really, about her life? Annie came in, could be alive, perhaps like everything Bill says. Yeah, right. Annie came into Bill's life just as his career and conspiracies. It's really starting to take off. She defended her new husband fiercely. At one point during a lecture at the Showboat Hotel and Casino, a fight broke out between two UFO nerds, and he stepped in front of her husband with a hand on the hilt of an enormous kitchen knife she always kept in her purse. OK, actually, they maybe found each other. Yeah, she was kind of writer. Died for a while there. Yeah. Yeah. Definitely seems to have been willing to stab a man for for this guy. Yeah. Bill had relatively few real innovations he could claim to have brought to the world of Ufology. Most of what? Him unique was his ability to carve off chunks of other people's work and weave them into explicitly political theories that tied directly into the contemporary world. And this is what Bill did best work. Plagiarism, yeah, but also like making UFOs political. Like tying, tying Alien. Not just alien. Conspiracies exist, but like tying them into things that are ****** ** in the modern world. His work was unique in the notoriously scatterbrained and chaotic world of UFO nerds. Norio Hayakawa, one of the most famous ufologists in this. Ran into bill during a UFO convention in West Hollywood quote. A lot of UFO meetings can be dull, but on this night they had Bill Cooper. I hadn't heard of him. He looked like a normal, middle-aged guy, huge but paunchy, with receding hair. He could have been anybody. He made a couple of remarks and then read his secret government paper. He didn't look up, just read for an hour and a half, but what he was saying, the authority with which he said it. Was very interesting. Most of Ufology avoids politics, but with Bill Cooper, everything was political. He was the first person to really take the UFO phenomena and extend it out as a way to talk about global politics, history, religion and society. It sounded so fresh to me, so intriguing. The most important thing, I thought, was to get Bill bigger and better venues so more people could hear what he had to say again. It's like he's using that military clout and that military delivery to sell the product. If you've ever watched, if you've ever spent. Hours watching lectures from different UFO conventions in the 1990s and late 80s? Maybe have yeah, most of them aren't great at talking. Like, what? A lot of people who never should have been in front of a crowd, talking to crowd, public speaking the crowd. Yeah, yeah. OK, Yeah, Bill does have right? Like he presents himself in a way that he's people take him more seriously than they do most people in this world. So this Hayakawa guy was responsible for booking Bill, one of his first big speaking gigs at Hollywood High, and after this bill went through a brief spell as one of Ufology's leading luminaries. He brought me like in the world of UFOs is like having a talk at a high school. A big deal. This one was because it's a big high school. That's true. That's Hollywood High school for crying out. Yeah, yeah, child starts right there. Exactly. So yeah, them in basketball all the time in high school. I'm just putting out there. They're not. Yeah. You know what I didn't do just there, Sophie. Sophie, I didn't selfishly plug yourself. No, I didn't make a joke about the horrible pedophile ring that has existed in Hollywood for decades. You did bring it up right now, though. I did bring it up right now. So we gonna throw an awakening in a show where it is, like really difficult to lower the mood further. We really did just find a way to do it. Yeah, and that's evidence that growth only goes so far, right. You know, we you we we can we can make some movements towards progress, but we always remain the people that we we were born. Anyway, shout out to which one of the quarries is the one who's been talking about. Oh, wait, no, the Corey's the one that killed him. Sarah. Geez, I'm just gonna multiple cories. Yeah, this, this, this shouldn't have happened. I'm so sorry. My beanie baby, you know, vice grip. Yeah. So Bill, Bill becomes kind of like a big name on the UFO circuit in like 1989. Nineteen 90. And his speaking skills improved. And, you know, during this. He drew the attention of a pair of Hollywood managers. Douglas Kane and Michael Callan. So, like, these guys are going to record and license bills, lectures and there's kind of talk about like, oh, Bill might become kind of like a major, major media figure, like something like Alex Jones kind of window was briefly, if you remember where Alex Jones was in movies and stuff. So there there's talk about this happening, but Bill kind of immediately gets into a giant fight with these guys and proves himself very difficult to work with. And the fight this, the dispute arises over the rights to the master recordings of some of his lectures. And rather than like, deal with this the way that an adult in a professional context would, bill calls Michael up drunk, just just absolutely hammered, and threatens to murder both men. Bill Diva, he tells them, quote, I'd suggest you be real careful. Don't ride no bucking Broncos. Don't do nothing you haven't done before. Because I guarantee you no one is gonna hurt me and get away with it. Take care, Mike. Love you. And we're going to make sure you amount to something, even if it's a pile of *** ****. We miss you. We really do. And the next time we see you, we're going to get you a real good present. It's like, God. Yeah. Sounds like he's on an 8 Chan board. Yeah, and the next morning, Dina wakes up to find out that his tires have been. Slashed and since Bill lived nearby like this. Kind of not a grid, not a mystery. Ohb, I mean, not. Not a subtle man, not a subtle, subtle man. So. Yeah, the Dean reported. Uh Cooper to the sheriff, and uh Bill later wrote that this was all part of a scheme to disrupt his work and stop him from educating the American people. Yeah, and that's, you know, kind of what Bill Bill is is big into the UFO scene until, like, the hoax being around the government trying to cover up UFO's, the existence of UFO's is itself a hoax. He calls it the greatest hoax in history. And it's being perpetrated by the government to, like, give people something to focus on while they ignore the real conspiracies that are going on. Which there's actually some evidence that stuff like that was going on that like the CIA and **** were, were kind of pushing conspiracy theorists. To discredit in general like anti government sentiments and stuff anyway, sure but Bill becomes convinced that like there's this grand conspiracy and and pushing fake UFO beliefs to sort of confuse and discredit people who are going to speak out against the new World order. It's like that's that's really what's going on and the root of his new theory came from a 1917 speech given by John Dewey, the famous educator and psychologist the Dewey Decimal System guy. Bill became convinced that the Dewey. Decimal System guy is kind of at the heart of the coming new World order. So in this 1917 speech, Dewey had made the historic error of idly speculating that an alien invasion might be the only thing that could force humanity to unite and, like, save itself from, you know, wiping itself out in horrible war. And since this was coming at the end of World War One, you get where deweys coming from, like, it's pretty hopeless time to be a human being. He's like, ah, if only aliens would invade and we could all unite against something that, like, wasn't murdering each other, but Bill Cooper was convinced that Dewey's. Words weren't just like the idle and somewhat desperate hope of an intelligent man staring out at the devastation of war and hoping for a way to prevent more death. Instead, he became convinced that those words were a flagrantly clear signal of the secret plans of the New World order. Oh, see, I guess that that's where we we divert in our in our thought. Yeah, yeah. And it is kind of like, I think Dewey, you could probably argue is kind of like the root of where, like that whole theory, that whole part of the Watchmen comes from. Like, I think Dewey's kind of the first guy to really be like. It'd be nice if aliens came. Like maybe we'd stop murdering each other for a single second. Oh yeah, it is. It is. So far. It is so, like, you can understand where it comes from and where their desire to want it to, you know, deflect the blame on what's going wrong in the world and in the country on to literally anything except the people that are already there and running it. Yeah. Yeah. So Bill gets, you know, increasingly starting in like 1991's really into the new World order conspiracy theory and the New World order conspiracy theory was like you'd call it a super theory. Is really more of a whole conspiracist mindset rather than like a discrete conspiracy theory. So we're well outside of like the realm of, you know, JFK was murdered by the CIA, right. That's a simple conspiracy theory. You can explain it to every anyone who's curious in a SEC. Yeah. The New World order conspiracy theory is a mindset. And every new thing that happens in the world you like a believer is going to kind of filter like file in somewhere in that conspiracy theory. It kind of takes. It's one of it. Yeah. And you could see. The NWO is kind of an evolution of Majestic 12. You know, so majestic 12, starting in like the late 80s is this theory about this, you know, secret government that gets set up after Roswell and the New World order is just kind of really an evolution of this and it it comes at the end of the Cold War for a good reason. Michael Barkun writes that the theory came to quote, constitute a common ground for religious and secular conspiracy theorists because you could tie in these kind of apocalyptic Christian millenarian. Conspiracy theories. But you could also tie in like completely a religious conspiracy. Theories like, you know, the JFK assassination, like it all fit underneath the new world order, just kind of depending on your own personal beliefs. OK, and Bill Cooper was kind of the guy who very first plugs majestic 12 and Roswell alien nonsense into the NWO. And depending on the point in his career, he either did it to claim that, like the New World order existed to kind of hide the existence of aliens from people. And then. Later that like, oh, the NWO is is pushing fake UFO conspiracy theories to distract people. Whatever. Like he takes both tax over the course of his career. He's a very like large umbrella of conspiracies to yeah, it's all about bringing people together really well that's the thing, Bill and all these other bill is one of these guys who's just talking constantly for like 15 years and everything he says is adding something to the conspiracy theory. So if you actually really try to like to to map out everything Bill believes and pushes in his life like. You would be here for days. We're gonna gloss over too much of this stuff, to be honest. Like, he invented he not invented, but he's the reason people know about the FEMA death camp conspiracy theory. Like, he's the origin point for that one. Yeah. We're not even really going to talk about it because it's just one of a billion different things he's the origin point for. Yeah, he's the first guy to publish that. Yeah. So ******* Bill Cooper. Yeah, the NWO really took off after 1990 and Bill was its most influential profit. His pivot away from aliens didn't isolate him from his fans. Instead, it opened up a whole new segment of the population to conspiratorial beliefs. Vast swaths of the country who would never have been caught dead at a UFO convention start. But it started to feel like something was wrong with the way the country was going. Like these kind of people would listen to Bill Cooper. They never would have shown up to a a MUFON convention, but they listen to this stuff because it it rang true to them because they were looking for an explanation as to why. Things were wrong that didn't involve, like, reading left wing political theory. That's just a waste of time, as we both know. Yeah, that's a lot of left wing guys get into this too. Like, this is really, that's one of the things that's interesting about the new World order conspiracy theory, is that it? It's very influential in a number of sides. And Michael Barkun writes quote New World order theory seemed to provide a graceful way of exiting the domain of international relations and refocusing upon domestic politics. This is in the wake of the Cold War ending. Although the forces of the New World order are international, they are assumed to be concentrating on domestic agendas, particularly the alleged. Destruction of American liberties. So Bill was savvy enough to see that like, as you know. Part of what's happening here, why the new World order conspiracy theory gets so popular, is that there's a lot of people like Bill who are will permanently be anxious for the rest of their lives because of the Cold War. We call these people baby boomers, and they cause a lot of problems. And when the Cold War ends, a lot of these guys needed something else to justify the fact that they were always paranoid because they've grown up under the shade of constant, imminent nuclear annihilation, and the new World order daddies are troubled. Yeah, yeah, exactly. This is studies. We're having a tough time, and this is what Bill taps into, is the fact that all of these guys know that everything, like, can't not expect the end to come at any moment. And once the Soviet Union ends, they can't just lose that anxiety, right? Like, they. And then they need an explanation for like, why don't I feel better now that the Soviets are gone? Could it be that up? Most of the problems that people were blaming on the Soviets were actually just like the fact that my own culture is ****** ** and we need to deal with no, no, no, there's a different conspiracy. It's not the communist conspiracy. It's another one here. Look over here. Yeah, yeah. So Bill was savvy enough to see that he was watching the birth of a new movement in American culture, and he knew that movement was going to need a Bible. And so in 1990, he sat down to write 1 behold, a pale horse would be published in 1991 through a bizarre, little new Age occult press called Light Technology Publishing. The book itself was 434 pages of fake documents and memos, all purported to be top secret missives from inside the secret. Government working to bring about the New World order. The centerpiece of it all. The primary document upon which Bill hung his ideology was called silent weapons for quiet wars. Which is another great title to say. Both of these kick this **** out of the title of Bible. Yeah, **** the Bible. I mean, behold, a pale horse is from the Bible guide, but, well, she she she. Yeah. So yeah, silent weapons for quiet wars. Bill claimed it was an introductory programming model for new employees of operations research, a secret military intelligence organization tasked with preparing the country for authoritarian rule. And the document opens with welcome aboard and informs its reader that they will be taking part in the Third World War, which has been going on for decades and involves the use of silent weapons on an unsuspecting public. I'm going to quote now from pale horse rider. Written at the level of an undergrad paper in electrical engineering, silent weapons for Quiet Wars defines a silent weapon as differing from a conventional weapon, and that it shoots situations instead of bullets, originating from bits of data instead of grains of gunpowder. It attacks under the orders of a banking magnate instead of a military general. Because the silent weapon causes no obvious physical or mental injuries and does not obviously interfere with anyone's daily social life, the public cannot comprehend this weapon and therefore cannot believe that they are being attacked. Subdued the public might instinctively feel that something is wrong, but because of the technical nature of the silent weapon, they cannot express their feeling in a rational way. They do not know how to cry for help, and do not know how to associate with others to defend themselves against it. Huh. Yeah. You can see why this some this is attractive to some people. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And it's. I mean, now it sounds vaguely familiar, but if I had heard this at the time, it would have been like, yeah, interesting. OK. For a very long time, almost everyone assumed that silent weapons had been create the creation of Bill Cooper himself. He opened the very first episode of his radio series the Hour of the time, by Reading from this. And his favorite line to repeat was a line from the paper stating that uninformed Americans were beasts of burden and stakes on the table. By choice and consent, he would say it in nearly every episode. OK, so he's got he's got that branding. The reality, though, is that Bill was something of a middleman for bringing silent weapons into mass awareness. The whole paper had actually been cooked up by Hartford Van **** a convicted counterfeiter who would essentially cobbled the thing together himself from bits written by other paranoid libertarian thinkers. And yeah, band. Paranoid libertarian thinkers are, yeah. Out. Yeah. It's it's it's it's interesting. So Bill you know silent weapons for quiet wars is kind of like that that line in particular is kind of why Bill adopts the phrase, you know wake up sheeple because like that he was he was referring to a specific thing is that like these new world order people and their own documents because Bill believes this thing is real. Like think that your your beasts of burden like they that's how they treat you and like that's what you are. If you're not willing to like, wake up and realize that you're being played. Bill was very abusive to his audience, so he would regularly like insult and attack the people listening to him for not doing sure. It's like if his if his whole thing is, if you're not participating in what I'm saying, you're a ******* idiot and you're and you're going to be hurt like. That's a yeah, that's a place to start. Yep, Yep, Yep, Yep. So through his book Behold a pale behold a pale horse, bill injected a lot of a whole host of now common conspiracy theories into the mainstream, not just his theory about JFK, but postulations that AIDS was one of many secret weapons designed by the US government for use against its own people. Actually, to wipe out black people in Africa. And this. Yeah. We'll talk more about that in a little bit. As it turns out, very little in behold, a pale horse was original. Bill had just taken a variety of different pamphlets and, like, hoax papers that had been circulating, you know, over the conspiracy community and bound them together in a handsome volume with really good cover art. You know, you should look up the book right now to see the cover art. Like it's it's good. Behold the behold a pale horse. Yeah. Cover. OK, OK. So all this stuff has been like circulating and sort of conspiracy nut communities, but you'd get it is like, you know, somebody hands you like a poorly concept art. Yes. Yeah. Yeah, it's pretty. And it's it's it's it's well organized. And, you know, this stuff had been existed for a while, but if you if you came across it, it would be like you'd run into someone's poorly mimeographed copies of silent weapons for quiet wars at a gun show or something next to his like Nazi flags. And Bill puts them in this, really. Like good cover art, like well bound, like actual book. And this is again still a period of time in which books mean something to people. So this **** takes off, and it's a problem that this **** takes off, because everything in Bill's book isn't like silent weapons for quiet wars. Obviously it's nonsense, but it's hard to it's not the most problematic thing in the world. It's just it's just a fake military document. Bill doesn't just include stuff like that. Among other things, behold, a pale horse includes the entirety of the protocols of the Elders of Zion. Yeah, so. OK, yeah, I wanna say that that escalated, but it really is just the next logical step and and it's it's really funny. The way he does it is kind of objectively hilarious. So if you aren't aware, the protocols are probably the most influential conspiracy theory of all time. They purport to be like silent weapons, kind of like a secret document from this organization that got leaked out. And in the case of the protocols, it's this meeting of a group of Jewish elders plotting the overthrow and domination of the Gentile world. Now the reality is that the protocols. Or a forgery cooked up by the Ukranian zaris, Russia's equivalent of the CIA. The protocols like they were, they were basically this Russian intelligence agencies like disinformation plot. And uh, they were incredibly successfully took on a life of their own, spread all throughout Western Europe and obviously like help to spread this kind of specific type of anti-Semitic conspiracy theory all across Europe. And most of the Nazis actually knew it was a fake and they thought it was a pretty clumsy fake at that. But they benefited from the conspiratorial milieu that the protocols helped to create in Europe, which like definitely helped to enable the Holocaust. So the protocols of the Elders of Zion have made Zion maybe have the highest body count. Of any conspiracy theory in history. And after World War Two, you know, for obvious reasons, the protocols kind of languished. People didn't weren't so interested in anti-Semitic conspiracy theories for a little while. Yeah, some bad PR for that. Yeah, bad PR for anti-Semitism. So they would only really surface when some. Yeah, yeah. They they would pop up every now and then, but it was only really like Neo Nazis who were willing to republish them, and they never got any kind of wide distribution. George Lincoln Rockwell was probably, like, the most prominent guy to try to republish the protocols and others again after three. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So nobody. You're right. I didn't even Jamie. Yeah, Jamie's on to something in third name where the evil lies. Yeah. And you know where the evil doesn't lie, Robert. And the products and services that support this podcast sometimes. I'm proud of myself and yes, yeah, yeah, that part. 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 $15.00 a month. Mint Mobile will give you the best rate whether you're buying one or four. Family and it meant family start at 2 lines. 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A therapist can help you become a better problem solver, which can make it easier to accomplish your goals, no matter how big or small they happen to be. So if you're thinking of giving therapy. Try better help is a great option. It's convenient, accessible, affordable, and it is entirely online. You can get matched with a therapist after filling out a brief survey, and if the therapist that you get matched with doesn't wind up working out, you can switch therapists at any time when you want to be a better problem solver therapy can get you there. Visit betterhelp.com behind today to get 10% off your first month. That's better helpp.com/behind. Better help calm behind 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? That's not funny at all. It's depressing. Very depressing. Religious 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. All right, we're back. So the protocols of the Elders of Zion kind of languish in obscurity for decades after World War Two. Yeah, nobody really spreads them. They're not popular in the United States. They're not particularly well known in the United States and then in 1991, Bill Cooper republishes them in their entirety in his book. And I to make it funnier, Bill, Bill was not enough out anti Semite. Bill definitely believed a lot of anti-Semitic things, but like it wasn't a motivating factor for him. He didn't believe the protocols were evidence of a Jewish conspiracy. He thought they were the real minutes of an of the Illuminati, basically of the New World orders conspiracy theory and they've been blamed on Jews to throw the world off of their scent. So he wrote even worse to be like kinda is true. I'm just going to throw it in there because it seems like something that people. No, no, he thinks it's true, but it's it's not the Jews. It's the new world order and the Jews the the New World order blamed it on the Jews to hide the reality of what was happening. No. So Bill, before he publishes the entirety of the protocols of the Elders of Zion, he runs this note and this is the only note he runs with the protocols of the Elders of Zion. Every aspect of this plan to subjugate the world has since become reality, validating the authenticity of conspiracy. This has been written intentionally to deceive people for clear. Understanding the word Zion should be Sion. Any references to Jews should be replaced with the word Illuminati and the word goyim should be replaced with the word cattle. So he's like replace Jews with Illuminati. But this book of this, like this anti-Semitic conspiracy document is good stuff otherwise, right? They're like otherwise it's basically, right, yeah, but just take out, yeah, just take out the Jews. And I'm not gonna take out the Jews myself. You gotta do it in your own head. So yeah, he is not willing to do any sort of legwork. Makes it sound like a simple clerical error that was made, and unfortunately for the whole world, behold, a pale horse went on to become the single most influential underground publishing hit in history. It's sold well over 300,000 copies as of the this the publication of this episode. But that number of vastly understates its influence, because behold, a pale horse was and remains one of the most frequently stolen books in the country, and incarcerated people across the nation also started passing it along. But there there will be copies of this still are in prisons all over the country that just get, like, handed to people when they come into prison. Yeah. And it's it's it's it spreads through two different chunks of the underground community, the kind of right wing militia community where you'd expect it. But it also becomes incredibly influential among the the burgeoning hip hop community of the early 1990s. I need this unpacked for me. Yeah, I don't. Yeah, we will. Don't worry. Yeah. So behold, a pale horse resurrected the protocols of the Elders of Zion. And it kind of laundered them through a lens of general distrust with the state of the world. And as a result, Bill Cooper was able to ensure that this once obscure tract spread by like wildfire among segments of the American population it had never reached before, primarily inner city black Americans, like obviously, you know, the kind of people handing out protocols of the Elders of Zion in the 30s weren't giving them to black people. But now this book starts spreading among like a lot of of people who are like a lot of black men in the inner cities who have this again, this, this thing that the protocols of the Elders of Zion. And it kind of laundered them through a lens of general distrust with the state of the world. And as a result, Bill Cooper was able to ensure that this once obscure tract spread by like wildfire amongst us. So. As this this kind of brings us to. Yeah, the thing I've been teasing for a while, which is that Bill Cooper is one of the most influential white men in the history of rap. And yeah, biographer Mark Jacobson explains quote in 1990 and 91 to 5077 people were murdered in New York, by far the highest two year total in city history. It was the crack plate, and a new generation arose to speak truth to the ongoing trauma of urban life. Many of the rappers who emerged during the early 1990s, the Great Wu Tangs, the formidable Nos of the Queens Bridge houses, were deeply influenced by the Five Percenters. AKA The Nation of Gods and Earths. The movement had been founded in the late 1960s by Clarence Edward Smith, AKA Clarence 13 X, and eventually Father Allah kicked out of Elijah Muhammad's Nation of Islam for heresy and gambling. Father Allah had said that it was necessary for black men and women to become lyrical assassins. The tongue was the sword, Father Allah said, and when properly sharpened, it could take more heads with the word than any army with machine guns could ever do. And for many lyrical assassins, Bill Cooper's behold a pale horse became a key text. Rappers who have mentioned Cooper in his or his book include the Wu Tang Clan, Big Daddy Kane, Busta Rhymes, Tupac Shakur, Talib Kweli, Nas, Rakim, Poor righteous, teachers, gangstar, goodie Mob, suicide boys, boogie monsters, wise, intelligent, Public Enemy, miss Maff, Aslan, Lord Allah, Ras Kass, and the lost children of Babylon who told their listeners to prepare to meet your fate like William Cooper when the stormtroopers breach your gate. Little bit of foreshadowing there. Old dirty, yeah, that's like everybody. Yeah, that's everybody. He's the ******* one of the first albums that the Wu Tang clan, like, produces is called silent weapons for quiet wars. Yeah, it *** **** it just is like the side thing. It's it's Nas, not it's Nas. I'm sorry, clearly I'm not on Mark Jacobson, bills biographer, actually talks to a lot of these guys and like is really knowledgeable about hip hop. I am not and I apologize. Was like, wow, yeah, OK, old dirty ******* of the Wu Tang clan explained, behold, a pale horse's appeal better than anyone else. Everybody gets ******. William Cooper tells you who's who's ******* you. And unfortunately, one of the things he tells these people is it's the juice. Like, you just have to like he said, yeah, yeah, that's an unfortunate aspect of his influence. So you can see why black guys in particular, living through inner city crime waves and, like, police, you know, crackdowns and violence and stuff, would find documents. Silent weapons for quiet wars. Compelling Bill's framework of conspiracies fit in with things that many black folks already believed, like that the CIA had introduced crack to the inner cities. And there's obviously there's actually a decent amount of truth to that. In an interview before his own death, prodigy told Mark Jacobson, William Cooper wrote what everyone kind of knew, and that's like a big part of his influence is that he's he's giving people this really cohesive, bound guide to all of the different things, all of the like, hey, your life. That's ******. Documents like silent weapons for quiet Wars, compelling Bill's framework of conspiracies fit in with things that many black folks already believed, like that the CIA had introduced crack to the inner cities. And there's obviously there's actually a decent amount of truth to that. In an interview before his own death, prodigy told Mark Jacobson, William Cooper wrote what everyone kind of knew, and that's like a big part of his influence is that he's he's giving people this really cohesive, bound guide to all of the different things, all of the. Like, hey, your life is ******. Like, here's what? Like, here's you can pick and choose which conspiracy theories you believe. Explain why. And just by, like, putting together, it sounds like the greatest hits. Yeah. Conspiracy theories of like, hey, if this one doesn't work for you, go to the next chapter. Maybe this one will work for you. Yeah. OK OK yeah. And he introduced his new followers to a whole world of other conspiracy theories, not just the protocols of the Elders of Zion, but some of Bill's more modern paranoia, like the. Idea that aids had been created in a test tube by the US government to wipe out Africans. This theory spread like wildfire and even reached Manto Shabalala simang. I'm going to pronounce that wrong. I'm terribly sorry. South Africa's health minister, the New Republic writes that he quote, while still in office and at the height of that country's AIDS crisis, distributed copies of the chapter that argued that AIDS was introduced into the African population by a global conspiracy with the goal of reducing the continents population. So, like, why Bill Cooper's? Very influential, yeah. Because they're, well, it's as is always the case with this **** we could talk, we'll talk about the crack epidemic at some point, and how they're the real conspiracy there differs somewhat from the ones that most people believes. But like, the basic idea of it is true, which is that in large part due to the CIA, crack got to the United States in huge amounts like that. They they played a major role in it getting here. It's just a different role than a lot of people think. Likewise, the AIDS crisis gets so bad worldwide, in large part due to the US government's. Complete refusal to give a **** about it. Yeah, it's just not the reason. But like, something is ****** ** there and people want. Like, if you provide people with a convenient, like a compelling theory that ties together what is really just inexplicable hatred and and like a lack of ***** given about huge chunks of the population. Yeah, yeah, that. I mean, it's easier. It's not saying it's rational in any way, but but for, you know, people who already perhaps. Have some held prejudices who are looking for an explanation to something that is like the commonly held truth of like there are things going on in the government that we have made, not made aware of very intentionally. But then it's just like, well what? What's a what's a ****** ** reason I could make up for why that may be? Yeah, yeah. So behold, a pale horse would probably see its most lingering impact on the hip hop scene. There's still actually a a modestly popular artist named William Cooper who goes by that name today. But Bill's personal popularity as a showman would only grow narrower in the years following his books publication the hour of the time. His radio show earned a sizable audience for what it was propaganda for the nation's growing militia movement, and the hour of the time did not. Although now it is. It is a little more you can find in, like, a lot of fringe. Own cloud rappers and stuff, they'll they'll cut in bits of the hour of the times. But yeah, the good fringe SoundCloud rapper I I wanna play you just a segment from one episode. This is the introduction and this is how every single episode of the hour of the time started. Just so you have an idea of kind of how bills show, like the emotional tenor it takes right from the beginning. OK. This does sound like SoundCloud rap intros. See you. It's so long. Yeah, it's really long. Oh, I think I saw. I heard Santa Claus. I don't like it. Ohh dog. My dog. The dog. Hey. What you have just heard listeners all over the world, is a warning. And you will hear this warning from here on out. You've been listening to your leaders tell you that there is a great move toward democracy in the world. You witness the parting of the Iron Curtain, the fall of the Berlin Wall, the fracturing of the Soviet Union. And this is all supposedly toward a new worldwide democracy. Democracy is a code word for socialism, and that's why our forefathers established a Republic. OK, OK, so you can. I just love imagining flipping on that. Yes, that. On the radio by accident. Just like barking dogs and like trumping stormtrooper boots. Yeah, but you also hear, like, Bill's delivery. He he's he's figured out how to be a radio host in this time. Yeah, definitely improved. Yeah. His cadence. Is really good. He knows how to like it's he knew how to. He knew how to put together a radio show. He would also put in, like he he would broadcast like, entire songs that were like kind of popular songs that fit in with the theme of, like, what he was saying that episode. Like, he would have like, musical interludes and ****. He was a good broadcaster and he like, yeah, he was. He was able to draw in a lot of listeners, maybe even for a lot of folks who wouldn't have listened to most other people, and kind of like the crazy militia person radio sphere. And as a result, his work still resonates today, but unfortunately not with a group of people bill would have been happy to resonate with. If you look up on where that that SoundCloud link I sent you it, it's hosted by someone named Conscious Sounds. They have 2800 followers. And look at that Photoshop logo that they designed for Bill show that wasn't his. No notice the Israeli flag sandwiched right in between George W Bush and Osama bin Laden. And then the the watermark I invoke Ian Reich printed. At the bottom of the image. OK. I did not stop these. It's Nazis. So it's Nazis. Ohhh. Yeah. OK and these guys they're they're tag learning is yeah it's there's Nazis who are trying to be a little bit subtle about it and I think they see they they kind of recognize Bill Cooper is a good way to get people kind of on board with once you once you're listening to Bill Cooper you can be convinced that like actually he was wrong when he said it wasn't the Jews. Like because you already believe all this stuff you just replacing with Illuminati. We just gotta switch the Jews back in there and then you're good to go. Yeah, this is. Yeah. ******* dark. It's weird because, yeah, Bill again, was absolutely whatever else you can say about him. And again, it's mostly negative. He wasn't a Nazi, although he did work in the company of Nazis the hour of the time. How does that improve the situation? Well, he's like, he just catered to Nazis and worked with them frequently. He didn't he? I don't think he catered to them. We'll listen to something a bit. You may change your mind about that. He's more complicated than that, but he he was broadcast by the shortwave radio station WW. ER, and by the time Bill got into his groove, his comp, his competition were guys in what's called the Patriot community. Umm, basically early preppers, including two guys named Chuck Harter and Tom Valentine and and Bill didn't get along with either for a number of reasons. One of them is that Valentine had a better prime time slot than his. He was 9:00 to 11:00 PM. And baby, yeah. But also, Valentine's show was sponsored by the spotlight, which was Willis Cartos, Liberty lobbies Holocaust denial newsletter. We talked about that in the war on everyone. Some, yeah. Other competition included like celebrity hosts, guys like William Pierce did radio stuff and this time, you know, G Gordon Liddy and stuff like would be on the same network. So Bill is kind of in and among a bunch of like. Really bad dudes, right? Like his, his. The other people who are kind of on the radio in and around him are like very violent and often have ties to Nazis. Like again, ******* William Pierce is a guest on some of the shows that are that are hosted in and around Bill show. Bill himself was probably the most palatable individual personality in the Patriot movement at this stage because he was like he was kind of the first person in this movement. Like everyone's talking about the boogaloo movement and whether or not it's racist and like a lot of these guys focus on like. Know, we're, you know, we're pro gun and we're we're libertarians, but we're like anti racist and stuff. Bill was the first guy in right wing media to thread that needle. He was really the first one to do it in like a a practical way. And this helped broaden the appeal of the early militia scene and the patriot movement, whatever you want to call it, by drawing in these more libertarian Americans who wouldn't have listened to a show that was putting ******* William Pierce on, but would listen to Bill Cooper? It's like the ******* YouTube algorithm where it's like, OK, here's something that is like, you know, a little, like it's some stuff, you know, and then some radical ideas being snuck in and, OK, this is familiar. This is a familiar model, I guess. Yeah. And and Bill himself did go to, like, when I say that he wasn't a Nazi, I don't think I'm giving him too much credit here. And for an example of, like, why, I think that I want to play a segment from one of Bill's relatively few shows that touched on race to a significant extent. And this was the episode. That he put out in the immediate wake of the LA riots, which were of course sparked by the acquittal of the cops who beat the **** out of Rodney King, right? That happens, and you get the LA riots. And here's Bill Cooper's part of Bill Cooper's response to the LA riots. The entire nation and the world had been viewing an amateur videotape that had been taken on the scene, which showed over 50 blows. I believe the correct number was 56 blows in 80 seconds to a man who was lying on the ground, who had no weapon, who posed no threat, who did not attack anyone during this time, but nevertheless 56. Those from clubs with the officers called batons. That's a polite name for a club, a stick. And believes no one believed that those officers would be found innocent. OK? That is that is not what I would have expected from him, right. No, that's that's a pretty reasonable thing to say about the Rodney King beating. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's basically the only way, like an honest person could could, which Bill was not, but he he he you can't really fault what he's saying there. And he went on like he went on to complain about the looting and rioting by people in Los Angeles and say that like, you know, it was a they were making a really dumb call by like destroying their own neighborhoods but he retiring to boomers. Of course, yeah. So he reserved the bulk of his anger for white Americans, as embodied by his listeners telling them, quote when you sit in front of your television on Friday and Saturday night and watch cops, top cops, lady cops, 911 cops, SWAT cops, detective cops, grandma cops, you watch them break down doors without identifying themselves, without a search warrant, without a court order, rip people's mattresses apart, throw away their clothes. If they don't find anything, all they have to do is drop a little bag of white powder. You sit there cheering them on, get those gummies so and SOS. And the reason you do it is because you're watching it happen to blacks. Minorities, poor white trash, Puerto Ricans, everyone who is a threat to you. So, like, Bill wasn't the always. Yeah, yeah, he wasn't always the guy you expected him to be, right? That was one of the things that makes him interesting is like he would there would be these moments where you like be OK bill's going to have like a real ****** ** take and be like, no, he was kind of, he was more or less right about that. This one. Bill pretty firmly comes down on the right side of history now. He also went on to complain that the judge who acquitted those LAPD cops was a Mason and like. Let's say that was losing the thread. Yeah. So you're just. Yeah. So you started strong, yeah. But you can see, you can see a lot of the same kind of discourse and the same the same style that like the same kind of ideological statements that are being made by like the Boogaloo folks today. Right. That like, you know, like, yeah, Bill sounds a lot like a lot of the ******* guys that was watching on Facebook in the immediate wake of the George Floyd protest. He would have been well at home in that organization or in that not organization. Within that community, now, in his role as the voice of America's new militia movement, bill saw his main duty as warning good conservative Americans that the government, in the form of socialist politicians, was coming to disarm them as a prelude to tyranny and mass depopulation. Bill show popularized the conspiracy theory that the US government stages mass shootings in order to drum up support for gun control. And this was before the Columbine shooting. Bill starts this conspiracy theory off in the United States and I'm going to. The next thing I'm gonna have you play is Bill reading a passage of his book on the air in 1991. So again, this is like, what, seven years before Columbine and like, 20 something years before the Sandy Hook shootings? And that conspiracy starts. Here's bill. Laying the groundwork for all of that **** the government encouraged the manufacture and importation of military firearms for the criminals to use. This is intended to foster a feeling of insecurity, which would lead the American people to voluntarily disarm themselves by passing laws against firearms. Using drugs and hypnosis on mental patients in a process called Orion, the CIA inculcated the desire in these people to open fire on schoolyards and thus inflamed the anti gun lobby. This plan is well underway and so far is working perfectly. The middle class is begging the government to do away with the Second Amendment. So Bill starts that mass shootings are a government conspiracy, conspiracy theory and ******* 91. Yeah. What do you make of that? That's amazing. That that is. I know. I'm just like, I'm trying to build up my head around really ahead of its his time. And he knew what would take off because obviously this conspiracy theory takes off. And if you look at the YouTube video, it was like a YouTube video of people being like, see, Bill Cooper revealed the government's plan to stage mass shootings. And yeah, it couldn't have been a lucky guess because file cabinet. Yeah. Interesting. OK. So. Bill had a real gift for weaving farfetched fantasies about the Illuminati and mind control weapons in with down to work Earth like folksy rants about modernity. Like that was his gift as he would take this crazy **** and he would weave it into real **** and it would it would it would that that draws people in like he didn't. He didn't. He didn't sound the same way that again that guy with like a a box full of like photographed or a mimeographed seems at a gun show. Seems like right like there. There is like a groundedness. Do it that you don't usually get. I do. Kind of wonder. I mean, because you were saying like he just like spoke nonstop for 1520 years. Exactly. Like, I mean for everything like this that feels kind of like a wow maybe he's, you know, this was a pretty, like you know, valid comment how many hundreds of ******** that makes no sense to counter that. Yeah. I mean, Bill was was like every day of his life was ********. That was that happened. And then I mean if you if you talk. Much ********. You're bound to hit on something useful every once in a while. Yeah. I mean, it's. And it's not like, well, I mean, it's not something that's true because obviously, right? Mass shootings are a product of a wide variety of unhealthy things in our culture. And I don't think any reasonable person thinks the government is even competent enough to fake that sort of thing. But just hitting on the idea that it would be an appealing idea, that that's what he understands is like what what people want to believe and he what people need is like, here's this real problem, mass shootings, we need to. Explain, you know, the the soaring violent crime rate in the early 90s. I need to explain it with something that blames it on that, like, makes it a part of this conspiracy. Like that was Billy's talent is weaving that **** together and he would do it by like, yeah, one of the, I think the most revealing rants that he put together that like sort of shows you his appeal was, was him sort of complaining about automobiles. He stated, I've gone from driving automobiles that I could take apart and put together blindfolded by myself as a teenager to cars that I can lift the hood on and not even recognize most of what I'm looking at. Except that I know it's an engine in there, some kind of system that ignites the fuel. And this was like Bill was basically taking with this sort of thing, these kind of feelings of inadequacy that were very common and increasingly common in this chunk of American men who's like jobs, good factory jobs, one that had been eliminated. These guys were, a lot of them lived in like rural communities that were were very rapidly dying as the country increasingly urbanized. So he would take these feelings of like, being bowled over by the complexity of modern technology and feeling left behind. Dude, weave them into this conspiracy about the new World order. As his biographer notes, Bill basically argued that stuff like, you know, the increasing complexity of automobile engines wasn't just a factor of developing technology. It was, quote one more way the controllers separated you from the utility of your person. This was how silent weapons work, how they stuck the dunce cap of helplessness on your head. And a big part of Bill's appeal was that he provided his listeners with a way to feel as if they were part of the solution, actually fighting back against this new world order rather than just sitting helplessly. Watching it eat everything. He created the Citizens Agency for Joint Intelligence, or Cagey, which Bill marketed as a sort of volunteer civilian answer to the CIA or the FBI. Kaji kaji? Yeah, the city for joint intelligence? Citizens Agency for Joint Intelligence? Yeah, and I both made the same. They were like something. Any of his listeners could join Kadji and start collecting and submitting intelligence would, which Bill would read on air if he liked it. And so this had a couple of benefits. Number one, it let his his listeners feel like they were part of this, like insurgent movement fighting back against the new World order. And it filled up airtime because Bill could just read ******** that his audience sent in as if it was intelligence that his agency had brought another like 24 hour news cycle a little ahead of the curve there. Yeah, it's very smart, very smart. And Kadgi wasn't just like a. Some institute off on its own. It was the intelligence wing of the Second Continental Army, which Bill claimed was a secret nationwide militia dedicated to the preservation of the values that the US had been founded under. Bill refused to give up the name of the commanding general of this August force because it was him, but many of the promotion papers that he handed out were signed by George Washington. Yeah, it was always, like, really cagey about who was in charge. It was obvious he was built like Bill. Because it was him. Yeah, because it was him. He was the whole army. Yeah, but then he's like, but who knows you? It's hard to say. Yeah. So over his years on the air, Cooper engaged in a number of objectively ridiculous stunts. Like all right wing ideologues, Bill Murston abiding hate for the mainstream media. But he tried to do something about it, organizing his listeners in a scheme to buy up millions of shares of Gannett Media, owner of USA TODAY. And the the plan was that all of his listeners would buy enough of Gannett media to have a controlling voting interest and then they would basically put Bill in charge and he would fire everyone who didn't want to put out right wing propaganda. 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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 felt 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. And we're back. OK, so in 1994 Bill threw his support behind the newly formed Constitution Party, which had been made by some Hollywood libertarian dude. I think it was part of a grift, but anyway, sounds like it. Bill announced his like new membership and support of this movement, essentially acting as it's like the voice of the Constitution Party. By announcing America is no longer a two party country. Ladies and gentlemen, problems obviously cropped up almost immediately. The chief. Issue was that bill and the party he joined were pretty much straight up libertarians. Meanwhile, many of his listeners were hard right religious nut *****. They hated 2 major planks of the Constitution party. Which were? And again, Jamie, this is another place where you'll be surprised. Legal. Legal abortion and the right to be homosexual. And in another surprising turn, Bill took to the airwaves to defend both planks on the matter of abortion. He said we are firm, ladies and gentlemen. God put us here to make choices, and the moral choice is the womans. And if she fries in what some of you would call hell for eternity, that is her choice, for it is she who will fry but is not. But it is not the business of the state to say yes, no, maybe or anything yet. But it's a woman's choice. Like, he's, he's. He's what? Whatever, OK. I mean, him being like, you know what? Let the lady burn in hell if she wants to. I don't think he's saying that. I think he's saying that, like, if you think she's going to hell, it doesn't matter. Like, it's still not the states, but it's not the states business to say if she does it or not, right? Yeah. I actually don't think Bill cared at all about abortion, clearly. I mean, clearly not there, I guess. I mean, it's like, you know, personally, you know, we don't, we don't claim this man. But I guess it's nice to not have him actively against reproductive rights. That's yeah. So when it twists with this guy, it says a lot that that, like, he has to yell at his listeners over **** like this because, like, they're all such bigots and bill is just not quite as bad. And actually, like his defensive bigotry a little more focused in yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, he just hates the government. That's really Bill's whole thing is he hates the government and wants, wants to destroy it because he thinks it's an evil. Quasi satanist conspiracy. It's weird he's a weird guy. Like his defensive homosexual homosexuality was actually like. Pretty good telling, he told his very religious listeners. Quote The most you can ever hope to do is force them back into the closet so that you cannot see them, and then you will be living a lie, just as we have been living lies throughout our history. And lies must stop. Which is interesting, because he's also he's he's still putting the like. It's your you who will be living a lie by denying these people exist and like, that's why you shouldn't do it. It's a weird defense of not criminalizing gay people. There's a weird guy. There's a lot of, like, moments like that with him where I was like, what the **** are you? Yeah. And I I don't want to be whitewashing him here because these are like these areas where he's surprisingly decent, kind of just have been used sometimes by folks to obscure the fact that he was fundamentally a man who believed that anything that vaguely smacked of socialism was tyranny and had to be violently opposed by men with guns. And so while he would be doing stuff like saying, hey, it's fine if you're gay, he would also be saying you should have as many guns as possible so that you can kill people who try to. I don't know. Give health care to folks like what? Yeah, OK. I I mean, I I still hate the man, but, but but there are some, there are some twists here. There it is. I mean, do you think it is just like, it has to do with, like, he wants to keep the focus on what he really cares about and is like, you know, kind of like, OK, like, I get that this is something that bothers you, but like, don't worry about that. Yeah, worry about, like, look over here. This is my show and we're worrying about the things that I hate. You have a radio show you can hate your own ****. There's a there's a ****** radio show for that other hateful thing you think. Network like you don't have to wait long. Ohh yeah, you don't like it? Wait 45 minutes, yeah, Bill Show hosted an 18 hour long series called Treason, making the case that U.S. government officials were committing a daily barrage of unconstitutional acts that demanded some sort of response. He also told us listeners to watch 2001 a space odyssey because it included secret messages hidden by the Illuminati. Yeah. And this is like, this is the thing you you're hearing qanon stuff. Now there's this, like, widespread belief that, like, the the cabal, this, like, elite group of satanic demon worshippers hide like, the secrets of their like, there's all these weird Hollywood movies that are real. Like, the Bourne identity is like, there's act like there's real, like it is like, fundamentally real. It's just myopic. Yeah. Yeah. Because the the elite have to hide the truth about what they're doing in plain sight. It's this thing that they need to do. And Bill thought that it was because of like. This weird kind of. A cult tradition that where you basically have to, in order to like, provide power to your occult rituals. You have to like, tell people about the evil things you're doing in the open. And so, like, they would hide all this stuff in Hollywood. Like that was an innovation of bills. That is like one of the things that the core of Q Anon today. And he's the first guy to be like, and it was with Billy, he would watch a movie he liked and then would be like, and here's why, like this is reveals some truth about the Illuminati conspiracy. OK, I've done this is the thing. Alex Jones. Us too. Yeah. Yeah. Now, it was the Waco siege that really made Bill Cooper the multi week assault by the ATF and the FBI on a peaceful religious compound in the middle of nowhere. It was exactly the kind of violent overreach that he'd spent his career warning people about. It was like the perfect thing for Bill Cooper to focus on, right? Like he's been saying for years, the government's going to come to like kill all Christians and stuff and, you know, institute this new world order and here they go after this compound of weirdos in the middle of nowhere Texas. So for weeks, Bill would, you know, basically tell his listeners that Waco was a test case to see if Americans would put up with the NWO's plans to eliminate millions of people. Like they're seeing if you're going to rise up. You know, if a bunch of militiamen would just show up at Waco and, like, stand around it, they would back off. And like, then, you know, we could, we could turn the tide. But of course, nobody was willing to actually do that. So for weeks, Bill would cover the federal government's treachery and when the real victim, like, and you know, the government by the way, was committing a ton of horrible crimes at Waco, like, the whole thing was one horrible crime. Pretty much, yeah. This is like, you know, attached to something where it's like, well, yeah, there is something clearly very bad going on here. Yeah. Yeah. But he would also, because he was a liar, he it wasn't enough the actual ****** ** **** that was going on. So he would like, he invented this claim that the FBI had sent in tainted milk that had killed two children. Umm. Which he would repeat for weeks, which is like, there's had no basis in fact and wasn't necessary because the FBI killed 70 something children at Waco, like you don't have to lie about tainted milk. They burnt kids to death. Like it's not, it's not necessary, Bill. He was also adamant that David Koresh was monogamous and does not play around on his wife, which is what's the point? I think that's like a more that's more of a him thing than he had. Had to be a good guy. And the people at Waco had to be, like fundamentally heroic rather than like a bunch of flawed and ****** ** people themselves who still didn't deserve to be burnt alive. Right? Right. Yeah. Ohh, boy. So obviously, Bill was as horrified as the rest of the world when the FBI hills to die on Friday. Yeah, Koresh, that David Koresh was approved. One, not just defending David Koresh, but picking the hill. David Koresh was faithful to his wife, right? Like that's what we all know about David. He didn't **** a tunnel. Random women. Oh my God. Yeah. I mean, especially since we all know David Koresh had incredible abs. I mean, just stop. Stop it. Stop. David Koresh's abs were as cut as Bernard Sanders was good at shooting people in a moving vehicle. I'm gonna cut my own Beanie Babies arm off. This is so stressful. So Bill was his horrified as the rest of the nation when the FBI's final raid on the Branch Davidian compound ended in, you know, dozens of children. Burning to death in just a horrible, horrible, literal war crime, yeah. On his first broadcast back after the siege, bill opened the show by declaring America the Beautiful is no more. He told his listeners that the Second Battle of the Second American Revolution had ended. And folks, we lost. The first battle was Ruby Ridge. So, I mean, you know it it that was, you know, Waco was one of the things that's interesting about Waco is that for a lot of people who had been kind of reflexively Pro America and Pro the government just because it it was America and they were kind of like patriotic bumble *****. Waco was the thing. Broke a lot of them. Umm. And it there's, it's like, like it. It's kind of the foundational movement of the patriot movement and the militia movement that exists with us today for read. There's a reason the Boogaloo boys put the names of like, the weavers who died at Ruby Ridge and Share Waco mean so much. It's because, like, this is where that starts. This is where like, the insurgent right in this country really starts to grow and Bill Cooper is the one nursing it. Like the violent right had not been a big thing since the end of World War Two. That had really put an end to it. Pretty much like you'd had the KKK in some parts of the South during the civil rights movement, but like. Not an insurgent force aimed at overthrowing the government that that starts now and Bill Cooper is its first prophet, right? Like he's directly saying like you, the listeners are like part of a war against your government now because of Waco. Hi. Yeah, yeah. OK. I mean and and it's unfortunately like you can see what? He's like creating these pens for people that you can understand why people are taking the opportunity. I mean, whether, if you believe Bill Cooper, the only thing to do is. Kill people in the government. Is is is murder members of the government. And by the way, his most famous listener decides to do just that because Bill's biggest fan in this period of time was a young military veteran named Tim McVeigh. Yeah, yeah. Timmy Mcbee, baby. Yeah. Tim McVeigh. Always a pleasure when we get to you, Timmy. So Tim loved Tim loved the hour of the time. And in the months prior to the Oklahoma City bombing, there's even evidence that he visited Bill Cooper's, the place where Bill Cooper recorded and, like, met with Bill Cooper and, like, this almost certainly happened. It's it's pretty widely believed. And the most credible version of the story suggests that basically. Bill was kind of sketched out. It was like Tim and some other guy, and they were like clearly weird and unhinged. And Tim asked him, like, if I get stopped by a cop, should I shoot him rather than accept a speeding ticket? And Bill was like, no, you shouldn't shoot a man over a speeding ticket. But like, yeah, it's this really sketchy story where, like, there are a couple of people who were around Bill at the time who were like, yeah, this guy who, after the Oklahoma City bombing, we all recognize this. Tim McVeigh came by and was like, I'm your biggest fan, bill, and asked him weird questions about shooting cops. And it's worth noting that the reason Tim got caught is that he got pulled over driving away from Oklahoma City and he had a gun on him and chose not to shoot the officer who was pulling him over, which is why he got caught. So. Wow. So listening to Bill is what got him caught. It saved one guy's life and got like 168 other people killed. Well. I mean, obviously we talk a lot about Tim McVeigh and the war on everyone. There was a **** load going on in Tim Mcveigh's ideological development, including a lot of Nazi ****. I think people do tend to put too much of the blame on Bill, but in the immediate wake of the bombing, bill actually does get a lot of the blame just because. He he it. It kind of immediately comes out that Tim Mcveigh's favorite radio host is this like, right wing nutjob Bill Cooper. Like, I think the President mentions Bill Cooper and stuff. So like, Bill becomes, Bill gets a lot of the immediate blame for radicalizing Tim McVeigh when really things like the Turner Diaries that, like, there's a lot of other things. I mean, for people who are inclined to agree with Tim McVeigh, a lot of Free Press. Yeah. Yeah, it is. It is a lot of Free Press and it's yeah, it's an interesting tale. So when McVeigh, you know, did that. Thing that McVeigh did, Bill Cooper immediately knew what was really going on. This was not, you know, a right wing militia dude carrying bills, ideas to their logical extent and declaring war on the government, which is what actually happened. This was a false flag attack aimed at taking down the militia movement and justifying a government crackdown, which is actually kind of the obvious opposite of what happened, really. But yeah, so Bill had one of his cagy agents start collecting stories for a book on the 1st 24 hours after the blast. Document how the media spun events to fit their narrative and they actually like published up. Like put together like this whole gigantic book about the first day after Oklahoma City that they thought was going to be like the new, the next, you know, the, the, the rightful follow up to behold a pale horse. But nobody bought it because it was like boring and dumb. Ah, yeah. Now, Bill grew increasingly unhinged. In the days and weeks after the Oklahoma City bombing. He warned his listeners that the end was nigh. He told them that mock American cities were being built in the desert for the military to train in, to prepare to, like, purge the United States of dissidents. He started talking about black helicopters circling areas with too high a population of real Americans. And, of course, he started talking about FEMA camps being set up to incarcerate a newly disarmed American populace. Yeah. And of course, the big part of it for for Bill is that, like, the government's gonna use the whole militia thing is an excuse to take our guns. And they did pass an assault weapons ban not too long after this. So, like, there's a lot of things keep happening that make Bill seem really credible to the fringe, right is, like, Bill said, they're gonna take our guns and then they pass this law to take our guns. Not considering that it was part of Bill's work that created the problem. Yes. The bill really helped create the system where they were like, oh, man, it seems like a lot of people have military grade weaponry who are violently unhinged. Maybe let's try to do which. I'm not a fan of the assault weapons ban either but like you can maybe it's not like incur let's create create a media yeah show or build encouraging it yeah it's a great way to get it. Takes it like a lot. Yeah yeah. He has a big impact on why that happens. He's a big impact on the growth of the militia movement feedback loop developing here with exactly. It's the same thing with like these boogaloo guys who are obsessed with like being Second Amendment absolutists and or who are going to guarantee massive restrictive gun restrictive. Gun control legislation comes in if a Democrat ever gets into office again because you guys have been such like, like violent lunatics, uh, in public, waving guns around and scaring people and like, yeah, thanks, yeah, like, yeah, you did a great job and create the problem that if there is a crackdown, it's like, well, that is, you know, in no small part your fault. Yeah. So in August of 1995, Mcveigh's old friend Michael Fortier did an interview with the Far Right newsletter where when asked what led to the bombing, he replied. I can't say a whole lot, but we heard lots of tapes and saw videos and red things. There's this guy with a radio station in Arizona, Bill Cooper. He keeps calling people sheeple and was mad that they aren't doing anything to change things. Well, we got to thinking, that's right, things need to change. Tim really responded to that. In 1996, James Nichols testified in federal court that he, his brother Terry, and Tim McVeigh listened to Cooper as often as they could. They called him the voice of the militia movement. So yeah, Bill, Bill helps to cause all of the things that cause all of the things that he's scared about. That's so it's. Yeah. I mean with that kind of like, you know? Looking at it now you're like, well of course he may have seemed right about a lot of these things he was anticipating potential consequences to problems that he was having create like yeah it's like government isn't guilty of stuff like that themselves. I just yeah yeah yeah it's it's like when when I when the the FDA eventually raids my compound and burns dozens of children to death in our basement all seem like a profit for having predicted it but really by constantly engaging in a this battle with the FDA for years. You know, I'm, I'm I'm in a way creating the situation myself which is why you should buy associated with this clip when it inevitably. Goes, yeah. Surfaces after after your prediction turns out to have been true. You know what you should do, Jamie, is by one of our new FDA approved to cure all diseases masks which are in fact FDA approved secure. Yeah all all diseases that's official FDA approval. And so by by the mask he just did that entire thing to plug his new merch just so you know. Episode Bitcoin I am I am digging up, metaphorically, the corpses of the dead at Waco and Oklahoma City and Ruby Ridge in order to sell Roberts face masks and spark a fight with the FDA. That whole? That's because I am a monster, too. I'm just as bad as Bill Cooper. I'm putting that on your Wikipedia page. Thank you. Thank you so. It's coming up in the biggest trial in American history as the inspiration behind a mad bomber was not a great move for Bill's long term career, especially since he'd stopped paying taxes in 1992 and also lied on a loan application. So he starts getting warrants issued for his arrest for again committing crimes. And he lives up on top of a mountain in Arizona at this point in time. And the sheriff of Apache County, where he lived was actually a pretty smart guy and was like, if I try to arrest Bill Cooper, he's going to go down in a hail of gunfire and it's going to be just a terrible. It's gonna be another Ruby Ridge. And I'm not gonna ******* do that. Like, he can live on the top of his mountain for another 50 years for all I care. And he tells the FBI this the sheriff's, like, I'm not, like, arrested. His guys and the FBI are like, yeah, it seems like a really bad idea to arrest this guy. Just letting that happens to Bill Cooper to him is like a confirmation that what he was saying was right. He's like, well, I'll probably be, yeah. You know, taken out or arrested. It's like, well, yeah, because you're evading your taxes. But yeah, yeah, it's a problem you've created. Well, and that's exactly what Bill does with it. So, like, the actual law enforcement in his area just kind of leaves him alone. Like, he regularly will go to a local Mexican restaurant and get enchiladas and **** and, like, nobody tries anything because, again, nobody wants the ******** that would come with trying to bring Bill Cooper in. Imagine being so annoying. Yeah. But Bill becomes a massive drama queen about the whole thing, breathlessly talking about the siege of his compound and like bragging about it, like how he and his wife and his his little daughter like aren't leaving and you know, won't leave. They don't leave for years and they're like living under. And he'll talk about how, like they've got anti helicopter countermeasures and like secret militiamen guarding his compound with him. And you know, he vaguely discuss all his security measures and **** which was all ********. He had one friend who was like a vet who would, like hang out with a gun with him sometimes when he got scared and he had like some. Hand strung up like he had. No, there was no like security network set up like he was. It was canned. His security was I I maybe I may be making that one up, but it was he didn't have any sort of meaningful security network because he was broke and living in a crumbling house on top of a mountain because he he had no money, right? Yeah. And you know, it's we don't know a lot we don't know a huge amount about his situation with his wife, but at least one of his friends catches him having, like this really vicious screaming. Fight with her where he's like, at least mentally abusive and you get the feeling he was probably physically abusive to her. And we're taking his past history into account, most like, almost certainly at the same time, it becomes really clear to anyone listening that, like, really the only thing keeping Bill kind of tethered to reality is his daughter. And he'll have, she's a little kid at this point. He'll have her on the show a bunch. She hosts it with him sometimes. Oh my God. And he's like, really? Yeah, like, it's it's it's kind of heartbreaking. I I don't wanna go into too much just because it's a real bummer to listen to them together, because eventually bills Abusiveness forces his wife to leave him and she, like, flees with their daughter and he never sees her again. Because of what happens next. But yeah, and that like, yeah, that that, that. Like, again, she did absolutely the right thing because Bill at this point is a ******** alcoholic. He's continued to be mentally and probably physically abusive. He's locked them away in a mountaintop camp compound hiding from the ******* feds. He's directly tied to the Oklahoma City bombing, directly tied to the Oklahoma City bombing like is. Annie makes the right call in getting their kid the **** out of there eventually. And again, Annie deserves some blame because she stays for a long time and she's a pretty, at least for a chunk of his career. A very willing participant in the Bill Cooper thing. Also a victim too, but also like, I don't know, it's a ****** ** story. Everything about this guy's relationships are ****** **. Thankfully, she does get the and I don't know anything about his daughter today, and I'm not going to look it up because she deserves to have some chance to get away from her, live her life. Yeah. Yeah, Bill's last remaining years were spent putting out a series of increasingly morose broadcasts, and occasionally watching the conspiratorial seeds he'd sown bear fruit. Like when he watched the 1998 X-Files movie and recognized huge chunks of behold, a pale horse served up as entertainment, which he found very exciting as bill. OK, yeah, I think so, yeah. As Bill's life shrank to the confines of his increasingly decrepit home, he himself sunk into alcoholism. But many of the ideas he'd. Popularized were working their way into popular culture. They just grown beyond him at this point. On June 28th, 2001, Bill Cooper made what would be his greatest prediction yet. He told his listeners that a major attack on the United States was coming and that it would be blamed on Osama bin Laden. Really? Yep. Yep. June 28th, 2001 names Bin Laden in the broadcast now, again, not much of a prediction, because Bin Laden had bombed the World Trade Center a couple of years earlier and was one of the most famous terrorists in the world at the time. Oh, wait, hold on. Wait. What year is this? This is 2001. This is 2000. So this is. But like before, right before 911, but after the first World Trade Center bombing. Like, bin Laden bombed it before, right? Yeah. So it's not. So that isn't OK. OK. Right, right. So he gives this prediction and then in the immediate wake of the attack, like, he's obviously really horrified. But he also kind of, he's the very first truther, like he's one of the very first guys who starts talking about, like, how the the, the building shouldn't have fallen the way it did. And like, steel doesn't work that way. All the all this stuff that like would like look at jet fuel doesn't melt steel beams got, you know, in fact, a lot of folks will argue that loose change, that documentary, a huge amount of it was plagiarized from stuff Bill Cooper had started saying in the immediate wake of 911 because this world, because he dies like 2. Seconds after 911, he dies. 2 seconds after 911. But he but that's the way Bill's mind works. He's immediately spinning conspiracies. He can't not do it. So he he leaves the world with 911 trutherism and he leaves the world with Alex Jones, who Jones in his early career talked about Bill Cooper a lot, clearly admired him deeply, had bill on as a guest once and bill ******* hated Alex Jones and ranted about him a couple of times on his own show. And basically he saw him as a charlatan and everything. Was wrong with America. Uh, well, I mean. Yeah, which is ironic cause like a lot of like Alex Jones made a bunch of money in his early years selling like golden **** to people over the radio and Bill Cooper was the first guy to do that or that. The first guy, but like the first conspiracy not to do that. So yeah, that's cool. That's that's that's neat. Yeah. So Bill, you know, starts 911 trutherism as kind of a last hurrah. And in July of 2001, so less than a month after, you know, his big prediction, bill makes the steak mistake of threatening a local doctor named Hamblin. And so, yeah, like, basically Bill lived on top of this mountain and the mountain, most of it was like public property, like anyone could come on to Bills Mountain if they wanted. But Bill thought it was his mountain and people who drove up onto it. Perfectly within their rights to do so were like damaging his security measures so he would regularly come out with a handgun and threaten to murder people for driving on the public land. And yeah, this got him in trouble. Uh, and in no kidding. In 2001, you know, the the county had a new sheriff. The guy who'd been like, it's not worth it to go after him is gone. And this new sheriff is like an idiot. He's like a reckless ******* and is like, we could. It's time to finally do something about Bill Cooper. It'll be big news if we do it. Like, it'll be good for his my career. So not all that long. After 911, this sheriff launches a raid on Bill Cooper. And, like, the idea is to basically pretend to be. You know, a motorist who's, like, wandered up to his mountain. Bill comes out, and you kind of can surround him and arrest him. OK and it kind of relies on bill not being the most paranoid man alive, which building to work out very well. No. Bill immediately realizes that, like, the cops are trying to trap him, and he tries to, like, run him down in his car. And, yeah, the whole thing degenerates into a gunfight, and bill shoots at officer dead before going down himself in a hail of gunfire. Well, Yep. I feel like if he had to go, I mean, he I'm not. He did. He went down. Yeah, but I feel like he was probably satisfied with. Yeah, I think on an emotional level, Bill Cooper needed to. Needed to go down being murdered by cops in like a dawn, like in like a raid, like that was the way he expected to go for years. And it also validates his own, like, perception of himself. Yeah, and he's he was clearly he was sick. He he probably wouldn't have lived that much longer. It's a shame he killed a random guy on his way out. But also that guy was a cop who was ******* with him. So whatever. It's whatever. Like, yeah, kind of a wash. It's kind of a wash. If you're looking at like, how all most of these guys leave the world, like, Alex Jones is going to have a much more depressing ending than Bill Cooper. Bill Cooper kinda got what he wanted in the end, which is he got to be gonna like die of like, gout or something. Yeah, I know he's going to live to be 100 and ******* 20 and become the Secretary of State. I don't know, just like you're going to live to be the grand dam of conspiracy theories, just rotting in a house. Yeah, there's a bunch of bummer, like the book pale Horse Rider. It's an interesting biography. I think it's pretty good. The biographer is very sympathetic to Bill, probably more than his fair at points. It's kind of hard not to be, I think, when you get that into somebody's life. But he definitely gives Bill more credit than I think. Deserves in a number of things, but like his his last days were sad as ****. Like at one point one of his daughters tries to reconnect with him and like comes to his house and she lasts like a week before the like because he's an abusive prick and he like scares her away like he's he's down to like he's. He's basically had alienated all of his remaining friends. At that point he was just like this lonely, crazy old man with a bunch of guns at the top of the hill, threatening passers by with a pistol whenever they drove too close to his house. Like those that was the last days of William Cooper. Well, again. I I mean, I I want while I do think that, you know, the the links to, like his life as a military brat and then the very clear PTSD that like, dogged him throughout his life are are sympathetic entry points. He seemed to have really lived out a life full of problems he created by himself. Yeah. Bill is a guy who's dealt a rough hand of cards and throws the cards. Way and starts pooping in a box and then demanding people treat the poop as if it is a deck of cards. And when everyone else is like, no bill, that's that's clearly poop, he gets angry at the entire world and starts a radio show. Really good and the metaphor that ever gone well for anyone. Yeah. So you know, don't become a conspiracy icon at the cost of your own happiness and loved ones and instead become a fashion icon and also render yourself immune to all diseases. With our new FDA approved FDA approved to prevent all diseases mask. This is a really good ad. This was a this whole episode was an ad, right. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. OK. Just checking like Bill Cooper, I have decided to cash in on the. Fact that I'm a fundamentally broken, antisocial person with a head full of PTSD, and I'm choosing to do it with masks. Oh, good. Well, I'm glad that you could find someone to connect with on this show. Yeah. Ah, boy. I also threaten random people with a gun for driving on the public land, but that's that's a separate that's a kind of a more of a more of a kink than anything, to be honest. That's that's your that's your little Jackie moment. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So so. Jamie, how are you feeling? What's up? You said. How are you feeling? And you're like, I know that question, you know not thanks for checking in not good. I don't feel good about it. I feel this is this is a this is a more complicated not good than I'm used to. And on the show, but but yeah, he's he's a complex man, a complex, fundamentally abusive person who's toxicity left him alone on a mountaintop. Yeah. Yeah. Oh boy. Yeah, this was a this was a dark one. And tell you what. Hmm. It's that great. How do you feel? I feel. I feel like I'm not at all looking into my own future. Uhm, I I have. Robert, with each passing day, you know, we get worried, we worry about you and we get more worried about you. And with each passing day, actually my full time job, I get closer to having that mountain top compound. You really are edging your way up the mountain as time goes on. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So that I can get into my last great fight with the FDA. ******* coward. Down at the hands of the FDA. You know, it'll be so funny. It'll be so funny. Oh my God, yes. What a great punchline to an incredible life. Human being. I think you owe a responsibility to try to, like, leave something entertaining for the children and like another person dying in an old folks home. No kids gonna like, but something you hear about this, this podcast host who started a war with the FDA that got 70 kids burnt to death in a basement. Like, that's a story people are. I really need the kids cut out of this equation. I. No, no. You being murdered by the FDA, everybody. This is why everyone still loves David Koresh. Look, he he got 70 kids killed, and now he's the sexy guy with abs. And a ******* Netflix special. So he did have too many apps on the Netflix show. It's clearly fine to get a lot of kids killed. I don't even think it was Netflix. I think it's just on Netflix. Oh really? That's where I watched it. As somebody, he didn't have too many apps on the show to the point where did I was also like for the him to have this many ABS on the show who never made it. It was like a bullied him was very hot and that guy was very not. It was a bold choice to look at it, a man who ****** 14 year olds and had illegal child brides and say we got to rehab this dude, we gotta rehab this dude. Be like, let's make him yeah, sexy. We gotta, we gotta have him play in a rock show right before the FBI kills it. And it was on Paramount network. Somebody told me we were wrong time when we gave credit to Netflix for that. Whatever. Terrible news down, man. What a ridiculous series. It was a mess. I mean, the ******* the Unabomber series was problematic, too. But at least they, like, got a guy who looked like a dangerous shut in to play the Unabomber. And, like, they didn't have David Koresh, like, drop a rap album right as the FBI comes into his ******* house. He's just, like playing guitar. Are like, yeah, just I think the only series that I think is worse than Waco in terms of like this genre of TV is the the assassination of Gianni Fritz Versace that I haven't even watched that one. It was ridiculous. I thought the OJ one was pretty good. The OJ one was great. Yeah, it was really good. That Gianni Versace one is a ******* mess. Darren Criss plays Andrew Cunanan. It's a disaster. Yeah, Ross from friends really changed my opinion of that Kardashian guy. I like what he says. Juice. Whenever he says Jesus, I'm laughing. He calls him juice. Do you believe it? Do you believe it? You believe that Ross from friends not only calls his friend that, but because he's such a fan of his friend. He's so excited to get to call him juice. Like you hear that in him like this this, this it was. It's really heartbreaking. It's a great. I like the, the, the. I like that. The trial. OJ Simpson solid. That's a great product. Portables before we plug anymore. **** you series that we don't have claim in. I'd like to plug the the OJ series. I I like it. I watch it. You know, maybe about once a year when I get sick. Yeah, when it's time for, you know, Ross from friends and his love of OJ Simpson. It's good TV for when you get sick. I then I also have a Twitter account that you can find if you want, and you can listen to my ear and Mensa and the Bechdel cast if you want. And you can find me on a mountaintop in Idaho with dozens and dozens of of of young followers as I await the violent hands of the FDA. I don't. I don't. I'm just not allowing this. Are you are you trying to protect me from myself here, Sophie? I am, Sir. That's what I do. Is not want to do the episode on you when you were killed by the FDA. I I just really don't I can't stop Waco going. I can't stop Waco going. It's a it's a second. There's some merch now there's some merch. I think we should end the episode before you do anything else that upset. Yeah, I should I she. Is there any other way you'd like to perjure yourself before for the episodes over? Yeah. Let me give you my feelings on A and that's the episode. 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 breaker handle the hosting creation distribution. And monetization of your podcast? Go to spreaker.com. That's spreaker.com. Want to say I don't know less? Listen to stuff you should know more. Join host Josh and Chuck on the podcast, packed with fascinating discussions about science, history, pop culture, and more episodes. Dive into topics like was the lost, city of Atlantis Real? And how does pizza work? 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