Speaker 1: Ridiculous Crime is a production of I Heart Radio. Elizabeth Hey, Sarin,
Speaker 1: you know it's ridiculous. Yeah, it's ridiculous when you're walking
Speaker 1: around and like a mall or a casino and you
Speaker 1: get kind of disoriented in terms of like getting a
Speaker 1: little bit lost and you lose track of time. That's ridiculous.
Speaker 1: But what's more ridiculous is that that's on purpose. What
Speaker 1: do you mean. There was this architect, Victor Gruen, and
Speaker 1: there's this thing called the Gruin transfer where he designed
Speaker 1: things purposefully to be have a confusing layout in order
Speaker 1: to get you to spend more time in a mall
Speaker 1: lose track of time. Is this like how when I
Speaker 1: kea you have to walk in and go through every
Speaker 1: aisle before you can get out. Is that the ground effect?
Speaker 1: I trans No. I think it's because that's sort of intentional.
Speaker 1: You feel like you're in a maze and there is
Speaker 1: a map. I mean there are maps and malls, but
Speaker 1: it's sort of like the elevators or the escalators are
Speaker 1: a little bit kimbos sometimes in malls and you have
Speaker 1: to really wander around to get up and down and interesting.
Speaker 1: And again no clocks. The casino things definitely, no clocks,
Speaker 1: no windows. So in conclusion, in summary, getting lost in
Speaker 1: them all ridiculous. I'm gonna take your word for it.
Speaker 1: Well that was a good one. I want counts now,
Speaker 1: I got one for you. How about the story? Uh
Speaker 1: one that's set in the nineteen nineties. It's a very
Speaker 1: X Files inspired tale of a network of UFO skywatchers
Speaker 1: in Long Island, New York. That's not the ridiculous part.
Speaker 1: This group is led by a conservative political hopeful. Okay,
Speaker 1: that's not the ridiculous part. He was a retired court bailiff.
Speaker 1: Still not the ridiculous part. His colleagues included a self
Speaker 1: professed time traveler. Is that the ridiculous We're getting there.
Speaker 1: He had a friend from college who was a scientist
Speaker 1: whose day job was working for a government defense contractor
Speaker 1: not so ridiculous. But eventually, the leader of this group,
Speaker 1: the retired bailiff, he comes up with a plan to
Speaker 1: assassin nate his Republican political rivals, the local political leadership,
Speaker 1: and his plan is to use radioactive material. Oh we want,
Speaker 1: But it's even better than that. He's going to sneak
Speaker 1: into their homes and lace their toothpaste and spike their
Speaker 1: Italian dinners with radioactive nuclear only the Italian dinners. There's
Speaker 1: a whole story about that. We'll get into it. This
Speaker 1: is Ridiculous Crime, a podcast about absurd and outrageous capers,
Speaker 1: heists and cons. It's always murder free and one ridiculous. Elizabeth,
Speaker 1: you ready for this one? I am. What do you
Speaker 1: know about UFOs? That it stands for unidentified flying objects?
Speaker 1: Very good, and that they come at night and take
Speaker 1: us away? Okay, very good. Have you ever seen one? No? No, okay, Well,
Speaker 1: the first recorded UFO sighting in America was in sixty nine. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it happened in the Massachusetts Bay Colony. The founder, the
Speaker 1: co founder of the colony, Governor Georgor J. Winthrop or
Speaker 1: Winthorpe rather, he documented this event in his diary, and
Speaker 1: in his March first diary he's talked of a group
Speaker 1: of men who are on the Muddy River. I don't
Speaker 1: know the Muddy River, but apparently it's is it? I
Speaker 1: don't know. I thought maybe you'd know about it anyways,
Speaker 1: But I'm this thing called the Muddy River. And they
Speaker 1: look up and they see what they described like to
Speaker 1: be a flaming pig. Yeah, I mean, it's it's not
Speaker 1: exactly their words. How they put it was And this
Speaker 1: is what Winthrop wrote in his diary, and I quote
Speaker 1: when it stood still, it flamed up, and it was
Speaker 1: about three yards square. When it ran, it was contracted
Speaker 1: into the figure of a swine. It ran as swift
Speaker 1: as narrow towards Charleston, and so up and down about
Speaker 1: two or three hours. So in this when they're running,
Speaker 1: running in the sky means like flying. They don't have
Speaker 1: a word for flying, because you know, I mean, they
Speaker 1: do for birds what I'm saying, but they for this object,
Speaker 1: they're not going to describe it. It was running across
Speaker 1: the sky. Okay, I'm glad you will, George, you know
Speaker 1: he appreciates it. Um. So this great green light disappears
Speaker 1: and these this group of men in their little dingy
Speaker 1: boat on the muddy river, they find themselves a mile
Speaker 1: up river and they're like, whoa, oh, so they lost
Speaker 1: track of lost track of time, and they moved against
Speaker 1: the current a full mile. So they're like, that's just
Speaker 1: not right. Yeah. Now, that was the earliest UFO sighting,
Speaker 1: and since then there have been a series of I
Speaker 1: don't want to say ridiculous, and I'm not going to
Speaker 1: judge them, but all sorts of sightings that border on
Speaker 1: the ludicrous border on the ridiculous, and some of them
Speaker 1: are very scientific. So they run a arrange. Has anyone
Speaker 1: else seen the hot pig? No one else mentioned the
Speaker 1: hot pig in their diaries from the time that I
Speaker 1: know of. Now they may have, and that just hasn't
Speaker 1: come to me yet. Okay, yeah, let me know if
Speaker 1: you see anything. I will keep you abreast of any
Speaker 1: flying hot pigs, flaming pigs, sorry, hot pigs, hot pig,
Speaker 1: hot pig coming through. So this great green light, the
Speaker 1: this UFO in the sky, this becomes kind of a
Speaker 1: I don't want to say an American phenomenon because it's
Speaker 1: not exclusively American. It's there everywhere everybody sees the people
Speaker 1: on every continent have seen UFOs, right, But in the
Speaker 1: American milieu of UFO sightings, it was something that just
Speaker 1: would bubble up from time to time and people would
Speaker 1: talk about it. But around the nineteen nineties it starts
Speaker 1: to become a thing. Right, So the number of reported
Speaker 1: UFO sightings were about three nineteen for the year. Now
Speaker 1: in the number of UFO sightings. It's spiked a bunch.
Speaker 1: Can you guess how many numbers? How many was nineteen?
Speaker 1: I don't know, five hundred thousand, note like a year.
Speaker 1: Let's say, I'm you're wilder with math than I. You
Speaker 1: know what, I just I like to ballpark it. You
Speaker 1: just gotta get close enough for government work. I say
Speaker 1: six thousand. You are definitely close enough for government work.
Speaker 1: It was seven seven. I did it. Look at you.
Speaker 1: I'm really impressed, thank you. So why do you think
Speaker 1: that it was Why do you think the sudden spike
Speaker 1: in the nineties the aliens trying to show up because
Speaker 1: they needed to get involved in the culture. What was
Speaker 1: going on in the nineties that in the nineties, uh,
Speaker 1: grunge music boy bands. They wanted to go see Nirvana
Speaker 1: alive well sort of the tail end of hair metal. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they could catch Deaf Leopard while the one our drummers
Speaker 1: still banging gangster rap, gangster. They wanted to see what
Speaker 1: easy you had to say about I don't know what
Speaker 1: you tell me. Okay, we'll going with my man akam.
Speaker 1: The simplest explanation for why that spike occurred was a
Speaker 1: TV show, Oh I know, September a TV show debut
Speaker 1: called The X Files. Good TV show. You like that?
Speaker 1: Did you watch it? Yeah? I totally watched, Like did
Speaker 1: you watch it? I didn't. I didn't watch it initially,
Speaker 1: but I came to really like it later on when
Speaker 1: I when I was around people like you who would
Speaker 1: watch it, who told me you got to check this show,
Speaker 1: so you initials. Yes, my brother anytime anything about My
Speaker 1: brother never watched it, and he liked to make fun
Speaker 1: of me for watching it. And so if I had
Speaker 1: said anything was like weird or curious, he'd be like, oh,
Speaker 1: tell me more molder, but he'd like, get a little speech,
Speaker 1: and I might have done a couple of jokes similar
Speaker 1: to your brother. I feel like that would be on brand. Yes,
Speaker 1: that is very true. I just remember what got me
Speaker 1: was the Smoking Man. When I saw an episode and
Speaker 1: that dude was in it, I was into the whole,
Speaker 1: Like what the fans I have learned this called the
Speaker 1: myth arc, like the Big Black Goo and all that storyline.
Speaker 1: That's what I was there for. The Monster of the Week.
Speaker 1: Show really didn't do a lot for me, but that
Speaker 1: big arc I liked, and that smoking Man dude, he
Speaker 1: does looked like a I don't like a truck stop
Speaker 1: motel ashtray like probably smells, you know. I'm just like
Speaker 1: that dude has been throwing. Meanwhile, he's like doing super
Speaker 1: spy guys stuff with the aliens. Like, I just thought
Speaker 1: that was hilarious. So now remember the shows catchphrase the
Speaker 1: molder Molder had the UFO poster. I want to believe, right,
Speaker 1: is that it? I thought it was the truth is
Speaker 1: out there? So yeah, I think the tagline though for
Speaker 1: the show, You're right, the truth is out there? Okay, Well,
Speaker 1: that phrase the truth is out there became the catchphrase
Speaker 1: the unifying principle for the hero or anti hero of
Speaker 1: our story. How many people do you think have the
Speaker 1: Truth is out there tattoos? Oh? I don't know seven
Speaker 1: thou exactly exactly? I want to know. I want to
Speaker 1: see people's best X files tattoos. That'd be cool. Yeah.
Speaker 1: The other thing that I like, aside from fandom tattoos,
Speaker 1: when I say like I used that loosely, um, I
Speaker 1: enjoy looking at an art because it's so bad. It's
Speaker 1: sort of changed though, but it used to be, like,
Speaker 1: I don't know, ten years ago, you could go on
Speaker 1: Etsy and search fan art and see like some of
Speaker 1: the worst art you'll ever seen in your entire life
Speaker 1: of someone trying to like sell a picture of Matthew
Speaker 1: McConaughey that looks like a kid with one arm tied
Speaker 1: behind their back made an attempt. It's like five dollars,
Speaker 1: it's so good anyway, I got I'm sorry, I'm just
Speaker 1: now daydreaming about X files fan art. Really bad versions.
Speaker 1: Go ahead, that's what we're here for, daydreaming. So the
Speaker 1: anti hero that I had mentioned earlier, his name was
Speaker 1: John Ford, just like the American filmmaker Yeah right, and
Speaker 1: john Ford was also into the big American myths, so
Speaker 1: only the big American myths. He was into where that
Speaker 1: the U. S. Government was lying to us. They weren't
Speaker 1: let my exactly. So in john Ford gets involved in
Speaker 1: UFO investigations. There is this UFO that ashes on the
Speaker 1: East coast. According to the September A bunch of people
Speaker 1: the report that they have this sighting of an orange
Speaker 1: light streaking across the night sky, right another flaming pig. Now,
Speaker 1: Ford is convinced that it was a military helicopter that
Speaker 1: had shot down a UFO and the UFO was crashing
Speaker 1: after like a sky battle. That was what he saw.
Speaker 1: Other people saw an orange light just tracing its path
Speaker 1: to the Earth. And the official explanation was at the
Speaker 1: military choppers that were in the area that Ford saw,
Speaker 1: we're shooting out aerial flares, and those aerial flares you
Speaker 1: used to light up the water so that they could
Speaker 1: see these fishermen who have been washed from their boat,
Speaker 1: and that that's what they were there to extensively seconds
Speaker 1: exactly not John Ford's story. No flying pigs, flying pigs. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he's looking there for the flaming hot pig. So he
Speaker 1: found something called the Long Island UFO network, right, and
Speaker 1: this is a loose caball of fellow amateur ufologists like him.
Speaker 1: He found it. Yeah, founded, Oh found it. I thought
Speaker 1: it was like, all of a sudden, tripped over. What
Speaker 1: is this? Oh look, it's the Long IK's like a
Speaker 1: tiny building somewhere, a very small movie now. But so
Speaker 1: he basically creates this group and their whole goal is
Speaker 1: to prove that the U. S. Military just shot down
Speaker 1: a UFO and is in fact involved an interstellar warfare. Well,
Speaker 1: god speed, you gotta have goals, right, just start up high.
Speaker 1: So the group, though they can't find any evidence because
Speaker 1: the alien was ship was apparently shot down over the sea,
Speaker 1: and they don't have submarines and they can't really gather anything.
Speaker 1: So they're talking to locals. They get a bunch of information,
Speaker 1: but nothing happens. But four years later Ford in his
Speaker 1: Long Island UFO network, they jump back into action in
Speaker 1: the investigation world because this time a UFO crashes, but
Speaker 1: it doesn't crash into water. He crashes on land. Now
Speaker 1: they have something to investigate, crashes in a forest. So
Speaker 1: I want you to picture it. Yes, I said four
Speaker 1: years is actually three years, but it could be four
Speaker 1: years if you count all the months. The X Files
Speaker 1: will debut the very next year, so excited. About seven
Speaker 1: pm on November, a man alone in his car is
Speaker 1: driving on something called Sunrise Highway. It doesn't matter, but
Speaker 1: basically it's paralleling the Montak Highway. And between these two
Speaker 1: highways is this stretch of woods, right, so just imagine
Speaker 1: East coast woods too high. So basically is driving down
Speaker 1: the road down some next to some woods. There you go.
Speaker 1: He's looking south and the man sees an alien spacecraft
Speaker 1: in the sky, or so he thinks. The man later
Speaker 1: described it and I quote tubular in shape with two
Speaker 1: large bright blue lights on each end, with a bright
Speaker 1: white light in its center. Who structure was composed of
Speaker 1: a dull, metallic gray texture. You know what that sounds like,
Speaker 1: hot pig sounds exactly too bright white. Okay, So the
Speaker 1: alien spaceship it's you know, running across the sky, as
Speaker 1: Winthrope would have said, and it then makes a hard
Speaker 1: right turn like I'm talking a full on night return,
Speaker 1: which no earth bound aircraft could do. We don't have
Speaker 1: a flying craft. Distinctions that you always hear is that
Speaker 1: the the lights will suddenly and the sky will suddenly
Speaker 1: make a sharp turn, the one that we couldn't do
Speaker 1: it to speed we're most likely caused the person the
Speaker 1: pilot to lose consciousness, right this pilot, if it was
Speaker 1: a actual alien spaceship, they have something go wrong. And
Speaker 1: if this hard nighty degree turn, because the ship suddenly
Speaker 1: starts to fall from the sky and it's gravity tugs
Speaker 1: into the earth, the UFO traces his bright arc and
Speaker 1: that's what the guy driving watches, and then all sudden
Speaker 1: it crashes into the wood right near that driver. So
Speaker 1: the driver he notices a brilliant white beam light up
Speaker 1: the sky and he said that day turned tonight. That's
Speaker 1: how bright it was. Night turned today. What did I say,
Speaker 1: day turned tonight turned yes, night turned to day the opposite.
Speaker 1: It was so bright, so exactly around the earth, and
Speaker 1: it blocked out the Okay, yeah, so night turned today momentarily,
Speaker 1: and then the woods caught fire. Yeah. So the man's like,
Speaker 1: oh jeez. He turns his car around, he starts driving
Speaker 1: back towards the UFO crash, and everything's on fire. I'm
Speaker 1: gonna go to the source of the crowd exactly. He's
Speaker 1: a curious type. I respect his game. And he gets there,
Speaker 1: and by the time he gets there, there are already
Speaker 1: military helicopters that have landed on the highway already. I
Speaker 1: don't that's that's what all the news stories say. They
Speaker 1: had already been landed. Men dressed in black, wearing military
Speaker 1: style clothing but with no insignia or rank. They jump
Speaker 1: out of these choppers and they start trading, basically trying
Speaker 1: to control the area. They won't let anybody drive into
Speaker 1: the woods where the crashes. They blocked those lanes and
Speaker 1: they start directing traffic. Then local police and park police
Speaker 1: come and they also start to help the man. He's like,
Speaker 1: I don't know if I get around them. That he's
Speaker 1: a local, he knows the past. But he keeps driving
Speaker 1: and eventually finds a place to pull over near the woods,
Speaker 1: and then he sees the tremendous fire burning in the
Speaker 1: thicket of woods and he's like, yeah, I'm with Elizabeth,
Speaker 1: not for me to do. When he drives away. See good. Now.
Speaker 1: For the next four days, the park, which was typically
Speaker 1: open to the public for whatever they wanted to do,
Speaker 1: was closed. And the official reason that the government gives
Speaker 1: is that the park is closed for duck hunting. Now,
Speaker 1: I looked it up. Duck hunting in New York following
Speaker 1: federal guidelines because this was in New York, was not
Speaker 1: allowed after sundown. Of course, the park would normally be
Speaker 1: closed after sundown, so they only have to get rid
Speaker 1: of the daytime hours. So this park, though, wasn't typically
Speaker 1: enforced by men in black and military choppers. So there
Speaker 1: are some issues that you know, I didn't know that
Speaker 1: the military had anything to do with hunting seasons. I
Speaker 1: didn't either. This is all new to me. I'm not
Speaker 1: a hunter as an aside as you know, I like
Speaker 1: to do I think that we should get black military
Speaker 1: clothing and then a chopper. No, we don't need a chopper,
Speaker 1: but I think that if we put on I want
Speaker 1: to see what would happen if we dressed up like
Speaker 1: military people and and went and tried to get people
Speaker 1: to do something in public. Not nothing bad, like just
Speaker 1: go into like a supermarket and tell everyone they have
Speaker 1: to leave. I think I need to get a haircut.
Speaker 1: I don't think you're dreadlocks with the men in black. Look,
Speaker 1: I don't think they were like, wow, they're really uh
Speaker 1: drafting all sorts these days ususually dreads and me just bedraggled,
Speaker 1: just like this disheveled woman is telling me, okay, we'll
Speaker 1: hire people. I just think it'd be interesting. How much
Speaker 1: are people willing to do? Yeah, if you're in like
Speaker 1: sort of military, I think we could get a lot
Speaker 1: going on. Like I'm going to have to think on this.
Speaker 1: You get on Amazon, get us some black clothure. So
Speaker 1: the real reason of why all this is going on,
Speaker 1: and the men in black and the choppers, none of
Speaker 1: this is missed by our man john Ford. He knows
Speaker 1: the answer. Yes, yes, just like that dude, what's Georgio
Speaker 1: a Sukalos. I'd look this up. The dude like he's
Speaker 1: from ancient Aliens. I just know him as ancient alien
Speaker 1: guys with a crazy hair. His name is Georgio Sukulos. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so yeah, Mrs Sukulos would have been all about john
Speaker 1: Ford's the conclusion because it's simple Aliens alien. It was Aliens.
Speaker 1: So now John Ford and his Long Island UFO network,
Speaker 1: they finally have a solid thing to investigate that got
Speaker 1: this fire. They got all the evidence, so they just
Speaker 1: have to wait for, like you know, the police to
Speaker 1: allow them in. This takes many days, but eventually they
Speaker 1: are able to go in and start investigating. But before
Speaker 1: they do, john Ford starts his official report of the
Speaker 1: events that transpired that evening and I quote, we knew
Speaker 1: that something crashed into the park that night, and we
Speaker 1: have bit by bit been able to finally put the
Speaker 1: picture together. I Winness accounts of confirmed that a fire
Speaker 1: was reported immediately after. Thanks John, there was a fire,
Speaker 1: so local firefighters that came out to stop the fire.
Speaker 1: We're from brook Haven National Laboratory Fire Department. If you
Speaker 1: know brook Haven, it's a nuclear lap So that meant
Speaker 1: to John full cover up right, but if we're saying
Speaker 1: that some sort of aircraft that crashes, perhaps the best
Speaker 1: people to address that kind of situation are not the
Speaker 1: local volunteer fireman. But totally well, they happened, Brookhaven happened
Speaker 1: to be really close. Both like um logical that they
Speaker 1: would be the ones to respond, But then also your
Speaker 1: point is well made that you would want these professionals
Speaker 1: who deal with more emergency situations in the local costic
Speaker 1: materials or that kind of exactly, or little alienmen scrambling
Speaker 1: around running up trees exactly kind of watch them catch
Speaker 1: him as hurting cats. I swear, can you catch everyone?
Speaker 1: John Ford is convinced the Brookhaven though involvement that's hanky.
Speaker 1: He's like, no, no, no, son, there's no reason they
Speaker 1: need to come over here and do that. So he
Speaker 1: makes a note in his official report, which is like
Speaker 1: in a spiral bound notebook. Exactly after five maybe six days,
Speaker 1: the park is finally reopened. Right, so Ford and his
Speaker 1: crew is UFO crew go rushing in and they have
Speaker 1: to get all that they can. So here and I
Speaker 1: returned to his official report. We found an area that
Speaker 1: was burned out and some trees were bent over a
Speaker 1: section looked like it had been plowed over by machinery.
Speaker 1: We were getting a higher than normal radiation reading in
Speaker 1: the area, higher than regular background radiation, and the fence
Speaker 1: line in that area had no magnetic reading. Something had
Speaker 1: stripped away the magnetic charge of the fence. Oh yeah, right,
Speaker 1: wild stuff. I don't know what any of that means exactly.
Speaker 1: He had, like, you know, a Geiger counter out there.
Speaker 1: The crew did, and they were, you know, checking the
Speaker 1: rank and readings on the radiation and they said, oh,
Speaker 1: this is higher than average. I don't know what they
Speaker 1: said about this, you know, like maybe they were really
Speaker 1: good and they were like, oh, we've got you know,
Speaker 1: data for the last few weeks months. I don't know
Speaker 1: if they just like went out there like a couple
Speaker 1: of days before. It's like, what was the last reading
Speaker 1: we had in our notebook? John checked the spiral notebook.
Speaker 1: They're looking in the manual from their radio check Geiger counter. Yeah, Like,
Speaker 1: I have no idea. They don't mention this in the
Speaker 1: official report, but before then, does have something very strange
Speaker 1: occur and that helps him in his investigation. A firefighter
Speaker 1: steps forward and says, I've got a tape for you.
Speaker 1: This is totally like out of the X file. He'd
Speaker 1: recorded footage of the crash site. Yes, secretly. And so
Speaker 1: now Ford has this tape from the UFO crash site.
Speaker 1: So what's on it? What do you think is on it? Um,
Speaker 1: little dude scrambling around running up? You nailed it? So
Speaker 1: and I quote Ford says, I can't say where I
Speaker 1: got it from. These people who supplied the tape are
Speaker 1: afraid that the government will go after them. One of
Speaker 1: the major problems in researching UFOs is that people are
Speaker 1: afraid of sounding like lunatics when describing strange, unexplained events.
Speaker 1: You get involved with things that the government doesn't want
Speaker 1: people to know, and they can make life pretty tough
Speaker 1: for you. And he's not wrong about that, and he
Speaker 1: goes on, we are still actively investigating this event. We
Speaker 1: believe that an extraterrestrial craft with aliens crashed that night
Speaker 1: in the park, and we are out to prove it.
Speaker 1: This is possibly one of the greatest events in the
Speaker 1: history of man is John Ford told the local press.
Speaker 1: So what the heat? What is on the tape? I
Speaker 1: know right, We'll be back after the short break and
Speaker 1: I'll tell you all about the Long Island UFO network
Speaker 1: and the tape that they discovered and what is on
Speaker 1: it with the little men running up and down the tree.
Speaker 1: I can't wait. So where were we, Elizabeth? You were
Speaker 1: going to tell me what was on this video tape? Yes, well,
Speaker 1: the UFO crew, they this gang of UFO geeks what
Speaker 1: will eventually turn into assassins with radioactive material. First they
Speaker 1: have to have the hard proof that they can build
Speaker 1: the foundation of belief on. And this tape is their
Speaker 1: hard proof. This is such a wild jumpy like radioactive assassins. Okay,
Speaker 1: So I'll need to tell you a little bit about
Speaker 1: John Ford and then I'll get you right to the tape.
Speaker 1: My man, john Ford, he was a court bailiff, as
Speaker 1: I told you, right, He went to college. He's an
Speaker 1: educated man. He went to St. John's University in Queens,
Speaker 1: New York. He graduated. He then went on to earn
Speaker 1: a master's degree, and then that's when he took a
Speaker 1: job at the Brooklyn Criminal Court as a bailiff. So
Speaker 1: he's a bailiff with the master's degree, Masters in Public Administration.
Speaker 1: So he's also a very kind hearted guy. Everyone who
Speaker 1: knew john Ford described him. They'd say that John ford Um.
Speaker 1: He would adopt dogs from the pound. He delivered emergency
Speaker 1: supplies where people were affected by a local hurricane. He
Speaker 1: was also the type of person who would cry when
Speaker 1: he struck a cat with his car. Well, I would hope. So, no,
Speaker 1: I'm not trying to be like a jerk about it.
Speaker 1: But not every human being he's like you, or they're
Speaker 1: going to cry when they had a cat. And this
Speaker 1: guy is a court bailiff. He's a man who carries
Speaker 1: a gun for his living. I just wanted to let
Speaker 1: you know he's a soft version of a man who
Speaker 1: carries a gun for a living in the sense that
Speaker 1: he cares about the loss of life. It is not
Speaker 1: something he expects and rationalizes a way. It's just like
Speaker 1: a cruel world. It's not running down Kitti kats on
Speaker 1: the highway. No, he's not, definitely not doing that. So
Speaker 1: basically my point is, dude as a big heart, and
Speaker 1: he's college educated, right, okay, But he also he never
Speaker 1: got married. He was engaged twice, but he never got married.
Speaker 1: Neither engagement lasted yet, so he remained his mother's constant companion.
Speaker 1: He lived with his mom until she passed away in
Speaker 1: the nineties. Now, Catherine Ford, his mother, she was the
Speaker 1: one who got him into politics. She was big into
Speaker 1: local politics. She ran for local offices over and over again.
Speaker 1: In fact, she pushed her son to do it. She
Speaker 1: got him to found the local Conservative Party Club, that's
Speaker 1: what he called it, Conservative Party Club. And he threw
Speaker 1: his club's support behind his mother's candidacies. And she never
Speaker 1: won in a single election. Yet over time john Ford
Speaker 1: and his mother they both kind of get angry and
Speaker 1: bitter at the locals. They don't think the Republicans really
Speaker 1: appreciate what they want to bring to local politics. Right,
Speaker 1: So this bighearted john Ford, he starts, you know, turning
Speaker 1: his energies inward, and he starts a weapons collection. He
Speaker 1: gets bulletproof fest and Ammo knives of all kinds. Right,
Speaker 1: he starts reading Soldier of Fortune magazine. He's just like
Speaker 1: feeding these fantasies of getting violent revenge. So this bailiff
Speaker 1: bind you. As I mentioned before, he's supposed to carry
Speaker 1: a gun, right, so he's not that good with a gun.
Speaker 1: He's not known he's able to pass his his gun exam,
Speaker 1: so he can like still legally that you know, carry
Speaker 1: the gun. But nobody'd be like, hey, crack shot, why
Speaker 1: don't you come over here? And exactly, So he's mostly
Speaker 1: other than his weapons collection, he's known for collecting trains.
Speaker 1: He had apparently a great model train collection. So basically
Speaker 1: the dudes like a big kid. He's reading Fortune magazine,
Speaker 1: he's collecting knives, and he's got a train collection that
Speaker 1: he and his mom wanted to be involved in local politics,
Speaker 1: which is sort of like the lifeblood of American democracy
Speaker 1: right ground floor. And if they feel they can't get in,
Speaker 1: like this backlash against the system they want to be
Speaker 1: in so badly this the government, Like I mean, I
Speaker 1: can see it doesn't make it right, but it's like
Speaker 1: you can see the psychology behind it. You know, they've
Speaker 1: been they feel kind of denied and and that will
Speaker 1: play out over and over again. But it also tells
Speaker 1: me they're underlying issue gentle and generous. So I like
Speaker 1: that about So this big kid with his knife collection
Speaker 1: and his model trains and his inability to to you know,
Speaker 1: hit a target with a gun captain red flag because
Speaker 1: he's focusing At this point, his mother passes away, right
Speaker 1: and he's left on his own. He lives in the
Speaker 1: house by himself. He starts focusing on his Long Island
Speaker 1: UFHE network, which he is the president of, so it
Speaker 1: gives him some level of power. Injures his back at works,
Speaker 1: so he has to quit, he has to retire as
Speaker 1: a bailiff, and he just basically starts to focus on
Speaker 1: being a you know, a ufologists essentially right, but also
Speaker 1: the leader of men, like the leader of this group.
Speaker 1: So when the crash occurs, john Ford becomes convinced that
Speaker 1: in that crash that I told you about in the
Speaker 1: woods with this spaceship, that seventeen aliens died in this crash.
Speaker 1: Where the number seventeen comes from, I couldn't quite tell you,
Speaker 1: but he just because one plus seven equals eight, and
Speaker 1: if you ate the food that they were putting in
Speaker 1: your brain from the government, you would know that one
Speaker 1: more than eight is nine, and nine plus eight is
Speaker 1: a number of lives that a cat has. And he
Speaker 1: will not he will not laugh when he runs over
Speaker 1: a cat. There's the bow on the top, thank you,
Speaker 1: all tied up in red. I'm gonna put that in
Speaker 1: my official report. So he speaking official reports. He starts compiling,
Speaker 1: as I told you, his official report of the accident,
Speaker 1: and he gets that tape. Right now, he's convinced that
Speaker 1: this tape will give evidence that the brook Haven National
Speaker 1: Laboratory is hiding these seventeen aliens that were part of
Speaker 1: the crash. Do you think he has like a big
Speaker 1: tan filing cabinet in his home and that all the
Speaker 1: official reports for all the various incidences are in there
Speaker 1: as well as like phone bills and he just doesn't
Speaker 1: want to throw away because he doesn't want the garbageman
Speaker 1: to have his personal Yes, I do think there were
Speaker 1: certain hoardings in my head and organization of bureaus and
Speaker 1: file cabinets and so Ford with his video tape that
Speaker 1: he got from the firefighter who secretly recorded it on
Speaker 1: the scene. He takes this because now that he's an
Speaker 1: unemployed bailiff and his mother's gone, he takes the video
Speaker 1: on the road. He starts going to UFO conventions and
Speaker 1: conferences and he will show anyone and everyone who will
Speaker 1: watch it, and he's like, I'm from the Long Island
Speaker 1: UFO network. We've got this fresh tape that is changing
Speaker 1: the landscape of ufology right now today, people are like, really, wow,
Speaker 1: there's one problem though, the tape sucked the quality. The
Speaker 1: quality was terrible. You could barely make out what was
Speaker 1: happening because it was at night with a video camera.
Speaker 1: And apparently the video allegedly showed men in black covering
Speaker 1: up the suspected UFO crash site and they were putting
Speaker 1: like silvery, silvery milon covers over what looked like a
Speaker 1: human like figure. That's what he had. No like, this
Speaker 1: is an alien. He's just like, oh, I can see
Speaker 1: a leg and I think an arm, and oh, there
Speaker 1: goes the sheet those shocked blankets exactly, Okay, So there
Speaker 1: that that was his big reveal. Uniformed men placed silvery
Speaker 1: milar coverings on what looked like maybe a small child
Speaker 1: in the woods. I wish I were there for for
Speaker 1: when they recorded that, because I'm sure it was amazing.
Speaker 1: I wish I was there as someone whose conventions or
Speaker 1: conferences and they be in the front row. What that's it? Well, no,
Speaker 1: you know, it's gonna be totally divided. You're going to
Speaker 1: have people like Ford who are totally believing this and
Speaker 1: no one in their bones to be true. But then
Speaker 1: how terrifying is that is that if you know something
Speaker 1: and everyone is like you're crazy. You know, like, that's
Speaker 1: got to be a crap feeling. But then you're also
Speaker 1: going to have the people who are sitting there like
Speaker 1: arms crossed the video ends, they like, comes down it.
Speaker 1: I want to see that that debate. I just like,
Speaker 1: you know, a room full of nerds turning on each
Speaker 1: other and as one I you know, I'm talking about
Speaker 1: as I'm saying, I love this kind of stuff. So
Speaker 1: the tape is a hit on the conference circuit. It's
Speaker 1: also questionable. So some people you pretty much called it.
Speaker 1: Some people are like, this is the proof we need.
Speaker 1: Other people are like, what are you talking about? Or
Speaker 1: what I've always wanted to do? After a presentation, just
Speaker 1: go boring. We need to get you to more presentations.
Speaker 1: Don't bring that can occur. We can make this one
Speaker 1: stirred up the courage to do it someday hopefully. Now.
Speaker 1: One thing I've kind of left out is that one
Speaker 1: of the crashes, this alien crash, when I hit the forest,
Speaker 1: the forest that later crash, the UFO crashed into the woods.
Speaker 1: Another UFO crash in the woods the second one, and
Speaker 1: we had one right, So in ninety five, the UFO
Speaker 1: crashes into pine barrens, right, and I couldn't read that
Speaker 1: without hearing like Polly like walnuts in my head talking
Speaker 1: about the Russian Is it the interior decorator? Decorator? Remember
Speaker 1: so well? I love that episode, I really do. Yeah,
Speaker 1: think of Sopranos. Oh yeah, I'm sorry. We should mention
Speaker 1: it's the Sopranos if you don't know this television series,
Speaker 1: The Sopranos aired on HBO. The Barrens episode I say
Speaker 1: too much stuff where I think that everyone knows I'm
Speaker 1: talking about. Yeah, we should probably clear that reference. That's good.
Speaker 1: I like that. Throw an anchor here, much like Tony
Speaker 1: Soprano had his like crew of ne'er do well criminals
Speaker 1: and loyal partisans but basically sold thank you, that's the
Speaker 1: term soldiers. My man john Ford had his, and I
Speaker 1: want to introduce you to the crew. Ready, we've got
Speaker 1: the loyal right hand man government name Steve. I have
Speaker 1: a own a. He was the vice president of the
Speaker 1: Long Island UFO network. He had business cars. Yeah, he
Speaker 1: was an electric contractor. He was a big burly dude.
Speaker 1: He was also sort of guy who believed he was
Speaker 1: always under surveillance from men in black. That's the point
Speaker 1: right now. There was also the KG veteran investigator him
Speaker 1: government name Preston Nichols. Yeah. Now, Nichols was a heavy set,
Speaker 1: fifty year old dude. He lived with his father and
Speaker 1: in his bedroom he kept a rock collection. In the driveway,
Speaker 1: he had parked an old school bus. It was it
Speaker 1: was a project he was working on. He planned to
Speaker 1: convert the school bus into a quote mobile UFO investigative unit. Now,
Speaker 1: if you're wondering, hey erin, what does one keeping their
Speaker 1: mobile UFO investigative unit? Don't worry, I got you covered right.
Speaker 1: Nichols kept him his school bus slash mobile UFO investigative
Speaker 1: unit quote, a mind detector, a Geiger counter, a magnetic detector,
Speaker 1: a gas detector, and I and his nation detector detector.
Speaker 1: The first time I read it, I thought it said
Speaker 1: mime detector. I was like, why would he need to
Speaker 1: know where mimes are? Because they're sneaky? Yeah, because because
Speaker 1: they're silent, you don't need Because he could have the
Speaker 1: school bus and he starts it up and then his
Speaker 1: son doesn't feel right and there's a mime clinging to
Speaker 1: the undercarriage as like magnetic Yeah, and you're not going
Speaker 1: to hear them silent killers's the silent per This KG
Speaker 1: veteran investigator Nichols. He believed that his UFO buddy john
Speaker 1: Ford was getting too close to the truth, and he
Speaker 1: tried to warn him, basically going like, hey, man, I
Speaker 1: don't know, they're getting real close. We gotta be smart. Son,
Speaker 1: And like, you know, four was a little more confident
Speaker 1: because you know, he was in the courts, he was
Speaker 1: a bailiff. He knows how power works. He's like, look,
Speaker 1: it's an insider. I'm not afraid yet. And they're like okay, right,
Speaker 1: and he's like yeah, because Nichols is like, man, you
Speaker 1: got to be smart about this because one day it's
Speaker 1: going to cost you your life. Now he was kind
Speaker 1: of close, kind of close because it did cost him
Speaker 1: a lot. So we have for what is the president?
Speaker 1: Nichols is the VP I have a rone is the
Speaker 1: vp MS. He's the KG investigator. He's our veteran investigator.
Speaker 1: He's the one with the school bus. I'm just trying
Speaker 1: to keep picture in my head. Now. You also have
Speaker 1: to keep in mind Nichols is also the one who
Speaker 1: was a time traveler. Remember I told you there's a
Speaker 1: time traveler that's Nichols, and he's a time traveler. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and he lives with his dad and he has a
Speaker 1: rock collection. He's if I wrote a short story about this,
Speaker 1: people be like, stopped, this is just mean yeah problem, yeah, no,
Speaker 1: the reality is always better. I'm telling you, it's wild.
Speaker 1: So this dude, Nichols, he told the Washington Post and
Speaker 1: I quote, yes, I didn't believe in time travel until
Speaker 1: I saw evidence that I had time traveled. I just
Speaker 1: love that quote so much. How do you see evidence
Speaker 1: that you time traveled? Good question. What turns out was
Speaker 1: he had been watching the news and he saw himself
Speaker 1: on TV, the local news show, this firefighter fighting one
Speaker 1: of the fires in the woods with them. So he
Speaker 1: sees his Firefighter's like, that's me. That's younger me. Come
Speaker 1: from the future or come from the past rather, And
Speaker 1: I've been sent to the future to gather up evidence
Speaker 1: of the aliens because we apparently know that they're trying
Speaker 1: to hide it. I'm like, I don't think that's how
Speaker 1: it works. I think you send yourself from the future
Speaker 1: to the past. That's on the past, and it was
Speaker 1: him fighting a fire. Yeah, you know what if we
Speaker 1: see ourselves on TV? That was past us doing whatever
Speaker 1: because it's not lie. But I like the future him
Speaker 1: apparently the same timeline because his past self was the
Speaker 1: one who was sent into the into the forward in time.
Speaker 1: He doesn't have any memory of this. He just sees
Speaker 1: himself and he's like as a kid who as a
Speaker 1: young as a young man. He's zapped forward in time
Speaker 1: to work as a firefighter in a local National Laboratories
Speaker 1: fire department by whom the people of the future who
Speaker 1: are also in the past. I don't know, I don't know.
Speaker 1: To get out of that school bus in Hay. He's
Speaker 1: got too many electronics and too many chemicals. He needs
Speaker 1: to touch grass, so definitely some hard grass, maybe like
Speaker 1: a roll in the grass, not just touch it like
Speaker 1: put it all over. Now, the best friend from college
Speaker 1: was also part of the crew. He was part of
Speaker 1: this Long Island UFO crew. So we have the best
Speaker 1: friend from college, turn defense contractor employee, last member of
Speaker 1: our crew, government name Edward Zabo. Edward, he's a forty
Speaker 1: nine year old electrical inspector and he works at Northrop
Speaker 1: Grumman Groman. So now he was the plug for the
Speaker 1: radioactive waste that will come into the assassination plot. Yeah, right.
Speaker 1: So leading up to the nuclear assassination plot, john Ford
Speaker 1: starts experiencing a series of devastating personal blows. I've already
Speaker 1: told you about one. He injured his back and he
Speaker 1: loses his job. He loses his mother two years later.
Speaker 1: So in ninety three, he loses he injured his back,
Speaker 1: his mother passes away. Now he's alone in the world, untethered.
Speaker 1: So what does he start doing. Starts hanging out with
Speaker 1: local small time criminals. Well, why not, you know, he
Speaker 1: just needs to meet interesting people, the stories to tell. Ye,
Speaker 1: that's the place, right. So the KG veteran investigator Nichols,
Speaker 1: he was the one who I told you believe his
Speaker 1: younger self was a mysterious firefighter from the past. Now
Speaker 1: he was the one who would basically act as kind
Speaker 1: of the voice of reason for john Ford. You can
Speaker 1: start to see where the problems are, right. So Ford
Speaker 1: his meanwhile focused on this government cover up of the
Speaker 1: UFOs that keep crashing near him. They crash in the ocean,
Speaker 1: they crashed in the woods. He's like, they're shooting him down.
Speaker 1: There's clearly a fight going on. They're hiding their dead
Speaker 1: bodies at the brook Haven, and he decides that is
Speaker 1: the local Republican political leaders in Suffolk County who are
Speaker 1: the key to all of this is they're the ones
Speaker 1: who are managing the cover up, the ones who wouldn't
Speaker 1: vote for him, the local supervisor of Suffolk County. Yeah,
Speaker 1: all right. So he's like, you know what I need
Speaker 1: to do. I need to start keeping one of my
Speaker 1: thirty five firearms on me at all times because I
Speaker 1: don't know when things are going to pop off. Yeah,
Speaker 1: good idea, right, you see, the ideas are starting the snowball.
Speaker 1: And then he runs into the real trouble that I
Speaker 1: mentioned earlier. We decided to start hanging out with small
Speaker 1: time criminals. So he finds his local hoods and he's like,
Speaker 1: why don't you come live with me in my house
Speaker 1: that my mother not used to show. You don't mind
Speaker 1: my mother's body in the rocket chair upstairs. I wear
Speaker 1: her dress on weekends. But it's cool. So this forty
Speaker 1: two year old hustler named Joseph Massuccelli, he was the
Speaker 1: career criminal of the of the crew. You know, he's
Speaker 1: the one who brought in and he's a very bad criminal.
Speaker 1: He is not good at it. Yeah, Joseph Massucelli was
Speaker 1: described as a tough talking farmer Junkyard employee. I's like,
Speaker 1: what's he like, Well, he's a tough talk of farmer
Speaker 1: yard employee. Now he was also known as you asked
Speaker 1: around people be like, oh, Joe Massacelli, He's a wiry,
Speaker 1: tattooed hot rotter. That was another description locals gave of him.
Speaker 1: The police referred to him as a convicted burglar. That's
Speaker 1: what they called him. Now Ford takes liking to him.
Speaker 1: He's like, Joe, you need to move in with me
Speaker 1: and my mom's you know, whatever vibe that's still in
Speaker 1: the house. It works out that luckily Joe of Massacelli,
Speaker 1: he believes in UFOs, so he doesn't have to convince
Speaker 1: him of the truth. And also he's like, you know,
Speaker 1: the tough talking former Junkyard employees is really like apparently
Speaker 1: good for john Ford's sense of like the familial bonds.
Speaker 1: They become like almost like brotherly. I'm guessing maybe not
Speaker 1: maybe more intimate than that. I don't really know what.
Speaker 1: I'm not going to speculate, but they start making they spread,
Speaker 1: sharing home and making a home to hot Pig exactly
Speaker 1: flaming pig brought them together and he keeps them together.
Speaker 1: So this Joe Massacelli, Uh, he becomes the kind of
Speaker 1: like care function for john Ford. Right. He no longer
Speaker 1: cares for his mother, so now he transfers that to Joe.
Speaker 1: He gives Joe a cell phone so you can always
Speaker 1: call him in case, like any of the bad people
Speaker 1: try to grab him off the road or whatever. He
Speaker 1: also gives Joe money and a credit card in his
Speaker 1: own name to use. Then he gives Joe one of
Speaker 1: his guns. Show is probably thinking checkpot. So the powder
Speaker 1: Kega set fuse is all laid out. All we did
Speaker 1: do is is touchdown the radioactive spark and we get
Speaker 1: this thing going. Now. The last piece to fall into
Speaker 1: place is a man named Kevin Cotch. Kevin Cotch, and
Speaker 1: he enters the story as a friend of Joe Massacelli.
Speaker 1: We'll be back after this short break and I'll tell
Speaker 1: you how Kevin Cotch turns his whole thing nuclear. Okay, Elizabeth,
Speaker 1: We got john Ford playing house with Joe Massacelli, who's
Speaker 1: given a credit card and a gun too. And now
Speaker 1: Joe massacelis brought around one of his friends, a small
Speaker 1: time criminal, and he's trying to uh, you know, sell
Speaker 1: the gun that he was just given by john Ford
Speaker 1: because he needs to make a little pocket money money.
Speaker 1: He's like, hey, Kevin Cotch, why don't you come by
Speaker 1: the house and I'll sell you that gun. So the
Speaker 1: Cotches like, hey, man, you guessed it. He like rolls
Speaker 1: over to the house. And so Massicelli and Ford they
Speaker 1: spend the night hanging out, right, and they're just like,
Speaker 1: you know, just the three of them and uh john
Speaker 1: Ford's dogs, right, and they're just like chilling there. And
Speaker 1: now you have to understand the just picture like an
Speaker 1: older woman's house, right, you know, you're gonna have like
Speaker 1: lots of like doily framed photos and everything. So that's
Speaker 1: what that's what I want you to picture. In the backdrop,
Speaker 1: will these men describe to each other how they would
Speaker 1: kill the local politicians with ray you active waste. They're
Speaker 1: just sitting in this nice old woman so fun exactly.
Speaker 1: So they just keep talking about how these local politicians
Speaker 1: got to go down, right, and Massa Shelley He's like, yeah, John,
Speaker 1: that's true, man, we should do something about that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: what do we can do? All these knives and guns
Speaker 1: and your model train collection. We can mess them up
Speaker 1: or whatever, right, and Cox getting involved to and he's like, yeah, man, totally, man,
Speaker 1: you got knives, we could do them wrong. He's like no,
Speaker 1: I've got the way. And so then he tells Cock.
Speaker 1: He's like, yeah, man, I got this plug for radioactive
Speaker 1: waste goss like what. He immediately goes to the police
Speaker 1: and he's like, I got a story for you. So
Speaker 1: now we have the snitch of the UFO crew. So
Speaker 1: Coach goes he tells the police. He's like, man, there's
Speaker 1: this guy John Ford in your town and he's got
Speaker 1: this plot to assassinate all the local Republican leaders and
Speaker 1: he's planning on using like I don't know, radioactive isotopes
Speaker 1: he was telling me, and I think it was specifically
Speaker 1: something called radium. And they're like are you for real
Speaker 1: right now? Like sir, how high are you? And he's
Speaker 1: like no, I got evidence. Man. They're like, okay, how
Speaker 1: about this? Would you wear a wire to this place
Speaker 1: for people are talking about killing people with a radioactive wastings?
Speaker 1: Like and you batman, because you see, I got this
Speaker 1: bust and maybe you guys could take off the books.
Speaker 1: And so they work at a deal and he's like, okay,
Speaker 1: so he gets a wire and he goes back to
Speaker 1: john Ford's house and then he's gonna walk in and
Speaker 1: that dinghis is gonna be like I have a tricky
Speaker 1: for wires because the sud exactly, because you know he's
Speaker 1: super paranoid. Right, So Joe, Massy Shell and Ford or
Speaker 1: once again hanging out with his three fox terriers, which
Speaker 1: I forgot to mention earlier. John Ford has three fox terriers.
Speaker 1: So picture three fox terriers hanging out with these three
Speaker 1: men while they're like, you know, messing up grandma's doilies,
Speaker 1: and the men get to talking. The talk turns first
Speaker 1: from women in sex because you know, small time criminals,
Speaker 1: what are you gonna talk about? And just sitting around
Speaker 1: shooting the ship. They're just sitting around, and they eventually
Speaker 1: go from women and sex to talking about UFOs because
Speaker 1: you know, john Ford's like, you know, we talked about
Speaker 1: the real stuff, and well it's like they used to say,
Speaker 1: sex drugs and rock and roll y, sex drugs and spaceship.
Speaker 1: So and eventually they get from sex drugs, spaceships to
Speaker 1: local politics and they tied it all together, right, and
Speaker 1: Ford it's like, yeah, man, speaking of local politicians, right.
Speaker 1: So they start getting back on him, dreaming aloud about
Speaker 1: how he's gonna do radioactive ways to kill his rivals
Speaker 1: and is like, yeah, man, word tell me more. Go on, son, like,
Speaker 1: go get into some details, right, I'm just envisioning someone
Speaker 1: who looks totally different than what you're sounding like. And
Speaker 1: it's I've seen pictures of them. You're probably pretty correct,
Speaker 1: but them talking like you're talking so good. So good
Speaker 1: Ford lays out his perfect plan to erase all the
Speaker 1: local Republican leadership and then they're like, so man, for
Speaker 1: how are you gonna do it? And he's like, okay,
Speaker 1: see I thought about it. I'm gonna sneak into their
Speaker 1: homes and then I'm gonna poison them with my radioactive waste.
Speaker 1: They're like, man, how you can just poison a radioactive waste?
Speaker 1: He's like, no, see, I told you I thought about it.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna sneak it in too things that they will ingest.
Speaker 1: He's like, what do you mean, like it in their water? No, No,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna put it in the toothpaste. How are you
Speaker 1: going to put in There's the whole phrase putting the
Speaker 1: toothpastes exactly, it's impossible. He's like, well, yeah, you may
Speaker 1: have a point there. How about I'll hide it in
Speaker 1: the parmesan cheese. He's like, how about this. I'm gonna
Speaker 1: put it in my mouth and I'm gonna sneak in
Speaker 1: and I'm gonna put their toes in my mouth while
Speaker 1: they sleep and just soak it in through their toes
Speaker 1: while I suck their toes exactly, saturate underneath the nail bed.
Speaker 1: I found the official files. I just read it. Well.
Speaker 1: He's all convinced that these guys enjoy um as he
Speaker 1: constantly calls them Italian dinners, and he's like, we just
Speaker 1: need to get into their Italian dinners and then they'll
Speaker 1: eat it. And so he's thinking, like, you know, I
Speaker 1: got this yellow cake and like, bro, it's not uranium.
Speaker 1: I gotta hide it in the parmesan because that's yellow, right,
Speaker 1: that's sprinkle me, sprinkle it, baby, sprinkle. So for it
Speaker 1: starts bragging some more and he's like, yeah, man, see quote,
Speaker 1: I got that very dangerous stuff in the back of
Speaker 1: the truck, Like we could go over right now. He's
Speaker 1: just keeping rad hum in the back of his truck
Speaker 1: as I called him a dinghis Yeah, and so coach
Speaker 1: is like, so, how dangerous is that? And for it's like, no,
Speaker 1: man's cool, man, I got it like in lead, and
Speaker 1: he's like, what do you mean. He's like, and I
Speaker 1: quote it's in a three lead container and it's leaking
Speaker 1: about five rankings per hour because he's to go out
Speaker 1: there and he's taking his like the equipment. Yeah, exactly,
Speaker 1: come over there with the mime counter, the mime detector,
Speaker 1: like NOME is present. It's safe, it's say, we should
Speaker 1: be fine. It's just like in an old Cheetoh's bag
Speaker 1: and it's twisted up at the top band yeah yeah,
Speaker 1: real tight though, real tinfoil wrapped around the whole thing. Yes.
Speaker 1: So at this point, according to the police recording of
Speaker 1: the event, someone gets up to make himself a drink.
Speaker 1: So the police here like glink like ice cubes clinking
Speaker 1: around in the glass. And then Ford gets loud again
Speaker 1: and he starts to focusing on his idea for this
Speaker 1: murderous uranium plot, right, and he's actually not uranium radium,
Speaker 1: but anyway, like his radioactive murder lot, and he's like, okay,
Speaker 1: you see guys, this isotope will start glowing in twenty
Speaker 1: four hours. I don't know if he's holding it up.
Speaker 1: And he says this, but she's telling this to these
Speaker 1: two small time criminals, who I imagine are very impressed.
Speaker 1: They're just like, yes, I didn't actually do well in school,
Speaker 1: so this is really interesting. So the men are all
Speaker 1: laughing about the idea of these radioactive daeglo local Republican politicians.
Speaker 1: And then he's like, so like they're like, if you
Speaker 1: couldn't get it into their food, like say they're delicious
Speaker 1: Italian dinners, or into the toothpaste, where might you else
Speaker 1: place this radium? And he's like, well, that's a good point.
Speaker 1: If that didn't work, and I quote, I could put
Speaker 1: it in a bag, take the little bag and put
Speaker 1: it underneath his car seat. So he's gonna just like
Speaker 1: exactly what you said, put in some like Geo's back
Speaker 1: and sham it under the car seat. And then just radium.
Speaker 1: If someone's in your car and they dropped food and
Speaker 1: like French fries under the seat and you kind of
Speaker 1: smell it for a bit. Yeah, he was like, what
Speaker 1: that radium? Is that a radium? No? No? Wait is it? No?
Speaker 1: I think it's brilliant and the radium and they go
Speaker 1: to brush their hands through their hair all silk would
Speaker 1: style like the Meanwhile, Ford, at this point he's just
Speaker 1: crushing it. He's on a roll. Like the police are
Speaker 1: losing it because they're like listening to the wire and
Speaker 1: then you can tell Ford is building up and building up,
Speaker 1: and he's like he's bragging into these small time criminals
Speaker 1: about how he's gonna kill these local politicians with his
Speaker 1: radioactive waste. And he's like, man, he starts talking about
Speaker 1: one of them, and the guy's name is Gazola, right,
Speaker 1: So he's like, does Gazola eat Italian food? Take the
Speaker 1: yellow powder and mix it in with chopped garlic, the
Speaker 1: radium in with the chopped garlic, man, And they're like, oh,
Speaker 1: that's genius, man, John old Man, you gotta do that.
Speaker 1: He's like, yeah, right now. Maybe it was the liquor talking,
Speaker 1: I don't know. Before it he gets really carried away
Speaker 1: and he STI starts talking about how he'll kill the U.
Speaker 1: S President, the President United States with radioactive material, remember listening.
Speaker 1: So he's like, he tells the snitch and the career
Speaker 1: criminal and I quote, I'll kill that President Clinton. Up,
Speaker 1: I'll do it. Yes, he's like good and drunk. Apparently
Speaker 1: pretty much all the cops need to hear what you
Speaker 1: say that you're going to put radioactive waste into the
Speaker 1: rectum of the president, man who is lives basically in
Speaker 1: fear of the government coming after him. And he was like,
Speaker 1: come after me, government, Yes, exactly without giant neon sign
Speaker 1: here at this house here, So well, Ford continues to
Speaker 1: muse in all the various ways that he can sneak
Speaker 1: radium into the rivals, tubes of toothpaste or they're Ford
Speaker 1: one fifties. The police move into position yeah with a signal.
Speaker 1: The cops descend like a bear trap, snapping shut. The
Speaker 1: door breaks open, cops rush in. All three men are arrested. Now,
Speaker 1: if you can believe it, this was just the beginning
Speaker 1: of the madness. Yes, so, because there was the question,
Speaker 1: the question that was the most primary importance to the
Speaker 1: cops was the obvious question, where the hell did this
Speaker 1: guy get this radioactive waste? Yeah, that's sitting in his truck. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he's just like driving around on with just like you know,
Speaker 1: it's in the back of my truck. So the next
Speaker 1: day the police officers and a radiation team. They go
Speaker 1: out and they check the house of Edward Zabo. Oh right,
Speaker 1: he works at the Yeah, and so that's how boom
Speaker 1: they found the plug. It was just that easy. Turns
Speaker 1: out Yeah zabos to connect so for his college best friend,
Speaker 1: the defense contractor employee turned part time assassin, he is
Speaker 1: basically was doing it. Remember that Johnny Cash song one
Speaker 1: piece at a time. He's basically doing one piece at
Speaker 1: a time with radioactive ways. So in the song, if
Speaker 1: you don't know what Johnny Cash talks about this guy
Speaker 1: who works at a Cadillac plant and he takes one
Speaker 1: piece every day from home from work and he builds
Speaker 1: himself a Cadillac at home. But that's built over the
Speaker 1: years and it takes him years. So he has like
Speaker 1: one like the front fender will be from his sixties seven,
Speaker 1: the steering wheels from his seventy two. So he's like
Speaker 1: the whole it's a great song, you should listen to it.
Speaker 1: He's zedard Edward Zabo is doing that with radioactive material.
Speaker 1: He's just collecting and he's putting in his like lunch
Speaker 1: box and going home a little bit in building up
Speaker 1: this huge turplus has totally fallen out, but he's just glowing. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he's a flaming pick so hot. So the police, mind you,
Speaker 1: they just go, you know what, I pet he may
Speaker 1: have some other stuff here other than like you know,
Speaker 1: mime detectors and so forth. They check and they find
Speaker 1: all the makings for a dirty bomb. There are blasting caps, fuses, detonators,
Speaker 1: and of course all the aforementioned radioactive waste. So he
Speaker 1: gets arrested for a legal possession of weapons and explosives
Speaker 1: and the radioactive waste that he stole from work. Now
Speaker 1: ready for the glowing mistake in Ford's plan, Yes, his
Speaker 1: plan to kill these people, radium would have taken forever.
Speaker 1: He would He would have likely died before his targets
Speaker 1: died from the radiation poison. According to nuclear experts, if
Speaker 1: Ford had gone through this planet tried to kill them,
Speaker 1: even if he had to put it in their toothpaste
Speaker 1: during their Italian dinners, it would have taken about twenty
Speaker 1: years for them to die. That's like if you wanted
Speaker 1: to kill someone, you planted a seed, you watered, the tree,
Speaker 1: you grew through, you really tall. It's a wait for
Speaker 1: a time to get them right, underneath and you cut
Speaker 1: it down. I mean, he's the dumbest assessination plot I've ever.
Speaker 1: It didn't sound like a brain trust over at that place. Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1: It's it's basically, if you're going to be using radioactive waste,
Speaker 1: radium is not the one you want to get something
Speaker 1: with a higher count. So just put that in mind now.
Speaker 1: Of course the police were a little bit more worried.
Speaker 1: They were not with the nuclear experts. They're like, this
Speaker 1: could have given everybody radiation sickness in ten days, and
Speaker 1: they're like freaking out about it, so they took a
Speaker 1: slightly different tech. I like a freak out. I know
Speaker 1: you do, so forward. Meanwhile, he gets arrested, and he
Speaker 1: takes the time to write a hundred and two page
Speaker 1: manifesto because you know, of course he does. That's what
Speaker 1: does get arrested to write the manifesto, because you know
Speaker 1: he's got his You have Long Island, you a phone
Speaker 1: network to think of as a president and a leader
Speaker 1: of men. I'm excited to find out to whom he
Speaker 1: sent this manifesto, Well, I got one for you. He
Speaker 1: didn't send it to any buddy, per se. He writes
Speaker 1: it and then he tries to distribute it. He basically
Speaker 1: tries to get it to his people and go get
Speaker 1: this out to everybody, kind of like the videotape. He's
Speaker 1: not like the UNI bomber's going to send it to
Speaker 1: the Washington Post. He just writes his manifesto, and he
Speaker 1: accuses the local Republican political machine of covering up for
Speaker 1: the Brookhaven UFO conspiracy in using forest fires to cover
Speaker 1: their tracks in coordination with the US military. He also
Speaker 1: accuses them Brookhaven and the U S military and the
Speaker 1: local political leadership of trying to eliminate him. He then
Speaker 1: lays out in the rest of the manifesto all the
Speaker 1: reasons why they'd want to kill him, and he mentions,
Speaker 1: for instance, that he is a secret spy for the CIA.
Speaker 1: It has been since he was nineteen years old. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm sure of it. Yes. He had one problem with this.
Speaker 1: He couldn't prove it because he had never been paid
Speaker 1: by the CIA. He had no receipts that he had
Speaker 1: ever been given a paycheck. It doesn't work that way,
Speaker 1: your brain. He was doing pro bono spy work. He
Speaker 1: was volt here, I get paid by X files episodes.
Speaker 1: That's my pay So Ford has been this key target
Speaker 1: of the KGB. Also, I meant forgot to mention that
Speaker 1: he was. Yeah, but if you don't know, the KGB
Speaker 1: was the intelligence agency, the equivalent of the CIA for
Speaker 1: the Soviet Union, and apparently they tried to kill him
Speaker 1: five times, five times he survived every time. Yeah, this
Speaker 1: guy not only that, he saved President Reagan's life. Why
Speaker 1: am I not supprised? Of course? Now how did he
Speaker 1: do this? He stopped a KGB agent from joining the
Speaker 1: Reagan for President committee before he was president. Oh my god,
Speaker 1: local politics and it's just some guy with like a
Speaker 1: Polish last name and he thinks it's a Russian last
Speaker 1: name who wants to get on there and he bullies
Speaker 1: him out of the out of like the Elks Lodge
Speaker 1: hall when they're having their meeting, all loud go back
Speaker 1: to Rosca. So also, of course, because it's the ninetc.
Speaker 1: Also had thoughts about AIDS and where AIDS came from.
Speaker 1: So he was like, you know that AID stuff and
Speaker 1: andy Bola, they were both manufactured by what's your guess, Russia, aliens? Aliens. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I forgot about the Aliens were using AIDS in Ebola
Speaker 1: to depopulate sub Saharan Africa, very X files. It just
Speaker 1: makes so much sense exactly. He also claimed that there
Speaker 1: was lots of evidence that the U. S. Government had
Speaker 1: of these aliens, including the fact that President Nixon and
Speaker 1: Jackie Gleason had both seen the aliens. Remember that, Storry,
Speaker 1: I'm not the only Kukola story. So if you want
Speaker 1: to hear that ridiculous history did a double episode, I
Speaker 1: tell that story. Back to his manifesto, Ford claimed to
Speaker 1: his hustler and friend and roommate Joe Massa Shelley. He
Speaker 1: claims that dude in his manifesto, mind you, he says
Speaker 1: Joe was also a spy. He was. Can you guess
Speaker 1: where from Joe's of spine, Joe Massacelli, where Israeli intelligence?
Speaker 1: He's from the massag of course, he just looks Italian.
Speaker 1: So Joseph Mats Shelley was apparently a cover name. Oh yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1: Things start to unravel and Zabo was like, oh man,
Speaker 1: he washes his hands of this when he sees the
Speaker 1: manifesto immediately, Oh yeah, he exactly, They're glowing and he's
Speaker 1: like He's like, I plead guilty. So he pleads guilty
Speaker 1: as fast as he can for him. He's also promises
Speaker 1: to testify against Ford. He's like, look, I will tell
Speaker 1: you whatever you want to know. They put him on
Speaker 1: house arrestor like okay, don't go to work, and he's
Speaker 1: like cool, that's fine. I'll just hang out here with
Speaker 1: my toys, and they're like cool now, Joe Massi Shelley,
Speaker 1: the alleged Israeli spy. He pleads guilty. He also goes,
Speaker 1: I will testify against John Ford. The guy has barely
Speaker 1: known him. Everybody's flipping. He totally flips. Ford is looking
Speaker 1: at seventy five years for his radioactive assassination plot, but
Speaker 1: he decides he's got one last gambit. He's going to
Speaker 1: flip on the aliens. That would be amazing. Though. He's like,
Speaker 1: you know, I wanted to turn state's s evidence against
Speaker 1: z boor seven. He tries to turn state's evidence against himself.
Speaker 1: I will tell you the truth on John Ford. Now.
Speaker 1: While he's on like you know, waiting for trial, he
Speaker 1: gets locked up in a prison mental health hospital because
Speaker 1: they don't want to put him in regular jail because
Speaker 1: clearly not like you know, hinged and uh, he's off
Speaker 1: campus at this point, fully off campus and yeah, he
Speaker 1: says that this is all according to his plan, right
Speaker 1: he and I quote he says, the court says, I'm
Speaker 1: not competent based upon these statements? Are they ravings of
Speaker 1: a madman or the writings of a perfect and master spy.
Speaker 1: He alleges that his manifesto is proof of his brilliance
Speaker 1: because it makes him look crazy and the truth is
Speaker 1: in there. Also, He's like, look, I told the truth
Speaker 1: and it makes me look crazy. Who's not the master spy?
Speaker 1: Oh my god? So do you know he critiqued the
Speaker 1: bailiff in the court. He's like watching him. He's like
Speaker 1: looking at slouches. So what do you think, raving madman
Speaker 1: or perfect masters? Why not both? Who? I like that?
Speaker 1: Look at you? Broad minded? Well? One of the crew.
Speaker 1: He's one of his crew, the KG veteran investigator, remember him,
Speaker 1: Preston Nichols with the school bus and the mind detector.
Speaker 1: He said, have his old friend Ford quote, he's as
Speaker 1: loony as they come, but he's a coherent loon. So
Speaker 1: the time traveler says he's crazy. I'm not buying the
Speaker 1: coherent part. But now apparently he says, he's you know,
Speaker 1: following a basically a will get to see and be
Speaker 1: willing be in between. He's like, that's coherence. I'm like, okay, bro, Now,
Speaker 1: john Ford maybe crazy. We don't know. He may not be.
Speaker 1: I'm just willing to keep that open option. Maybe he
Speaker 1: is a master spy tricking us all. Let's just pretend
Speaker 1: right now now. If he is playing crazy to avoid
Speaker 1: a life in prison, that is brilliant, right. So whatever, now,
Speaker 1: no matter what, Ford still expects to get out of
Speaker 1: this hospital one day. He's still alive. He's still locked
Speaker 1: up in a mental health hospital, and he will, once
Speaker 1: he gets out, reveal the truth of the alien is
Speaker 1: living amongst us, or, as Ford put it in a
Speaker 1: letter to his loyal right hand man, do you I
Speaker 1: have arone quote, I'll bring home the bacon for everyone.
Speaker 1: Then we'll rebuild the Long Island ufone network and destroy
Speaker 1: the cover up. And what did he write in closing
Speaker 1: of his manifesto, The truth is out there. Yes, it's
Speaker 1: a ridiculous takeaway here. The ridiculous takeaway is that I
Speaker 1: would like to go to an event put on by
Speaker 1: the Long Island unifone network outfit. Yeah, and I would
Speaker 1: really like to try out my bulling thing after a
Speaker 1: presentation there and then get poisoned and killed. I think
Speaker 1: my takeaway is, again, like I said, if you really
Speaker 1: believe this stuff, it has to be so frustrating and
Speaker 1: terrifying to think that you know something a PC and
Speaker 1: everyone's just like, no, you're you're crazy. Um, especially if
Speaker 1: it's something that you think, well, we're under attack by aliens.
Speaker 1: I mean, yeah, that would be a dire thing. If
Speaker 1: it were true. You would hope people would do what
Speaker 1: he's doing. And I think too that it's also you've
Speaker 1: got to be pretty ticked off if you're just a
Speaker 1: UFO person, like a person who is curious about UFOs
Speaker 1: or believes in it. And you know there are like
Speaker 1: all like the Air Force and military sightings and stuff. Right,
Speaker 1: I've got a friend who's a big time so they're
Speaker 1: like legitimate things that you can be talking about. But
Speaker 1: then it's like they get tainted by these goofballs who
Speaker 1: are yeah, it's like Jesus and that a lot of
Speaker 1: people mean well, And then you have other people who
Speaker 1: use it for weird stuff and you have a hard
Speaker 1: time deciding which is this person who's telling me this
Speaker 1: new story about Jesus or aliens are they meaning well
Speaker 1: or are they just like completely in the beroom powerful
Speaker 1: or mysterious thing is going to also elicit those who
Speaker 1: are having some troubles on their own, and then it
Speaker 1: seeps into it. So I mean, you haven't trouble parsing reality,
Speaker 1: Aliens and Jesus can be real hard to make sense.
Speaker 1: So my ridiculous takeaway, thanks for asking the fact that
Speaker 1: my friends apparently don't try hard. Enough of them have
Speaker 1: ever come to me with an assassination plot for our
Speaker 1: local political leaders? Do we could get some radioactive monkeys
Speaker 1: because and Davis they got these radio actually radio active
Speaker 1: beats and dig them dogs up and we could do
Speaker 1: some damage. But no, none of them have come to
Speaker 1: me with this. You guys are letting me down. They
Speaker 1: got up their game. Well, thanks for joining us. It's
Speaker 1: been a fun one, it has been. I'm Elizabeth Dunton.
Speaker 1: I would like to be Saron Burnett. You can be
Speaker 1: for right now. Try it on, see how it fits.
Speaker 1: You can find us online a ridiculous crime on both
Speaker 1: Twitter and Instagram. You got a tip for us about
Speaker 1: a ridiculous crime you'd like to hear about. You want
Speaker 1: to confess to a ridiculous Crime. Oh please hit us up.
Speaker 1: Email is at ridiculous Crime at gmail dot com. Thanks
Speaker 1: for listening. Ridiculous Crimes hosted I visit the Dutton end
Speaker 1: Zon Burnett, produced and edited by Chairman of the Unidentified
Speaker 1: Flying Oakland Objects Network Dave Coustin. Research is by your
Speaker 1: Extraterrestrial lead investigator Marissa Brown. The theme song is by
Speaker 1: Thomas Phone Home Lee and Travis Alien Nation. Dutton Executive
Speaker 1: producers are Ben Beat Me Up Bowling and No Wait,
Speaker 1: I Don't see it Brown. Ridiculous Crime is a production
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