1
00:00:00,520 --> 00:00:04,320
Speaker 1: Oh, folks, friends and neighbors, fellow conspiracy realist, we are

2
00:00:04,440 --> 00:00:08,280
Speaker 1: returning with a classic episode that I'm gonna say it, guys,

3
00:00:08,840 --> 00:00:11,479
Speaker 1: this is This is a banger. This is such a

4
00:00:11,520 --> 00:00:15,720
Speaker 1: fascinating thing. It's got a venn diagram with ridiculous history

5
00:00:15,760 --> 00:00:20,239
Speaker 1: as well. Animals at war, do you guys remember like

6
00:00:20,320 --> 00:00:23,919
Speaker 1: the cutesy stories that pop up on social media where

7
00:00:24,160 --> 00:00:27,960
Speaker 1: someone will say, you know, in World War what, this

8
00:00:28,240 --> 00:00:33,680
Speaker 1: tiny scrappy yorksheteria was awarded medals by the Queen due

9
00:00:33,760 --> 00:00:35,720
Speaker 1: to his I don't know something.

10
00:00:36,080 --> 00:00:39,520
Speaker 2: I love a good dog metal you know they deserve it.

11
00:00:39,040 --> 00:00:44,519
Speaker 3: Well, it's his courageous efforts in alerting someone about something.

12
00:00:45,200 --> 00:00:45,600
Speaker 4: Yeah.

13
00:00:45,720 --> 00:00:49,760
Speaker 1: Yeah, and there's also the story of the cat who

14
00:00:50,560 --> 00:00:53,400
Speaker 1: may have I don't think he became an officer, but

15
00:00:53,440 --> 00:00:56,800
Speaker 1: he was commended for his rating abilities.

16
00:00:57,000 --> 00:00:58,880
Speaker 2: Well, he was definitely a gentleman, that's for sure.

17
00:00:59,680 --> 00:01:03,320
Speaker 1: Yeah, a tinker tailor's soldier spy add all in the package,

18
00:01:03,360 --> 00:01:06,960
Speaker 1: one feline package of the feline variety. So, whether it's

19
00:01:07,040 --> 00:01:11,360
Speaker 1: Beast of Burden, scouts, sentries, or you know, attack dogs,

20
00:01:12,080 --> 00:01:16,960
Speaker 1: animals have always been conscripted into human conflict, you know,

21
00:01:17,040 --> 00:01:19,840
Speaker 1: like marching into war with elephants and so on, and

22
00:01:20,440 --> 00:01:22,800
Speaker 1: a lot of a lot of times. As we discuss

23
00:01:22,880 --> 00:01:27,280
Speaker 1: in this episode, folks will assume that this is ancient history,

24
00:01:27,440 --> 00:01:31,039
Speaker 1: but as we'll learn, the practice continued in the modern

25
00:01:31,120 --> 00:01:32,240
Speaker 1: day and evolved.

26
00:01:32,880 --> 00:01:36,920
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, Docsin's getting in tiny little holes to root

27
00:01:36,959 --> 00:01:38,160
Speaker 3: out enemy soldiers.

28
00:01:39,280 --> 00:01:45,319
Speaker 1: Yeah, or the experiments with cybernetic cat spies, bat bombs,

29
00:01:45,640 --> 00:01:47,400
Speaker 1: you name it. Oh man, this is wild.

30
00:01:47,560 --> 00:01:48,280
Speaker 2: I love this one.

31
00:01:49,360 --> 00:01:50,280
Speaker 3: Well, let's hop right in.

32
00:01:51,840 --> 00:01:56,280
Speaker 4: From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is

33
00:01:56,360 --> 00:02:00,680
Speaker 4: riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or

34
00:02:00,760 --> 00:02:03,760
Speaker 4: learn this stuff they don't want you to know. A

35
00:02:03,840 --> 00:02:06,880
Speaker 4: production of iHeart Radios How Stuff Works.

36
00:02:16,000 --> 00:02:18,440
Speaker 3: Hello, welcome back to the show. My name is Matt.

37
00:02:18,280 --> 00:02:19,600
Speaker 2: Party on that my name is Nola.

38
00:02:19,880 --> 00:02:22,840
Speaker 1: They call me Ben. We are joined with our super

39
00:02:23,000 --> 00:02:26,560
Speaker 1: guest producer today, Seth Johnson. So help us find a

40
00:02:26,760 --> 00:02:30,120
Speaker 1: nickname or a moniker for him, if you feel so inclined.

41
00:02:30,360 --> 00:02:33,600
Speaker 1: Most importantly, you are you. You are here, and that

42
00:02:33,800 --> 00:02:37,679
Speaker 1: makes this stuff they don't want you to know now.

43
00:02:37,800 --> 00:02:41,160
Speaker 1: It's it's a fairly well known fact here in the

44
00:02:41,200 --> 00:02:45,200
Speaker 1: studio around the office, and so that we are animal

45
00:02:45,400 --> 00:02:50,200
Speaker 1: lovers ourselves Seth has three dogs, as he as he

46
00:02:50,280 --> 00:02:54,720
Speaker 1: described them, two full blown mutts and one pug. And

47
00:02:54,760 --> 00:02:57,519
Speaker 1: then Matt, you have you have a pooch as well, right.

48
00:02:57,440 --> 00:03:01,320
Speaker 3: Yes, I do have a pooch, a full blow she's

49
00:03:01,320 --> 00:03:06,720
Speaker 3: got the mutts. Yeah, And you've got several feline companions.

50
00:03:06,240 --> 00:03:09,320
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, oddly enough. And Nolan and I both

51
00:03:10,280 --> 00:03:12,359
Speaker 1: have have cats. Nola, I think you have a cat

52
00:03:12,440 --> 00:03:13,160
Speaker 1: named Robert.

53
00:03:13,160 --> 00:03:15,200
Speaker 2: I have a single cat goes by the name Robert

54
00:03:15,200 --> 00:03:18,720
Speaker 2: interchangeably with Fernando. We named him Fernando before we found

55
00:03:18,720 --> 00:03:20,040
Speaker 2: out that he actually already had a name. It was

56
00:03:20,120 --> 00:03:24,000
Speaker 2: Robert because he has a bob tail. I get it.

57
00:03:24,480 --> 00:03:28,240
Speaker 1: So we're you know, we're not alone by any means.

58
00:03:28,639 --> 00:03:34,360
Speaker 1: Our species has a long story history with animals. They're lovable,

59
00:03:34,680 --> 00:03:37,840
Speaker 1: they're dangerous. If you're listening to this in twenty nineteen,

60
00:03:38,080 --> 00:03:41,280
Speaker 1: a ton of them are endangered. Yeah, so they're dangerous

61
00:03:41,360 --> 00:03:47,480
Speaker 1: and endangered. And today we're exploring the secret stories of

62
00:03:47,640 --> 00:03:53,120
Speaker 1: animals beyond well, technically the secret story of non human animals.

63
00:03:53,760 --> 00:03:59,960
Speaker 1: Beyond the typical fetch Fido, you know, pet your cat

64
00:04:00,200 --> 00:04:03,280
Speaker 1: kind of things. Beyond the world of pets. We're talking

65
00:04:03,520 --> 00:04:06,560
Speaker 1: about animals in the military.

66
00:04:06,160 --> 00:04:07,680
Speaker 3: And there are a lot of those that you probably

67
00:04:07,800 --> 00:04:10,320
Speaker 3: think of immediately as we're saying that, right, and we're

68
00:04:10,320 --> 00:04:12,800
Speaker 3: going to talk briefly about some of those, but we're

69
00:04:12,840 --> 00:04:18,200
Speaker 3: getting into the deeper waters where animals are used in

70
00:04:18,320 --> 00:04:19,880
Speaker 3: such unconventional ways.

71
00:04:20,080 --> 00:04:24,120
Speaker 1: It gets weird very quickly. But first let's set the stage.

72
00:04:24,440 --> 00:04:25,719
Speaker 1: Here are the facts.

73
00:04:26,000 --> 00:04:29,520
Speaker 2: Animals have been used in combat roles since time immemorial,

74
00:04:29,600 --> 00:04:32,920
Speaker 2: ancient times. Occasionally they would be in support roles, other

75
00:04:33,000 --> 00:04:37,680
Speaker 2: times actually weaponized. While dogs and horses were some of

76
00:04:37,720 --> 00:04:41,560
Speaker 2: the first critters used in war, horses of course, being

77
00:04:41,600 --> 00:04:45,080
Speaker 2: one of the most historical representations of the popular images

78
00:04:45,120 --> 00:04:48,000
Speaker 2: you see of war horses decked out in armor and

79
00:04:48,040 --> 00:04:51,400
Speaker 2: the like. There are only two examples of a much

80
00:04:51,520 --> 00:04:53,039
Speaker 2: wider field than you might expect.

81
00:04:54,040 --> 00:04:54,520
Speaker 4: That's right.

82
00:04:54,680 --> 00:04:57,679
Speaker 1: You know, a horse is a horse. Of course, they're

83
00:04:57,960 --> 00:05:01,200
Speaker 1: some of the most popular. But over the past thousands

84
00:05:01,279 --> 00:05:09,960
Speaker 1: of years, humans have used camels, donkeys, monkeys, elephants, dolphins, rats, cats, pigeons, pigs, oxen, moose,

85
00:05:10,040 --> 00:05:10,479
Speaker 1: and more.

86
00:05:10,600 --> 00:05:11,159
Speaker 2: I don't know.

87
00:05:11,720 --> 00:05:14,760
Speaker 1: Oh, thank you, thank you for saving us. There it

88
00:05:14,800 --> 00:05:17,039
Speaker 1: felt like it was about the beat was about to drop.

89
00:05:17,480 --> 00:05:21,679
Speaker 1: But we have we have used these to some sort

90
00:05:21,680 --> 00:05:26,320
Speaker 1: of either logistical or tactical advantage for a long, long, long,

91
00:05:26,400 --> 00:05:32,960
Speaker 1: long time, and honestly, we never really stopped nowadays with

92
00:05:33,000 --> 00:05:38,000
Speaker 1: the with the rise of mechanized transportation. Nowadays we see

93
00:05:38,200 --> 00:05:42,480
Speaker 1: horses still around, but not as crucial as they were

94
00:05:42,560 --> 00:05:47,720
Speaker 1: to say, uh, nomadic parties on the steps, right or

95
00:05:48,000 --> 00:05:54,600
Speaker 1: Napoleonic warfare. Yeah, so that means that statistically speaking, humanity's

96
00:05:54,920 --> 00:05:59,160
Speaker 1: favorite non human animal gets the gets the spotlight now,

97
00:05:59,440 --> 00:06:03,000
Speaker 1: and those are dogs. So when you think of I

98
00:06:03,000 --> 00:06:06,560
Speaker 1: mean what most people think of a pet, statistics prove

99
00:06:06,640 --> 00:06:11,039
Speaker 1: they think of dogs. And who hasn't seen those adorable

100
00:06:11,080 --> 00:06:14,599
Speaker 1: pictures of dogs and military vests, you know, or who

101
00:06:14,600 --> 00:06:17,039
Speaker 1: hasn't been at the airport and had a tough time

102
00:06:19,000 --> 00:06:20,760
Speaker 1: try not to pet the drug.

103
00:06:20,560 --> 00:06:25,600
Speaker 3: Dog exactly, or the I've seen several memes of shibinos

104
00:06:25,640 --> 00:06:30,440
Speaker 3: with ak's some of those. Oh no, sorry, no, that's

105
00:06:30,480 --> 00:06:30,800
Speaker 3: not a thing.

106
00:06:30,880 --> 00:06:32,599
Speaker 2: I got one that Trump's all of that. Okay, So

107
00:06:32,800 --> 00:06:35,200
Speaker 2: I saw a picture of a guy with his dog

108
00:06:35,320 --> 00:06:37,960
Speaker 2: insize head was inside a watermelon and it was cut

109
00:06:38,120 --> 00:06:39,919
Speaker 2: and then he opens up the watermelon and there's a

110
00:06:39,920 --> 00:06:42,720
Speaker 2: dog inside. Wow. Yeah, just the head there was like

111
00:06:42,760 --> 00:06:44,360
Speaker 2: a hole cut and the bottom of the watermelon. The

112
00:06:44,400 --> 00:06:47,000
Speaker 2: watermelon is surrounding the dog's head. He's very happy. It

113
00:06:47,080 --> 00:06:49,800
Speaker 2: wasn't you know? There was no no animal, No, not

114
00:06:49,839 --> 00:06:51,799
Speaker 2: at all. But the thing is when you look at it,

115
00:06:51,839 --> 00:06:53,360
Speaker 2: you know, forever second, like what am I looking at?

116
00:06:53,360 --> 00:06:56,120
Speaker 2: And then the watermelon parts and there's a it looks

117
00:06:56,160 --> 00:06:58,400
Speaker 2: like there's a dog like living inside the Watermelon's the

118
00:06:58,400 --> 00:07:01,400
Speaker 2: cutest thing I've ever seen in my life. You canonize that, Yeah,

119
00:07:01,440 --> 00:07:02,839
Speaker 2: well that image alone.

120
00:07:03,080 --> 00:07:07,159
Speaker 3: You know, the United States military can certainly weaponize things

121
00:07:07,440 --> 00:07:09,360
Speaker 3: of that nature, but they have other ways of doing

122
00:07:09,360 --> 00:07:14,120
Speaker 3: this too. There's this thing called the US War Dogs Association,

123
00:07:14,320 --> 00:07:19,320
Speaker 3: and they've kind of given us some basic categories in

124
00:07:19,360 --> 00:07:22,360
Speaker 3: which are types in which dogs have been used for

125
00:07:22,480 --> 00:07:24,640
Speaker 3: military purposes right over the years.

126
00:07:24,680 --> 00:07:28,760
Speaker 1: Maybe not necessarily today, but yeah, they have seven broad

127
00:07:28,920 --> 00:07:32,360
Speaker 1: categories and we can list through these pretty quickly. So

128
00:07:32,560 --> 00:07:35,920
Speaker 1: first century, it's what it says on the tin. These

129
00:07:35,960 --> 00:07:38,440
Speaker 1: dogs worked on a short leash and they were taught

130
00:07:38,480 --> 00:07:42,600
Speaker 1: to give a series of escalating warnings. They could growl,

131
00:07:43,040 --> 00:07:46,520
Speaker 1: they could run around like they were irritated, or of

132
00:07:46,560 --> 00:07:52,000
Speaker 1: course they could bark, and they were most useful during

133
00:07:52,040 --> 00:07:55,200
Speaker 1: the evening when attacked from cover or from the rear

134
00:07:55,520 --> 00:07:56,480
Speaker 1: was most likely.

135
00:07:56,960 --> 00:08:00,360
Speaker 3: Yeah, and that feels like the most traditional use of

136
00:08:00,400 --> 00:08:04,040
Speaker 3: a dog for almost guarding purposes in a way, you

137
00:08:04,040 --> 00:08:06,640
Speaker 3: know to the days of wolves. Yeah, if you're around

138
00:08:06,640 --> 00:08:10,240
Speaker 3: a campfire or something, having a dog that is tame

139
00:08:10,320 --> 00:08:13,520
Speaker 3: and near your campsite, it would be very, very beneficial.

140
00:08:13,800 --> 00:08:16,400
Speaker 3: But then you've also got dogs that are actually going

141
00:08:16,440 --> 00:08:20,080
Speaker 3: to go out on patrol or scout with humans, and

142
00:08:20,120 --> 00:08:21,840
Speaker 3: a lot of these are trained to work in silence.

143
00:08:22,280 --> 00:08:25,760
Speaker 3: These would these guys would try and detect or at

144
00:08:25,840 --> 00:08:29,400
Speaker 3: least attempt to detect snipers, any kind of other ambushes

145
00:08:29,560 --> 00:08:32,560
Speaker 3: from you know, an enemy force. But especially if you're

146
00:08:32,600 --> 00:08:36,319
Speaker 3: dealing with something that you've got not a quarantined area

147
00:08:36,360 --> 00:08:39,600
Speaker 3: but an area of operation, right, these could kind of

148
00:08:39,600 --> 00:08:43,120
Speaker 3: patrol the area as well. But a type of dog

149
00:08:43,200 --> 00:08:44,800
Speaker 3: needs to be trained for this. You can't just get

150
00:08:44,800 --> 00:08:48,360
Speaker 3: any breed essentially, or any dog with any disposition for this.

151
00:08:48,720 --> 00:08:52,199
Speaker 3: They have to be some of the most highly intelligent breeds.

152
00:08:52,480 --> 00:08:54,320
Speaker 2: German shepherds a lot of the time, right, or at

153
00:08:54,360 --> 00:08:57,240
Speaker 2: least those are attack dogs. They're definitely used as they

154
00:08:57,240 --> 00:09:01,199
Speaker 2: seem pretty versatile because they're very highly intelligent and trainable.

155
00:09:01,280 --> 00:09:03,960
Speaker 1: I imagine you just don't want a Golden Retriever for

156
00:09:04,000 --> 00:09:07,239
Speaker 1: this one. Yeah no, because they would make friends.

157
00:09:07,600 --> 00:09:10,120
Speaker 3: Yeah. Well, it's crazy too. They've got a statistic here,

158
00:09:10,160 --> 00:09:12,479
Speaker 3: and again we're getting this from the US War Dogs Association.

159
00:09:13,120 --> 00:09:16,240
Speaker 3: Quote scout dogs could detect the presence of enemies up

160
00:09:16,280 --> 00:09:20,600
Speaker 3: to distances of one thousand yards and that's way before

161
00:09:20,920 --> 00:09:25,199
Speaker 3: any of the human operators would notice these enemy forces.

162
00:09:25,440 --> 00:09:27,760
Speaker 2: And just FYI, this is an interesting statistic that I

163
00:09:27,800 --> 00:09:31,080
Speaker 2: found from how stuff works. Actually, the cost of training

164
00:09:31,120 --> 00:09:34,880
Speaker 2: a military dog per animal is around between twenty thousand

165
00:09:34,920 --> 00:09:38,520
Speaker 2: to forty thousand dollars. So this is very specialized training

166
00:09:38,559 --> 00:09:40,480
Speaker 2: that goes into being able to do these tasks and

167
00:09:40,720 --> 00:09:41,520
Speaker 2: doesn't come cheap.

168
00:09:41,920 --> 00:09:46,440
Speaker 1: So the third category there would be the messenger. The

169
00:09:46,480 --> 00:09:51,160
Speaker 1: most desired quality for a messenger dog was loyalty and

170
00:09:51,400 --> 00:09:54,720
Speaker 1: they had to be able to work with two handlers.

171
00:09:55,080 --> 00:09:56,079
Speaker 3: Like one on each side.

172
00:09:56,280 --> 00:09:58,680
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, and so that can be a problem with

173
00:09:58,760 --> 00:10:01,560
Speaker 1: some animals. When the militaries of the world attempted to

174
00:10:01,640 --> 00:10:06,200
Speaker 1: train cetaceans, they found that they had difficulty passing like

175
00:10:06,280 --> 00:10:10,040
Speaker 1: take getting the dolphin or what have you. To also

176
00:10:10,120 --> 00:10:12,720
Speaker 1: be cool, with the field agent instead of just being

177
00:10:12,720 --> 00:10:15,840
Speaker 1: cool with the trainer. But then we have mind detection.

178
00:10:16,000 --> 00:10:18,560
Speaker 1: Those dogs have a cool nickname. They're called M dogs.

179
00:10:18,920 --> 00:10:19,280
Speaker 3: Nice.

180
00:10:19,360 --> 00:10:21,680
Speaker 1: I feel like I've met an M dog somewhere, but

181
00:10:21,760 --> 00:10:23,120
Speaker 1: it was probably at a dive bar.

182
00:10:24,160 --> 00:10:26,160
Speaker 3: For some reason, all of this is reminding me of

183
00:10:26,200 --> 00:10:28,640
Speaker 3: Metal Gear Solid and the Diamond Dogs. I don't know

184
00:10:28,640 --> 00:10:29,560
Speaker 3: if you guys are aware of that.

185
00:10:29,640 --> 00:10:31,839
Speaker 1: Nope, Okay, well it's been a while since I played

186
00:10:31,840 --> 00:10:32,960
Speaker 1: the Metal Gears.

187
00:10:33,320 --> 00:10:36,959
Speaker 2: The Diamond Dogs. Yeah, that's a David Bowie reference right there.

188
00:10:36,880 --> 00:10:40,760
Speaker 3: It is, that's correct. Oh, should never mind. There are

189
00:10:40,800 --> 00:10:43,080
Speaker 3: lots of there's a lot of games that you need

190
00:10:43,120 --> 00:10:44,600
Speaker 3: to play, all right, keep going.

191
00:10:44,880 --> 00:10:48,720
Speaker 1: So then there are casualty dogs. This is a more

192
00:10:48,800 --> 00:10:53,720
Speaker 1: somber duty, but this is enormously important. They're like search

193
00:10:53,840 --> 00:10:59,319
Speaker 1: and rescue dogs, but they're meant to find the bodies, yeah,

194
00:10:59,360 --> 00:11:02,560
Speaker 1: you know, with the is not if the rescue is

195
00:11:02,559 --> 00:11:05,400
Speaker 1: not possible while the person's alive. They are meant to

196
00:11:06,000 --> 00:11:08,200
Speaker 1: pinpoint the casualties.

197
00:11:08,440 --> 00:11:10,199
Speaker 3: Right now, Can we jump back to the mind dogs

198
00:11:10,240 --> 00:11:10,720
Speaker 3: really faster?

199
00:11:10,920 --> 00:11:13,360
Speaker 1: I feel I'm always open to talk about M dogs, man.

200
00:11:13,280 --> 00:11:15,960
Speaker 3: Okay, because I feel like I've been glossed over some

201
00:11:16,000 --> 00:11:18,520
Speaker 3: of the end part there because there's something you found

202
00:11:18,520 --> 00:11:21,600
Speaker 3: in the research bend that was just about how difficult

203
00:11:21,840 --> 00:11:25,440
Speaker 3: that job is. Because remember, these animals are essentially performing

204
00:11:25,520 --> 00:11:30,160
Speaker 3: a job, the job of detecting minds and other metallic

205
00:11:30,160 --> 00:11:35,160
Speaker 3: and non metallic explosive devices, while there's let's say a

206
00:11:35,200 --> 00:11:40,160
Speaker 3: gun battle occurring or explosions happening around. Just how difficult

207
00:11:40,160 --> 00:11:43,880
Speaker 3: that job is to perform in actual combat.

208
00:11:44,000 --> 00:11:48,640
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, yeah, very stressful, right, yeah, yeah, So the

209
00:11:49,480 --> 00:11:52,520
Speaker 1: m dogs, despite having one of the coolest names, did

210
00:11:52,559 --> 00:11:56,040
Speaker 1: not in fact do the best job just because the

211
00:11:56,120 --> 00:11:58,559
Speaker 1: circumstances were so fraught with peril.

212
00:11:59,440 --> 00:11:59,640
Speaker 2: You know.

213
00:11:59,720 --> 00:12:04,479
Speaker 1: The one I admire immensely were the tunnel dogs oh Vietnam,

214
00:12:04,920 --> 00:12:07,920
Speaker 1: because they used to have humans as well be tunnel

215
00:12:08,000 --> 00:12:13,440
Speaker 1: rats who would drop into the secret Viet Cong tunnels

216
00:12:13,520 --> 00:12:17,800
Speaker 1: hideouts and headquarters, and that just I don't know why

217
00:12:17,880 --> 00:12:20,280
Speaker 1: that one was when that's terrified me, Like if you've

218
00:12:20,280 --> 00:12:24,040
Speaker 1: ever been buried alive, it's not a pleasant experience that

219
00:12:24,160 --> 00:12:27,520
Speaker 1: like you wouldn't I'm not normally claustrophobic, but it just

220
00:12:27,559 --> 00:12:31,400
Speaker 1: takes like one night in the dirt to not want

221
00:12:31,400 --> 00:12:32,400
Speaker 1: to ever do that again.

222
00:12:32,480 --> 00:12:34,520
Speaker 2: Have you seen that whole movie where I think it's Ryan,

223
00:12:35,320 --> 00:12:37,800
Speaker 2: the guy that plays Deadpool. It's like the whole movie

224
00:12:37,840 --> 00:12:41,520
Speaker 2: is him and buried, a live situation. Ryan Reynolds said

225
00:12:41,520 --> 00:12:42,839
Speaker 2: his name was that Deadpool's name?

226
00:12:43,080 --> 00:12:45,800
Speaker 3: Yeah, yes it is. But I do not recall this film.

227
00:12:47,080 --> 00:12:49,559
Speaker 2: It's called buried. Yeah, there you go. Yeah, it's called Buried.

228
00:12:49,640 --> 00:12:52,319
Speaker 2: Sounds like a very unpleasant film. I don't know that

229
00:12:52,440 --> 00:12:54,680
Speaker 2: Ben would enjoy it very much. I always think of

230
00:12:54,679 --> 00:12:57,120
Speaker 2: that scene in kill Bill when she's buried in the

231
00:12:57,120 --> 00:12:58,760
Speaker 2: coffin and clong her way out, and that was to

232
00:12:58,840 --> 00:13:01,600
Speaker 2: me the most visceral depiction of like what it might

233
00:13:01,600 --> 00:13:03,440
Speaker 2: feel like to be buried alive, and it is. It

234
00:13:03,520 --> 00:13:04,120
Speaker 2: is not good.

235
00:13:04,440 --> 00:13:08,800
Speaker 3: Yeah, to totally I agree with you there, but I'm sorry.

236
00:13:08,880 --> 00:13:12,680
Speaker 3: All this stuff makes me think about Docsin's and I

237
00:13:12,840 --> 00:13:14,440
Speaker 3: don't know, honestly, I don't know if.

238
00:13:14,320 --> 00:13:16,400
Speaker 1: They were they were bread to hunt badgers.

239
00:13:16,080 --> 00:13:18,600
Speaker 3: Yeah, but I know that. I don't know if they

240
00:13:18,600 --> 00:13:22,240
Speaker 3: were used in for the purposes specifically of being a

241
00:13:22,280 --> 00:13:26,520
Speaker 3: tunnel dog. But dang, that's like you couldn't create a

242
00:13:26,559 --> 00:13:28,520
Speaker 3: better version, a better chassis.

243
00:13:28,640 --> 00:13:30,760
Speaker 2: Yeah, you could have put their legs a little closer together.

244
00:13:30,840 --> 00:13:32,640
Speaker 2: Probably made a little more traction.

245
00:13:32,880 --> 00:13:36,240
Speaker 1: They're bread to hunt all burrowing animals that were in

246
00:13:36,240 --> 00:13:39,520
Speaker 1: need of that position. That's why, despite their diminutive frame,

247
00:13:39,600 --> 00:13:41,520
Speaker 1: they have a warlike belligerent demeanor.

248
00:13:41,840 --> 00:13:42,520
Speaker 2: Yeah, I said it.

249
00:13:42,520 --> 00:13:43,000
Speaker 1: It's true.

250
00:13:43,440 --> 00:13:44,520
Speaker 3: It's true. It's very true.

251
00:13:44,679 --> 00:13:48,640
Speaker 2: Ben. Back back to casualty dogs, it makes me think

252
00:13:48,679 --> 00:13:50,760
Speaker 2: of rescue dogs, not not in that what we think

253
00:13:50,800 --> 00:13:53,200
Speaker 2: of when we think of like getting a rescue shelter dog,

254
00:13:53,240 --> 00:13:56,160
Speaker 2: but like dogs that would rescue people from avalanches. You

255
00:13:56,240 --> 00:13:58,640
Speaker 2: might have seen cartoons where you have these Saint Bernards

256
00:13:58,920 --> 00:14:02,040
Speaker 2: in like Switzerland, the Swiss Alps, with these little barrels

257
00:14:02,080 --> 00:14:04,200
Speaker 2: around their neck that I think had some sort of

258
00:14:04,280 --> 00:14:07,760
Speaker 2: brandy in them that would revive like a passed out,

259
00:14:07,960 --> 00:14:11,520
Speaker 2: snowblind traveler and poor sap that got stuck in an avalanche.

260
00:14:11,800 --> 00:14:13,040
Speaker 2: Oh the thing as well.

261
00:14:13,120 --> 00:14:16,679
Speaker 1: I always wondered if if they really did wear those

262
00:14:16,920 --> 00:14:18,959
Speaker 1: and oh, I just I just found a picture. I

263
00:14:19,000 --> 00:14:21,240
Speaker 1: mean it definitely, that's a thing I found. Yeah, I

264
00:14:21,320 --> 00:14:23,760
Speaker 1: found a picture for petful dot com. What's in a

265
00:14:23,760 --> 00:14:26,720
Speaker 1: barrel around a Saint Bridard's neck? But it seems like

266
00:14:27,320 --> 00:14:31,360
Speaker 1: there's a long and disputed history, but they definitely at

267
00:14:31,400 --> 00:14:34,520
Speaker 1: some point at least one of them did it. Tunnel dogs,

268
00:14:34,600 --> 00:14:39,520
Speaker 1: I think, incredibly brave explosive detection dogs, right, that is

269
00:14:39,760 --> 00:14:43,200
Speaker 1: the That is the seventh category you'll see on war dogs,

270
00:14:43,640 --> 00:14:45,920
Speaker 1: and those are just what they sound like. They are

271
00:14:46,000 --> 00:14:50,520
Speaker 1: trained to use the astonishing canine scent of smell to

272
00:14:50,760 --> 00:14:56,040
Speaker 1: detect explosives before human beings could. So these these dogs

273
00:14:56,040 --> 00:15:00,680
Speaker 1: are in Rock, Afghanistan, a lot of other war torn areas,

274
00:15:00,720 --> 00:15:03,560
Speaker 1: and that only factors in these seven categories only factor

275
00:15:03,560 --> 00:15:07,760
Speaker 1: in official working dogs. So these are not those heartwarming,

276
00:15:08,240 --> 00:15:13,960
Speaker 1: buzzfeedy stories of you know, like Sergeant Peppercorns or whatever,

277
00:15:14,040 --> 00:15:17,800
Speaker 1: who is a little you know, cocker Spaniel that the

278
00:15:17,840 --> 00:15:20,280
Speaker 1: French ran into one day and now he has his

279
00:15:20,320 --> 00:15:23,040
Speaker 1: own uniform and people have to salute him and stuff.

280
00:15:23,400 --> 00:15:24,680
Speaker 3: Oh Sergeant pepper Corns.

281
00:15:25,360 --> 00:15:28,400
Speaker 1: It just I don't know, is trying to get something

282
00:15:28,480 --> 00:15:30,440
Speaker 1: besides Sergeant Pepper. You know.

283
00:15:30,720 --> 00:15:31,920
Speaker 2: It's beautiful all those.

284
00:15:31,800 --> 00:15:34,880
Speaker 1: Different you know, Peter Nincompoop or something for all the

285
00:15:35,080 --> 00:15:40,040
Speaker 1: always sunny fans there. But those poochas are inarguably crucial

286
00:15:40,280 --> 00:15:44,080
Speaker 1: in their own very endearing, very sweet way. But that

287
00:15:44,400 --> 00:15:47,640
Speaker 1: is not why we are here today, is it. No?

288
00:15:47,800 --> 00:15:50,080
Speaker 2: But really quick the Saint Bernard neck barrel not a

289
00:15:50,120 --> 00:15:52,680
Speaker 2: real thing. It was an invention of a painter and

290
00:15:52,760 --> 00:15:54,920
Speaker 2: then it just sort of caught the public's imagination. So

291
00:15:55,240 --> 00:15:57,880
Speaker 2: apparently not a real thing. But Saint Bernard's wore bred

292
00:15:58,200 --> 00:16:01,440
Speaker 2: in that area of the Swiss Alps where people were

293
00:16:01,600 --> 00:16:03,520
Speaker 2: They were used as rescue dogs in that way, but

294
00:16:03,720 --> 00:16:04,600
Speaker 2: did not have the barrel.

295
00:16:04,840 --> 00:16:08,120
Speaker 3: Well, now we know Saint Bernard's no barrel, no bar

296
00:16:08,320 --> 00:16:11,120
Speaker 3: But the reason the other things we are talking about

297
00:16:11,160 --> 00:16:14,320
Speaker 3: today are the way animals have been used right for

298
00:16:14,520 --> 00:16:17,640
Speaker 3: wartime and other things. And we've got a couple examples

299
00:16:17,720 --> 00:16:20,960
Speaker 3: that will laundry list here a little bit, but some

300
00:16:21,200 --> 00:16:24,320
Speaker 3: are a little more strange than others. Did you guys

301
00:16:24,400 --> 00:16:27,000
Speaker 3: do an episode of Ridiculous history on the bats? The

302
00:16:27,120 --> 00:16:28,440
Speaker 3: explosive bat idea.

303
00:16:28,560 --> 00:16:30,360
Speaker 2: We've done an episode on a few of these. Actually

304
00:16:30,720 --> 00:16:33,360
Speaker 2: there was another one involving dolphins. But let's start with

305
00:16:33,440 --> 00:16:34,440
Speaker 2: the bats for sure.

306
00:16:34,520 --> 00:16:37,360
Speaker 3: Because they were incendiary, right, that was the whole point.

307
00:16:37,840 --> 00:16:41,560
Speaker 1: Yeah, So the US almost used bats loaded with napalm

308
00:16:41,640 --> 00:16:43,800
Speaker 1: and something they call Project X ray.

309
00:16:44,280 --> 00:16:45,600
Speaker 2: The idea here was that.

310
00:16:45,840 --> 00:16:52,480
Speaker 1: It would create a wave of fires throughout Japan conflagration

311
00:16:52,720 --> 00:16:58,200
Speaker 1: that would destroy the primary cities. However, the plan was scrapped,

312
00:16:58,600 --> 00:17:00,760
Speaker 1: not because the bats were bad at their jobs, but

313
00:17:00,880 --> 00:17:04,000
Speaker 1: because they were very good and they escaped. They burned

314
00:17:04,040 --> 00:17:07,000
Speaker 1: down a hangar in New Mexico, a military officials car,

315
00:17:07,480 --> 00:17:08,720
Speaker 1: and everyone was against it.

316
00:17:08,880 --> 00:17:11,960
Speaker 2: If I'm remembering correctly. They were just on timers as well,

317
00:17:12,160 --> 00:17:15,119
Speaker 2: so it wasn't like they could be triggered individually in

318
00:17:15,240 --> 00:17:17,840
Speaker 2: some remote way. They were released, and the ideas that

319
00:17:17,880 --> 00:17:20,240
Speaker 2: they would they would kind of roost in the eaves

320
00:17:20,600 --> 00:17:23,040
Speaker 2: of these very flammable homes as you know, like a

321
00:17:23,080 --> 00:17:25,919
Speaker 2: lot of Japanese homes, paper doors and you know, all

322
00:17:26,000 --> 00:17:30,160
Speaker 2: wooden frames, and the idea was smart. Uh, they would

323
00:17:30,240 --> 00:17:32,920
Speaker 2: be undetectable. People wouldn't think anything of it, and it

324
00:17:33,080 --> 00:17:34,840
Speaker 2: just didn't didn't go as planned, but it was a

325
00:17:34,880 --> 00:17:35,879
Speaker 2: pretty smart idea.

326
00:17:35,920 --> 00:17:40,000
Speaker 3: And so so they had just like like a bomb

327
00:17:40,119 --> 00:17:41,960
Speaker 3: essentially attached to them, and it would just.

328
00:17:42,040 --> 00:17:46,840
Speaker 1: Carry unsteerable uh yeah, untrainable.

329
00:17:47,200 --> 00:17:47,480
Speaker 3: Wow.

330
00:17:48,119 --> 00:17:51,199
Speaker 1: Grenade rules you pull the pin and you throw, you know, but.

331
00:17:51,680 --> 00:17:54,280
Speaker 3: In this case a million bats. Yeah, because it was

332
00:17:54,320 --> 00:17:57,680
Speaker 3: a ton, right, it wasn't just a couple. It was like, wow,

333
00:17:57,760 --> 00:17:58,320
Speaker 3: that's insane.

334
00:17:58,400 --> 00:18:00,159
Speaker 2: And then on the flip side. The Japanese did a

335
00:18:00,359 --> 00:18:03,639
Speaker 2: weird similar thing, not involving animals, but involving balloons that

336
00:18:03,720 --> 00:18:07,920
Speaker 2: they would just like release and hopefully the winds would

337
00:18:07,960 --> 00:18:10,720
Speaker 2: take them into North America. And a few of them

338
00:18:10,760 --> 00:18:14,040
Speaker 2: made it, but mainly they did not. But this idea

339
00:18:14,160 --> 00:18:18,359
Speaker 2: of just like blindly releasing weaponry into the world is

340
00:18:18,520 --> 00:18:20,639
Speaker 2: very strange to me and dangerous.

341
00:18:20,840 --> 00:18:24,360
Speaker 1: I mean, this is so back to animals. The camels

342
00:18:24,440 --> 00:18:26,760
Speaker 1: have been used as mount some beast of burdens since

343
00:18:26,840 --> 00:18:30,440
Speaker 1: time immemorial, but they were actually used as quote unquote

344
00:18:30,560 --> 00:18:34,920
Speaker 1: suicide bombers during the Soviet War in Afghanistan. And the

345
00:18:35,040 --> 00:18:37,760
Speaker 1: problem with that terminology, of course, is that the camels

346
00:18:37,800 --> 00:18:41,359
Speaker 1: could not consent. Yeah, it's still the very medieval or

347
00:18:41,440 --> 00:18:44,479
Speaker 1: ancient practice of like lighting pigs on fire and then

348
00:18:44,600 --> 00:18:46,240
Speaker 1: sending them to run at the enemy.

349
00:18:47,320 --> 00:18:49,920
Speaker 3: And just remember that Soviet war in Afghanistan. It's not

350
00:18:50,440 --> 00:18:53,440
Speaker 3: the whole two thousand and one and beyond war that's

351
00:18:53,640 --> 00:18:55,560
Speaker 3: back in the day seventy nine to eighty nine.

352
00:18:55,720 --> 00:18:58,880
Speaker 1: Yes, that is correct and very good point there. Dolphins

353
00:18:59,080 --> 00:19:02,879
Speaker 1: super intelligent, of course, It's no wonder militaries all around

354
00:19:02,920 --> 00:19:05,400
Speaker 1: the world would love to work with dolphins. They're great

355
00:19:05,440 --> 00:19:11,600
Speaker 1: at locating mines, they're trainable, they have some behavioral issues.

356
00:19:12,119 --> 00:19:15,680
Speaker 1: Real dolphin behavior does not match maybe what you think

357
00:19:15,760 --> 00:19:19,960
Speaker 1: of when you think of Flipper or Echo. The dolphin

358
00:19:20,040 --> 00:19:21,560
Speaker 1: I think was the Sega Genesis game.

359
00:19:22,119 --> 00:19:22,840
Speaker 2: That game was hard.

360
00:19:23,160 --> 00:19:25,159
Speaker 3: Yeah, but Ben, I have also seen that episode of

361
00:19:25,240 --> 00:19:25,840
Speaker 3: Drunk History.

362
00:19:27,480 --> 00:19:28,440
Speaker 2: Trust you're talking about that.

363
00:19:28,560 --> 00:19:31,680
Speaker 1: You're talking about the we're adults here, you're talking about

364
00:19:31,680 --> 00:19:32,280
Speaker 1: the dolphin hand.

365
00:19:32,760 --> 00:19:35,280
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, that's.

366
00:19:34,440 --> 00:19:35,159
Speaker 1: A true story.

367
00:19:35,640 --> 00:19:40,199
Speaker 2: So with with with Lily, with like the researcher, Yeah, yeah, the.

368
00:19:40,320 --> 00:19:43,360
Speaker 1: LS Lily language language instruction.

369
00:19:43,520 --> 00:19:45,520
Speaker 2: There are some freaky dolphin action going on in like

370
00:19:45,600 --> 00:19:49,840
Speaker 2: a flooded laboratory, like dormitory kind of situation. Right, Yeah,

371
00:19:50,000 --> 00:19:50,760
Speaker 2: that's for another day.

372
00:19:51,280 --> 00:19:54,840
Speaker 1: So, along with dolphins, the US Marine Mammal Program also

373
00:19:54,920 --> 00:19:59,880
Speaker 1: trains sea lions to detect enemy divers sea lionel spotted diver,

374
00:20:00,160 --> 00:20:02,560
Speaker 1: and they're supposed to attach a tracking device shaped like

375
00:20:02,600 --> 00:20:05,199
Speaker 1: a handcuff to one of the enemy's limbs.

376
00:20:05,600 --> 00:20:05,800
Speaker 3: Whoa.

377
00:20:06,000 --> 00:20:09,000
Speaker 1: They're also trained to locate and recover military hardware and

378
00:20:09,040 --> 00:20:13,840
Speaker 1: crash victims at sea. The US is very careful to

379
00:20:14,119 --> 00:20:18,399
Speaker 1: state that these cetaceans, you know, the dolph, well, these

380
00:20:18,440 --> 00:20:21,280
Speaker 1: cetaceans and the sea lions and so on are not

381
00:20:21,880 --> 00:20:25,160
Speaker 1: taught to attack people. Yeah, that's what they say.

382
00:20:25,480 --> 00:20:27,560
Speaker 3: They just want to put a little handcuff like thing

383
00:20:27,640 --> 00:20:29,560
Speaker 3: on your leg, that's all, a little anklet, just a

384
00:20:29,600 --> 00:20:31,320
Speaker 3: little tag, just want to access arise.

385
00:20:31,840 --> 00:20:35,160
Speaker 1: So again there's there's some murkiness around there, and it's

386
00:20:35,280 --> 00:20:38,040
Speaker 1: not just due to the depth of the ocean. Will

387
00:20:38,240 --> 00:20:41,359
Speaker 1: will figure out exactly what's going on there or for

388
00:20:41,640 --> 00:20:45,000
Speaker 1: some disturbing things in that regard. But going back to

389
00:20:45,040 --> 00:20:47,920
Speaker 1: the idea of blindly releasing something, one of the most

390
00:20:48,000 --> 00:20:51,680
Speaker 1: dangerous uses of animals in warfare would be the use

391
00:20:51,760 --> 00:20:57,000
Speaker 1: of insects because that ties directly with germ warfare and

392
00:20:57,600 --> 00:20:59,480
Speaker 1: the spread of weaponized disease.

393
00:21:00,160 --> 00:21:04,000
Speaker 3: Yes, there's an historical use of this in Japan when

394
00:21:04,400 --> 00:21:08,240
Speaker 3: that country attempted to use insects as weapons during World

395
00:21:08,280 --> 00:21:11,040
Speaker 3: War two, and the whole idea there was to infect

396
00:21:11,640 --> 00:21:14,480
Speaker 3: the you know, military members and people in front lines

397
00:21:14,560 --> 00:21:18,399
Speaker 3: and people in all places, a lot of places with

398
00:21:18,600 --> 00:21:22,439
Speaker 3: cholera and plague that would be carried by these insects. Essentially,

399
00:21:22,720 --> 00:21:25,600
Speaker 3: like you said, ben as germ warfare, they're just carriers

400
00:21:25,760 --> 00:21:26,480
Speaker 3: for these things.

401
00:21:26,560 --> 00:21:30,840
Speaker 2: Oh and little known fact. Counter fact to this is

402
00:21:30,920 --> 00:21:34,720
Speaker 2: the US tested very similar methods on its own people

403
00:21:35,240 --> 00:21:39,160
Speaker 2: like in Florida, very poor black neighborhoods. In Savannah, Georgia,

404
00:21:39,480 --> 00:21:43,399
Speaker 2: it dropped these flea bombs and it was like, you know,

405
00:21:43,560 --> 00:21:46,040
Speaker 2: that's very swampy kind of area with a lot of

406
00:21:46,200 --> 00:21:50,080
Speaker 2: potential for disease and it was really bad. What do

407
00:21:50,160 --> 00:21:53,680
Speaker 2: we find ben that people actually did were confirmed killed

408
00:21:53,720 --> 00:21:54,840
Speaker 2: because of some of those tests.

409
00:21:55,000 --> 00:21:56,080
Speaker 1: I believe that's correct.

410
00:21:56,200 --> 00:21:56,400
Speaker 4: Yeah.

411
00:21:56,640 --> 00:21:56,920
Speaker 2: Wow.

412
00:21:57,200 --> 00:21:59,560
Speaker 3: In Japan also did this as well, Like we were

413
00:21:59,560 --> 00:22:04,480
Speaker 3: talking about the same thing, dropping fleas of like inside

414
00:22:04,560 --> 00:22:09,760
Speaker 3: bombs essentially. That's that is very very intense to me.

415
00:22:11,560 --> 00:22:16,639
Speaker 3: It's ingenious. But I mean is what do you call?

416
00:22:16,920 --> 00:22:17,960
Speaker 3: Is it biological warfare?

417
00:22:18,040 --> 00:22:20,160
Speaker 2: Yes, it must be right, absolutely, and it's a real

418
00:22:20,240 --> 00:22:24,120
Speaker 2: scorched earth approach too. I mean it's it's really just devious.

419
00:22:23,920 --> 00:22:27,360
Speaker 1: Yeah, because there's not a when those things are deployed

420
00:22:27,720 --> 00:22:31,520
Speaker 1: there there wasn't any technology in form of like a

421
00:22:31,600 --> 00:22:34,840
Speaker 1: topical treatment or something applied to friendly forces or in

422
00:22:35,000 --> 00:22:38,120
Speaker 1: terms of course, you can't steer the bugs once they're loose.

423
00:22:38,760 --> 00:22:42,919
Speaker 1: So yeah, this is brutal, it's insidious. Let's go to something.

424
00:22:43,040 --> 00:22:45,399
Speaker 1: It's a bit of a lighter note before we plunge

425
00:22:45,480 --> 00:22:47,600
Speaker 1: full on into the darkness. But let's do that after

426
00:22:47,640 --> 00:22:57,119
Speaker 1: a word from our sponsor. All right, we're back. No,

427
00:22:57,320 --> 00:22:59,639
Speaker 1: you'll love this one. Birds have also been used in

428
00:22:59,720 --> 00:23:03,840
Speaker 1: war fair. Trained parrots were positioned on the Eiffel Tower

429
00:23:04,119 --> 00:23:06,679
Speaker 1: during World War One. This is kind of hilarious. It's

430
00:23:06,720 --> 00:23:10,800
Speaker 1: low key hilarious. The parrots were trained to alert people

431
00:23:10,880 --> 00:23:16,320
Speaker 1: to incoming enemy aircraft. However, the parrots could not differentiate

432
00:23:16,640 --> 00:23:21,080
Speaker 1: between enemy aircraft and Allied planes, so they were just

433
00:23:21,359 --> 00:23:26,080
Speaker 1: losing their frickin minds repeatedly. This is very stressful to

434
00:23:26,160 --> 00:23:28,040
Speaker 1: the humans working with them, so the birds had to

435
00:23:28,080 --> 00:23:31,800
Speaker 1: get mixed. In the Second World War, an American behaviorists,

436
00:23:31,840 --> 00:23:35,320
Speaker 1: the famous BF Skinner, devised a plan to train pigeons

437
00:23:35,359 --> 00:23:37,919
Speaker 1: to ride in missiles and guide them to enemy ships.

438
00:23:40,280 --> 00:23:43,320
Speaker 1: The plan was scrapped for a while, but then resurrected

439
00:23:43,760 --> 00:23:47,600
Speaker 1: from nineteen forty eight to fifty three as Project or.

440
00:23:47,640 --> 00:23:51,960
Speaker 3: Con Isn't that an amazing image that gets conjured in

441
00:23:52,000 --> 00:23:55,640
Speaker 3: your brain? A pigeon piloting a missile? Nope, or a bomb? Yeah,

442
00:23:56,040 --> 00:23:56,680
Speaker 3: don't care for it.

443
00:23:56,920 --> 00:23:59,560
Speaker 1: It's like Doctor Strangelove. But now it's a pigeon with

444
00:23:59,680 --> 00:23:59,920
Speaker 1: the hat.

445
00:24:00,400 --> 00:24:02,439
Speaker 3: Yeah, and the bombs are coming down. The parrots are

446
00:24:02,520 --> 00:24:04,080
Speaker 3: like German aircraft.

447
00:24:05,600 --> 00:24:06,960
Speaker 2: Don't like it one bit, so.

448
00:24:08,800 --> 00:24:11,840
Speaker 1: Nolan, in the interest of your sanity, we'll move on

449
00:24:12,000 --> 00:24:15,160
Speaker 1: there too. We are just scratching the surface here. While

450
00:24:15,160 --> 00:24:19,159
Speaker 1: the initial idea may seem unorthodox, the logic does bear up.

451
00:24:19,480 --> 00:24:21,280
Speaker 3: Oh I like that it, she bears up.

452
00:24:21,480 --> 00:24:26,119
Speaker 1: Oh ah man, all right, you got me on that

453
00:24:26,200 --> 00:24:29,520
Speaker 1: on fair and square. First, some animals do naturally have

454
00:24:29,680 --> 00:24:34,720
Speaker 1: abilities superior to those of humans. Technology has done a

455
00:24:34,840 --> 00:24:38,080
Speaker 1: lot to mitigate this gap in recent years, but in

456
00:24:38,200 --> 00:24:42,399
Speaker 1: some cases animals still remain the superior, most cost effective solution.

457
00:24:43,080 --> 00:24:47,160
Speaker 1: The nose of a dog is amazing, right, it's tough

458
00:24:47,240 --> 00:24:47,879
Speaker 1: to replace that.

459
00:24:48,320 --> 00:24:52,960
Speaker 3: And second, now this is cold blooded, a lot more

460
00:24:53,080 --> 00:24:56,600
Speaker 3: so than we like to be here. But it's true

461
00:24:56,800 --> 00:25:00,359
Speaker 3: if something goes wrong with an operative, if it is

462
00:25:00,480 --> 00:25:05,320
Speaker 3: an animal and not a human being, it's a lot

463
00:25:05,400 --> 00:25:08,680
Speaker 3: less expensive to train another one of those animals than

464
00:25:08,720 --> 00:25:11,639
Speaker 3: it is to train a soldier. Now, that is that

465
00:25:11,880 --> 00:25:14,359
Speaker 3: is pretty rough to look at it just from a

466
00:25:14,520 --> 00:25:18,920
Speaker 3: war cost perspective in that way, but it's also the

467
00:25:19,960 --> 00:25:24,080
Speaker 3: pr effect of having a lost soldier versus a you know,

468
00:25:24,200 --> 00:25:28,399
Speaker 3: perhaps a lost dog. It's it's different.

469
00:25:28,600 --> 00:25:31,240
Speaker 2: Let's just do lost bird. Okay, we can all stomach that.

470
00:25:31,680 --> 00:25:33,960
Speaker 2: I'm not a lost dog. Makes me sad. Lost bird,

471
00:25:34,200 --> 00:25:35,879
Speaker 2: I'm like better off without him.

472
00:25:35,920 --> 00:25:38,160
Speaker 1: The birds, I like, don't get lost. They're too smart.

473
00:25:38,280 --> 00:25:39,960
Speaker 1: The corve the corvets.

474
00:25:40,920 --> 00:25:41,639
Speaker 3: That's I don't know.

475
00:25:41,760 --> 00:25:45,440
Speaker 1: I think every every living creature could get lost. But yeah,

476
00:25:45,520 --> 00:25:47,720
Speaker 1: that's a that's a good point, right. So it's no

477
00:25:47,880 --> 00:25:51,800
Speaker 1: wonder that animals continue and will continue to fill various

478
00:25:51,880 --> 00:25:56,040
Speaker 1: rules in multiple militaries. But just how far does this go?

479
00:25:56,320 --> 00:26:00,439
Speaker 1: And what if there is more to the story. Here's

480
00:26:00,560 --> 00:26:02,040
Speaker 1: where it gets crazy.

481
00:26:02,560 --> 00:26:06,640
Speaker 2: Yeah, depending on who you ask, intelligence agencies and militaries

482
00:26:07,080 --> 00:26:09,920
Speaker 2: all across the globe are using animals in a much

483
00:26:10,000 --> 00:26:14,480
Speaker 2: more nefarious and secretive, clandestine ways. So let's talk a

484
00:26:14,520 --> 00:26:17,960
Speaker 2: little bit ben about the Middle East and its strange

485
00:26:18,080 --> 00:26:20,639
Speaker 2: preoccupation with animal conspiracies.

486
00:26:20,760 --> 00:26:23,760
Speaker 1: Oh, this is crazy, Yeah this, Let's spend some time

487
00:26:23,840 --> 00:26:27,280
Speaker 1: on this, and we have to be pretty careful going

488
00:26:27,359 --> 00:26:30,159
Speaker 1: into this. We and all our fellow listeners need to

489
00:26:30,280 --> 00:26:35,919
Speaker 1: realize that this bizarre, distinct subgenre all a different, larger

490
00:26:36,080 --> 00:26:39,639
Speaker 1: conspiracy theory does occur. As you said NOL in the

491
00:26:39,720 --> 00:26:43,440
Speaker 1: Middle East, and it is wrapped up in I would

492
00:26:43,480 --> 00:26:47,200
Speaker 1: say more than its fair share of anti Semitism, because

493
00:26:47,560 --> 00:26:51,399
Speaker 1: we have numerous sources in the Middle East claiming that

494
00:26:51,600 --> 00:26:54,960
Speaker 1: animals are being used in top secret programs to surveil

495
00:26:55,119 --> 00:27:00,720
Speaker 1: local populations, terrorize them, and attack them. However, the majority,

496
00:27:00,800 --> 00:27:03,080
Speaker 1: by which I mean close to one hundred percent of

497
00:27:03,200 --> 00:27:08,000
Speaker 1: these accusations are coming from other countries in the Middle East,

498
00:27:08,320 --> 00:27:12,359
Speaker 1: directly leveled at a single other country, which is Israel

499
00:27:12,480 --> 00:27:15,320
Speaker 1: and occasionally the West quote unquote the West.

500
00:27:15,520 --> 00:27:19,360
Speaker 3: Can we talk about the eagle that got detained, Yeah, yeah,

501
00:27:19,600 --> 00:27:24,240
Speaker 3: the heel or a Hesbelo affiliated TV stations is according

502
00:27:24,320 --> 00:27:27,840
Speaker 3: to a report by Slate, they were saying that an

503
00:27:27,880 --> 00:27:31,200
Speaker 3: eagle was detained north of Beirut because it was suspected

504
00:27:31,280 --> 00:27:32,680
Speaker 3: of being an Israeli spy.

505
00:27:33,520 --> 00:27:36,520
Speaker 1: Yep, there are multiple things. We can even trace it

506
00:27:36,640 --> 00:27:40,800
Speaker 1: back to the one of the beginning reports that made

507
00:27:40,840 --> 00:27:43,080
Speaker 1: international news let's call it the.

508
00:27:43,160 --> 00:27:46,760
Speaker 4: Great Shark Wave of twenty ten ten ten, is.

509
00:27:46,760 --> 00:27:50,159
Speaker 1: That like a Sharknado, it's like a shark NATO plus

510
00:27:50,320 --> 00:27:52,720
Speaker 1: a It's like a shark Nado plus one of those

511
00:27:52,760 --> 00:27:58,240
Speaker 1: monster truck rallies plus jaws. Yeah, that's pretty accurate. It

512
00:27:58,320 --> 00:28:01,639
Speaker 1: sounds cool, right, unless you're one of the people who

513
00:28:01,720 --> 00:28:05,880
Speaker 1: gets wrapped up in the shark wave. In December twenty ten,

514
00:28:05,960 --> 00:28:09,240
Speaker 1: there were several shark attacks off the coast of Egypt

515
00:28:10,000 --> 00:28:13,840
Speaker 1: near some resort towns, and people appeared on the Egyptian media,

516
00:28:14,200 --> 00:28:18,760
Speaker 1: notably one guy named Captain Mustaf Ismail, and this captain

517
00:28:18,840 --> 00:28:21,359
Speaker 1: claimed that a GPS tracking device found in one of

518
00:28:21,400 --> 00:28:26,160
Speaker 1: the sharks was not your garden variety GPS. These GPS

519
00:28:26,280 --> 00:28:30,280
Speaker 1: trackers are not uncommon in the world of terrestrial biology

520
00:28:30,400 --> 00:28:34,720
Speaker 1: or marine biology. But the captain said that this was

521
00:28:35,040 --> 00:28:38,440
Speaker 1: instead of a GPS device, this was a steering device.

522
00:28:38,560 --> 00:28:38,920
Speaker 2: It was a.

523
00:28:39,120 --> 00:28:43,240
Speaker 1: Guiding device planted by what he described as agents of

524
00:28:43,560 --> 00:28:48,800
Speaker 1: Israeli intelligence. Egyptian officials attributed the attacks to more mundane

525
00:28:48,960 --> 00:28:55,960
Speaker 1: factors like the actual politicians and the intelligence community of Egypt. Said, well,

526
00:28:56,000 --> 00:29:00,240
Speaker 1: you know, sharks normally aren't super into eating peas people,

527
00:29:00,840 --> 00:29:04,440
Speaker 1: so we're looking at over fishing, We're looking at maybe

528
00:29:04,560 --> 00:29:08,280
Speaker 1: teaching them to associate people with food, dumping sheep carcasses overboard,

529
00:29:09,120 --> 00:29:13,840
Speaker 1: even unusually high water temperatures. Through their credit, Egyptian scientists

530
00:29:13,960 --> 00:29:18,480
Speaker 1: also weren't buying it because you see, GPS is not

531
00:29:18,680 --> 00:29:23,000
Speaker 1: a remote control. But here the conspiracy match was lit,

532
00:29:23,480 --> 00:29:28,479
Speaker 1: and it once that match was lit, the story itself

533
00:29:28,560 --> 00:29:32,040
Speaker 1: became what people nowadays call lit af Because we have

534
00:29:32,240 --> 00:29:37,920
Speaker 1: several more stories of these strange accusations, they just get weirder.

535
00:29:38,440 --> 00:29:43,440
Speaker 2: Okay, So let's go to the Iranian military advisor Hassan

536
00:29:43,640 --> 00:29:48,680
Speaker 2: Feruza body in twenty eighteen, when asked about some environmentalists

537
00:29:48,680 --> 00:29:51,760
Speaker 2: who were under arrest at the time, this military advisor

538
00:29:51,880 --> 00:29:56,040
Speaker 2: said that they weren't your average environment lovers, your average

539
00:29:56,080 --> 00:30:00,400
Speaker 2: tree huggers. Instead, they were representatives of Western powers hiding

540
00:30:00,960 --> 00:30:05,160
Speaker 2: spy lizards in uranium minds. I remember this story very,

541
00:30:05,320 --> 00:30:08,960
Speaker 2: very distinctly. This is fantastic. He claimed that the environmentalists

542
00:30:08,960 --> 00:30:12,880
Speaker 2: had lizards and chameleons on their persons at the time,

543
00:30:13,160 --> 00:30:16,800
Speaker 2: and for Uzibaldi told the Iranian Labor News Agency quote,

544
00:30:17,040 --> 00:30:20,320
Speaker 2: we found out that their skin attracts atomic waves and

545
00:30:20,400 --> 00:30:23,600
Speaker 2: that they were nuclear spies who wanted to find out

546
00:30:23,800 --> 00:30:27,360
Speaker 2: where inside the Islamic Republic of Iran we have uranium

547
00:30:27,480 --> 00:30:31,160
Speaker 2: minds and where we are engaged in atomic activities. Now

548
00:30:31,200 --> 00:30:32,160
Speaker 2: there are some issues with this.

549
00:30:32,640 --> 00:30:36,240
Speaker 1: Yeah, Yeah, First, atomic waves are not a real thing.

550
00:30:36,640 --> 00:30:39,520
Speaker 1: It is true that in many cases it can be

551
00:30:39,640 --> 00:30:43,680
Speaker 1: illegal to be caught with living creatures in your possession,

552
00:30:43,880 --> 00:30:46,200
Speaker 1: especially if you are smuggling them in or out of

553
00:30:46,280 --> 00:30:51,200
Speaker 1: a country. But unless it's an endangered species, it's a

554
00:30:51,240 --> 00:30:55,160
Speaker 1: weird thing to charge someone with. Next, the scales that

555
00:30:55,400 --> 00:31:00,800
Speaker 1: cover lizards are called skewts. It's neat right sc es.

556
00:31:01,280 --> 00:31:04,080
Speaker 1: And these scoots are made up of two types of

557
00:31:04,200 --> 00:31:08,440
Speaker 1: keratin proteins, keratin A and, in a stunning plot twist,

558
00:31:08,680 --> 00:31:13,200
Speaker 1: keratin B. Neither of these types of protein have any

559
00:31:13,320 --> 00:31:18,920
Speaker 1: special ability to detect uranium or other radioactive materials. Furthermore,

560
00:31:19,520 --> 00:31:22,760
Speaker 1: reptiles are cold blooded, so they want to be where

561
00:31:22,840 --> 00:31:26,200
Speaker 1: it is warmer. Right. Often it's a tough cell to

562
00:31:26,320 --> 00:31:29,320
Speaker 1: say that there are cold blood reptiles who have some

563
00:31:29,560 --> 00:31:33,320
Speaker 1: sort of motivation to burrow deep into a cold uranium mine.

564
00:31:33,840 --> 00:31:40,280
Speaker 1: So overwhelmingly people outside of Iran and outside of Firozibaldi

565
00:31:40,760 --> 00:31:42,440
Speaker 1: say this is hotwash.

566
00:31:42,680 --> 00:31:46,280
Speaker 3: See, the lizards were meant to seek out the warmth

567
00:31:46,760 --> 00:31:50,440
Speaker 3: of the neutrons coming off of the radioactive materials. Guys,

568
00:31:50,520 --> 00:31:53,760
Speaker 3: that's the whole point, right, that's the whole point. You

569
00:31:54,040 --> 00:31:57,120
Speaker 3: release a chameleon in a very cold cave, It's going

570
00:31:57,200 --> 00:31:59,840
Speaker 3: to go directly to the uranium. It's not rocket science.

571
00:32:00,440 --> 00:32:01,800
Speaker 2: It's size.

572
00:32:03,760 --> 00:32:10,400
Speaker 3: Being facetious, of course, But what an interesting concept. Uh yeah,

573
00:32:10,480 --> 00:32:12,080
Speaker 3: because what do you do with them? What do you

574
00:32:12,120 --> 00:32:14,160
Speaker 3: do with the lizards after they've found the uranium?

575
00:32:15,160 --> 00:32:15,800
Speaker 2: What of them?

576
00:32:15,960 --> 00:32:17,880
Speaker 1: Give you some crickets? You know what I mean?

577
00:32:18,320 --> 00:32:21,760
Speaker 3: What's the intelligence part? What's the actionable thing?

578
00:32:22,000 --> 00:32:24,840
Speaker 1: I guess it could pinpoint the location of the mind

579
00:32:24,920 --> 00:32:26,440
Speaker 1: would be the idea. So it would have to be

580
00:32:26,480 --> 00:32:28,960
Speaker 1: a numbers game. Then you would either drop them into

581
00:32:29,120 --> 00:32:33,680
Speaker 1: suspected minds, right, or you would drop them into everything

582
00:32:34,000 --> 00:32:36,520
Speaker 1: in a region and just hope that one of them

583
00:32:38,160 --> 00:32:43,239
Speaker 1: seemed to seem to prove the supposition. Okay, all right,

584
00:32:43,320 --> 00:32:46,479
Speaker 1: well what about this? If lizards feel a little too

585
00:32:46,560 --> 00:32:49,560
Speaker 1: beyond the pale, how about something more reasonable like squirrels.

586
00:32:49,680 --> 00:32:52,000
Speaker 1: Also in Iran, in two thousand and seven, right.

587
00:32:52,240 --> 00:32:56,560
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, oh yeah, Iran and people working for Iran

588
00:32:56,800 --> 00:33:01,600
Speaker 3: captured fourteen squirrels in the local news agency there said

589
00:33:01,680 --> 00:33:04,000
Speaker 3: that these little guys were equipped with some kind of

590
00:33:04,080 --> 00:33:07,800
Speaker 3: equipment that was meant for spying, and allegedly the squirrels

591
00:33:07,840 --> 00:33:10,200
Speaker 3: had some kind of you know, like a small device

592
00:33:10,360 --> 00:33:14,040
Speaker 3: attached to them essentially that was used for eavesdropping. So

593
00:33:14,120 --> 00:33:15,840
Speaker 3: you would just put them in a park somewhere or

594
00:33:15,880 --> 00:33:18,640
Speaker 3: maybe near a government building, and you could just wait

595
00:33:18,720 --> 00:33:22,520
Speaker 3: for the squirrels to capture whatever conversations occurring at a

596
00:33:22,560 --> 00:33:23,000
Speaker 3: park bench.

597
00:33:23,200 --> 00:33:26,440
Speaker 2: And honestly, that's become sort of a trope, a cliche

598
00:33:26,640 --> 00:33:29,680
Speaker 2: of this idea of the squirrels are listening, you know

599
00:33:29,720 --> 00:33:32,479
Speaker 2: what I mean, Like you see it in in sketch. Kay,

600
00:33:34,280 --> 00:33:36,560
Speaker 2: that's exactly right. It was Brick and Morning, Rick and Morty.

601
00:33:36,720 --> 00:33:38,480
Speaker 1: Yes, it was Rick and Morty. They traveled to an

602
00:33:38,520 --> 00:33:42,240
Speaker 1: alternate universe where Mordy is able to hear squirrels and

603
00:33:42,320 --> 00:33:45,040
Speaker 1: they have to burned out. They basically burned down the

604
00:33:45,160 --> 00:33:46,239
Speaker 1: universe to escape, right.

605
00:33:47,080 --> 00:33:50,760
Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah, but the conversations the squirrels have are so

606
00:33:50,920 --> 00:33:53,320
Speaker 3: clandestine and beautiful. So good.

607
00:33:53,920 --> 00:33:56,000
Speaker 1: Yeah, it is really good. I en missed that episode.

608
00:33:56,000 --> 00:33:57,360
Speaker 2: Can we talk about the fact that we're gonna be

609
00:33:57,400 --> 00:34:01,120
Speaker 2: on Harmontown. You guys we talked to on social media

610
00:34:01,200 --> 00:34:03,640
Speaker 2: when we talked about I'm really excited about it. It's

611
00:34:03,680 --> 00:34:06,360
Speaker 2: really cool because we're big fans of Dan and we're

612
00:34:06,400 --> 00:34:08,000
Speaker 2: gonna be on Normantown.

613
00:34:07,640 --> 00:34:10,800
Speaker 1: And Dan's gonna be on this show too, assuming we

614
00:34:10,920 --> 00:34:14,040
Speaker 1: don't just irreparably burn our bridges yet we're on Harmontown.

615
00:34:15,320 --> 00:34:18,160
Speaker 1: We're all dan Is still friends with us, We're all

616
00:34:18,239 --> 00:34:20,919
Speaker 1: still friends with him. Who knows, Maybe we'll get rowed

617
00:34:20,960 --> 00:34:24,360
Speaker 1: out on a rail, tired and feathered, hopefully not hopefully

618
00:34:24,440 --> 00:34:27,000
Speaker 1: not hopefully not so Okay, maybe the idea of squirrel

619
00:34:27,080 --> 00:34:30,640
Speaker 1: spies seems a little too far into the realm of

620
00:34:30,760 --> 00:34:33,719
Speaker 1: science fiction. That's fine. I got a different pitch for you.

621
00:34:33,960 --> 00:34:37,840
Speaker 1: How about dolphins. They're super intelligent and in twenty fifteen,

622
00:34:37,920 --> 00:34:42,080
Speaker 1: Hamas claimed that they arrested a dolphin that was spying

623
00:34:42,239 --> 00:34:46,040
Speaker 1: for Israeli forces. What I love about this is when

624
00:34:46,120 --> 00:34:49,239
Speaker 1: you just hear that headline. I have this picture of

625
00:34:49,520 --> 00:34:52,759
Speaker 1: a grizzled dolphin that can somehow walk, yeah, and it's

626
00:34:52,840 --> 00:34:58,280
Speaker 1: got its flippers, and it's got sunglasses on for some reason,

627
00:34:58,960 --> 00:35:01,160
Speaker 1: and it's being walked out past the cameras.

628
00:35:01,760 --> 00:35:05,520
Speaker 3: They got me. What do the dolphins sounds sound like?

629
00:35:08,920 --> 00:35:10,960
Speaker 3: I don't know. That's not pretty good.

630
00:35:11,000 --> 00:35:16,160
Speaker 1: It's hard to get high enough the dolphins.

631
00:35:18,360 --> 00:35:21,000
Speaker 2: It I thought it was pretty good. I appreciate you.

632
00:35:22,080 --> 00:35:25,960
Speaker 1: So the Times of Israel reported allegations that this dolphin

633
00:35:26,200 --> 00:35:30,560
Speaker 1: was outfitted with spying equipment, including but not limited to cameras.

634
00:35:30,840 --> 00:35:34,920
Speaker 1: Which interesting about that is that we know stuff like

635
00:35:35,000 --> 00:35:38,600
Speaker 1: that has happened before, right in real life. Now, this

636
00:35:38,800 --> 00:35:40,800
Speaker 1: next one is something that I think is safe to

637
00:35:40,880 --> 00:35:45,279
Speaker 1: say none of us saw coming. There's a very specific

638
00:35:46,120 --> 00:35:51,120
Speaker 1: sort of narrative thread with animal spy allegations concerning vultures.

639
00:35:51,600 --> 00:36:00,200
Speaker 2: Massive, massive, disgusting, creepy, gangly dangly red face weirdo creepy vultures. Yes,

640
00:36:00,800 --> 00:36:04,759
Speaker 2: from Lebanon. In twenty sixteen, Lebanon security officials detained a

641
00:36:05,080 --> 00:36:09,719
Speaker 2: huge vulture as described previously by myself with the six

642
00:36:09,840 --> 00:36:14,040
Speaker 2: point five foot wingspan this is making me cringe inside,

643
00:36:14,600 --> 00:36:17,760
Speaker 2: and claimed that it was a surveillance vulture, an animal

644
00:36:17,880 --> 00:36:22,360
Speaker 2: working for Israel, because there was apparently a tracking device

645
00:36:22,440 --> 00:36:25,040
Speaker 2: attached to one of its creepy vulture.

646
00:36:24,800 --> 00:36:28,160
Speaker 1: Feet, which means, I mean, come on, that's the thing, Okay,

647
00:36:28,280 --> 00:36:30,960
Speaker 1: So I had this tracking device attached to its foot.

648
00:36:31,200 --> 00:36:34,719
Speaker 1: Yet again, a GPS transmitter is not some sort of

649
00:36:34,880 --> 00:36:39,600
Speaker 1: magic remote control gizmo. Tel Aviv University was tracking this bird.

650
00:36:40,160 --> 00:36:43,040
Speaker 1: And in addition, this is the weird part. In addition

651
00:36:43,360 --> 00:36:46,480
Speaker 1: to having a GPS transmitter on the bird, the bird

652
00:36:46,600 --> 00:36:49,960
Speaker 1: also had tags on its wings, along with an engraved

653
00:36:50,120 --> 00:36:55,120
Speaker 1: metal ring on its leg that read Tel Aviv University, Israel.

654
00:36:55,719 --> 00:36:59,759
Speaker 1: Not super secret. That's not good spycraft. It's not as

655
00:37:00,080 --> 00:37:03,719
Speaker 1: crappy a job as James Bond, who always like is

656
00:37:03,760 --> 00:37:08,000
Speaker 1: eternally day drunk and tells people his name right and.

657
00:37:08,160 --> 00:37:08,759
Speaker 2: What he does.

658
00:37:09,880 --> 00:37:12,920
Speaker 1: Yeah, that guy's a mess. But this bird wasn't much

659
00:37:13,000 --> 00:37:15,320
Speaker 1: better if it was supposed to be a spy. This

660
00:37:15,520 --> 00:37:19,480
Speaker 1: is not the first time Griffin vulture, specifically because these

661
00:37:19,520 --> 00:37:21,920
Speaker 1: are massive, right, it's not the first time one of

662
00:37:22,000 --> 00:37:25,719
Speaker 1: them has been accused to be an agent of massade

663
00:37:25,960 --> 00:37:30,960
Speaker 1: of the Israeli intelligence Agency. In Saudi Arabia in twenty

664
00:37:31,080 --> 00:37:34,520
Speaker 1: and eleven, one was captured, and of course local news

665
00:37:34,719 --> 00:37:38,840
Speaker 1: and scuttle but began to orbit intensely around this concept

666
00:37:38,960 --> 00:37:42,640
Speaker 1: of a quote unquote Zionist plot, and then pretty much

667
00:37:42,719 --> 00:37:46,520
Speaker 1: the same thing occurred in Sudan in twenty twelve. Around

668
00:37:46,680 --> 00:37:49,360
Speaker 1: this part of the world, many people were certain that

669
00:37:49,480 --> 00:37:52,040
Speaker 1: there was a new type of superspy and it was

670
00:37:52,120 --> 00:37:54,279
Speaker 1: not a human, it was not a robot. It was

671
00:37:54,360 --> 00:37:58,920
Speaker 1: a buzzard, which is strange because, again, from everything we

672
00:37:58,960 --> 00:38:02,040
Speaker 1: can tell, these birds were likely being tracked as part

673
00:38:02,080 --> 00:38:05,360
Speaker 1: of some biodiversity conservation project.

674
00:38:05,560 --> 00:38:08,840
Speaker 3: Yes, it was for beneficial means for both the birds

675
00:38:08,920 --> 00:38:12,640
Speaker 3: and for our research. Uh at least that's that's on

676
00:38:12,719 --> 00:38:15,760
Speaker 3: the face of it, right. Maybe, Look, we can't fully

677
00:38:15,840 --> 00:38:20,080
Speaker 3: discount that some of these animals weren't spying for somebody, right, sure,

678
00:38:20,200 --> 00:38:23,360
Speaker 3: because we'll never know. We never got to interrogate these birds.

679
00:38:23,440 --> 00:38:26,000
Speaker 3: That vulture. You never got to put it down a

680
00:38:26,120 --> 00:38:27,319
Speaker 3: room with a polygraph nol.

681
00:38:27,400 --> 00:38:29,240
Speaker 2: And as far as I know, we have no Doctor

682
00:38:29,320 --> 00:38:32,680
Speaker 2: Doolittle esque figure on our in our governments. You know,

683
00:38:33,400 --> 00:38:34,520
Speaker 2: that's all we need, you guys.

684
00:38:34,600 --> 00:38:37,960
Speaker 3: Yeah, that'd be pretty cool for counterintelligence. So doctor Doolittle,

685
00:38:38,160 --> 00:38:39,200
Speaker 3: I mean, surely.

686
00:38:38,960 --> 00:38:41,160
Speaker 2: There there's I don't know, is there. No, there's no

687
00:38:41,280 --> 00:38:42,960
Speaker 2: kind of like there isn't there a way to communicate

688
00:38:43,000 --> 00:38:44,759
Speaker 2: with dolphins that I make that up. I made.

689
00:38:45,080 --> 00:38:46,880
Speaker 3: We talked about it. It was the whole hand thing.

690
00:38:47,520 --> 00:38:50,480
Speaker 2: No, I mean yeah, but I mean, like you know,

691
00:38:50,719 --> 00:38:53,960
Speaker 2: with your mind, man, come on some kind of helmet,

692
00:38:54,080 --> 00:38:54,719
Speaker 2: you know, I don't know.

693
00:38:54,840 --> 00:38:56,600
Speaker 3: I feel like that's also a rick and Morty thing.

694
00:38:56,680 --> 00:38:58,040
Speaker 3: But I'm just seeing image.

695
00:38:58,160 --> 00:39:03,200
Speaker 1: There's the intelligence. There's lawnmower man flowers for Algernon esque thing.

696
00:39:03,400 --> 00:39:07,600
Speaker 1: Yeah with the dogs, Okay, and I thought that was

697
00:39:07,600 --> 00:39:11,160
Speaker 1: a good one too. So we also see other birds.

698
00:39:11,440 --> 00:39:15,600
Speaker 1: In twenty thirteen, Turkish officials claimed they captured a kestrel

699
00:39:15,680 --> 00:39:20,200
Speaker 1: falcon spying for you guessed it, the state of Israel.

700
00:39:20,280 --> 00:39:23,839
Speaker 1: There's a great illustration of this alleged culprit over at

701
00:39:24,000 --> 00:39:28,120
Speaker 1: tabletmag dot com. Like the other birds, this kestrel has

702
00:39:28,120 --> 00:39:30,960
Speaker 1: a bunch of markers identifying it as a research subject,

703
00:39:31,520 --> 00:39:37,120
Speaker 1: and people are thought to be researching migratory patterns. The

704
00:39:37,320 --> 00:39:40,120
Speaker 1: problem is that the very signs that should have made

705
00:39:40,160 --> 00:39:43,920
Speaker 1: it plain these birds were part of various studies were

706
00:39:44,000 --> 00:39:49,040
Speaker 1: instead taken as evidence of spycraft. And then the very

707
00:39:49,160 --> 00:39:52,839
Speaker 1: next year, fishermen in Egypt suspected a stork of being

708
00:39:52,920 --> 00:39:58,400
Speaker 1: the next James Bond. So far, so far, astute listeners

709
00:39:58,440 --> 00:40:01,000
Speaker 1: will notice the trends here we mentioned at the top

710
00:40:01,400 --> 00:40:04,120
Speaker 1: the country's claiming the conspiracies of foot in the Middle

711
00:40:04,160 --> 00:40:09,720
Speaker 1: East almost universally accuse one country of creating these animal spies.

712
00:40:10,200 --> 00:40:14,520
Speaker 1: So it is doubtlessly true that anti Semitism is informing

713
00:40:14,800 --> 00:40:18,600
Speaker 1: some of these claims. If it is possible to bracket

714
00:40:18,880 --> 00:40:23,280
Speaker 1: that racism and that discrimination and just look at the facts.

715
00:40:23,880 --> 00:40:29,200
Speaker 1: Could any of these claims about animals as spycraft and

716
00:40:29,280 --> 00:40:32,480
Speaker 1: animals and war, could any of them be true? We'll

717
00:40:32,560 --> 00:40:35,360
Speaker 1: tackle that after a word from our sponsor.

718
00:40:42,640 --> 00:40:43,600
Speaker 2: All right, we're back.

719
00:40:44,080 --> 00:40:48,160
Speaker 1: So if we just look at the trends, the claims

720
00:40:48,320 --> 00:40:51,840
Speaker 1: of birds being used for spying often seem to be

721
00:40:52,239 --> 00:40:55,680
Speaker 1: cases of birds that were being tracked for science rather

722
00:40:55,800 --> 00:40:59,600
Speaker 1: than some sort of intelligence agency. Allegations of squirrels to

723
00:40:59,719 --> 00:41:00,880
Speaker 1: date remain unproven.

724
00:41:01,120 --> 00:41:03,160
Speaker 3: And if you know anything about what the squirrels are

725
00:41:03,200 --> 00:41:06,520
Speaker 3: doing or talking about, please write to us right now.

726
00:41:06,800 --> 00:41:09,640
Speaker 1: Or run be safe. You can only save yourself.

727
00:41:10,400 --> 00:41:11,799
Speaker 2: It's too late. It's too late.

728
00:41:11,840 --> 00:41:15,520
Speaker 1: If you nodded, they heard you. It's true that there's

729
00:41:15,600 --> 00:41:18,440
Speaker 1: no solid proof for against the squirrel thing. Yet, however,

730
00:41:18,920 --> 00:41:22,719
Speaker 1: there are a couple of former CIA agents and wildlife

731
00:41:22,760 --> 00:41:26,799
Speaker 1: experts who are very skeptical about this because they think

732
00:41:26,840 --> 00:41:30,759
Speaker 1: it would be very difficult to train a squirrel or.

733
00:41:30,800 --> 00:41:33,240
Speaker 3: Yeah, and if you could, you would have a trained squirrel,

734
00:41:33,400 --> 00:41:36,080
Speaker 3: and not a squirrel that appears to be just your

735
00:41:36,120 --> 00:41:39,600
Speaker 3: run of the mill guy out there collecting food.

736
00:41:39,719 --> 00:41:43,680
Speaker 1: And this all leads mainstream writers to dismiss a lot

737
00:41:43,760 --> 00:41:48,319
Speaker 1: of the wilder conspiratorial accusations. Writing for the Toronto Star,

738
00:41:48,800 --> 00:41:53,600
Speaker 1: journalist Gil Jarren says, many animals undoubtedly serve in Israel's

739
00:41:53,719 --> 00:41:57,640
Speaker 1: army and security services. Dogs sniff out bombs, I'll paka

740
00:41:57,800 --> 00:42:00,480
Speaker 1: help mountaineers carry their loads, which I do not know

741
00:42:00,719 --> 00:42:03,719
Speaker 1: and is true and is cool. But tales about the

742
00:42:03,840 --> 00:42:07,200
Speaker 1: use of sharks, birds, rodents, or, as it has also

743
00:42:07,280 --> 00:42:10,359
Speaker 1: been claimed, insects and the service of the military are

744
00:42:10,440 --> 00:42:14,239
Speaker 1: more the fruit of imagination than hard facts. So with

745
00:42:14,440 --> 00:42:17,400
Speaker 1: that in mind, let's go to the facts, the crazy,

746
00:42:17,520 --> 00:42:20,440
Speaker 1: strange facts. The United States is continuing to work with

747
00:42:20,600 --> 00:42:25,200
Speaker 1: underwater creatures, evaluating their usefulness as spies. Remember we talked

748
00:42:25,200 --> 00:42:28,799
Speaker 1: about that twenty ten sharkwave accusation right off the coast

749
00:42:28,840 --> 00:42:31,080
Speaker 1: of Egypt. It turns out that back in two thousand

750
00:42:31,080 --> 00:42:36,000
Speaker 1: and six, the Pentagon looked into using cybernetic sharks as spies,

751
00:42:36,320 --> 00:42:38,840
Speaker 1: and in twenty nineteen the BBC reported on it.

752
00:42:39,160 --> 00:42:42,960
Speaker 3: It sounds not real. Yes, I've just got to couch

753
00:42:43,080 --> 00:42:46,719
Speaker 3: that if none of this sounds real until you see

754
00:42:46,760 --> 00:42:51,160
Speaker 3: it on the BBC website based off of a declassified document.

755
00:42:51,400 --> 00:42:53,680
Speaker 3: So I'm going to read part of this. The latest

756
00:42:53,719 --> 00:42:57,319
Speaker 3: project from the US Defense Advanced Research Projects DARPA. As

757
00:42:57,480 --> 00:42:59,960
Speaker 3: you know, we're big fans of darpover.

758
00:43:00,120 --> 00:43:01,120
Speaker 1: Sound cue at this point.

759
00:43:01,360 --> 00:43:04,799
Speaker 3: Really. So they aim to improve military intelligence by using

760
00:43:04,800 --> 00:43:08,160
Speaker 3: a range of aquatic creatures from large fish to humble

761
00:43:08,320 --> 00:43:12,040
Speaker 3: single celled organisms, and they're using them all as underwater

762
00:43:12,239 --> 00:43:13,320
Speaker 3: warning systems.

763
00:43:13,600 --> 00:43:16,200
Speaker 2: And here's a quote. We're trying to understand what these

764
00:43:16,360 --> 00:43:19,680
Speaker 2: organisms can tell us about the presence and movements of

765
00:43:19,800 --> 00:43:22,759
Speaker 2: all kinds of underwater vehicles in the ocean. That's from

766
00:43:22,960 --> 00:43:27,400
Speaker 2: doctor Lori odor Nato, who's the program manager of the

767
00:43:27,600 --> 00:43:32,320
Speaker 2: Persistent Aquatic Living Sensors or PALS project. I love my

768
00:43:32,440 --> 00:43:33,320
Speaker 2: underwater pals.

769
00:43:33,960 --> 00:43:38,680
Speaker 3: Yeah. Well, of course the Navy comes through and they're saying, look, look, guys,

770
00:43:38,960 --> 00:43:41,000
Speaker 3: we've said this before in the past. We're gonna say

771
00:43:41,040 --> 00:43:44,400
Speaker 3: it again. We are not trying to use any creatures

772
00:43:44,440 --> 00:43:47,720
Speaker 3: of the sea to do any kind of aquaman stuff.

773
00:43:47,760 --> 00:43:50,640
Speaker 3: We're not trying to have them harm the water craft,

774
00:43:50,840 --> 00:43:54,120
Speaker 3: the ships and stuff. We're to hurt the humans that

775
00:43:54,239 --> 00:43:57,000
Speaker 3: are out there. We're just using them as sensors.

776
00:43:57,239 --> 00:43:57,880
Speaker 2: Do you believe that.

777
00:43:58,360 --> 00:44:02,960
Speaker 3: No gonna, Why would you not train it? I guess

778
00:44:02,960 --> 00:44:06,320
Speaker 3: it would be much more difficult to train a cetacean

779
00:44:06,880 --> 00:44:11,799
Speaker 3: to attack a specific person a specific uniforms.

780
00:44:11,960 --> 00:44:13,879
Speaker 1: You remember faces, Oh, like an.

781
00:44:13,840 --> 00:44:17,440
Speaker 3: Assassin, So targeting a single person rather than a a

782
00:44:18,000 --> 00:44:21,600
Speaker 3: I mean a generic type of soldier or military person.

783
00:44:21,640 --> 00:44:23,719
Speaker 1: Maybe there's some signal that you have to give to

784
00:44:23,800 --> 00:44:26,680
Speaker 1: prove your friendly. But also, I'm very taken annul a

785
00:44:26,760 --> 00:44:29,040
Speaker 1: video games amount. I'm very taken with the idea of

786
00:44:29,239 --> 00:44:32,320
Speaker 1: a dolphin centric assassin's creed franchise.

787
00:44:32,440 --> 00:44:38,399
Speaker 2: You know what I want is a cephalopod centric assassin organization. Really,

788
00:44:38,520 --> 00:44:40,600
Speaker 2: I mean think about it. They're like super smart. They

789
00:44:40,640 --> 00:44:42,279
Speaker 2: can like open doors and stuff. Didn't you see I

790
00:44:42,400 --> 00:44:44,879
Speaker 2: find a NEMO too. They only live two years though

791
00:44:45,239 --> 00:44:45,800
Speaker 2: that's a bummer.

792
00:44:45,960 --> 00:44:48,279
Speaker 1: That's part of what And they're the closest thing we

793
00:44:48,360 --> 00:44:50,400
Speaker 1: have to approve an alien intelligence.

794
00:44:50,960 --> 00:44:55,480
Speaker 3: Okay, so fix the aging problem right the walk on

795
00:44:55,600 --> 00:44:56,120
Speaker 3: the lens?

796
00:44:57,719 --> 00:44:59,600
Speaker 2: I remember, you just put them in a mech situation.

797
00:45:00,000 --> 00:45:01,719
Speaker 1: I wrote a great sci fi story about Did I

798
00:45:01,760 --> 00:45:02,360
Speaker 1: ever send you that?

799
00:45:02,600 --> 00:45:02,640
Speaker 3: No?

800
00:45:02,880 --> 00:45:06,080
Speaker 1: Oh man, it's a trip. But let's not lose that

801
00:45:06,160 --> 00:45:09,400
Speaker 1: piece of the story. Maybe there were not any remote

802
00:45:09,480 --> 00:45:13,200
Speaker 1: controlled cybernetic shark drones, which again sounds insane off the

803
00:45:13,239 --> 00:45:16,880
Speaker 1: coast of Egypt, but the United States certainly wanted or

804
00:45:17,040 --> 00:45:18,840
Speaker 1: wants to make them, or.

805
00:45:18,920 --> 00:45:21,680
Speaker 3: Did, and it's just not it's still classified.

806
00:45:21,960 --> 00:45:24,399
Speaker 1: The project was discussed that the two thousand and six

807
00:45:24,560 --> 00:45:29,320
Speaker 1: Ocean Sciences Meeting of the American Geophysical Union in Honolulu, Hawaii.

808
00:45:29,840 --> 00:45:32,759
Speaker 1: There wasn't a lot of news about the proposal after that,

809
00:45:33,560 --> 00:45:36,680
Speaker 1: and you know, if it was just in the proposal

810
00:45:37,520 --> 00:45:41,640
Speaker 1: stage at that time, it doesn't feel like a few

811
00:45:41,719 --> 00:45:43,800
Speaker 1: months would be enough time to get something like that

812
00:45:43,880 --> 00:45:47,320
Speaker 1: in the field, right, certainly if that was their starting position.

813
00:45:47,760 --> 00:45:50,880
Speaker 1: And we can't forget that. People in Norway did find

814
00:45:51,080 --> 00:45:55,239
Speaker 1: a runaway whale spy who is very friendly, very acclimated

815
00:45:55,320 --> 00:45:55,880
Speaker 1: to humans.

816
00:45:56,560 --> 00:45:59,840
Speaker 3: Yes, and you can read about that on the BBC.

817
00:46:00,680 --> 00:46:04,000
Speaker 3: There are several Again, the BBC has some amazing reporting

818
00:46:04,280 --> 00:46:05,360
Speaker 3: on spy animals.

819
00:46:05,680 --> 00:46:09,000
Speaker 1: Yeah, there must be someone in there. It's like their thing.

820
00:46:09,840 --> 00:46:14,520
Speaker 3: Yeah, because it really was a beluga whale, right, that's

821
00:46:14,680 --> 00:46:17,400
Speaker 3: this is the one we're referencing that had a harness

822
00:46:17,520 --> 00:46:21,719
Speaker 3: on it that specifically was let me see if I

823
00:46:21,800 --> 00:46:24,440
Speaker 3: can find exactly what it said yes, it had a

824
00:46:24,480 --> 00:46:29,040
Speaker 3: harness on it that was supposedly Russian or of Russian origin,

825
00:46:29,440 --> 00:46:32,120
Speaker 3: and it also had a go pro holder like one

826
00:46:32,160 --> 00:46:34,920
Speaker 3: of those little, you know, the mounts for a GoPro,

827
00:46:35,120 --> 00:46:38,600
Speaker 3: But there was no go pro attached on this beluga

828
00:46:38,640 --> 00:46:43,440
Speaker 3: whale that was found. It's certainly odd. But again, when

829
00:46:43,480 --> 00:46:47,840
Speaker 3: people spoke about it, or the officials, the Russian officials

830
00:46:47,880 --> 00:46:50,040
Speaker 3: when they chimed in, they were basically saying, come on, guys,

831
00:46:51,360 --> 00:46:54,840
Speaker 3: you think we would put one of our specially trained

832
00:46:54,840 --> 00:46:58,000
Speaker 3: spy belugas out there with a harness they clearly is

833
00:46:58,160 --> 00:46:59,360
Speaker 3: Russian by Beluka.

834
00:46:59,560 --> 00:47:01,879
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, which goes back to the birth thing, like, yeah,

835
00:47:01,880 --> 00:47:04,640
Speaker 1: if it's a spy, why does it say Tel Aviv University?

836
00:47:04,800 --> 00:47:04,960
Speaker 2: Yeah?

837
00:47:05,040 --> 00:47:05,239
Speaker 3: Yeah.

838
00:47:05,239 --> 00:47:06,719
Speaker 2: But it's also like one of those tropes you see

839
00:47:06,760 --> 00:47:08,239
Speaker 2: in like sci fi moves or one of like a

840
00:47:08,320 --> 00:47:11,080
Speaker 2: satellite falls and people like, it's clearly a Russian satellite

841
00:47:11,080 --> 00:47:13,400
Speaker 2: because it's got Russian text on it, Like would they

842
00:47:13,440 --> 00:47:15,520
Speaker 2: really do that? Maybe they would, I don't know, yeah,

843
00:47:15,800 --> 00:47:16,000
Speaker 2: you know.

844
00:47:16,560 --> 00:47:19,080
Speaker 1: Especially the question is did they intend to get caught?

845
00:47:19,120 --> 00:47:20,640
Speaker 1: Who did they want to identify this?

846
00:47:21,239 --> 00:47:24,400
Speaker 3: Well, here's the crazy thing. It is, at least according

847
00:47:24,440 --> 00:47:27,680
Speaker 3: to this reporting. There was a colleague of the Russian

848
00:47:27,719 --> 00:47:29,920
Speaker 3: official who would comment in saying, you know this is crazy.

849
00:47:29,960 --> 00:47:30,160
Speaker 1: Come on.

850
00:47:30,280 --> 00:47:32,600
Speaker 3: Of course it wasn't this, but they were saying they

851
00:47:32,640 --> 00:47:36,239
Speaker 3: don't do such experiments with Belugas specifically to have them spy,

852
00:47:36,400 --> 00:47:39,719
Speaker 3: but they have. The Russian military has been capturing and

853
00:47:39,840 --> 00:47:42,759
Speaker 3: training Belugas for quite some time. So again it's like

854
00:47:42,840 --> 00:47:46,080
Speaker 3: the shark thing, like if you go back four years,

855
00:47:46,560 --> 00:47:49,640
Speaker 3: then you go, oh, wait, there are some programs that

856
00:47:49,880 --> 00:47:51,279
Speaker 3: seem pretty similar to this.

857
00:47:52,360 --> 00:47:57,160
Speaker 1: Right, so maybe the maybe the accusations are sort of

858
00:47:57,360 --> 00:48:02,520
Speaker 1: urban legends, right, maybe they're they're growing from these legitimate concerns.

859
00:48:02,840 --> 00:48:05,560
Speaker 1: But at this point it is no secret that militaries

860
00:48:05,680 --> 00:48:10,640
Speaker 1: and intelligence agencies do very, very creepy things, and furthermore,

861
00:48:11,080 --> 00:48:14,240
Speaker 1: tail as old as time. When people are prejudiced against

862
00:48:14,280 --> 00:48:17,080
Speaker 1: a giving group, it's not hard for them to accept

863
00:48:17,120 --> 00:48:20,440
Speaker 1: even the most ridiculous accusation. If you, for some reason

864
00:48:20,560 --> 00:48:24,719
Speaker 1: hate a person or a people or a group of

865
00:48:24,800 --> 00:48:30,000
Speaker 1: any sort, then your BS detection, your BS meter is

866
00:48:30,200 --> 00:48:33,800
Speaker 1: all out of whack. You'll believe anything. If you hate

867
00:48:33,960 --> 00:48:38,240
Speaker 1: everyone who watches Night Court, then you see a study

868
00:48:38,320 --> 00:48:40,840
Speaker 1: that says people who watch Night Court are you know,

869
00:48:41,040 --> 00:48:44,000
Speaker 1: necrophiliacs or something. You'll just sort of nod to yourself

870
00:48:44,040 --> 00:48:45,919
Speaker 1: and go, that makes sense, checks out.

871
00:48:46,080 --> 00:48:48,719
Speaker 3: Yeah, you know that whoever that person is that hates

872
00:48:48,760 --> 00:48:51,480
Speaker 3: people who like who watch Night Court, there's something very

873
00:48:51,520 --> 00:48:53,320
Speaker 3: wrong with them. And that is the only kind of

874
00:48:53,400 --> 00:48:55,640
Speaker 3: person that I hate is people who hate people who

875
00:48:55,719 --> 00:48:56,479
Speaker 3: watch night Din.

876
00:48:56,440 --> 00:48:59,399
Speaker 2: The guy from Night Court just pass away, Harry Anderson, Yeah,

877
00:48:59,480 --> 00:49:01,000
Speaker 2: he deeps, that's the way. Last year, at the age

878
00:49:01,000 --> 00:49:01,880
Speaker 2: of sixty five.

879
00:49:02,040 --> 00:49:06,000
Speaker 1: I read a study mat that people who hate people

880
00:49:06,040 --> 00:49:09,800
Speaker 1: who hate Night Court actually tend to perform higher on

881
00:49:10,000 --> 00:49:13,080
Speaker 1: spatial aptitude tests. Do you believe that I did?

882
00:49:13,160 --> 00:49:14,360
Speaker 3: You just find that somewhere?

883
00:49:15,120 --> 00:49:16,120
Speaker 1: I found it somewhere.

884
00:49:16,280 --> 00:49:19,600
Speaker 3: Sure, so you used your aptitude to find it.

885
00:49:19,760 --> 00:49:20,160
Speaker 2: Good work.

886
00:49:20,480 --> 00:49:27,880
Speaker 1: So again, however, despite the fact that we cannot we

887
00:49:28,000 --> 00:49:36,000
Speaker 1: cannot like extract the socio political soil in which this occurs.

888
00:49:36,080 --> 00:49:39,880
Speaker 1: We cannot extract that racism. It is true despite that

889
00:49:40,040 --> 00:49:43,120
Speaker 1: that there are clear improving cases of animals being used

890
00:49:43,160 --> 00:49:45,960
Speaker 1: in ways that are, like you said, Matt, similar to

891
00:49:46,040 --> 00:49:49,520
Speaker 1: the more conspiratorial claims we see floating around. We cannot

892
00:49:49,560 --> 00:49:53,680
Speaker 1: confirm whether the specifics of a certain narrative are true.

893
00:49:53,960 --> 00:49:56,480
Speaker 1: You know, like twenty ten off the coast of Egypt,

894
00:49:56,520 --> 00:50:00,360
Speaker 1: there were cyber sharks. But we can point out a

895
00:50:00,560 --> 00:50:03,480
Speaker 1: couple of things in the news just a few days ago.

896
00:50:03,520 --> 00:50:07,799
Speaker 3: That, yeah, just happened really fast before you even get

897
00:50:07,840 --> 00:50:11,520
Speaker 3: into this. But there's some weird serendipity occurring with this

898
00:50:11,680 --> 00:50:13,800
Speaker 3: show right now, and we won't go into all of it.

899
00:50:13,960 --> 00:50:17,480
Speaker 3: But Ben and I were going to record this episode

900
00:50:17,560 --> 00:50:19,920
Speaker 3: last week. Uh huh. Noel wasn't gonna be able to

901
00:50:20,000 --> 00:50:23,480
Speaker 3: be here, and something came up in my personal life

902
00:50:23,480 --> 00:50:26,160
Speaker 3: where we weren't We were not able to record this thing.

903
00:50:26,880 --> 00:50:31,799
Speaker 3: Then over the weekend there was reporting specifically about this thing,

904
00:50:32,520 --> 00:50:34,480
Speaker 3: which blew my mind right.

905
00:50:34,640 --> 00:50:38,800
Speaker 1: Yes, according to the BBC, in an artcle released just

906
00:50:38,840 --> 00:50:42,320
Speaker 1: a few days before we recorded this, the CIA finally

907
00:50:42,400 --> 00:50:46,080
Speaker 1: admitted it used pigeons to spy on Soviet forces in

908
00:50:46,200 --> 00:50:51,240
Speaker 1: an operation nicknamed or code named rather Takana and Operation

909
00:50:51,440 --> 00:50:56,080
Speaker 1: to Kana. Fit these pigeons with these incredibly endearing tiny

910
00:50:56,200 --> 00:50:57,880
Speaker 1: cameras right.

911
00:50:57,760 --> 00:51:00,640
Speaker 3: On the breast area, facing down a little.

912
00:51:00,400 --> 00:51:03,160
Speaker 1: Bit right, so as the pigeon is flying, the camera

913
00:51:03,239 --> 00:51:06,719
Speaker 1: would automatically take photos of whatever was within line a site.

914
00:51:06,960 --> 00:51:10,400
Speaker 1: They didn't stop there Takana also trained ravens to deliver

915
00:51:10,760 --> 00:51:14,480
Speaker 1: and retrieve objects up to forty grams from windowsills of

916
00:51:14,680 --> 00:51:16,320
Speaker 1: otherwise inaccessible buildings.

917
00:51:16,560 --> 00:51:19,520
Speaker 3: And let's just go really fast into the Takana pigeons

918
00:51:19,680 --> 00:51:25,000
Speaker 3: with those cameras. It's something so fascinating. So let's imagine that.

919
00:51:25,960 --> 00:51:28,720
Speaker 3: I mean, it's the way. It's the way carrier pigeons

920
00:51:28,760 --> 00:51:32,280
Speaker 3: would work. Back in the day. Pigeons would be taken

921
00:51:32,400 --> 00:51:36,279
Speaker 3: from place A with wherever you're going, Right, if you

922
00:51:36,320 --> 00:51:38,200
Speaker 3: were going to be in a caravan going somewhere, you're

923
00:51:38,280 --> 00:51:41,440
Speaker 3: going to another encampment somewhere, Yeah, you'd carry a pigeon

924
00:51:41,480 --> 00:51:44,600
Speaker 3: that had the home of A. You go to place B.

925
00:51:45,040 --> 00:51:47,279
Speaker 3: You release that pigeon at B with a message. It

926
00:51:47,400 --> 00:51:50,759
Speaker 3: carries it back to its home in A. Right, So

927
00:51:50,840 --> 00:51:53,680
Speaker 3: they would do something very similar where they would train

928
00:51:53,760 --> 00:51:57,840
Speaker 3: the pigeon to have a home in place A. Then essentially,

929
00:51:57,960 --> 00:52:00,920
Speaker 3: if imagine drawing a straight line to play B and

930
00:52:01,080 --> 00:52:04,000
Speaker 3: in between those two places would be let's say a

931
00:52:04,120 --> 00:52:07,800
Speaker 3: Russian facility or Soviet facility back in the during the

932
00:52:07,840 --> 00:52:11,320
Speaker 3: Cold War, in between directly in between those two places,

933
00:52:11,640 --> 00:52:14,000
Speaker 3: and they would release them from Place B. It would

934
00:52:14,040 --> 00:52:17,080
Speaker 3: fly over this facility, take a ton of pictures and

935
00:52:17,239 --> 00:52:21,359
Speaker 3: again you'd release probably multiple or several of them, take

936
00:52:21,400 --> 00:52:23,560
Speaker 3: a ton of pictures as it's going back to its home,

937
00:52:23,760 --> 00:52:27,000
Speaker 3: capture the stuff. It was a brilliant plan and they

938
00:52:27,040 --> 00:52:27,880
Speaker 3: were actually doing it.

939
00:52:27,960 --> 00:52:29,600
Speaker 2: What's the mechanism for taking the pictures?

940
00:52:30,080 --> 00:52:31,680
Speaker 3: It's that little camera we were talking about this.

941
00:52:31,800 --> 00:52:34,600
Speaker 2: Remotely like they're actually timing.

942
00:52:34,680 --> 00:52:39,640
Speaker 1: Yeah, yes, kind of old school exactly. So if they

943
00:52:39,760 --> 00:52:44,480
Speaker 1: fly over something that is not worth photographing, they're still

944
00:52:44,520 --> 00:52:46,799
Speaker 1: going to get a bunch of shots, right. Uh.

945
00:52:46,920 --> 00:52:50,040
Speaker 3: They also had and those ravens that you were talking

946
00:52:50,120 --> 00:52:51,160
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, oh.

947
00:52:51,280 --> 00:52:52,160
Speaker 2: Man, So okay.

948
00:52:52,239 --> 00:52:55,440
Speaker 1: They used a flashing red laser beam to mark a

949
00:52:55,560 --> 00:52:59,640
Speaker 1: target and a special lamp was used to sort of

950
00:52:59,719 --> 00:53:03,800
Speaker 1: train the bird to come back. According to the BBC article,

951
00:53:03,840 --> 00:53:06,640
Speaker 1: on at least one occasion in Europe, the CIA delivered

952
00:53:06,680 --> 00:53:11,000
Speaker 1: an eavesdropping device by bird via this raven mechanism to

953
00:53:11,280 --> 00:53:14,480
Speaker 1: a window, although there was no audio picked up from

954
00:53:14,520 --> 00:53:16,360
Speaker 1: the target, so they got the bird to do it.

955
00:53:16,680 --> 00:53:19,160
Speaker 1: It's just no one talked about anything important in the

956
00:53:19,239 --> 00:53:23,360
Speaker 1: room where it happened. So the CIA also looked at

957
00:53:23,360 --> 00:53:27,600
Speaker 1: whether migratory birds could be used to detect chemical weapons.

958
00:53:28,320 --> 00:53:32,600
Speaker 1: There were some sort there's they like allude to trials

959
00:53:32,960 --> 00:53:36,279
Speaker 1: where there was some kind of electric brain stimulation to

960
00:53:36,480 --> 00:53:40,120
Speaker 1: guide dogs remotely, and there was a project to put

961
00:53:40,200 --> 00:53:43,879
Speaker 1: listening devices into a cat. This stuff got ugly real quick.

962
00:53:43,960 --> 00:53:46,600
Speaker 1: But I did want to end on a lighter note.

963
00:53:47,080 --> 00:53:49,880
Speaker 3: And I hope this is this lighter are you going

964
00:53:49,920 --> 00:53:50,480
Speaker 3: to talk about?

965
00:53:50,920 --> 00:53:51,600
Speaker 2: This is lighter.

966
00:53:52,120 --> 00:53:56,920
Speaker 1: No tricks, no tricks, no tricks. There is an incredibly

967
00:53:57,239 --> 00:54:02,160
Speaker 1: adorable thing that we'll call the audio dossier, the Otter dossier.

968
00:54:02,320 --> 00:54:04,040
Speaker 3: Okay, I don't know this, Uh it is.

969
00:54:04,880 --> 00:54:06,160
Speaker 2: It reads like a book report.

970
00:54:06,200 --> 00:54:10,600
Speaker 1: It's called a dossier on Lutra the Otter, and it uh,

971
00:54:12,120 --> 00:54:15,480
Speaker 1: this came out of a Freedom of Information Act request. Uh.

972
00:54:15,880 --> 00:54:18,760
Speaker 1: This reads kind of like a book report by someone

973
00:54:18,920 --> 00:54:22,680
Speaker 1: working in the intelligence agencies from Uncle Sam who just

974
00:54:22,840 --> 00:54:25,320
Speaker 1: really loves otters and is trying to find a reason

975
00:54:25,400 --> 00:54:28,719
Speaker 1: for people to use them in experiments. Lutra the Otter

976
00:54:28,880 --> 00:54:33,439
Speaker 1: is a compact, powerful, intelligent animal capable of negotiating land, water,

977
00:54:33,640 --> 00:54:36,960
Speaker 1: and obstacles with great facility. And it goes on to

978
00:54:37,040 --> 00:54:41,480
Speaker 1: talk about how much this person, this anonymous author loves otters.

979
00:54:42,160 --> 00:54:42,359
Speaker 3: OW.

980
00:54:43,360 --> 00:54:45,360
Speaker 1: You can read it on you can read it online

981
00:54:45,400 --> 00:54:47,279
Speaker 1: for free too. It's one of the more pleasant things

982
00:54:47,320 --> 00:54:48,080
Speaker 1: in the vault.

983
00:54:48,320 --> 00:54:51,640
Speaker 3: Yeah, Geo Cities dot FBI. It's like otter fan fiction.

984
00:54:52,040 --> 00:54:54,359
Speaker 1: It's like fiction that's very well put.

985
00:54:54,600 --> 00:54:56,640
Speaker 3: Yeah, I really thought you were going to jump straight

986
00:54:56,680 --> 00:54:57,560
Speaker 3: to Acoustic Kitty.

987
00:54:58,280 --> 00:55:02,279
Speaker 2: Acoustic Kitty is the hair tail. That's the one where

988
00:55:02,320 --> 00:55:06,799
Speaker 2: they installed an implant into the kitty's brain. Basically, right, yes,

989
00:55:07,640 --> 00:55:09,200
Speaker 2: very inhumane, bad times.

990
00:55:09,239 --> 00:55:12,359
Speaker 3: And well, well there were listening devices inside the cat,

991
00:55:12,960 --> 00:55:15,120
Speaker 3: or that was that was at least the plan, right

992
00:55:15,600 --> 00:55:18,280
Speaker 3: to release a bunch of these cats with listening devices

993
00:55:18,440 --> 00:55:19,640
Speaker 3: physically inside them.

994
00:55:19,760 --> 00:55:20,080
Speaker 2: That's right.

995
00:55:20,680 --> 00:55:24,400
Speaker 3: But then they tested it one time the and the

996
00:55:24,480 --> 00:55:27,480
Speaker 3: kiddy cat that they put it in immediately jumped out

997
00:55:27,520 --> 00:55:30,160
Speaker 3: into the road and got smashed by a car. Unfortunately.

998
00:55:31,000 --> 00:55:34,840
Speaker 1: The lutra usually sleeps on its head with its arms folded,

999
00:55:35,000 --> 00:55:36,680
Speaker 1: and it likes to sleep with humans.

1000
00:55:38,120 --> 00:55:40,760
Speaker 2: Paid someone and it has a cut of tummy.

1001
00:55:41,040 --> 00:55:45,319
Speaker 1: It's all but that man, seriously, and then they say, never,

1002
00:55:45,400 --> 00:55:48,120
Speaker 1: if possible, confine or leaveing a zoo or kennel an

1003
00:55:48,160 --> 00:55:51,440
Speaker 1: otter which has enjoyed any human companionship or freedom.

1004
00:55:52,600 --> 00:55:53,120
Speaker 3: Well, there you go.

1005
00:55:53,640 --> 00:55:55,440
Speaker 1: This person just was an otter buddy.

1006
00:55:56,000 --> 00:56:00,040
Speaker 3: Ah wow uh the basic.

1007
00:56:00,120 --> 00:56:02,760
Speaker 1: That you know, I'm gonna stop reading sections of this report.

1008
00:56:02,800 --> 00:56:06,760
Speaker 1: If you ever feel down, go check out Adosia on Lutra,

1009
00:56:07,200 --> 00:56:10,200
Speaker 1: and do please let us know what you think about

1010
00:56:10,239 --> 00:56:14,920
Speaker 1: these allegations of animal spies. What we're finding is that

1011
00:56:16,600 --> 00:56:18,799
Speaker 1: while the timeline for a lot of this stuff may

1012
00:56:18,920 --> 00:56:23,320
Speaker 1: not match up, the pure potential of the technology is

1013
00:56:24,000 --> 00:56:25,440
Speaker 1: there in some cases.

1014
00:56:25,719 --> 00:56:25,839
Speaker 2: Right.

1015
00:56:26,200 --> 00:56:31,480
Speaker 3: Well, yeah, and there's now an historical declassified trail of

1016
00:56:31,880 --> 00:56:36,000
Speaker 3: the CIA using animals for these means exactly pretty closely

1017
00:56:36,120 --> 00:56:38,720
Speaker 3: to what's being you know, suspected in a lot of places.

1018
00:56:38,760 --> 00:56:42,239
Speaker 3: It doesn't mean it's true, especially the later ones. And

1019
00:56:42,640 --> 00:56:45,120
Speaker 3: like you said, Ben, you can't divorce some of those

1020
00:56:45,280 --> 00:56:49,799
Speaker 3: feelings that occur in regions with the reality. It's tough

1021
00:56:49,880 --> 00:56:50,160
Speaker 3: to do that.

1022
00:56:50,480 --> 00:56:54,080
Speaker 1: Yeah, absolutely, And that's why we want to hear from you.

1023
00:56:54,600 --> 00:56:55,880
Speaker 1: Let us know what you think about this. Do you

1024
00:56:55,920 --> 00:57:00,439
Speaker 1: think there is any sand to these claims. Furthermore, if

1025
00:57:00,560 --> 00:57:03,680
Speaker 1: you had to pick an animal that would cooperate with

1026
00:57:03,840 --> 00:57:06,960
Speaker 1: you and an aspir ring, what kind of animal would

1027
00:57:06,960 --> 00:57:07,560
Speaker 1: you pick him? Why?

1028
00:57:08,080 --> 00:57:08,800
Speaker 2: You can let us know.

1029
00:57:09,320 --> 00:57:11,560
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, I'm pretty sure at least a few

1030
00:57:11,560 --> 00:57:13,479
Speaker 3: of us took honey badgers, right.

1031
00:57:13,520 --> 00:57:15,479
Speaker 2: I'm absolutely going to be an otter at this point.

1032
00:57:17,360 --> 00:57:21,280
Speaker 3: All right, what about you, met? I mean I would say,

1033
00:57:21,320 --> 00:57:23,680
Speaker 3: Honey Badger, if I could have a friend, Honey Badger,

1034
00:57:23,760 --> 00:57:25,320
Speaker 3: that would be on my team and do stuff.

1035
00:57:25,920 --> 00:57:27,440
Speaker 2: I wouldn't be on your team because he doesn't give

1036
00:57:27,480 --> 00:57:28,720
Speaker 2: a well, that's.

1037
00:57:28,560 --> 00:57:31,720
Speaker 3: The whole point. Though, he wouldn't. He wouldn't g a

1038
00:57:32,120 --> 00:57:34,280
Speaker 3: F for anything but me.

1039
00:57:35,600 --> 00:57:37,080
Speaker 2: I don't think he would g a F about you.

1040
00:57:37,280 --> 00:57:38,600
Speaker 3: No, he would. He would be my boy.

1041
00:57:38,720 --> 00:57:44,640
Speaker 1: Okay, okay, So we would have to do this podcast

1042
00:57:44,720 --> 00:57:49,000
Speaker 1: with an animal that may well attack and eviscerate us,

1043
00:57:49,200 --> 00:57:51,560
Speaker 1: and the only thing keeping it in line is that

1044
00:57:51,640 --> 00:57:52,440
Speaker 1: it adores you.

1045
00:57:52,640 --> 00:57:56,440
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'd be like, yo, stop man, it goes for

1046
00:57:56,560 --> 00:57:57,479
Speaker 3: the giblets first.

1047
00:57:58,280 --> 00:58:04,680
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, and that's our classic episode for

1048
00:58:05,120 --> 00:58:07,479
Speaker 1: this evening. We can't wait to hear your thoughts.

1049
00:58:07,560 --> 00:58:08,840
Speaker 2: That's right, let us know what you think. You can

1050
00:58:08,960 --> 00:58:11,280
Speaker 2: reach you to the handle Conspiracy Stuff where we exist

1051
00:58:11,360 --> 00:58:15,440
Speaker 2: on Facebook x and YouTube on Instagram and TikTok ork

1052
00:58:15,440 --> 00:58:16,400
Speaker 2: Conspiracy Stuff Show.

1053
00:58:16,480 --> 00:58:18,720
Speaker 3: If you want to call us dial one eight three

1054
00:58:18,880 --> 00:58:23,320
Speaker 3: three st d WYTK that's our voicemail system. You've got

1055
00:58:23,400 --> 00:58:26,000
Speaker 3: three minutes. Give yourself a cool nickname and let us

1056
00:58:26,040 --> 00:58:27,680
Speaker 3: know if we can use your name and message on

1057
00:58:27,920 --> 00:58:29,880
Speaker 3: the air. If you got more to say than can

1058
00:58:29,920 --> 00:58:32,440
Speaker 3: fit in that voicemail, why not instead send us a

1059
00:58:32,600 --> 00:58:33,840
Speaker 3: good old fashioned email.

1060
00:58:34,080 --> 00:58:36,960
Speaker 1: We are the entities to read every single piece of

1061
00:58:37,000 --> 00:58:41,440
Speaker 1: correspondence we receive. Be aware, yet not afraid. Sometimes the

1062
00:58:41,520 --> 00:58:44,960
Speaker 1: void writes back conspiracy at iHeartRadio dot com.

1063
00:59:04,040 --> 00:59:06,080
Speaker 3: Stuff they don't want you to know. Is a production

1064
00:59:06,200 --> 00:59:10,680
Speaker 3: of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app,

1065
00:59:10,800 --> 00:59:13,640
Speaker 3: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.