Speaker 1: From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
Speaker 1: riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
Speaker 1: learn this stuff they don't want you to know. A
Speaker 1: production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: Welcome back to the show. My name is Matt, my
Speaker 2: name is Noah.
Speaker 3: They call me Ben. We're joined as always with our
Speaker 3: super producer Alexis, code named Doc Holliday Jackson. Most importantly,
Speaker 3: you are you.
Speaker 4: You are here.
Speaker 3: That makes this the stuff they don't want you to know.
Speaker 3: At the top of the week, we like to spend
Speaker 3: an evening exploring stories that may not have hit the
Speaker 3: top of the fold, as they used to say in
Speaker 3: the days of print. However, some of these stories, when
Speaker 3: they do hit, they don't get kind of the exploration
Speaker 3: that they deserve. And that's what we're here for. We're
Speaker 3: going to learn about some viral disappearance conspiracies. We're going
Speaker 3: to learn about some active, dangerous true crime, not just
Speaker 3: in Atlanta, but across the US. And if we're doing that,
Speaker 3: I wanted to run through a couple of quick things
Speaker 3: that haught our collective eye. Do you guys remember our
Speaker 3: period of exploring prosperity theology?
Speaker 4: Oh boy, could how could we forget kreflo dollar Yeah,
Speaker 4: gold plated private jets and all of that good stuff. Yeah.
Speaker 3: We came out of that one with something that I
Speaker 3: make no apologies for around condemnation of those folks who
Speaker 3: are leveraging one of the most beautiful aspects of human
Speaker 3: human beings, the ability to believe they're leveraging it for
Speaker 3: a grift. Very and I say this not as a Christian,
Speaker 3: very un christ like to do that kind of thing.
Speaker 3: So there's a bit of good news. I want to
Speaker 3: start off with good news. A Brook pastor known as
Speaker 3: Lamar Whitehead or his name is Lamar Whitehead his he's
Speaker 3: often called the Bling Bishop, was just found guilty in
Speaker 3: court of spending ninety thousand US dollars of his parishioner's
Speaker 3: savings on luxury goods.
Speaker 5: No man, So I've always been to churches where that
Speaker 5: money I don't who knows what happens behind the scenes,
Speaker 5: but that money ends up going to like actual missionary work,
Speaker 5: and I've seen it happen.
Speaker 2: It's been a super positive thing.
Speaker 3: That's how it's so stablished.
Speaker 2: So depressing that.
Speaker 4: But isn't it funny too though, how some parishioners I
Speaker 4: guess that's the word of these prosperity theology churches are
Speaker 4: almost okay with their money being used to enrich their
Speaker 4: pastors in that way. Some of them, I guess maybe
Speaker 4: are being you know, swindled, and they don't know. But
Speaker 4: I do get to sense there are some that are
Speaker 4: totally fine with it.
Speaker 3: Well, yeah, I mean, Stockholm syndrome is.
Speaker 4: As I'm just saying, you know, that's and maybe I'm
Speaker 4: maybe I'm paying with a broad brush there.
Speaker 3: But to give you a taste, fellow conspiracy realist, of
Speaker 3: what prosperity theology is, I'd like to play a quick
Speaker 3: clip from the famous Kreflo Dollar when he talks to
Speaker 3: his congregation about spending their money on more private aircraft.
Speaker 4: Dollar also responded to his critics during a sermon, if.
Speaker 5: I want to believe God for sixty five million dollar brain,
Speaker 5: you cannot stop me.
Speaker 4: You cannot stop me from dreaming, you know, But I
Speaker 4: think too this is also a product of like gross
Speaker 4: commercialization of religion as well. The whole concept of prosperity
Speaker 4: theology is about like having all the things, and why
Speaker 4: wouldn't you aspire to your spiritual leader and want them
Speaker 4: to have only the best because they are, after all,
Speaker 4: your your spiritual leader. Therefore they must have the best
Speaker 4: on you.
Speaker 5: Yeah, it was one of the primary selling points of
Speaker 5: a lot of those places. Right believe and not only
Speaker 5: are you going to be healthy and your family is
Speaker 5: going to be okay, you can find wealth just you know,
Speaker 5: follow essentially me and the theology that I preach.
Speaker 3: Right, Yeah, we are not poor in spirit. We are
Speaker 3: a group of temporarily embarrassed spiritual millionaires. To paraphrase Ambrosepears.
Speaker 3: I love that we're mentioning aspire too, because in the
Speaker 3: spirit of positivity, there are a couple of things I
Speaker 3: found that I think would be great go tos for
Speaker 3: the newest flexes for televangelists, right for the actors in
Speaker 3: prosperity theology. And I'm using the word actor on purpose.
Speaker 3: Like everybody's getting jets, everybody's got Louis vatad suits and
Speaker 3: so on. Why not flex in a different way? Why
Speaker 3: not clone some Frank and sheep huh hybrids. That's something
Speaker 3: that's happening in Montana. Did you guys hear about this?
Speaker 3: We owe a debt of thanks to a conspiracy realist
Speaker 3: on Twitter who have used this one.
Speaker 4: Just the broad strokes are there any more? Deep says
Speaker 4: to what's the benefit of this? I don't understand.
Speaker 3: So traffickers in Montana have cloned what are called Frankin
Speaker 3: sheep hybrids entirely for the purpose of sport hunting. They
Speaker 3: use genetic material from what are called Marco Polo or
Speaker 3: Golli sheep all the way from Kyrgyzstan to breed these
Speaker 3: entirely new animals and then kill them for funzies.
Speaker 4: I never really thought abou hunting sheep. Isn't the whole
Speaker 4: deal with sheep that they're pretty docile and just hang
Speaker 4: out in pens before you at a slaughter at will
Speaker 4: Well seem a little unsportsman alike. Maybe these hybrids are
Speaker 4: like have superpowers all of a sudden, but they're better chase.
Speaker 3: Maybe they're like super bigs.
Speaker 5: It's like the plot of that movie The Island. You
Speaker 5: guys remember that one?
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, yeah, clones are.
Speaker 5: We talked about with our bought like harvesting, right organ
Speaker 5: harvesting episode. But it's like that, except you combine that
Speaker 5: with the most dangerous game except their sheep.
Speaker 2: This is super fun, guys.
Speaker 3: For this is going to be amazing. This could be
Speaker 3: a great billionaire sketch on social media. So shout out
Speaker 3: to Popular Science the journalist Andrew Paul, and shout out
Speaker 3: to Monica del val or del Vallier over on Twitter,
Speaker 3: who hipped us to this this happening pretty recently. Turns
Speaker 3: out that these guys pled in court guilty to two
Speaker 3: felony wildlife crimes, the Lacy Act in particular, which you
Speaker 3: might not hear of if you're not involved in animal rights.
Speaker 3: It's a law from way back in nineteen hundred which
Speaker 3: is meant to combat illegal animal trafficking, and folks who
Speaker 3: run quote alternative lifestock end quote ranches in Montana are
Speaker 3: finding themselves in trouble with Uncle Sam on this to
Speaker 3: tell you, yes, I think you're right. No, in terms
Speaker 3: of the danger or lack thereof of hunting sheep. Let's
Speaker 3: go to the pop side description of this. These these
Speaker 3: Franklin sheep are about forty nine inches tall at the shoulder.
Speaker 3: Their horns are over five feet wide across. They weigh
Speaker 3: in around three hundred pounds. They're big guys, you know
Speaker 3: what I mean. Like, if they're mad at you, you're
Speaker 3: in trouble.
Speaker 4: Do they have like scary horns or anything.
Speaker 3: Yeah, their horns are over five feet wide.
Speaker 4: Oh that's true. Really, Okay, okay, well there you go.
Speaker 4: So it's someone'st more like a ram hunting a ram
Speaker 4: or a wild boar or something like that, you know.
Speaker 3: And it was an actual conspiracy because according to the
Speaker 3: Department of Justice, these guys purchased parts of the sheep,
Speaker 3: so like probably limbs or some sort of genetic material
Speaker 3: of the sheep from Kyrghyzstan way back in twenty thirteen.
Speaker 3: They smuggled them into the US and then they contacted
Speaker 3: an underground lab to make embryo clones of the Kyrghistani
Speaker 3: sheep and then implanted those in different sheep species and
Speaker 3: this farm in Montana and they just bred them until
Speaker 3: they created the Montana Mountain King, as they called it.
Speaker 3: Checks out, checks out, yeah, yeah right, So you know,
Speaker 3: maybe that drift is busted for our prosperity theologians in
Speaker 3: the crowd. If that doesn't quite if that doesn't quite
Speaker 3: do it for you, you could also fund a mysterious
Speaker 3: monolith like the Perfect Monolith that appeared in Wales quite recently.
Speaker 3: This is coming to us from the New York times,
Speaker 3: Amy Ortiz, Did you guys hear about this? It just
Speaker 3: it's a monolith that just appeared.
Speaker 4: No, but remember there was another story the monolith. It
Speaker 4: was an artist or's some kind of weirdo artists that
Speaker 4: just put in places and they were really heavy and expensive,
Speaker 4: and he obviously went to a great expense to do it,
Speaker 4: and it caused all this internet hubbub. But then it
Speaker 4: turned out it was just some like you know, be
Speaker 4: a Nolli type cap.
Speaker 2: Ooh, it looks similar to that one.
Speaker 3: It does, but it's unrelated. We're what we're talking about here, folks,
Speaker 3: is the rash of mysterious objects that were placed around
Speaker 3: the world in like the end of twenty twenty right
Speaker 3: Q four of twenty twenty is the corporate types would
Speaker 3: call it. This story occurs because a guy named Craig
Speaker 3: Mure left his house in and you'll love this town
Speaker 3: name left his house in hay On Way, Powells Whales.
Speaker 4: Going hay On Way, y'ah sounds like like a sports thing.
Speaker 4: Are you gonna go like crazy? Bro?
Speaker 3: You're so hey right now?
Speaker 4: Oh man on Way.
Speaker 6: Day in the wind there it is there, it is
Speaker 6: so this guy he takes a walk in a pretty
Speaker 6: rural area, and he says it's in the middle of nowhere,
Speaker 6: and he had the same guests as us.
Speaker 3: Speaking to The New York Times, he said it must
Speaker 3: have been some sort of art installation. If he didn't
Speaker 3: know anything to look at it, you could have easily
Speaker 3: thought it had been dropped off by a UFO or something.
Speaker 3: He says, in the middle of nowhere. No visible tracks.
Speaker 3: He saw a couple of footprints, but he didn't know
Speaker 3: if they were his neighbors.
Speaker 5: What if this is from that satellite that fell from
Speaker 5: from the Morbid remember that one?
Speaker 3: Yeah, a rod of God. What if it's a kinetic
Speaker 3: weapon too? You know, they're just way less impressive than
Speaker 3: all the studies down Or what if there are a
Speaker 3: couple of prosperity theologians of the.
Speaker 4: Current planet satellites?
Speaker 3: Tell us that's perfect, No, keep it like, tell us, folks,
Speaker 3: what is You know, Prosperity theology is going to be
Speaker 3: a thing for a long time because the US has
Speaker 3: really crooked relationship with taxation and the way religions function
Speaker 3: or things that get to call themselves religion shout out scientology.
Speaker 3: So maybe you can help us help them. Let's find
Speaker 3: some new flexes for spiritual grifters. Nice suits, private jets.
Speaker 3: Come on, that's a little right, old beans. What's what like,
Speaker 3: get some freak.
Speaker 2: I've got one.
Speaker 5: Yes, guys, I found this and I meant to share
Speaker 5: it with you, and I never did. And you probably
Speaker 5: even know about this. It's not news, but it is. Sorry,
Speaker 5: employee on my phone. It is a guy named Ernst
Speaker 5: Vitter v E T e R. It's the Ernst system. Okay,
Speaker 5: it is a gentleman that My name is Ernst Ter.
Speaker 2: This is his website.
Speaker 5: I am a practitioner and teacher of superpowers trained. If
Speaker 5: that's not prosperity theology, thing like getting started, come on,
Speaker 5: let's go.
Speaker 3: No, forget the show. Beat me here, doc the show.
Speaker 3: Send me that thing. I want to read it incredible.
Speaker 4: I was just going to throw into the ring jewel
Speaker 4: incrusted robot exoskeleton suits.
Speaker 3: Finally time has come. It's what Jesus would.
Speaker 4: Want, It's what he would have done had he had
Speaker 4: the opportunity.
Speaker 3: That's what the templars were all about.
Speaker 4: That's the secret.
Speaker 3: Also, the shroud of turret is a Middle Age or
Speaker 3: medieval forgery. Just to be good about that.
Speaker 4: What about it.
Speaker 5: Wait, wait, what about a church where you take all
Speaker 5: the everybody's savings the way that guy did, right, dollars
Speaker 5: more whatever, and you buy every member of the congregation
Speaker 5: and Apple vision pro so everybody does church at the
Speaker 5: same time everybody's wearing one, and then you create interactive
Speaker 5: church services using that technology.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, they are augmented religion.
Speaker 4: People have been attempting such things, you know, with previous
Speaker 4: iterations of VR, but I don't think it's quite taken
Speaker 4: off yet. Okay, yes, it could be the time, dude,
Speaker 4: it could be.
Speaker 3: The Yeah, we can't wait to hear your suggestions obviously, folks.
Speaker 3: You can tell we're cooking with some righteous gas at
Speaker 3: this point.
Speaker 4: So jeous gas, right, I like that?
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, I they did a girl that was her
Speaker 3: old street name. But uh yeah, but we're gonna we're
Speaker 3: gonna put a pinion that we believe in you to
Speaker 3: send us the best ideas for the future of prosperity
Speaker 3: theology and join up. You know, no idea is too small.
Speaker 3: All are welcome. As the guy in Polterguys said, we
Speaker 3: do want to give one important update before we move on.
Speaker 3: We've been talking about boeing you know, it's no secret
Speaker 3: we went on here about this. I had a kind
Speaker 3: of a close call, not really close call in the
Speaker 3: friendly skies with some detaching interior parts of a Boeing aircraft.
Speaker 3: And then what was it?
Speaker 4: Guys?
Speaker 3: There is a wheel that dropped off, there was a
Speaker 3: window that left work early, like.
Speaker 5: The yeah, and the biggest thing was the what was
Speaker 5: it the door plug thing that came apart.
Speaker 4: A handful of let's tell them Oopsie's.
Speaker 2: Well, it's really scary bedeues.
Speaker 5: John Oliver recently, like maybe a week ago or two
Speaker 5: weeks ago from this coming out, did an entire series
Speaker 5: on Boeing again. I know he's talked about in the past,
Speaker 5: but it's serious.
Speaker 3: And we are happy to report that John Oliver neither
Speaker 3: John Oliver nor any of the people in his writer's room,
Speaker 3: who are all actually really cool people saw their improv
Speaker 3: show one time in New York. They are not suspects
Speaker 3: in the unfortunate demise of John Barnett, retired career quality
Speaker 3: manager for Bowie. He passed away on March ninth, at
Speaker 3: the age of sixty two. He retired in twenty seventeen.
Speaker 3: He had been quite vocal about some of the concerns
Speaker 3: he had about Boeing aircraft and according to the Charleston
Speaker 3: County Coroner's office, this is reported in The Times and
Speaker 3: the Washington Post and so on. He appears to have
Speaker 3: expired due to a self inflicted wound.
Speaker 5: Oh while staying at a hotel because he was in
Speaker 5: town to do more legal business in his lawsuits against Boeing.
Speaker 4: Yeah, do you think the pressure was too much? It
Speaker 4: was just an unpleasant way to live, or do we
Speaker 4: suspect foul play?
Speaker 3: He was going into the final day of his deposition
Speaker 3: ahead of a trial set for June, where he alive,
Speaker 3: he would have been testified in that trial.
Speaker 4: Yeah, wowsers.
Speaker 5: He literally just met with the Boeing attorneys, Like that's
Speaker 5: what he was doing.
Speaker 3: That's what he was doing. And the entire time since
Speaker 3: his retirement, he has been alleging that Boeing retaliated against
Speaker 3: him for verbally and vocally and publicly raising concern about
Speaker 3: production issues. And this was, to be granted, this was
Speaker 3: his job. He was managing quality and he's the one
Speaker 3: who pointed out something was fishy. Nobody knew that anything
Speaker 3: was amiss until he failed to show up at ten
Speaker 3: a m. Saturday for that final deposition.
Speaker 4: Dude, I just don't have a hard time believing that
Speaker 4: too big to fail industries such as this have people
Speaker 4: killed when they're inconvenient from time to time. I just
Speaker 4: have no problem believing that I am not alleging such.
Speaker 4: I just don't think it's a very long.
Speaker 5: Walk Doc aka the Marchioness of Buckhead. I said, definitely assassinated.
Speaker 3: Right right, And we may have we may have to say,
Speaker 3: all right, we're buttoned up illlegal. We may have to
Speaker 3: dive into this in an episode in the future as
Speaker 3: part of our unfortunately ongoing series on mysterious deaths of
Speaker 3: scientists inventors. Maybe we have to wrap up QA folks
Speaker 3: in there as well.
Speaker 4: It's an engineer, right, I mean he has to have
Speaker 4: some background and serious airplane mechanics and engineering. Right.
Speaker 3: It's a smart fellow, and we'll learn more about him,
Speaker 3: for sure. The main thing is the thing we want
Speaker 3: to leave you with as we go into this adbreak,
Speaker 3: is regardless of your stance on Boeing, please join us
Speaker 3: in keeping the family in your thoughts. Yes, we're going
Speaker 3: to pause for word from our sponsors, and we'll return
Speaker 3: with more strange news.
Speaker 4: And we returned with a story that was teased by
Speaker 4: Ben in evoking the chat the nom de chat of
Speaker 4: super producer Alexis code named Doc Holliday Jackson.
Speaker 3: The I like chat.
Speaker 4: I think it applies here. What was it? The Marchioness
Speaker 4: of Buckhead? Any non atli? And can we even say that?
Speaker 4: Whatever it said out there? Min? I know the Buckhead
Speaker 4: is sort of an affluent community here in Atlanta, the
Speaker 4: fancy malls out there where you can got the Dulchan
Speaker 4: Gabonastoor and then stuff like that. Weirdly, though, Buckhead comes
Speaker 4: into play in our third story, and there's a lot
Speaker 4: of weird crime and some of the more affluent parts
Speaker 4: of Atlanta.
Speaker 3: Study and extremes.
Speaker 4: But people don't talk about it. People act like Atlanta
Speaker 4: is full of like car fires and it's just mad
Speaker 4: max in the streets in the parts of the city
Speaker 4: that we hang out in for the most part that
Speaker 4: you would consider, I guess more urban, not so much,
Speaker 4: but it's a lot of it happens in the suburbs.
Speaker 4: But anyway, I digress. We'll get to that in a minute.
Speaker 4: What is a marchioness. I'd never heard the term until
Speaker 4: I started looking into this story about the mysterious case
Speaker 4: of the doctored royal family photo. Kate Middleton, the Duchess
Speaker 4: of Wales's wife of Prince Harry. Right, is it Prince
Speaker 4: Harry or no, William right, wife of Prince William.
Speaker 2: Is that right? I don't know, Doc, Yes.
Speaker 3: Yeah it's William.
Speaker 4: She's married to Prince William. Prince Harry is married to
Speaker 4: mar Please no.
Speaker 3: I don't care, I really don't.
Speaker 4: But Harry is married to Mark That's right, that's right.
Speaker 4: That was a big to do as well. That's right
Speaker 4: because Markle was like the she's a common you know,
Speaker 4: all of that good stuff. Yeah, it's a bit of
Speaker 4: a niche beat. Let's just call it the whole royal thing.
Speaker 4: There are certainly people that are that are known as
Speaker 4: Royal watchers. I guess it's you know, it's sort of
Speaker 4: its own real life reality, real life reality. It is
Speaker 4: Royal Jubilee, all of that good stuff. It's a thing
Speaker 4: that people, certain people hang on quite intently. And I
Speaker 4: was about to say it's a real life reality show,
Speaker 4: which is the most meta, bizarre thing that it could
Speaker 4: ever be said. Not entirely true, but this is weird.
Speaker 2: There's this guy Byron Denniston.
Speaker 5: He's he's the guy I follow to like get Royal
Speaker 5: Watcher updates.
Speaker 2: He's really good, got it?
Speaker 4: Yeah, well it's not really my faery, well a million percent. Anyway,
Speaker 4: as we know, you know, to a large degree, we've
Speaker 4: talked about does the you know, the royal family or
Speaker 4: does the crown control the world and all of these
Speaker 4: kinds of things. Probably not, I think, is the takeaway there.
Speaker 4: Largely ceremonial, largely about maintaining history and legacy and all
Speaker 4: of that. But they're very very very very very very
Speaker 4: very wealthy. Whether or not they're powerful is another question.
Speaker 4: What they have typically been I guess, at least relatively
Speaker 4: decent at doing, is controlling the kind of narrative of
Speaker 4: you know, how they want to be perceived and all
Speaker 4: of that. And that's done of course through like a
Speaker 4: myriad of handlers and pr people and all of that stuff.
Speaker 4: But it does seem maybe since as far back as
Speaker 4: you know Princess Diana, they've sort of lost the grip
Speaker 4: on that control, maybe, you know, with the advent of
Speaker 4: the always on media and all of that good stuff.
Speaker 4: Because obviously what happened with Princess Diana was she was
Speaker 4: killed while evading paparazzi in a car accident. And so
Speaker 4: it does feel like that informs perhaps you know, how
Speaker 4: much they want to keep these kinds of things under
Speaker 4: wraps and kind of insulate the royal family members from
Speaker 4: this kind of scrutiny. So what's going on with Kate
Speaker 4: Middleton is that she has been conspicuously absent from public
Speaker 4: life for maybe the past four to six months. I
Speaker 4: want to say, what was you know, told to the
Speaker 4: public and to the press by the you know said
Speaker 4: handlers and pr people, is that she underwent some sort
Speaker 4: of abdominal surgery. Ben I believe you said you'd heard
Speaker 4: that it was a gastric bypass surgery.
Speaker 3: Well, it's the internet also, people are so the most
Speaker 3: amazing thing about when stories become viral like this is
Speaker 3: the just sheer amount of previously revealed experts who reveal
Speaker 3: their expertise and some of those some of those folks
Speaker 3: have read you know, Wikipedia articles on gastric bypass or
Speaker 3: stomach staply and and then other people, you know, another
Speaker 3: one doc you had mentioned this one was the a
Speaker 3: bit more spicy speculation that.
Speaker 4: A Brazilian Yeah, okay, right, So see even me hearing
Speaker 4: you say gastric Bypass earlier, when I think I might
Speaker 4: even joined the chat late and it was already being
Speaker 4: discussed because again of Doc's nickname, I just sort of
Speaker 4: was like, oh, I must have missed that. That must
Speaker 4: be God's honest truth that it definitely was that thing.
Speaker 4: But of course that's a very private type of surgery
Speaker 4: that they probably wouldn't let out. They probably wouldn't say
Speaker 4: that's that's really none of anybody's business. So I believe
Speaker 4: all of what we have is abdominal procedure, abdominal surgery,
Speaker 4: and as we know, in the absence of facts, speculation thrives.
Speaker 4: You mentioned Ben, all of these, you know, newly minted
Speaker 4: Internet experts, armchair experts, sleuth's, what have you. There is
Speaker 4: a fabulous editorial on NPR by Linda Holmes, who has
Speaker 4: a term she refers to conspiracy theories, theorists, the overused
Speaker 4: term at this point according to her, But she came
Speaker 4: up with one that I had not seen before. It
Speaker 4: was recreational speculators. And it totally makes sense people that
Speaker 4: just are kind of bored and just are like, what
Speaker 4: could it be? It's Is it a gastric bypass? Is
Speaker 4: it a Brazilian butt lift? Does she have untreatable cancer?
Speaker 4: You know? Has she has she been decapitated? You know,
Speaker 4: I mean it literally, the sky's the limit. So already
Speaker 4: because of the absence, and because of the vagary of
Speaker 4: the description of what she underwent that led to this absence,
Speaker 4: the Internet's already going nuts. Then on Mother's Day this
Speaker 4: photo drops on first viewing a delightful family photo with
Speaker 4: you know, three kids k in the middle, sitting on
Speaker 4: what looks like a rustic type rocking chair on a porch.
Speaker 4: Nothing particularly ostentatious about it. I don't know any of
Speaker 4: the kid's names. That one of the young lads is
Speaker 4: wearing a sweater and gripping the kind of like the
Speaker 4: arm of the chair. Another one's on a lap kind
Speaker 4: of situation, and they're all like mid laugh and just
Speaker 4: having a glorious time. So this was released or was tweeted,
Speaker 4: exed what have you, by the official Prince and Princess
Speaker 4: of Wales's account, because they love each other very much.
Speaker 4: They have a joint account which has fifteen point three
Speaker 4: million followers, likely many of them these royal watchers, and
Speaker 4: it was distributed by the AP and all of the
Speaker 4: wire services whatever like this. This photo went out only
Speaker 4: to be recalled quickly by a p first I believe
Speaker 4: who issued something called a kill notice, because AP is
Speaker 4: such a you know, kind of clearing house, I guess
Speaker 4: for photos for all kinds of news agencies. They released
Speaker 4: this and it sticking very seriously. I didn't realize this,
Speaker 4: but in looking into the story, there are a lot
Speaker 4: of very specific guidelines around what kind of doctoring is
Speaker 4: allowed in photos. So yeah, I'm sorry, I'm ready to
Speaker 4: lead there a little bit. It became very clear very
Speaker 4: quickly this photo had been weirdly photoshopped. If we're looking
Speaker 4: at it, we might be like, okay, maybe these were
Speaker 4: just kind of like ham fisted touch up jobs, Like
Speaker 4: there's some parts where there's some sort of like artifacting.
Speaker 4: You know, I'm not an expert in this. Matt would
Speaker 4: probably be a little more able to point the stuff out.
Speaker 4: But things like the evidence of a clone tool being
Speaker 4: used in photoshop, and evidence of a background blur kind
Speaker 4: of tool being used, and some even copy and pasting
Speaker 4: and textures that didn't make sense. And I think there's
Speaker 4: something even like the kid's hand around the chair looks
Speaker 4: kind of weird to my eyes. But yeah, and of
Speaker 4: course when that happened, Oh boy, did those Internet salutes
Speaker 4: go nuts. She's dead. This is all a lie. This
Speaker 4: is a fabricated image. You know, her children have been abducted.
Speaker 4: God knows what the sky's the limit to which presume
Speaker 4: I believe the princess posted something on the same account.
Speaker 4: I'm saying, like many amateur photographers, I do occasionally experiment
Speaker 4: with editing. I wanted to express my apologies for any
Speaker 4: confusion the family photograph we shared yesterday cause I hope
Speaker 4: everyone had a very happy Mother's Day. So the princess
Speaker 4: is copying to editing her own photo. This is something
Speaker 4: everybody does, you know, in the age of phone photo
Speaker 4: editing apps that are as powerful as Photoshop once was,
Speaker 4: people like to touch their stuff up. There's a culture
Speaker 4: of that, you know already that exists in things like
Speaker 4: fashion magazines stuff. But the news is different. When you're
Speaker 4: covering the news, you're not supposed to have any touch ups.
Speaker 4: That's what I was saying. I found out can't even
Speaker 4: get rid of red eye apparently. Ben. I don't know
Speaker 4: if you heard about this, but There's a story I
Speaker 4: ran across about a supposed war photographer who was like fat,
Speaker 4: who's like stealing and photoshopping other war images to pass
Speaker 4: them off as his own in conflict zones. I can't
Speaker 4: remember the guy's name, but it's a thing that happens.
Speaker 4: And you know, a lot of those photos were pulled
Speaker 4: that when that happen. Have you heard of any other
Speaker 4: examples of this kind of thing.
Speaker 3: It's weird because it's a more specific version of the
Speaker 3: old dilemma for technological innovation and legislation. Journalism is attempting
Speaker 3: to make hard guidelines that keep people ethical and honest,
Speaker 3: but those guidelines are often in reaction to this stuff
Speaker 3: that distorts the truth, right, which is anathema to journalism
Speaker 3: as a vocation or as a concept. And it's this
Speaker 3: is not to say, of course, that there's not an expected,
Speaker 3: to your point, measure of sweetening for images, right, Like,
Speaker 3: we know that every for a long time, most of
Speaker 3: the images you see in fashion magazines have been airbrushed
Speaker 3: to an extent, little blemishes removed, and there seems to
Speaker 3: be amid the public an expectation of this and a
Speaker 3: certain degree of tolerance. But after you reach an ill
Speaker 3: defined threshold, then people start reacting adversely. And also, you know,
Speaker 3: as as anybody's worked in film, most particularly doc Holiday
Speaker 3: here can confirm you know, your favorite films have a
Speaker 3: lot of time put into oh what's that specific profession colorist,
Speaker 3: color locking, that kind of stuff, you know, so sure, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 3: that's it. So I think it's it's almost a spectrum.
Speaker 3: It's a matter of degree of editing. And you made
Speaker 3: an excellent point there earlier too, where you're saying, hey,
Speaker 3: a lot of people do this. It's normalized, right, and
Speaker 3: it's convenient through something like a phone app to put
Speaker 3: a filter on, and as long as you're not, you know,
Speaker 3: making yourself look like a h a space bear or
Speaker 3: a German shepherd.
Speaker 4: Then people Yeah. But but again the question then too big, Ben,
Speaker 4: Those are excellent points is what is the intent of
Speaker 4: the photo? You know what I mean? So is it
Speaker 4: newsworthy or is it fashion which doesn't have the expectation
Speaker 4: of newsworthiness per se. This is all stuff basically cooked
Speaker 4: up in a lab, you know. But there have been
Speaker 4: instances where celebrities even where it came out and said
Speaker 4: I didn't like what they did to my legs, you know,
Speaker 4: like I think it was Kate Winslet, another famous Kate
Speaker 4: who there was some vanity fair, vogue or something where
Speaker 4: she said they like reduced the size of her legs
Speaker 4: by a magnitude and did not care for it. And
Speaker 4: then the flip side is Lena Dunham. There was an
Speaker 4: image or a series of images taken of her for
Speaker 4: some you know magazine of that stripe and then the
Speaker 4: Internet released the untouched version and she said she felt
Speaker 4: invaded by them releasing the untouched version because it was
Speaker 4: she you know, took the agency away from her.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it reminds me of Fox News for another context.
Speaker 3: You know, Fox News got in trouble a while back
Speaker 3: because they were, without official knowledge, they were publishing photographs
Speaker 3: of I think primarily folks from the Democratic or party
Speaker 3: or left side of political ideology in the US. They
Speaker 3: were publishing these photographs where the picture happened altered to
Speaker 3: make a nose bigger, to make teeth yellower, things like that,
Speaker 3: Subtle things that you wouldn't necessarily catch. And I think
Speaker 3: you're making an excellent point regarding intent, because we know
Speaker 3: the alteration of photograph of photographs. Excuse me, and the
Speaker 3: plural can be an alteration of history. Shout out Tianaman Square,
Speaker 3: shout out the pie styling photoshop fan.
Speaker 4: Jose of Stalin, and I just my last little thing out.
Speaker 4: I want to hear what you have to say about
Speaker 4: this in terms of the intent. And I can't remember
Speaker 4: there were there was a Verge piece that I read.
Speaker 4: Now I'm scanning through it trying to find the exact quote.
Speaker 4: But it was a really good point that either Mia
Speaker 4: Saddo made in the Verge or or the NPR writer
Speaker 4: made in that piece that was Linda Holmes. But the
Speaker 4: idea that the intent of this photo, it wasn't meant
Speaker 4: to be like a proof of life kind of situation.
Speaker 4: But that is immediately how the Internet took it and
Speaker 4: therefore treated it as this news item for all aburbos.
Speaker 4: That this exactly was what it seemed was as a
Speaker 4: mom making a nice picture with her kids. And also,
Speaker 4: there is no reason to believe there's anything fishy going
Speaker 4: on with Kate Middleton. We didn't even get to the
Speaker 4: whole you know, conspiracy theory behind a divorce because of
Speaker 4: the what's her name, guys, the the Holy Cow, the
Speaker 4: marchionetts of Chambawombley, Charlie im Alder, what was it again?
Speaker 4: I have no idea.
Speaker 2: I just know the Marchioness of Bucket, that's all I know.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's the what I respect, sir.
Speaker 4: Yeah, that's the that's the only one that matters. It
Speaker 4: is the Marchian net of. It's like, it looks like
Speaker 4: it's chom wam delay or something. And apparently Stephen Colbert
Speaker 4: did a bit on it and pronounced it as such
Speaker 4: and was told that it's not pronounced that way. It's
Speaker 4: sort of like, what has it been Wooster? That looks
Speaker 4: like it should be Worchester, Leicester is lester things. Yeah,
Speaker 4: and so it's like Chumbley I think that might be right,
Speaker 4: Chumbley or Chomley.
Speaker 3: It's like if you were if you were a drunk
Speaker 3: child labor in the Victorian era and you were trying
Speaker 3: to say.
Speaker 4: Chimney, yeah exactly, Chimney yeah. Or it's the name of
Speaker 4: your your thieves, your thief master, you know, mister Lmbley.
Speaker 4: You know, he runs like a crooked orphanage or something.
Speaker 4: But in any case, the point of the matter is
Speaker 4: it's a serious surgery, whatever it is. If it's on
Speaker 4: your abdominal and it's it's enough to keep you out
Speaker 4: of the public eye for that long, and chances are
Speaker 4: she just wasn't ready to make an appearance, but wanted
Speaker 4: to show some face for Mother's Day. Whether this was
Speaker 4: a current picture or not was never indicated. It was
Speaker 4: not really intended to be indicated. I don't think, And
Speaker 4: I think it's just a good example of how the
Speaker 4: Internet is a hive of scum and villainy and what's
Speaker 4: the word again, recreational speculators. Matt closing thoughts that I've
Speaker 4: been gab it on this one and I find it fascinating.
Speaker 2: Did you guys see John cena streak at the Oscars?
Speaker 4: I saw, yeah, I saw the stills. I didn't actually watch.
Speaker 3: The hashtag goals. He's forty six.
Speaker 5: I think I think about I think about this situation
Speaker 5: with the royal family as much as I thought.
Speaker 2: About that thing.
Speaker 5: But I again, I enjoy John Cena's bit at the Oscars,
Speaker 5: this whole, this whole thing. I'm just like, hey, whatever,
Speaker 5: it makes me think. It's directly related to the way
Speaker 5: we reacted to the Kim Jong un rumors. Remember every
Speaker 5: time he would go missing, like how many times is
Speaker 5: it now.
Speaker 4: I mean, there's always spent a speculation about putin, you know.
Speaker 5: Yeah, you're like, oh, man, we haven't seen that guy
Speaker 5: like two months is he alive? And then a picture
Speaker 5: would come out like oh this is BS. That's not
Speaker 5: actually right now. I don't know the weekend at Bernie sits,
Speaker 5: you know, the whole thing.
Speaker 4: I don't know.
Speaker 2: It's hard for me to get myself to care about this.
Speaker 4: I think that's fine. Let me make it clear. I
Speaker 4: don't care either, and I'm sure she's fine. But I
Speaker 4: think this is a teachable moment, you know, in terms
Speaker 4: of like what is expected in and again I went
Speaker 4: down some rabbit holes where I was unaware of this,
Speaker 4: like these rules against touching up photos to any degree
Speaker 4: like red eye even you know, for stuff that is
Speaker 4: considered newsworthy and is looked at under the guidelines of journalism,
Speaker 4: you know. And I think the issue is too that
Speaker 4: lines have blurred, you know, between what is news and
Speaker 4: what is entertainment. I think that's a problem. I hear
Speaker 4: that we're probably dealing with the fallout from and will
Speaker 4: be for a very long time. Especially and again, these
Speaker 4: these regulations are more important now than ever because of
Speaker 4: things like AI and much more easy access to doctoring
Speaker 4: software that even the novice can just do. Dep dep
Speaker 4: there it is, you know, somebody's next to somebody else.
Speaker 2: I don't think we talked about yet, and I know
Speaker 2: we need to move on.
Speaker 4: But the whole.
Speaker 5: Gaza conflict. AI generated images that were shown off as
Speaker 5: real for for a while before they were found out
Speaker 5: like just completely AI generated images of Gaza in you know,
Speaker 5: in ruins and false. I don't think happened. It's it's
Speaker 5: you could look it up. It's just it's really it's
Speaker 5: a scary time. We're moving into where I understand why
Speaker 5: people call into question something like that when it comes
Speaker 5: from a source you know that maybe is mistrusted by
Speaker 5: a lot of people, are distrusted by a lot of people.
Speaker 5: But it we're in that world now, we're in that place,
Speaker 5: and I don't know how we get out of it. Uh,
Speaker 5: And it's going to be this way for almost everything.
Speaker 4: I think. I don't think you can put the toothpaste
Speaker 4: back in the tube at this point. AnyWho, Let's take
Speaker 4: a quick break here, a word from our sponsor, and
Speaker 4: then come back with a more piece of strange news.
Speaker 5: All right, we've returned and we are going to hang
Speaker 5: out in our city, Atlanta for a little bit.
Speaker 2: Well, I guess it's y'all city. My city is I guess?
Speaker 4: Oh North?
Speaker 3: Now let me tell people you live when we're on
Speaker 3: the road, you know what I mean, Georgia.
Speaker 5: So, by the way, I just discovered that I'm taking
Speaker 5: a rather long flight very soon for an event we're
Speaker 5: going to be a part of in a Boeing seven
Speaker 5: sixty seven. So yeeha, boys, rolling the dice, love it
Speaker 5: love it is life.
Speaker 3: If not to be lived. Drink, make merry in Buckhead.
Speaker 3: I'm quite excited about this story, madam, Well, interested in
Speaker 3: your take here?
Speaker 2: This is a this is a freaky story.
Speaker 5: It does make me want us to put on our
Speaker 5: detective hats, you know, go hang out at some bars.
Speaker 4: Nay, just start to bar isn' Johnny' hide away at
Speaker 4: Cougar Bar.
Speaker 2: Well, we'll get into it to it. Okay, Sorry, here
Speaker 2: we go?
Speaker 3: Okay, so here we we mean cougar in an affirmational sense,
Speaker 3: A million.
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, go get it, yeah, go get it.
Speaker 2: Whatever that get us stay away from me. Are you
Speaker 2: still sorry for here we go?
Speaker 5: Here is the title and this is crazy. Here's the
Speaker 5: title for NBC News. This is written by Matt Laviette's
Speaker 5: I think that's how you'd say.
Speaker 2: His name is okay.
Speaker 5: Posted on March eleventh, so not long ago, as we're
Speaker 5: recording this on the thirteenth. Here's the title. Young men
Speaker 5: say that they were drugged, kidnapped, robbed of thousands at
Speaker 5: Atlanta bars. I'm going to read some of this verbatim
Speaker 5: because it is really important to get this stuff correct,
Speaker 5: and then we can maybe discuss.
Speaker 4: A little bit.
Speaker 2: Here we go.
Speaker 5: Eight men said they lost consciousness and were robbed of
Speaker 5: thousands of dollars while out at bars in a wealthy
Speaker 5: Atlanta neighborhood from November twenty twenty one until last month,
Speaker 5: and at his buckhead. It's a neighborhood of Atlanta. Here
Speaker 5: we go, let's continue. The men said they believed they
Speaker 5: were drugged or they described feeling abnormally intoxicated shortly before
Speaker 5: their phones were used to transfer thousands of dollars out
Speaker 5: of their bank accounts Nightmare, largely using mobile payment apps
Speaker 5: like you think of what anyone that you use, Venmo
Speaker 5: cash app, Apple Cash, all that stuff, PayPal and also
Speaker 5: their credit cards were used to make fraudulent purchases. Five
Speaker 5: of the eight men also alleged that while they were
Speaker 5: in and out of consciousness, probably drugged right on the
Speaker 5: nights of their encounters, they were driven around Atlanta in
Speaker 5: unfamiliar cars by strangers, and most of the people who
Speaker 5: were interviewed for this had a hazy memory of what happened,
Speaker 5: so again in and out of consciousness, remembering bits and
Speaker 5: pieces of the encounter as they're going. Very scary stuff.
Speaker 5: All of the alleged incidents occurred after men went out
Speaker 5: to bars in Buckhead. It's described here by writer Matt,
Speaker 5: not me, Matt Lavette's as an affluent a landa neighborhood
Speaker 5: known for its vibrant nightlife and young crowd, which is
Speaker 5: something I think we can all attest to. That's what
Speaker 5: I know of Buckhead when I've been in there. That's
Speaker 5: how I would describe it.
Speaker 4: It's not our scene, it's our scene.
Speaker 3: Our old office was there. I used to live there
Speaker 3: once upon a time, off our road.
Speaker 5: I used to live very close to there, and I've
Speaker 5: visited a couple of places we're about to mention because
Speaker 5: four of the men said the alleged crimes occurred at
Speaker 5: this place called Five paces In that I've never been to.
Speaker 5: It's described as a dive bar by most people who
Speaker 5: go to it. Others said incidents took place at three
Speaker 5: other popular bars, a place called thirty th hi r
Speaker 5: T Y Johnny's Hideaway, which is maybe it has a
Speaker 5: reputation because this is how I've also encountered it to
Speaker 5: or how I've heard about it, Noel, as you're describing
Speaker 5: it a bar where there's it's got a bit older
Speaker 5: client but often looking to party with maybe younger folks
Speaker 5: who join up at the at the party there.
Speaker 4: I have heard that from multiple sources. Have not seen
Speaker 4: it firsthand.
Speaker 3: It's I've see it firsthand. It's acquired, you know, it's
Speaker 3: kind of like the local notoriety that you want if
Speaker 3: you're running a public house, similar to how like the Claremont.
Speaker 3: You know, sure, so it's good marketing for them, that
Speaker 3: kind of tongue in cheek demographic advertisement.
Speaker 4: It does borderline, though, have the vibe of like a
Speaker 4: swinger's kind of situation. I wouldn't say.
Speaker 3: It's borderline at all.
Speaker 4: I think, okay, fair enough, I'm just trying to be diplomatic.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I got that Yeah, I got that vibe too
Speaker 5: a little bit. I'm not sure though. But the other
Speaker 5: place is called the Ivy Buckhead.
Speaker 2: It's just known here as.
Speaker 5: The Ivy, and it's it's more of a gosh, I
Speaker 5: don't again, I don't want to talk smack about any
Speaker 5: of these places because they're actually kind of cool. The
Speaker 5: Ivy struck me as more of a bro hangout kind
Speaker 5: of vibe. Yeah, yeah, like maybe college guys or or
Speaker 5: fresh out of college guys just hanging out. So, first
Speaker 5: of all, this thing, this type of crime where you
Speaker 5: are hanging out at a bar, maybe something gets slipped
Speaker 5: into a drink that you've ordered, and then all of
Speaker 5: a sudden you're out of it, and you're saying yes
Speaker 5: to things that you would normally say yes to, or
Speaker 5: you are being manipulated by someone physically by like capacitated.
Speaker 3: Someone says, yeah, this is my buddy Chandler, here's his card.
Speaker 4: He's fine.
Speaker 3: And then especially if this occurs on a high traffic night,
Speaker 3: and again, this is not denigration at all towards the staff,
Speaker 3: towards the people going out to have a good time.
Speaker 3: If you're in the weeds and it's a really busy night.
Speaker 3: Then you want things that are easy to say yes
Speaker 3: to and don't look suspicious. So cool ring out the
Speaker 3: check because I have like eighteen people right now also
Speaker 3: drunk and yelling for drinks. So it's understandable. That's why.
Speaker 3: That's why these predators like where they do. It's opportunitism.
Speaker 4: I would also add to that that a lot of
Speaker 4: these places to me have the vibe of a place
Speaker 4: where there is an expectation of drug use and perhaps
Speaker 4: drug dealing and consumption. It's just a thing, you know,
Speaker 4: It's part of certain scenes and a Johnny's Hideaway type
Speaker 4: vibe just hits me that way, and so it could
Speaker 4: be the kind of place for maybe someone wouldn't notice
Speaker 4: how messed up they were right away, because again a
Speaker 4: not victim blaming here, I'm just trajecturing. But it does
Speaker 4: strike me that way a little bit, because we've seen
Speaker 4: similarities between this and some other crimes at similar types
Speaker 4: of places in other cities.
Speaker 3: Right, Yeah, Yes, I do want to point out two mechs.
Speaker 3: I know we got a lot to get to here.
Speaker 3: I do want to point out just for everybody tuning in, statistically,
Speaker 3: there are probably there are unfortunately definitely fellow conspiracy realists
Speaker 3: in the audience tonight who have been the victims or
Speaker 3: someone has attempted to victimize you through drugging you when
Speaker 3: you were out at a party with what would ordinarily
Speaker 3: be a reasonable expectation of safety. We understand it, We
Speaker 3: have your back. Please don't play around with it. Don't
Speaker 3: drink drinks given to you by strangers, don't leave drinks unattended.
Speaker 3: Please deploy the buddy system. It's just it's not worth it,
Speaker 3: even when law enforcement does their best to address it.
Speaker 5: Absolutely, let's go ahead and address one other thing here,
Speaker 5: or a couple other things. We don't often get to
Speaker 5: hear a big story about men being victims of this
Speaker 5: kind of crime. We often hear about women being sexually
Speaker 5: assaulted and attacked and harassed in these ways at nightclubs,
Speaker 5: at bars, slipping a drug into a drink, and then
Speaker 5: someone you know, predator approaching. It's just not common to
Speaker 5: hear about it. It's something that happens all the time.
Speaker 5: This I think, I don't know. I don't think this
Speaker 5: is directly related to the New York crimes that we
Speaker 5: had heard about guys in the recent past, because that
Speaker 5: was a group of people who are actually awaiting trial
Speaker 5: right now, like all the people that were. There were
Speaker 5: several gay bars in New York that a couple of
Speaker 5: years ago, the same kind of thing was happening. Men
Speaker 5: were being taken from the bar, they were intoxicated way
Speaker 5: too fast, and money was taken out of their accounts,
Speaker 5: both via their phone and like they were driven around
Speaker 5: in the same manner to ATMs where money was taken
Speaker 5: out repeatedly, same kind of crime. And in both of
Speaker 5: these instances though there I think this is just me
Speaker 5: pousiting it. I think because of the neighborhood, there is
Speaker 5: an expectation by these criminals whoever is stealing money from people,
Speaker 5: They believe that patrons who go to these bars are
Speaker 5: going to have more money in their accounts. And it
Speaker 5: appears that that is true, because we're talking ten thousand
Speaker 5: dollars that's sitting in a checking account that was taken out,
Speaker 5: or thirteen thousand dollars in one of the cases, or
Speaker 5: more where bank accoun emptied, and there are tens of
Speaker 5: thousands of dollars in those accounts. So there's a couple
Speaker 5: of different types of targeting that are occurring here. I
Speaker 5: don't know how to protect yourself other than as you said, Ben,
Speaker 5: watch your drink right at all times. The other thing
Speaker 5: is several of the men reported that their assailants used
Speaker 5: their facial recognition to unlost the phones. So they're intoxicated,
Speaker 5: they're half passed out or whatever, and they were these
Speaker 5: assailants were still able to gain access to their phones
Speaker 5: and all of their apps.
Speaker 4: And most of those apps don't have a pen. They'll
Speaker 4: just go, you know, if you get into the phone,
Speaker 4: you're in the app for the most part, or they
Speaker 4: don't have two factor authentication.
Speaker 3: Now, I wanted to ask to the idea of what
Speaker 3: always Sonny would call a brown out, come to and
Speaker 3: fro from consciousness and memory. It seems that from some
Speaker 3: of the reports of the gentleman who came forward, that
Speaker 3: they were perhaps being repeated le dosed yes a period
Speaker 3: of time. Could you tell us a little more about
Speaker 3: that or their their descriptions.
Speaker 2: I'm not going to name the names.
Speaker 5: You can find the names of the men who were
Speaker 5: victims here because oh gosh, six six of the eight
Speaker 5: men actually reached out to the APD and other police
Speaker 5: outfits to report these crimes, and all of the cases
Speaker 5: remain open of those six men that reported, so like,
Speaker 5: there hasn't been any major movement Brandy, you know, finding
Speaker 5: the people who are doing this yet. But in one
Speaker 5: of the cases, at least that I read in the
Speaker 5: NBC News article and some of the follow ups there
Speaker 5: was that one of the men reported waking up and
Speaker 5: there his assailants were basically they noticed, right, and they
Speaker 5: were like, oh, we got to put him back under,
Speaker 5: so they forced.
Speaker 2: Fed him something.
Speaker 5: But it wasn't like it didn't I don't know the
Speaker 5: way it's described as a bit strange.
Speaker 2: Do you have the quote, Ben.
Speaker 3: Yeah, one of these people, and again, as Matt said,
Speaker 3: you can find them, but just out of respect for them,
Speaker 3: we're not gonna we're not gonna like platform their names
Speaker 3: because these guys didn't do anything wrong. To be very clear,
Speaker 3: one victim says, the last thing they remember is being
Speaker 3: at a bar. They're ordering a round of drinks for friends,
Speaker 3: the way you would do in any given night. And
Speaker 3: then he quote then recalls briefly coming to in the
Speaker 3: backseat of an accelerating vehicle while being restrained by an
Speaker 3: unknown person and says, I just remember everything was black
Speaker 3: in there. I was trying to scream but it was
Speaker 3: like a hand was over me, forcing more of that
Speaker 3: substance down my mouth. And the person says it wasn't
Speaker 3: a liquid at this point, it was something solid. They
Speaker 3: just don't know what. Yes, so a pill perhaps.
Speaker 2: We don't know.
Speaker 4: I don't know, right, well, I mean really.
Speaker 5: And just to finish up the encounter with that person,
Speaker 5: it goes on to say he woke up several hours
Speaker 5: later violently throwing up blood in a gas station bathroom
Speaker 5: three miles away from the bar. Oh, like, I can't
Speaker 5: imagine going through that. And he lost thirteen thousand dollars
Speaker 5: that night.
Speaker 4: They must have had some sort of smarts in terms
Speaker 4: of being able to get that much, because you know,
Speaker 4: there are maximums for a zell and things like that
Speaker 4: that are tied to your bank account, or you'd think
Speaker 4: there'd be a block on it.
Speaker 2: Atter.
Speaker 5: Well, these guys went into the person's phone, right, And
Speaker 5: in a couple of cases, it also appears if you guys,
Speaker 5: I guess I'm jumping ahead here, but if you go
Speaker 5: to Google right, and you like, go to Google Maps
Speaker 5: and you search for the five paces in and you
Speaker 5: can check out their reviews. Who knows how many of
Speaker 5: these reviews are a response to some of the reporting.
Speaker 5: You know, sometimes there are reviews that are not genuine there.
Speaker 5: It's almost like piling on when there's bad press about
Speaker 5: a place. But a few of these at least seem
Speaker 5: to be pointing out actual events where a purse was stolen,
Speaker 5: a cell phone was stolen, or one of the you know,
Speaker 5: someone was victimized in this way at this establishment, and
Speaker 5: in a couple of them. It appears that there's enough
Speaker 5: social engineering going on in this busy bar where think
Speaker 5: about how many times if you don't use spatial recognition
Speaker 5: on your phone, you pull up your phone and you
Speaker 5: type your password in real quick? Do you hide every
Speaker 5: time you do that? Do you put your phone away
Speaker 5: and you know, quietly put your number in? Anybody could
Speaker 5: glance over, you know, and just go, oh, I know
Speaker 5: that number.
Speaker 2: Easy.
Speaker 4: You could even see the fingerprints. Oh my god.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think about that a lot. Yeah, and then same,
Speaker 3: I mean, it's the same as a pen number at
Speaker 3: an ATM or you know, a point of sale. There's
Speaker 3: also additionally to this. We we see that there are
Speaker 3: moonlighting cops, there are security officers there. But to be clear,
Speaker 3: without you know, casting unfair aspersion on any of these
Speaker 3: establisablishments of their staff. I think it's really important that
Speaker 3: you pointed out, Matt, there have been similar complaints or
Speaker 3: there have been complaints of theft, complaints of predatory behavior
Speaker 3: and so on for quite some time in that area.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, so how do you fix that? Guys?
Speaker 5: If you want a place to go hang out in
Speaker 5: public with other people and all feel safe, but also
Speaker 5: that sense of you know, I'm out and it's not
Speaker 5: not dangerous, what is the what is the exciting thing
Speaker 5: about a club or a bar like that? Just that
Speaker 5: you're with other people, you are seeing other people in
Speaker 5: being seen, and what is it?
Speaker 3: It's the for a lot of folks. Well, the humans
Speaker 3: are naturally gregarious, right, so there's there's a big thing about,
Speaker 3: especially in a younger demographic or sorry, college age demographic,
Speaker 3: you want to go out, meet and mingle. Tonight might
Speaker 3: be the night that you fall in love for a weekend. Hey,
Speaker 3: you know what I mean?
Speaker 4: Well, there's a certain acceptance too of again letting a
Speaker 4: little looser than you might and certain scenes or bars
Speaker 4: or clubs are even more so that. Right, if you're
Speaker 4: into this kind of thing, or maybe you're into these
Speaker 4: kind of drugs or whatever. This is where you go.
Speaker 4: So there's a certain cocoonness of it all where you're like,
Speaker 4: this is an accepted behavior. I'm in my safe space
Speaker 4: that can very quickly turn into a dangerous space.
Speaker 5: Well, I guess okay, So there are a couple of
Speaker 5: things just my thoughts from that. How I just wonder
Speaker 5: how much of that is controlled by the groups of
Speaker 5: people that end up congregating at those specific locations over time. Right,
Speaker 5: do they create their own culture, like including drugs or
Speaker 5: whatever is occurring there, their own types of people or
Speaker 5: do you think that's the owner and the staff. And
Speaker 5: I think it's way more the human beings that decide
Speaker 5: to congregate over time at a place, Right, I just
Speaker 5: I don't in my mind we were talking about drugs
Speaker 5: in like the places where you go get specific drugs.
Speaker 2: I just don't want to.
Speaker 5: I don't want any of those business owners or you know,
Speaker 5: businesses themselves to be associated with that kind of thing
Speaker 5: because I don't think it's them.
Speaker 2: I think it's just no.
Speaker 4: I'm sinking more generally too. I mean, I'm certainly not.
Speaker 4: I have not been to any of these places. I
Speaker 4: have no idea of reputation. I'm just talking about in general.
Speaker 4: There are certain places people would gravitate to for certain
Speaker 4: types of things.
Speaker 3: It's the oasis problem, okay, or that's the oasis situation right.
Speaker 3: There is a source for congregation and resources that summons
Speaker 3: the preyer. I don't even want to say pray that
Speaker 3: summons the innocent people, and their presence in numbers summons
Speaker 3: the predators. This is a very old thing. It is
Speaker 3: not the fault of the staff. It's not the fault
Speaker 3: of the innocent people. And to bring it all back
Speaker 3: around to look into bit with how our conversation began
Speaker 3: this evening. You know, if you started a church and
Speaker 3: the same sort of activities happened in youth group and
Speaker 3: was open to everybody, and eventually predatory elements would intrude.
Speaker 5: Yeah, well then, but how do you stop it? Extreme security?
Speaker 5: I have like cameras everywhere, so you look at yeah,
Speaker 5: well exactly so everybody.
Speaker 2: But again that might stop it.
Speaker 5: Everybody who comes in and out of the establishment is
Speaker 5: identified basically, but again not probably what you want if
Speaker 5: you're going to a place like that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you want to be a stranger in the night.
Speaker 5: You know, you put it, you put a ton more officers,
Speaker 5: like off duty police officers around. I don't think that
Speaker 5: helps the situation either.
Speaker 2: I don't know. It's just I it freaks me out.
Speaker 5: Because I can't see even the hint of a real
Speaker 5: solution right there.
Speaker 3: There's not really the problem is I mean, the pickle
Speaker 3: of it is the answer. The impossible answer is to
Speaker 3: create a society such that people do not feel driven
Speaker 3: to commit crime to survive, right, or create a society
Speaker 3: that somehow effectively disincentivizes is those actions, Or to somehow
Speaker 3: alter human nature such that people don't drug these folks.
Speaker 3: I mean, some of these folks who got drugged. This
Speaker 3: happens every day in the US. Some of them could
Speaker 3: have died. They were not being administered doses of something
Speaker 3: by a medical professional. They could have eased.
Speaker 5: To date, at least two people died in the New
Speaker 5: York attacks at the gay bars. And again, I don't
Speaker 5: think these are crimes to survive. We're talking tens of
Speaker 5: thousands of dollars. These are crimes for some kind of enterprise,
Speaker 5: criminal enterprise that I think is bigger than just.
Speaker 2: A couple of people.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but we don't know.
Speaker 5: We don't know, but it leads me to believe that.
Speaker 5: I think so this is large amounts of money. All right,
Speaker 5: that's all I've got for this segment of Strange News.
Speaker 5: Please do let us know if you hear anything about
Speaker 5: these cases or if something like this is happening in
Speaker 5: your town.
Speaker 3: Be safe out there, folks. One thing we can say
Speaker 3: for sure, we do not think cap Middleton is related
Speaker 3: to these crimes, but we have not heard a official
Speaker 3: source on that.
Speaker 4: Who's to say?
Speaker 3: Who's to say? Thank you so much for tuning into
Speaker 3: this week's Strange News segment, folks, Thank you for writing in.
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