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Speaker 1: There's a man who leads a life of danger. Eye

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Speaker 1: he meets, he stays a stranger.

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Speaker 2: Sorry, I was sort of combining to James Bond styles.

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Speaker 2: That's great, you're your secret agent, Ben.

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Speaker 1: Oh geez ed your secret agent. Nol Of got our

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Speaker 1: super producer, mister Max Williams. Here with us were a

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Speaker 1: classic episode that we just love. Uh No, there was

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Speaker 1: a period of time wherein you and I went down

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Speaker 1: this rabbit hole of animals used for espionage.

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Speaker 3: A bit of a rabbit themed rabbit hole at times.

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Speaker 2: I don't remember if we got into bunny rabbit specifically

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Speaker 2: in this one. I know i'd probably joke about strapping

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Speaker 2: the lasers to the sharks with fricking lasers, you know,

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Speaker 2: and all it's very Austin Powers the type stuff on

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Speaker 2: the surface, but there's some pretty clever stuff.

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Speaker 3: In here, and some of his stuff actually did work.

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Speaker 1: And so, without further ado, here is the true Ridiculous

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Speaker 1: History of Espionage animals. Ridiculous History is a production of iHeartRadio.

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Speaker 1: What are some of your favorite animals? Friends and neighbors. Personally,

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Speaker 1: I'm a big fan of corvids, and you know, I

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Speaker 1: like an octopus. Hi, I'm bend.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm nol and I too am a fan of

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Speaker 2: the cephalopods. Not the corvids, though, man, I know those

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Speaker 2: sketchy little bastards can go straight to hell.

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Speaker 1: Oh they're great though, No, all they're great, and.

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Speaker 3: They just see shiny stuff and they go at it.

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Speaker 1: Well, you know, I mean, nobody's perfect for sure. The

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Speaker 1: closest to perfect we know is, of course, our long

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Speaker 1: suffering super producer, Casey Pegram.

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Speaker 2: You know, he's like tinker Bell. Look at him, Look

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Speaker 2: at him floating around there. I hope he's not spying

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Speaker 2: on us, like some sort of crazy fairy drone.

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Speaker 1: That would be ridiculous.

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Speaker 3: Well, you know we're in the right place for that, I.

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Speaker 1: Guess, right, because this is ridiculous history, and today we're

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Speaker 1: diving into the world of subterfuge, espionage, spycraft, danger and

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Speaker 1: you know, trench coats and fedoras or maybe not give

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Speaker 1: me some more Oh okay, more spy stuff, yeah, okay.

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Speaker 3: Of their hats. Will there be hats, of course?

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Speaker 1: Yeah, a wide selection of hats.

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Speaker 2: Because on this article from how Stuff Works Ridiculous History

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Speaker 2: of the Use of Animals and Espionage, there is a

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Speaker 2: lovely image of a dolphin and.

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Speaker 3: A trench coat wearing a hat.

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Speaker 2: So that sounds every that is like the r totem

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Speaker 2: animal for today's episode.

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Speaker 1: We should be hanging out with him, for sure.

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Speaker 3: Dothan in a trench coat wherein a hat?

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Speaker 1: Yeah, there we go.

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Speaker 3: That's a set ma scene. That's beautiful.

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Speaker 1: Yet, because regardless of whether you hate a country or

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Speaker 1: you love a country, or whatever opinions you have about

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Speaker 1: how countries interact, the fact of the matter is that

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Speaker 1: everybody is trying to spy on each other m hm.

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Speaker 1: And it's the tale as old as time to steal

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Speaker 1: the beauty in the.

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Speaker 3: Beastline song, as old as rhyme. There we go.

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Speaker 1: Yeah. And what may surprise some of us is that

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Speaker 1: not all spies were human. No, as you pointed out,

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Speaker 1: animals have been used in espionage. We don't have a

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Speaker 1: confirmation on the dolphin trench coat phenomenon yet.

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Speaker 3: Oh you mean Dothan in a trans coat wherein a hat?

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Speaker 4: Yeah?

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Speaker 1: And what better way to begin to explore this topic

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Speaker 1: than through a specific example what you.

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Speaker 2: Say, Yeah, I'm all about specific examples, Ben, And as

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Speaker 2: it turns out, I have one, because you see, there

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Speaker 2: have been some stories of late about stuff happening off

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Speaker 2: the coast of the Gaza Strip where under the water

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Speaker 2: swimming with these like flipper even there are some underwater

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Speaker 2: creatures that are decked out not in hats and trench coats,

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Speaker 2: but in high tech surveillance gear with the intention of

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Speaker 2: doing reconnaissance work. And these weren't frogmen or deft swimmers. No,

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Speaker 2: these were dolphins.

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Speaker 1: Yes, it's true. In August of twenty to fifteen, officials

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Speaker 1: for Hamas alleged that a dolphin wearing spy gear included

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Speaker 1: as an old described an underwater camera, was working as

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Speaker 1: a spy for the Israeli Army and the dolphin was

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Speaker 1: captured off the Gaza coast. But here's the thing. Hamas

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Speaker 1: was not the first government to make such clim.

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Speaker 2: And right up front, there are a lot of fun

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Speaker 2: conspiracy theories attached to this stuff, the kind of things

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Speaker 2: we would maybe talk about in our other show. Stuff

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Speaker 2: they don't want you to know, or we apply critical

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Speaker 2: thinking to conspiracy theories. For example, in Egypt, there were

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Speaker 2: a rash of shark attacks that were blamed by some

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Speaker 2: on the Israeli government. Not the same as being a

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Speaker 2: shark spies, but it was you know, supposedly sharks deployed

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Speaker 2: for the purposes of messing people up on the other

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Speaker 2: side of a ideological divide.

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Speaker 1: And in the case of the Egyptian report, the idea

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Speaker 1: for people who believed in this was that the Israeli

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Speaker 1: army was throwing sharks in the water to damage tourism.

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Speaker 3: Hmm.

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Speaker 1: Interesting, seems kind of a you know, Goldberg Gesk way

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Speaker 1: to go about damaging tourism. But you know, and in

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Speaker 1: twenty twelve, residents of Turkey found a dead bird and

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Speaker 1: they claimed that it was decked out with spy equipment.

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Speaker 1: I believe that was also an accusation against the Israeli government,

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Speaker 1: who responded by saying they had tagged the bird to

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Speaker 1: track it right for conservation purpose.

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Speaker 3: Well, sure that happens all the time.

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Speaker 2: Like I think I told you before, I used to

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Speaker 2: do stories about a facility in my hometown of Augusta,

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Speaker 2: Georgia called the Savannah River Site where they would track

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Speaker 2: animals to determine whether nuclear cleanup efforts had been successful

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Speaker 2: in these areas where they were storing like nuclear waste

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Speaker 2: from dismantled weapons.

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Speaker 3: And so that's a thing that scientists do all the time.

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Speaker 2: But we're talking about things that were largely disproven, right,

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Speaker 2: But this stuff does exist. I mean again, it's not

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Speaker 2: just in other countries. It's very much a part of

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Speaker 2: the history of the CIA and the United States.

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Speaker 1: Yes, absolutely, we're Uncle Sam is very pro animal spies.

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Speaker 1: So despite the various stories that sound kind of silly

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Speaker 1: that you'll see pop up on the internet, you know,

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Speaker 1: a dead bird is a master spy and all this

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Speaker 1: other stuff, it does turn out that there are real

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Speaker 1: and genuine examples of animals being trained for military operations,

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Speaker 1: or more specifically, for this episode, as spies. And it

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Speaker 1: dates back quite a while. In the nineteen forties, the

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Speaker 1: famous psychologist BF Skinner trained pigeons to track targets and

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Speaker 1: steer missiles. And you know, we've probably all heard about

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Speaker 1: pigeons being trained to do stuff, right, isn't Mike Tyson

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Speaker 1: a pigeon enthusiast.

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Speaker 2: I don't know, But I mean you think about ravens

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Speaker 2: in Game of Thrones or something like that, where they

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Speaker 2: can carry messages long distances and can be trained to

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Speaker 2: you know, homing pigeons and the like. But BS Skinner,

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Speaker 2: just to go back, his most famous experiment was the

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Speaker 2: Skinner box, and it used operant conditioning, which basically it's

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Speaker 2: sort of like the Pavlovian type of condition which is

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Speaker 2: classical conditioning, where you can train an animal to exhibit

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Speaker 2: or a human even to exhibit a certain kind of

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Speaker 2: behavior by doing something that sides with something else happening.

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Speaker 2: So when the dog salivates, they ring a bell and

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Speaker 2: they can eventually get the dog to salivate just by

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Speaker 2: ringing the bell. They offer the dog a treat, the

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Speaker 2: dog salivates, they ring the bell, do that over and

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Speaker 2: over again, especially it's just the bell. There's another story

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Speaker 2: that's very similar in this article The CIA's most highly

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Speaker 2: trained spies weren't even human from the Smithsonian, where a

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Speaker 2: man by the name of Bob Bailey was able to

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Speaker 2: train a spider in the bathroom of his university to

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Speaker 2: go into a defensive pose by blowing on the spider,

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Speaker 2: shining a light and then doing it again, and doing

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Speaker 2: it again, doing it again. Before you knew it, he

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Speaker 2: could just shine the light and then the spider would

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Speaker 2: go into the defensive pose. But operate conditioning is just

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Speaker 2: a little bit different. Because Skinner used these pigeons and

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Speaker 2: put them in this box where he would have them

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Speaker 2: press a button and they would get food when they

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Speaker 2: press that button, and they pecked the certain button, so

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Speaker 2: it wasn't coinciding it. It was literally just getting them

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Speaker 2: to do something on purpose, getting them to do something

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Speaker 2: voluntary once they've been rewarded enough times and they saw

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Speaker 2: the outcome would be in their favor.

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Speaker 1: Right, and Bob Bailey is an expert. I want to

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Speaker 1: go back to the spider example. I'm glad you brought

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Speaker 1: this up because it busts a couple of myths that

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Speaker 1: people may have about training animals. And from what we

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Speaker 1: see from what the experts are saying, animals are much

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Speaker 1: more capable of learning than we might imagine. The only

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Speaker 1: catches to guide them toward doing something that they would

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Speaker 1: already be inclined to do. Right, that's I mean, parrots

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Speaker 1: are going to some parrots rather are going to mimic speech.

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Speaker 1: So now you just teach them what sorts of speech

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Speaker 1: you would like them to mimic. And spiders don't like

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Speaker 1: things that disrupt their web, so if they can associate

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Speaker 1: that with something, then their instinct kicks in. Bob Bailey

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Speaker 1: very interesting character in this story because he was a

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Speaker 1: director for the US need Marine Mammal program, which is

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Speaker 1: currently based in San Diego, California. Just based on the

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Speaker 1: name Noel, I think you know the answer to this.

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Speaker 1: What are they evolved in?

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Speaker 2: Yeah, they're trying to train marine mammals to do Uncle

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Speaker 2: Sam's dirty work, right.

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Speaker 1: Right, Yes, Bob Bailey and his associates undertook this program

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Speaker 1: beginning in the nineteen sixties, and it has an ancient

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Speaker 1: history because it turns out the use of animals and

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Speaker 1: military intelligence to our earlier example of ravens in the

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Speaker 1: fictional Game of Thrones, the use of animals for reconnaissance

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Speaker 1: or communication military intelligence dates back to ancient Grecian times

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Speaker 1: and now, with the benefit of behaviorism and science, and

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Speaker 1: of course the all consuming desire almost lust to have

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Speaker 1: an edge over the enemy me various governments, including the

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Speaker 1: US government, have found ways to apply spycraft to these animals,

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Speaker 1: and according to Bailey, they never found an animal they

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Speaker 1: could not train.

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Speaker 2: And the kinds of things they were training them to

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Speaker 2: do ran the gamut from surveillance like we talked about

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Speaker 2: at the top of the show, to clearing out minds

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Speaker 2: underwater and to you know, finding lost items and retrieving

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Speaker 2: them and bringing them back to submarines and what have you,

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Speaker 2: and to detecting explosives as well.

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Speaker 3: So the kinds of things that.

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Speaker 2: You could think that you could train like a bomb

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Speaker 2: sniffing dog to do, you could also train a dolphin to.

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Speaker 3: Do in an underwater environment.

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Speaker 1: Yes, yeah, this is startling right at first. It sounds

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Speaker 1: like a really cool science fiction pitch. You know, it

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Speaker 1: sounds like a movie that was become.

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Speaker 2: A joke in like like Austin Powers, you know, was

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Speaker 2: doctor Evil's talking about you wants the sharks with freaking

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Speaker 2: lasers on their heads and stuff, or you know, it

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Speaker 2: becomes like this SIEI, you know, Spycraft James Bondie kind

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Speaker 2: of trope after a while.

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Speaker 1: Absolutely, because the so the Marine Mammal program that we

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Speaker 1: introduced in nineteen sixty, they originally began with more than

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Speaker 1: nineteen species of animals, including they say, some sharks and

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Speaker 1: some birds, and they began to whittle down their choices

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Speaker 1: looking for the best possible animal partner. They ended up

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Speaker 1: with two, the Bottlenews dolphin and the California sea lion.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, it's because you know this guy Brian Bailey, who

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Speaker 2: is an animal behaviorist and an author who was one

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Speaker 2: of the trainers in the US Navy Dolphin and Sea

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Speaker 2: lion project, just kind of got expanded to be that

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Speaker 2: he said, the more.

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Speaker 3: Animals that they had available, the more.

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Speaker 2: Likely an espionage agency would have success in getting their

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Speaker 2: desired information, which makes sense because you know, a dolphin

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Speaker 2: isn't going to fit every scenario. You know, sometimes maybe

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Speaker 2: you need some a cat for exams that can go

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Speaker 2: into a very high level meeting.

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Speaker 3: And be undetected. And that happened as well.

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Speaker 1: So we're looking at a menagerie of possible animals, right, Nola,

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Speaker 1: You had said that this expanded to include the California

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Speaker 1: sea lion as well as dolphins. Let's focus on dolphins

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Speaker 1: for just a tick here, because the dolphins, along with

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Speaker 1: the sea lions, are playing an instrumental and continuing role

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Speaker 1: in the US military. Specifically, dolphins and sea lions are

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Speaker 1: trained by five different teams in this marine mammal program.

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Speaker 1: One team specializes in detecting swimmers, and then three other

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Speaker 1: teams specialize in locating mines. And this is probably where

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Speaker 1: we see some of the most amazing natural capabilities of

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Speaker 1: the dolphin come into play.

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Speaker 3: Oh for sure.

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Speaker 2: And not only were they detecting the swimmers and detecting

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Speaker 2: the minds, they could actually disable the minds and more

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Speaker 2: or less disable the swimmers by injecting them with compressed air.

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Speaker 2: The quote that I have is it had a device

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Speaker 2: on their head that they could use to shoot compressed

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Speaker 2: air into the body of an enemy swimmer, which I

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Speaker 2: assume would wouldn't kill them, but it would disorient them

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Speaker 2: or it would cause them to lose their equilibrium. Like,

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Speaker 2: what would be the purpose of this? Why not lasers

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Speaker 2: instead of compressed air?

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Speaker 1: It's unpleasant. Surely there are some Surely there are some calculations,

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Speaker 1: like a weapon that would not harm the dolphin. It's

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Speaker 1: probably part of it, you know, instead of just strapping

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Speaker 1: them to explosives and saying, hey, swim toward that. That's

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Speaker 1: pretty cold blooded.

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Speaker 3: It was nice of them.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, the last team is trained in an object recovery, right,

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Speaker 1: so maybe not a bomb. Maybe you are retrieving a

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Speaker 1: black box from a plane or something. Sure, so it's true,

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Speaker 1: though we cannot overemphasize that enough. It's true. They were

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Speaker 1: just trained to be like friendly flipper checking out stuff

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Speaker 1: and reporting back to the sub and kind of a

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Speaker 1: lassie style. They were trained offensively. And can you imagine, man,

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Speaker 1: can you imagine being underwater, swimming like an enemy territory.

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Speaker 1: You're already probably pretty anxious, and then.

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Speaker 2: Then a dolphin comes at you with an air gun

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Speaker 2: mounted to its head.

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Speaker 1: I like to think that there's a high pitched squee

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Speaker 1: of death. I'm looking at you, Casey, can we get

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Speaker 1: a high pitched squee of death?

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Speaker 2: There's murder in that dolphin's eyes. There's at least low

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Speaker 2: grade murder inconvenience.

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Speaker 1: Right, right, So it makes sense when we're thinking about

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Speaker 1: the way that dogs or canines have been trained by

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Speaker 1: the military for a long, long time, right, the same

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Speaker 1: process occurs. Find the perfect species and then look for

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Speaker 1: the perfect traits. With dogs, they began looking for the

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Speaker 1: perfect breed of dog, right, German shepherds. That would be

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Speaker 1: one of the common examples. This program has been pretty successful.

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Speaker 1: The Navy spent fourteen million dollars in research on it

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Speaker 1: in two thousand and seven alone, and as of that time,

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Speaker 1: they had seventy five trained dolphins who have actually been

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Speaker 1: more successful saving lives and open water than trained humans.

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Speaker 1: I guess they're just, you know, it's kind of like

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Speaker 1: bane in the dark night it's like, oh, was old

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Speaker 1: in the sitting you immediately abulpted it.

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Speaker 2: I'm sorry, excuse me, I'm goen to turn that out.

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Speaker 2: Put on the subtitles. Man, that character cracks me up.

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Speaker 2: Apparently they actually redubbed some of that stuff to make

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Speaker 2: it easier to understand, but it still wasn't super easy

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Speaker 2: to understand.

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Speaker 1: It's so weird. Yeah, it's like his superpower is to

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Speaker 1: be unintelligible.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, that's it. And also, you know, have giant muscles.

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Speaker 3: It's interesting though too. There is this issue of animals that.

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Speaker 2: Seek relationships with humans are easier to train, but that

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Speaker 2: doesn't mean that there haven't been other attempts to train

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Speaker 2: animals that you would not think would fall into that

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Speaker 2: category at all. And before we get into those, let's

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Speaker 2: just backscheck a little bit. We talked about the top

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Speaker 2: of the show, Bob Bailey, who was the very first

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Speaker 2: director of this dolphin program that the US Navy came

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Speaker 2: up with. Bailey's story, it goes a lot further and

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Speaker 2: intersects with a couple by the name of the Breelins.

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Speaker 2: Keller and his wife, Marion Brelin had worked for that

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Speaker 2: famed psychologist BF Skinner in his lab. In nineteen forty seven,

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Speaker 2: they decided to go out on their own and they

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Speaker 2: decided to start their own company, the Animal Behavior Enterprises

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Speaker 2: Company or ABE. But they weren't doing experiments on training

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Speaker 2: animals to be spies for the government. They were training

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Speaker 2: chickens to play tic tac toe and you know, pigs

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Speaker 2: to play the piano, all in the name of commercialism.

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Speaker 2: Their first big gig was with General Mills, and they

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Speaker 2: trained lots of different animals to do funny tricks to

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Speaker 2: sell the feed the General Mills produced.

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Speaker 1: So they were designing sets, they were writing show scripts,

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Speaker 1: and they relocate again in the fifties where they moved

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Speaker 1: to Hot Springs, Arkansas.

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Speaker 3: Which is Bill Clinton's hometown.

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Speaker 2: I believe, just a little nugget aside, And once they

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Speaker 2: moved to Arkansas, they opened this thing called the iq zoo.

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Speaker 2: Will you tell us about the iq zoo ban? This

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Speaker 2: is a delightful, delightful phenomenon.

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Speaker 1: Sure, the iq zoom is a picture any any endearing

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Speaker 1: pet trick or animal trick that you've ever seen on

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Speaker 1: America's Funniest Home Videos or on YouTube or on the

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Speaker 1: late show of some variety Iqzuo aimed to have them all.

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Speaker 1: They had chickens the walked tightropes or gave souvenirs to customers,

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Speaker 1: dance to music. They had chicken baseball, which was a thing.

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Speaker 1: They had rabbits that would quote kiss their girlfriends, ride

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Speaker 1: fire trucks, and sound sirens delightful. They had raccoons playing

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Speaker 1: basketball and duck's playing drums.

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Speaker 2: But at the end of the day, all of this

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Speaker 2: was just a very lucrative display of that operant conditioning

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Speaker 2: that they worked on under BF Skinner, And all of

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Speaker 2: the while, in parallel while this is going on and

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Speaker 2: they're taking this work and selling it to the masses,

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Speaker 2: that Navy program we're talking about is starting to ramp

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Speaker 2: up and get into full swing. And our friend Bob

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Speaker 2: Bailey from earlier and he needs people just like Breeland,

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Speaker 2: so he gives them a call.

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Speaker 3: So this group headed by Bob Bailey reaches.

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Speaker 2: Out to the Brelins and invites them to come hang

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Speaker 2: out in their facility, which is in a place called

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Speaker 2: China Lake on the edge of the Mojave Desert where

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Speaker 2: they are doing all of this research.

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Speaker 1: Side fact here, China Lake had neither water nor marine mammals,

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Speaker 1: you know, just another side note like Bill Clinton's origin

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Speaker 1: story there. This wasn't Bailey's first time in the desert.

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Speaker 1: He had spent time as an undergraduate at UCLA in

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Speaker 1: the desert in the nineteen fifties where he was laying

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Speaker 1: traps for kangaroo rats. So they were familiar with these

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Speaker 1: sorts of techniques, right. These people were intellectual peers. They

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Speaker 1: were familiar with one another's techniques, and they said, hey,

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Speaker 1: let's vultron up together. Let's pursue this as a group

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Speaker 1: in sixty five. In nineteen sixty five, Bailey agreed to

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Speaker 1: join the Brelins and Animal Behavior Enterprises there in Hot Springs,

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Speaker 1: and then, according to Bailey Boom, he found himself in

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Speaker 1: show business.

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Speaker 3: I know, it's funny because he was doing this serious work,

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Speaker 3: which is.

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Speaker 2: Kind of a can be you know, poked fun at,

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Speaker 2: and from our perspective it definitely seems a little.

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Speaker 3: On the absurd side.

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Speaker 2: But then he went from that extreme working for the

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Speaker 2: government to essentially doing the kinds of stuff you would

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Speaker 2: do in producing like a PBS children's television show. One

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Speaker 2: of Bailey's big contributions at ABE was designing something called

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Speaker 2: the bird brain, which was a kind of Skinner box

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Speaker 2: type situation that allowed you to play tic tac toe

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Speaker 2: with a chicken by you, I mean you, the human listener,

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Speaker 2: me Ben whomever. The chicken was in this cage, and

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Speaker 2: it had a little trigger that was that had a

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Speaker 2: light that flashed on it, and so the bird wasn't

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Speaker 2: actually playing tic tac toe. The moves were pre programmed.

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Speaker 2: What yeah, skin, I was a little bit spurious. But

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Speaker 2: if the bird, you know, was trained to respond to

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Speaker 2: your move, so you made a move in the light

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Speaker 2: lit up and the bird did it. And there was

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Speaker 2: a little corner called the thinking booth where the bird

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Speaker 2: would disappear into the thinking booth to press the button

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Speaker 2: and that's when the move would be made. They said

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Speaker 2: that there was a version that allowed the person to win,

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Speaker 2: but typically the bird.

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Speaker 3: Always won, and even b F.

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Speaker 2: Skinner himself apparently could not defeat this tic tac toe chicken.

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Speaker 2: But it was a bit of a bit of Carnie subterfuse.

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Speaker 2: There we're talking about, you know, spycraft, right.

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Speaker 1: And then for an interjection, I'm sure there are a

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Speaker 1: lot of folks here in the audience wondering, wondering about

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Speaker 1: this aspect of the story. Was this considered ethical? No, no,

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Speaker 1: it's not. It's not considered ethical. Bailey himself notes that

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Speaker 1: at the time, the relatively new people for the Ethical

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Speaker 1: Treatment of Animals had clocked this and they considered it unethical.

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Speaker 1: But as we've examined in earlier cases of experimentation and

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Speaker 1: treatment of animals, the rules weren't as established as they

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Speaker 1: are today.

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Speaker 2: So let's just recap this. I know there's a lot

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Speaker 2: going on here. Bailey found out about the Brielens, invited

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Speaker 2: them to help him with his program training marine life

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Speaker 2: and birds, and then we'll get in a little bit

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Speaker 2: more of that later. And then he ended up joining

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Speaker 2: their company, leaving that military life doing this kind of

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Speaker 2: more hilarious you know, animal trick kind of side work.

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Speaker 3: But then it came back around.

403
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Speaker 1: Yes, it came back around. The more things change, the

404
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Speaker 1: more they stay the same.

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Speaker 3: True. You see.

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Speaker 1: Eventually ABE acquired a sideline, and it was not a

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Speaker 1: matter of having Rubes play a rig game of tictac

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Speaker 1: too with chickens. No. You see, other agencies came calling

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Speaker 1: to Abe, the CIA most particularly, and the Army's Aberdeen

410
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Speaker 1: Proving Ground in limited warfare laboratories. They came to Abe

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Speaker 1: to seek unworthodox solutions to common problems. And this was

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Speaker 1: at the height of the Cold War, So why would

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Speaker 1: they Why would they do this? Why would the Central

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Speaker 1: Intelligence Agency hunt down this group of animal behaviorists.

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Speaker 2: Well, there was actually something of like a dolphin arms

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Speaker 2: race at the time. The CIA had intercepted Soviet intelligence

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Speaker 2: indicating that they the Soviets were working on this as well.

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Speaker 2: And that's like the kind.

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Speaker 1: Of the joke of the Cold War.

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Speaker 2: Right, if we thought that the Soviets were going to

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Speaker 2: do something, we had to do it better. The Soviets

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Speaker 2: thought we were going to do something, they had to

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Speaker 2: figure out how to do it better. That's actually a

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Speaker 2: big part of that film, The Shape of Water, which

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Speaker 2: I think is great. There's a really cool side story

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Speaker 2: involving Russian spies and trying to steal assets from the

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Speaker 2: United States, the assets happening to be a underwater merman creature.

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Speaker 1: And in this case it was dolphins. In other cases

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Speaker 1: it was the allegations of psychic powers. Right, we know

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Speaker 1: that's real. Also, I have a pitch for you, everybody, casey,

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00:25:03,040 --> 00:25:07,840
Speaker 1: You're ready, all right, Red Dolphin like Red Dawn, but

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Speaker 1: red dolphin. Okay, played by Dolph Lungren.

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Speaker 3: Is he still around? I guess he was in the

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Speaker 3: Expendables movies.

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Speaker 1: Okay, we'll fix it in post. I just want to

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Speaker 1: plant that seed.

437
00:25:17,720 --> 00:25:20,159
Speaker 2: Is it CGI dolphin or is it Dolph lungerin like

438
00:25:20,200 --> 00:25:22,879
Speaker 2: playing a dolphin. I feel like making his body like

439
00:25:23,440 --> 00:25:24,359
Speaker 2: tight like a dolphin.

440
00:25:24,400 --> 00:25:26,320
Speaker 1: I feel like we should go a practical effect here.

441
00:25:26,440 --> 00:25:28,119
Speaker 2: I think that's the smart move. That's what that's what

442
00:25:28,160 --> 00:25:29,359
Speaker 2: Gielm little Toro would want.

443
00:25:29,480 --> 00:25:32,600
Speaker 1: That is exactly what it would do. And joking aside,

444
00:25:32,720 --> 00:25:36,400
Speaker 1: you're absolutely right, nol. There was this arm race, there

445
00:25:36,520 --> 00:25:42,199
Speaker 1: was a fear of red dolphins, and this extended to

446
00:25:42,760 --> 00:25:50,560
Speaker 1: other animals as well. We do have declassified nineteen seventies

447
00:25:50,680 --> 00:25:56,480
Speaker 1: documentation that elucidates this matter and notes that the Soviets

448
00:25:56,520 --> 00:26:01,240
Speaker 1: are quote also assessing and replicating US sister while possibly

449
00:26:01,280 --> 00:26:05,200
Speaker 1: developing countermeasures to certain US systems. But they're talking about

450
00:26:05,240 --> 00:26:09,440
Speaker 1: dolphins like in the context, they're clearly talking about dolphins,

451
00:26:09,840 --> 00:26:13,360
Speaker 1: and both sides valued this. There's a great quote from

452
00:26:13,440 --> 00:26:16,440
Speaker 1: Robert Wallace, who at the time was heading the CIA's

453
00:26:16,440 --> 00:26:21,479
Speaker 1: Office of Technical Services in the nineties. He points out

454
00:26:21,520 --> 00:26:25,080
Speaker 1: the advantages that animals have over human spies. Animals can

455
00:26:25,080 --> 00:26:29,680
Speaker 1: go place as people can't. Animals are un alerting. Let's

456
00:26:29,720 --> 00:26:32,439
Speaker 1: say we work at a nuclear plant, right, and we

457
00:26:32,480 --> 00:26:36,720
Speaker 1: have secrets and stuff because those are cool, Sure they those? Yeah,

458
00:26:36,760 --> 00:26:38,919
Speaker 1: And you and I have our trench coats and our hats,

459
00:26:38,960 --> 00:26:41,760
Speaker 1: and then we're going to be on yellow alert when

460
00:26:41,800 --> 00:26:45,960
Speaker 1: we see another person that's unidentified. But if there's just

461
00:26:46,000 --> 00:26:50,600
Speaker 1: a bird perched on a branch somewhere, then we'll probably

462
00:26:50,600 --> 00:26:52,520
Speaker 1: continue whatever our conversation was.

463
00:26:52,720 --> 00:26:54,960
Speaker 2: Well, that leads us back to corvins, which is how

464
00:26:54,960 --> 00:26:56,399
Speaker 2: we started the show. I know that's one of your

465
00:26:56,440 --> 00:26:59,800
Speaker 2: favorite animals. I can't stand the little buggers, but turns

466
00:26:59,800 --> 00:27:02,760
Speaker 2: out they're super smart. They don't just go for shiny objects.

467
00:27:02,800 --> 00:27:05,640
Speaker 2: They'll go for about whatever you train them to go for,

468
00:27:05,800 --> 00:27:10,920
Speaker 2: and they're exceptionally strong. They can carry quite large loads

469
00:27:11,280 --> 00:27:16,639
Speaker 2: in their creepy, little disgusting beaks. Bailey, when he was

470
00:27:16,920 --> 00:27:20,160
Speaker 2: were with Abe, they had been contracted to help out

471
00:27:20,400 --> 00:27:25,280
Speaker 2: with some of these animal spy scenarios. He really spoke

472
00:27:25,400 --> 00:27:28,359
Speaker 2: highly of the Western raven and this is from that

473
00:27:28,440 --> 00:27:34,160
Speaker 2: Smithsonian article by Tom Vanderbilt. He says it operates alone,

474
00:27:34,160 --> 00:27:37,560
Speaker 2: and it does very well alone. He says, they can

475
00:27:37,640 --> 00:27:41,000
Speaker 2: learn to respond to classes of objects. He gives the

476
00:27:41,000 --> 00:27:42,920
Speaker 2: example if you've got a big desk and a little desk,

477
00:27:42,920 --> 00:27:45,440
Speaker 2: you could train it to always go to the small one.

478
00:27:45,720 --> 00:27:48,359
Speaker 2: And then there's the thing about the quite large carrying

479
00:27:48,400 --> 00:27:51,080
Speaker 2: capacity they have. They could pick up, you know, file

480
00:27:51,160 --> 00:27:55,119
Speaker 2: folders or you know, even like a diplomatic dossier of

481
00:27:55,119 --> 00:27:55,680
Speaker 2: some kind.

482
00:27:56,080 --> 00:27:59,959
Speaker 3: But they can deposit things that have listening devices in them.

483
00:28:00,040 --> 00:28:03,520
Speaker 2: They're not necessarily going to be spying themselves, but they

484
00:28:03,520 --> 00:28:06,399
Speaker 2: could perch on that branch, like you said, and carry

485
00:28:06,440 --> 00:28:10,960
Speaker 2: a piece of debris seemingly, you know, totally irrelevant, that

486
00:28:11,040 --> 00:28:13,000
Speaker 2: had some kind of high powered listening device in it.

487
00:28:13,080 --> 00:28:16,800
Speaker 1: Right, Yes, and bonus points for corvid intelligence, which could

488
00:28:16,800 --> 00:28:21,440
Speaker 1: be an episode all its own. Corvids can also identify

489
00:28:21,960 --> 00:28:25,800
Speaker 1: specific people. They have facial recognition ability, and they also

490
00:28:25,800 --> 00:28:29,240
Speaker 1: have the ability to teach that to their young. So

491
00:28:29,760 --> 00:28:32,960
Speaker 1: for anyone who is also wondering the same question that

492
00:28:33,680 --> 00:28:36,600
Speaker 1: I've thought about off air two, is it possible to

493
00:28:36,680 --> 00:28:41,120
Speaker 1: train a murder of crows or an unkindness of ravens?

494
00:28:41,240 --> 00:28:43,880
Speaker 1: That's the group term that follows you and teaches their

495
00:28:43,920 --> 00:28:44,760
Speaker 1: young to follow you.

496
00:28:45,000 --> 00:28:47,880
Speaker 3: An unkindness. Uh huh, that's insane.

497
00:28:47,560 --> 00:28:48,200
Speaker 1: Isn't that crazy?

498
00:28:48,240 --> 00:28:49,200
Speaker 3: It comes up with this stuff.

499
00:28:49,720 --> 00:28:51,760
Speaker 1: I feel like it's relatively arbitrary.

500
00:28:51,760 --> 00:28:53,320
Speaker 3: I think it's people that don't like birds.

501
00:28:53,960 --> 00:28:55,360
Speaker 1: There's a parliament of owls.

502
00:28:55,520 --> 00:28:57,640
Speaker 3: Yeah, that sounds very prestigious.

503
00:28:57,640 --> 00:29:00,760
Speaker 2: But an unkindness, Yes, a raven That sounds like the

504
00:29:00,760 --> 00:29:03,760
Speaker 2: person that came up with that was a kindred spirit

505
00:29:03,880 --> 00:29:04,480
Speaker 2: to myself.

506
00:29:05,120 --> 00:29:08,959
Speaker 1: So love them mer hatim. You know, it's inarguable that

507
00:29:09,000 --> 00:29:13,280
Speaker 1: they have a certain set of skills, but the use

508
00:29:13,280 --> 00:29:16,200
Speaker 1: of animals in espionage, or the attempts of using animals

509
00:29:16,200 --> 00:29:22,600
Speaker 1: in espionage, don't stop with ravens and cephalopods. Even insects

510
00:29:22,800 --> 00:29:23,360
Speaker 1: enter the mix.

511
00:29:24,120 --> 00:29:24,360
Speaker 3: Yeah.

512
00:29:24,400 --> 00:29:27,760
Speaker 2: Again From the Smithsonian article, which is a delightful read,

513
00:29:28,040 --> 00:29:31,600
Speaker 2: they talk about that Army Limited Warfare Laboratory at Aberdeen

514
00:29:31,960 --> 00:29:35,560
Speaker 2: having a program where they were trying to figure out

515
00:29:35,600 --> 00:29:39,680
Speaker 2: how to use insects quote for the detection of people,

516
00:29:40,040 --> 00:29:42,120
Speaker 2: and that this reads like it's a joke. It's like

517
00:29:42,240 --> 00:29:45,959
Speaker 2: scientists ruled out lice in a preliminary test. They simply

518
00:29:46,040 --> 00:29:50,760
Speaker 2: crawled about at random, like you'd think bugs would do.

519
00:29:50,920 --> 00:29:55,200
Speaker 3: But mosquitoes were that had a lot of potential right.

520
00:29:55,480 --> 00:29:58,240
Speaker 1: Yeah, they're normally at rest. They'll fly at the approach

521
00:29:58,320 --> 00:30:03,120
Speaker 1: of a host, so they have a routine, predictable behavior, right,

522
00:30:03,160 --> 00:30:06,440
Speaker 1: which could maybe be guided similar to the laser example

523
00:30:06,480 --> 00:30:10,400
Speaker 1: with the spider. Since they will always rest and fly

524
00:30:10,480 --> 00:30:13,280
Speaker 1: at the approach of a host, maybe you could detect

525
00:30:13,440 --> 00:30:17,600
Speaker 1: the approach of people during darkness. But that's not a

526
00:30:17,680 --> 00:30:24,880
Speaker 1: particularly amazing superpower. There was another series of trials with

527
00:30:25,760 --> 00:30:29,400
Speaker 1: a different animal that might surprise people, an animal commonly

528
00:30:29,440 --> 00:30:33,640
Speaker 1: regarded as one of the least trainable pets around, and

529
00:30:33,680 --> 00:30:36,600
Speaker 1: that is you're talking about hurting cats, right, the common

530
00:30:36,680 --> 00:30:38,360
Speaker 1: house cat. Yeah, I'm a cat person.

531
00:30:38,400 --> 00:30:40,040
Speaker 2: I think you're a cat person too, Ben, but we

532
00:30:40,120 --> 00:30:43,680
Speaker 2: both know that they can be arbitrary little fellas an.

533
00:30:43,640 --> 00:30:47,960
Speaker 1: They Yeah, cats, I have two cats. I used to

534
00:30:48,000 --> 00:30:51,080
Speaker 1: have a dog. I love dogs and cats. I'm an

535
00:30:51,120 --> 00:30:56,760
Speaker 1: animal animal guy. But it's pretty obvious in many cases,

536
00:30:57,400 --> 00:31:01,080
Speaker 1: not any dean on our feline friends NOL. But cats

537
00:31:01,120 --> 00:31:04,200
Speaker 1: often are more like a free loading roommate than they

538
00:31:04,240 --> 00:31:07,920
Speaker 1: are a pet, you know what I mean, Come and go,

539
00:31:08,200 --> 00:31:10,320
Speaker 1: they'll pay rent, they'll do the dishes.

540
00:31:10,440 --> 00:31:11,160
Speaker 3: It's true.

541
00:31:11,360 --> 00:31:15,720
Speaker 2: But cats were used pretty successfully by the CIA's Directorate

542
00:31:15,760 --> 00:31:21,959
Speaker 2: of science and technology, and they were trained to tune

543
00:31:22,040 --> 00:31:26,160
Speaker 2: in to human voices. And I've seen a couple of

544
00:31:26,320 --> 00:31:32,880
Speaker 2: conflicting accounts of this project called Acoustic Kitty, one that

545
00:31:33,000 --> 00:31:37,880
Speaker 2: implies that they actually surgically implanted a microphone into the

546
00:31:37,920 --> 00:31:40,560
Speaker 2: cat's ear canal and the cat was trained using the

547
00:31:40,560 --> 00:31:43,520
Speaker 2: same conditioning methods we talked about earlier to kind of

548
00:31:43,560 --> 00:31:47,840
Speaker 2: hone in too human voices of a specific type. But

549
00:31:47,880 --> 00:31:50,760
Speaker 2: then I also saw an account that specifically mentioned that

550
00:31:50,760 --> 00:31:53,760
Speaker 2: they were used to spy on a high level Asian

551
00:31:53,840 --> 00:31:58,320
Speaker 2: official during a meeting where cats were wandering in and out.

552
00:31:59,160 --> 00:32:01,080
Speaker 2: So the thing that comes up here with if we're

553
00:32:01,120 --> 00:32:03,960
Speaker 2: talking about training a cat or a dog to be

554
00:32:04,200 --> 00:32:07,280
Speaker 2: a spy, it requires a situation where a cat or

555
00:32:07,320 --> 00:32:11,480
Speaker 2: a dog's presence is not unusual, is not a tip off, right.

556
00:32:11,600 --> 00:32:14,720
Speaker 1: Right, absolutely, So you could you could maybe get away

557
00:32:14,760 --> 00:32:19,080
Speaker 1: with that in a casual, informal setting. But if a

558
00:32:19,320 --> 00:32:24,840
Speaker 1: cat strolls into a boardroom right or into the right

559
00:32:25,000 --> 00:32:28,280
Speaker 1: of course doing a cat whistle, then you know the

560
00:32:28,920 --> 00:32:31,360
Speaker 1: if the cat strolls into some meeting of the joint

561
00:32:31,400 --> 00:32:33,120
Speaker 1: chiefs of staff, or all of a sudden there's a

562
00:32:33,160 --> 00:32:35,920
Speaker 1: cat in the oval office, people are going to notice,

563
00:32:36,000 --> 00:32:36,400
Speaker 1: who is.

564
00:32:36,360 --> 00:32:39,280
Speaker 2: That president in our presidential Pets episode that had like

565
00:32:39,320 --> 00:32:41,720
Speaker 2: a million million pets and his son's brought in like

566
00:32:41,880 --> 00:32:44,240
Speaker 2: some snakes. There's something in throom down on the boardroom

567
00:32:44,320 --> 00:32:46,440
Speaker 2: table that is a security breach.

568
00:32:46,560 --> 00:32:48,640
Speaker 3: My friends, It's true that.

569
00:32:48,160 --> 00:32:50,239
Speaker 1: That state could have been wearing a wire. I've been

570
00:32:50,240 --> 00:32:52,760
Speaker 1: waiting to stay wearing a wire for a while because

571
00:32:53,440 --> 00:32:57,520
Speaker 1: the cat example that we mentioned here that you that

572
00:32:57,600 --> 00:33:00,280
Speaker 1: you and I heard some conflicting info on is is

573
00:33:00,320 --> 00:33:02,800
Speaker 1: fascinating when we get to the idea of that surgery,

574
00:33:02,920 --> 00:33:06,400
Speaker 1: right because according to the story, Bailey worked with the

575
00:33:06,440 --> 00:33:10,840
Speaker 1: inventor of the human cochlear implant and they turned a

576
00:33:10,880 --> 00:33:13,880
Speaker 1: cat into a transmitter with a wire running from the

577
00:33:13,920 --> 00:33:17,080
Speaker 1: cat's in her ear to a battery instrument cluster is

578
00:33:17,160 --> 00:33:20,600
Speaker 1: kind of gross implanted in its ribcage, and the idea

579
00:33:20,680 --> 00:33:24,760
Speaker 1: was that they could direct the cat's movement with ultrasonic sound.

580
00:33:25,600 --> 00:33:26,040
Speaker 3: That's it.

581
00:33:26,520 --> 00:33:28,880
Speaker 2: We weren't really hearing conflicting reports. There were just two

582
00:33:28,880 --> 00:33:32,000
Speaker 2: different situations. We had another one that involved a cat

583
00:33:32,040 --> 00:33:35,920
Speaker 2: that was deployed at a park outside of a Soviet

584
00:33:36,000 --> 00:33:39,760
Speaker 2: compound in Washington, d C. And it was used to

585
00:33:40,000 --> 00:33:46,400
Speaker 2: eavesdrop on a Russian operative or politician. That's the information

586
00:33:46,440 --> 00:33:49,360
Speaker 2: that's not super clear, because this stuff is kind of hearsay,

587
00:33:49,560 --> 00:33:53,160
Speaker 2: and you'll hear things like a head of state or

588
00:33:53,440 --> 00:33:54,480
Speaker 2: operative of some kind.

589
00:33:54,640 --> 00:33:57,320
Speaker 3: But the story there is that they dropped the cat

590
00:33:57,360 --> 00:33:59,720
Speaker 3: out of the van and then it was immediately run

591
00:33:59,760 --> 00:34:04,040
Speaker 3: over by a taxi. Yeah, so sad. That is sad.

592
00:34:04,800 --> 00:34:07,800
Speaker 3: It's also a bummer. I bet all the gadgets and stuff.

593
00:34:07,880 --> 00:34:10,560
Speaker 3: Whoever had the headphones on, I was listening to the

594
00:34:10,640 --> 00:34:11,680
Speaker 3: cat transmissions.

595
00:34:11,760 --> 00:34:13,279
Speaker 1: Oh no, that's probably.

596
00:34:14,640 --> 00:34:17,560
Speaker 3: Take them off, you know. Let's get on to imagine that.

597
00:34:17,840 --> 00:34:22,520
Speaker 1: So there's let's say there's another aspect of possible subter future,

598
00:34:22,719 --> 00:34:27,400
Speaker 1: which I really appreciated. I imagine you did too. We

599
00:34:27,560 --> 00:34:32,960
Speaker 1: may not ever know the entirety of AB's experiments because

600
00:34:33,000 --> 00:34:38,200
Speaker 1: their records were destroyed in a fire in nineteen eighty nine,

601
00:34:38,239 --> 00:34:42,240
Speaker 1: and when Vanderbilt the Smithsonian journalist wrote to the CIA

602
00:34:42,440 --> 00:34:46,439
Speaker 1: to ask about this stuff, they turned Yep, they turned

603
00:34:46,480 --> 00:34:47,760
Speaker 1: them down because.

604
00:34:47,560 --> 00:34:49,839
Speaker 2: We weren't even going to acknowledge the existence of those

605
00:34:49,880 --> 00:34:52,440
Speaker 2: records in the first place, or even if the program

606
00:34:52,480 --> 00:34:56,160
Speaker 2: existed practically. I mean, it's very hush hush stuff, you know,

607
00:34:56,239 --> 00:35:01,000
Speaker 2: for good reason. One document they did find, however, referenced

608
00:35:01,640 --> 00:35:06,360
Speaker 2: a section called views on Trained Cats, very very severely

609
00:35:06,440 --> 00:35:10,680
Speaker 2: redacted documents censored. Right, yeah, in the National Security Archive

610
00:35:11,480 --> 00:35:13,719
Speaker 2: at George Washington University.

611
00:35:14,320 --> 00:35:18,040
Speaker 1: Right. I love that this is a title for an

612
00:35:18,080 --> 00:35:22,160
Speaker 1: official government document. Somebody, somebody is paid to sit down

613
00:35:22,600 --> 00:35:26,560
Speaker 1: and think, think it through. What are my views? That's

614
00:35:26,560 --> 00:35:30,920
Speaker 1: sort of like views on Trained Cats. There are different perspectives.

615
00:35:31,080 --> 00:35:35,279
Speaker 1: There's some critical theory at play. It ultimately concludes, at

616
00:35:35,360 --> 00:35:38,160
Speaker 1: least from the unredacted parts that we're aware of, ultimately

617
00:35:38,200 --> 00:35:42,680
Speaker 1: concludes that the cats can be trained to move short distances.

618
00:35:42,960 --> 00:35:46,560
Speaker 1: But the program doesn't doesn't pan out in a practical sense,

619
00:35:47,080 --> 00:35:47,640
Speaker 1: And a lot of.

620
00:35:47,600 --> 00:35:51,480
Speaker 2: These things that we're talking about were really replaced by

621
00:35:51,640 --> 00:35:55,440
Speaker 2: more practical technological advances, you know, in the same way

622
00:35:55,440 --> 00:35:58,520
Speaker 2: a lot of old school spycraft has been supplanted, Like

623
00:35:58,560 --> 00:36:00,480
Speaker 2: you don't have to sit in a park with a

624
00:36:00,680 --> 00:36:03,920
Speaker 2: suitcase with a reeled a real tape recorder and and

625
00:36:03,960 --> 00:36:05,680
Speaker 2: a wire running up your legs so that you can

626
00:36:05,719 --> 00:36:07,760
Speaker 2: turn it on and off when someone starts to talk.

627
00:36:08,040 --> 00:36:09,920
Speaker 3: In the same way, it's probably not the most.

628
00:36:09,800 --> 00:36:12,160
Speaker 2: Practical thing in the world to train animals to spy

629
00:36:12,280 --> 00:36:16,399
Speaker 2: on people when we have like you know, ultrasonic listening devices. Sure,

630
00:36:16,440 --> 00:36:19,359
Speaker 2: you know all kinds of technology that goes way over

631
00:36:19,440 --> 00:36:19,839
Speaker 2: my head.

632
00:36:24,560 --> 00:36:28,360
Speaker 1: No, we can't end the episode without mentioning the squab Squad.

633
00:36:28,560 --> 00:36:32,880
Speaker 2: The Squab Squad is my favorite part in this Smithsonian article.

634
00:36:33,320 --> 00:36:34,960
Speaker 3: This this this reporter went really.

635
00:36:34,760 --> 00:36:38,200
Speaker 2: Deep with this guy Bailey and really got some good

636
00:36:38,600 --> 00:36:42,359
Speaker 2: stories out of him. And the best one involved they

637
00:36:42,360 --> 00:36:47,040
Speaker 2: actually had a like a ranch that was active constantly

638
00:36:47,160 --> 00:36:50,040
Speaker 2: while the IQ Zoo was still doing its thing, and

639
00:36:50,120 --> 00:36:54,720
Speaker 2: they have these like like storefront like fake facade town

640
00:36:54,960 --> 00:36:57,480
Speaker 2: kind of like like you'd see in an old Western

641
00:36:57,480 --> 00:36:59,719
Speaker 2: where it was just the front of a building set up,

642
00:36:59,840 --> 00:37:04,399
Speaker 2: and they would run these different scenarios with pigeons where

643
00:37:04,400 --> 00:37:06,279
Speaker 2: they would get them we needed like the theyould get

644
00:37:06,280 --> 00:37:09,359
Speaker 2: directives from head from home home base from HQ be

645
00:37:09,400 --> 00:37:11,399
Speaker 2: like we need to get into this type of building to.

646
00:37:11,400 --> 00:37:13,680
Speaker 3: This inter interior room, et cetera.

647
00:37:13,800 --> 00:37:16,000
Speaker 2: And they would like move the pieces around that they

648
00:37:16,040 --> 00:37:20,440
Speaker 2: had and simulate kind of like the type of situation

649
00:37:20,520 --> 00:37:23,120
Speaker 2: that the bird would ultimately be involved in down the

650
00:37:23,200 --> 00:37:24,640
Speaker 2: road when the mission was live.

651
00:37:24,800 --> 00:37:26,440
Speaker 3: And they also did stuff in the field.

652
00:37:26,239 --> 00:37:28,680
Speaker 1: Didn't they Yeah, they did actually take the show on

653
00:37:28,840 --> 00:37:33,440
Speaker 1: the road. So, according to Bailey, who's not super specific

654
00:37:33,480 --> 00:37:39,520
Speaker 1: about this, for various reasons, ravens were brought to sensitive locations,

655
00:37:39,640 --> 00:37:43,080
Speaker 1: and he said, we got the cats into places usually

656
00:37:43,200 --> 00:37:47,319
Speaker 1: this is very interesting, usually using diplomatic pouches. A diplomatic

657
00:37:47,360 --> 00:37:52,120
Speaker 1: pouch is something that can't be searched, typically nowhere near

658
00:37:52,160 --> 00:37:57,399
Speaker 1: as easily. I mean, it's for transmission of highly confidential

659
00:37:57,480 --> 00:38:02,120
Speaker 1: or classified materials documents, and so they smuggled ravens through them.

660
00:38:02,160 --> 00:38:02,680
Speaker 3: Apparently.

661
00:38:03,320 --> 00:38:06,360
Speaker 1: He admits they carried a raven on a commercial flight

662
00:38:07,760 --> 00:38:12,520
Speaker 1: in a map case under the front seat, and based

663
00:38:12,600 --> 00:38:14,839
Speaker 1: on the way he describes this, he says, every now

664
00:38:14,920 --> 00:38:17,160
Speaker 1: and then the raven would make a noise and then

665
00:38:17,280 --> 00:38:19,799
Speaker 1: he would shift in his seat. So I feel like

666
00:38:19,800 --> 00:38:22,320
Speaker 1: he was trying to play those raven noises off as.

667
00:38:22,239 --> 00:38:25,560
Speaker 2: Farts, Yeah, or maybe just you know, squeak chair squeaking, Yeah,

668
00:38:25,560 --> 00:38:29,040
Speaker 2: that sounds like farts sometimes, or maybe just kind of like, oh,

669
00:38:31,960 --> 00:38:34,200
Speaker 2: that's what I do, and I squirm.

670
00:38:34,360 --> 00:38:36,520
Speaker 3: So the only one whom I alone?

671
00:38:36,520 --> 00:38:39,560
Speaker 1: There? No, I think I think we're I think you're

672
00:38:39,600 --> 00:38:43,360
Speaker 1: not alone, man, We're both we're both sound effect people.

673
00:38:43,480 --> 00:38:44,160
Speaker 3: That's very true.

674
00:38:44,320 --> 00:38:48,719
Speaker 1: Also, there is a real world scenario of this verse.

675
00:38:48,760 --> 00:38:52,080
Speaker 1: We have to emphasize dolphins. Military dolphins are still a thing.

676
00:38:52,120 --> 00:38:55,600
Speaker 1: They're real thing. They're out there. We found a story

677
00:38:56,080 --> 00:38:59,440
Speaker 1: in two thousand and five from The Guardian by writer

678
00:38:59,600 --> 00:39:04,600
Speaker 1: named Mark Townsend detailing the story of a dolphin named

679
00:39:04,680 --> 00:39:08,520
Speaker 1: Flipper who was let loose and the aftermath of Hurricane

680
00:39:08,600 --> 00:39:11,320
Speaker 1: Katrina and was considered armed and dangerous.

681
00:39:11,440 --> 00:39:13,239
Speaker 3: What did he have one of those air cannons on

682
00:39:13,239 --> 00:39:15,799
Speaker 3: his head? So yes, so he did to shoot out

683
00:39:15,840 --> 00:39:17,960
Speaker 3: t shirts. Here's the thing.

684
00:39:18,400 --> 00:39:24,000
Speaker 1: Dolphins were usually controlled via signals transmitted through a neck harness,

685
00:39:24,400 --> 00:39:26,719
Speaker 1: but they were missing in action. They were mia for

686
00:39:26,760 --> 00:39:33,320
Speaker 1: a second and an accident investigator named Leo Sheridan had

687
00:39:33,680 --> 00:39:38,600
Speaker 1: received confidential information confirming these dolphins had escaped during after

688
00:39:38,600 --> 00:39:41,400
Speaker 1: the hurricane, and he said the following. My concern is

689
00:39:41,400 --> 00:39:43,160
Speaker 1: that they have learned to shoot at divers in wet

690
00:39:43,160 --> 00:39:46,840
Speaker 1: suits who have simulated terrorists and exercises. If divers or

691
00:39:46,920 --> 00:39:49,840
Speaker 1: windsurfers are mistaken for a spy or suicide bomber, and

692
00:39:49,880 --> 00:39:53,440
Speaker 1: if equipped with special harness carrying toxic darts so not

693
00:39:53,480 --> 00:39:57,920
Speaker 1: compressed air, they can fire they're designed the darts, that is,

694
00:39:58,160 --> 00:40:00,000
Speaker 1: to put a target to sleep so they can be

695
00:40:00,080 --> 00:40:03,200
Speaker 1: interrogated later. But what happens if the victim's not found

696
00:40:03,239 --> 00:40:06,759
Speaker 1: for hours? So we're back again. No'll imagine you've just

697
00:40:06,800 --> 00:40:10,840
Speaker 1: survived a hurricane, right, You're you're trying to relax, You

698
00:40:10,920 --> 00:40:14,279
Speaker 1: go for a swim off the gulf, and then you

699
00:40:14,360 --> 00:40:18,880
Speaker 1: hear this squeeze, this high age squeeze of death.

700
00:40:20,640 --> 00:40:24,640
Speaker 3: Not of joy, not a delightful flippers sound Ben.

701
00:40:24,680 --> 00:40:27,440
Speaker 2: Have you read that comic about that secret, top secret

702
00:40:27,680 --> 00:40:29,160
Speaker 2: animal program WE three?

703
00:40:29,239 --> 00:40:32,160
Speaker 3: We three? Yeah, yes, that This really makes me think

704
00:40:32,160 --> 00:40:34,239
Speaker 3: of that. If the listeners, if you haven't.

705
00:40:34,080 --> 00:40:37,800
Speaker 2: Read WE three, it's a quickie and it's it's heart wrenching,

706
00:40:37,960 --> 00:40:40,759
Speaker 2: its heartbreak. It's wonderful. But it's about like a cat,

707
00:40:40,840 --> 00:40:43,279
Speaker 2: a rabbit and a dog. And then I think there's

708
00:40:43,320 --> 00:40:46,440
Speaker 2: a super dog that they train to come after them.

709
00:40:46,480 --> 00:40:49,439
Speaker 2: But they escape from this program and they're wearing these

710
00:40:49,520 --> 00:40:53,160
Speaker 2: kind of suits and they're trained to kill, but they're

711
00:40:53,320 --> 00:40:57,080
Speaker 2: live their animals, and they they act like animals, They

712
00:40:57,120 --> 00:41:00,400
Speaker 2: communicate with each other like animals. It's kind of closest

713
00:41:00,440 --> 00:41:02,399
Speaker 2: thing to like Watership Down. It's like a sci fi

714
00:41:02,520 --> 00:41:05,560
Speaker 2: watership down home vibe, Boy, is it good?

715
00:41:05,760 --> 00:41:07,799
Speaker 1: Don't read it if it's your first time. Don't read

716
00:41:07,840 --> 00:41:10,280
Speaker 1: it in public. Read it at home in a place

717
00:41:10,320 --> 00:41:14,360
Speaker 1: where you can tear up quietly. But I'm really glad

718
00:41:14,400 --> 00:41:17,520
Speaker 1: that you pointed that when out No, because that is

719
00:41:17,680 --> 00:41:21,560
Speaker 1: just a fantastic story. And in many ways this is

720
00:41:21,560 --> 00:41:24,239
Speaker 1: a fantastic story. And we, you know, we want to

721
00:41:24,280 --> 00:41:25,880
Speaker 1: be clear. As we said at the top of the show,

722
00:41:26,440 --> 00:41:30,040
Speaker 1: you're going to hear a lot of allegations of animals

723
00:41:30,040 --> 00:41:33,200
Speaker 1: being used as spies, and many of them seem to

724
00:41:33,239 --> 00:41:36,360
Speaker 1: be hysteria. Also, oddly enough, many of them seem to

725
00:41:36,360 --> 00:41:38,640
Speaker 1: come from Middle Eastern countries. Did you notice that?

726
00:41:38,760 --> 00:41:40,680
Speaker 2: I did notice that, And in fact, we have a

727
00:41:40,960 --> 00:41:44,799
Speaker 2: very current example of that out of Iran, don't we been?

728
00:41:45,400 --> 00:41:51,000
Speaker 1: Yes, Yes, the story of lizard spies. So, according to

729
00:41:51,960 --> 00:41:57,160
Speaker 1: Iranian military advisor Hassan through is a body, lizards were

730
00:41:57,280 --> 00:42:02,239
Speaker 1: lurking around in uranium mines, attracting quote, atomic waves and

731
00:42:02,400 --> 00:42:08,239
Speaker 1: delivering intel on the government to Israel. They were lizards

732
00:42:08,280 --> 00:42:13,200
Speaker 1: and chameleons, and this military advisor said that the lizard's

733
00:42:13,200 --> 00:42:15,960
Speaker 1: skin was capable of attracting atomic waves.

734
00:42:16,320 --> 00:42:18,840
Speaker 2: So, in other words, they were like canary and a

735
00:42:18,880 --> 00:42:22,480
Speaker 2: coal mine type situation. You would bring this atomic wave

736
00:42:22,640 --> 00:42:26,759
Speaker 2: attracting lizard and it would, like dowsing rod style, lead

737
00:42:26,800 --> 00:42:28,080
Speaker 2: you to the uranium mines.

738
00:42:28,400 --> 00:42:31,000
Speaker 1: I guess so, And this is February fourteenth of this year.

739
00:42:31,080 --> 00:42:33,040
Speaker 1: You know, as you said, this is very very recent.

740
00:42:33,360 --> 00:42:36,520
Speaker 1: It doesn't seem to check out entirely, because you know,

741
00:42:37,480 --> 00:42:39,320
Speaker 1: why are they in a cave if they're cold blooded?

742
00:42:39,360 --> 00:42:40,040
Speaker 3: Well is what he says.

743
00:42:40,080 --> 00:42:42,400
Speaker 2: He says, several years ago, some individuals came to Iran

744
00:42:42,480 --> 00:42:45,920
Speaker 2: to collect aid for Palestine. We were suspicious of the

745
00:42:46,000 --> 00:42:49,560
Speaker 2: route they chose. In their possessions were a variety of

746
00:42:49,600 --> 00:42:53,279
Speaker 2: reptile desert species like lizards and chameleons. We found out

747
00:42:53,320 --> 00:42:56,000
Speaker 2: that their skin attracts atomic waves and that they were

748
00:42:56,080 --> 00:42:59,560
Speaker 2: nuclear spies who wanted to find out where inside the

749
00:42:59,640 --> 00:43:02,880
Speaker 2: Islami Republic of Iran we have uranium minds and where

750
00:43:02,880 --> 00:43:05,920
Speaker 2: we are engaged in atomic activities. He also said that

751
00:43:05,960 --> 00:43:07,720
Speaker 2: the spy agencies failed every time.

752
00:43:07,840 --> 00:43:11,720
Speaker 1: So very strange story, very strange story. So I wanted

753
00:43:11,719 --> 00:43:15,440
Speaker 1: to ask you before we before we end the show,

754
00:43:15,520 --> 00:43:20,120
Speaker 1: what if you could have an animal assistant, an animal

755
00:43:20,160 --> 00:43:23,759
Speaker 1: spy familiar? Yeah, what would it be? And don't feel

756
00:43:23,800 --> 00:43:26,719
Speaker 1: like you have to limit yourself to real world conditions.

757
00:43:26,760 --> 00:43:28,880
Speaker 1: If you wanted to talk, that's cool too, Like what

758
00:43:28,920 --> 00:43:29,439
Speaker 1: would you want?

759
00:43:29,760 --> 00:43:31,960
Speaker 2: I don't know, man, I'm not really I don't like

760
00:43:32,000 --> 00:43:35,080
Speaker 2: a lot of animals. They squigged me out, man. I

761
00:43:35,160 --> 00:43:39,400
Speaker 2: like cats, dogs. I tolerate cats. I tolerate really, but

762
00:43:39,400 --> 00:43:41,960
Speaker 2: they kind of leave me alone mainly. So so you'd

763
00:43:41,960 --> 00:43:43,200
Speaker 2: want a cat, I'd want a cat.

764
00:43:43,280 --> 00:43:44,040
Speaker 1: You want your cat?

765
00:43:44,080 --> 00:43:47,680
Speaker 3: I want my cat to be a spy talk Okay.

766
00:43:47,719 --> 00:43:51,040
Speaker 2: Boy, listeners, you must think I'm a real curmudgeon. No,

767
00:43:51,560 --> 00:43:52,840
Speaker 2: you know, I have my moments.

768
00:43:52,840 --> 00:43:53,960
Speaker 1: Nobody thinks that.

769
00:43:54,280 --> 00:43:58,520
Speaker 3: Give on. Somebody online said that we were delightfully corny.

770
00:43:58,880 --> 00:44:00,719
Speaker 1: You know what, We'll take it.

771
00:44:00,800 --> 00:44:01,960
Speaker 3: I'll take it all day long.

772
00:44:02,040 --> 00:44:06,120
Speaker 1: Yeah, well we'll take that, and we'll also take this

773
00:44:06,320 --> 00:44:08,399
Speaker 1: show on the road. That's going to wrap it up

774
00:44:08,400 --> 00:44:10,719
Speaker 1: for today? Oh man?

775
00:44:11,239 --> 00:44:11,319
Speaker 3: What?

776
00:44:12,440 --> 00:44:13,000
Speaker 1: Oh man?

777
00:44:13,160 --> 00:44:14,359
Speaker 3: No, it's not happening again?

778
00:44:14,480 --> 00:44:15,240
Speaker 1: Is it really?

779
00:44:15,440 --> 00:44:22,000
Speaker 3: Why it's time? Gentlemen?

780
00:44:23,520 --> 00:44:26,160
Speaker 1: Jonathan Strickland, the quizt.

781
00:44:26,120 --> 00:44:28,800
Speaker 3: Can't even mustard energy to say his name.

782
00:44:29,000 --> 00:44:30,640
Speaker 1: I thought we'd seen the last of you.

783
00:44:30,800 --> 00:44:32,120
Speaker 3: He didn't really think that, did you?

784
00:44:32,280 --> 00:44:34,520
Speaker 5: How could I leave it at a tie, gentlemen, if

785
00:44:34,560 --> 00:44:36,440
Speaker 5: you do not recall, we are at two and two.

786
00:44:36,680 --> 00:44:38,120
Speaker 3: Oh, I didn't recall.

787
00:44:38,680 --> 00:44:42,160
Speaker 1: That's true. So this is the uh, this is the

788
00:44:42,200 --> 00:44:45,719
Speaker 1: not entirely consensual part of our show, Friends and Neighbors.

789
00:44:46,200 --> 00:44:50,920
Speaker 1: We're in our nemeses. The quizt visits us to test

790
00:44:51,120 --> 00:44:54,560
Speaker 1: our knowledge of something at least hopefully tangentially related to

791
00:44:54,560 --> 00:44:55,560
Speaker 1: today's episode.

792
00:44:56,239 --> 00:44:58,200
Speaker 5: What was what was today's episode?

793
00:44:58,880 --> 00:45:01,400
Speaker 3: I wasn't listeners mainly about corvids.

794
00:45:02,360 --> 00:45:05,400
Speaker 1: It was about animals and espionage. We did dolphins.

795
00:45:05,760 --> 00:45:08,920
Speaker 5: I am tangentially related. Two said topic.

796
00:45:09,200 --> 00:45:12,399
Speaker 3: You are tangentially related to corvids, which is true.

797
00:45:12,440 --> 00:45:15,839
Speaker 5: That is a fact that words can hurt. No, but

798
00:45:15,880 --> 00:45:21,920
Speaker 5: I have a scenario for the twain of you that's incorrect,

799
00:45:21,960 --> 00:45:26,440
Speaker 5: but I'm using it anyway. And of course I always

800
00:45:26,480 --> 00:45:29,600
Speaker 5: have to have some sort of arbitrary rule if you

801
00:45:29,680 --> 00:45:33,760
Speaker 5: are to ask any follow up questions.

802
00:45:32,600 --> 00:45:33,560
Speaker 1: All coming back to me.

803
00:45:33,680 --> 00:45:36,520
Speaker 5: All right, yeah, so this today we're going to be

804
00:45:36,560 --> 00:45:40,560
Speaker 5: talking about World War one France. And considering that we're

805
00:45:40,560 --> 00:45:43,799
Speaker 5: talking about World War one France and animals, you will

806
00:45:43,800 --> 00:45:49,280
Speaker 5: have to start any question directed towards me with monsieur

807
00:45:49,360 --> 00:45:54,240
Speaker 5: quista followed by and I want the accent.

808
00:45:54,560 --> 00:45:56,800
Speaker 3: Okay, I cannot be more.

809
00:45:56,640 --> 00:46:01,120
Speaker 5: Clear about this, Monsieur quistaar. And then you may ask

810
00:46:01,200 --> 00:46:04,240
Speaker 5: a question, and then I will answer it. I will

811
00:46:04,400 --> 00:46:06,640
Speaker 5: point to you and you will start your timer, which

812
00:46:06,680 --> 00:46:09,400
Speaker 5: is as we have agreed upon in the past three

813
00:46:09,640 --> 00:46:12,880
Speaker 5: minutes for you to deliberate and ask any follow up

814
00:46:12,960 --> 00:46:16,200
Speaker 5: questions you need before giving me the answer of whether

815
00:46:16,280 --> 00:46:19,720
Speaker 5: or not the scenario I present to you is true

816
00:46:19,880 --> 00:46:20,080
Speaker 5: or I.

817
00:46:20,120 --> 00:46:22,320
Speaker 3: Made it up. Seas, So the counting of the minutes

818
00:46:22,360 --> 00:46:23,160
Speaker 3: shall be three.

819
00:46:23,440 --> 00:46:25,279
Speaker 5: Three shall be the accounting of the minutes, and the

820
00:46:25,360 --> 00:46:28,200
Speaker 5: counting demitts shall be three four. Shalt thou not count,

821
00:46:28,239 --> 00:46:31,279
Speaker 5: nor either thou count'st two? Accepting that thou then dust

822
00:46:31,400 --> 00:46:32,400
Speaker 5: proceed to three.

823
00:46:32,600 --> 00:46:32,840
Speaker 3: Got it?

824
00:46:33,040 --> 00:46:35,719
Speaker 1: And this thank you for being so very thorough on

825
00:46:35,800 --> 00:46:38,400
Speaker 1: that note. And this begins after.

826
00:46:38,840 --> 00:46:41,719
Speaker 5: After the scenario is presented. Yes, because otherwise this is

827
00:46:41,760 --> 00:46:44,960
Speaker 5: another long one. They've just been getting along. Oh boy,

828
00:46:45,239 --> 00:46:48,480
Speaker 5: I can't help it. There's a lot of details I

829
00:46:48,520 --> 00:46:51,760
Speaker 5: have to provide. So you talked about animals an espionage,

830
00:46:51,760 --> 00:46:55,600
Speaker 5: but animals have also been frequently used by the military.

831
00:46:55,760 --> 00:47:00,959
Speaker 5: Sometimes animals you would not anticipate would be incorporated into

832
00:47:01,040 --> 00:47:05,800
Speaker 5: military affairs, sometimes as an unofficial mascot. Sometimes these animals

833
00:47:05,880 --> 00:47:11,239
Speaker 5: would even receive interesting rewards. Afterwards, they would be promoted

834
00:47:11,760 --> 00:47:16,919
Speaker 5: to military ranks. This is all true stuff. There's a

835
00:47:17,000 --> 00:47:19,799
Speaker 5: goat that made the rank of sergeant. But that's not

836
00:47:19,840 --> 00:47:22,240
Speaker 5: what this one's about. No, gentlemen, here is your scenario.

837
00:47:22,400 --> 00:47:23,320
Speaker 1: That's the one I knew.

838
00:47:24,120 --> 00:47:30,319
Speaker 5: This is about Monsieur Eerison. In nineteen seventeen, France's army

839
00:47:30,480 --> 00:47:34,840
Speaker 5: was in a shambles during the Great War. Morale among

840
00:47:34,920 --> 00:47:38,319
Speaker 5: soldiers was at a low point, and about half of

841
00:47:38,440 --> 00:47:43,160
Speaker 5: all of France's regiments refused to follow orders to attack.

842
00:47:43,200 --> 00:47:47,480
Speaker 5: It was the Great French Army Mutiny. One exception was

843
00:47:47,520 --> 00:47:51,480
Speaker 5: the first regiment of the forty first Division, which bravely

844
00:47:51,560 --> 00:47:55,640
Speaker 5: followed orders despite suffering heavy losses. The men that division

845
00:47:55,719 --> 00:48:01,680
Speaker 5: credited their tenacity to their mascot, Monsieur Soon, a European

846
00:48:01,719 --> 00:48:05,240
Speaker 5: hedgehog who was known to hold his ground bristles out

847
00:48:05,600 --> 00:48:09,560
Speaker 5: no matter what. After the war, Arison was promoted to

848
00:48:09,600 --> 00:48:12,560
Speaker 5: the rank of sergeant, even though it was later discovered

849
00:48:12,640 --> 00:48:14,800
Speaker 5: the monsieur was a mademoiselle.

850
00:48:15,560 --> 00:48:22,160
Speaker 1: Begin uh you know what, No, no, no, I'm flying

851
00:48:22,239 --> 00:48:26,480
Speaker 1: blind with this one. I'm just gonna completely arbitrarily go

852
00:48:26,600 --> 00:48:26,959
Speaker 1: for true.

853
00:48:27,000 --> 00:48:28,200
Speaker 3: What you don't even want to debate?

854
00:48:28,520 --> 00:48:31,759
Speaker 1: We could debate, Yeah, yeah, let's let's okay, so it

855
00:48:32,400 --> 00:48:36,000
Speaker 1: the misidentification makes it sound a little more plausible.

856
00:48:36,040 --> 00:48:36,600
Speaker 3: So sure.

857
00:48:36,680 --> 00:48:38,760
Speaker 1: So if that's a lie, that's a that's a clever addition,

858
00:48:38,840 --> 00:48:40,160
Speaker 1: and well done.

859
00:48:40,239 --> 00:48:47,279
Speaker 4: Monsieur Quista. May I ask you a quick query, Monsieur.

860
00:48:46,600 --> 00:48:50,080
Speaker 5: Quista, but of course go ahead with your queer age.

861
00:48:50,160 --> 00:48:53,200
Speaker 4: Can you give me the elevator pitch version? Yours was

862
00:48:53,239 --> 00:48:56,480
Speaker 4: too long and pedantic, and I have lost the plot.

863
00:48:56,280 --> 00:49:01,560
Speaker 5: All nineteen seventeen, France's army totally de morezed. One regiment

864
00:49:01,600 --> 00:49:05,080
Speaker 5: in the forty first Division managed to keep on going,

865
00:49:05,280 --> 00:49:07,799
Speaker 5: and they credited it. There were other regiments that also

866
00:49:07,960 --> 00:49:12,200
Speaker 5: kept on going, but they credited their bravery to their mascot,

867
00:49:12,239 --> 00:49:15,400
Speaker 5: which was a hedgehog that they had named Monsieur Arison

868
00:49:16,040 --> 00:49:20,040
Speaker 5: and Lynn later after the war promoted Erison to the

869
00:49:20,120 --> 00:49:25,560
Speaker 5: rank of sergeant because his example gave them bravery through

870
00:49:25,600 --> 00:49:26,479
Speaker 5: World War One.

871
00:49:26,680 --> 00:49:28,439
Speaker 3: It turned out to be a lady head.

872
00:49:28,560 --> 00:49:32,280
Speaker 5: It turned out that afterwards, an actual person who bred

873
00:49:32,320 --> 00:49:35,600
Speaker 5: hedgehog said this is this is not a male hedgehog.

874
00:49:35,760 --> 00:49:39,440
Speaker 5: Air Monsieur christell we Master Boleyn.

875
00:49:40,400 --> 00:49:45,680
Speaker 1: So did this hedgehog have a rank before?

876
00:49:46,000 --> 00:49:51,680
Speaker 5: Noa as a mascot? Just apparently someone found it. The

877
00:49:51,960 --> 00:49:56,040
Speaker 5: actual origins of the hedgehog are somewhat lost to history.

878
00:49:56,600 --> 00:49:59,680
Speaker 1: So here's the signal. I know that, I know that

879
00:49:59,719 --> 00:50:03,120
Speaker 1: there were, you know, common it was a relatively common

880
00:50:03,160 --> 00:50:09,040
Speaker 1: practice for mascots to occur in wartime. Sure, you know, usually.

881
00:50:08,760 --> 00:50:11,759
Speaker 3: Dogs monies from time to time.

882
00:50:11,880 --> 00:50:13,200
Speaker 1: Right, yeah, So I don't.

883
00:50:13,000 --> 00:50:15,360
Speaker 3: Know if that's true or not. What it seems I

884
00:50:15,520 --> 00:50:16,720
Speaker 3: rally behind a cute bunny.

885
00:50:16,800 --> 00:50:19,239
Speaker 1: Yeah, I can see that. I can see that. But

886
00:50:19,360 --> 00:50:23,000
Speaker 1: I'm wondering. I'm wondering if oh gosh, okay, we're down

887
00:50:23,040 --> 00:50:24,480
Speaker 1: to we're down to just a few seconds.

888
00:50:24,480 --> 00:50:27,920
Speaker 3: Okay, good, I say true, I say true. Lock in,

889
00:50:28,000 --> 00:50:30,920
Speaker 3: plump it locks.

890
00:50:30,960 --> 00:50:32,400
Speaker 1: I win. Now.

891
00:50:34,440 --> 00:50:38,480
Speaker 2: Do all the victory tastes so sweet?

892
00:50:39,040 --> 00:50:42,319
Speaker 1: Oh? Do you savor it? It's like syrup running all

893
00:50:42,360 --> 00:50:45,120
Speaker 1: over my body. Oh it's so good? All right?

894
00:50:45,160 --> 00:50:48,640
Speaker 5: Okay, Oh no, no, no, no, I get this.

895
00:50:48,800 --> 00:50:49,279
Speaker 3: I get this.

896
00:50:49,520 --> 00:50:51,799
Speaker 5: Oh so nice? All right. So, just so you know,

897
00:50:53,160 --> 00:50:56,560
Speaker 5: the French army, in fact, was in a state of

898
00:50:56,640 --> 00:51:01,080
Speaker 5: mutiny in nineteen seventeen during World the Great War, they

899
00:51:01,080 --> 00:51:02,920
Speaker 5: didn't call it World War One at the time for

900
00:51:03,000 --> 00:51:08,399
Speaker 5: obvious reasons. They were refusing to follow orders. More than

901
00:51:08,960 --> 00:51:12,000
Speaker 5: about half of all the divisions were refusing to follow orders,

902
00:51:12,239 --> 00:51:16,520
Speaker 5: largely because the previous campaign did not meet with a

903
00:51:16,560 --> 00:51:21,480
Speaker 5: success they were promised, and the Americans had recently announced

904
00:51:21,480 --> 00:51:23,760
Speaker 5: they were joining the war, and a lot of French

905
00:51:23,800 --> 00:51:29,000
Speaker 5: soldiers had this unrealistic but deeply, deeply optimistic hope that

906
00:51:29,040 --> 00:51:33,920
Speaker 5: the American soldiers would be joining them immediately, notwithstanding the

907
00:51:33,920 --> 00:51:37,160
Speaker 5: fact that it takes time to actually ship soldiers across

908
00:51:37,200 --> 00:51:41,239
Speaker 5: the ocean. So the lack of American soldiers and the

909
00:51:41,360 --> 00:51:45,840
Speaker 5: lack of success with the previous campaign led to massive

910
00:51:46,600 --> 00:51:51,400
Speaker 5: desertions and mutinies, and France was just barely able to

911
00:51:51,560 --> 00:51:55,239
Speaker 5: turn that back around. And they managed to do it by,

912
00:51:55,840 --> 00:51:59,080
Speaker 5: you know, only having to kill like fifty eight of

913
00:51:59,120 --> 00:51:59,839
Speaker 5: the deserters.

914
00:52:00,520 --> 00:52:02,920
Speaker 1: So the real the real story is much more grizzly

915
00:52:03,040 --> 00:52:04,200
Speaker 1: and less hedge.

916
00:52:04,840 --> 00:52:08,120
Speaker 5: War as hell. Also, by the way, Erison is French.

917
00:52:07,920 --> 00:52:11,520
Speaker 1: For a hedgehog. You are so proud of that one.

918
00:52:11,560 --> 00:52:12,920
Speaker 1: I am really proud.

919
00:52:15,880 --> 00:52:18,560
Speaker 2: I'm proud of you, Jonathan. I'm proud of you too. Yeah,

920
00:52:18,600 --> 00:52:20,440
Speaker 2: you really really stuck it to us.

921
00:52:20,480 --> 00:52:22,399
Speaker 5: There, you're taking the joy out of this, Noel.

922
00:52:22,440 --> 00:52:26,200
Speaker 3: Well, you know, I just like you a lot.

923
00:52:26,719 --> 00:52:27,719
Speaker 5: This isn't fun and.

924
00:52:28,000 --> 00:52:29,360
Speaker 3: More care for you deeply.

925
00:52:29,800 --> 00:52:31,720
Speaker 1: Yeah, we're worried about you in your show.

926
00:52:32,840 --> 00:52:34,279
Speaker 2: You know what though, Hey, this is a this is

927
00:52:34,280 --> 00:52:36,440
Speaker 2: a this is a chance for a new beginning, isn't it.

928
00:52:36,480 --> 00:52:36,800
Speaker 3: Guys?

929
00:52:36,960 --> 00:52:41,719
Speaker 2: We get to refresh, restart, rewind, recycle, reduce, and.

930
00:52:41,719 --> 00:52:45,960
Speaker 1: Reuse and remix. My friend. Yes, so we are going

931
00:52:46,000 --> 00:52:49,200
Speaker 1: to head out. Maybe maybe we'll find a mascot for

932
00:52:49,440 --> 00:52:51,399
Speaker 1: this show at some point. What do you say?

933
00:52:51,480 --> 00:52:54,320
Speaker 3: No, yeah, as long as it's not a corvid Okay,

934
00:52:54,560 --> 00:52:55,040
Speaker 3: all right.

935
00:52:55,360 --> 00:52:58,520
Speaker 1: I don't each their own. And of course we'd like

936
00:52:58,600 --> 00:53:02,080
Speaker 1: to thank our super produce, Sir Casey. We would like

937
00:53:02,160 --> 00:53:07,640
Speaker 1: to thank mister Vanderbilt wrote the excellent Smithsonian article. Also

938
00:53:07,760 --> 00:53:10,160
Speaker 1: thank you Jonathan Quister, You're.

939
00:53:10,120 --> 00:53:13,440
Speaker 2: Welcome, and of course our regular contributor Lori L.

940
00:53:13,520 --> 00:53:15,160
Speaker 3: Dove who wrote the.

941
00:53:15,160 --> 00:53:17,600
Speaker 2: Use of Animals and Espionage for How Stuff Works, and

942
00:53:17,680 --> 00:53:21,319
Speaker 2: our composer Alex Williams, who is also a pal.

943
00:53:21,680 --> 00:53:24,719
Speaker 1: And most importantly you folks, thanks for tuning in. You

944
00:53:24,800 --> 00:53:28,239
Speaker 1: can find us on Twitter. You can find us on Instagram.

945
00:53:28,280 --> 00:53:30,560
Speaker 1: You can find us on Facebook. Noel, did you see

946
00:53:30,880 --> 00:53:33,200
Speaker 1: the emails we've been getting about that Pinterest page.

947
00:53:33,360 --> 00:53:35,720
Speaker 3: I'm working on it, you guys. I've decided I'm okay

948
00:53:35,760 --> 00:53:38,240
Speaker 3: with Pinterest. I'm making a dolphin.

949
00:53:37,880 --> 00:53:41,680
Speaker 2: Themed vision board and with some swatches, with some nice

950
00:53:41,680 --> 00:53:42,800
Speaker 2: little color squares.

951
00:53:43,600 --> 00:53:45,680
Speaker 3: Just you know, I wanted to I wanted to represent

952
00:53:45,760 --> 00:53:46,359
Speaker 3: who I am.

953
00:53:46,560 --> 00:53:48,719
Speaker 1: I feel like I feel like it would have to

954
00:53:48,719 --> 00:53:51,200
Speaker 1: be a collaborative effort, so we'll have to put our

955
00:53:51,280 --> 00:53:53,680
Speaker 1: vision boards together at some point. I'm doing a lot

956
00:53:53,680 --> 00:53:54,640
Speaker 1: of crafty things.

957
00:53:54,719 --> 00:53:55,120
Speaker 3: I like it.

958
00:53:55,360 --> 00:53:59,800
Speaker 1: Yeah, we hope you like it too. What kind of

959
00:54:00,160 --> 00:54:02,880
Speaker 1: animal would you want for a spy? Let us know?

960
00:54:03,120 --> 00:54:05,240
Speaker 3: And what kind of animals should be our mascot.

961
00:54:05,440 --> 00:54:07,040
Speaker 2: You can write to us and tell us any of

962
00:54:07,080 --> 00:54:10,560
Speaker 2: these things whatever you wish at Ridiculous at HowStuffWorks dot com.

963
00:54:10,600 --> 00:54:12,279
Speaker 2: Thanks for listening, guys, and we'll see you next time

964
00:54:12,280 --> 00:54:22,840
Speaker 2: for another episode of Ridiculous History. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio,

965
00:54:22,960 --> 00:54:26,200
Speaker 2: visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen

966
00:54:26,239 --> 00:54:27,280
Speaker 2: to your favorite shows.