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Speaker 1: Hello, welcome back to the show. My name is Matt,

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Speaker 1: my name is Noa.

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Speaker 2: They called me Ben.

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Speaker 3: We're joined as always with our super producer Paul Mission

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Speaker 3: Control Decant. Most importantly, you are you. You are here.

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Speaker 3: That makes this the stuff they don't want you to know.

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Speaker 3: But hold the phone, pause your tentacles, folks. Yeah, this

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Speaker 3: is an episode that's a little bit different from what

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Speaker 3: we usually do. This is the return of stuff they

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Speaker 3: don't want you to know presents.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, we're presenting a really special episode today of a

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Speaker 1: show called The Passage. This is a show you can

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Speaker 1: go you can go find it right now wherever you

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Speaker 1: listen to your podcast. We highly recommend you subscribe and

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Speaker 1: listen to the other episodes because this is just one

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Speaker 1: in a very long series.

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Speaker 4: Of Oh it's an anthology right well, And you might

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Speaker 4: be asking yourself what the connection to the stuff that

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Speaker 4: I want you to know presents that I know and

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Speaker 4: love from the past, And we'll tell you it's because

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Speaker 4: much like most, if not all of those, the episode

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Speaker 4: that we're about to present to you was written by

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Speaker 4: other than Ben Bolin. They call him that, and he's

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Speaker 4: a fantastic writer of fiction as well as being a

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Speaker 4: conspiracy realist like the rest of us.

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Speaker 2: But yeah, then the production, sound design, all of it

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Speaker 2: top notch, just like what you're used to with the

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Speaker 2: shows that we've put out in the past under this banner.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, this is a co creation of our pals, Dan

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Speaker 3: Bush and Nick Takowski. This is also executive produced by

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Speaker 3: none other than the Man the myth Legend, mister Matt Frederick.

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Speaker 3: There he is, Yeah, there he is.

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Speaker 5: He's right here.

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Speaker 3: And we also have some real heavy hitter actors in this.

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Speaker 3: But I think we thought this would be interesting because

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Speaker 3: the passage asked the question what happens to historical figures

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Speaker 3: when they traverse the Mortal Veil when they joined the

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Speaker 3: Great Majority?

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Speaker 1: What happens with Oh yeah, And in the story, you're

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Speaker 1: basically you've basically got the ferryman right for mythology, the

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Speaker 1: ferryman that takes you across the river. And in order

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Speaker 1: to pay this ferryman, each individual person who dies has

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Speaker 1: to give their story. That's all it is. That's the payment, right,

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Speaker 1: let me tell you what happened in my life. And

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Speaker 1: in this show, the Ferryman is always played by an

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Speaker 1: amazing actor named Dan Fogler who you'd probably know him

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Speaker 1: from Fantastic Beasts or the Web, that JK. Rowling series,

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Speaker 1: and he's just got an amazing crazy voice you're not

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Speaker 1: gonna believe when you hear it. But we've also got

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Speaker 1: an awesome actor, Stuart Skelton playing our main character in

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Speaker 1: this episode. Who is it?

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Speaker 5: J Edgar Hoover? You know him? You know him?

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Speaker 6: Uh?

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Speaker 5: This is this?

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Speaker 6: You know?

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Speaker 3: This is a peak behind the curtain.

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Speaker 5: Folks.

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Speaker 3: We are big, big fans of the show. Every episode

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Speaker 3: that's come out as a banger. We thought this would,

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Speaker 3: in particular, would be of interest to you because it

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Speaker 3: kind of gives you a peek behind the curtain into

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Speaker 3: our mutual thought process. If you ever asked yourself, why

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Speaker 3: are these guys talking about satellites so much? Or what

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Speaker 3: is this weird obsession with space fungus? The answer is

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Speaker 3: we were working on this.

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Speaker 1: Well, let's not give any spoilers before we listen to

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Speaker 1: this episode, so please check it out and then we'll

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Speaker 1: return after you've experienced it.

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Speaker 6: I am they're very man.

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Speaker 7: The human spirit is my business. Their madness, their passion,

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Speaker 7: the wonderful and monstrous ways they burn out their brief candle.

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Speaker 5: I regret to tell you that very many American.

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Speaker 8: Lives in love.

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Speaker 1: What bird to out from the car.

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Speaker 5: He's dead, whether he president or.

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Speaker 6: Not yet known.

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Speaker 3: Four hours people must get up and identification design.

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Speaker 8: I'm here in the in between to collect their spirits

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Speaker 8: and carry them to what comes next.

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Speaker 7: This road is.

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Speaker 5: Not on any map.

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Speaker 8: It spans the thresholds between their most forbidden desires and.

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Speaker 7: Their greatest fear. All I ask for in payment is

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Speaker 7: a tale and accounting of their lives and the great

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Speaker 7: temporary that is the land of the These are their stories.

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Speaker 7: This is.

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Speaker 6: The passage.

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Speaker 7: It's the morning of May second, nineteen seven. I need

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Speaker 7: to a pleasant, crisp spring day in.

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Speaker 6: Washington, DC.

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Speaker 8: Yeah, that's a cloudless blue sky.

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Speaker 7: To defeat an invisible monster. My next passenger became the monster.

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Speaker 7: It was in his DNA, after all, in the very

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Speaker 7: code of his nation. America was born out of resistance,

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Speaker 7: resistance to tyranny, having suffered that of a king. But

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Speaker 7: it took no time for the defenders to become tyrants themselves.

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Speaker 7: Oppression is the byproduct of fear, a force perhaps more

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Speaker 7: dangerous than any ideology or any public enemy. Fear that's

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Speaker 7: an infectious paranoia that in America led to a government

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Speaker 7: terrified by its own citizens. My next passenger, j Edgar Hoover,

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Speaker 7: built an army to spy on those citizens, an entire

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Speaker 7: agency and behavior spies and thought police. He was brought

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Speaker 7: up here at the heart of this modern world, born

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Speaker 7: on January the first, eighteen ninety five, as if created divinely,

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Speaker 7: chosen for a purpose. He believed himself to be a

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Speaker 7: great defender of the American way. Well, perhaps he was,

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Speaker 7: but that way has frequently been fraught with self sabotage.

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Speaker 7: His infectious brand of paranoia permeated the whole of American life.

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Speaker 7: His suspicious mind saw a great many threats on the

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Speaker 7: map where.

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Speaker 8: His actions justified. What secrets did he protect in life?

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Speaker 8: And what truth has he taken with him into death?

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Speaker 6: Yeah?

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Speaker 5: Who or what are you?

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Speaker 7: I'm here to provide you passing.

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Speaker 6: Oh?

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Speaker 5: I see, it was my heart, wasn't it. It was

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Speaker 5: only a matter of time. I suppose I gave my

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Speaker 5: heart to my country day in and day out, over

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Speaker 5: and over, protecting it from a world of invisible, insidious

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Speaker 5: threats hiding in the dark, protecting it more than once

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Speaker 5: from itself. It puts a strain on you.

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Speaker 8: I'd be delighted to hear all about it this way. Please,

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Speaker 8: where are we going? Well, that's to be determined.

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Speaker 5: What do you want to know?

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Speaker 7: Just the truth, the truth, your truth? Please go on.

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Speaker 5: Most people can't be trusted with the truth. No, some

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Speaker 5: one must guard that flame. You have to control the narratives.

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Speaker 5: See otherwise the sacred flame is snuffed and the battle

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Speaker 5: is lost before it has even begun. The truth is

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Speaker 5: more valuable and precious than life itself. Did I break laws, perhaps,

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Speaker 5: but only in pursuit of a greater good hum probable cause.

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Speaker 5: That's the achilles heel of this great nation. To combat

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Speaker 5: the true evil of this world, one must evolve beyond

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Speaker 5: the constraints the masters of this world would impose. Public

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Speaker 5: ideas of good and bad are at best in plate rationalizations.

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Speaker 5: While they may seem solid enough in the light of day,

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Speaker 5: they are no use beyond the light, in that great

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Speaker 5: darkness with a monster's hide. They, the public and my enemies,

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Speaker 5: called me paranoid. They said I was jumping at shadows,

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Speaker 5: and in a very real way, they were each correct.

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Speaker 5: They slept and woke from one day to the next,

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Speaker 5: and I kept them safe even as they fought tooth

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Speaker 5: and claw for information they could never fully understand. There

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Speaker 5: have always been threats, you see, far beyond the assassins

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Speaker 5: or the gangsters, far beyond the reds, far beyond the

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Speaker 5: hippies and the agitators and the bumbling spies, threats even

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Speaker 5: worse than the bomb. For no sense in standing on ceremony,

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Speaker 5: Let's be off. Oh right, you want to know the truth,

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Speaker 5: that's my price. Fine, I'll tell you a secret, perhaps

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Speaker 5: the singular great secret. The monsters are real, thank you?

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Speaker 5: So this is it? Then the car where they shot him.

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Speaker 5: You know, I never liked Kennedy. His soul had an

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Speaker 5: odd shape, all hard in the wrong places, all soft

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Speaker 5: in the places that matter. But if, as you said,

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Speaker 5: now is the time for confessions, my friend, I confess

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Speaker 5: I have always wanted to ride in this car. I've

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Speaker 5: seen it before, who hasn't, the slick blue Lincoln Continental

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Speaker 5: nineteen sixty one. Never thought myself much of a car man,

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Speaker 5: but all things considered, it's nice to ride like a president.

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Speaker 5: Just once. Here we are at the end, and I

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Speaker 5: must be dead, and so what it's odd in life?

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Speaker 5: I never confessed I was an emperor of the dark.

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Speaker 5: And it was everyone else who, by hook or by crook,

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Speaker 5: came within my domain and confessed their sins to me.

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Speaker 5: Worried just came to us a minute ago. President Kennedy

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Speaker 5: is dead. He was shot and assassined at the intersection

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Speaker 5: of Ellman Street. Oh, turn it off. He wasn't the

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Speaker 5: first US president gun down ell He wasn't the first

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Speaker 5: gun down in this century. The first in this century

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Speaker 5: was done in by a goddamned anarchist. I was just

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Speaker 5: a boy when it happened, and I've been at war

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Speaker 5: with radicals ever since. Did I want Kennedy dead? Of

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Speaker 5: course I wanted him out of the office, one way

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Speaker 5: or another. I had been director of the FBI since

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Speaker 5: that idiot wore short pants. But I did not see

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Speaker 5: him as some grand nemesis. He was an annoyance, a buffoon,

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Speaker 5: strolling late on the stage long after the great tale began.

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Speaker 5: Now his father, Joe, there's a man for you. He

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Speaker 5: understood the red threat, but his coddled sons were too

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Speaker 5: busy fucking their way through the society pages to bother

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Speaker 5: with the business of leadership. Am I glad he died?

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Speaker 5: You're asking? Yes, Yes, I suppose I am, but only

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Speaker 5: in the way you'd be happy a neighbor's dog died

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Speaker 5: if the neighbor let the dog bark at all hours

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Speaker 5: of the night. And so we held the funeral and

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Speaker 5: went about the business of grown men, keeping our fragile

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Speaker 5: American experiment afloat. This wasn't my first presidential burial. One

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Speaker 5: grows inured to such things after a time, and we

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Speaker 5: had bigger concerns in the pageantry of presidents, those come

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Speaker 5: and go that keep the American public in their place,

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Speaker 5: content distracted. The idea of a president allows the lower

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Speaker 5: classes a sense of participation, and with rare exception, that

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Speaker 5: is all a president should or can do. The real work,

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Speaker 5: the true leavers of power, those are not for the

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Speaker 5: common I do know why he died, why he had

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Speaker 5: to be removed from the board. By that point, i'd

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Speaker 5: say all of us did. I may never be sure

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Speaker 5: who did it, but I do know why the events transpired.

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Speaker 5: There is a a war, you could call it a

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Speaker 5: secret conflict, one that began far before my time, perhaps

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Speaker 5: before the time of modern man entirely, and this war

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Speaker 5: continuous to day. The poor all fail a lap Oh, no,

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Speaker 5: my friend, no, before that, I about, yes, our greatest failure,

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Speaker 5: the first man in space is Soviet. God, are the

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Speaker 5: Red's crowed? We almost went public with all their earlier failures.

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Speaker 5: It would have been more accurate for them to say

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Speaker 5: the Gagarum boy became the first man to reach space.

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Speaker 5: In return, and this still would not have been entirely

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Speaker 5: the truth. The Soviets had that hammer on their flag

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Speaker 5: for a reason. From their perspective, every problem looked like

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Speaker 5: a nail since the days of their first empires. They

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Speaker 5: knew they had only two resources, their vast wastes of

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Speaker 5: geography and a surplus of people. And that is not

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Speaker 5: a condemnation. In fact, I would say this is the

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Speaker 5: genius of the Soviet mind. One almost has to envy them,

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Speaker 5: and I grant them no small measure of grudging respect

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Speaker 5: in this regard. Where we in the West hold countless

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Speaker 5: meetings and debates and protests and polls, the Soviet throws

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Speaker 5: bodies at the problem. From the Ottomans to Napoleon, from

221
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Speaker 5: Curse to Stalingrad. The Russians never shied from giving the

222
00:18:03,960 --> 00:18:11,719
Speaker 5: butcher its duw. I would never say that publicly, of course,

223
00:18:12,800 --> 00:18:15,160
Speaker 5: Yet we owe much of the modern world to their

224
00:18:15,240 --> 00:18:19,760
Speaker 5: unspeakable capacity for sacrifice. We in the West pay for

225
00:18:19,880 --> 00:18:24,000
Speaker 5: our sins in gold and treasure. The Soviet, the Russian,

226
00:18:24,800 --> 00:18:31,640
Speaker 5: as always and only paid in blood. So it would

227
00:18:31,680 --> 00:18:34,479
Speaker 5: come as no surprise they did the same when we

228
00:18:34,560 --> 00:18:38,160
Speaker 5: finally set our sights upon the stars, and we spent

229
00:18:38,240 --> 00:18:40,480
Speaker 5: a great deal of time covering for them in those

230
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Speaker 5: early days. That might sound odd, no, given how we

231
00:18:45,280 --> 00:18:48,200
Speaker 5: all fought with such desperation to helm the wheel of power.

232
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Speaker 5: But let me tell you this, Ferryman. Secrecy, secrecy, and

233
00:18:54,320 --> 00:19:00,000
Speaker 5: revelation are addictive. Learning one's secret only accelerates the effort

234
00:19:00,160 --> 00:19:04,920
Speaker 5: to learn the next, and eventually, inexorably, that addiction leads

235
00:19:04,960 --> 00:19:11,760
Speaker 5: to ruin. We listen, we learn, We use. We weaponized

236
00:19:11,760 --> 00:19:15,280
Speaker 5: our knowledge then, as now to our advantage we knew

237
00:19:15,280 --> 00:19:17,960
Speaker 5: we must. It would, after all, have been naive to

238
00:19:18,000 --> 00:19:21,920
Speaker 5: assume others were not doing the same. I already possessed

239
00:19:21,920 --> 00:19:25,000
Speaker 5: the libraries and the post I had the finger prints

240
00:19:25,040 --> 00:19:27,080
Speaker 5: and the telephone records, and a vision of a world

241
00:19:27,119 --> 00:19:31,160
Speaker 5: wherein every person, American or not, would submit their secrets

242
00:19:31,160 --> 00:19:35,040
Speaker 5: to me, such that I could further protect them from themselves.

243
00:19:35,920 --> 00:19:40,119
Speaker 5: I suppose this may seem small to you, But you

244
00:19:40,240 --> 00:19:45,840
Speaker 5: must understand control is more than a lock. It is

245
00:19:45,880 --> 00:19:50,400
Speaker 5: also a key. We sought and seek to build not

246
00:19:50,480 --> 00:19:54,119
Speaker 5: only the door knob, but the door itself, the house

247
00:19:54,160 --> 00:19:57,000
Speaker 5: in which the door is held, the world upon which

248
00:19:57,000 --> 00:20:00,480
Speaker 5: that house is built. In this, at least, those who

249
00:20:00,520 --> 00:20:14,840
Speaker 5: come after me will find further success. They must. We

250
00:20:14,960 --> 00:20:19,600
Speaker 5: had made certain breakthroughs in this endeavor, and even then

251
00:20:20,240 --> 00:20:26,840
Speaker 5: our eyes extended across the globe. We encountered strange, disturbing wonders.

252
00:20:27,640 --> 00:20:36,000
Speaker 5: I witnessed infernal, inexplicable things. Our sources indicated that during

253
00:20:36,040 --> 00:20:39,399
Speaker 5: the years leading up to Gagarin's flight, fully half of

254
00:20:39,440 --> 00:20:43,040
Speaker 5: all the Red Space launches met with failure, usually on

255
00:20:43,119 --> 00:20:47,679
Speaker 5: the launch powder within seconds after ignition. This reminded me

256
00:20:47,720 --> 00:20:50,479
Speaker 5: of a game my Soviet counterparts played during the Wars.

257
00:20:51,320 --> 00:20:55,199
Speaker 5: They crouched in bunkers, surrounded by enemies and horror, and

258
00:20:55,280 --> 00:20:58,080
Speaker 5: they knew surviving the bombs would only consign them to

259
00:20:58,160 --> 00:21:04,399
Speaker 5: the slower death of starvation. Some had survived Leningrad, do

260
00:21:04,440 --> 00:21:10,439
Speaker 5: you understand. So they would put a single precious bullet

261
00:21:10,440 --> 00:21:15,000
Speaker 5: in a revolver and spin the chamber. They took turns

262
00:21:15,040 --> 00:21:18,320
Speaker 5: putting the gun to their heads and pulling the trigger.

263
00:21:20,640 --> 00:21:27,040
Speaker 5: The winner, they reasoned, wouldn't have to stick around and

264
00:21:27,080 --> 00:21:37,680
Speaker 5: see what happened next. The Red Space program naturally echoed

265
00:21:37,720 --> 00:21:41,280
Speaker 5: those lessons. I do not know how many of those

266
00:21:41,320 --> 00:21:45,480
Speaker 5: so called cosmonauts got shot out into the darkness. Most

267
00:21:45,520 --> 00:21:49,080
Speaker 5: were probably farm boys in the beginning. I imagine they

268
00:21:49,119 --> 00:21:53,560
Speaker 5: used prisoners and slaves. It's what I would have done.

269
00:21:54,200 --> 00:21:56,280
Speaker 5: I do know the Reds did not plan for most

270
00:21:56,320 --> 00:21:59,280
Speaker 5: of them, perhaps any of them, to return. It was

271
00:21:59,320 --> 00:22:01,120
Speaker 5: all for the greater good of the Union, as they

272
00:22:01,160 --> 00:22:05,679
Speaker 5: saw it, and our side. We could not have a

273
00:22:05,720 --> 00:22:10,960
Speaker 5: word of this reaching the American public. Again, one secret

274
00:22:11,080 --> 00:22:16,320
Speaker 5: leads inevitably to the next. Some young men in Italy

275
00:22:16,400 --> 00:22:20,919
Speaker 5: caught panicked signals from late stage experiments. As always, the

276
00:22:20,960 --> 00:22:26,040
Speaker 5: Reds grew sloppy in their desperation. We tracked the signals

277
00:22:26,040 --> 00:22:35,120
Speaker 5: as well. Of course, in strange quiet moments, I wondered, why,

278
00:22:35,600 --> 00:22:39,320
Speaker 5: what could it be, this unknown thing to make the

279
00:22:39,400 --> 00:22:45,280
Speaker 5: Russians throw bodies at the sky. Those poor Italian boys

280
00:22:45,680 --> 00:22:49,960
Speaker 5: little more than children. They did not understand the stakes,

281
00:22:50,760 --> 00:22:54,000
Speaker 5: the sheer depth of the waters in which they unknowingly swam.

282
00:22:55,480 --> 00:23:01,320
Speaker 5: Two things became clear. First, it is best to discredit,

283
00:23:01,520 --> 00:23:05,040
Speaker 5: rather than to suppress information that they of the state

284
00:23:05,119 --> 00:23:08,400
Speaker 5: is to recognize its enemy. Make a man a crackpot,

285
00:23:08,440 --> 00:23:11,080
Speaker 5: and to the public he is only another countless lunatic.

286
00:23:11,840 --> 00:23:14,879
Speaker 5: Yet bring him down too harshly, too visibly, and he

287
00:23:14,960 --> 00:23:20,240
Speaker 5: becomes a martyr. His story, like an infection, grows contagious.

288
00:23:20,800 --> 00:23:24,320
Speaker 5: He can spread across the world. One must poison the

289
00:23:24,359 --> 00:23:29,080
Speaker 5: tree at the root, if possible, the seed. This was

290
00:23:29,119 --> 00:23:33,840
Speaker 5: not an original sin, yet our second learning informed everything.

291
00:23:33,920 --> 00:23:40,760
Speaker 5: After these cosmonauts were returning to Earth, and they did

292
00:23:40,800 --> 00:24:03,879
Speaker 5: not return alone, I hand delivered a package to the

293
00:24:03,960 --> 00:24:10,920
Speaker 5: Kennedy boy, no guards in person. I wanted to see

294
00:24:10,960 --> 00:24:15,840
Speaker 5: his face. I wanted to watch his face as he

295
00:24:16,080 --> 00:24:20,600
Speaker 5: learned the horror of it all. I feel an almost

296
00:24:21,280 --> 00:24:26,040
Speaker 5: sexual thrill even now at the memory of his ashen expression.

297
00:24:27,800 --> 00:24:33,000
Speaker 5: We had little success placing assets behind the iron curtain. Luckily,

298
00:24:33,040 --> 00:24:35,399
Speaker 5: our British friends were old hands at the game, and

299
00:24:35,520 --> 00:24:40,280
Speaker 5: so it was they who first brought us whispers. This

300
00:24:40,480 --> 00:24:44,480
Speaker 5: is how it always starts, nothing more than rumor's third

301
00:24:44,480 --> 00:24:47,760
Speaker 5: hand gossip. By the time the Brits reached out to us,

302
00:24:47,800 --> 00:24:51,359
Speaker 5: they had lost a baker's dozen of agents. Each disappeared

303
00:24:51,359 --> 00:24:57,920
Speaker 5: without a trace, somewhere in that Red country. I did

304
00:24:57,960 --> 00:25:02,439
Speaker 5: not understand the signals. The intelligence did not square with

305
00:25:02,480 --> 00:25:07,520
Speaker 5: anything I had encountered previously. That I can admit. I

306
00:25:07,680 --> 00:25:12,760
Speaker 5: wasn't sure at first what we were seeing. Cities simply vanished.

307
00:25:13,600 --> 00:25:16,879
Speaker 5: There were stories again at that point, only stories of

308
00:25:16,920 --> 00:25:21,920
Speaker 5: the Reds putting whole villages to flame, every man, woman, child,

309
00:25:22,280 --> 00:25:27,200
Speaker 5: animal and building. By this time we had the Corona

310
00:25:27,240 --> 00:25:31,200
Speaker 5: satellite program. This initiative gave us eyes across the world.

311
00:25:31,960 --> 00:25:35,400
Speaker 5: We did not tell our British friends our game had rules,

312
00:25:36,200 --> 00:25:41,679
Speaker 5: but with their corroborating information, we examined those blurred satellite photographs.

313
00:25:41,720 --> 00:25:45,680
Speaker 5: Anew villages in the hinterlands of the U. S.

314
00:25:45,840 --> 00:25:46,119
Speaker 1: S R.

315
00:25:47,000 --> 00:25:51,560
Speaker 5: Were there one day and gone the next. At first,

316
00:25:51,560 --> 00:25:56,760
Speaker 5: these areas simply disappeared. Later we would learn this meant

317
00:25:56,800 --> 00:26:01,320
Speaker 5: the Reds were burying the rubble. As things got out

318
00:26:01,320 --> 00:26:05,960
Speaker 5: of hand, the Soviets grew sloppy, they always did. By

319
00:26:06,000 --> 00:26:08,080
Speaker 5: the next year, you could see patches of black on

320
00:26:08,160 --> 00:26:12,639
Speaker 5: the snow visible from low Earth orbit, smudgy streaks of it,

321
00:26:12,680 --> 00:26:16,000
Speaker 5: as if someone had rubbed charcoal across a blank canvas.

322
00:26:17,080 --> 00:26:22,720
Speaker 5: I could sense in these strange aerial rorschaks a growing desperation,

323
00:26:24,080 --> 00:26:28,800
Speaker 5: and then we found it. The British sent us a

324
00:26:28,840 --> 00:26:33,479
Speaker 5: short piece of film smuggled from rural Kazakh country, and

325
00:26:33,680 --> 00:26:36,560
Speaker 5: god knows how they got a hold of it. The

326
00:26:36,640 --> 00:26:41,200
Speaker 5: Russian satellites were landing, but what came out of them

327
00:26:41,320 --> 00:26:45,720
Speaker 5: was not a surviving cosmonaut. I am not a man

328
00:26:45,800 --> 00:26:49,879
Speaker 5: given to exaggeration, so I will not attempt to describe

329
00:26:49,880 --> 00:26:54,680
Speaker 5: the entity as more than what I witnessed in that footage.

330
00:26:55,359 --> 00:26:58,080
Speaker 5: The film appeared to be from a type of motion

331
00:26:58,200 --> 00:27:02,520
Speaker 5: camera COmON to Soviet propaganda arms. It is reasonable to

332
00:27:02,560 --> 00:27:06,359
Speaker 5: assume the Reds recorded this footage for release only after

333
00:27:06,440 --> 00:27:10,280
Speaker 5: they had successfully returned the man from space, so this

334
00:27:10,800 --> 00:27:13,000
Speaker 5: must have been a recording of the first such attempt.

335
00:27:14,720 --> 00:27:19,520
Speaker 5: From what we could gather after consulting with several American experts,

336
00:27:19,960 --> 00:27:26,120
Speaker 5: the entity appeared to be some mixture of marine invertebrate

337
00:27:26,240 --> 00:27:30,080
Speaker 5: and what we hung this world would recognize as fungi.

338
00:27:31,680 --> 00:27:35,960
Speaker 5: We pulled in a few disgraced micologists, leveraging evidence of

339
00:27:36,000 --> 00:27:42,040
Speaker 5: their political or sexual leanings. One man speculated the entity

340
00:27:42,160 --> 00:27:46,879
Speaker 5: reminded him of the Amanita Bisporeghera, a type of puffball

341
00:27:47,000 --> 00:27:55,760
Speaker 5: mushroom known amid enthusiasts as the Destroying Angel. Oddly appropriate,

342
00:27:57,920 --> 00:28:03,520
Speaker 5: we later terminated each civilian knowledge of the film. I

343
00:28:03,680 --> 00:28:06,640
Speaker 5: explained the situation to the Kennedy boy in a low

344
00:28:06,760 --> 00:28:09,879
Speaker 5: voice as he watched the clip. I informed him we

345
00:28:09,960 --> 00:28:13,760
Speaker 5: had consulted with the best minds on offer and ensured

346
00:28:13,800 --> 00:28:16,160
Speaker 5: they would not pass their knowledge on to our rivals.

347
00:28:17,080 --> 00:28:20,200
Speaker 5: I took great pains to emphasize what we must assume.

348
00:28:21,400 --> 00:28:24,959
Speaker 5: We were unprepared. Britain owned the pieces of the puzzle

349
00:28:25,000 --> 00:28:28,280
Speaker 5: we were now attempting to solve, which meant the Soviets

350
00:28:28,359 --> 00:28:33,200
Speaker 5: must likewise be much further along. He did not listen.

351
00:28:34,040 --> 00:28:39,520
Speaker 5: Presidents never do. Instead, the fool, he asked how many

352
00:28:39,600 --> 00:28:44,280
Speaker 5: casualties were projected. I gave him rough estimations for each landing,

353
00:28:44,400 --> 00:28:49,040
Speaker 5: summarizing a ballpark total. He demanded we contact our colleagues

354
00:28:49,080 --> 00:28:51,600
Speaker 5: on the other side of the curtain through the usual

355
00:28:51,720 --> 00:28:56,040
Speaker 5: tensely official channels. The idiot as if I had not

356
00:28:56,120 --> 00:29:03,720
Speaker 5: already by passed those silly gelded routes. I demurred. He

357
00:29:03,760 --> 00:29:08,920
Speaker 5: directed us to play the clip again. It lasts all

358
00:29:08,960 --> 00:29:13,000
Speaker 5: of forty three seconds. I noted, we must also assume

359
00:29:13,040 --> 00:29:16,360
Speaker 5: the British had likely only given us part of the recording.

360
00:29:17,880 --> 00:29:22,680
Speaker 5: That is what I would have done. And still we

361
00:29:22,840 --> 00:29:34,400
Speaker 5: played it again and again. He simply sat there staring.

362
00:29:36,360 --> 00:29:39,440
Speaker 5: By this point in the evening he had already consumed

363
00:29:39,440 --> 00:29:43,320
Speaker 5: his regimen of dope and pharmaceuticals, so I have no

364
00:29:43,440 --> 00:29:48,480
Speaker 5: real idea what he was thinking, but at least he watched.

365
00:29:50,320 --> 00:29:54,760
Speaker 5: I then offered him a folder of older photographs, combined

366
00:29:54,800 --> 00:29:58,640
Speaker 5: with several obscure academic works on early Sumerian astronomy that

367
00:29:58,760 --> 00:30:01,800
Speaker 5: had in the past few months acquired a new and

368
00:30:02,040 --> 00:30:07,080
Speaker 5: terrifying relevance. The academics responsible had all passed away long

369
00:30:07,120 --> 00:30:11,440
Speaker 5: ago or been safely imprisoned in particular asylums, where they

370
00:30:11,520 --> 00:30:14,720
Speaker 5: drew with their own shed and blood, the same obscure

371
00:30:14,760 --> 00:30:19,280
Speaker 5: constellations over and over again along the fabric of their

372
00:30:19,320 --> 00:30:26,600
Speaker 5: padded walls. The Kennedy boy pushed these documents to one side.

373
00:30:26,960 --> 00:30:33,240
Speaker 5: He demanded we play the footage again, this time without sound.

374
00:30:35,960 --> 00:30:39,600
Speaker 5: In the last few seconds before the camera falls to

375
00:30:39,640 --> 00:30:44,920
Speaker 5: the ground, you can see the fungal growths burst, dispersing

376
00:30:45,080 --> 00:30:50,240
Speaker 5: some sort of spore. As it ends to the right

377
00:30:50,280 --> 00:30:52,280
Speaker 5: of the frame, you see what I imagine to be

378
00:30:52,400 --> 00:30:59,440
Speaker 5: the cameraman's forearm sprouting similar growths to those of thee

379
00:31:00,720 --> 00:31:09,200
Speaker 5: the entity emerging from the craft. The Kennedy boy sat silent,

380
00:31:10,400 --> 00:31:14,600
Speaker 5: and I let that silence ride out between us, the

381
00:31:14,640 --> 00:31:19,240
Speaker 5: horrors of the film casting silver shadows across his haggard

382
00:31:19,280 --> 00:31:27,240
Speaker 5: face in the darkness. We have to go public, he said,

383
00:31:31,880 --> 00:31:37,720
Speaker 5: and would brook no descent. The President is the President

384
00:31:38,640 --> 00:31:44,400
Speaker 5: and his word is law. I knew then, with some

385
00:31:44,600 --> 00:31:52,800
Speaker 5: small measure of regret, this boy will die. We all knew.

386
00:31:56,480 --> 00:32:00,640
Speaker 5: We all knew there was something up there. I since

387
00:32:00,720 --> 00:32:04,719
Speaker 5: contacted my friends over the curtain. They gave no reply.

388
00:32:06,200 --> 00:32:10,920
Speaker 5: The space race continued. Satellites seemed to hold no issue.

389
00:32:11,880 --> 00:32:16,960
Speaker 5: Whatever it might be, this thing, this entity out there

390
00:32:17,000 --> 00:32:21,520
Speaker 5: in the ink, it seemed solely interested in our species,

391
00:32:22,760 --> 00:32:26,280
Speaker 5: and the Reds, may God damn them, once again threw

392
00:32:26,320 --> 00:32:29,800
Speaker 5: bodies at the problem. To this day, I'm not sure

393
00:32:29,840 --> 00:32:32,640
Speaker 5: what they did to contain the gagar and entity, not

394
00:32:32,760 --> 00:32:37,240
Speaker 5: to what degree it cooperated before everything collapsed. Our own program,

395
00:32:37,320 --> 00:32:39,760
Speaker 5: the human element of it, had always been a sham.

396
00:32:40,280 --> 00:32:43,880
Speaker 5: As we took every opportunity to sabotage those endeavors. We

397
00:32:43,960 --> 00:32:46,920
Speaker 5: were like children standing on a shoreline, emptying an ocean

398
00:32:46,920 --> 00:32:54,720
Speaker 5: with buckets Corona satellites failed. Each Western asset passed the

399
00:32:54,760 --> 00:33:01,840
Speaker 5: curtain one by one disappeared. Remaining scholars tore their eyes

400
00:33:01,880 --> 00:33:04,120
Speaker 5: out and ate them rather than read the reports from

401
00:33:04,160 --> 00:33:07,640
Speaker 5: the astronomers, who had earlier eaten their tongues, removed their

402
00:33:07,640 --> 00:33:12,040
Speaker 5: eyelids and pulled their teeth. The astronomers no longer spoke.

403
00:33:12,080 --> 00:33:15,640
Speaker 5: They rolled their teeth on the ground like dice. They

404
00:33:15,720 --> 00:33:21,000
Speaker 5: bowed at strange times toward unknowable directions. Our special little

405
00:33:21,040 --> 00:33:29,360
Speaker 5: asylum reached full occupancy. Eventually we burned these asylums to

406
00:33:29,440 --> 00:33:35,680
Speaker 5: the ground, with those poor academics inside, anything to stop

407
00:33:35,760 --> 00:33:42,959
Speaker 5: the chanting. On April twelfth, nineteen sixty one, the body

408
00:33:43,000 --> 00:33:49,120
Speaker 5: of Yuryga Garin returned, seemingly whole and unharmed, but the

409
00:33:49,240 --> 00:33:54,960
Speaker 5: Garan and the entity were won. Later we would learn

410
00:33:55,000 --> 00:33:59,240
Speaker 5: we were not the only group delving into ancient texts. Krush, Chief,

411
00:33:59,440 --> 00:34:03,920
Speaker 5: leveraging clandestine assets in the Middle Eastern theater, had acquired

412
00:34:03,960 --> 00:34:07,920
Speaker 5: some means of communication with the entity. I cannot speak

413
00:34:07,960 --> 00:34:13,200
Speaker 5: from expertise here, but from what I understand, some Eldrich

414
00:34:13,280 --> 00:34:17,200
Speaker 5: dialect of Near East got through to it, certain words

415
00:34:17,600 --> 00:34:21,120
Speaker 5: spells you could call them, had a limited power of compulsion.

416
00:34:22,320 --> 00:34:26,680
Speaker 5: It possesses something like intelligence, though so alien as to

417
00:34:26,719 --> 00:34:32,680
Speaker 5: be incomprehensible to the human mind. While it obeyed requests

418
00:34:32,680 --> 00:34:37,200
Speaker 5: to perform in carefully curated public events, it displayed erratic,

419
00:34:37,320 --> 00:34:42,400
Speaker 5: unpredictable tendencies. For every surviving record of a public appearance

420
00:34:42,480 --> 00:34:47,799
Speaker 5: by Gagarin, there are another dozen wherein the entity sport and,

421
00:34:47,880 --> 00:34:51,080
Speaker 5: as one officer later put it, ate the minds of

422
00:34:51,200 --> 00:34:56,960
Speaker 5: every one within range. By the time my Russian friends replied,

423
00:34:57,680 --> 00:35:23,080
Speaker 5: they sent only two words in English, help us. We

424
00:35:23,080 --> 00:35:28,600
Speaker 5: were too late. The Russians had made their covenant. As

425
00:35:28,640 --> 00:35:32,880
Speaker 5: their own academics went insane, studying calculations and branches of

426
00:35:32,880 --> 00:35:36,800
Speaker 5: physics inimical to human thought. The Reds found a brutal,

427
00:35:36,880 --> 00:35:40,360
Speaker 5: efficient solution to hold up their end of the bargain.

428
00:35:41,600 --> 00:35:48,120
Speaker 5: Gulags became farms. First, they exposed the prisoners, Then they

429
00:35:48,160 --> 00:35:52,520
Speaker 5: fed the guards and soldiers to the fruiting spores. Third,

430
00:35:52,960 --> 00:35:57,840
Speaker 5: those gods families as well as surrounding villages. A story

431
00:35:57,880 --> 00:36:00,520
Speaker 5: about a nuclear disaster was all one need to keep

432
00:36:00,560 --> 00:36:07,520
Speaker 5: things quiet. They reportedly achieved one promise. The entity would

433
00:36:07,560 --> 00:36:12,520
Speaker 5: not infest other astronauts. It was already here, and so

434
00:36:12,719 --> 00:36:16,920
Speaker 5: no current use in returning to the dark Man could

435
00:36:17,000 --> 00:36:21,799
Speaker 5: if it wished, go to space, for all the good

436
00:36:21,800 --> 00:36:26,360
Speaker 5: it would do, is say. And so the war branched

437
00:36:26,480 --> 00:36:31,839
Speaker 5: two fronts. One group, led by Kennedy, attempted to create

438
00:36:31,880 --> 00:36:34,800
Speaker 5: an outpost on the Moon in the hopes of guarding

439
00:36:34,840 --> 00:36:39,960
Speaker 5: against those things of the outer dark. The other, our

440
00:36:40,040 --> 00:36:45,120
Speaker 5: loose confederacy of scientists, spymasters, and scholars, sought to kill

441
00:36:45,120 --> 00:36:48,759
Speaker 5: the thing we called Gagarin. I don't know who got

442
00:36:48,760 --> 00:36:54,239
Speaker 5: to Kennedy first, someone working with me or something sent

443
00:36:54,280 --> 00:37:00,000
Speaker 5: by the entity. I suppose it doesn't matter.

444
00:37:00,120 --> 00:37:00,440
Speaker 6: Now.

445
00:37:01,160 --> 00:37:04,839
Speaker 5: Many died, some by their own hand, and we could

446
00:37:04,920 --> 00:37:11,600
Speaker 5: not blame them. The entity sensed you and out blast

447
00:37:11,760 --> 00:37:15,200
Speaker 5: a notion away, and it whispered to you in the night.

448
00:37:16,920 --> 00:37:23,759
Speaker 5: But we finally figured it out. The answer came from

449
00:37:23,760 --> 00:37:29,799
Speaker 5: a suicide note. A physicist a med a seizure scrawled

450
00:37:29,840 --> 00:37:35,359
Speaker 5: the equation with her blood as her temperature plummeted. From

451
00:37:35,400 --> 00:37:39,160
Speaker 5: what I understand, her blood later caught on fire during

452
00:37:39,200 --> 00:37:44,719
Speaker 5: a particularly extraordinary lunar eclipse. We learned the Reds had

453
00:37:44,719 --> 00:37:48,960
Speaker 5: their own asylum program, which I had anticipated, but had

454
00:37:48,960 --> 00:37:54,640
Speaker 5: not at that point confirmed, their asylum in a forgettable

455
00:37:54,800 --> 00:38:01,040
Speaker 5: suburb of Saint Petersburg. Burned to the ground. After the fire,

456
00:38:02,120 --> 00:38:06,240
Speaker 5: you could still read her blood driven into the stone

457
00:38:06,280 --> 00:38:11,520
Speaker 5: of the ruins. We had finally found a way to

458
00:38:11,680 --> 00:38:17,719
Speaker 5: injure it. I stood there in person when we took

459
00:38:17,760 --> 00:38:25,160
Speaker 5: it down. The official story is a plane crash. On

460
00:38:25,320 --> 00:38:30,600
Speaker 5: March twenty seventh, nineteen sixty eight. The Gagarin entity was

461
00:38:30,640 --> 00:38:34,920
Speaker 5: destroyed via the detonation of a low yield nuclear device.

462
00:38:37,920 --> 00:38:43,319
Speaker 5: While not successfully obliterating its physical frame, the radiation had

463
00:38:43,320 --> 00:38:47,520
Speaker 5: a sterilizing effect on the creature such that its spores

464
00:38:47,520 --> 00:38:51,920
Speaker 5: could not disperse, allowing a group of soldiers close enough

465
00:38:52,480 --> 00:38:59,000
Speaker 5: to eventually finish the chop. Fifty brave men at the

466
00:38:59,040 --> 00:39:04,320
Speaker 5: cost of their own life. Lives. Those men whose names

467
00:39:04,400 --> 00:39:13,640
Speaker 5: I never know are heroes. It spoke to me as

468
00:39:13,680 --> 00:39:20,560
Speaker 5: its body failed in English.

469
00:39:20,680 --> 00:39:28,160
Speaker 9: It aped my own voice the thing, the entity. It

470
00:39:28,480 --> 00:39:33,719
Speaker 9: smiled that famous Gagarrens smile, and it said to me,

471
00:39:34,800 --> 00:39:36,319
Speaker 9: I like it here.

472
00:39:38,160 --> 00:39:46,440
Speaker 5: Whoever they call you, I'll see you soon. See the

473
00:39:46,520 --> 00:39:52,240
Speaker 5: smile of frozen rictus, A caricature held fast. I watched

474
00:39:52,280 --> 00:39:58,000
Speaker 5: it burn, and I wondered as I watched what had spoken?

475
00:40:00,120 --> 00:40:05,040
Speaker 5: Is it me? Why did it speak in my voice?

476
00:40:06,000 --> 00:40:10,120
Speaker 5: Was it in my thoughts? Had it eaten my mind

477
00:40:10,120 --> 00:40:16,000
Speaker 5: as it had countless others? Pronoia again, My critics will

478
00:40:16,040 --> 00:40:21,800
Speaker 5: say from their safe, smug, warm and ignorant fiefdoms. Yet

479
00:40:21,840 --> 00:40:25,080
Speaker 5: the pawn mocks the movements of the bishop, forg just

480
00:40:25,160 --> 00:40:27,520
Speaker 5: forward one step at a time and never sees the

481
00:40:27,640 --> 00:40:39,280
Speaker 5: chessboard from above. I've thought about that moment a great deal.

482
00:40:42,360 --> 00:40:46,279
Speaker 5: Can you be haunted by a moment? Can it become

483
00:40:46,320 --> 00:40:50,600
Speaker 5: a ghost all its own? I believe it can. I

484
00:40:50,800 --> 00:40:55,440
Speaker 5: have labored with middling success to save mankind from that

485
00:40:55,640 --> 00:40:56,480
Speaker 5: dark forest.

486
00:40:59,080 --> 00:41:04,560
Speaker 10: I spent years reading, researching what that thing might have been,

487
00:41:06,000 --> 00:41:13,600
Speaker 10: what it wanted, what it wants? And I have failed.

488
00:41:18,960 --> 00:41:26,920
Speaker 5: This is my confession. Each time a new launch occurred,

489
00:41:27,000 --> 00:41:32,760
Speaker 5: I trembled in the night, and so, arriving at the darkness, now,

490
00:41:33,239 --> 00:41:39,080
Speaker 5: I must consign myself to that Greek majority. I hope

491
00:41:39,160 --> 00:41:42,640
Speaker 5: my last thought will be of something kind and not

492
00:41:42,800 --> 00:41:45,520
Speaker 5: the damning certainty that kept me away from the night

493
00:41:45,600 --> 00:41:51,880
Speaker 5: sky for more than a decade. We are truly not alone.

494
00:41:52,560 --> 00:42:03,120
Speaker 5: The monsters are real. One day, one year, one century

495
00:42:03,200 --> 00:42:08,000
Speaker 5: or the next. This will be our ruin no time

496
00:42:08,160 --> 00:42:21,160
Speaker 5: like the present, I suppose. M hmm, no stars, no purgates.

497
00:42:22,800 --> 00:42:29,799
Speaker 5: Where's the you know, the heaven, the hell? All of that.

498
00:42:32,520 --> 00:42:34,600
Speaker 6: Seems h this is your stop.

499
00:42:37,320 --> 00:42:42,680
Speaker 5: You're just going to leave me here of all the

500
00:42:42,800 --> 00:42:43,880
Speaker 5: goddamn things.

501
00:42:55,200 --> 00:43:00,680
Speaker 7: No, I told you, little liberal, I don't mean we'll

502
00:43:00,800 --> 00:43:03,360
Speaker 7: see soon you'll join me.

503
00:43:04,840 --> 00:43:08,920
Speaker 5: Yes, I am the last line of defense. I am

504
00:43:08,960 --> 00:43:14,520
Speaker 5: the great opposition. No more you know an extension. You

505
00:43:14,760 --> 00:43:23,719
Speaker 5: one of a million hungry tenders. No, no, take me backdriver.

506
00:43:24,400 --> 00:43:25,520
Speaker 6: Everything depends on.

507
00:43:42,040 --> 00:43:46,239
Speaker 8: Perhaps Hoover was merely responding in real time to marvelous

508
00:43:46,360 --> 00:43:52,760
Speaker 8: threats beyond human understanding. Perhaps he was mankind's great savior.

509
00:43:53,760 --> 00:43:59,479
Speaker 8: He certainly believed that the numbers who died needlessly, both

510
00:43:59,520 --> 00:44:03,960
Speaker 8: in sir to Gagarin's monster and those in service to

511
00:44:04,640 --> 00:44:10,000
Speaker 8: Hoover's mad desire to win, may beg to differ, as

512
00:44:10,040 --> 00:44:14,760
Speaker 8: did all of the others who faced him in Lost. Well,

513
00:44:14,920 --> 00:44:21,000
Speaker 8: it's it's not for me to judge. It is merely

514
00:44:21,080 --> 00:44:24,520
Speaker 8: my job to carry him on to the next realm

515
00:44:24,600 --> 00:44:34,680
Speaker 8: and listen to his passage.

516
00:44:40,719 --> 00:44:44,360
Speaker 11: The passage stars Dan Fogler as the Ferryman, This episode

517
00:44:44,400 --> 00:44:48,279
Speaker 11: features Stuart Skelton as Jay Edgar Hoover. Written by Ben

518
00:44:48,320 --> 00:44:51,560
Speaker 11: Bowen with additional writing by Dan Bush and Nicholas Dakowski.

519
00:44:52,040 --> 00:44:56,719
Speaker 11: Our executive producers are Nicholas Dakoski, Matthew Frederick, and Alexander Williams.

520
00:44:56,880 --> 00:45:00,960
Speaker 11: First Assistant director, script supervisor and production coordinat Sarah Klein.

521
00:45:01,440 --> 00:45:04,719
Speaker 11: Music by Ben love It, additional music by Alexander Rodriguez.

522
00:45:05,440 --> 00:45:08,799
Speaker 11: Casting by Sunday Bowling, Kennedy and Meg Mormon. Editing and

523
00:45:08,880 --> 00:45:12,200
Speaker 11: sound designed by Dan Bush, Dialogue editing and sound mixing

524
00:45:12,239 --> 00:45:16,319
Speaker 11: by Jan Campos. Additional sound editing by Racket Sound. Our

525
00:45:16,360 --> 00:45:19,560
Speaker 11: supervising producer is Josh Than. Created by Dan Bush and

526
00:45:19,640 --> 00:45:22,680
Speaker 11: Nicholas Dakowski. Produced by Dan Bush. The Passage is a

527
00:45:22,719 --> 00:45:26,120
Speaker 11: production of iHeartRadio and Cycopia Pictures.

528
00:45:32,280 --> 00:45:34,719
Speaker 1: Oh I am so excited that you just listen to

529
00:45:34,760 --> 00:45:37,440
Speaker 1: that entire thing, Ben, I have questions for if you

530
00:45:37,440 --> 00:45:38,800
Speaker 1: don't mind, Oh.

531
00:45:38,719 --> 00:45:43,120
Speaker 3: Sure, yeah, I will. It's thankfully it's fiction, so I

532
00:45:43,160 --> 00:45:44,800
Speaker 3: can also just make up the answers.

533
00:45:45,080 --> 00:45:47,160
Speaker 1: Well, that's what I was gonna say. How much of

534
00:45:47,200 --> 00:45:49,200
Speaker 1: that is a true story?

535
00:45:51,440 --> 00:45:54,360
Speaker 3: No comments? I mean some of it is. Some It

536
00:45:54,560 --> 00:45:58,560
Speaker 3: is true that Urika Garren is officially the first person

537
00:45:58,560 --> 00:46:01,320
Speaker 3: to make it in space and return. It is true,

538
00:46:01,400 --> 00:46:05,440
Speaker 3: according to proponents of lost cosmonaut theory, that well, it

539
00:46:05,560 --> 00:46:09,360
Speaker 3: is true that these two Italian kids playing around on

540
00:46:09,400 --> 00:46:14,120
Speaker 3: a radio heard what very much sounded like cosmonauts crashing

541
00:46:14,239 --> 00:46:17,279
Speaker 3: to their death. And it is true that Jaeger Hoover

542
00:46:17,520 --> 00:46:18,480
Speaker 3: was a real pill.

543
00:46:19,600 --> 00:46:20,239
Speaker 10: Yeah.

544
00:46:20,280 --> 00:46:23,439
Speaker 3: I mean, that's the thing, like we you know, we've

545
00:46:23,440 --> 00:46:27,160
Speaker 3: talked about Hoover on this show extensively, and Noel, you

546
00:46:27,200 --> 00:46:29,799
Speaker 3: and I have talked a bit about Hoover on our

547
00:46:30,200 --> 00:46:34,680
Speaker 3: pure show Ridiculous History. That's the thing that I think

548
00:46:34,719 --> 00:46:40,000
Speaker 3: really draws us all to the passage because in this show,

549
00:46:40,640 --> 00:46:45,880
Speaker 3: you're hearing some pretty well researched historical figures taking a

550
00:46:45,960 --> 00:46:49,239
Speaker 3: step just past the street light of fact, you know

551
00:46:49,239 --> 00:46:49,640
Speaker 3: what I mean?

552
00:46:49,719 --> 00:46:51,920
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, Well, and these are stories that make up

553
00:46:51,960 --> 00:46:55,719
Speaker 1: the American mythos, the fabric of what it means to

554
00:46:55,800 --> 00:46:59,160
Speaker 1: be an American and how it has been as an American.

555
00:46:59,360 --> 00:47:02,520
Speaker 1: And it's really fascinating. If you listen to the rest

556
00:47:02,600 --> 00:47:05,719
Speaker 1: of the series, you're gonna hear what job Maybe we

557
00:47:05,880 --> 00:47:09,400
Speaker 1: just name off a couple of them. Jim Jones is

558
00:47:09,440 --> 00:47:13,160
Speaker 1: one of the characters you're gonna hear from Octavia Butler,

559
00:47:13,480 --> 00:47:17,840
Speaker 1: love that one. Robert Johnson, that's the devil at the

560
00:47:17,880 --> 00:47:23,560
Speaker 1: crossroads learning to play an instrument so well, right, is

561
00:47:23,640 --> 00:47:28,239
Speaker 1: a great ye Oppenheimer's in there. Just amazing stuff. So

562
00:47:28,480 --> 00:47:30,839
Speaker 1: we highly recommend you listen to the rest of the

563
00:47:30,880 --> 00:47:33,920
Speaker 1: series and let them know what you think, to leave

564
00:47:33,960 --> 00:47:37,360
Speaker 1: a review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify or wherever you listen.

565
00:47:38,600 --> 00:47:42,240
Speaker 3: Those reviews, by the way, do matter a great deal,

566
00:47:42,880 --> 00:47:48,000
Speaker 3: and we tried not to every episode ask for reviews

567
00:47:48,040 --> 00:47:51,359
Speaker 3: on things, but it would it would be a big

568
00:47:51,400 --> 00:47:54,359
Speaker 3: deal to us and to the team that did such

569
00:47:54,440 --> 00:47:56,799
Speaker 3: fantastic work if you could just take a little bit

570
00:47:56,840 --> 00:48:01,000
Speaker 3: of time just drop some stars our way. We are

571
00:48:01,120 --> 00:48:03,879
Speaker 3: grateful for your time and we appreciate you tuning in.

572
00:48:04,400 --> 00:48:06,480
Speaker 3: And I hope the story is.

573
00:48:06,440 --> 00:48:11,120
Speaker 1: Not true just for anybody who grew up watching this

574
00:48:11,200 --> 00:48:13,680
Speaker 1: is so silly. Anybody who grew up watching Freaks and

575
00:48:13,680 --> 00:48:16,160
Speaker 1: Geeks or anything like that, or we're into that. Martin

576
00:48:16,239 --> 00:48:18,920
Speaker 1: Starr plays Timothy Leary in this series, and it just

577
00:48:19,200 --> 00:48:20,799
Speaker 1: he's on my fa It made my year when I

578
00:48:20,800 --> 00:48:22,920
Speaker 1: found out he was actually cast and was willing to

579
00:48:23,360 --> 00:48:24,240
Speaker 1: do this so he's.

580
00:48:24,120 --> 00:48:26,080
Speaker 2: In all kinds of other cool stuff too. I really

581
00:48:26,120 --> 00:48:30,680
Speaker 2: like him and as Guilfoil and what's it called Silicon

582
00:48:30,760 --> 00:48:33,439
Speaker 2: Valley Man, he's awesome yep.

583
00:48:33,680 --> 00:48:35,760
Speaker 3: And you can also let us know what you think directly.

584
00:48:35,800 --> 00:48:37,600
Speaker 3: We try to be easy to find online.

585
00:48:37,640 --> 00:48:37,960
Speaker 8: Correct.

586
00:48:37,960 --> 00:48:39,799
Speaker 2: You can find us in the handle conspiracy stuff, where

587
00:48:39,840 --> 00:48:44,520
Speaker 2: we exist on Facebook, YouTube and x fka, Twitter, on

588
00:48:44,560 --> 00:48:47,960
Speaker 2: Instagram and TikTok. We are conspiracy Stuff show.

589
00:48:48,400 --> 00:48:50,480
Speaker 1: Hey, you want to call us, call one eight three

590
00:48:50,600 --> 00:48:55,000
Speaker 1: three std WYTK. It's a voicemail system. You've got three

591
00:48:55,080 --> 00:48:57,759
Speaker 1: minutes and let us know. If you don't want to

592
00:48:57,800 --> 00:48:59,359
Speaker 1: do that, why not instead send us a good old

593
00:48:59,400 --> 00:48:59,959
Speaker 1: fashioned email.

594
00:49:00,440 --> 00:49:03,520
Speaker 3: We are conspiracy at iHeartRadio dot com