Speaker 1: Folks, we are returning with a classic episode for you.
Speaker 1: Travel back with us to two thousand and one, where
Speaker 1: something gripped the nation. There was hysteria about it, and
Speaker 1: then people promptly forgot all about the anthrax letter attacks.
Speaker 2: Yep, short memory sometimes, But I'm right there too, Ben,
Speaker 2: I hadn't thought about the two thousand and one anthrax
Speaker 2: letter attacks, which is fun to say in a very
Speaker 2: long time.
Speaker 3: There's weird stuff the saga of these letters and the
Speaker 3: anthrax and the strain and how it got there and
Speaker 3: whether or not there was inside government stuff going on.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and there's also there's also a crazy context because
Speaker 1: this occurs just days after the events of September eleventh,
Speaker 1: two thousand and one, very very strange time for the
Speaker 1: new cycle tragedy for the nation. Even back in twenty
Speaker 1: twenty when we originally recorded this, folks were asking who
Speaker 1: was actually responsible.
Speaker 2: I seem to remember at the time kind of feeling
Speaker 2: this sense of like adding insult to injury with this,
Speaker 2: like after everyone was so you know, turned upside down
Speaker 2: because of nine to eleven, that this just represented like
Speaker 2: a further just destabilization, like everything's just going haywire, you know.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and people were worried about possible false flags or
Speaker 1: trying to amp the country up into a war or
Speaker 1: even you know, to MAT's earlier point, inside forces striking
Speaker 1: out for internal division, and some of the anthrax was
Speaker 1: fake by the way, also we learned later. Anyway, this
Speaker 1: is the episode. We can't wait to hear your thoughts,
Speaker 1: and if you can solve the mystery, we'd love for
Speaker 1: you to solve it for us, because I don't think
Speaker 1: we do in this episode. But tell us what you think.
Speaker 1: We'll be back after a word from our sponsors.
Speaker 4: From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies, history is
Speaker 4: riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
Speaker 4: learn the stuff they don't want you to know. A
Speaker 4: production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: Hello, and welcome back to the show.
Speaker 1: My name is nol Our Rider Die Matt Frederick is
Speaker 1: most likely playing Best Fiends while he's on vacation. They
Speaker 1: called me Ben. We are joined as always with our
Speaker 1: super producer Paul Mission Control Deck and most importantly, you
Speaker 1: are You are here and that makes this stuff they
Speaker 1: don't want you to know. This is a very interesting episode.
Speaker 1: It's one that has fascinated Good Pal Matt for a
Speaker 1: number of years. This episode is something that he cares
Speaker 1: deeply about. So we're gonna do our best to We're
Speaker 1: gonna do our best to make them proud.
Speaker 2: Speaking of Matt, you blasted right by this whole Best
Speaker 2: Fiends business. We got a bombshell yesterday that Matt Frederick
Speaker 2: has reached level seven hundred and sixty four in the
Speaker 2: mobile game Best Fiends. And I don't know whether to
Speaker 2: be proud of him or concerned for him.
Speaker 1: I mean, that's you know, he's nothing if not a
Speaker 1: passionate dude. But I was likewise surprised. Now, you know, Noel,
Speaker 1: if there's one thing that longtime listeners have learned from
Speaker 1: stuff they don't want you to know, it's this. You
Speaker 1: can blast by a lot of headlines. You can get
Speaker 1: a lot of buried leads. The mainstream news is a fickle,
Speaker 1: ephemeral thing. Some stories that seem pretty innocuous can receive
Speaker 1: international attention. Like remember when the world was obsessed over
Speaker 1: figuring out what color address was on Facebook?
Speaker 2: What was the determination ultimately beij was it? What were
Speaker 2: the choices? And how do you even interpret this? Ben?
Speaker 2: With your color deficiency, did you feel that doubt of
Speaker 2: that story.
Speaker 1: No, I wouldn't have participated even if known white color.
Speaker 1: I think it was it was blue, or it was
Speaker 1: gold or as black. There was a whole thing. But
Speaker 1: there are other stories, though, tremendously important stories that seem
Speaker 1: to fade from the spotlight, and they're only followed up
Speaker 1: on by people in specialized internet forums or in specialized
Speaker 1: trade publications. For example, this, this is weird.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 1: Today's story comes to us from josh P. Josh P,
Speaker 1: you emailed us to ask about the anthrax attacks of
Speaker 1: two thousand and one. Now, right as we say that,
Speaker 1: a lot of us in the audience are going, huh, anthrax.
Speaker 1: I kind of remember that, right, I. I know it's
Speaker 1: a thing, But what do you mean? Well, to answer
Speaker 1: that question, we have to first tell you what anthrax is.
Speaker 2: So here are the facts. Yeah, So, just to get
Speaker 2: it out of the way. No, not the thrash metal
Speaker 2: band from the nineties with that ball dude with the
Speaker 2: amazing goatee that you may have seen on episodes of
Speaker 2: Beavis and butthead the CDC describes anthrax as a serious
Speaker 2: infectious disease that's caused by something referred to as gram
Speaker 2: positive rod shaped bacteria referred to as Bacillis anthracis, and
Speaker 2: it is something that can absolutely sicken people when it's
Speaker 2: inhaled or when they are they come into contact with
Speaker 2: infected animals or you know, food stuffs. Another way of
Speaker 2: looking at it is that it's a spore forming bacillus
Speaker 2: that is absolutely deadly to humans. And there are three
Speaker 2: main forms of transmission. Cutaneous which is when you contract
Speaker 2: it through the skin. Gastro Intestinal which of course is
Speaker 2: when you would ingest it when you know, eating a
Speaker 2: contaminated food product. And then there is pulmonary, which is
Speaker 2: mainly what we're going to be talking about today, which
Speaker 2: is when it is inhaled.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, that's that's correct. So so a lot of
Speaker 1: countries have stockpiled anthrax for a long time. When you
Speaker 1: hear people talking about bioweapon research, they're usually referring to
Speaker 1: things like anthrax. Because picture anthrax like picture it like
Speaker 1: an agricultural product. With the right know how, you can
Speaker 1: grow it, you can groom it, and you can change
Speaker 1: it into various various mediums of consumption, right like you said,
Speaker 1: with oral or pulmonary or cutaneous inhalation or ingestion. So
Speaker 1: behind the scenes, while everybody is worrying about what color
Speaker 1: addresses or what the Kardashians are doing, or you know
Speaker 1: what the newest season of your favorite television show is,
Speaker 1: governments and private partnerships around the world are constantly experimenting
Speaker 1: with diseases. They're refining them. You're usually going to hear
Speaker 1: about these in terms of national defense, right, like, like
Speaker 1: I'm sure you know if you went to the CDC,
Speaker 1: they would say, we're not making bioweapons, We're researching vaccines, right,
Speaker 1: We're trying to save people, not harm them, That's right.
Speaker 2: And you might hear a term like weaponized grade you know,
Speaker 2: like weapons grade plutonium or weaponized anthrax, and that just
Speaker 2: means it's refined to the point of being more easily dispersed,
Speaker 2: you know, through say air ducts, you know in a
Speaker 2: building for example, or you know, it's when I say refined,
Speaker 2: I literally mean made into a fine substance that can
Speaker 2: be released and become very very dangerous because it is
Speaker 2: transmitted through you know, airflow in the case of like
Speaker 2: a building or even outdoors. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And when we talk about these experts who are
Speaker 1: working on depending on on what you believe, working on
Speaker 1: either weaponizing diseases or on creating cures for these diseases.
Speaker 1: They also work on plans on scenarios, right, They work
Speaker 1: on what's called emergency preparedness plans.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and the CDC on their website does have an
Speaker 2: emergency preparedness plan in place for an anthrax attack, but
Speaker 2: in my opinion, and I'm no expert, it seems pretty
Speaker 2: broad and kind of vague, almost more of a stop,
Speaker 2: drop and roll situation than actually some sort of larger
Speaker 2: government response plan that's in place. And it's interesting. In
Speaker 2: more recent times, focus truly seems to have shifted away
Speaker 2: from you know, bioterrorism protection and more towards pandemic preparedness.
Speaker 2: Though based on our current situation, that does not seem
Speaker 2: to have worked out quite so well, so you know,
Speaker 2: the jury is still out on that. But bioterrorism was
Speaker 2: much more of a top of mind thing during these
Speaker 2: attacks that we're going to talk about today.
Speaker 1: Right, Yes, fellow conspiracy realist, you may remember this story
Speaker 1: from several years ago, almost twenty years ago now, beginning
Speaker 1: on September eighteenth, two thousand and one, just a week
Speaker 1: after literally just a week after the infamous terrorist attacks.
Speaker 1: On September eleventh, two thousand and one, someone started mailing
Speaker 1: letters laced with anthrax. They sent these to several places AB, NBCCBS,
Speaker 1: the New York Post, American Media. That's that's such a
Speaker 1: benign name. American Media is probably best known as the
Speaker 1: publisher of the National Enquirer, a quite popular tabloid here
Speaker 1: in the US. And they also sent someone sent these
Speaker 1: sent anthrax leased letters to members of Congress.
Speaker 2: That's correct, two Democratic Senators Tom Dashel and Patrick Lahey.
Speaker 2: On October second, two thousand and one, the gentleman at
Speaker 2: the American Media building in Florida, which is again the
Speaker 2: parent company of the National Inquirer and also The Sun,
Speaker 2: a photo editor by the name of Robert Stevens, opened
Speaker 2: an innocuously labeled envelope and was exposed to anthrax. There
Speaker 2: were various methods in these letters of dispersal, but like
Speaker 2: some of them were more successful than others. And I
Speaker 2: believe this is one where he pulled something out of
Speaker 2: the envelope and it actually kind of ejected powder into
Speaker 2: his face and he really took a deep whiff of
Speaker 2: this substance.
Speaker 1: Yep, absolutely, that's correct. Two days later, October fourth, two
Speaker 1: thousand and one, Robert Stevens is diagnosed with what's called
Speaker 1: inhalational anthrax, meaning he ingested it just the way you
Speaker 1: described nol. Robert Stevens dies the next day, October fifth,
Speaker 1: two thousand and one, and three days later, authorities start
Speaker 1: running tests on his office, on his workspace, and they
Speaker 1: find that his computer keyboard also tests positive for anthrax.
Speaker 1: This was only the first confirmed death overall so far
Speaker 1: as we know today. In twenty twenty, the anthrax attacks
Speaker 1: of two thousand and one left seventeen people infected and
Speaker 1: five people died. Five people died from exposure to anth
Speaker 1: This became a international story, and the problem with some
Speaker 1: of these international stories is that for one reason or another,
Speaker 1: copycats come into play.
Speaker 2: That's right. There was another copycat crime that occurred when
Speaker 2: someone else mailed fake anthrax in the form of just
Speaker 2: a harmless white powder, possibly baby powder or something like
Speaker 2: that to the New York Times newsroom, and it was
Speaker 2: opened by a reporter named Judith Miller. And it really
Speaker 2: just goes to show, because of what you said, Ben,
Speaker 2: that this truly just was a massive story because it
Speaker 2: was in the wake of nine to eleven, where people
Speaker 2: were just so on edge already and just really believing
Speaker 2: that terrorism was coming at us from all directions, and
Speaker 2: the close proximity to that attack on the World Trade
Speaker 2: Center buildings really got people freaked out, and the FBI
Speaker 2: acted accordingly, launching what they refer to as one of
Speaker 2: the largest and most complex investigations in the history of
Speaker 2: law enforcement and involved multiple agencies and thousands of hours
Speaker 2: of investigative time.
Speaker 1: So what did they find. Well, we have to remember,
Speaker 1: as you said, that this occurred right after nine to eleven.
Speaker 1: It is impossible to convey just how alert, how tense,
Speaker 1: how crisis ready government agencies were. You have to remember, folks,
Speaker 1: that war was in the air way before the anthrax.
Speaker 1: It was already floating around, and war is its own
Speaker 1: sort of infectious weapon, right, its own sort of disease.
Speaker 1: The FBI scrambled and assembled what I think is a
Speaker 1: terribly named task force, the Amerthrax Task Force. We didn't
Speaker 1: write that, they wrote that.
Speaker 2: It just does not really right off the tug, does it.
Speaker 2: But you know, name aside, it was a serious business.
Speaker 2: Roughly twenty five to thirty full time investigators from the
Speaker 2: FBI and the US Postal Inspection Service and multiple other
Speaker 2: law enforcement agencies, as well as federal prosecutors from the
Speaker 2: District of Columbia and the Justice Department Counter Terrorism Section.
Speaker 2: And as we said before, thousands of investigator work hours
Speaker 2: were involved. That led to ten thousand witness interviews on
Speaker 2: six different continents, execution of eighty search warrants, and the
Speaker 2: recovery of more than six thousand items of potential evidence
Speaker 2: during this investigation.
Speaker 1: And you heard that right, six different continents. So that
Speaker 1: means that the Amerithrax Task Force literally asked people everywhere
Speaker 1: except for Antarctica. Somehow the folks in Antarctica slipped under
Speaker 1: the radar. This case also ended up issuing more than
Speaker 1: five seven hundred and fifty subpoenas for grand juries. They
Speaker 1: collected five thousand, seven hundred and thirty environmental samples from
Speaker 1: sixty different places they were on the search. This this investigation,
Speaker 1: in addition to being very expensive, was very thorough. Here's
Speaker 1: here's what they found. Here's how it shakes out. So
Speaker 1: FBI agents trace the first wave of letters to a
Speaker 1: single postmark. It's these letters came from Trenton, New Jersey,
Speaker 1: and that's the first five letters. They had a theme
Speaker 1: of sorts. You know, the letters weren't blank when people
Speaker 1: opened the envelope, there was something written in there. And
Speaker 1: we've got we've got the text of these. Let's let's
Speaker 1: maybe start with the letter sent to New York Post
Speaker 1: and NBC.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, And by the way, if you want, you can
Speaker 2: look up images of these. They've been cataloged and photographed
Speaker 2: and you can see them. They're all handwritten in kind
Speaker 2: of a weird, childish script. It's very Serial Killer esque, honestly,
Speaker 2: the way the way they appear, and the notes really
Speaker 2: lean into that. Even further so. The one said to
Speaker 2: the New York Posts and the NBC News had this
Speaker 2: note nine to eleven oh one, this is next. Take
Speaker 2: penicillin now. Cool pro tip death to America, death to Israel.
Speaker 2: Allah is great. Okay, it seems to have escalated there
Speaker 2: to a little different place. But I appreciate the advice
Speaker 2: about taking penicillin. I think that's actually really helpful.
Speaker 1: You know, they also misspelled penicillin, by the way, it's true.
Speaker 2: But also by the way, you know, people think of
Speaker 2: anthrax and they think, like, I don't know, your mind
Speaker 2: immediately goes to some sort of face melting, you know,
Speaker 2: bio terror product, and it really just sickens you. It
Speaker 2: can make you nauseous, and it's the respiratory thing that
Speaker 2: can obviously kill you in the same way that COVID
Speaker 2: nineteen can. I mean, it can escalate much more quickly.
Speaker 2: But it is treatable with regular antibiotics. You know, it's
Speaker 2: not a death sentence always. It's caught in enough time,
Speaker 2: so it's not some kind of magical thing. It literally
Speaker 2: is just a disease that can be treated with the antibiotics.
Speaker 1: And we should note instantly, you know, the FBI investigators
Speaker 1: had to say, well, is this a person writing English
Speaker 1: as a second language, you know, or the ESL. Is
Speaker 1: that why penicilan is misspelled? And of course you know,
Speaker 1: there was a lot of anti Muslim sentiment at the time.
Speaker 1: The letters sent to Senators Dashel and Lee he said
Speaker 1: said very similar things. They said, you cannot stop us.
Speaker 1: We have this anthrax. You die now, are you afraid?
Speaker 1: Death to America, death to Israel Allah is great. So
Speaker 1: clearly they're coming from the same source, just based on
Speaker 1: the language there. You know, it is very difficult to
Speaker 1: describe the level of panic that occurs here. We have
Speaker 1: to remember this is again a week after the largest
Speaker 1: attack on American soil in recent US history.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so, I mean, obviously the first go to is
Speaker 2: to investigate Al Qaeda. The White House pressured then FBI
Speaker 2: Director Robert Muller to establish the letters were a second
Speaker 2: wave of attacks relating to nine to eleven. And it's
Speaker 2: always tough when you know, the brass kind of tells
Speaker 2: you what results to get, you know what I mean,
Speaker 2: because the question is like, you know, sure we can
Speaker 2: read these and say, okay, is it an ESL situation
Speaker 2: or is it someone trying to write in that voice
Speaker 2: as to create that effect, you know what I mean,
Speaker 2: to maybe cause that kind of panic. So yeah, obviously
Speaker 2: that didn't pan out, this notion that this was in
Speaker 2: fact the second wave, but that was whatever one thought.
Speaker 2: I mean, it was just the first place your mind
Speaker 2: would go. Hence the hysteria that was just you know,
Speaker 2: in the air in our country at that time. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And Muller was definitely under pressure, but you know,
Speaker 1: from his estimation, the facts just weren't there. There wasn't
Speaker 1: there was one potential link. One of the nine to
Speaker 1: eleven terrorists was exposed to anthrax at some point, but
Speaker 1: that was that was pretty much all they could find.
Speaker 1: The initial actual suspects of the investigation ended up all
Speaker 1: being domestic US residents. There were probably about one hundred
Speaker 1: people or so who would have the know how, just
Speaker 1: to know how alone, just the expertise, not even the
Speaker 1: motivation of the opportunity. The FBI first turned to a
Speaker 1: man named Stephen J. Hatfil. Doctor Hatfhil is alive today.
Speaker 1: He is a pathologist, he's a bioweapons expert, and the
Speaker 1: FBI ruined his life.
Speaker 2: Yeah, for all intents and purposes. In mid two thousand
Speaker 2: and two, the FBI served him with a search warrant
Speaker 2: of his home, wearing hazmat suits, investigating whether he was
Speaker 2: in fact this anthrax killer, as was dubbed in the
Speaker 2: media at the time. He was at that point considered
Speaker 2: a major person of interest. His phone was tapped, he
Speaker 2: got fired from his job at Science Applications International Corporation. Yeah,
Speaker 2: like you said, Ben, I mean this really, you know,
Speaker 2: in the terms of the court of public opinion and
Speaker 2: just his other associations professionally, this absolutely railroaded him. He
Speaker 2: did ultimately get exonerated. He was very, very public exoneration.
Speaker 2: There's a great clip of him where he says, and
Speaker 2: now I can look my fellow Americans in the eye
Speaker 2: and say unequivocally I am not the anthrac killer, you know.
Speaker 2: And he definitely got some money where his mouth was,
Speaker 2: in the form of five point eight million from the
Speaker 2: Justice Department and in two other undisclosed settlements from some
Speaker 2: of these other agencies that were involved. It was very
Speaker 2: clear that they were acting on spurious evidence at best
Speaker 2: and made really jump the gun on nailing this guy.
Speaker 2: And the way they did.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I like that you bring up the court of
Speaker 1: public opinion. One of those groups that reached an undisclosed
Speaker 1: settlement with him was Conde Nast. It's a huge player
Speaker 1: in the media. They own Reddit for instance. So Hathhil. Luckily,
Speaker 1: if you're listening, doctor Hail, we are glad that you
Speaker 1: were able to be exonerated for a crime that you
Speaker 1: clearly did not commit. But it's tough to recover from
Speaker 1: that sort of stuff. He was ultimately found innocent of
Speaker 1: this crime. The primary conclusion of the FBI, the official story,
Speaker 1: is this. They concluded that a scientist named Bruce Ivans,
Speaker 1: acting alone, was the source of the entirety of the
Speaker 1: anthrax attacks, and he has if you're a profiler, he
Speaker 1: has all of the right red flags in all of
Speaker 1: the right places. He worked directly with anthrax. He was
Speaker 1: one of those people that we mentioned at the top
Speaker 1: of the show who develops vaccines. So he was working
Speaker 1: with anthrax officially to develop vaccines in case some other
Speaker 1: government had a weaponized strain that they deployed in the
Speaker 1: US or in a battlefield.
Speaker 2: And Ben wasn't he even involved in the investigation to
Speaker 2: a degree.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he volunteered, right, He volunteered to test samples. He
Speaker 1: sent samples from his own lab. He was around fifty
Speaker 1: five years old when the anthrax attacks occurred. He said,
Speaker 1: you know, I will help you determine the origin of
Speaker 1: the powder. Because everybody in the scientific community, everybody in
Speaker 1: the FBI, they knew only a few people in the
Speaker 1: world would even understand the science evolved here. So remember
Speaker 1: that part for later, folks. This guy volunteered to help
Speaker 1: the FBI determine the origin of the powder.
Speaker 2: And let's not forget how much pressure the FBI was under,
Speaker 2: especially since this public exoneration and having that egg on
Speaker 2: their face from wasting all those millions of dollars and
Speaker 2: thousands of hours, you know, focusing on the wrong purp.
Speaker 2: Doctor Ivans was literally right under their noses. I mean
Speaker 2: he was working, you know, in their labs essentially. I
Speaker 2: mean he was an agent of the government, and he, uh,
Speaker 2: you know, was kind of a goofball. He was he
Speaker 2: was sort of a kook like. He was described as
Speaker 2: being a bit arrogant and something of a flamboyant figure.
Speaker 2: And you know, that was a term that was thrown around.
Speaker 2: I'm not sure if if that's meant to be a
Speaker 2: pejorative or just that he was kind of a little
Speaker 2: bit of kookie. That's kind of the vibe that I got,
Speaker 2: but not necessarily a red flag in terms that he
Speaker 2: seemed like some kind of sociopath. He would send these
Speaker 2: like chipper emails with bad dad jokes, which I can
Speaker 2: get behind, as he talked through the dangers of anthrax.
Speaker 2: But he was by some seen as being a bit disturbed.
Speaker 1: Yes, that's correct, behind those puns, behind those cheerful exclamation
Speaker 1: marks and tangents in his emails which the FBI obtained.
Speaker 1: Of course, he had a lot of trauma. His therapist
Speaker 1: said that he had a traumatic childhood and was described
Speaker 1: as disturbing, and he himself as an adult seemed to
Speaker 1: be disturbed. He was a married man, but back in
Speaker 1: nineteen seventy six he was jilted by a fellow grad
Speaker 1: student who would go on to be a colleague in
Speaker 1: this field, a doctor Nancy Haigwood. And since he was
Speaker 1: jilted again back in nineteen seventy six, he had apparently
Speaker 1: become obsessed with her old sorority Kapa Kapa Gamma, and
Speaker 1: sororities in general. One of boss. Yeah, yeah, he would
Speaker 1: sit outside of sorority houses, just sit in this car,
Speaker 1: and he would, you know, when he met a colleague
Speaker 1: who was affiliated with a sorority, he would instantly start,
Speaker 1: I don't know, like pressuring them, cracking down. He got
Speaker 1: weird with it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, But there's also part of me that like, is
Speaker 2: he just socially awkward and maybe a bit on the spectrum,
Speaker 2: or is this stockery kind of rapee behavior in saying
Speaker 2: what's your secret password? What's your secret handshake? It seems
Speaker 2: kind of like a goofball way of flirting, like saying,
Speaker 2: ha ha, what's your secret handshake? You know what I mean?
Speaker 2: As opposed to something genuinely creepy. But he was described
Speaker 2: as as having an interest intellectually in secret things.
Speaker 1: Yeah he uh this this recollection comes from one of
Speaker 1: his former bosses, doctor Priscilla Weirrick. She had a she
Speaker 1: was in a sorority in college chi Omega, and she
Speaker 1: said that he was doing exactly what you described, nol.
Speaker 1: He was always saying, you know, what's your what's your
Speaker 1: secret password, what's your secret handshake? So she thought that
Speaker 1: he was just maybe, as you said, a guy was
Speaker 1: a little bit off, brilliant but a little bit awkward
Speaker 1: who was really interested in secret things. The person we
Speaker 1: mentioned earlier, doctor Nancy Hagwood, is the person who actually
Speaker 1: brought doctor Bruce even to the attention of the FBI.
Speaker 1: So what was their official conclusion. We'll tell you after
Speaker 1: a word from our sponsor and we're back. So Noel, officially,
Speaker 1: there's no reason for us to look into this for
Speaker 1: stuff they don't want you to know, because the FBI
Speaker 1: has an official conclusion.
Speaker 2: Right, Nothing I trust more than an official FBI conclusion. Ben,
Speaker 2: Let me tell you so. Yeah, it's true. Today, the
Speaker 2: FBI's official position is that doctor Bruce Ivans was a
Speaker 2: lone wolf acted without any influence outside of his own
Speaker 2: troubled mind, and that he executed these anthrax attacks alone.
Speaker 2: And there's some things that check out here. He had
Speaker 2: the know how, he had the access, he had the
Speaker 2: opportunity to do these things, but he never can. And
Speaker 2: to boot he's not in prison. Doctor Bruce Ivans took
Speaker 2: his own life. He was discovered on July twenty seventh,
Speaker 2: two thousand and eight, unconscious in his home and taken
Speaker 2: to the hospital. He had overdosed, apparently on Thailand. All three,
Speaker 2: I think is what it's called. It's a combination of
Speaker 2: tilanol and codeine that you'd get for a toothache or
Speaker 2: a minor surgery, but taken in large doses, is actually
Speaker 2: the tile in all that kills you.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yep. He died at Frederick Memorial Hospital on July
Speaker 1: twenty ninth, two thousand and eight. The FBI had found
Speaker 1: their bad guy. They would never have to investigate further.
Speaker 1: They established, to their you know, to their satisfaction, the timeline.
Speaker 1: They established that he did, as you said, have the expertise.
Speaker 1: They established that he did have the opportunity do what
Speaker 1: a note, by the way, there was no official autopsy
Speaker 1: there's not one. There's not one on the record, because again,
Speaker 1: there's this pressure we got to close the case. You know,
Speaker 1: it's it's something that's very familiar to fans of shows
Speaker 1: like The Wire. The FBI found their guy, but their
Speaker 1: guy didn't have a day in court.
Speaker 2: No, if Ivan's dead, the FBI would never have to
Speaker 2: prove their case to a jury. And we're going to
Speaker 2: get into, you know, what their case was as we
Speaker 2: progress with this episode. But what if Ben, what if
Speaker 2: the official story kind of peters out in eight What
Speaker 2: if another story begins because the case against Bruce Ivans
Speaker 2: isn't nearly as ironclad as the news media and the
Speaker 2: press conferences and briefings from the FBI would have had
Speaker 2: viewers and citizens of the United States believe.
Speaker 1: You see, one thing that was missing from the FBI's case,
Speaker 1: one of several things was a real motive. There wasn't
Speaker 1: one established. And this means that in the almost a
Speaker 1: decade between when these attacks occurred and when this podcast publishes,
Speaker 1: theories have proliferated. Speculation thrives even now about what actually happened.
Speaker 1: The big question, the big what if here is what
Speaker 1: if after millions of dollars and thousands of hours. The
Speaker 1: FBI nailed the wrong man. Here's where it gets crazy. No,
Speaker 1: let's like motivation, right. I love that you pointed out
Speaker 1: the flamboyant thing, but the FBI didn't ever have like
Speaker 1: a clear discernible reason.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 2: And another thing we know from like murder shows is
Speaker 2: you know, some murders don't have to have a motive.
Speaker 2: It's not like a requirement. But with such an analytical
Speaker 2: guy like this and such a pointed, targeted attack, a motive.
Speaker 2: I would like to hear a little bit more about
Speaker 2: a motive, you know what I mean? Like, I mean,
Speaker 2: these were very specific individuals, politicians, news outlets that these
Speaker 2: letters were sent to, seemingly for what you know, we
Speaker 2: really just don't have the guy just crack. And if so,
Speaker 2: why such a specific, targeted and pointed attack. Again, we're
Speaker 2: not owed a motive. It's not a necessity to you know,
Speaker 2: convict somebody of a crime. The possible motivations, like the
Speaker 2: idea that he mailed anthrax NBC is a way of
Speaker 2: punishing them. For journalist Gary Matsumoto's work on his lab
Speaker 2: that fell apart. Because Matsumoto worked at ABC, not NBC.
Speaker 2: He had written some not very flattering stories about some
Speaker 2: of some of Ivan's research. Ben, isn't that right, Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 2: that's correct.
Speaker 1: He did an investigation into the actual lab that doctor
Speaker 1: Bruce Ivans was working at. But again he worked for
Speaker 1: ABC not NBC, so that that motivation doesn't add up,
Speaker 1: because if Ivans did this, he would have at least
Speaker 1: been aware of which news organization this journalist was working
Speaker 1: for at the time. Additionally, doctor Ivans passed a Lie
Speaker 1: detector test a polygraph polygraphs. We should mention here I've
Speaker 1: got a brain stuff episode about this. I think they're
Speaker 1: not scientifically sound, but it is rare for a guilty
Speaker 1: person to pass Lie detector tests usually unless you know
Speaker 1: a few handy tricks here. They are really quick. Not
Speaker 1: saying that you should ever lie on a polygraph, but
Speaker 1: if you want to pass a polygraph test, again, because
Speaker 1: they are not scientifically sound, you can employ any number
Speaker 1: of tricks, including doing some things to mess with your
Speaker 1: own body temperature, such as meditation, et cetera. You can
Speaker 1: this is is fairly explicit, but back in the day
Speaker 1: people used to just really flex their kegel muscle for
Speaker 1: an extended amount of time. That'll do it. You could
Speaker 1: put thumb tacks in your palm or and your shoe.
Speaker 1: Of course, there are a number of ways to invalidate it.
Speaker 2: Because it's all about sort of messing with that base level,
Speaker 2: that baseline, right, and then you know, because what's the
Speaker 2: polygraph if not just kind of a slightly you know,
Speaker 2: more complex like stress test. So if you can establish
Speaker 2: a baseline using that thumb tack in your palm, that's
Speaker 2: you know, sort of an elevated baseline, then everything else
Speaker 2: is going to kind of you know, be affected by
Speaker 2: that absolutely.
Speaker 1: And and we also know that during the investigation, even
Speaker 1: right after the conclusion of the investigation and right after
Speaker 1: it was re examined, first in two thousand and eight,
Speaker 1: then in twenty eleven, a lot of people, people in power,
Speaker 1: some like victims of these attacks, did not believe the
Speaker 1: FBI's conclusion. They thought it didn't add up.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Even Senator Patrick Leahy, who you'll remember was the
Speaker 2: target of one of the attacks, testify that he did
Speaker 2: not believe that Ivans acted alone, though Senator Dashel, who
Speaker 2: was the other political target, did not agree with that assessment.
Speaker 2: So in two thousand and eight, FBI Director Robert Mueller figured, Okay,
Speaker 2: if there's doubt, you know that's being publicly stated, let's
Speaker 2: get to the bottom of this, and he called for
Speaker 2: an independent review of the investigation by the National Academy
Speaker 2: of Sciences, and that review found that prosecutors had largely
Speaker 2: overstated the case in the certainty of their findings. Members
Speaker 2: of that committee said that there there were some newly
Speaker 2: available methods for testing these these samples of anthrax to
Speaker 2: prove the FBI's case much more definitively or lead to
Speaker 2: some other suspects, but they were not interested in exploring
Speaker 2: such such tests. They relied on some I believe it
Speaker 2: was a sort of a fingerprint to trace it back
Speaker 2: to what they referred to as a flask of anthrax
Speaker 2: that Ivans had control over. And it has a coded
Speaker 2: kind of ID that I'm having a hard time finding
Speaker 2: right now, but it's like two letters, a dash and
Speaker 2: three numbers. And the technique involved tracing these particular mutations
Speaker 2: that they could, you know, kind of match up with
Speaker 2: the with the actual the flask that were it originated.
Speaker 2: And apparently they tested more than a thousand samples throughout
Speaker 2: this investigation and only eight of them had tested positive
Speaker 2: for four of these mutations found in the germs that
Speaker 2: were sent to Congress and the news media. So this
Speaker 2: caused an issue. Even in the early stages of the investigation,
Speaker 2: there was a group of scientists known as the Red
Speaker 2: Team that said the FBI should do more basic research
Speaker 2: and so why those mutations might have arisen, that it
Speaker 2: wasn't a foregone conclusion just because the mutations existed, that
Speaker 2: they necessarily were traced back to that original flask, and
Speaker 2: that this woman named Jennifer Smith, who is a senior
Speaker 2: manager at the FBI's lab, she expressed those concerns and
Speaker 2: didn't feel that the FBI had a kind of full
Speaker 2: understanding of how these mutations might have arisen and how
Speaker 2: this would be seen by a judge, and how it
Speaker 2: could potentially be thrown out entirely.
Speaker 1: Right, right, this science is vital here that specific let's say,
Speaker 1: brand or type of anthrax flask RMR ten twenty nine.
Speaker 1: The reason we know this is because everything should be
Speaker 1: obsessively documented in the field of biohazard research or bioweapons.
Speaker 1: Right if you are working in the kind of lab
Speaker 1: or situation that doctor Ivans was working in at the time,
Speaker 1: your interactions with every single version of every single contagion
Speaker 1: has to be documented, right, so that we know looking
Speaker 1: at the records, we know every time the guy was
Speaker 1: in his lab. We know that his time in the
Speaker 1: lab on weekends and nights accelerated, right, He was spending
Speaker 1: a lot of time there before the attacks occurred, and
Speaker 1: we should know everything the guy touched. But even now,
Speaker 1: even in twenty twenty, just it's like the experts you
Speaker 1: mentioned earlier, Nol. We find large groups of people, including
Speaker 1: some of the doctor's colleagues and some of his professional rivals,
Speaker 1: who are convinced that this man was innocent. And you know,
Speaker 1: the basis for their belief is not that they are
Speaker 1: in a Bruce Edward Ivans fan club. In fact, one
Speaker 1: of the reasons that a lot of people say he's
Speaker 1: innocent is that they say the attacks were too sophisticated
Speaker 1: for this guy to have figured out himself. The argument
Speaker 1: is basically, yes, he had to know how and the
Speaker 1: expertise to experiment with anthrax and maybe even to grow
Speaker 1: this particular strain, but he had no training in the
Speaker 1: delivery of bioweapons, which I think goes right to your
Speaker 1: earlier point about how botched this attack was.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's true, and that all, honestly to me, in
Speaker 2: some ways makes it seem like it could have been him,
Speaker 2: because if it were executed by a more you know,
Speaker 2: savvy group, then they maybe would have had a better
Speaker 2: delivery method because you know, anthrax is toxic up to
Speaker 2: the tiniest particles, and like we said at the top
Speaker 2: of the show, you know, if dispersed through a ducts
Speaker 2: of an office building could potentially infect thousands of people.
Speaker 2: And as we know, the fatality count and even just
Speaker 2: the people that were sickened by these was relatively quite low,
Speaker 2: you know. So, yeah, definitely didn't seem like it went
Speaker 2: as planned. But at the same time, the spores of
Speaker 2: anthrax were like Walter White, Breaking Bad level, like strong,
Speaker 2: high quality. You could, you know, call them something along
Speaker 2: the lines of weapons grade, which is, you know, sort
Speaker 2: of a vague term that doesn't necessarily mean one thing,
Speaker 2: but it's the type basically, you know, the finest anthrax
Speaker 2: grade that can be produced for bioweapons programs in either
Speaker 2: the US or somewhere like Russia.
Speaker 1: To interject here, yeah, the reason I think Breaking Bad
Speaker 1: is a great comparison. This is like the blue meth
Speaker 1: level of weaponized anthrax. There's a there's a scary thing
Speaker 1: here that often gets ignored in this story, which is
Speaker 1: this the spores of anthrax not to get too far
Speaker 1: in the weeds. They were only one point five to
Speaker 1: three micrometers wide individual spores. And it is fine grade.
Speaker 1: You're correct, it is Walter White level. This type of
Speaker 1: anthrax is smaller than the officially acknowledged or even open
Speaker 1: secret level bioweapons created by the US or by Russia.
Speaker 1: That should disturb people because that means that someone somewhere
Speaker 1: is making something that neither world power there acknowledges.
Speaker 2: Which isn't that much of a stretch. We know that
Speaker 2: governments hold back technology all the time, you know, and
Speaker 2: keep it for a military use, and they wouldn't necessarily
Speaker 2: want to broadcast that they have that. That's not something
Speaker 2: that they just like announce, Hey, we made a scarier
Speaker 2: version of anthrax. You guys like check it out, But no,
Speaker 2: it's it's it's true. And again when we say fine grade,
Speaker 2: we literally are talking about the particulate size, because that's
Speaker 2: what allows it to be just dispersed, like the wind
Speaker 2: can pick it up like a you know, a dandylion
Speaker 2: down and just carry it across the land, infecting you know,
Speaker 2: everything in its path potentially, and obviously you have to
Speaker 2: breathe it in. But these are you know that they
Speaker 2: could be you know, just millions of tiny, tiny, tiny
Speaker 2: particles in an envelope a full of powder, a powdered
Speaker 2: version of this stuff, right, and.
Speaker 1: You're opening it indoors. Yeah, and there are a lot
Speaker 1: of people around, so yeah, you know, at the risk
Speaker 1: of sounding cold, it is surprising that only seventeen people
Speaker 1: were infected.
Speaker 2: Uh.
Speaker 1: There's another problem with this official conclusion, and that's the
Speaker 1: doctor Ivans colleagues and people familiar with the lab can
Speaker 1: confirm that the lab equipment cited in the FBI conclusion,
Speaker 1: the lab equipment that he would have to have used
Speaker 1: to create this stuff and to disperse it, that lab
Speaker 1: equipment was not working. He did not have the capability
Speaker 1: to make the spores if he were using the equipment
Speaker 1: in that lab full stop. It was there. Yes, yeah,
Speaker 1: the know how, but that equipment was broken down at
Speaker 1: the time, you know what I mean. You can see
Speaker 1: how this gets messy so quickly.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you absolutely can. And just again to clarify, like
Speaker 2: the we're talking about the flask that would be sort
Speaker 2: of like the mother right, Like that's sort of the
Speaker 2: origin material for what he would have used to then
Speaker 2: I guess propagate them or grow them into you know,
Speaker 2: a more usable version of of anthrax, and then you know,
Speaker 2: make it into the powder. So yeah, that would require
Speaker 2: a lot of know how and a lot of very
Speaker 2: sophisticated equipment. And if it wasn't working in his lab,
Speaker 2: what did he like have a secret lab like at
Speaker 2: his house. I mean maybe you know, who are we
Speaker 2: to say? But it definitely was highly unlikely that he
Speaker 2: made it with its broken down equipment at his lab.
Speaker 2: And numerous government officials and scientists also believe that this
Speaker 2: official story doesn't add up. And there are numerous theories
Speaker 2: that have kind of circulated in the years since this
Speaker 2: conclusion about doctor Ivans, And we're going to get into
Speaker 2: all of those after a quick word from our sponsor.
Speaker 1: And we're back. Yes, the conspiracies, the theories, the speculation thrives, proliferates,
Speaker 1: And to be clear, the people who are proposing these
Speaker 1: alternative conclusions or these problems with the official investigation, they're
Speaker 1: not what you would call tenfoil hat people. They include
Speaker 1: people who were working with the FBI and the investigation.
Speaker 1: They include scientists, They include experts and anthrax and they
Speaker 1: have a lot of valid concerns here. Doctor Ivans, as
Speaker 1: I believe we said at the top, was only one
Speaker 1: of at least one hundred people who could have worked
Speaker 1: with this specific brand of anthrax. Of course, RMR ten
Speaker 1: twenty nine not the sexiest name, but it's a technical term,
Speaker 1: the first.
Speaker 2: Superior to RMR ten twenty eight. Oh my god, I mean, really,
Speaker 2: it was a good year. Don't even talk to me
Speaker 2: about ten twenty eight. Are you kidding? Ten twenty nine?
Speaker 1: Come on, that's the connoisseur's choice apparently, But he was like,
Speaker 1: he was not the only person who would have touched this. Also,
Speaker 1: the FBI did not have a peer review of their
Speaker 1: conclusions of the scientific end of it during their investigation.
Speaker 1: The science, in short, to be very clear, the science
Speaker 1: was not there.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Taking it a step further, even a twenty eleven
Speaker 2: review of the investigation was not able to rule out
Speaker 2: the possibility that someone or some group other than Ivan's
Speaker 2: committed the crime. The Government Accountability Office or GAL as
Speaker 2: I like to call it, because I'm an acronym Junkie
Speaker 2: found this quote. The FBI lacked a comprehensive approach or
Speaker 2: framework that could have ensured standardization of the testing process.
Speaker 2: We jumped into that a little early when we were
Speaker 2: talking about testing for that mutation or those mutations, and
Speaker 2: how people even within the FBI's lab kind of warned
Speaker 2: them against you jumping to conclusions about what could have
Speaker 2: caused those mutations. They could have been something outside of
Speaker 2: what they were using it as a kind of a
Speaker 2: foregone conclusion and tracing it back. It's sort of like,
Speaker 2: I don't know, maybe this is a stretch, and science
Speaker 2: people please debunk the crap out of me, because I'm
Speaker 2: just sort of spitballing here. But it reminds me of
Speaker 2: the way certain ballistics technology have kind of been debunked,
Speaker 2: where you can, you know, say the striations or whatever
Speaker 2: like on a particular bullet could have only been generated
Speaker 2: by this one gun. And there's a version of that
Speaker 2: technology that was in fact debunked, and it caused some
Speaker 2: people to be exonerated because they were convicted using that
Speaker 2: kind of spurious conclusion derived from, you know, something that
Speaker 2: could have been caused by other factors. So they go
Speaker 2: on to say the Government Accountability Office. As a result,
Speaker 2: each of the contractors developed their tests differently, and one
Speaker 2: contractor did not conduct verification testing, which is a key
Speaker 2: step in determining whether a test will meet a user's requirement,
Speaker 2: such as for sensitivity or accuracy.
Speaker 1: Broken test sounds familiar, unfortunately, and these are days of pandemic.
Speaker 1: So if there are problems with the FBI's official investigation,
Speaker 1: does that mean there are problems with the bi's official conclusion.
Speaker 1: The answer there logically is yes. So now we have
Speaker 1: to ask what actually happened, and that means that we
Speaker 1: have to look at the conspiracies. There's what you know
Speaker 1: that's pretty interesting because a lot of people don't know this,
Speaker 1: but before Vice President Mike Pence was in office in
Speaker 1: the US, he was also he had a different career
Speaker 1: as a prominent radio host and then he moved into politics.
Speaker 1: He has some stuff to say about this investigation, right.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he did. He kind of just made some sort
Speaker 2: of shot in the dark kind of claims, released some
Speaker 2: statements saying some pretty interesting things about this substance. He
Speaker 2: essentially said, quote in a statement, the material found in
Speaker 2: my office and in others in Capitol Hill was finally
Speaker 2: milled weapons grade anthrax that had been this is the
Speaker 2: key part genetically modified to increase its virulence. Huh, what
Speaker 2: does that mean, ben genetically modified?
Speaker 1: I mean, it's it's the same, it's the same thing.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 1: He's arguing that this was weaponized, and again we have
Speaker 1: to remember that this this stuff was officially better than
Speaker 1: anything the US or Russia or China could make.
Speaker 2: He was.
Speaker 1: I think at that point he was in a he
Speaker 1: was a representative, right, he was a congressional representative before
Speaker 1: he became governor of Indiana, before he became vice president.
Speaker 2: That's right. And you know, I mean it's he's The
Speaker 2: notion that it was quote unquote weapons grade obviously is
Speaker 2: true to a degree, though the term is a little
Speaker 2: bit dubious in terms of like how it's used. The
Speaker 2: idea of weapons grade. There isn't really a standard as
Speaker 2: to what constitutes weapons grade anthrax. The LA Times reported
Speaker 2: in an article by David Willman from July sixteenth of
Speaker 2: twenty sixteen, and they spoke to a researcher at Johns
Speaker 2: Hopkins University named Stephen L. Salzburg, who was actually part
Speaker 2: of the first team to check out the material for
Speaker 2: the US government, and he said that's just wrong. That's
Speaker 2: simply wrong, and we knew at the time that.
Speaker 1: It was wrong.
Speaker 2: He's speaking, of course, of Pence's claims. And then Pence
Speaker 2: even kind of doubled down further and said something to
Speaker 2: the effect of, oh, it was coated with a chemical
Speaker 2: of some kind. Like he definitely added some more fuel
Speaker 2: to this fire in saying in a two thousand and
Speaker 2: two letter to Ashcroft, the Attorney General, that the spores
Speaker 2: had been coated with a chemical and that had also
Speaker 2: been disproven by scientists at the SANDA National Laboratory in
Speaker 2: New Mexico.
Speaker 1: Yeah, a few months before he told Ashcroft.
Speaker 2: That that's right. And I don't know, I'm fascinated by
Speaker 2: this idea of it being genetically modified. And it's interesting
Speaker 2: too because Colin Powell, who is a Secretary of State,
Speaker 2: he used this, as you know, we know was a thing,
Speaker 2: you know, in terms of weapons of mass destruction. He
Speaker 2: used this as another call to kind of go to
Speaker 2: war with Iraq, to support military action against Iraq that
Speaker 2: you know, tying this these anthrax attacks and as we
Speaker 2: did nine to eleven, which we now know really wasn't
Speaker 2: the case at all, and we use that as an
Speaker 2: excuse to go to war with Iraq, and that sort
Speaker 2: of got us embroiled in the Middle East in a
Speaker 2: way that we're still kind of dealing with today.
Speaker 1: Still friends with the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Though you
Speaker 1: want to kill some journalists, want you want to support
Speaker 1: some terrorists, that's fine. We'll see how oil prices affect
Speaker 1: that geopolitical relationship. But that's a story for another day.
Speaker 1: You're right, you know, people immediately tied this to terrorism.
Speaker 1: Death to America, death to Israel is great, so on.
Speaker 1: We also have to remember that at this time, millions
Speaker 1: of innocent Americans are being vilified in the media for
Speaker 1: their religious beliefs. Right. It's as dumb and disgusting as
Speaker 1: any other sort of prejudice. So when we're talking about
Speaker 1: the belief of terrorism or something, or you know, the
Speaker 1: idea that religiously motivated terrorists might have perpetrated the anthrax attacks,
Speaker 1: we're specifically talking about Al Qaeda. We're not talking about
Speaker 1: some general, amorphous thing. We're talking about a real, concrete, discrete,
Speaker 1: existing organization that did have a track record, a rap
Speaker 1: sheet of committing terrorist acts.
Speaker 2: Absolutely and let's also remember that this was used as
Speaker 2: kind of, you know, a media device. Powell held a
Speaker 2: press conference where he had a vial of white powder
Speaker 2: in his hand, a small amount, and he said that
Speaker 2: a teaspoon size quantity of anthrax in one of the
Speaker 2: letters had you know, driven Washington into a state of chaos,
Speaker 2: killed and killed two postal workers. And he suggested very
Speaker 2: pointedly that Iraq had stockpiled enough anthrax to quote Phil
Speaker 2: tens upon tens upon tens of thousands of teaspoons, right,
Speaker 2: I mean, he's definitely trying to stir up some this.
Speaker 2: It's definitely it's a a fear bongering move, is what
Speaker 2: it is. And maybe it's well intentioned, but it seems
Speaker 2: to me like a you know, a pretty callous maneuver.
Speaker 1: I'm just laughing because I think that's a fantastic example
Speaker 1: of the of just how far we in the United
Speaker 1: States will go to avoid using the metric system. That's right, funny,
Speaker 1: It's true though, He's like, he's like put it in
Speaker 1: a number of people can understand.
Speaker 2: Tens upon tens upon tens upon tens.
Speaker 1: If each if each sport of anthrax was the size
Speaker 1: of an oreo and you stack them on top of
Speaker 1: each other, they could reach you know whatever, as long
Speaker 1: as we don't use the metric system. That's one of
Speaker 1: the that's one of the big rules. But but there's
Speaker 1: another conspiracy here, the idea that that the idea that
Speaker 1: the threat came closer to home, the idea that this
Speaker 1: was a false front, or that some faction of the
Speaker 1: US government actually planned this attack. You can imagine that
Speaker 1: for the people who believe nine to eleven itself was
Speaker 1: a false flag, the anthrax attacks of two thousand and
Speaker 1: one were just another planned event or another sequence, larger plan,
Speaker 1: another inside job.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 1: This school of thought frames those attacks as a plan B,
Speaker 1: a backup measure, just in case nine to eleven was
Speaker 1: not enough of a push to make the public and
Speaker 1: the government move forward with certain actions. Then this, this
Speaker 1: sort of the equivalent of a double tap, would ensure
Speaker 1: that the public moved in the direction that these powers,
Speaker 1: whoever they are, wanted. You know, it's it's strange because
Speaker 1: there's something comforting. This is weird. Walk with me here.
Speaker 1: There's something comforting about the idea that there is a
Speaker 1: grand design, you know what I mean, The idea that
Speaker 1: the same people who cannot get their stuff together on
Speaker 1: any given Tuesday are somehow also capable of this Rube
Speaker 1: Goldberg esque control of the past, the future, and the present.
Speaker 1: I don't know. I don't know. I feel like the
Speaker 1: idea that they're super villainy at work and a grand
Speaker 1: conspiracy is much more comforting than the other side of
Speaker 1: the coin, which is.
Speaker 2: That that it's just chaos, right.
Speaker 1: Right, that maybe there's another conspiracy theory is that the
Speaker 1: FBI is covering up for governmental incompetence, Like what about
Speaker 1: that political pressure, Like what what if they just you know,
Speaker 1: what if they have people breathing down their necks saying
Speaker 1: close this case. Now, find me a person who's the
Speaker 1: creepiest guy that we know has touched anthrax.
Speaker 2: This is the lowest hanging fruit possibility of them all.
Speaker 2: I mean, it makes the most sense. You know, you
Speaker 2: want to say face. You want to get the job done,
Speaker 2: even if it means putting away the wrong guy. You know,
Speaker 2: maybe they even had a hand in his suicide. You know,
Speaker 2: crazier things have been reported, you know, in terms of
Speaker 2: the government's involvement in assassinating folks, and you know, trying
Speaker 2: to cover that up you know, so I just I
Speaker 2: have no problem believing this, and I find the false
Speaker 2: flag narrative to be just such a go to kind
Speaker 2: of looney tunes one. Like people are saying that about
Speaker 2: the COVID situation right now, that like it's fault like
Speaker 2: you know, some people that don't believe that it's real.
Speaker 2: I equate it to like Holocaust denial or something. It's like, dude,
Speaker 2: there's bodies piling up, they're making like you know, ice
Speaker 2: skating rinks in New York and to make shift Morgus
Speaker 2: like it's real, you know, like move on.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I would say, you know, to that point, the
Speaker 1: US government is such.
Speaker 5: A byzantine, complicated maze like structure, with so many people
Speaker 5: involved and so many groups involved, that it is completely
Speaker 5: possible for factions.
Speaker 1: Of the US government to do things that the you know,
Speaker 1: the other groups in the government don't know about or
Speaker 1: would object to, Like the CIA is the go to
Speaker 1: example there. They're doing all sorts of dirty stuff, and
Speaker 1: there are people who are supposed to have oversight of
Speaker 1: that organization and they have no idea what's going on.
Speaker 1: You know, they're in the dark. And the FBI has
Speaker 1: done some very filthy things too in the past, so
Speaker 1: I can see where this is coming from. At this point,
Speaker 1: there is no conclusive proof that anyone affiliated with the
Speaker 1: government in a law enforcement capacity conspired to mail anthrax
Speaker 1: to people. But the problem remains. This is the biggest
Speaker 1: problem here. The science, the science upon which the FBI's
Speaker 1: conclusion depends is not itself sound. Regardless of whether you
Speaker 1: think the FBI found their culprit or whether you you
Speaker 1: know what, if you think that some government agents actually
Speaker 1: conducted this attack, or if you think that political pressure
Speaker 1: rushed the investigation, there is one thing for sure, and
Speaker 1: that is numerous experts, not just doctor Ivans colleagues, agree
Speaker 1: the FBI has never conclusively proven doctor Ivans was one
Speaker 1: hundred percent the man behind the mail and all that
Speaker 1: lab work. That is what the case hinges on it,
Speaker 1: and it's not solid.
Speaker 2: There's a really fantastic series on pro Publica, one of
Speaker 2: which was FBI's science good enough to id Anthrax Killer,
Speaker 2: And we talked about this a little bit earlier, but
Speaker 2: just to hit home again, to quote the article, investigators
Speaker 2: had invented a new form of genetic fingerprinting for the
Speaker 2: case testing anthrax collected from US and foreign labs for
Speaker 2: mutations detected in the attack powder. Out of more than
Speaker 2: a thousand samples, only eight tested positive for four mutations
Speaker 2: found in the deadly germs sent to Congress and the
Speaker 2: news media. Even so, the outside sciences quote known as
Speaker 2: the Red Team just saying this is a quote, urged
Speaker 2: the FBI to do more basic research into how and
Speaker 2: when the mutations arose, to make sure the tests were
Speaker 2: sound and the results unchallengeable. And they didn't do that.
Speaker 2: So you know, this review showed that the FBI definitely
Speaker 2: overstated its case and possibly would not have gotten a conviction.
Speaker 2: In fact, seems to me quite likely would not have
Speaker 2: gotten a conviction against Ivans because they based their conclusions
Speaker 2: on some pretty shaky science.
Speaker 1: And what does doctor Ivans think. Will never know because
Speaker 1: again he died of an overdose of thailand old codine
Speaker 1: or as he said, an old tiler all three that
Speaker 1: was ruled a probable suicide. So he never got his
Speaker 1: day in court, and technically in this country, days in
Speaker 1: court are you know, they're a thing. They're a tradition
Speaker 1: that we like to say we practice.
Speaker 2: But you know what I mean, I would say it's
Speaker 2: a formality. At times, it seems really just kind of
Speaker 2: like a smoke screen of Hey, look, justice is being
Speaker 2: carried out, you know, but it quite often is not.
Speaker 2: You know, there there is that court of public opinion
Speaker 2: and and this is really all doctor Ivan's truly got
Speaker 2: tried in and he was pilloried and he you know,
Speaker 2: lost his life because of it. And you know, he
Speaker 2: may have been a weirdo and he may have had
Speaker 2: a hand in this, but I don't buy that he
Speaker 2: was acting alone, if he had anything to do with
Speaker 2: it at all.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, that's the issue. Let's you know, there's one
Speaker 1: person that we should introduce here at the toward the
Speaker 1: end of this episode, and that is Claire Frasier Leggott.
Speaker 1: She was a pivotal member of the Amerthracks I can't
Speaker 1: believe that's the real name, the Americal Tracks investigation. And
Speaker 1: she was a genetic consultant working with the FBI, one
Speaker 1: of those people who helped nail down the specific type
Speaker 1: of anthrax. Let's give the last word to her again.
Speaker 1: This is an expert. This is one of the protagonists, right,
Speaker 1: This is a person who's attempting to solve this case.
Speaker 1: And she says, quote This was not an air tight
Speaker 1: case by any means. You know, I think that for
Speaker 1: an awful lot of people, there is a desire to
Speaker 1: really want to say that, yes, Ivans was the perpetrator,
Speaker 1: this case can reasonably be closed and we can put
Speaker 1: this tragic chapter in US history behind us. But I
Speaker 1: think part of what's driving that is the fact that
Speaker 1: if he wasn't the perpetrator, then it means that person
Speaker 1: is still out there.
Speaker 2: So if not Bruce Ivans, then who That's the question
Speaker 2: we leave you with today. What do you think? Please
Speaker 2: let us know. You can write to us in the
Speaker 2: usual usual places, the social media's or where some form
Speaker 2: of conspiracy stuff or conspiracy stuff show. You can also
Speaker 2: find us as individuals on social media. I am on
Speaker 2: Instagram at how Now Noel Brown.
Speaker 1: And you can find me on Twitter at Ben bullin HSW.
Speaker 1: You can also find me on Instagram in a burst
Speaker 1: of creativity calling myself at Ben Bolling. Do you hate
Speaker 1: social media? Totally? Get it? Why not leave us a message,
Speaker 1: give us a call. You can reach us at one
Speaker 1: eight three three st d WYTK. It feels weird when
Speaker 1: we're not saying it together. And you know, I miss.
Speaker 1: When Matt says this, I hope he likes this episode.
Speaker 1: I do too.
Speaker 2: I really hope he likes this episode. And it's a
Speaker 2: bummer that he isn't here for it, but I hope
Speaker 2: we did him proud. And speaking of Matt, if you
Speaker 2: call that number that we just mentioned, even now while
Speaker 2: Matt's on vacation, you may well he may give you
Speaker 2: a call back. No promises, but he's been known to
Speaker 2: do it. He's a lovely man and would love to
Speaker 2: talk to you.
Speaker 1: Consider you know. I wouldn't even say that's a promise.
Speaker 1: I would say consider it a warning. Be careful as
Speaker 1: possible as you will exactly exactly so do let us know.
Speaker 1: And while you're at it, let us know if there
Speaker 1: are any other stories of scientists who have died under
Speaker 1: mysterious circumstances. If there's another angle of the anthrax attacks
Speaker 1: that you feel like your fellow listeners should know about,
Speaker 1: you can tell us. As Noel said, on social media,
Speaker 1: you can also find us on your local telephone. And
Speaker 1: if you say, hey, I hate phones, Hey I hate
Speaker 1: social media, but I have something you need to know.
Speaker 1: We are all ears, we are all eyes. You can
Speaker 1: reach us twenty four to seven, any day of the year,
Speaker 1: anytime of the day, at our good old fashioned email
Speaker 1: address where we.
Speaker 2: Are conspiracy at iHeartRadio dot com.
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