Speaker 1: From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
Speaker 1: riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
Speaker 1: learn the stuff they don't want you to know. A
Speaker 1: production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: Hello, welcome back to the show. My name is Matt,
Speaker 2: my name is Noel.
Speaker 3: They call me Ben. We're joined as always with our
Speaker 3: super producer Alexis code named Doc Holliday Jackson. Most importantly,
Speaker 3: you are you. You are here. That makes this the
Speaker 3: stuff they don't want you to know. It is the
Speaker 3: top of the week, it's the evening where we like
Speaker 3: to explore what we call strange news. We're going to
Speaker 3: learn about some very grisly things today, some quite disturbing things.
Speaker 3: So for anybody listening along with the young leans and
Speaker 3: the kiddos, please know this following commerce station may not
Speaker 3: be appropriate for all audiences. We're talking about ghoulish insurance scams,
Speaker 3: a mystery that is unraveling as we record, and we're
Speaker 3: talking about I don't know, there's a There's so much
Speaker 3: dark stuff today, guys, that I was thinking we could
Speaker 3: just say one piece of nice news at the very beginning.
Speaker 3: Is that, okay, very short, I got a nice thing, Okay,
Speaker 3: and this is sort of an apology to the good
Speaker 3: people of Worcester because for a long time, on multiple
Speaker 3: shows we have joked about how.
Speaker 2: It's unfil.
Speaker 3: Uh. There we go. We've done that one. We've got
Speaker 3: we did that with just now. Congrats Matt. We also
Speaker 3: we also gave them a hard time about the misleading
Speaker 3: spelling and pronunciation of the name. So both as good news,
Speaker 3: a little dosa good news, and as a an all
Speaker 3: of branch to the good people of Worcester or Wooster,
Speaker 3: depending on your accents, as an olive branch to our
Speaker 3: fellow conspiracy realists in that part of the world, we
Speaker 3: are proud to announce that the library fees in this
Speaker 3: town have fundamentally changed. If you have a late fee
Speaker 3: at a library in this community, or you're getting a
Speaker 3: fee for a damaged book or you lost something, et cetera,
Speaker 3: you no longer have to pay for it in cash.
Speaker 3: All you need to do, according to Boston dot Com,
Speaker 3: is bring a cute picture of a cat.
Speaker 4: Dang, do you think they're going to adopt that policy?
Speaker 4: At my video store, there's so many late fee Yeah, dude,
Speaker 4: I think I'm single handedly keeping that place in business
Speaker 4: with my late fees because.
Speaker 2: Of your late fees.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean Video Drome. Okay, we could do an
Speaker 3: episode of Video dro It's awesome.
Speaker 4: It's also an incredibly fantastic David Cronenberg movie. But like,
Speaker 4: you know, the thing, we're so we're so spoil by
Speaker 4: like streaming, that we forget. You know, we're on a schedule.
Speaker 4: You got to read these books, watch these movies in
Speaker 4: a reasonable timeframe, not just whenever you feel like it.
Speaker 3: And yeah, Video Drome, named after the film, is a
Speaker 3: longstanding local rental institution. Right, we love Video Drome here.
Speaker 3: I also am grateful, I think we all are to
Speaker 3: their policy of giving you a discount on the late fees.
Speaker 4: They do do that. I was about to say, that's awesome,
Speaker 4: but I'm glad to do that. I thought it was
Speaker 4: special for a second. But how dare I think that?
Speaker 4: You know what, when I get home from travels this evening,
Speaker 4: I'm going to watch both of them and return them
Speaker 4: to as Sweet tomorrow. Maybe I'll bring a cat picture
Speaker 4: just for good measure. What do you think?
Speaker 3: Just do it? Yeah, just you know, grease the wheels
Speaker 3: a little bit. This is the kind of lobbying I
Speaker 3: like the library there in Massachusetts is calling this program
Speaker 3: March me Owdness, and it applies to all seven branches
Speaker 3: of the library system. So please let us know if
Speaker 3: that we're for you, and you may have you may
Speaker 3: join us on a future listener mail program. You also
Speaker 3: may have a spidy sense. We started with something so innocuous,
Speaker 3: so wholesome, and now we're like, we're like in the
Speaker 3: Willy Wonka boat in the chocolate factory. There's no earthly wave.
Speaker 3: Things are about to get dark, you guys. Have We
Speaker 3: have talked about this on a couple of different shows,
Speaker 3: and we've mentioned it in the past. Things are going
Speaker 3: poorly for Nickelodeon the recent well. The long standing allegations
Speaker 3: of toxic work environments, conspiracies and retaliation, and sexual abuse
Speaker 3: are becoming mainstreamed with an explosive new docuseriies called Quiet
Speaker 3: on Set. Have you guys watched this?
Speaker 4: I haven't watched it, but I've seen a lot of
Speaker 4: the fallout that has resulted from it, including some pretty
Speaker 4: ir responsible and INCENTI set of things said by some
Speaker 4: former Nickelodeon co stars and the names of Escaping me.
Speaker 4: But there was one former colleague of one of the
Speaker 4: people that came out and you know, basically described some
Speaker 4: of these experiences. And this former co star just had
Speaker 4: some really gross stuff like mad it made a joke
Speaker 4: out of it, and there's nothing to be joked about here.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah, And this again, this is the deep Water.
Speaker 3: This series has four parts out now in various different platforms,
Speaker 3: and it goes into things that apparently were an open
Speaker 3: secret or acknowledged pre Internet all throughout the industry. The
Speaker 3: name that you will hear most often associated with this
Speaker 3: is the producer Dan Schneider, who was kind of the
Speaker 3: kingmaker at Nickelodeon for a long time. The allegations range widely.
Speaker 3: Here are some of the most explosive. These are coming
Speaker 3: to us from an article by Wesley writing for Entertainment Weekly.
Speaker 3: It's disturbing stuff. There was a production assistant on all
Speaker 3: that and a program called The Amanda Show in the
Speaker 3: early two thousands named Jesse Handy, who apparently was a
Speaker 3: self proclaimed pedophile and was sending sexual pictures of him
Speaker 3: pleasuring himself to actors as young as eleven. He had
Speaker 3: been arrested in April of two thousand and three after
Speaker 3: a tip, like an anonymous tip to the authorities and
Speaker 3: police found over ten thousand images of erotic material or
Speaker 3: what we call CSAM child sexual abuse material. He was
Speaker 3: sentenced to prison in two thousand and four. And this
Speaker 3: is one of the allegations, but only one, and it
Speaker 3: doesn't even touch on Dan. Before we go on, do
Speaker 3: we want to talk a little bit more about the
Speaker 3: allegations regarding Schneider, I mean Nol in particular. We had
Speaker 3: been discussing this. We're hanging out with Gandhi on her
Speaker 3: show's Sauce on the Side.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and that episode may or may not be out, Yeah,
Speaker 4: but do take a look. It was a really wide
Speaker 4: ranging conversation that did venture to this territory. I just
Speaker 4: really quickly want to double back and see. The person
Speaker 4: I was referring to was actor and musician Drake Bell,
Speaker 4: who was featured in the documentary and one of his
Speaker 4: they were in. He was in a show that was
Speaker 4: Past My Time. Well, he was in all that, which
Speaker 4: was kind of part of my Nickelodeon upbringing in the
Speaker 4: Amanda show, as you mentioned, but some other Nickelodeon colleagues,
Speaker 4: stars of a show called Neds Declassified, a guy named
Speaker 4: Devin Werkheiser, Lindsay Shaw and Daniel Curtis Lee have a
Speaker 4: podcast and they are the ones who said some pretty
Speaker 4: gnarly stuff, almost like victim blamey, kind of just gross
Speaker 4: things on their podcast in a TikTok that they posted.
Speaker 4: But he had allegations against Brian, who was a dialogue coach,
Speaker 4: is one of the dialogue coaches. Yeah, but no, I
Speaker 4: mean as far as Schneider, that was brooming the highest
Speaker 4: of the highest order, right and you know assault.
Speaker 3: Yeah, since we brought in Brian Peck, now, let's let's
Speaker 3: go to that and we'll get to Schneider later. So
Speaker 3: Drake Bell was repeatedly sexually abused by Nickelodeon employee dialogue
Speaker 3: coach Brian Peck. And this was during his teenage years
Speaker 3: where he was a cast member of The Amanda Show.
Speaker 3: And we're not going to give you the full details
Speaker 3: of what was happening, but it appears that it was
Speaker 3: happening in a it appears that it was happening in
Speaker 3: an open, secret kind of way. We've talked about plausible
Speaker 3: deniability before. It appears that in this situation the fig
Speaker 3: leaf of plausible deniability simply cannot cannot be used or
Speaker 3: rationalized by other people in these productions. Peck was also
Speaker 3: convicted of child molestation in two thousand and four. He
Speaker 3: pled no contest to some pretty gnarly and disturbing charges.
Speaker 3: And I didn't know you could plead no contest to
Speaker 3: things of that magnitude. I thought that was for traffic court,
Speaker 3: you know, like here's your money. But I wasn't speeding
Speaker 3: kind of stuff. I didn't know it could go to
Speaker 3: that level of just despicable crime.
Speaker 2: Yeah, in order where what were the years again, Ben
Speaker 2: that this was happening.
Speaker 3: The years that this was happening were during the during
Speaker 3: the course of the Amanda Show, So the convictions for
Speaker 3: crimes of a similar nature didn't come about till two
Speaker 3: thousand and four. But the Amanda Show itself ran from
Speaker 3: nineteen ninety nine to two thousand and two, got it,
Speaker 3: And that was starring Amanda Binds, which became another another
Speaker 3: mother load of very nasty allegations to which Schneider has responded,
Speaker 3: but not very convincingly.
Speaker 4: And if I'm not mistaken, Amanda Bynes went on to
Speaker 4: have some pretty public mental health issues that you know,
Speaker 4: were widely reported, and one can't help but wonder if
Speaker 4: that kind of thing that is related to things that
Speaker 4: she witnessed, you know, while on set. I'm just conjecturing here,
Speaker 4: and I don't know that's for a fact, but it
Speaker 4: does seem like that is a common trope with child
Speaker 4: actors who have experienced difficult situations when they were very young.
Speaker 4: It can lead to difficulties later in.
Speaker 3: Life, and the allegations continue. There's also sl Channel, who
Speaker 3: was a Nickelodeon employee who worked at the company's Burbank lot.
Speaker 3: He was convicted of bringing in minor a young boy
Speaker 3: to the lot and abusing him on site. And that
Speaker 3: gets even more to stur because it turns out Channel
Speaker 3: had a prior conviction and was a registered sex offender
Speaker 3: before applying to work at Nickelodeon. They hired him, and
Speaker 3: it just gets it gets stranger and stranger. You know.
Speaker 3: There's the point. There's the point that we haven't had
Speaker 3: a full episode on about the tremendous psychological dangers posed
Speaker 3: to child actors. You know, it's unfortunately, it's I'm not
Speaker 3: going to say, of course, something hyperbolic. It's obviously not
Speaker 3: every child actor. You can see people who have great,
Speaker 3: storied careers and they had awesome parents who are helping
Speaker 3: them along the way. But there are also a lot
Speaker 3: of dark things that occurred. A lot of kids got
Speaker 3: who slipped through the cracks or were treated as objects
Speaker 3: or things to be abused, and that has series consequences
Speaker 3: later in life, you know, in terms of mental health,
Speaker 3: in terms of substance abuse. It is a story so
Speaker 3: common indeed that it has become part of American folklore.
Speaker 3: And with this, when I was watching through this series,
Speaker 3: I was reading through these allegations. It was after it
Speaker 3: was after some of our previous discussions where we jokingly,
Speaker 3: we jokingly talked about the kind of internet meme that
Speaker 3: kept saying Dan Schneider has a weird thing for feet,
Speaker 3: remember that? And then I realized the logo of Nickelodeon
Speaker 3: was a foot.
Speaker 4: Yeah orange slime foot yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah yu yeah, yuck indeed, yuck to the max. And
Speaker 3: then there were also there were also super cuts that
Speaker 3: have been released in recently and in recent years of
Speaker 3: kids in these programs doing things under the guise of
Speaker 3: comedy that, while not explicitly sexual, are seen as disturbing
Speaker 3: by some critics. Do you do you remember hearing about
Speaker 3: any of this, you guys.
Speaker 4: Well, I mean I suppose I just heard about just
Speaker 4: kind of you hear about the worst of it, and
Speaker 4: then you can only assume that what led to the
Speaker 4: worst of it was a culture of inappropriate behavior and
Speaker 4: just these folks not being good stewards of the young
Speaker 4: people they were meant to be looking out for.
Speaker 3: Yeah, the normalization that allows escalation, right, and shifts the
Speaker 3: overtone the Overton window. And there are also, of course,
Speaker 3: there are allegations that are maybe sexually based or misogynistic,
Speaker 3: but they are not sexually explicit or sexual abuse claims,
Speaker 3: like the stories of female writers or female identifying writers
Speaker 3: who were working on this show and said, you know,
Speaker 3: we were retaliated against. There were the Amanda Buying Show
Speaker 3: or the Amanda Show had only two female writers on
Speaker 3: the first season, right, and it's supposed to be a
Speaker 3: female centric show, right, They're looking for a certain demographic.
Speaker 3: And these two writers, Jenny Kilgan and Christy Stratton are
Speaker 3: interviewed describing their experiences, and what they talk about is
Speaker 3: really hostile stuff. There's one quote where it's like, right
Speaker 3: when they first start the writer's room and they're breaking
Speaker 3: stories and they say, Dan Schneider, his manifesto, his thesis
Speaker 3: statement is he doesn't think women are funny, and then
Speaker 3: in front of these female writers, he says, name one
Speaker 3: funny female writer, which is pretty that's kind of a
Speaker 3: bully tactic.
Speaker 2: Isn't it, Sarah Silverman. Yeah, And then he sorry, just
Speaker 2: one of the funniest writers on the planet.
Speaker 3: And yeah, we're Earthlings. Let's blow up earth things. Shout
Speaker 3: out Sarah Silverman. He also goes on to like the
Speaker 3: accusations again, these are allegations against the It hasn't been
Speaker 3: there hasn't been a big court conviction of stuff like
Speaker 3: this for Schneider. But apparently he would show female writers
Speaker 3: pornography on his computer. He would try to pressure people
Speaker 3: into giving him massages to get their sketches on the air.
Speaker 3: And these are the actual writers saying it. There was
Speaker 3: also dirty financial shenanigans going on, like splitting the pay
Speaker 3: that you were supposed to give to a single writer
Speaker 3: between two writers so you could get like a buy one,
Speaker 3: get one free deal. And then, in all fairness to Nickelodeon,
Speaker 3: Schneider left in twenty eighteen. It's twenty twenty four, and
Speaker 3: these things are like, these stories are still coming out
Speaker 3: and I'm wondering, guys, do you think they're sand to this?
Speaker 3: Do you think there's credibility to this? Yes?
Speaker 2: Unfortunately, I mean, yeah, I haven't seen the things you've
Speaker 2: looked at, but it certainly sounds like it.
Speaker 4: I've certainly been aware of the story for a long time,
Speaker 4: and I grew up as a Nickelodeon kid, and so
Speaker 4: I suppose I had a vested interest. And unfortunately it
Speaker 4: does feel all too real.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and this is where we pass the torch to you, folks,
Speaker 3: fellow conspiracy realist, especially people who were in the demographic.
Speaker 3: When you're watching shows during this time period, we want
Speaker 3: to hear from you. If you have any experience in
Speaker 3: the industry, tell us your take on these allegations. Tell
Speaker 3: us how deep, how far this might go? Was this
Speaker 3: an active conspiracy against these employees and these children? And
Speaker 3: you can always reach us conspiracy at iHeartRadio dot com.
Speaker 3: Say it along at home one ay through three, std WYTK.
Speaker 3: We're going to take a pause for a word from
Speaker 3: our sponsors and we'll be back with more strange news.
Speaker 4: And we've returned with another piece of strange. This one
Speaker 4: is a Bomer kind of non the same, not quite
Speaker 4: the same aggnitude as the previous one, But it's just
Speaker 4: an example of someone going way, way, way off the
Speaker 4: deep end to try to perpetrate a fraud and losing
Speaker 4: out in the most grandiose way imaginable. And it involves
Speaker 4: a student in Taiwan who had a not so great
Speaker 4: friend who apparently was in over his head in crypto,
Speaker 4: and the friend, known only in the press as Lao,
Speaker 4: apparently convinced his buddy Xiang to perpetrate an insurance fraud
Speaker 4: with him to help get him paid because he it
Speaker 4: would appear, this Jang, you know, had a soft spot
Speaker 4: in his heart for his buddy Lao, and he Lao
Speaker 4: told him that he was being pursued by gangsters because
Speaker 4: of crypto debts that he had, which unclearest whether that's
Speaker 4: the case or not, but whatever the case, it appears
Speaker 4: that the two hatched an elaborate insurance fraud scheme that
Speaker 4: involved not Lao the person in debt I guess taking
Speaker 4: one for the team, but rather Zang. I can only
Speaker 4: imagine that they had agreed to split some of these
Speaker 4: insurance proceeds, but it was Jang who agreed to amputate
Speaker 4: his own legs. Both of them, both of them, yes,
Speaker 4: legs plural and file an insurance claim. Well, it didn't
Speaker 4: exactly go as planned. Apparently. What happened was on January
Speaker 4: twenty sixth, twenty twenty three, Leao and Xang took out
Speaker 4: a motorbike and rode around Taipei so that they would
Speaker 4: have an alibi or a cover story for this idea
Speaker 4: that Xiang had become due to exposure to the elements
Speaker 4: afflicted with frostbite due to their evening ride. I don't
Speaker 4: know about you, guys. I'm not an expert on the
Speaker 4: climate of Taipei, but never really thought of it as
Speaker 4: a subarctic kind of situation. Ben, I believe you've spent
Speaker 4: some time in that part of the world. Does they
Speaker 4: get that chili at night?
Speaker 3: It depends on the season.
Speaker 4: It is January, you know, it's probably quite cold. Yeah,
Speaker 4: but either way, this was their cover story. Several days
Speaker 4: before this, Jang took out several quite lucrative insurance policies
Speaker 4: for life travel and accident insurance is. According to prosecutors,
Speaker 4: After this night ride, Jang soaked his legs in a
Speaker 4: bucket of dry ice and was admitted to the hospital.
Speaker 3: So that would actually give you frostbite. But there's something
Speaker 3: there's something interesting there at all. Yeah, January is comparatively
Speaker 3: a cold month for type A. But it's not that cold, dude,
Speaker 3: It's really not. It's like, I'm gonna just look this
Speaker 3: up real quick. The average low temperature is ten gree celsius,
Speaker 3: which is like fifty degrees fahrenheit. It's colder at night
Speaker 3: in New York now right.
Speaker 2: According to Business Insider, the low of the night of
Speaker 2: the supposed accident was forty two degrees fair night.
Speaker 3: Yes, that would be that would be slightly lower than
Speaker 3: the average low, but still that's that feels like a stretch.
Speaker 3: So they tried to manufacture the frostbite by this this
Speaker 3: dry ice process, as you're describing to frostbite sucks. It's
Speaker 3: not cool.
Speaker 4: Like, oh yeah. If anybody saw the most recent season
Speaker 4: of True Detective, there was something referred to by the
Speaker 4: lead investigators in that series as a corpse sickle. It
Speaker 4: was some men who froze to death naked out in
Speaker 4: the the Alaskan you know, tundra, and your fingers turned black,
Speaker 4: your extremities turned black, and and you know, you basically
Speaker 4: get it's almost like getting gangreen. But it's it's it's frostbite,
Speaker 4: but it's it's not pretty and it is quite painful.
Speaker 4: The problem here is that there are certain telltale signs
Speaker 4: of a legitimate case of frost bite. Right His legs
Speaker 4: had no markings indicating that he had shoes or socks on.
Speaker 4: All of his injuries appeared completely symmetrical, which is of
Speaker 4: course consistent with you know, soaking your legs in a
Speaker 4: bucket rather than being exposed to the elements, which would
Speaker 4: be a lot more you know, amorphous and not along
Speaker 4: a certain line. To your point, Matt, the weather on
Speaker 4: January twenty sixth was not anywhere near below freezing. It
Speaker 4: only got two round forty two degrees fahrenheit, quite chiley.
Speaker 4: But as the Taiwan Bureau of Criminal Investigation said in
Speaker 4: a statement, Taiwan is a subtropical region and frost bite
Speaker 4: of this level is pretty much unheard of. By this level,
Speaker 4: we mean we're requiring amputation just due to the nature
Speaker 4: of the climate in that region.
Speaker 3: Like non manufactured frostbite.
Speaker 4: By non exactly, Zang's legs did have to be amputated
Speaker 4: below the calf because of these injuries that he had sustained.
Speaker 4: But this was absolutely, absolutely sketchy and a lot of
Speaker 4: questions needed answering. Police did seek out those answers and
Speaker 4: investigated Jang and Lao.
Speaker 3: It wasn't until.
Speaker 4: November, and with that much time having passed, you think
Speaker 4: the guys would have gotten rid of the evidence, but no,
Speaker 4: they found the plastic bucket that was used to freeze
Speaker 4: Jang's feet. Apparently, insurance documents were just strown about the apartment,
Speaker 4: willy nilly, and a white polystyrene box used for transporting
Speaker 4: dry ice, in addition to eight mobile phones and a
Speaker 4: tablet computer. I imagine maybe those were of interest because
Speaker 4: of the crypto stuff. Maybe there was indication on those
Speaker 4: that this guy was in debt. Lao and Jang were
Speaker 4: arrested on January seventeenth and charge with fraud and aiding
Speaker 4: and abetting serious injury according to the Bureau. And here's
Speaker 4: the kicker why this story is a bummer. This is
Speaker 4: obviously idiotic behavior. Kicker, Yeah, the kid, Sorry, my mistake
Speaker 4: in poor taste, accidental. This is obviously an example of
Speaker 4: some very idiotic behavior. You know, no one likes being
Speaker 4: backed into a corner, and no one likes being in debt.
Speaker 4: Whether or not there were gangsters or you know, members
Speaker 4: of organized crime involved or not, it can feel very
Speaker 4: scary and like you're back into a corner and you
Speaker 4: have nowhere to go. But this seems like a pretty
Speaker 4: hair brained scheme. And I can't believe Jang wasn't even
Speaker 4: the one that was in debt and he somehow talked
Speaker 4: his buddy into having his own legs amputated. The claim
Speaker 4: they filed was for upwards of American one point five
Speaker 4: million dollars. They filed the claim and actually only received
Speaker 4: seventy two hundred dollars from one of the insurers, And
Speaker 4: of course now that money is going to have to
Speaker 4: be returned and those legs ain't growing back, guys.
Speaker 3: Not with current medical technology.
Speaker 4: When done seem so I just, I don't know. I
Speaker 4: can't exactly say I call this heartbreaking, but surely there
Speaker 4: are better ways to perpetrate an insurance fraud. Turned down
Speaker 4: a building or something. I don't know that it was
Speaker 4: just I mean, I can only imagine they would have
Speaker 4: been this one guy would have been absolutely terrified for
Speaker 4: his life. But there does seem to be a little
Speaker 4: sense in the reporting on this that he took his
Speaker 4: buddy for a ride.
Speaker 3: Yeah, there is a bit I agree with you, because
Speaker 3: you are the person who hit me to this story. Initially,
Speaker 3: you know.
Speaker 4: We're sitting there when I discovered popped up my phone.
Speaker 4: I think we both looked at it the exact same time.
Speaker 3: It's just we're like, wow, okay, well, well for the
Speaker 3: for the stuff they will want you to know ahead,
Speaker 3: KAD and credit were due. You introduced me this and uh,
Speaker 3: and it's there is there's also kind of an implication
Speaker 3: of possible gambling addiction, with the idea that hey, if
Speaker 3: I can just get enough money to get right on
Speaker 3: these outstanding debts, then I can improve my life so
Speaker 3: much so that I will still have a really great
Speaker 3: quality of life despite this grievous injury I've given myself.
Speaker 3: But it's also kind of an ultimatum thing, right, would
Speaker 3: you rather lose your life or lose your legs? I
Speaker 3: am wondering whether whether there's something like the psychology of
Speaker 3: addictive gambling involved, whether the guy was being conned, And
Speaker 3: I thought in one of the articles you posted from
Speaker 3: Business Insider by Matthew Low, there's an interesting larger global
Speaker 3: snapt snapshot I should say, of what they're calling opportunistic fraud,
Speaker 3: Like it's kind of a golden age right during the
Speaker 3: pandemic to commit insurance scams. Yeah.
Speaker 4: I actually talking about this with friend of the show
Speaker 4: Jordan run Talk a little earlier. Why might that be?
Speaker 4: You know, maybe people are thinking that there's too much
Speaker 4: going on and that they're gonna be able to slide past,
Speaker 4: you know, the authorities. I don't know. I didn't mention this, guys,
Speaker 4: but on Daily Mail and elsewhere he documented this process
Speaker 4: and they found pictures. You can find pictures of this guy.
Speaker 4: He's got his legs in his bucket of dry eyes,
Speaker 4: and he's like wrapped his legs in zip ties, presumably
Speaker 4: so he won't like try to pull him out. It's
Speaker 4: like he's built a torture device of his own making.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: I mean, first off, try not to document your crimes
Speaker 3: as much as possible. And then secondly, maybe maybe they
Speaker 3: were planning to make that an income stream or like
Speaker 3: a revenue streams. The dark levis gross.
Speaker 2: Also, do document your crimes. Please keep them on your
Speaker 2: phone and share them with all of your followers.
Speaker 3: Go on Instagram, Go on Instagram live. Hey, guys.
Speaker 2: Snapchat is the best.
Speaker 3: Snapchat's the best. Yeah, gotta keep her streak going.
Speaker 2: But they'll never see anything.
Speaker 3: No one can do it. You're so safe because you
Speaker 3: changed your name a little bit.
Speaker 2: Yep, uh, just quickly. This is so weird. Okay. So
Speaker 2: earlier I was in the studio here with Pain and
Speaker 2: Chuck Payne, Lindsay from Up and Vanished and all the
Speaker 2: other shows, and then Chuck Bryant from Stuff you should know.
Speaker 2: They were discussing. A documentary called Vernon, Florida came up.
Speaker 2: It's a documentary by yeah, yeah, but Errol Morris, and
Speaker 2: it's about what you're talking about, Noel, I forgot.
Speaker 3: About this one.
Speaker 4: It's not the whole town where this has happened a
Speaker 4: lot of times.
Speaker 2: Yes, insurance fraud for like by way of amputating limbs.
Speaker 2: And that's why Errol Morris originally went to that town
Speaker 2: to make a documentary, but he ended up making it
Speaker 2: about a different aspect of the town, just like interviewing
Speaker 2: individuals and telling their stories. But this they were talking
Speaker 2: about this very thing and how like it's raised its
Speaker 2: head again as like ways to get fraudulent insurance claims
Speaker 2: by like getting rid of body parts.
Speaker 3: Right, and also you have to think, right, in a
Speaker 3: time of massive rising unemployment coupled with rising inflation, the average,
Speaker 3: even if you have a job, you get less money
Speaker 3: for that job than you would have in the grand
Speaker 3: scheme of things. People are looking for people who are
Speaker 3: increasingly desperate or looking for alternate means of income. And
Speaker 3: this is often lionized right by the Boffins and the
Speaker 3: Thomas Friedman's of the world as a quote unquote gig economy, like, oh,
Speaker 3: how great it is. You know, it's not great. A
Speaker 3: gig economy is not optimal nor awesome. And there's another
Speaker 3: thing in this article they shared here that surprised me
Speaker 3: and then instantly didn't surprise me. Quote the FBI estimates
Speaker 3: that four hundred to seven hundred dollars from the average
Speaker 3: US families insurance premiums goes solely to covering insurance fraud cost?
Speaker 3: Is the problem?
Speaker 1: Then?
Speaker 3: Like? Is it the problem privatized insurance? Or like how
Speaker 3: would you? I don't know, do you guys think there's
Speaker 3: gonna be more of this in the future? Will escalate?
Speaker 4: It does seem you know, Now, we just had a
Speaker 4: really cool conversation with a really cool director who's a
Speaker 4: big fan of body horror, and I can't help but
Speaker 4: think of the films of David Cronenberg where there's this
Speaker 4: future that's depicted often where surgery is almost like a
Speaker 4: fetish or something like that, and people, you know, like
Speaker 4: sacrifice limbs almost as a lifestyle. And there is a
Speaker 4: part of me that's like, is the is the future
Speaker 4: a future where like, in the future, we won't even
Speaker 4: need legs because everything's on the computer. And maybe, like
Speaker 4: I don't I'm being a little silly, not silly, I mean,
Speaker 4: maybe I'm being fatalistic, but uh, there I would maybe
Speaker 4: think that the answer to that question, Ben is yes,
Speaker 4: maybe for different reasons than we might think.
Speaker 3: Yeah. And that's and then we see I guess some
Speaker 3: analogus too with uh with the stories of the red
Speaker 3: market and uh monetized organ donation, right, all those all
Speaker 3: those villages and rural areas across the world where people
Speaker 3: have sold their kidneys, and their kidneys have been sold
Speaker 3: at a dramatic markup. I don't know, man, I don't
Speaker 3: know if I like this wet wear dystopian sci fi
Speaker 3: civilization that we're headed toward.
Speaker 4: Now, I don't either. And then again, I'm sorry. I
Speaker 4: just want to make sure I'm not saying that everyone's
Speaker 4: like these are all fetishistic weirdos that just want to
Speaker 4: cut off their limbs for pleasure, like the Corona work.
Speaker 4: There's obviously also people that are up against a wall
Speaker 4: and have nowhere to go and this is the only
Speaker 4: recourse to get that money. But I'm just kind of
Speaker 4: doing a thought experiment where like, maybe there is a
Speaker 4: future where this stuff goes up for other reasons. Sorry, man,
Speaker 4: I didn't mean to drop.
Speaker 2: Well, that's okay. I was just having flashbacks to the
Speaker 2: Bad Blood episodes we just did where we're talking about,
Speaker 2: you know, giving away our life blood for small amounts
Speaker 2: of money because we need it.
Speaker 3: Ugh.
Speaker 2: If limbs can be produced in a lab, then people
Speaker 2: won't have to donate their limbs, right unless it's some
Speaker 2: kind of regeneration thing where you could you could donate
Speaker 2: your arm and then regrow a new own and then
Speaker 2: donate that one. Yikes. I don't want to think about
Speaker 2: that either.
Speaker 4: Well, lots to think about, whether you want to or not.
Speaker 4: And I guess we'll take a quick break and hear
Speaker 4: a word from our sponsor and then come back with
Speaker 4: one more piece of strange.
Speaker 2: News and we're back. Okay, guys, this is breaking news.
Speaker 2: I think we all just saw this because it was
Speaker 2: just posted for the first time as we're kind of
Speaker 2: as we're recording, but we're going to talk about it,
Speaker 2: see what we can figure out, and then we hope
Speaker 2: to hear from you as the situation develops. So here
Speaker 2: it begins. This is posted on the website of NBC News.
Speaker 2: It is written by Patrick Smith and Dion Hampton. And
Speaker 2: here's the title. Airport executive shot in firefight with federal
Speaker 2: agents at his home in Arkansas. Here's the subtitle. Brian Malinowski,
Speaker 2: fifty three, executive director at the Bill and Hillary Clinton
Speaker 2: Airport in Little Rock, was injured after six am Tuesday.
Speaker 2: So this is an airport executive.
Speaker 3: Not an airline executive.
Speaker 2: No no, no doting. Yeah yeah, it's not has none to
Speaker 2: do of Boeing, at least that we're aware of right now.
Speaker 2: This is the executive director at the Bill and Hillary
Speaker 2: Clinton Airport in Little Rock, Arkansas, and he was shot
Speaker 2: by federal agents who were arriving at his home to
Speaker 2: serve a search warrant. Why, well, we don't know yet.
Speaker 2: We do not know here's a statement from Arkansas State Police.
Speaker 2: This is within that NBC article. He was quote injured
Speaker 2: with gunshot wounds and treated on scene by paramedics before
Speaker 2: being transported to a local hospital. Very strange. It appears,
Speaker 2: at least through statements of his family, he was shot
Speaker 2: in the head during this firefight. He is on life
Speaker 2: support at least as we're recording this on Wednesday, March twentieth,
Speaker 2: at four pm that's Eastern time. And we have no
Speaker 2: idea why. We know that Brian again as an executive,
Speaker 2: made a pretty good amount of money around two hundred
Speaker 2: and fifty thousand dollars a year, and we don't know
Speaker 2: why the ATF was hanging out at his place and
Speaker 2: trying to serve a search warrant early at early hours
Speaker 2: in the morning.
Speaker 3: We can maybe, yeah, because Matt with the source you shared,
Speaker 3: like NBC and then also local affiliates there, there isn't
Speaker 3: a ton of information. But I think maybe we can postulate,
Speaker 3: I want to say speculate, but postulyly. The the ATF
Speaker 3: has a specific area of focus and expertise. Could it
Speaker 3: have possibly had something to do with alcohol, tobacco or firearms?
Speaker 2: Probably firearms we know from that NBC article that other
Speaker 2: people in the neighborhood, this is a residential neighborhood where
Speaker 2: this was occurring. Other people saw quote guns and ammunition
Speaker 2: being loaded onto a trailer while firefighters carried a circular saw,
Speaker 2: crowbars and other tools into the house as though they
Speaker 2: are attempting to gain access to some room or safe
Speaker 2: or area that they could not gain access to traditionally.
Speaker 3: Right, sounds like gun running, then it sounds like.
Speaker 2: It could be it's an executive director of an airport.
Speaker 2: And what we have learned, at least through the let's say,
Speaker 2: let's say allegations that come out of Emena, Arkansas about
Speaker 2: gun and drug running out of an airport there, that
Speaker 2: there are allegations that have to do with the Clintons,
Speaker 2: by the way, ps and this happens to be the
Speaker 2: director of the Bill and Hillary Clinton National Airport. Maybe
Speaker 2: it's just all coincidence, and maybe that's weird. Who knows.
Speaker 2: I'm not seeing anyone talking about gun running right now,
Speaker 2: like through the airport or through use of.
Speaker 3: The airport, right or the authorities. Yeah, but then you
Speaker 3: know the idea, like the scene we're describing, as reported
Speaker 3: from the neighbors even discounting eyewitness testimonies problem that seems
Speaker 3: more likely. One of the first questions people would have
Speaker 3: is if there is illegal firearm trade, er, if there
Speaker 3: is gun running, what is it related to? Like, you know,
Speaker 3: gun running doesn't work if you're just one person. It's
Speaker 3: not like the card game Solitaire. You run the guns
Speaker 3: from point A two point z where there are other people.
Speaker 3: So who are those other people? This is all if
Speaker 3: then stuff. But also, Matt, I have never been a
Speaker 3: confession moment of accountability. I've never been an airline or
Speaker 3: airport executive. Are they well to do? Do they make
Speaker 3: good money?
Speaker 4: Yeah?
Speaker 2: Well yeah, I mean it's stated in that NBC News
Speaker 2: article I think as a statement from his brother, this
Speaker 2: gentleman Brian Melanowski's brother saying that he earned around two
Speaker 2: hundred and fifty thousand dollars a year, you know, core
Speaker 2: a million dollars a year. Not too chabby. But you
Speaker 2: know who, who's to say if he's got that much money.
Speaker 2: I don't understand why you would need extra income, you know,
Speaker 2: doing some drug running. If you've got a legitimate job
Speaker 2: that pays you that much money, you know, unless there's
Speaker 2: some greed aspirations or political connections that were not yet seeing. Also,
Speaker 2: according to his brother, he had just met with Arkansas
Speaker 2: senators last week in Washington for quote official airport business.
Speaker 3: That is such a that is such a vague term.
Speaker 3: I would have written that in sketch comedy. I'm sorry,
Speaker 3: this is official airport business.
Speaker 2: Well, yeah, and the brother said, quote that tells you
Speaker 2: the circles he's running in unquote, And again, we look,
Speaker 2: we have to say it this way on the show
Speaker 2: for many reasons, some of them are legal. There are
Speaker 2: a ton of allegations about stuff that goes down with
Speaker 2: state politics in Arkansas that goes it dates way back
Speaker 2: into the eighties, right, and it's even further back than that,
Speaker 2: And you know, we've we've talked about a lot of
Speaker 2: those things openly on this show, where we've explored some
Speaker 2: of those allegations. It does make you wonder if any
Speaker 2: of it continues on, right, and if there is an
Speaker 2: organized crime element of some sort that could be involved here,
Speaker 2: wasn't there's.
Speaker 3: Something familiar about that town And I'm trying to was
Speaker 3: it a ron contra?
Speaker 2: Which town are we talking about?
Speaker 3: Mina, Arkansas?
Speaker 2: Yeah? This wait, this one isn't in Mina, though, this.
Speaker 3: One isn't in Mina. Okay, I'm thinking, I'm just think now,
Speaker 3: I'm thinking just wild Arkansas accusations.
Speaker 2: Mina, Arkansas touches on. Lord, I'm I don't know for sure. Mina,
Speaker 2: Arkansas is one of the places where we did our
Speaker 2: Clinton episode back in twenty sixteen. That's when we discussed
Speaker 2: that airport, specifically drug running.
Speaker 3: Drug running related to Ron Contra through the AES. I
Speaker 3: remembering that now, okay. But also because for a certain
Speaker 3: for a certain demographic of people in the U having
Speaker 3: the Clinton name attached to something immediately makes it super sus.
Speaker 2: Right, Well, it weirdly it does. Yeah, even though it
Speaker 2: doesn't necessarily mean anything. It's just for the it's just
Speaker 2: again because of allegations of corruption within Arkansas and the
Speaker 2: state government, and because Bill Clinton was the head of
Speaker 2: the state government there for a while as governor.
Speaker 3: And then again also because there was so much is
Speaker 3: the problem, you know, and even knowing that some of
Speaker 3: that has to necessarily be political hit pieces because of
Speaker 3: the nature of American political discourse. There's a lot of smoke,
Speaker 3: that's all we can say. There's a lot of smoke
Speaker 3: from this time period. I don't know, man, I've never
Speaker 3: heard of an airport executive in the United States being
Speaker 3: in as our pal Lauren would say, an actual facts shootout,
Speaker 3: like that's not in their skill set nor their CV.
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, Like what what's the implication exactly? There's some
Speaker 4: kind of sex secret life like a like what would
Speaker 4: lead one occupying a position and of such legitimacy and
Speaker 4: prominence to go this route?
Speaker 3: Well?
Speaker 2: Yeah, according to some of the reporting and some of
Speaker 2: the statements, Brian Melanowski did collect guns like weapons. Perhaps
Speaker 2: some of those were caught up in some kind of
Speaker 2: investigation and the ATF was coming to search the home.
Speaker 2: We don't know. This is all speculation on my part.
Speaker 2: Maybe that's why they showed up for this with the
Speaker 2: search warrant. Maybe it has something to do with something.
Speaker 2: Little Rock Public Radio or it's Little Rock Arkansas's NPR
Speaker 2: station reported on about this weird property dispute that was
Speaker 2: happening with Brian Melanowski in a neighbor that's really it's
Speaker 2: it's too much to even talk about right now. It
Speaker 2: has to do with a mailbox that Brian melanows Ski
Speaker 2: was like, this is on my property. And then there's
Speaker 2: a winding maze of strange things that occurred, and at
Speaker 2: the end, Brian Malanowski failed to get this mailbox removed
Speaker 2: from what he says was his property. You can look
Speaker 2: that up. It's titled Airport director involved in shootout previously
Speaker 2: at center of property dispute. It's on ual Rpublic Radio
Speaker 2: dot org.
Speaker 3: Nice I was looking at some of the local sources here,
Speaker 3: but I want to because as you said at the top,
Speaker 3: that we the public do not have a ton of
Speaker 3: information about the mechanics of this event. I think we
Speaker 3: can safely say though, that any rational actor getting into
Speaker 3: a shootout, a home game shootout with something on the
Speaker 3: level of the ATF, they have to know that's a
Speaker 3: suicide run. Like you don't walk out of that.
Speaker 2: No, Yeah, so that is.
Speaker 3: What would it have been that could make this guy
Speaker 3: do that? Suicide runs is like a setup of some kind?
Speaker 4: Is this a distraction from something else that's going on
Speaker 4: with this guy that he'd get over his head with
Speaker 4: somebody like it just seems like secret life kind of
Speaker 4: stuff to me.
Speaker 3: It's wild.
Speaker 2: If it's true what Matthew Melanowski's saying, that's the brother
Speaker 2: of the victim here and Brian did meet with quote
Speaker 2: Arkansas senators last week in Washington for quote official airport business.
Speaker 2: I would love to know the minutes of that meeting,
Speaker 2: or at least the general nature of.
Speaker 3: The seconds, just the tenor of the discussion. Oh yeah, yeah,
Speaker 3: if not the minutes, the seconds, I like that. Yeah,
Speaker 3: it's like the conversation between Uncle Gee and Uncle Joe
Speaker 3: right where they're just saying, hey, a good one. We'd
Speaker 3: like if you read just the minutes of those guys conversations,
Speaker 3: it would seem relatively innocuous because you're missing so much
Speaker 3: in tone. But you're right, this is the information that
Speaker 3: we would need to figure out what happened, and we
Speaker 3: can't forget. You know, there's a family that's had their
Speaker 3: lives horrifically upended, and regardless of what we conclude about
Speaker 3: this or what we're all thinking as we're hearing the story,
Speaker 3: we have to remember that there are there are human
Speaker 3: beings affected by this who are most likely innocent and
Speaker 3: uninvolved in whatever the hell is going on or was
Speaker 3: going on with Malanowski.
Speaker 2: Well, yeah, and we have to state maybe Brian Melanowski
Speaker 2: was surprised by armed men showing up at his house. Right,
Speaker 2: he just defended his home and himself and anybody else
Speaker 2: who's in the house and he didn't know.
Speaker 4: Has a bit of a standard ground kind of situation.
Speaker 2: Perhaps, Yeah, well, that's.
Speaker 3: Not why people have firearms in their home.
Speaker 4: It's true, break.
Speaker 3: Ins and violence do occur. I also wonder, like, do
Speaker 3: we It feels like there are some more official statements
Speaker 3: maybe that should be on the way. I can only assume.
Speaker 3: And he was also, Yeah, because he would have been
Speaker 3: He would have been competent with a firearm because he's
Speaker 3: an enthusiast and a collector, so surely that means he
Speaker 3: goes to the range and doesn't let a skills atrophy.
Speaker 3: Were there any ATF wounds or injuries.
Speaker 2: Yeah? One ATF officer was I guess shot or wounded,
Speaker 2: but in non critical condition, was taken to the hospital. Okay, guys,
Speaker 2: I don't know what else there is to say here.
Speaker 2: We've done so much speculation already, simply because this is
Speaker 2: such a new story. We cannot wait to hear what
Speaker 2: you find as you're listening to this, and maybe new
Speaker 2: stuff has come out right to us, let us know details.
Speaker 2: We can't wait to hear from you.
Speaker 3: Yes, and we have one thing to add. This is
Speaker 3: a This is a special message for my pal Jack,
Speaker 3: for our pal Jack over at the Daily Zeitgeist, and
Speaker 3: for our fellow conspiracy realists who have been checking out
Speaker 3: the Havana syndrome. There's a new update. Ah, Jack is
Speaker 3: gonna love this. You know, we were going back and
Speaker 3: forth on Twitter about this. There is a new study
Speaker 3: that has been conducted over the course of five years
Speaker 3: that finds there are no brain injuries among Havana syndrome patients.
Speaker 3: Really really, I know, right, that's that's the sound our
Speaker 3: pals are making on the West Coast right now. But yes,
Speaker 3: as you said, Matt, let us know what is going
Speaker 3: on with all of the stuff we discussed in Strange
Speaker 3: News this evening is Havannah syndrome, psychosomatic, attic, insane is
Speaker 3: the pressure?
Speaker 2: Sorry guys on that note, for real, I've been getting
Speaker 2: terrible sleep for the past like four nights and I've
Speaker 2: woken up at three am.
Speaker 3: Exactly free Na time.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's exactly at three am. And there is an
Speaker 2: I don't know if you guys have this weird sinastasia
Speaker 2: thing where you can hear electricity yes, sometimes like the
Speaker 2: buzz of that field, that electromagnetic field. Not everybody can hear.
Speaker 3: That, by the way, Oh, it's like cilantro.
Speaker 2: It is like seriously, but I wake up at three
Speaker 2: am and I hear this super high pitched elect like
Speaker 2: electrical sound is the only way I can describe it.
Speaker 2: So then I actually did some recordings at the house
Speaker 2: to be like, what the heck is this thing? And
Speaker 2: it is. You can see it in the upper levels
Speaker 2: of frequency that like you guys know Adobe audition, right,
Speaker 2: it will show you like that upper echelon if you
Speaker 2: look at the spectral vision. Yeah, there is something penetrating
Speaker 2: my house. Boys, can you send it?
Speaker 3: I would love to. I would love to dig into
Speaker 3: that off air.
Speaker 2: I think I'm gonna I'm gonna save it, put it
Speaker 2: on some hard drives, back it up a couple of times,
Speaker 2: and then hide it in various places so authorities can find.
Speaker 3: It good for their comments publicly, right, Yeah, I just
Speaker 3: wanted to say here, guys.
Speaker 4: It really makes me want to pull the trigger on
Speaker 4: buying that mic I mentioned in our Infrasound episode. Company
Speaker 4: called Soma Electronics makes a mic called ether that is
Speaker 4: a wide band receiver that allows you to perceive the
Speaker 4: electromagnetic landscape around you. It's an anti radio and it
Speaker 4: picks up nothing but that interference that other mics are
Speaker 4: designed to filter out.
Speaker 2: We need a reason to hang out of my place.
Speaker 2: Bring it over, I'm going to do it. Order right now.
Speaker 3: How much room for activities? Also, I'm with you there, Matt.
Speaker 3: As everybody knows, I do not practice normal human sleep
Speaker 3: patterns and have had some some weird stuff going on too.
Speaker 3: So if we ever sound a little loopy, that's that's
Speaker 3: part of it, and we're keeping it as part of
Speaker 3: the show. Folks, do be safe out there. Also, let
Speaker 3: us know what you think about the rise in potential
Speaker 3: opportunistic fraud as the insurance industry is called. And you know, also,
Speaker 3: please please please not blowing smoke. Let us know what
Speaker 3: your take on the dark side of Nickelodeon allegations is.
Speaker 3: And let us know how far how deep you believe
Speaker 3: this may go. Is there a cover up, is it active?
Speaker 3: What else does it tell us about the darker side
Speaker 3: of entertainment in Hollywood? We want to hear all this
Speaker 3: and more, especially leads on new topics. You think your
Speaker 3: fellow conspiracy realist will enjoy. We try to be easy
Speaker 3: to find online.
Speaker 4: Sorry. You can find us in the handle conspiracy Stuff,
Speaker 4: where we exist on YouTube, where we have videos early
Speaker 4: on every single week, on x FKA, Twitter, and on
Speaker 4: Facebook where you can join our Facebook group Here's where
Speaker 4: it gets crazy. On Instagram and TikTok. We are Conspiracy
Speaker 4: Stuff Show.
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