Speaker 1: Fellow conspiracy realist, We return to you from literally around
Speaker 1: the world with a classic episode that remains oddly relevant today.
Speaker 1: We were talking about this off air, Matt, and you
Speaker 1: and I both agreed that this is sort of an
Speaker 1: eternal subject or an eternal concern for a lot of people.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, the concept of being a targeted individuals, as
Speaker 2: we're going to get into in this episode. This is
Speaker 2: it's sensitive, right, because you're dealing with potentially mental health,
Speaker 2: You're dealing with potentially actual human beings that are under
Speaker 2: some form of investigation. There's all kinds of things that
Speaker 2: go into this, right, and we still people still write
Speaker 2: to us and ask us to do Gang Stocking episodes
Speaker 2: like updates to this and this is back in October
Speaker 2: twenty nineteen that we covered.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's an experience that a lot of people have
Speaker 1: had to degree or another. Who is that person who
Speaker 1: seems so similar? Right? Is that the same person I
Speaker 1: saw at the grocery store?
Speaker 2: That hat looks Wait, I know I've seen that happ before, right, right? Am?
Speaker 1: I gaslighting myself? Is something afoot? Who is after me?
Speaker 1: And why? More and more people as we recorded this
Speaker 1: were claiming that they had been stalked by not a
Speaker 1: single individual, but by some enigmatic group.
Speaker 2: And that group is interchangeable. You never know who it
Speaker 2: could be.
Speaker 1: Let's roll the tape from UFOs to psychic powers and
Speaker 1: government conspiracies. History is riddled with unexplained events. You can
Speaker 1: turn back now or learn this stuff they don't want
Speaker 1: you to know. A production of iHeart Radios How Stuff Works.
Speaker 2: Hello, and welcome back to the show. My name is
Speaker 2: Matt nol Is. Where is he on a nol somewhere?
Speaker 1: Perhaps a grassy one. Yes, they call me Ben. We
Speaker 1: were joined as always with our super producer Paul Mission
Speaker 1: control deck, and most importantly, you are you. You are
Speaker 1: here and that makes this stuff they don't want you
Speaker 1: to know? Matt. How's it going?
Speaker 2: It's going?
Speaker 1: Well.
Speaker 2: I'm wondering what you are doing out there right now
Speaker 2: as you're listening to this. Are you driving? Are you walking?
Speaker 2: Are you sitting at your desk? If you are able
Speaker 2: to If you look around right now, is anybody paying
Speaker 2: attention to what you're doing? Did somebody just dart their
Speaker 2: head down as you glanced at them.
Speaker 1: Is someone on a phone but not appearing to speak
Speaker 1: into that phone? Are they making eye contact? With you
Speaker 1: or looking in your direction while they're on the phone.
Speaker 1: Do you think that they're actually using the phone? Do
Speaker 1: you think they're actually calling one eight three three std
Speaker 1: wyt Well, you know, we have a lot of We
Speaker 1: have a lot of hang ups as a species, right,
Speaker 1: and many of those are the inevitable result of our
Speaker 1: great intelligence or the problem of consciousness and sentience or
Speaker 1: consciousness sabiens, whatever you want to call it is its
Speaker 1: own bag of badgers. But our fears drive so much
Speaker 1: of our you know, our failings and our triumphs, our innovations,
Speaker 1: even our music. You and I were talking off air
Speaker 1: with Mission Control about various songs that are catchy but
Speaker 1: strongly paranoid. You know, yeah, sure.
Speaker 2: Do you always feel like someone is watching you?
Speaker 1: Do you feel like private eyes are watching you.
Speaker 2: So they see here every move? What I thought you
Speaker 2: were going to say? Poop again?
Speaker 1: Oh? Yeah, no, we worked on an alternate version of
Speaker 1: that song. Yes, Today's Today's episode is about a troubling
Speaker 1: a troubling feeling, a phenomenon that everyone has experienced to
Speaker 1: some degree at one point or another. And this this
Speaker 1: is the feeling of being watched, the feeling of being stalked.
Speaker 1: And if you were one of the lucky few who
Speaker 1: are thinking, oh, gee, man, I've never personally felt like
Speaker 1: someone was following me or stalking me, well, then strap
Speaker 1: in because you're going to feel that way after this episode. Okay,
Speaker 1: So I will give a I don't talk too much
Speaker 1: about the personal stuff, but I will give a personal
Speaker 1: example of when I was actually followed or stalked. This
Speaker 1: was when I was living in a different country and
Speaker 1: I was interacting with some political activists. Let's keep it
Speaker 1: at that, sure, okay. And I was not in any
Speaker 1: way a lynchpin of this organization, nor was I involved
Speaker 1: in any criminal enterprise. I'm very much a dudly do
Speaker 1: good when I am in someone else's geopolitical house, and
Speaker 1: it's the best policy. But I noticed a few, you know,
Speaker 1: a few weeks after I had met with a group,
Speaker 1: I was at a fairly I had a fairly predictable routine.
Speaker 1: So I was always sleeping more or less in the
Speaker 1: same place, and I was typically going to do things
Speaker 1: in more like the same area, often with predictable times
Speaker 1: of day, which any PI can tell you is not
Speaker 1: the best strategy investigator, right right, Thank you? And I
Speaker 1: started noticing I started noticing the same people at the
Speaker 1: same time, and eventually, eventually somebody very politely make contact
Speaker 1: with me and asked me some questions about the folks
Speaker 1: I met a week or two ago. Wow, and nothing
Speaker 1: ever came of it. And I you know, the story
Speaker 1: ends there.
Speaker 2: But you're fairly sure you were being surveilled or stocked.
Speaker 1: I'm certain, yeah, And it wasn't. It wasn't in a
Speaker 1: threatening way. I think. I think these folks just wanted
Speaker 1: to see what I was going to do next. Sure,
Speaker 1: what I mean, is this just hanging out? These just
Speaker 1: some friends hanging out in a coffee shop or a
Speaker 1: wine bar, or is this a public meeting that leads
Speaker 1: to something else? Yeah, and that's not I have to
Speaker 1: also be very clear, it is not illegal for intelligence
Speaker 1: agencies or law enforcement to do that. As a matter
Speaker 1: of fact, at least on paper, the US has some
Speaker 1: laws that are meant to constrain the unchecked use of
Speaker 1: those powers. Other countries do not, and as often to
Speaker 1: the peril of many unfortunate people. But let's go away.
Speaker 1: That's a little scary, but it all's well, that ends well,
Speaker 1: you know, here are the facts. Have you ever been followed.
Speaker 1: Like we said, you know, we've all we've all experienced
Speaker 1: if you are savvy enough to be listening to a podcast,
Speaker 1: you have experienced some sort of how would you describe
Speaker 1: it matter as sense of surveillance.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Sure, Again, it doesn't even necessarily mean that it's true,
Speaker 2: but the perception that something like that perhaps is going on.
Speaker 2: You maybe have felt it before. We certainly you and
Speaker 2: I I think in particular, maybe as well as Noel
Speaker 2: a little bit to a lesser effect, have experienced kind
Speaker 2: of a fluctuating feeling of being surveilled over the ten years,
Speaker 2: the decade of making this show, where it waxes and wanes.
Speaker 2: We even had a joke nsa intern there that we've
Speaker 2: mentioned several times in the past.
Speaker 1: Ah, shout out to Steve.
Speaker 2: Yeah, who's tasked with listening to our episodes and all
Speaker 2: the ideas that we put forth into the universe. Honestly,
Speaker 2: they're worried about, you know, the next season of Rick
Speaker 2: and Morty, Like what's gonna come on there? Like is
Speaker 2: he getting influenced? Like what are we gonna do?
Speaker 1: Right? Right? Let's sign up? Is this and also shout
Speaker 1: out to you, Steve, if you have not graduated yet.
Speaker 1: If you are still an intern at one of the
Speaker 1: Spooky Alphabet agencies, then it can only mean you're pursuing
Speaker 1: a PhD and good luck.
Speaker 2: That's all right. But again, to our knowledge, we have
Speaker 2: never really experienced overt surveillance on this show, at least
Speaker 2: for making this show. Again, we don't have knowledge of
Speaker 2: it at least, and we certainly haven't encountered what would
Speaker 2: be considered a stalker. Now.
Speaker 1: We have received a number of cryptic and order troubling emails,
Speaker 1: a couple of texts on mobile phones, things.
Speaker 2: Like that I have a few pieces of physical paper
Speaker 2: in my desk that I've kept around. Oh yeah, that
Speaker 2: we're a bit odd with the symbols and everything that
Speaker 2: was on there and mapping connections to things that I
Speaker 2: didn't understand.
Speaker 1: Yes, yeah, we've received some odd posts too, But we
Speaker 1: haven't encountered what would be described legally as a stalker
Speaker 1: or stalking situation, which can happen. It's a real thing.
Speaker 1: The Department of Justice defines stalking as engaging in a
Speaker 1: course of conduct directed at a specific person that would
Speaker 1: cause a reasonable person to fear for his or her
Speaker 1: safety or the safety of others. Or suffer substantial emotional distress.
Speaker 1: And we have some statistics about this too.
Speaker 2: Oh sure. If you look to the CDC, they've got
Speaker 2: a thing called Prevalence and Characteristics of Sexual Violence, stalking
Speaker 2: and Intimate Partner Violence Victimization. This is a National Intimate
Speaker 2: Partner and Sexual Violence Survey within the United States twenty eleven. Okay,
Speaker 2: that's a lot to get through there. It's through the CDC,
Speaker 2: that's what you need to know. And it's a survey,
Speaker 2: and this whole thing is commonly referred to as the NISVS.
Speaker 2: According to this thing, seven and a half million people
Speaker 2: were stalked in one year alone in the United States,
Speaker 2: And of course this is the twenty eleven survey, so
Speaker 2: this is data from twenty ten. Now, a lot of
Speaker 2: these victims were stalked by either a current or a
Speaker 2: former intimate partner. That would be sixty one percent of
Speaker 2: female victims and forty four percent of male victims. And
Speaker 2: if you look to the population overall, an estimate of
Speaker 2: fifteen percent of women and six percent of men have
Speaker 2: been a victim of stalking throughout their entire lifetimes, which
Speaker 2: you know, is statistically fairly low. But when you think
Speaker 2: about that number of people seven and a half million
Speaker 2: human beings that experience stalking in a single year, it's
Speaker 2: pretty staggering.
Speaker 1: In the US alone. Yeah, and when we say stalking,
Speaker 1: we're not talking about you know, creeps on the Internet
Speaker 1: sliding into your dms. We're talking about the sort of
Speaker 1: stalking that is defined by the DOJ. For a lot
Speaker 1: of US. These numbers seem surprisingly high, you know what
Speaker 1: I mean? This is like cape fear, single white female
Speaker 1: kind of thriller stuff. But critics of this survey believe
Speaker 1: the CDC is used an overly conservative definition of stalking,
Speaker 1: and honestly, I tend to agree with some of the
Speaker 1: problems here. Survey respondents were classified as stalking victims if
Speaker 1: and only if, one they experienced multiple stalking tactics or
Speaker 1: a single stalking tactic multiple times by the same perpetrator.
Speaker 1: That part makes sense. Or two they felt very fearful
Speaker 1: or believed that they or someone close to them would
Speaker 1: be harmed or killed as a result of the perpetrators
Speaker 1: stalking behavior. And this comes from the Stalking Resource Center.
Speaker 1: They say this definition fails to address the varying levels
Speaker 1: of fear reported by victims. Right somewhat fearful, maybe distressed, disquietened,
Speaker 1: or slightly fearful. And no stalking law in the US
Speaker 1: which goes these stalking laws pretty much goes state by
Speaker 1: state unless you're talking about interstate stalking. These stalking laws
Speaker 1: don't qualify fear the way that the CDC is. And
Speaker 1: so they say that using this conservative definition of stalking
Speaker 1: results in an inaccurate depiction of the practice. But wait,
Speaker 1: as Billy Mayss want to say, there's more, folks. You see,
Speaker 1: we have piles of disturbing facts and statistics about this phenomenon,
Speaker 1: this type of crime according to the Bureau of Justice
Speaker 1: statistics during a twelve month period. You'll notice these statistics
Speaker 1: don't all agree during a twelve month period, and estimated
Speaker 1: fourteen out of every one thousand people age eighteen or
Speaker 1: older or victims of stalking somehow. And again the definition changes, right,
Speaker 1: But let's keep in mind these are different organizations of
Speaker 1: the same government.
Speaker 2: Well, and really, you're you can only use surveys, right,
Speaker 2: So depending on who you're surveying, even as random as
Speaker 2: you want it to be, you may get very different statistics.
Speaker 1: Right, Right, So it's true because we have to ask
Speaker 1: ourselves about the methodology. One survey may just be going
Speaker 1: off self reporting right. One survey may be going off
Speaker 1: only reports that have been made to law enforcement, and
Speaker 1: as we know, quite a few people do not report
Speaker 1: things like that to law enforcement unless unless it exceeds
Speaker 1: a certain threshold, Like most people are not calling nine
Speaker 1: to one one every time they get an unsolicited again
Speaker 1: an unsolicited maybe message on Instagram or something you know.
Speaker 2: Sure or you know, a robo call, or you know,
Speaker 2: consistent robo calls from the same number or something.
Speaker 1: About half of stalking victims, around forty six percent, said
Speaker 1: they experienced at least one unwanted contact per week. Eleven
Speaker 1: percent of victims said they've been stalked for a long
Speaker 1: time five years or more. The risk of being a
Speaker 1: victim of stalking was highest for individuals who were divorced
Speaker 1: or separated. That's thirty four out of one thousand individuals.
Speaker 1: Women were at a greater risk than men for being
Speaker 1: for stalking victimization. However, women and men were equally likely
Speaker 1: to experience harassment. Nearly three and four stalking victims knew
Speaker 1: their offender in some way. That person you go to
Speaker 1: school with, who's kind of quiet and ex significant other.
Speaker 2: Even if it's just a neighbor, even if it's.
Speaker 1: Just a neighbor, just a face woman in some way. So,
Speaker 1: you know, when we see these crimes or these situations
Speaker 1: depicted in works of fiction, people go to the police,
Speaker 1: and predictably, especially if it's a thriller, the police ignore them.
Speaker 1: Our hands are tied. They say, we could get a
Speaker 1: restraining order. That's the extent of it. Now, that's you know,
Speaker 1: oversimplified for the sake of plot and narrative. But it
Speaker 1: is unfortunately true that not all states treat stalking the
Speaker 1: same way.
Speaker 2: Yeah, currently just over half fifty one percent of states.
Speaker 2: They'll require that there are at least two or more instances.
Speaker 2: We kind of talked about this a little bit, but
Speaker 2: there have to be at least two instances where this perpetrator,
Speaker 2: whoever the person is, that's perceived as a stalker, as
Speaker 2: either following, harassing, watching in some way the person who's
Speaker 2: the victim, right, But then some state laws actually specify
Speaker 2: the victim has to be frightened by the stalking. Like
Speaker 2: there again we're talking about fear here. It's kind of
Speaker 2: what we mentioned earlier, like if you were walking into
Speaker 2: a police department to make a report, and you are
Speaker 2: not fearful of this stalking is just a nuisance perhaps
Speaker 2: or something like that, then it wouldn't necessarily be considered stalking.
Speaker 2: Some others require that the stalking behavior must have caused
Speaker 2: a reasonable person to experience fear. But again, a lot
Speaker 2: of these states vary on what fear is, like what
Speaker 2: are we defining fear as? Is it somewhat fearful, quite fearful,
Speaker 2: very fearful? And some state laws even require, you know,
Speaker 2: a prosecutor if they were gonna take somebody to court
Speaker 2: and charge them with stalking, they would require the prosecutor
Speaker 2: to establish that fear of death or at least some
Speaker 2: kind of you know, serious harm was at least felt
Speaker 2: by the victim, And you know, others just require that
Speaker 2: a prosecutor established the victim suffered some kind of emotional distress.
Speaker 2: And that is generally going to be experienced by anyone
Speaker 2: who feels at least that they are the victim of stalking.
Speaker 1: And we'll get back to a problematic, challenging issue with
Speaker 1: that definition. But first we've painted the scene right. The
Speaker 1: broad context, being stalked in North Dakota is not the
Speaker 1: same as being stalked in California or Oklahoma.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 1: We know that stalking is reel. We know that it
Speaker 1: is by itself a frightening phenomenon for the people involved.
Speaker 1: Yet over the course of recent years, more and more
Speaker 1: individuals are coming forward, often forming communities online, claiming that
Speaker 1: they have been harassed, stalked, terrorized, not by an ex lover,
Speaker 1: not by a single creepy obsessed neighbor or former school chum,
Speaker 1: but by groups of people, coordinated groups, acting in concerts
Speaker 1: and behaving as though they have a plan, a gang
Speaker 1: of stalks. So today's question is what exactly is going on?
Speaker 2: And we'll get to that right after a quick word
Speaker 2: from our sponsor.
Speaker 1: Here's where it gets crazy. Gang stalking. Yes, gang stalking.
Speaker 1: This is something many of our fellow listeners have written
Speaker 1: in to us about over the years, and I do
Speaker 1: mean years. As we've established earlier, stalking has a few
Speaker 1: common characteristics. Tends to be highly personal and individualized. Tends
Speaker 1: to be measured at least partially in subjective emotional terms,
Speaker 1: at least as far as the letter of the law
Speaker 1: applies in the US. And that's a tricky thing. We
Speaker 1: cannot objectively measure a subjective experience, especially because we know
Speaker 1: that emotions are malleable and to a degree in ephemeral.
Speaker 1: Often right things, we feel different ways about the same
Speaker 1: thing at different times, which sounds elementary but is incredibly
Speaker 1: important for this. It reminds me of you know, how
Speaker 1: the Sackler family and other criminals of that ILK had
Speaker 1: put in you know, it'd spent.
Speaker 2: I love that you just phrased it that way.
Speaker 1: It's true, sorry, criminals who are not going to be convicted,
Speaker 1: right people, drug dealers. I don't know what you want
Speaker 1: me to say.
Speaker 2: No, no, I'm completely honest. It's refreshing to you hear
Speaker 2: it stated in the.
Speaker 1: Well those are unfortunately true things. But but the these
Speaker 1: like these organizations, the opioid mongers, had spent millions making
Speaker 1: a standardized pain reporting scale that medical professionals were more
Speaker 1: or less forced to use. And we've all we've all
Speaker 1: kind of heard it before. Describe your pain on a
Speaker 1: scale of one to ten right.
Speaker 2: On comfor it's basically comfort or.
Speaker 1: Yeah yea yeah, yeah yeah. And so we're asking we're
Speaker 1: asking people to subjectively rate something. So if we're asking
Speaker 1: people to subjectively rate their fear after something incredibly frightening
Speaker 1: has happened to them, you know what I mean, Like,
Speaker 1: I just got an envelope full of like hair and
Speaker 1: a picture of my kid at the playground. Oh do
Speaker 1: you think I'm somewhat discomfited by this? You know it's insane?
Speaker 2: Well it is. I mean, when you're speaking of perceived stalking,
Speaker 2: as we're going to find a little later in the episode,
Speaker 2: it ranges from a glance from somebody that perhaps you
Speaker 2: don't know, to I mean, I can only imagine the
Speaker 2: nth degree. There would be someone holding a weapon to
Speaker 2: your body and you know, threatening you, Like, that would
Speaker 2: be the range I'm assuming if you're talking about levels
Speaker 2: of fear within stalking, right.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, that's the problem with that definition because different
Speaker 1: people will have different thresholds right of what they consider frightening.
Speaker 1: And this is not at all in any way shape,
Speaker 1: form or fashion meant to diminish or minimize the experiences
Speaker 1: of people who are victimized by stalking. We're saying that
Speaker 1: some people will behave differently, and there's not really a
Speaker 1: one size fits all for you.
Speaker 2: Yes, some people behave and perceive differently.
Speaker 1: Yeah, there we go. That's incredibly important. So here's the
Speaker 1: strange part. For people who believe that they're victims of
Speaker 1: group stalking or gang stalking, the same rules apply with
Speaker 1: but not in the same way and with even higher stakes,
Speaker 1: like they may feel there is a highly personal, individualized
Speaker 1: motive behind this group of people stalking them, but they
Speaker 1: may not have known these people before. It's just the
Speaker 1: guy who's always now at the bus stop around the
Speaker 1: same time as you. And because the definitions of the
Speaker 1: term gang stalking can be a little tough to come by,
Speaker 1: we found some pretty pretty comprehensive definitions from the subreddit
Speaker 1: on gang stalking, And there is a dedicated subreddit to
Speaker 1: this and I like their definition. I think it gives
Speaker 1: us a good lay of the land.
Speaker 2: Oh sure. It says that gang stalking is an umbrella term,
Speaker 2: and it describes a series of techniques utilized by a
Speaker 2: group to instill mental instability within a victim. So that
Speaker 2: would be a particular individual with the intent to discredit, sabotage, harass, extort,
Speaker 2: and even drive a victim to suicide or at least
Speaker 2: to mental distress. And it goes on to say the
Speaker 2: victims of this practice are often described as targeted individuals
Speaker 2: known as TIS.
Speaker 1: For short, So we will no relation to the artists.
Speaker 2: Correct, and we will be using TI sometimes targeted individuals
Speaker 2: moving forward.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and according to the TIS who feel that they
Speaker 1: are victims of gang stocking operations, the stalking can take
Speaker 1: multiple forms, right.
Speaker 2: Oh, yeah, there are lots of different perceived things here
Speaker 2: that have been described by multiple people. So this isn't
Speaker 2: just one person's account of what it's like to be
Speaker 2: gang stalked or the perception of what is occurring. So
Speaker 2: let's get to something called mobbing. Let's hit that first.
Speaker 2: So this is an intense and organized harassment, sometimes in
Speaker 2: the workplace, but mobbing can also occur outside of the workplace,
Speaker 2: where it's just a whole bunch of people that appear
Speaker 2: to be around you or paying attention to you or
Speaker 2: watching you all at once. Like again, if you just
Speaker 2: if you imagine the concept of mobbing, it's a lot
Speaker 2: of people all at once with their attention focused on you.
Speaker 2: But then but then their attention will go away and
Speaker 2: they'll come right back to you.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and then there are black bag jobs, which would
Speaker 1: be a residential break in where maybe something is stolen
Speaker 1: or something's messed with, but your house is not valuables
Speaker 1: aren't necessarily taken. It's not like a burglary.
Speaker 2: It's for me. My understanding is it's a perception that
Speaker 2: your inner sanctum, your place of safety, has been disheveled
Speaker 2: or messed with or looked at by somebody who physically,
Speaker 2: you know, breached the perimeter or whatever.
Speaker 1: And maybe they altered something, or maybe they installed something
Speaker 1: to monitor you.
Speaker 2: And generally it's to mess with you, right, right, right,
Speaker 2: I mean that's the perception, is that somebody broke in
Speaker 2: here just to mess with me, not like you said,
Speaker 2: not to take something of any value.
Speaker 1: Right, maybe in some cases to leave something. The idea
Speaker 1: is that the idea here in both of those cases
Speaker 1: is that someone is attempting to compromise the victim's sanity
Speaker 1: or their perception of reality. This term we commonly encapsulate
Speaker 1: this in the term gaslighting. Yeah, right, So gaslighting is
Speaker 1: when someone attempts some person or some group attempts to
Speaker 1: convince some other person or some other group that they
Speaker 1: are in fact mentally unstable, they are losing their mind,
Speaker 1: and so on. It comes from a play nineteen thirty
Speaker 1: eight called Gaslight. In the US, it's known as Angel Street,
Speaker 1: and it's about a woman whose husband slowly her or
Speaker 1: gaslights her into thinking that she is losing her mind.
Speaker 1: There are other things like a street theater.
Speaker 2: Yeah, now this is this is one that you can
Speaker 2: find videos of online in a lot of places in YouTube,
Speaker 2: where it will be a group of people that if
Speaker 2: you're watching objectively, it feels as though it's just normal
Speaker 2: activity out on a street, particularly or it doesn't have
Speaker 2: to be a street, it can be just in any
Speaker 2: public space. And you know, but for the person who
Speaker 2: believes they're being gang stoked, everything feels inauthentic. It feels
Speaker 2: like it's a bunch of theater people, theater kids putting
Speaker 2: on a play. It like it's organized in some way
Speaker 2: for specifically the purpose to agitate the person who's perceiving
Speaker 2: it as being as stalking.
Speaker 1: Right, And this goes into the concept of some performance art.
Speaker 1: Some of us listening might say, well, what about things
Speaker 1: like improv everywhere? Yeah? Have you seen those clips?
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, it's like.
Speaker 1: People spontaneously freeze for sixty seconds in train station where
Speaker 1: everybody starts in a flashmob, dancing and stuff. It's not
Speaker 1: like that. That's not what people who have encountered this.
Speaker 1: They don't feel that they're watching some NDO artsy performance.
Speaker 1: They feel like that person's pretending to read a magazine,
Speaker 1: pretending to be on the phone. How long is that
Speaker 1: person going to keep, you know, looking at different pairs
Speaker 1: of sunglasses?
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, you know what I mean totally. And then
Speaker 2: another thing here that I want to just talk about.
Speaker 2: We're gonna have some examples moving forward, a little bit
Speaker 2: of personal experiences with this and or accounts. But other
Speaker 2: way gang stocking takes shape sometimes is when you're driving
Speaker 2: your car and there's a there's the feeling that several
Speaker 2: cars around you may maybe the one in front of
Speaker 2: you is slowing down to keep you going a certain speed,
Speaker 2: but then there are also cars next to you, so
Speaker 2: you can't change lanes to go around this person that
Speaker 2: seems to be controlling you. And then maybe another car
Speaker 2: will box you in from behind and prevent you from
Speaker 2: really doing anything, especially if you're on a freeway. There
Speaker 2: are instances where people will believe their home is wherever
Speaker 2: they wherever it is they live, and sleep is being
Speaker 2: consistently surveilled by the same people that walk by the
Speaker 2: house at certain Like you said, kind of at certain times,
Speaker 2: or maybe wearing a very specific hat sure, or are
Speaker 2: wearing the same clothes. That's kind of the way it
Speaker 2: takes form. And there are a lot of reasons that
Speaker 2: they're There are several categories of reasons people believe they're
Speaker 2: being gang stalked. And before we get into too much
Speaker 2: of that, let's just I think we should give some
Speaker 2: examples of people's accounts, like personal accounts.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, that's probably the best way to depict this experience.
Speaker 1: Let's look at some first hand accounts of people who
Speaker 1: feel they have experienced gang stalking. James Crockett has a
Speaker 1: great quote on this in his article for Medium, and
Speaker 1: he describes it thusly. In one video, a TI takes
Speaker 1: a GoPro that's a GoPro camera on the New York
Speaker 1: subway and narrates his journey to try to prove the
Speaker 1: existence of his stalkers. He notes a man in an
Speaker 1: orange jacket who occasionally looks at him, another tall man
Speaker 1: who enters the train and makes eye contact with the
Speaker 1: man in the jacket, and a lady who he thinks
Speaker 1: he's giving him dirty looks whenever he looks away from her.
Speaker 2: For several stops, she just stands there. He says, these
Speaker 2: people really do perform a vicious act. They don't care
Speaker 2: if people are driven to suicidal depression, like I almost was.
Speaker 2: It wasn't until after that I realized this was some
Speaker 2: kind of sick game I am in.
Speaker 1: So there's another possibility there, you know, the saying it's
Speaker 1: a sick game. There's the idea that maybe this is
Speaker 1: a recreational activity for some people. Maybe the cause is
Speaker 1: just to just to mess with people, you.
Speaker 2: Know, perhaps, And you can also go online and see
Speaker 2: videos of people with a camcorder in a public space
Speaker 2: filming other people that they believe are gangstocking the person
Speaker 2: with the camcorder. And we're gonna have to get into
Speaker 2: that a little bit later too. But just that concept
Speaker 2: of being in a public place with a camcorder aimed
Speaker 2: at strangers that you don't know, I'm gonna say it's
Speaker 2: likely that you are going to bring attention to yourself
Speaker 2: because you're doing that. Many of us, when we're in
Speaker 2: public spaces will notice if there is a camera aimed
Speaker 2: at us, right, and again, it's tough to know whether
Speaker 2: or not that attention is brought upon by the actions
Speaker 2: of the filmer or if it's I mean, it feels
Speaker 2: that way to me, but it's not conclusive, so we'll
Speaker 2: get into that a little bit later too. There's also
Speaker 2: a Vice short documentary that was created in twenty seventeen
Speaker 2: called The Nightmare World of gang Stocking. It's a video
Speaker 2: that's available on YouTube right now, and there are several
Speaker 2: people in it who describe their experiences. So let's first
Speaker 2: turn to Billy Bee, who is a makeup artist and
Speaker 2: a self described gang stoking victim, and in his particular account,
Speaker 2: he believes he's a victim of culture stalking, which is
Speaker 2: kind of an offshoot of gang stocking functions in the
Speaker 2: same way, the reasons that he's being stalked are a
Speaker 2: little bit altered. So in this case, he is a
Speaker 2: man who identifies as homosexual, who is living in a
Speaker 2: very let's say, conservative area, and he believes there's some
Speaker 2: conservative Christian group that is in an organized way stalking
Speaker 2: him and doing these things like street theater that are
Speaker 2: making him feel uncomfortable. Where he will be parked in
Speaker 2: a fairly empty lot somewhere, and then a lot of
Speaker 2: cars will pull in, and each one that pulls in
Speaker 2: a heterosexual couple gets out holding hands, being all cute
Speaker 2: to you, right near his car and on purpose making
Speaker 2: eye contact with him or flaunting it in front of him,
Speaker 2: and it would happen over and over and over and
Speaker 2: over and over. So this this is the way he
Speaker 2: describes it.
Speaker 1: You're in the middle of this ridiculous, irrational impossibility that
Speaker 1: is real and is happening, and it's stranger than fiction
Speaker 1: or anything that you can imagine, and it's just terrifying.
Speaker 1: It pisces you off, it frustrates you beyond anything that
Speaker 1: you can imagine, and it changes you.
Speaker 2: I mean, that's that's rough to be feeling that right
Speaker 2: at an individual level.
Speaker 1: And what do we know what part of the country
Speaker 1: this person, mister B is in. This is California, This
Speaker 1: is California, and there's a conservative area of California which
Speaker 1: does exist. Some people outside the state might be surprised
Speaker 1: by that. And the question then becomes, is this a
Speaker 1: situation where everybody in a community knows each other? You know,
Speaker 1: like if you go to a small town, right, people
Speaker 1: make eye contact, people wave, And if you go to
Speaker 1: a small town where people don't care for outsiders or
Speaker 1: don't care for you specifically, it becomes very clear very
Speaker 1: quickly that's is that gangstalking or is that just people
Speaker 1: being jerks? And people don't have to like have a
Speaker 1: meeting beforehand to be jerks. They naturally take to that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, and this is gonna be a common theme here.
Speaker 2: No matter what even the truth is about what's happening,
Speaker 2: these targeted individuals believe that this is happening so wholeheartedly
Speaker 2: that it's affecting them, you know, mentally and emotionally and
Speaker 2: physically sometimes, so you know, you're right on the money.
Speaker 2: But there have been like the way that I'm thinking
Speaker 2: about these, you know, some of the statements and some
Speaker 2: of the things that people are describing. So let's just
Speaker 2: turn to another person who was also from that Vice
Speaker 2: documentary named Richard Bruce. He he's a guy who I
Speaker 2: believe was living out of his RV and he is
Speaker 2: describing his where he's lived over the course of several
Speaker 2: years in different places, those like apartments and you know,
Speaker 2: the car and where he's living now in the RV.
Speaker 2: All of these places were constantly surveilled by groups of
Speaker 2: people as well as by helicopters. Police helicopters that would
Speaker 2: fly over all the time law enforcement vehicles that would
Speaker 2: pass by his living spaces all the time. When he
Speaker 2: was being interviewed for this documentary, he had a small
Speaker 2: device next to him and I don't know if it
Speaker 2: was a radio or some kind of monitor or something,
Speaker 2: but when he would begin to talk about certain subjects
Speaker 2: or in certain ways, the device would make some noise,
Speaker 2: and he believed that he was being listened to by
Speaker 2: electronic surveillance, and specifically when he would bring up certain topics,
Speaker 2: that's when they were like recording or you know, established
Speaker 2: the connection or something like this.
Speaker 1: And he does a fantastic job, at least in this
Speaker 1: quotation or in this interview, showing metacognition right thinking about thinking.
Speaker 1: He's self aware, and he understands how this may to
Speaker 1: someone hearing about this for the first time. He understands
Speaker 1: how this may sound a little bit off kilter.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he says, it's confusing to humans trying to understand
Speaker 2: gang stalking. Why would they do this to me? Why
Speaker 2: would they do these weird, petty little things that may
Speaker 2: even just irritate me at some moment. This happens to
Speaker 2: you enough, believe me, you will feel stress. You will
Speaker 2: get that feeling of helplessness. This is not just like
Speaker 2: a gang of random people just doing this. This is procedural.
Speaker 2: If you were to ask me what gang stalking is,
Speaker 2: it's a way to slowly kill people using their own decisions.
Speaker 1: Which is fascinating, right, And from that interview, I think
Speaker 1: we can all feel the as if we're looking through
Speaker 1: a window into the hopelessness and the terror and anxiety
Speaker 1: of this person's life. If you want to read more
Speaker 1: of these personal accounts, which again are anecdotal and are
Speaker 1: not you know, they don't contribute to a quantitative study
Speaker 1: of any sort. But if you would like to read
Speaker 1: these first hand accounts, again without us being able to
Speaker 1: vouch for their veracity, we recommend heading toward reddit dot
Speaker 1: com are gang stalking reddit dot com slash are slash
Speaker 1: gang stalking all one word speaking words. We're going to
Speaker 1: pause for one from our sponsor, and when we come back,
Speaker 1: we're going to address the elephant in the room motive.
Speaker 1: We have returned. We hope that if you're listening to
Speaker 1: this show while you're in a public space, you are
Speaker 1: not getting increasingly weirded out. But there's a big problem
Speaker 1: they will see with a lot of these, Well, problem
Speaker 1: isn't the most accurate word. There is a big question
Speaker 1: that remains unasked, and a lot of these firsthand reports
Speaker 1: and a lot of the literature you will see about
Speaker 1: the concept of gang stalking, it is this why why
Speaker 1: would you do that? Right? Would you do it for
Speaker 1: just pure evil twisted recreation? You know? Is this a
Speaker 1: situation where Mission Control, Matt, you and I get together
Speaker 1: and we say, hey, you know, the four or five
Speaker 1: of us should just just find someone on Facebook who
Speaker 1: lives in our town and you know, just stalk them. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I just poke the bear, right, We're so tired of
Speaker 1: playing board games. Let's let's do something different with their friendship. Yes,
Speaker 1: which may have happened, but that doesn't seem like it
Speaker 1: would be the normal thing for people to do, not
Speaker 1: because people are inherently so great or noble, just because
Speaker 1: it feels like a lot of work for a lot
Speaker 1: of people unless they're getting something out of it. So
Speaker 1: another question, or another possible motive that we see cited
Speaker 1: a lot pretty often by people who believe they are
Speaker 1: being gang stalked is the idea that these activities are
Speaker 1: occurring at the behest of the US intelligence community. And
Speaker 1: this again goes to a lot of US reports. So
Speaker 1: there's a site called fight gang stalking dot com and
Speaker 1: according to you can tell from the title that to them,
Speaker 1: this is a legitimate, real phenomenon. And according to fight
Speaker 1: gang stalking dot com, gang stalking is quote most likely
Speaker 1: a disinformation term created by US intelligence agencies. It refers
Speaker 1: to the intense, long term, unconstitutional surveillance and harassment of
Speaker 1: a person who has been designated as a target by
Speaker 1: someone associated with America's security industry WHOA.
Speaker 2: And it goes on to say, quote, the goal of
Speaker 2: such operations, in the parlance of counterintel telligence agents, is
Speaker 2: disruption of the life of an individual deemed to be
Speaker 2: an enemy or potential enemy of clients or members of
Speaker 2: the security state. Arguably the most accurate term for this
Speaker 2: form of harassment would be counter intelligence stalking.
Speaker 1: So there's a problem here, though. The problem is this
Speaker 1: the tis or targeted individuals are rarely unified in what
Speaker 1: exactly caused them to be stalked. While it is absolutely,
Speaker 1: inarguably true that extensive and illegal surveillance has been used
Speaker 1: by past and current governments should not be a surprise
Speaker 1: to anybody, there's relatively little follow up reporting in these
Speaker 1: gang stalking stories, and there's relatively little coherent explanation for
Speaker 1: why these people would be driven to fearful actions or
Speaker 1: to mental instability, or at the worst, to self harm.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well you have to apply the motive problem then
Speaker 2: to the security state or to the intelligence agencies, right,
Speaker 2: what is their motive for targeting that individual?
Speaker 1: And then this goes to the trench coat clad, fedora
Speaker 1: wearing elephant in the room. Is this a genuine phenomenon
Speaker 1: occurring the way in which it's described and are the
Speaker 1: people experiencing it describing it accurately or are people some
Speaker 1: if not all, these people experiencing some kind of delusion.
Speaker 1: Not that that could be considered an offensive question, but
Speaker 1: it shouldn't be. It's a necessary question.
Speaker 2: Absolutely. If we're going to talk about this, we have
Speaker 2: to at least think about it.
Speaker 1: So what do we have to go on? Where can
Speaker 1: we look to for some answers like what even is?
Speaker 1: What do we mean when we say delusion?
Speaker 2: Well, let's jump back to that Vice documentary Again, huge
Speaker 2: shadow out to the team member's advice that created that documentary.
Speaker 2: It really is fantastic and there's a lot of insight
Speaker 2: here and things to think about to chew on philosophically.
Speaker 2: So they interviewed a fellow named Josh Basil or Bazell.
Speaker 2: He's a physician and an author, and he's discussing the
Speaker 2: psychiatric definitions of delusion, and he's saying that these tend
Speaker 2: to focus really on two principles. The first one is
Speaker 2: that the ideas, if you're at least if you're experiencing
Speaker 2: a delusion, the ideas that you have are not vulnerable
Speaker 2: to evidence. So if someone shows you look this thing,
Speaker 2: you believe it is not true. Because of this I
Speaker 2: have evidence, that wouldn't matter because you would still believe it. Okay.
Speaker 2: The other part of a delusion is that people in
Speaker 2: your immediate sphere of influence, perhaps the people in the
Speaker 2: culture at large, or in your town, or in the
Speaker 2: case of Billy b maybe the conservative neighborhood where he's
Speaker 2: move to. Those people don't share your beliefs, so they
Speaker 2: don't believe that what you believe is happening is true.
Speaker 2: That would be one of the ways we get to
Speaker 2: considering someone to have a delusion. Now, he goes on
Speaker 2: to say, the question becomes this is a full quote
Speaker 2: the question becomes, if you can find ten thousand people
Speaker 2: on the Internet who believe the same thing as you,
Speaker 2: is that then a delusion? Is it even bizarre? Quite
Speaker 2: possibly not if everybody believes this stuff at least, this
Speaker 2: would be the question you ask yourself as you stumble
Speaker 2: upon ten thousand other people that share your in this case,
Speaker 2: what he's calling a delusion, is it in any way insane?
Speaker 2: And the answer would be no, because it is not delusionable.
Speaker 2: Look at all these other people who are experiencing the
Speaker 2: same thing, and I think this is It's a fascinating
Speaker 2: way to look at it. Because then does it get
Speaker 2: into the realm of group delusion or is it still
Speaker 2: on the personal level of because it is a very
Speaker 2: personal experience. Gang stalking like the perception that I am
Speaker 2: being gang stocked. It is not as though gang stalkers
Speaker 2: are looking at my whole neighborhood or looking at my
Speaker 2: whole you know, cul de sac or whatever it may be.
Speaker 2: It's generally a targeted thing. That's why they are called
Speaker 2: targeted individuals. I don't know, it's a tough thing. It's
Speaker 2: a tough egg to crack there.
Speaker 1: For me, at least, it also goes into philosophy. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's really what the psychologist is doing here is looking
Speaker 1: at the problem of perception and reality.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, no, you're right.
Speaker 1: So that's that's a that's an egg that our species
Speaker 1: has yet to effectively crack. We know that things can
Speaker 1: become normalized for people at a cartoonishly quick rate. So
Speaker 1: we know that our concept of what normal is is
Speaker 1: very malleable, and we know that our species tends to
Speaker 1: look to anything we perceive as peers for confirmation of things.
Speaker 1: And also at the weirdest times, we're very talented and
Speaker 1: big up in each other. I mean, maybe that's just
Speaker 1: my experience, but I've had I've had some conversations with
Speaker 1: absolute strangers that confirm some deeply held quote unquote crazy
Speaker 1: things that I believe. You know, and having someone else,
Speaker 1: whether you meet them in person or whether they're just
Speaker 1: a block of text that you can assume is a
Speaker 1: person talking back to and confirming your beliefs. Having somebody
Speaker 1: else say that is a light in the darkness for
Speaker 1: a lot of people, you know what I mean. And
Speaker 1: that's a huge that's a huge thing. That's a trope
Speaker 1: in fiction, that's a common experience in individual reality to
Speaker 1: have someone else say something to you that lets you
Speaker 1: know I'm not the only one. We do that in
Speaker 1: the smallest, like the smallest, most seemingly insignificant situations, you know,
Speaker 1: like let's say you and I and Paul are like
Speaker 1: recording in a studio, Matt, and then all of a sudden,
Speaker 1: there's this weird you know, where'd you come from? Where'd
Speaker 1: you go? Where did you come from? Cotton Eye Joe.
Speaker 1: We look around and we check even thow and we're
Speaker 1: a relatively sane mental stuff arguably, but even we still check, like, Hey,
Speaker 1: does anybody here cotton eye Joe? Or is this finally
Speaker 1: that psychotic break that we all knew was coming? This?
Speaker 1: And I don't want to get too far off topic there,
Speaker 1: but I can see the power of that, certainly, and
Speaker 1: it's reinforcement all.
Speaker 2: The way, right.
Speaker 1: And then there's also set and setting, which I think
Speaker 1: continues in the quotation.
Speaker 2: Oh absolutely, And just before we jump into that bed,
Speaker 2: I want to talk about a concept of hypervigilance, and
Speaker 2: it's something that Josh brings up in that documentary, and
Speaker 2: it's the concept that for our own self preservation, if
Speaker 2: we are experiencing something or we believe we are experiencing something,
Speaker 2: we err on the side of safety for ourselves, for
Speaker 2: our personal safety, rather than on whatever the social morase
Speaker 2: would be, whatever the standard actions to take would be
Speaker 2: for someone. And it all occurs when there's a perceived
Speaker 2: connection that may or may not be there. So we're
Speaker 2: talking about seeing somebody walk by and then seeing that
Speaker 2: person maybe walk by again. The hypervigilance within a lot
Speaker 2: of people experiencing this would be, oh, that person may want,
Speaker 2: you know, maybe a part of this thing that I'm
Speaker 2: already feeling or already believe I'm experiencing, rather than perhaps
Speaker 2: that person went to go get you know, something down
Speaker 2: the street and then you didn't see them walk by,
Speaker 2: and now they're going back down again, or you know,
Speaker 2: something to that effect. But ultimately, what this is or
Speaker 2: what that means is that people experiencing this are going
Speaker 2: to be more hyper aware of things like that because
Speaker 2: they are so worried about their own safety already because
Speaker 2: of the anxieties that are brought up by feeling this way.
Speaker 2: It's almost like it just builds on itself. So then
Speaker 2: Josh goes on to talk about how there are real
Speaker 2: world instances of surveillance, either targeted or mass surveillance, that
Speaker 2: maybe we should be worried about that are They are
Speaker 2: very much real, They've been proven, they exist around us
Speaker 2: every day. And I'll just read this quick quote from you,
Speaker 2: he says, because this reminds me of stuff they want
Speaker 2: you to know. He says, given that the world is
Speaker 2: filled with groups of people operating in secret or trying
Speaker 2: to to divorce us from our money, our power, or
Speaker 2: whatever they want from us, one thing that might be
Speaker 2: helpful to ask from a psychiatric point of view is
Speaker 2: what's wrong with the rest of us? Why am I
Speaker 2: so relaxed? What's wrong with me? Why don't I feel
Speaker 2: like I'm being gang stocked? Is it that I'm living
Speaker 2: in the matrix where in order to feel more comfortable,
Speaker 2: I've decided to ignore a lot of the evils in
Speaker 2: the world and a lot of the potential threats to me.
Speaker 2: And there he's referencing the NSA's mass surveillance of citizens
Speaker 2: within the United States. He's referencing other countries such as
Speaker 2: the UK and England over there where you know, they're
Speaker 2: the most CCTV cameras per capita anywhere on the planets.
Speaker 2: He's mentioning that this stuff is very real, and why
Speaker 2: aren't more of us worried about that kind of thing?
Speaker 2: If you apply more general sense, what these people who
Speaker 2: believe they're targeted of individuals are feeling to on a
Speaker 2: mass level, let's say that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So let's spend just a second on that concept,
Speaker 1: because it's the other side of that coin, right, It's
Speaker 1: the other side of the argument. If you feel like
Speaker 1: you are being gang stocked, and then you go somewhere
Speaker 1: and you find ten thousand other people to say, yes,
Speaker 1: it's true, then how are you supposed to feel if
Speaker 1: you don't believe you're being gang stalked, and then you're
Speaker 1: surrounded by people who are saying, yeah, no, it's true.
Speaker 1: It's they're out for all of us. Why are you
Speaker 1: so chill? What is wrong with you?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 1: It's an interesting question because it hits on that It
Speaker 1: hits on that need for consensus that is just baked
Speaker 1: into every human mind. I want to go back to
Speaker 1: the concept of hypervigilant because it's another concept that is
Speaker 1: baked into the human mind, and that is a pattern
Speaker 1: must exist. Yes, and so much so many of our
Speaker 1: even relatively mundane activities, especially our observations, there's this little
Speaker 1: voice in her head. May not be able to hear
Speaker 1: it all the time because it's tough for us to
Speaker 1: listen to ourselves, but the little voice in your head
Speaker 1: is always going A pattern must exist, A pattern must exist, right,
Speaker 1: and this is a crucial skill. We have to have
Speaker 1: it to survive in the world. Ever since we were
Speaker 1: not the Apex predator and we were running around trying
Speaker 1: to figure out what our A to b's and if
Speaker 1: then's were that would keep us alive for the next day.
Speaker 1: So arguably hypervigilance is just a reflection of that, or
Speaker 1: just an extension of that much needed survival skill. Now,
Speaker 1: if it sounds like we're poking whole in the experience
Speaker 1: of gang stalking, that's because we are asking important questions
Speaker 1: that haven't been answered. It's not necessarily uniform motive. There's
Speaker 1: not necessarily a lot of follow up. Right. There aren't
Speaker 1: very many good stats on the phenomenon known as gang stalking.
Speaker 1: But speaking of the other side of the coin, there
Speaker 1: are things that are like it that are proven. The
Speaker 1: reality of government in corporate surveillance. According to the ACLU,
Speaker 1: privacy today faces growing threats from a growing surveillance apparatus.
Speaker 1: It's often justified in the name of one of our
Speaker 1: favorite boogeymen, national security. You can do it in a
Speaker 1: spooky voice. A ton of government agencies I'm paraphrasing. Now,
Speaker 1: they didn't say a ton a ton of government agencies
Speaker 1: from like the NSA, the FBI, Department of Homeland Security,
Speaker 1: and so on, along with state and local law enforcement,
Speaker 1: intrude on the private communication of innocent citizens, and they
Speaker 1: amass great databases of who we talk to or interact
Speaker 1: with and when we do, and then catalogs suspicious activities
Speaker 1: based on very very vague standards. We've talked already about
Speaker 1: big data. We've talked about the strange what's that? What's
Speaker 1: that game? People who like celebrities play six six Degrees
Speaker 1: of Kevin Bacon. Yes, that's that's how Uncle Sam traces
Speaker 1: terrorist activities. Yeah, you know, associates, right known associates, which
Speaker 1: extends further and further out. Similar to the DPRK's policy
Speaker 1: of intergenerational punishment. Oh boy, except now you're it's now
Speaker 1: the laws don't apply to you the same way. If
Speaker 1: a guy you knew in college met somebody and became
Speaker 1: Facebook friends with them and then they later tried to
Speaker 1: join isis you know what I mean? And the argument
Speaker 1: there is that that is that hoover vacuum approach to
Speaker 1: data and personal information is the best way to prevent
Speaker 1: a future catastrophe, and that is I mean, that argument
Speaker 1: does have some sand, but it also it's tough to prove.
Speaker 1: It's like the old time travel problem. Like you if
Speaker 1: you went back in time and you killed Hitler when
Speaker 1: Hitler was a kid.
Speaker 2: Or something, Yeah, I remember doing that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, no one, No one would know that. No one
Speaker 1: would know that you prevented him from playing a part
Speaker 1: in World War two because no one would know about
Speaker 1: World War two. You would have killed a child as
Speaker 1: far as everyone was concerned, So you have committed a
Speaker 1: great sin. We can't prove to people. It's hard to
Speaker 1: prove to people that we prevented something from happening when
Speaker 1: we do it in such a way that it never happened. WHOA,
Speaker 1: I know. Sorry, it's virgin into philosophy, but it's it's
Speaker 1: an argument that we hear pretty often, and it's a
Speaker 1: fascinating argument. But the truth is, these standards are very vague,
Speaker 1: and we know that surveillance has been abused in the past.
Speaker 1: Co intel was is real, right, It certainly was. It
Speaker 1: certainly was. Let's put that is in parentheses with a
Speaker 1: question mark. Multiple government agencies have in the past monitored
Speaker 1: and harassed civilians, even those not suspected of committing a crime.
Speaker 1: We just don't like what this person is doing to
Speaker 1: the status quote, we don't like what they're protesting. Let's
Speaker 1: keep an eye on them.
Speaker 2: We don't like the potential movement of society of this
Speaker 2: person is let to be successful.
Speaker 1: Right exactly. And today's episode has been, you know, necessarily
Speaker 1: US centric because these we were able to find some
Speaker 1: of the best stats on, you know, on orthodox stalking,
Speaker 1: and then we were able to find a lot of
Speaker 1: information on gang stalking. But this is by no means
Speaker 1: a phenomenon solely reported in the US. The United Kingdom
Speaker 1: has a fair share of people who believe they are
Speaker 1: being gang stalked or they are targeted individuals. And additionally,
Speaker 1: it is absolutely true, absolutely irrefutably true, that other repressive
Speaker 1: governments do have stuff like this happening. They have secret police,
Speaker 1: there's security agents. You're a journalist in a particularly oppressive country, yeah,
Speaker 1: you're gonna be followed. You might. I mean it's not
Speaker 1: It might for you and them. It might not even
Speaker 1: be surreptitious. You might land at the airport they do
Speaker 1: allow you in, and they say, okay, you're gonna hang
Speaker 1: with these two people the entirety, and they're gonna drive.
Speaker 2: It's for your safety.
Speaker 1: It's for your safety and for our national security. This
Speaker 1: also applies to opposition politicians, activist right, somebody fight for
Speaker 1: a particular type of human rights that the government would
Speaker 1: rather not have members of non state approved religions like
Speaker 1: this stuff happens.
Speaker 2: You know, I don't want to pile on here as though, like,
Speaker 2: oh this is all real. There's so much oppression to
Speaker 2: our privacy and our security, but you know, we willingly
Speaker 2: let this stuff, especially the corporate kind nowadays, directly into
Speaker 2: our home. We have whole episodes on this about the
Speaker 2: smart assistant that maybe you're listening to this through. Maybe
Speaker 2: it's just a couple of the apps within your phone
Speaker 2: where you store all your email, but it's a company,
Speaker 2: a corporation, the third party from you that is controlling
Speaker 2: all of that stuff. The social media posts that you
Speaker 2: make every day of where you are and what you're doing,
Speaker 2: and the you know, think about that, like establishing patterns.
Speaker 2: We're doing that every day. That's what we do, and
Speaker 2: we just let it out into the world, not only
Speaker 2: for the corporation but for anybody else who cares to
Speaker 2: watch or listen. And it also doesn't help, by the way,
Speaker 2: that there are commercial applications out there that will do
Speaker 2: the things that people are the most terrified about. Ooh,
Speaker 2: do tell like a what's it called m spy and
Speaker 2: flexy spy or two. There's just two of them. But
Speaker 2: these are two available things applications that can be added
Speaker 2: on to your device, whatever it is. And one of
Speaker 2: them only takes a few minutes. Another one takes about
Speaker 2: an hour to fully install. Because you have some of them,
Speaker 2: you have to like jail break phone or whatever your
Speaker 2: device is it. Yeah, but if some of them you
Speaker 2: can just if let's just say I was able to
Speaker 2: get hold of Paul's phone for a few minutes while
Speaker 2: he went to the bathroom or something.
Speaker 1: And you were able to get past the security code.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, but specifically in people who are worried about stalking,
Speaker 2: if you're talking about your significant other or someone who
Speaker 2: maybe does know the codes to your phone or something,
Speaker 2: it can be installed like that. Then you can access
Speaker 2: their email, their texts, there, insta feed there, you know,
Speaker 2: blah blah blah blah blah. Whatever it is. It's terrifying
Speaker 2: that that's out there. Don't let people touch your phone, man,
Speaker 2: I mean that's the.
Speaker 1: Rule, yes, and it's it's all true, and it can
Speaker 1: easily be abused. There's another thing. We just had it
Speaker 1: in the notes as.
Speaker 2: Oh oh and one more thing. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1: You didn't want to spoil the surprise. So this sounds
Speaker 1: pretty sci fi. I don't want to hear whether anyone
Speaker 1: else has heard of this, but a lot of people
Speaker 1: own smart TVs right now.
Speaker 2: Right, yeah, you may not even be aware that it's
Speaker 2: a smart.
Speaker 1: TV, right, Maybe a smart TV playing dumb and you
Speaker 1: can tie your phone or you can you know, pair
Speaker 1: your phone to the television and things of that nature.
Speaker 1: It turns out that the technology exists such that a
Speaker 1: smart TV. There's certain types of TVs when they are
Speaker 1: playing commercials, will send an audio signal out. It's not
Speaker 1: an audio signal you can hear. If you have pets,
Speaker 1: good for you, they probably can't hear it either, but
Speaker 1: your smart devices can. And through this, through this relay
Speaker 1: this ping. You know. Of course, one of the big
Speaker 1: gets is that advertisers know someone's in the room when
Speaker 1: the ad is playing. And that's big. Someone's actually seen
Speaker 1: the thing.
Speaker 2: They can prove it, or maybe even how many.
Speaker 1: And maybe even who. So the data is, you know,
Speaker 1: anonymized or whatever. But this this means that for people
Speaker 1: who are dismissing the idea of gang stocking, don't dismiss
Speaker 1: the idea of surveillance that you cannot perceive. It's there,
Speaker 1: it's real, you know, there are It's not like there's
Speaker 1: one shadowy cabal that knows a ton of stuff about
Speaker 1: you that you thought was secret. And it's not like
Speaker 1: you're doing anything bad. It's more like there are a
Speaker 1: bunch of people who are trying to figure out how
Speaker 1: best to predict your behavior in such a way that
Speaker 1: they can monetize your behavior or at the very sith
Speaker 1: end of the spectrum, push you to make decisions that
Speaker 1: you might not have ordinarily made. That's real. That's not
Speaker 1: a theory. Instead of a theory, it's a huge business.
Speaker 1: If you'd If you'd like to learn more about some
Speaker 1: of this, check out article in New York Times, How
Speaker 1: Smart TVs and millions of US homes track more than
Speaker 1: what's on tonight. That's just an opening to the rabbit hole,
Speaker 1: and then burrow in and tell us what you think.
Speaker 1: And speaking of what you think. Got to say this
Speaker 1: leads us some of the key issues with the concept
Speaker 1: of gang stalking. Number One, Government surveillance, at least here
Speaker 1: in the US is typically intended to be invisible. That
Speaker 1: does not apply to every other country. I don't know
Speaker 1: whether it's still the case somebody mainland China tell me,
Speaker 1: but for a long time, if you were using the
Speaker 1: Internet like you're in an Internet cafe in China when
Speaker 1: we talked about this on previous episode, every so often
Speaker 1: there will be a cute little cartoon police officer that
Speaker 1: comes on just to let you know that the government
Speaker 1: is monitoring your Internet usage for your safety, to keep
Speaker 1: you safe, you know, national security, et cetera. The concept
Speaker 1: of gag stalking argues that targeted individuals are very much
Speaker 1: aware of the situation and being and having your target
Speaker 1: be very much aware of the situation in normal stalking
Speaker 1: surveillance stuff or in normal surveillance at least, renders that
Speaker 1: surveillance ineffective because it changes the behavior of a target,
Speaker 1: you know, like how observing things can change their behavior.
Speaker 1: So wait, we might rightly say, isn't the point of
Speaker 1: this not to observe someone and gather info, but to
Speaker 1: interfere with their sanity, waging psyops to gaslight them and
Speaker 1: maybe even drive them to suicide. Sure, but there's a
Speaker 1: problem with that claim too.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, we know we have proof that the government,
Speaker 2: at least in this country, and intelligence agencies that are
Speaker 2: just arms of that government, have at least in the past,
Speaker 2: done a lot more than gang stocking to terrify and
Speaker 2: seek vengeance against people that they perceive at least as threats.
Speaker 2: We know that for sure. So I mean we have
Speaker 2: to ask ourselves, like, why would a government agency with
Speaker 2: the ability to literally disappear somebody it's happened before, it's happening,
Speaker 2: I don't know if it is. It's probably happening now
Speaker 2: or next week, at least could it could happen. Why
Speaker 2: would they bother to just annoy somebody? Why would they
Speaker 2: do this kind of strategy that is so long term,
Speaker 2: with so many resources, as you said earlier, that would
Speaker 2: be required to do it to a target like some
Speaker 2: of the people who believe they're being targeted.
Speaker 1: Right, Yeah, if you can just grab a mouse and
Speaker 1: snap its neck, why would you play a game of
Speaker 1: mouse trap? Why would you have this Rube Goldberg esque thing.
Speaker 1: It could be. I'd heard some people say it is
Speaker 1: psychological experiment, similar to some of that MK ultra stuff.
Speaker 1: But still it's something that we would have to explain.
Speaker 1: It's a question you have to answer. If you think
Speaker 1: state supported intelligence agencies are just lightly in person stalking
Speaker 1: someone in a way that is meant for that person
Speaker 1: to be aware of, That's that's tough. It's tough to
Speaker 1: answer that.
Speaker 2: Now. No, look before we completely discount gangstocking, maybe you
Speaker 2: are feeling that way as we're you know, talking about
Speaker 2: all of this, which we are not saying that. So
Speaker 2: if you if that's you're feeling right now, just remember
Speaker 2: that if you or someone else truly wants to reach
Speaker 2: someone that believes they are being gang stoked, and you know,
Speaker 2: even if you if it's your intention is to tell them, look,
Speaker 2: it's okay, it's not real, or something like that, the
Speaker 2: one of the worst things you can do is make
Speaker 2: someone to feel as though they are crazy.
Speaker 1: Right, It's very unproductive.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, so I would say an avenue, you know, and
Speaker 2: this is actually stated in the Vice documentary that we
Speaker 2: keep referencing the avenue rather should be why why do
Speaker 2: you feel like you are worth you know, being persecuted?
Speaker 2: What's happened to you? What's troubling you? You know, like
Speaker 2: that very personal like, let's let's talk about that, Let's
Speaker 2: talk about those issues, let's start working through those because
Speaker 2: the perceived persecution, maybe from the outside perhaps is a
Speaker 2: factor of that other thing. Just just putting that out
Speaker 2: there for anybody who's extremely skeptical of this.
Speaker 1: And what do you think. Do you feel like you
Speaker 1: have encountered something like this in your own life or
Speaker 1: you know what, do you want to join a protest
Speaker 1: supporting targeted individuals? Because if you have, my good pal
Speaker 1: Matt has actually found one. Is that correct?
Speaker 2: Yeah, there's a website called targetedjusice dot com. If you
Speaker 2: head over there, you can learn about the October protest.
Speaker 2: It's they're calling it the Targeted Protest twenty nineteen. It's
Speaker 2: going to run in Washington, d C. From October eighteenth
Speaker 2: this year until the twenty second, and it's a registration
Speaker 2: is thirty five dollars. If you do want to register
Speaker 2: and go. But but but what do you get a
Speaker 2: T shirt?
Speaker 1: You do get a T shirt.
Speaker 2: It's a free T shirt.
Speaker 1: I don't think you should call it a free T shirt.
Speaker 2: It's a thirty five people. It's a twenty five dollars
Speaker 2: T shirt with a ten dollars registration.
Speaker 1: It's a complementary valet. Valet is complementary if you are
Speaker 1: a jerk and don't tip.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's true. But anyway, it exists out there, and
Speaker 2: there are advocates for you. If you believe you are
Speaker 2: a targeted individual, you can you can find groups online
Speaker 2: and maybe even go to targetedusice dot com. And I'm
Speaker 2: fairly certain I saw several resources there and you can follow.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and to be clear, I'm making a cheapskate joke
Speaker 1: about the T shirt stuff. Registration for protests and these
Speaker 1: kind of organizations typically just goes to keep the organization running.
Speaker 2: Yes, we're wholeheartedly joking.
Speaker 1: It's but one thing we're serious about. Before we tell
Speaker 1: you all the ways to find us on the internet
Speaker 1: and talk to us and we hope that you engage
Speaker 1: in one of those platforms with us, before we get
Speaker 1: to that part, we have to tell you the most
Speaker 1: important part of this episode, the thing we absolutely one
Speaker 1: one hundred one percent will never joke about. If you
Speaker 1: believe that you are a victim of stalking, doesn't matter
Speaker 1: whether it's from a gang, a significant other, romantic partner, anyone.
Speaker 1: There are resources, there are people, there are services out
Speaker 1: there that will help you. You're not hopeless, you're not isolated.
Speaker 1: You don't have to be alone in this and a
Speaker 1: solution exists.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you can. You can check out the Stalking Prevention
Speaker 2: Awareness and Resource Center. There is a Victim connect line there.
Speaker 2: It is one eight five five four eight four two
Speaker 2: eight four six. You can also check out Safe Horizon.
Speaker 2: They also have a hotline that is available twenty four
Speaker 2: hours a day, seven days a week, and that number
Speaker 2: is one eight six six six eight nine four three
Speaker 2: five seven.
Speaker 1: And that's our classic episode for this evening. We can't
Speaker 1: wait to hear your thoughts, right, let us know what
Speaker 1: you think. You can reach you to the handle Conspiracy
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