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Speaker 1: From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is

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Speaker 1: riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or

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Speaker 1: learn the stuff they don't want you to know. A

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Speaker 1: production of My Heart Radio. Hello, and welcome back to

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Speaker 1: the show. My name is Noel. Our writer Die Matt

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Speaker 1: Frederick is actually on vacation today. They call me Ben.

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Speaker 1: We're joined as always with our super producer Paul Mission

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Speaker 1: controlled decond. Most importantly, you are you. You are here,

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Speaker 1: and that makes this stuff they don't want you to

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Speaker 1: know now you don't know. I was thinking of a

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Speaker 1: way to open this episode, and I've got to say

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Speaker 1: I thought back on this. I'd like to get your opinion.

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Speaker 1: For a lot of people here in the US, the

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Speaker 1: first childhood understanding we have of nuclear techn oology doesn't

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Speaker 1: come from a textbook. It actually comes from The Simpsons.

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Speaker 1: Was that your experience? Oh? Absolutely? I mean, just like

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Speaker 1: that iconic shape of those uh cooling towers, which you

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Speaker 1: used to think, oh, that's where the nuclear stuff happens,

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Speaker 1: but that's not, in fact the case. Those are just

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Speaker 1: the cooling towers. Um. But that iconic Simpson's opening where

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Speaker 1: you trace Homer's activities like from you know, his uh

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Speaker 1: seat at the nuclear power plant in Springfield where he

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Speaker 1: like pushes the button or whatever. I guess I'm confusing

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Speaker 1: him with George Jetson a little bit, but it was

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Speaker 1: similar because it was meant to be like a job

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Speaker 1: any idiot could do, kind of sort of the joke

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Speaker 1: because Homers sort of this classic buffoon and then you

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Speaker 1: see that nuclear rod that accidentally slips into his pocket

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Speaker 1: and then finds its way into like the baby's crib

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Speaker 1: or something. It's a whole thing where you kind of trace,

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Speaker 1: you know, the movement of this nuclear rod through that

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Speaker 1: opening sequence. Yeah, I like what you said. I like

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Speaker 1: what you pointed out about how Homer is a bit

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Speaker 1: of a use the word buffoon. Uh. He is kind

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Speaker 1: of an incompoop. He's he's lovable, but he's definitely oh fish.

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Speaker 1: And despite being one of the dumbest guys in Springfield,

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Speaker 1: he somehow has a job at a nuclear planet that

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Speaker 1: routinely experiences low level or even high level disasters. And

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Speaker 1: interestingly enough, in the show, even though I haven't seen

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Speaker 1: The Simpsons in a while, a lot of these disasters

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Speaker 1: never get revealed to the people living in Springfield, and

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Speaker 1: like the rods just escape. It's sort of the joke, right,

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Speaker 1: I mean, it really is kind of lampoon ing this

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Speaker 1: whole culture of cover up in American nuclear power, uh,

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Speaker 1: from things like Three Mile Island to even like, you know,

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Speaker 1: whether the Russian attempts to contain the disaster at Chernobyl,

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Speaker 1: and this idea that you know, those in power can

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Speaker 1: never be wrong and if we say it didn't happen,

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Speaker 1: then it didn't happen as long as no one finds

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Speaker 1: out right, right, I bet Monty Burns would probably love

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Speaker 1: the novel nineteen four just as much as us, but

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Speaker 1: for very different reasons. You know, As it turns out,

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Speaker 1: you know, the things like this can happen in the

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Speaker 1: real world, but spoiler alert, when they do, they're not

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Speaker 1: near as funny as a plot line in the Simpsons. Wait,

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Speaker 1: you mean three eyed fish aren't cuddly, cute little creatures

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Speaker 1: that that just flop around with a smile. You know,

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Speaker 1: I have to point out maybe there's an episode for

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Speaker 1: another day, but I was immensely um heartbroken to learn

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Speaker 1: that when those kind of mutations occur, they usually don't

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Speaker 1: result in a living animal, certainly not one that makes

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Speaker 1: it to adulthood. That's a shame and certainly not one

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Speaker 1: that's cuddly that you could model like a plushy toy

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Speaker 1: after right, right, agreed, So we are going somewhere with

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Speaker 1: this today, conspiracy realists. We were inspired to make today's

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Speaker 1: episode via an email from Wayne ce Uh. Wayne Cee

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Speaker 1: wrote to us a while back, and you said, have

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Speaker 1: covered the Santa Susanna Field Laboratory. Is this something you

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Speaker 1: could cover? And Wayne, you go on to mention that

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Speaker 1: you were surprised. So very few people have heard about this,

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Speaker 1: and in fact, peep behind the curtain, Uh, we had

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Speaker 1: not heard of this either. So here are the facts.

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Speaker 1: The Santa Susannah Field Laboratory UM is was les slow. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I can use past tense in terms when it was operational,

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Speaker 1: a massive complex of research and development uh labs located

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Speaker 1: in Semi Valley, which is in southern California. Uh, and

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Speaker 1: it has a long history. UM. It really is one

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Speaker 1: of those classic kind of the Atomic Age kind of

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Speaker 1: you know, nineteen forties kind of facilities where it was

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Speaker 1: really you know, the dawning of a new era and

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Speaker 1: all that. Uh, and nuclear power was the wave of

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Speaker 1: the future. Uh. So yeah, it's been operational doing one

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Speaker 1: thing or another since around nineteen forty seven, UH. Two

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Speaker 1: years after the detonation of the world's first nuclear weapon,

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Speaker 1: an aerospace company called North American Aviation decided to build

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Speaker 1: a facility located in a rural part of the hills

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Speaker 1: above Semi Valley. And at first the purpose of the

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Speaker 1: site was to test rocket engines, and they did this

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Speaker 1: for a long time. From nineteen forty nine to two

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Speaker 1: thousand and six. The US Space Program routinely used this

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Speaker 1: site to develop and test a very tricky part of rocketry,

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Speaker 1: which was liquid propellant. Liquid propellant, UH is some high

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Speaker 1: grade stuff. You know, it's surprised, it's complicated. It's also

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Speaker 1: very dangerous in terms of the contaminants that you know,

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Speaker 1: in terms of just the chemicals themselves. But that's not

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Speaker 1: all they did. As you mentioned Nolan nineteen fifty three,

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Speaker 1: under the supervision of the US Atomic Energy Commission, that's

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Speaker 1: the predecessor of the Department of Energy, UH, the Field

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Speaker 1: Lab what we'll call Santa Susanna s f S s

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Speaker 1: f L. For this, they added something they called Area

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Speaker 1: four and from nineteen fifty three to at least nineteen eighty.

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Speaker 1: Area of four was home to nuclear reactors from nineteen

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Speaker 1: sixty six to nineteen The U. S Government actually sponsored

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Speaker 1: a liquid metal research center at the side. Is that

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Speaker 1: I mean they were making T one thousands ben Is

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Speaker 1: that what that means? One would hope. I think some

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Speaker 1: of that work is still probably classified. We don't know.

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Speaker 1: But liquid metals, just like nuclear materials, just like liquid

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Speaker 1: rocket propellant, also is not the kind of stuff you know,

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Speaker 1: you want to play with. It's not the kind of

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Speaker 1: stuff you want to see at the bottom of the

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Speaker 1: slide in your local playground. And you know, speaking of

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Speaker 1: civilian stuff, that's one interesting part of s s f L.

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Speaker 1: Santa Susana is only about seven miles northwest of Canoga Park.

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Speaker 1: It's only thirty miles northwest of downtown l A, this

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Speaker 1: huge population center. Yeah, it's true. Um, there's a community

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Speaker 1: called Bell Canyon that runs across the entire southern border.

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Speaker 1: And here's the thing. Despite that close proximity to you know,

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Speaker 1: people's homes, into residential areas and to schools and churches

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Speaker 1: and libraries, for many people to this day, the site

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Speaker 1: and the activities that took place inside of it have

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Speaker 1: remained shrouded in mystery. Yeah. Yeah, like I said an

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Speaker 1: earlier episode, I think q tab waits what's the building

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Speaker 1: in there? This? You're right, this site was the home

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Speaker 1: of numerous secret projects that were private public partnerships. So

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Speaker 1: that's pretty common, you know, especially in the aerospace industry

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Speaker 1: or the nuclear industry. And it sounds crazy to say, well,

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Speaker 1: the locals eventually just came to accept that there was

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Speaker 1: this weird facility on the you know, on the other

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Speaker 1: side of of the park or in town, and they

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Speaker 1: just went about their daily lives. But we have to remember,

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Speaker 1: first off, it's uh crazy how quickly things become normal.

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Speaker 1: And we also have to remember that this a lot

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Speaker 1: of this work was occurring throughout the Cold War, right

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Speaker 1: from the very end of World War Two, so there's

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Speaker 1: a little bit of patriotism tied up in there. There's

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Speaker 1: a little bit of um, you know, people tended to

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Speaker 1: trust the government more in general, so they were like,

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Speaker 1: I mean, yeah, no one saw it coming, but uh

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Speaker 1: but because of that, you know, there's I think there's

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Speaker 1: a sense of inherent nationalism. They're like, we may not

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Speaker 1: know what they're doing, but we're the good guys and

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Speaker 1: they're the goodest of the guys exactly, oh Ben, that

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Speaker 1: I watched in researching for this. There's a really cool

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Speaker 1: documentary on on YouTube called Atomic Cowboys. UM. It's like

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Speaker 1: a little thirty minute doc about this whole situation. But

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Speaker 1: interspersed as all of this amazing footage that you've probably seen,

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Speaker 1: some of it is really idyllic, kind of like Aussie

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Speaker 1: and Harriett type, you know, neighborhoods and you know, all

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Speaker 1: that stuff interspersed with like stop dropping roll or not

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Speaker 1: stop dropping roll, duck and cover that kind that's the one. Sorry,

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Speaker 1: stop dropping roll is completely different. But they had these things,

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Speaker 1: these communities that were built situated near these facilities. They

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Speaker 1: were called atomic cities, and it was like almost a

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Speaker 1: point of pride to live in these It was like

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Speaker 1: you were part of the future, you know. And all

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Speaker 1: of these little you know, pretty much propaganda videos, let's

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Speaker 1: be honest, are are really just showing Oh and just

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Speaker 1: like anyone else, little Johnny's on his way to school

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Speaker 1: and and here's uh, you know, his mother Margaret, and

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Speaker 1: oh and father's coming home from work at the plant.

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Speaker 1: You know, everything's hunky dorry here in Atomic City. UM.

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Speaker 1: And it's absolutely covering up just the image there and

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Speaker 1: that associating it with that nationalism and that kind of

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Speaker 1: uh sears catalog kind of idealism. There's a real nasty

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Speaker 1: underbelly going on that we're gonna get into that this

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Speaker 1: was all kind of trying to cover up, if if

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Speaker 1: not completely purposefully, definitely subconsciously. Oh yeah, yeah, I'll never forget.

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Speaker 1: UM a DVD short film series that I subscribed to

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Speaker 1: a long time ago from the makers of McSweeney's. It's

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Speaker 1: called walf In. I think UM Mission Control has seen

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Speaker 1: some of those two Uh you can there was one

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Speaker 1: episode that had uh a damning look into the private

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Speaker 1: public partnerships. It's a paint commercial, uh And you might

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Speaker 1: be able to find this on YouTube. And the paint

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Speaker 1: commercial actually shows is by a private paint company, and

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Speaker 1: it actually shows how great the paint that they produce

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Speaker 1: is because it can withstand certain aspects of a nuclear detonation.

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Speaker 1: And I think they got that footage because of a

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Speaker 1: partnership with the US government. Things were very sticky. Like

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Speaker 1: if you think if you think business and government are

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Speaker 1: way too friendly and corrupt in the modern day, first off,

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Speaker 1: your right. Secondly, this is actually a little bit better

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Speaker 1: than it used to be in this regard. Absolutely no

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Speaker 1: separation of church and state in that regard. Back in

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Speaker 1: those days, I mean, Uncle Sam was very, very very

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Speaker 1: cozy with private industry and and unfortunately feels like we're

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Speaker 1: rolling back to a situation that's starting to resemble the

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Speaker 1: forties a little bit in that respect nowadays, in my opinion. Um,

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Speaker 1: but yeah, let's get more into what were they building

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Speaker 1: in there. It was used, They had two thousand acres

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Speaker 1: that were used, um for the testing and development of

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Speaker 1: rocket engines for the US space program and for other

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Speaker 1: UM weapons research, advanced weapons research. And during its history,

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Speaker 1: more than thirty thousand rocket engine tests were conducted at

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Speaker 1: I'm gonna I'm gonna crib and a name. I saw

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Speaker 1: a press conference with some of the former employees. They

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Speaker 1: call it Santa Sue, which that kind of day. So

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Speaker 1: we're conducted there at Santa Sue. Yeah, Yeah, thirty thousand,

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Speaker 1: Now that that counts all all kinds of tests. That counts,

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Speaker 1: you know, actual launches to just like hey, let's rev

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Speaker 1: up the engine and see if it explodes. Uh. They

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Speaker 1: were also, as we mentioned, they were conducting a lot

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Speaker 1: of nuclear research over the course of forty years or so,

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Speaker 1: that one specific area at the complex, Area four would

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Speaker 1: eventually be home to ten different nuclear reactors, a fabrication

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Speaker 1: facility to make plutonium, a fuel facility for uranium, and

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Speaker 1: something called a hot lab. That's that's a way to

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Speaker 1: that's where they remotely maybe machine parts or separate radioactive material.

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Speaker 1: And uh, the reason they're doing it remotely, of course,

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Speaker 1: is because it is a death sentence to be exposed

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Speaker 1: to a lot of that stuff for a significant amount

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Speaker 1: of time. So we can understand why why the US government,

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Speaker 1: why Uncle Sam was not in a hurry to tell

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Speaker 1: the public, Hey, we were building a nuclear site. Um,

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Speaker 1: we're trying to be safe, but just just so you know, uh,

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Speaker 1: duck and cover, I guess, which doesn't work. Like you,

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Speaker 1: you know, some of our older audience members today, you

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Speaker 1: you may have gone to school at the time when

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Speaker 1: people were conducting those nuclear attack drills, especially during the

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Speaker 1: Cuban missile crisis. From what I understand, they told kids

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Speaker 1: to just get under their desk. I don't know. Maybe

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Speaker 1: the desk that they were using were a much higher

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Speaker 1: quality than the desk we grew up with. Yeah, it

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Speaker 1: basically would generate some kind of Pompey level uh duck

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Speaker 1: and covering skeletons. You know, that's kind of what would

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Speaker 1: happen there, I think. But they had little cartoon turtles

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Speaker 1: that we're telling you how to do it. So who

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Speaker 1: who doesn't believe a cartoon turtle? You know, I love

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Speaker 1: I love a cartoon mascot. Yes, stick those on anything,

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Speaker 1: you know, I'll do whatever they say literally as an adult.

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Speaker 1: We need a cartoon mascot for the show, So send

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Speaker 1: your suggestions to conspiracy at iHeart radio dot com. Uh,

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Speaker 1: we'd love to check them out. But you know, this

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Speaker 1: place did not have a cartoon mascot. It was very

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Speaker 1: much um, not off the books, but it was. It

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Speaker 1: was very much like a need to know basis as

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Speaker 1: far as what was going on. And it's no surprise

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Speaker 1: that they were doing that. That's not inherently evil because

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Speaker 1: they you know, you want to prevent rival governments from

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Speaker 1: learning about your nuclear process. You want to stop those leaks.

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Speaker 1: But here's the problem. Despite the fact, despite their intense

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Speaker 1: efforts to hide this from the public and from their rivals,

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Speaker 1: the truth came out and drips and drabs because people

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Speaker 1: started getting sick. What are we talking about. We'll tell

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Speaker 1: you after a word from our sponsor. Here's where it

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Speaker 1: gets crazy. Yeah, authorities. Um, as you said at the

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Speaker 1: at the end of the first half, been the third whatever.

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Speaker 1: I don't know, math Um. The research was hidden, it

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Speaker 1: was obscured by the government. Um. Santa suit required that

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Speaker 1: level of discretion. But hand in hand with that went

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Speaker 1: some much less savory shall we call it obfuscations using

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Speaker 1: some five dollar words today, um, And they in fact

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Speaker 1: covered up and hid several multiple disasters that had long

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Speaker 1: standing effects on employees and their families lives. This is

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Speaker 1: this is amazing. Okay, this is amazing in the worst way.

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Speaker 1: So if you ask before we get into this, if

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Speaker 1: we were all everybody listening and all of us here,

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Speaker 1: if we were just hanging out and we asked everybody

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Speaker 1: in the room, um, what are what are the big

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Speaker 1: nuclear disasters? We'd say stuff like Chernobyl. We'd stay stuff like, um,

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Speaker 1: the nuclear accidents, not the bombings. We'd say say tree

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Speaker 1: Mile Islands, three Mile Island, of course, uh, Fukushima or something.

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Speaker 1: This should be on that list. The first like the

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Speaker 1: first huge nuclear reaction date or accident dates all the

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Speaker 1: way back to nineteen fifty nine, one of the nuclear reactors,

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Speaker 1: again just thirty miles away from Los Angeles, partially suffered

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Speaker 1: a meltdown. Workers tried to repair it, and when they couldn't,

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Speaker 1: they're the management of the of the facility said, you

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Speaker 1: know what, opened the door of the reactor let that

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Speaker 1: radiation out into the air. This this means it is

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Speaker 1: virtually certain that that I radiated material spread to those

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Speaker 1: nearby communities we mentioned early, such as uh, Canoga Park,

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Speaker 1: Semi Valley, Chatsworth, and they they did eventually, like more

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Speaker 1: than a month later, have some kind of press statement,

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Speaker 1: but it was very much, um, not the truth. Six

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Speaker 1: weeks after the meltdown, the Atomic Energy Commission, again the

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Speaker 1: predecessor to the Department of Energy, issued a statement saying

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Speaker 1: that there had been a minor a little a little oopsie. Uh.

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Speaker 1: They called it a fuel element failure, but that there

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Speaker 1: had been quote no release of radioactive materials into the environment,

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Speaker 1: and and that just wasn't true. Uh. NASA, Yeah, No,

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Speaker 1: NASA and aerospace company Rocketdyne, which I love the name

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Speaker 1: of that. It sounds like something out of one of

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Speaker 1: the Fallout games. Um which, by the way, I'm downloading

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Speaker 1: Fallout seventy six. Right now, I'm really excited that's doing

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Speaker 1: this research made me crave that kind of nuclear waste

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Speaker 1: land like nineteen forties apocalyptic vibe. So looking forward to

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Speaker 1: playing that. But yeah, Rocketdyne continue you to use the

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Speaker 1: site for thousands of rocket tests like this was a

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Speaker 1: non issue through the nineties or the early nineties. Those activities,

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Speaker 1: UM also released all sorts of toxic chemicals into the

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Speaker 1: air and deposited them in the groundwater, the surface water

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Speaker 1: as well, and also the soil. All of this was

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Speaker 1: also covered up. Yeah, you could say it was buried. UM,

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Speaker 1: I don't know why your kids are getting sick. Maybe

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Speaker 1: you should be a better parent, etcetera, etcetera. These are

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Speaker 1: the types of terrible lies, uh in misdirections that people

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Speaker 1: in power can employ. We mentioned that during its history,

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Speaker 1: during the history of SSFL, there was not just that

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Speaker 1: one accident in nineteen fifty nine, There were several nuclear

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Speaker 1: accidents at the lab. But when we mentioned Three Mile Islands,

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Speaker 1: what we didn't mention is that multiple experts believe that

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Speaker 1: partial meltdown area of four could be the worst nuclear

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Speaker 1: disaster in US history. If you measure the amount of

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Speaker 1: radiation released, it may have released more radiation than what

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Speaker 1: was released during Three Mile. Uh NBC did some fantastic

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Speaker 1: deep dive journalism on this with some other sources, and

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Speaker 1: I like the way they put it. They said, the

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Speaker 1: nineteen fifty nine Santa Susana Field Laboratory sodium reactor experiments

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Speaker 1: level is unknown, but it's thought to have released two

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Speaker 1: hundred and sixty times more radiation than the Three Mile

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Speaker 1: Island disaster. It is insane that that was not all

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Speaker 1: over the news. Three Mile, by the way, occurred March nine,

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Speaker 1: so twenty years later and still probably didn't beat the

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Speaker 1: hidden record of SSFL. Can we just really quickly talk

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Speaker 1: about how radiation works. I I didn't really fully grasp

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Speaker 1: it until I saw the television special Chernobyl. They do

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Speaker 1: such a good job of explaining how it really damages

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Speaker 1: your body. Basically, radiation particles are like you can think

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Speaker 1: of them as physical things. They penetrate your body and

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Speaker 1: damage your tissues. And if you're bombarded with like high

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Speaker 1: levels of radiation, as many of the folks who were

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Speaker 1: unfortunate enough to have been in Chernobyl were, it will

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Speaker 1: start to make you melt from the inside out. For

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Speaker 1: lack of a better expression. I mean, you will get

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Speaker 1: lesions on your skin if it really is like some

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Speaker 1: site sci fi nightmare kind of body horror, like David

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Speaker 1: Cronenberg type stuff. But with just a little bit of radiation,

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Speaker 1: it might not be enough for you to register it

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Speaker 1: like physically like that, but it can um damage cells

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Speaker 1: in your body and cause mutations and cause you to

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Speaker 1: get things like cancer. That's a big one. And it's

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Speaker 1: just because these things shoot at you. And the way

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Speaker 1: they describe it in the in the show is like bullets,

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Speaker 1: you know. They're like each one is like a little

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Speaker 1: radiation bullet, you know, and it depends on where it

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Speaker 1: hits that kind of determines what the effects will be

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Speaker 1: and how dense. Uh. The hail of bullets that you're

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Speaker 1: receiving is m Yeah. And to explain what I mean

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Speaker 1: by a level five events, it said three Mile Islands.

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Speaker 1: It's the level five events. Uh, this this incident is

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Speaker 1: probably higher. There is something called the International Nuclear Event Scale.

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Speaker 1: It goes from zero to seven, with zero being an

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Speaker 1: anomaly with no no real safety consequence to level seven

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Speaker 1: major accident. Uh. These are world changing events. Uh right now,

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Speaker 1: they're only officially two level seven disasters Chernobyl and Fukushima

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Speaker 1: son But for something to be a level five incident

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Speaker 1: like three Mile Islands, that means it is an accident

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Speaker 1: has wider consequences, things that go beyond the immediate environment.

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Speaker 1: Means it can impact people around. That means there will

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Speaker 1: be at least several deaths. Uh. That means that there

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Speaker 1: will also be uh opportunity for more critical failures in

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Speaker 1: the future unless something he's done immediately, so that that

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Speaker 1: it's a big deal. On a one out of seven,

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Speaker 1: this was at least the five, and we mentioned that

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Speaker 1: the management at the time just said, you know, open

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Speaker 1: the door. Uh, you let the radiation out. Not because

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Speaker 1: we're jerks, but because this is the only way to

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Speaker 1: prevent the reactor from exploding. The employees were also given

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Speaker 1: back team to clean off the walls, right, which is

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Speaker 1: just basically just an antiseptic. I mean it's the same

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Speaker 1: back team you would spray on a boo boo, you know,

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Speaker 1: if you're looking, if your kid like skin, their need

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Speaker 1: spray back team. And this is what they would use

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Speaker 1: to clean off this, uh the stuff from the walls.

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Speaker 1: And then they use co text pads for the floors.

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Speaker 1: They were sworn to silence Omerta. Don't tell anyone, not

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Speaker 1: even your spouse. That's just one disaster. There was another

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Speaker 1: one that occurred two years before in nineteen seven, and

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Speaker 1: and really quickly too. I mean there was when you

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Speaker 1: say Omerta, it was almost like it was strong arm

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Speaker 1: kind of attitude where someone asked, there's in that documentary

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Speaker 1: I was talking about. One of the employees or the

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Speaker 1: lab workers asked like, and I'm can I tell my

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Speaker 1: wife about this? Like this is that seems like it

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Speaker 1: would affect her and my family. And they were like,

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Speaker 1: you will not breathe a word of this, like under

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Speaker 1: you know, implied threat, you know what I mean the

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Speaker 1: tone he said he was very scared for his safety

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Speaker 1: because there was like you know, military official that was

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Speaker 1: kind of like the strong man kind of in the background, uh,

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Speaker 1: sort of looming large. And yeah, there was there was

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Speaker 1: this implied um threat. For sure, you will not tell

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Speaker 1: anyone about this. I mean consider you know, once again

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Speaker 1: it's the argument of the greater good. What is one person,

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Speaker 1: or two people, or a hundred people's lives worth when

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Speaker 1: compared to nuclear supremacy. They really thought that they could

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Speaker 1: and should do anything legal or illegal necessary too when

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Speaker 1: first place in the arms race. So that's why these

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Speaker 1: things keep getting covered up. The ven case is hot lab,

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Speaker 1: not a not a reactor. Again, that's the stuff to

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Speaker 1: remotely handle or machine radioactive metal. This was a side

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Speaker 1: of a fire that got out of control, and the

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Speaker 1: fire can transport these irradiated substances much further than they

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Speaker 1: normally would be. Uh. We also have we we also

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Speaker 1: know for sure now we know for sure that at

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Speaker 1: least four of the sites ten total nuclear reactors became

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Speaker 1: accident sites at some point in their care year. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: I mean there there were some interviews in the documentary

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Speaker 1: I keep referring to, uh, nuclear cowboys, I think is

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00:25:06,440 --> 00:25:08,679
Speaker 1: what it's called. Highly recommend you check it out. Um,

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Speaker 1: some old stock interviews that were like test testimonies, I think.

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Speaker 1: I can't quite place the sources, but it was referred

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Speaker 1: to as a very slipshod operation. Um. And you know,

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Speaker 1: we just know back in those days, standards weren't what

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Speaker 1: they are today. I'm sure they were doing the best

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Speaker 1: they could with what they had, I guess, but now

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Speaker 1: now this one is just really out of control. Bad um,

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Speaker 1: Ben I think I may have told you. I used

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Speaker 1: to work for Georgia Public Radio and my beat was

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Speaker 1: a facility near where I lived in Augusta called the

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Speaker 1: Savannah River Site, which was actually built right around the

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Speaker 1: same time as as Santa Sue, and they refine nuclear material, um,

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Speaker 1: you know, to weapons, you know, for nuclear nuclear weapons payloads, um.

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Speaker 1: And then over time it was converted into a place

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Speaker 1: to reclaim um nuclear materials from you know, these kind

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Speaker 1: of spent nuclear cores or whatever from these from these weapons,

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Speaker 1: and it was part of the Atoms for Peace program

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Speaker 1: where they would actually kind of convert these weapons into

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Speaker 1: material they could then reuse. But uh, it became a

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Speaker 1: big source of you know, activists kind of ire because

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Speaker 1: they were dumping um radioactive materials into open pits in

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Speaker 1: the ground. Uh, then become what's called super fund sites,

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Speaker 1: which I always thought, you know, that doesn't sound like

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Speaker 1: super fun at all, But it's fund with a D

427
00:26:31,680 --> 00:26:35,000
Speaker 1: because it designates the kind of government assistance that it

428
00:26:35,240 --> 00:26:37,800
Speaker 1: is given to help clean up these sites. And that

429
00:26:37,920 --> 00:26:40,200
Speaker 1: is a big thing with this that we'll get into

430
00:26:40,200 --> 00:26:44,080
Speaker 1: a little later, but right away, this idea of these

431
00:26:45,119 --> 00:26:48,159
Speaker 1: very dangerous methods of disposing of nuclear material at the

432
00:26:48,200 --> 00:26:52,439
Speaker 1: sites becomes a big issue as well. Yeah, So as

433
00:26:52,440 --> 00:26:54,960
Speaker 1: Al was saying, you know, I think it's worth the

434
00:26:55,080 --> 00:27:01,000
Speaker 1: time to walk through the other nuclear accidents. You can

435
00:27:01,040 --> 00:27:04,280
Speaker 1: maybe you can maybe call the nineteen fifty nine UH

436
00:27:04,520 --> 00:27:08,200
Speaker 1: sodium reactor, you can call that a disaster. But also

437
00:27:08,280 --> 00:27:11,040
Speaker 1: in March of nineteen fifty nine, just a few months

438
00:27:11,080 --> 00:27:15,920
Speaker 1: before the Sodio reactor, UH, the A E six reactor

439
00:27:16,240 --> 00:27:21,800
Speaker 1: experienced a release of fission gases, so again contaminating the environment.

440
00:27:22,200 --> 00:27:26,760
Speaker 1: In sixty four, another reactor had damage to eight of

441
00:27:26,840 --> 00:27:32,000
Speaker 1: its fuel. In sixty nine, another reactor had damage, luckily

442
00:27:32,119 --> 00:27:34,639
Speaker 1: only a third of its fuel, but again remember the

443
00:27:34,640 --> 00:27:38,040
Speaker 1: fuel is nuclear material. And then there was a fire

444
00:27:38,240 --> 00:27:43,520
Speaker 1: in nineteen seventy one. Another fire, another fire. Yeah, radioactive

445
00:27:43,520 --> 00:27:46,120
Speaker 1: fire reminds you. And again this the smoke and the

446
00:27:46,160 --> 00:27:50,240
Speaker 1: heat really does a number on carrying these particles, uh,

447
00:27:50,320 --> 00:27:52,920
Speaker 1: you know, far and wide right. Uh. And this one

448
00:27:52,960 --> 00:27:58,479
Speaker 1: involved combustible primary reactor coolant or knack uh contaminated with

449
00:27:58,720 --> 00:28:02,399
Speaker 1: mixed fission products. Uh. And these reactors also didn't have

450
00:28:02,640 --> 00:28:06,320
Speaker 1: containment structures. This is a big deal because the that

451
00:28:06,920 --> 00:28:10,920
Speaker 1: directly puts the workers at risk. Because we'll get into

452
00:28:10,960 --> 00:28:15,280
Speaker 1: a little later. They weren't required to wear like hazmat suits.

453
00:28:15,320 --> 00:28:17,879
Speaker 1: They were wearing some form of protection, but it certainly

454
00:28:17,960 --> 00:28:24,320
Speaker 1: wasn't all encompassing. And the reactors didn't have containment structures. Uh.

455
00:28:24,320 --> 00:28:29,560
Speaker 1: They were essentially um, giant concrete domes. Uh those cooling

456
00:28:29,560 --> 00:28:33,159
Speaker 1: towers that surround most nuclear reactors, right, they didn't have that,

457
00:28:33,400 --> 00:28:35,680
Speaker 1: So it was just kind of emitting these particles into

458
00:28:35,720 --> 00:28:39,040
Speaker 1: the air. Now we get into the disposal part, which

459
00:28:39,080 --> 00:28:43,720
Speaker 1: is just you know, ridiculous. Um. They were called burn pits, um,

460
00:28:43,840 --> 00:28:48,240
Speaker 1: sodium burn pits. Uh. There were multiple spills and contamination

461
00:28:48,440 --> 00:28:51,520
Speaker 1: events involved with these, and these burn pits were essentially

462
00:28:51,520 --> 00:28:55,240
Speaker 1: open air pits that were used for cleaning parts or

463
00:28:55,240 --> 00:28:58,680
Speaker 1: components of the different machinery that had been contaminated by

464
00:28:58,840 --> 00:29:03,400
Speaker 1: radioactive sodium um and was also contaminated by the burning

465
00:29:03,400 --> 00:29:09,040
Speaker 1: of radioactively and chemically contaminated items, and very few, if any,

466
00:29:09,160 --> 00:29:11,720
Speaker 1: safety precautions were taken. The ones I was talking about

467
00:29:11,720 --> 00:29:14,720
Speaker 1: a savannah riverside, they at least kind of lined them

468
00:29:14,720 --> 00:29:18,520
Speaker 1: with some material like sort of like a barrier against

469
00:29:18,520 --> 00:29:21,440
Speaker 1: the groundwater against the you know, leaking leaching into the soil.

470
00:29:21,640 --> 00:29:24,240
Speaker 1: But if I'm not mistaken. Then these were just pits

471
00:29:24,440 --> 00:29:27,200
Speaker 1: that were dug right into the ground. Yeah. One thing

472
00:29:27,200 --> 00:29:30,440
Speaker 1: I would say, to be absolutely fair for these folks

473
00:29:30,800 --> 00:29:33,520
Speaker 1: is that there were a lot of things they didn't

474
00:29:33,600 --> 00:29:36,840
Speaker 1: understand that we do know now in the in the

475
00:29:37,440 --> 00:29:41,040
Speaker 1: you know, in the realm of safety around radioactive nuclear materials.

476
00:29:41,400 --> 00:29:44,840
Speaker 1: But they knew more than enough to know that this

477
00:29:44,960 --> 00:29:47,560
Speaker 1: was a horrible idea. I'd like to put a human

478
00:29:47,640 --> 00:29:50,920
Speaker 1: face on this by introducing a guy named James Palmer.

479
00:29:51,480 --> 00:29:53,200
Speaker 1: He may have showed up in the in some other

480
00:29:53,240 --> 00:29:56,800
Speaker 1: documentaries too, but he did some interviews with journalists years later.

481
00:29:57,560 --> 00:30:03,719
Speaker 1: He was a former worker at SSFL and he had

482
00:30:03,760 --> 00:30:08,200
Speaker 1: a crew of twenty seven people. Of those twenty seven people,

483
00:30:08,280 --> 00:30:12,600
Speaker 1: twenty two died of cancer. Cancer is a horrible thing.

484
00:30:12,640 --> 00:30:14,440
Speaker 1: It happens for a number of reasons, but there is

485
00:30:14,480 --> 00:30:18,240
Speaker 1: a clear correlation here. To say otherwise is to willfully

486
00:30:18,320 --> 00:30:22,040
Speaker 1: be ignorant. He know, he he described stuff in this

487
00:30:22,080 --> 00:30:24,920
Speaker 1: interview where like he would come home from work and

488
00:30:24,960 --> 00:30:26,920
Speaker 1: he would be feeling, you know, kind of normal, maybe

489
00:30:26,960 --> 00:30:29,200
Speaker 1: a little pooped because you know, he'd been working all day.

490
00:30:29,360 --> 00:30:31,760
Speaker 1: He would try to kiss his wife hello, and her

491
00:30:31,800 --> 00:30:34,440
Speaker 1: lips would be burned because of the chemicals he had

492
00:30:34,480 --> 00:30:38,400
Speaker 1: been breathing at work. They actually fished in one of

493
00:30:38,680 --> 00:30:42,560
Speaker 1: three ponds that were radiated, and sometimes the water was

494
00:30:42,600 --> 00:30:46,160
Speaker 1: so polluted that this being real life, the fish didn't

495
00:30:46,160 --> 00:30:49,520
Speaker 1: develop three eyes. They just died off and started floating

496
00:30:49,520 --> 00:30:51,920
Speaker 1: on the surface. Uh. And they would try to, like

497
00:30:52,320 --> 00:30:54,040
Speaker 1: when they were fishing, they would try to like wash

498
00:30:54,120 --> 00:30:59,200
Speaker 1: the fish with hydrogen peroxide to to neutralize any kind

499
00:30:59,200 --> 00:31:03,320
Speaker 1: of contamination. But obviously that doesn't work. He said that

500
00:31:03,440 --> 00:31:07,520
Speaker 1: every single water source there was contaminated. He sums it

501
00:31:07,640 --> 00:31:13,640
Speaker 1: up in an interview with um Mature County Star by saying,

502
00:31:14,000 --> 00:31:17,520
Speaker 1: this was a horror show. And you know, we talked

503
00:31:17,560 --> 00:31:21,040
Speaker 1: about how they disposed of stuff. It just gets worse. Yeah.

504
00:31:21,080 --> 00:31:25,120
Speaker 1: And and and by the way, it's really fascinating that every

505
00:31:25,160 --> 00:31:28,480
Speaker 1: every source that I found about this story is from

506
00:31:28,480 --> 00:31:31,800
Speaker 1: the l A Times or from somewhere out there in

507
00:31:31,920 --> 00:31:34,680
Speaker 1: that part of the country. It really was just not

508
00:31:34,800 --> 00:31:38,320
Speaker 1: a national news story. It's it's mind boggling, I mean,

509
00:31:38,400 --> 00:31:43,400
Speaker 1: you know, because now we're seeing multiple uh, just absolutely

510
00:31:43,440 --> 00:31:48,240
Speaker 1: egregious um, you know, events taking place at this facility. UM,

511
00:31:48,280 --> 00:31:51,400
Speaker 1: and they were covered up and so UM. Back to

512
00:31:51,480 --> 00:31:55,239
Speaker 1: the disposal, sometimes and this came from from interview. I

513
00:31:55,280 --> 00:31:58,200
Speaker 1: believe it was with Palmer, because he definitely did some

514
00:31:58,200 --> 00:32:01,120
Speaker 1: some interviews and and uh may the rounds, but there

515
00:32:01,120 --> 00:32:02,960
Speaker 1: were a few others as well, So forgive me if

516
00:32:03,000 --> 00:32:06,080
Speaker 1: I'm mistaken there, but UM a gentleman who worked in

517
00:32:06,120 --> 00:32:10,640
Speaker 1: the site at the time. UM many years later, fifty

518
00:32:10,720 --> 00:32:14,360
Speaker 1: years later, uh was was doing this interview and talked

519
00:32:14,360 --> 00:32:19,720
Speaker 1: about how sometimes they would dispose of radioactive sodium by

520
00:32:19,960 --> 00:32:23,240
Speaker 1: rowing bundles of the stuff. As I say bundles loosely,

521
00:32:23,280 --> 00:32:26,440
Speaker 1: it's just the term I'm using out into the middle

522
00:32:26,480 --> 00:32:29,080
Speaker 1: of one of those ponds in a small rowboat and

523
00:32:29,080 --> 00:32:31,560
Speaker 1: then dropping it into the water. And then the workers

524
00:32:31,560 --> 00:32:34,840
Speaker 1: would turn back and row to shore duck for cover

525
00:32:35,120 --> 00:32:37,120
Speaker 1: and then peek up like you would take a cover

526
00:32:37,200 --> 00:32:40,400
Speaker 1: in like a shooter game, and fire a shot with

527
00:32:40,480 --> 00:32:43,160
Speaker 1: a thirty hot six rifle at that bundle out in

528
00:32:43,160 --> 00:32:44,880
Speaker 1: the water. It reminds me of some sort of twisted

529
00:32:45,000 --> 00:32:47,920
Speaker 1: Viking funeral kind of you know. Uh. And then it

530
00:32:47,960 --> 00:32:51,480
Speaker 1: wouldn't like cause it to explode by igniting a spark, No,

531
00:32:52,120 --> 00:32:54,680
Speaker 1: it was the water that would cause it to explode,

532
00:32:54,840 --> 00:32:58,040
Speaker 1: because the water would then penetrate the sodium and react

533
00:32:58,560 --> 00:33:03,120
Speaker 1: violently a man massive and explosion would ensue. Um and

534
00:33:03,120 --> 00:33:05,520
Speaker 1: and they did this pretty frequently, and they were supposed

535
00:33:05,560 --> 00:33:09,720
Speaker 1: to be just quote unquote disposing of clean sodium, but

536
00:33:09,800 --> 00:33:14,840
Speaker 1: like you said them, oftentimes in those burn pits, radioactive

537
00:33:14,840 --> 00:33:18,040
Speaker 1: sodium would end up in there as well with radioactive contamination.

538
00:33:18,080 --> 00:33:21,080
Speaker 1: So this would leak into the groundwater, it would create

539
00:33:21,160 --> 00:33:24,360
Speaker 1: that smoke, the explosion that would carry it into those

540
00:33:24,680 --> 00:33:29,840
Speaker 1: bedroom communities, those atomic cities. Yep, yep. And look, I

541
00:33:29,840 --> 00:33:31,960
Speaker 1: I know what a lot of us are thinking right now.

542
00:33:31,960 --> 00:33:37,160
Speaker 1: When you hear that, you're thinking, but, hey, aren't explosions cool? Yeah,

543
00:33:37,240 --> 00:33:41,080
Speaker 1: that's objectively true. Explosions are really cool, but radiation is

544
00:33:41,120 --> 00:33:44,040
Speaker 1: not so. Uh So, you know, you can kind of

545
00:33:44,040 --> 00:33:47,080
Speaker 1: get a picture and implication here that this is a

546
00:33:47,120 --> 00:33:50,280
Speaker 1: bit of a diversion for some of these guys too,

547
00:33:50,320 --> 00:33:53,920
Speaker 1: because you get to see this massive explosion, but it's

548
00:33:53,920 --> 00:33:57,200
Speaker 1: not worth the price we paid. So if this was

549
00:33:57,240 --> 00:34:01,440
Speaker 1: all secret, if this was happening under the dark of night,

550
00:34:02,080 --> 00:34:04,719
Speaker 1: if people were being threatened to be quiet about it,

551
00:34:04,920 --> 00:34:06,720
Speaker 1: then how do we know about it today? How to

552
00:34:06,840 --> 00:34:10,240
Speaker 1: Wayne see send us an email? How are we getting

553
00:34:10,239 --> 00:34:13,719
Speaker 1: these facts? Will tell you after we're from our sponsor.

554
00:34:20,400 --> 00:34:23,759
Speaker 1: We're back. So I mentioned earlier at the top of

555
00:34:23,760 --> 00:34:29,440
Speaker 1: the show that this cover up continue for quite a while,

556
00:34:30,040 --> 00:34:34,439
Speaker 1: you know, from the late forties on. Uh. But one

557
00:34:34,680 --> 00:34:38,799
Speaker 1: one thing that I think stymied efforts to cover up

558
00:34:39,000 --> 00:34:43,080
Speaker 1: these uh, these close calls in this nuclear disaster is

559
00:34:43,239 --> 00:34:47,520
Speaker 1: just simply the medical data people who lived in the area.

560
00:34:47,680 --> 00:34:51,279
Speaker 1: We're getting cancer at a much higher rate than you

561
00:34:51,280 --> 00:34:54,200
Speaker 1: would expect out of a population. It was at a

562
00:34:54,280 --> 00:34:58,360
Speaker 1: level such that other people in the area started to notice,

563
00:34:58,480 --> 00:35:00,120
Speaker 1: you know what I mean, like six year old just

564
00:35:00,160 --> 00:35:04,680
Speaker 1: don't usually have these kind of diseases. Are multiple ones don't.

565
00:35:05,000 --> 00:35:08,960
Speaker 1: And I believe it wasn't until the nineteen seventies that

566
00:35:09,080 --> 00:35:11,680
Speaker 1: things started to come out, not the full extent, but

567
00:35:11,840 --> 00:35:15,040
Speaker 1: started to leak to the public. And by that point,

568
00:35:15,080 --> 00:35:17,160
Speaker 1: I would guess it was kind of already an open

569
00:35:17,239 --> 00:35:20,000
Speaker 1: secret in the region. What do you think. Yeah, it

570
00:35:20,120 --> 00:35:23,400
Speaker 1: wasn't until November of nineteen seventy nine that a k

571
00:35:23,960 --> 00:35:31,000
Speaker 1: NBCTV report revealed that evidence of that partial meltdown. I

572
00:35:31,040 --> 00:35:33,960
Speaker 1: can't it's just shocking to me. That's almost the nineteen

573
00:35:34,000 --> 00:35:39,280
Speaker 1: eighties and this has been going on since the forties. Yeah, yeah,

574
00:35:39,480 --> 00:35:43,879
Speaker 1: and it may have been a situation where I hate

575
00:35:43,880 --> 00:35:45,320
Speaker 1: to say it, but it may have been a situation

576
00:35:45,320 --> 00:35:48,319
Speaker 1: where the journalist was allowed to cover it because I'm

577
00:35:48,320 --> 00:35:51,680
Speaker 1: sure other people have been making inquiries for some time. Um,

578
00:35:51,719 --> 00:35:55,040
Speaker 1: but maybe they were trying to get ahead of the facts,

579
00:35:55,680 --> 00:35:58,840
Speaker 1: you know, or get ahead of the fallout. Poor choice

580
00:35:58,840 --> 00:36:00,879
Speaker 1: of words there, but you know, the social fall out

581
00:36:00,920 --> 00:36:03,719
Speaker 1: of this perfect choice of words there been. And ironically

582
00:36:03,880 --> 00:36:07,440
Speaker 1: I always misused that nineteen seventy nine was when the

583
00:36:07,480 --> 00:36:11,720
Speaker 1: three Mile Island disaster took place, so that's a perfect

584
00:36:11,719 --> 00:36:15,120
Speaker 1: time to slide that in under the radar, you know.

585
00:36:15,320 --> 00:36:20,960
Speaker 1: And an investigation since then have happened in the Department

586
00:36:20,960 --> 00:36:25,359
Speaker 1: of Energy launched investigation or concluded an investigation, and they

587
00:36:25,400 --> 00:36:30,719
Speaker 1: said there was widespread contamination radioactive and chemical contamination because

588
00:36:30,760 --> 00:36:34,200
Speaker 1: remember we're talking thirty thousand rocket tests that were spread

589
00:36:34,360 --> 00:36:37,920
Speaker 1: across the Santa Susanna site. It was riddled with it,

590
00:36:38,200 --> 00:36:41,839
Speaker 1: and the report clearly pointed to several cover ups over

591
00:36:42,040 --> 00:36:46,600
Speaker 1: at least the past few decades. This was reported but

592
00:36:46,680 --> 00:36:49,960
Speaker 1: as you said, primarily in local media and again there's

593
00:36:49,960 --> 00:36:57,080
Speaker 1: almost now, uh, the local population, the municipal governments, they reacted.

594
00:36:57,280 --> 00:37:00,840
Speaker 1: The lawsuits started to roll in, and people lobbied to

595
00:37:00,920 --> 00:37:05,399
Speaker 1: shut down any continued nuclear activity at the site because

596
00:37:05,440 --> 00:37:09,920
Speaker 1: remember that went on until two thousand six. Yes, that's true.

597
00:37:10,000 --> 00:37:17,120
Speaker 1: And on July to scientists Otto Kahimi and Larry A.

598
00:37:17,400 --> 00:37:20,920
Speaker 1: Pew were killed when the chemicals they were illegally burning

599
00:37:21,000 --> 00:37:25,400
Speaker 1: in those open pits, surprise, surprise, exploded. Uh. There was

600
00:37:25,480 --> 00:37:29,920
Speaker 1: a grand jury investigation and an FBI raid on the facility,

601
00:37:29,960 --> 00:37:36,200
Speaker 1: and three Rocketdyne officials pled guilty UH to UH illegally

602
00:37:36,239 --> 00:37:40,319
Speaker 1: story explosive materials in June of two thousand and four. UH.

603
00:37:40,360 --> 00:37:44,720
Speaker 1: The jury was though deadlocked on the more serious charge,

604
00:37:44,760 --> 00:37:48,680
Speaker 1: which related to illegal burning of hazardous waste. And this

605
00:37:48,760 --> 00:37:51,840
Speaker 1: isn't burning trash in your backyard, my friends, This is

606
00:37:51,880 --> 00:37:56,600
Speaker 1: not leaf piles, you know, without a permit. This is

607
00:37:57,520 --> 00:38:01,360
Speaker 1: a wanton disregard for not only the safety of your employees,

608
00:38:01,400 --> 00:38:06,360
Speaker 1: but of of the public. Agreed. And you know you

609
00:38:06,480 --> 00:38:11,719
Speaker 1: have to wonder too whether there is any um corruption

610
00:38:11,800 --> 00:38:16,279
Speaker 1: of the jury, right, any witness intimidation or tampering. We

611
00:38:16,360 --> 00:38:19,759
Speaker 1: don't have solid proof of that, but I I don't know.

612
00:38:19,800 --> 00:38:21,920
Speaker 1: Maybe I'm cynical to think that that could be in

613
00:38:21,960 --> 00:38:26,880
Speaker 1: the cards a million. Yeah, we have we have also

614
00:38:27,239 --> 00:38:34,000
Speaker 1: um information on ongoing medical claims. There's an epidemiologist named

615
00:38:34,080 --> 00:38:38,000
Speaker 1: how Morgan Stern, and he conducted a long term study

616
00:38:38,280 --> 00:38:43,040
Speaker 1: between nineteen and two thousand two. He found that people

617
00:38:43,120 --> 00:38:47,120
Speaker 1: living within two miles of the lab site are sixty

618
00:38:47,239 --> 00:38:52,200
Speaker 1: percent more likely to be diagnosed with certain specific cancers

619
00:38:52,760 --> 00:38:57,000
Speaker 1: compared to residents living just five miles from the site.

620
00:38:57,719 --> 00:39:01,120
Speaker 1: So there there is a clear correlation in here. Well,

621
00:39:01,160 --> 00:39:03,400
Speaker 1: and it's it's what it's just a more extreme example,

622
00:39:03,400 --> 00:39:05,640
Speaker 1: but it's what they referred to as like the fallout zone.

623
00:39:05,920 --> 00:39:09,319
Speaker 1: You know, there is a range around this the the

624
00:39:09,680 --> 00:39:13,320
Speaker 1: area where this radiation radiates from that you know is

625
00:39:13,360 --> 00:39:15,120
Speaker 1: going to be more susceptible to this stuff. And then

626
00:39:15,239 --> 00:39:18,440
Speaker 1: you know, further away it's it's much diffic much more difficult, um,

627
00:39:18,520 --> 00:39:21,520
Speaker 1: unless you know, something like wind patterns carry it farther

628
00:39:21,760 --> 00:39:25,080
Speaker 1: or you know, even with Fukushima, there was a concern

629
00:39:25,160 --> 00:39:30,120
Speaker 1: that birds were carrying radioactive materials outside of beyond that

630
00:39:30,120 --> 00:39:33,799
Speaker 1: that fallout zone. UM. So yeah, this absolutely makes sense

631
00:39:33,840 --> 00:39:36,440
Speaker 1: that in October of two thousand six, the Santa Susana

632
00:39:36,480 --> 00:39:40,480
Speaker 1: Field Laboratory Advisory Panel UM, which was you know, supposedly,

633
00:39:40,520 --> 00:39:44,319
Speaker 1: an independent review board composed of scientists and researchers from

634
00:39:44,320 --> 00:39:47,480
Speaker 1: around the US, UH concluded that, based on the available

635
00:39:47,560 --> 00:39:50,759
Speaker 1: data and computer models, contamination of the facility resulted in

636
00:39:50,800 --> 00:39:57,040
Speaker 1: an estimated two hundred and sixty cancer related deaths. Uh. Yeah,

637
00:39:57,120 --> 00:40:00,760
Speaker 1: there were multiple lawsuits that have in in the works.

638
00:40:00,960 --> 00:40:04,560
Speaker 1: Companies like Boeing have also reached settlements with some plaintiffs,

639
00:40:04,600 --> 00:40:08,839
Speaker 1: though the settlements remained controversial. There there's an article in

640
00:40:08,880 --> 00:40:11,640
Speaker 1: the l A Times called how One Woman's fight is

641
00:40:11,680 --> 00:40:15,520
Speaker 1: helping workers decades after Santa Susana radiation exposure, and it

642
00:40:15,600 --> 00:40:20,120
Speaker 1: talks about this woman named Bonnie Clee, who worked for

643
00:40:20,360 --> 00:40:23,680
Speaker 1: Rockodyne in the sixties and seventies has kind of really

644
00:40:23,840 --> 00:40:28,440
Speaker 1: come forward, UH to champion the case of her fellow

645
00:40:29,040 --> 00:40:32,480
Speaker 1: UH employees and co workers who you know, were affected

646
00:40:32,480 --> 00:40:35,560
Speaker 1: by this. She um started having pain in her bladder

647
00:40:35,880 --> 00:40:39,680
Speaker 1: and she went and saw a doctor who told her that, uh,

648
00:40:40,000 --> 00:40:43,320
Speaker 1: she had cancer and it was likely due to occupational

649
00:40:43,719 --> 00:40:48,759
Speaker 1: hazards UM. And there have been UH payouts thus far,

650
00:40:48,840 --> 00:40:51,799
Speaker 1: but there was even an issue where the Department of

651
00:40:51,920 --> 00:40:56,040
Speaker 1: Labor had in fact denied many of the claims UM

652
00:40:56,320 --> 00:41:00,520
Speaker 1: filed by these workers who were stricken with cancer. UM

653
00:41:00,560 --> 00:41:03,120
Speaker 1: and this was under a program called the two thousand

654
00:41:03,200 --> 00:41:07,480
Speaker 1: Energy Employees Occupational Illness Program Act. So the burden of

655
00:41:07,520 --> 00:41:11,480
Speaker 1: proof was just obviously very very difficult to achieve. UM

656
00:41:11,520 --> 00:41:15,680
Speaker 1: and she helped compile letters and press releases and news

657
00:41:15,800 --> 00:41:18,800
Speaker 1: articles and all of this stuff and helped kind of

658
00:41:18,920 --> 00:41:23,680
Speaker 1: get that decision overturned so folks were able to receive

659
00:41:24,000 --> 00:41:28,440
Speaker 1: restitution for this condition. Let me let me go back

660
00:41:28,560 --> 00:41:31,960
Speaker 1: in um so in in the notes of my research,

661
00:41:32,120 --> 00:41:37,719
Speaker 1: I just mentioned companies like Boeing reaching UH settlements, but

662
00:41:37,800 --> 00:41:39,640
Speaker 1: I also want to mention I want to hit that

663
00:41:39,719 --> 00:41:44,120
Speaker 1: line about multiple lawsuits being actively in the works. The

664
00:41:44,200 --> 00:41:49,920
Speaker 1: story doesn't have an ending yet. One plaintiff, Margaret and Glosso,

665
00:41:50,320 --> 00:41:53,640
Speaker 1: she sued Bowing, but she said her attorneys went behind

666
00:41:53,719 --> 00:41:57,760
Speaker 1: her back and accepted a thirty million dollars settlement with Boweing,

667
00:41:57,800 --> 00:42:00,920
Speaker 1: but they never got her approval, and she thinks they

668
00:42:00,920 --> 00:42:04,080
Speaker 1: were doing it because they get a sixty percent cut

669
00:42:04,440 --> 00:42:07,200
Speaker 1: after you know their costs and fees, which can happen

670
00:42:07,600 --> 00:42:12,040
Speaker 1: and then UM. They are also they're also problems with

671
00:42:12,080 --> 00:42:16,520
Speaker 1: how settlements are being distributed to people, like some plaintiffs

672
00:42:16,520 --> 00:42:18,640
Speaker 1: are only receiving, you know, at the end of the

673
00:42:18,719 --> 00:42:22,880
Speaker 1: day something like thirty thousand dollars. And in the United States,

674
00:42:22,960 --> 00:42:27,440
Speaker 1: if you have a serious medical condition, thirty thousand dollars

675
00:42:27,680 --> 00:42:31,680
Speaker 1: is not going to solve your problem, you know, badly,

676
00:42:32,239 --> 00:42:36,600
Speaker 1: right exactly, so you can see how these settlements are

677
00:42:36,680 --> 00:42:39,600
Speaker 1: rightly controversial. I just want to make sure they emphasize

678
00:42:39,640 --> 00:42:44,480
Speaker 1: that these are ongoing legal battles, that's right, UM. And

679
00:42:44,480 --> 00:42:48,040
Speaker 1: And just to to quickly backtrack to Bonnie clee Um

680
00:42:48,040 --> 00:42:50,640
Speaker 1: when she assembled all those materials and those petitions and

681
00:42:50,680 --> 00:42:54,800
Speaker 1: delivered them to the federal government in two thousand seven.

682
00:42:55,120 --> 00:42:57,560
Speaker 1: As I said, it did lead to a change and

683
00:42:57,560 --> 00:43:01,000
Speaker 1: and the ability for for folks to get those claims accepted.

684
00:43:01,280 --> 00:43:04,920
Speaker 1: But it's fascinating. The National Institute for Occupational Safety and

685
00:43:05,000 --> 00:43:10,520
Speaker 1: Health or niosh UM created a special designation just for

686
00:43:10,680 --> 00:43:14,560
Speaker 1: that field lab and this two d eight acre area

687
00:43:14,760 --> 00:43:18,319
Speaker 1: four UM that we've talked about extensively UM. And this

688
00:43:18,520 --> 00:43:21,719
Speaker 1: was for workers UM who were exposed for at least

689
00:43:21,760 --> 00:43:24,840
Speaker 1: two hundred and fifty days between January one of nineteen

690
00:43:24,840 --> 00:43:28,160
Speaker 1: fifty five and January thirty one of ninety eight. And

691
00:43:28,200 --> 00:43:31,839
Speaker 1: then it was eventually expanded to nineteen sixty five. So

692
00:43:31,880 --> 00:43:34,759
Speaker 1: it's cool to see at least, you know, uh, an

693
00:43:34,800 --> 00:43:37,200
Speaker 1: individual being able to make some change. But then you're right,

694
00:43:37,280 --> 00:43:41,279
Speaker 1: then the quality of those payouts kind of trump's the

695
00:43:41,360 --> 00:43:46,479
Speaker 1: quantity at times. Right. Yeah, So, uh, the employees were

696
00:43:46,600 --> 00:43:49,440
Speaker 1: you know, probably the most directly exposed, but you know,

697
00:43:49,520 --> 00:43:52,920
Speaker 1: innocent residents were exposed. People in real life were getting

698
00:43:52,960 --> 00:43:57,000
Speaker 1: sick and they had no idea why. There's another angle

699
00:43:57,120 --> 00:44:02,080
Speaker 1: here that should be considered more work closely, especially um

700
00:44:02,120 --> 00:44:04,200
Speaker 1: as it affects the future in a way that a

701
00:44:04,200 --> 00:44:06,640
Speaker 1: lot of people don't think about. As you might recall

702
00:44:07,280 --> 00:44:11,040
Speaker 1: conspiracy realist. California, like other parts of the world, has

703
00:44:11,160 --> 00:44:17,000
Speaker 1: recently been plagued by wildfires, and many indications uh to

704
00:44:17,000 --> 00:44:19,840
Speaker 1: tell us or lead us to believe that, depending on

705
00:44:19,880 --> 00:44:24,120
Speaker 1: weather conditions, these wildfires may become a semi regular or

706
00:44:24,160 --> 00:44:29,360
Speaker 1: annual thing. At two little bit before two thirty on

707
00:44:29,440 --> 00:44:34,000
Speaker 1: November eight eighteen, just a few years ago, South California,

708
00:44:34,160 --> 00:44:40,000
Speaker 1: Edison reported a circuit outage at the Susannah site, and

709
00:44:40,080 --> 00:44:43,520
Speaker 1: two minutes later there were flames seen in a canyon

710
00:44:43,600 --> 00:44:47,160
Speaker 1: near that location. There was a guy there, a reporter

711
00:44:47,320 --> 00:44:51,200
Speaker 1: named Stu Mundel, working for k Cal nine. He was

712
00:44:51,280 --> 00:44:54,160
Speaker 1: overhead in a helicopter took a picture before the fire

713
00:44:54,280 --> 00:44:58,040
Speaker 1: broke out. It turned out that Boeing had before this

714
00:44:58,120 --> 00:45:01,120
Speaker 1: fire began, they had disabled and taken apart a lot

715
00:45:01,160 --> 00:45:04,920
Speaker 1: of the fire suppression systems at the site, so people

716
00:45:05,000 --> 00:45:10,120
Speaker 1: couldn't even people couldn't even fight small fires at this location.

717
00:45:11,080 --> 00:45:15,440
Speaker 1: And this led l A County Deputy fire chief at

718
00:45:15,480 --> 00:45:19,320
Speaker 1: the time, Vince Paina, to say they could have stopped

719
00:45:20,000 --> 00:45:23,560
Speaker 1: what would later become known as the Woolsey Forest fire.

720
00:45:23,680 --> 00:45:28,680
Speaker 1: By one estimate, this fire by itself released forty thousand

721
00:45:28,840 --> 00:45:33,600
Speaker 1: tons of ash contaminated with radiation and chemicals and with

722
00:45:33,920 --> 00:45:36,160
Speaker 1: you know, if there's not an extensive clean up, which

723
00:45:36,200 --> 00:45:40,040
Speaker 1: still has not happened, then we have to reasonably assume

724
00:45:40,440 --> 00:45:43,960
Speaker 1: something worse could happen the next time a wildfire rolls

725
00:45:44,080 --> 00:45:48,960
Speaker 1: through town. This is dangerous. This is uh um, you know,

726
00:45:49,080 --> 00:45:51,680
Speaker 1: like the old Harrison Ford film. This is clear and

727
00:45:51,719 --> 00:45:56,560
Speaker 1: present danger. Get off my plane. That's a different movie.

728
00:45:56,600 --> 00:46:00,279
Speaker 1: That was what was that Air Force one? So I

729
00:46:00,360 --> 00:46:02,840
Speaker 1: forgot remember he was that he was the he was

730
00:46:02,880 --> 00:46:06,120
Speaker 1: the asking president. He was the president. But he, like

731
00:46:06,200 --> 00:46:10,160
Speaker 1: you know, took on the terrorists single handedly Um, But

732
00:46:10,239 --> 00:46:13,440
Speaker 1: it's true, Ben, and all of this still is ongoing.

733
00:46:13,480 --> 00:46:15,520
Speaker 1: Like you said, the story is not over in terms

734
00:46:15,520 --> 00:46:18,359
Speaker 1: of the folks whose lives were up ended by this,

735
00:46:18,560 --> 00:46:21,680
Speaker 1: you know, who lost loved ones. And also the site

736
00:46:21,840 --> 00:46:25,840
Speaker 1: itself is still not cleaned up. Um that there was

737
00:46:25,880 --> 00:46:29,200
Speaker 1: an agreement that was made with the federal government to

738
00:46:29,560 --> 00:46:32,759
Speaker 1: clean up the site, but then it was determined that

739
00:46:32,800 --> 00:46:35,880
Speaker 1: it wasn't realistic, and it was it was kind of

740
00:46:35,880 --> 00:46:39,160
Speaker 1: thrown out. It's still uh, kind of in limbo right now,

741
00:46:39,640 --> 00:46:42,520
Speaker 1: and it's really not clear as to when this will

742
00:46:42,560 --> 00:46:44,640
Speaker 1: take place. You know, I go back to Savannah River

743
00:46:44,680 --> 00:46:46,880
Speaker 1: site really quick, just just for some like firsthand knowledge

744
00:46:46,880 --> 00:46:50,320
Speaker 1: of the efforts there. It is an ongoing process cleaning

745
00:46:50,400 --> 00:46:54,160
Speaker 1: up the Savannah River site. They have to test wildlife,

746
00:46:54,360 --> 00:46:58,600
Speaker 1: Ben constantly. They tagged turtles by drilling little holes in

747
00:46:58,640 --> 00:47:02,239
Speaker 1: their shells and putting these trackers in there, and they

748
00:47:02,280 --> 00:47:05,480
Speaker 1: find the same turtle and then test them for radiation

749
00:47:05,800 --> 00:47:09,560
Speaker 1: to see to track how effective their clean up efforts

750
00:47:09,600 --> 00:47:12,279
Speaker 1: have been over time. And because they're the turtles go

751
00:47:12,320 --> 00:47:14,360
Speaker 1: out and wander, you know, and they pick it potentially

752
00:47:14,400 --> 00:47:16,920
Speaker 1: pick it up. And there are these open pits that

753
00:47:16,960 --> 00:47:19,040
Speaker 1: I was talking about that they've had to fill in

754
00:47:19,080 --> 00:47:21,879
Speaker 1: and clean up and all of that, and so that

755
00:47:22,040 --> 00:47:24,560
Speaker 1: is ongoing and as is this, but it doesn't appear

756
00:47:24,640 --> 00:47:26,920
Speaker 1: here been that there are even really any measures put

757
00:47:26,960 --> 00:47:29,319
Speaker 1: in place at all. At least Savannah Riverside has been

758
00:47:29,400 --> 00:47:32,800
Speaker 1: sort of you know, on track and and making ongoing

759
00:47:32,840 --> 00:47:35,400
Speaker 1: efforts to clean up that stuff. But uh, it really

760
00:47:35,480 --> 00:47:39,680
Speaker 1: is a slippery slope there. Savenna also has a nuclear

761
00:47:39,760 --> 00:47:43,040
Speaker 1: weapon missing somewhere off the coast and the water, so

762
00:47:43,400 --> 00:47:45,799
Speaker 1: they have got they've got a lot to struggle with.

763
00:47:46,200 --> 00:47:49,600
Speaker 1: So going back to SSFL, going back to the Santo

764
00:47:49,640 --> 00:47:53,000
Speaker 1: Susanna Field Laboratory, I want to know what There was

765
00:47:53,160 --> 00:47:57,799
Speaker 1: a e p A study in two thousand twelve, pretty extensive,

766
00:47:58,080 --> 00:48:02,000
Speaker 1: cost taxpayers around forty one million dollars, and they showed

767
00:48:02,000 --> 00:48:05,400
Speaker 1: that there are astronomical levels of radiation in the area.

768
00:48:05,400 --> 00:48:07,719
Speaker 1: And this is We're gonna get into the weeds maybe

769
00:48:07,719 --> 00:48:11,120
Speaker 1: a little bit, but this is important because we all

770
00:48:11,160 --> 00:48:14,359
Speaker 1: need to be aware of just how much radiation we're

771
00:48:14,360 --> 00:48:18,319
Speaker 1: talking about here. The presence of things like strontium nine

772
00:48:18,360 --> 00:48:21,640
Speaker 1: D test two D and eighty four times higher than

773
00:48:21,719 --> 00:48:27,880
Speaker 1: normal caesum one seven is over nine thousand times higher

774
00:48:27,880 --> 00:48:32,640
Speaker 1: than normal plutonium to thirty nine two times higher. The

775
00:48:32,800 --> 00:48:37,080
Speaker 1: hits keep coming and these are these measures are pulled

776
00:48:37,320 --> 00:48:41,040
Speaker 1: like twenty four ft below the soil surface, so that's

777
00:48:41,120 --> 00:48:44,759
Speaker 1: super deep. That's a lot of penetration, and um, you know,

778
00:48:46,120 --> 00:48:49,640
Speaker 1: both private entities like Boeing and the US government have

779
00:48:49,840 --> 00:48:53,920
Speaker 1: continued to say they're going to do something. Boeing currently

780
00:48:53,960 --> 00:48:58,240
Speaker 1: owns most of the site, they bought it in nine six.

781
00:48:58,600 --> 00:49:01,000
Speaker 1: They want to turn it into something they call an

782
00:49:01,000 --> 00:49:04,920
Speaker 1: open space habitat. But really, you know, when you look

783
00:49:05,000 --> 00:49:11,160
Speaker 1: at how much, how much energy, and how much money

784
00:49:11,239 --> 00:49:13,600
Speaker 1: is going to have to go into the effort to

785
00:49:13,719 --> 00:49:16,440
Speaker 1: fix this, you can see how I get the feeling

786
00:49:16,440 --> 00:49:18,719
Speaker 1: a lot of people are passing the bill around, you

787
00:49:18,760 --> 00:49:21,279
Speaker 1: know what I mean. It's uh there there's a guy

788
00:49:21,360 --> 00:49:25,000
Speaker 1: who's who probably knows the most in the world, at

789
00:49:25,080 --> 00:49:29,160
Speaker 1: least officially about SSFL is a guy named Dan Hirsch,

790
00:49:29,280 --> 00:49:33,080
Speaker 1: Professor Dan Hirsch. He used to direct Santa Cruz's program

791
00:49:33,120 --> 00:49:37,960
Speaker 1: on environmental nuclear policy. He says everything in the area

792
00:49:38,160 --> 00:49:43,400
Speaker 1: is heavily contaminated. It has approximately a hundred different unique

793
00:49:43,520 --> 00:49:47,720
Speaker 1: toxic chemicals in the soil, including you know we mentioned

794
00:49:47,719 --> 00:49:51,040
Speaker 1: the radiation or the radioactive stuff, but we didn't mention

795
00:49:51,520 --> 00:49:56,400
Speaker 1: the heavy metals like mercury, the volatile organic compounds v

796
00:49:56,520 --> 00:49:59,080
Speaker 1: o C s. Fun fact about v o C s

797
00:49:59,200 --> 00:50:02,080
Speaker 1: probably my favor for a fact about v O C s. Uh,

798
00:50:02,160 --> 00:50:06,920
Speaker 1: that's what forms new car smell. Oh wow, Yeah, I

799
00:50:06,960 --> 00:50:09,200
Speaker 1: did not know that at all. Ben, you're hearing the

800
00:50:09,239 --> 00:50:12,600
Speaker 1: heat or you're you're smelling, Sorry, my cynisesa is coming out.

801
00:50:12,760 --> 00:50:17,560
Speaker 1: You're smelling the the chemicals that, uh, you know that

802
00:50:17,680 --> 00:50:20,799
Speaker 1: release when stuff inside your car is heated on a

803
00:50:20,840 --> 00:50:23,120
Speaker 1: hot day. That's why a newer car will smell like

804
00:50:23,200 --> 00:50:26,680
Speaker 1: v O C or sometimes your car just if it's hot,

805
00:50:26,840 --> 00:50:30,759
Speaker 1: will smell like that. But is it meant to kind

806
00:50:30,760 --> 00:50:32,719
Speaker 1: of uh what's the word, looking for a kind of

807
00:50:32,760 --> 00:50:36,160
Speaker 1: mimic like the smell of like hot leather seats. You know,

808
00:50:36,880 --> 00:50:40,120
Speaker 1: it's kind of what I've always assumed the new car

809
00:50:40,200 --> 00:50:43,240
Speaker 1: smell is. Yeah, or maybe it's just like hot seats

810
00:50:43,239 --> 00:50:45,480
Speaker 1: in general, and like all the chemicals that go into

811
00:50:45,560 --> 00:50:48,480
Speaker 1: like coating those seats in the fabric and all that

812
00:50:48,480 --> 00:50:50,960
Speaker 1: stuff to treat it to make it like stain resistant.

813
00:50:50,960 --> 00:50:53,120
Speaker 1: It really does. Just it's weird that we people like

814
00:50:53,200 --> 00:50:56,600
Speaker 1: it because they associated with this concept of owning a

815
00:50:56,680 --> 00:50:59,000
Speaker 1: thing or of like, you know, something that's new, But

816
00:50:59,080 --> 00:51:02,160
Speaker 1: it really is just to chemical smell. Yeah, and it's

817
00:51:02,200 --> 00:51:05,839
Speaker 1: and it's bad for you over time. But you know,

818
00:51:06,120 --> 00:51:08,800
Speaker 1: I'm a little bit of your head. I love that stuff.

819
00:51:09,160 --> 00:51:11,760
Speaker 1: I used to have it just sprayed around the house

820
00:51:12,120 --> 00:51:14,360
Speaker 1: until we did an episode on car stuff and I

821
00:51:14,440 --> 00:51:17,799
Speaker 1: learned exactly what I was snorting, so lesson learned. They're

822
00:51:18,480 --> 00:51:23,560
Speaker 1: luckily that didn't make my house super contaminated. But Professor

823
00:51:23,640 --> 00:51:27,440
Speaker 1: Hirsch points out that in his opinion, and again he's

824
00:51:27,560 --> 00:51:31,480
Speaker 1: very well acquainted with this, the Santa Susana Field experiment

825
00:51:31,640 --> 00:51:35,920
Speaker 1: site is again this is just his opinion saying this.

826
00:51:36,040 --> 00:51:39,640
Speaker 1: He says it's the most contaminated site in the United

827
00:51:39,719 --> 00:51:44,440
Speaker 1: States by any measure. Uh. And he thinks that even

828
00:51:44,520 --> 00:51:47,600
Speaker 1: the um the studies that have been released on the

829
00:51:47,640 --> 00:51:51,920
Speaker 1: correlation between cancer and chronic health conditions, the one in

830
00:51:51,960 --> 00:51:56,400
Speaker 1: two thousand and six, he thinks that still isn't the

831
00:51:56,440 --> 00:51:59,520
Speaker 1: whole truth. He thinks there's much more to the story,

832
00:51:59,640 --> 00:52:05,600
Speaker 1: which scratching the scandalous surface of this this cover up.

833
00:52:05,600 --> 00:52:08,920
Speaker 1: I don't I guess it's not ongoing because people can

834
00:52:08,960 --> 00:52:12,160
Speaker 1: talk about it now, but it's not resolved. Yeah, because

835
00:52:12,200 --> 00:52:13,600
Speaker 1: the study that was released in two thousand and six

836
00:52:13,719 --> 00:52:16,600
Speaker 1: estimated between three hundred and eighteen hundred that's a pretty

837
00:52:16,600 --> 00:52:21,719
Speaker 1: wide swath people developed cancer as a result of the meltdown.

838
00:52:21,960 --> 00:52:27,799
Speaker 1: That's the meltdown, not the other incidents, uh, the or

839
00:52:27,840 --> 00:52:30,919
Speaker 1: the thirty thousand rocket engine tests that we talked about

840
00:52:30,920 --> 00:52:34,480
Speaker 1: at the top of the show. So absolutely just scratching

841
00:52:34,680 --> 00:52:38,759
Speaker 1: the super scandalous surface of of these cover ups, which

842
00:52:38,800 --> 00:52:43,200
Speaker 1: are not conspiracy theories, my friends, these are that That

843
00:52:43,320 --> 00:52:45,799
Speaker 1: is what this is. This is a conspiracy to cover

844
00:52:45,920 --> 00:52:48,040
Speaker 1: up a very real thing that happened that the public

845
00:52:48,080 --> 00:52:50,839
Speaker 1: should have known about, but that they did not want

846
00:52:50,920 --> 00:52:57,640
Speaker 1: you to know. Yes, and this story unfortunately doesn't end,

847
00:52:57,840 --> 00:53:01,880
Speaker 1: this is ongoing. So we want to thank Wayne for

848
00:53:01,880 --> 00:53:06,680
Speaker 1: for hipping us to this. At the risk of um

849
00:53:06,719 --> 00:53:08,520
Speaker 1: at the risk of sounding like I live in too

850
00:53:08,600 --> 00:53:13,320
Speaker 1: much of a weird cover up bubble, I'm I'm usually

851
00:53:13,360 --> 00:53:15,640
Speaker 1: aware of these things. So I learned a lot in

852
00:53:15,920 --> 00:53:18,560
Speaker 1: the research for this episode, and I want to know,

853
00:53:19,040 --> 00:53:22,040
Speaker 1: like many people living there in southern California, I want

854
00:53:22,120 --> 00:53:25,399
Speaker 1: a resolution too. We want to hear your thoughts. Were

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00:53:25,400 --> 00:53:28,440
Speaker 1: you aware of this. Do you have personal experience with it?

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00:53:28,719 --> 00:53:31,160
Speaker 1: Let us know why you're at it. Why not let

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00:53:31,200 --> 00:53:34,800
Speaker 1: us know about any other nuclear or industrial cover ups

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00:53:34,960 --> 00:53:37,520
Speaker 1: in your neck of the global woods. You can find

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00:53:37,600 --> 00:53:40,040
Speaker 1: us pretty much anywhere on the Internet. We're on Twitter,

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00:53:40,040 --> 00:53:42,879
Speaker 1: where on Instagram? Where on Facebook? Shout out to our

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00:53:42,920 --> 00:53:46,000
Speaker 1: community page. Here's where it gets crazy. You can follow

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00:53:46,080 --> 00:53:49,560
Speaker 1: us there. You can also follow us as individuals. You shook,

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00:53:49,560 --> 00:53:52,000
Speaker 1: can I just want to say I was completely unaware

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00:53:52,000 --> 00:53:53,960
Speaker 1: of the story as well, and and and just blown

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00:53:53,960 --> 00:53:56,440
Speaker 1: away by the fact that it was just these regional

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00:53:56,600 --> 00:53:58,799
Speaker 1: I mean l a times obviously a big publication, but

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00:53:59,120 --> 00:54:01,799
Speaker 1: it was all horses from right around that part of

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00:54:01,840 --> 00:54:05,480
Speaker 1: the world. So if you have stories like this, please

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00:54:05,520 --> 00:54:07,040
Speaker 1: let us know in all those ways, Ben said. And

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00:54:07,040 --> 00:54:08,600
Speaker 1: if you do want to find us as individuals, you

871
00:54:08,600 --> 00:54:11,279
Speaker 1: can find me on Instagram where I am at how Now,

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00:54:11,400 --> 00:54:15,280
Speaker 1: Noel Brown, I am at Ben Boland hs W on Twitter,

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00:54:15,440 --> 00:54:21,320
Speaker 1: I am at Ben Boland on Instagram. Matt is on Instagram,

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00:54:21,320 --> 00:54:25,040
Speaker 1: but he's he's kinda he's got a weird conspiracy of

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00:54:25,040 --> 00:54:27,399
Speaker 1: his own about it. You'll have to follow the breadcrumbs.

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00:54:27,480 --> 00:54:30,240
Speaker 1: Let us know what you find. Uh. If you don't

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00:54:31,040 --> 00:54:34,920
Speaker 1: like social media, we get it. We've got a phone number.

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00:54:35,080 --> 00:54:38,160
Speaker 1: You can call us any time. We are one eight

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00:54:38,280 --> 00:54:43,120
Speaker 1: three three st d w y t K. But hold on,

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00:54:43,239 --> 00:54:45,719
Speaker 1: you might say, what what do I do if I

881
00:54:45,760 --> 00:54:49,800
Speaker 1: hate social media? What? What? What if I I hate phones?

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00:54:49,880 --> 00:54:52,160
Speaker 1: We've got good news for you, folks. We have one

883
00:54:52,239 --> 00:54:54,839
Speaker 1: last way to contact us any old time you want,

884
00:54:54,960 --> 00:54:57,640
Speaker 1: twenty four seven every day of the year, and that

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00:54:57,840 --> 00:55:01,080
Speaker 1: is our email address where we are conspiracy at iHeart

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00:55:01,160 --> 00:55:22,000
Speaker 1: radio dot com. Stuff they don't want you to know

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00:55:22,239 --> 00:55:25,239
Speaker 1: is a production of I heart Radio. For more podcasts

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00:55:25,239 --> 00:55:27,439
Speaker 1: from my heart Radio, visit the i heart Radio app,

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00:55:27,560 --> 00:55:30,400
Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.